Apple articles
Apple is poised to offer wireless services in its next great venture. Customer who own iPads and iPhones will be able to sign up with Apple for direct mobile service.
Whitey Bluestein, an experienced wireless industry strategist, is the source spreading this news. He believes iPad owners will have data packages bundled for them and international roaming packages targeting iPhone owners, via iTunes.
Bluestein speculates that Apple will contract with one of the major operators to set up Apple Mobile. Apple will become one of many Mobile Virtual Network Operators, albeit the largest. +Continue Reading
Strategy Analytics announced that their research indicates Samsung has ousted Nokia as the world’s biggest mobile phone manufacturer. It was as far back as 1998 that Nokia had toppled Motorola for the number one spot, and now in the first quarter of 2012 Samsung has done it to Nokia, 93 million units to 83 million.
As if this weren’t enough, Samsung raked in its biggest profits in the past 4 years. Imagine, $4.5 billion as of March 31, 81% above last year. Not that it’s any consolation, but Samsung also holds the top world ranking for TV’s and flat screens.
Samsung admits that they expect their earnings to continue exponentially with the same momentum it is currently showing, since they have the competitive advantage. This comes from Robert Yi, Samsung’s head of investor relations. +Continue Reading
Unlikely bedfellows or co-conspirators against the working man? A judge says they must stand up in court for what they are being accused of having done. Google, Apple, and Intel have loads of former employees accusing them of colluding to keep wages down, through a choking of competition.
It is not only these three, either. Toss in Adobe, Pixar, Intuit, and Lucasfilm. Now you have the makings of a conspiracy theory, right? Not according to a U.S. Judge. A class action suit was opened against all of these companies for collaborating on riding themselves of competition, which ultimately eradicated mobility and limited the wages. How did these big guys do it? According to the suit, they agreed to refrain from poaching each others’ employees. +Continue Reading
The US Department of Justice is out for blood from the big Apple. USDOJ is suing Apple, along with major publishers, for collusion of e-book pricing. The publishers included in the law suit include Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, and Hachette. The problem is that the model employed gives the power of price setting to the publishers, depriving the sellers of this right.
While three of them have settled, including Simon and Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins, the other three, including Apple, face charges of conspiring to rob sellers of their freedom in price setting. Attorney General Eric Holder claimed that the public was ripped off at the tune of millions of dollars on the most popular e-books.
The accusation is that the publisher defendants teamed up with Apple to put a stop to retailer competitive pricing. Apple officially refused to comment. Although Hachette claims there were no anti-trust laws violated, they joined the settlement. Granted, they claim they were reluctant to settle, but the fact remains that they did. +Continue Reading
An amazing 600,000 Apple computers were struck and conquered by the Flashback Trojan, Dr. Web from Russia claims. It infiltrates as a malware and then converts the machine into a botnet. A botnet is a network of machines vulnerable to the control of someone other than it’s users. What is worse is that more than half of these infected Macs reside in the U.S, according to Dr. Web’s estimates.
As could be expected, Apple responded with a security patch. Without the patch, your system lies vulnerable or at worst infected already. So do not wait to patch your Apple.
Flashback made itself known by disguising as a simple update on Flash Player. Accepting the request put the malware on the unsuspecting user’s computer, followed by a deactivation of selective security features. +Continue Reading
Google is going for Apple’s jugular by switching emphasis from smartphones to tablets. Is Apple scared? I doubt it. They will peddle tablets that are co-branded. Sources indicate that Google will sell them through a store much like Apple and Amazon. This is a last ditch effort to save struggling sales of Android based tablets. The question is whether or not it will work.
The Nexus One from HTC in 2010 was a similar flailing punch by Google, but they caved under the flood of better Android-based phones that hit the market a few months later. Google doesn’t get that having a piece of hardware with the search engine giants multi-colored logo on it makes it feel like a child’s toy – it cheapens it. Google is too full of themselves to get it though. I would never by hardware that has Google’s name on it. However, they have roped Samsung and AsusTek in on the deal of producing the hardware. So Google will not actually build the units, but they will be available from many retailers. In fact, Taiwan’s Asus is due to release the first co-branded tablet later this year, in the online store. +Continue Reading
A handful of executives who had worked on Microsoft’s dead project, Courier, have converted to become workers at companies that produce the same technology for Apple tablets. Now the dual-screen tablet technology is alive and kicking in iPad land. The team that once made up Courier at Microsoft are responsible for it vitality.
Just take FiftyThree Inc and Tapose as examples. The former has a few ex-Courier personnel, along with Xbox guys, developing and designing the app called Paper. The latter is headed by J. Allard, also a former Courier slave, now set free to do as he wishes in Apple land.
Courier’s target was to become an app to give dual screen capabilities to tablets. Up till 2010 it was sanctioned by Microsoft, who then cut it loose. Pioneer Studios also faltered in the wake, around May 2011. They had been responsible for such hits as Mobile, Zune, and Xbox consumer experiences. +Continue Reading
Apple is poised to offer wireless services in its next great venture. Customer who own iPads and iPhones will be able to sign up with Apple for direct mobile service.
