Tag: apple

  • The Year in Which the World Divided Between Samsung and Apple

    South Koreans have surpassed the U.S. in sales of smartphones in 2011, but the holidays can bring Apple into the top.

    "For Europe, the fourth quarter is not marked by the usual craziness of the holidays. Economic problems made users more demanding," said Carolina Milanesi, analyst at Gartner. In this context, difficult from the economic point of view, experts have estimated that in the last quarter of 2011 will be sold over 140 million smartphones. The absolute leaders are Samsung and Apple, while Nokia, HTC and Research in Motion are only collecting the crumbs.

    Regarding the latter, analysts are not too confident. "Basically, it’s only about the iPhone family and the Samsung Galaxy family. Only they are flying off the shelves. The rest gather what's left," said a specialist at the analysis firm Strategy Analytics.

    In fact, 2011 marked a radical change of the mobile phone market, the third quarter being the one when the South Korean manufacturer Samsung has come first in top sales of smartphones. Apple responded with iPhone 4S, but the results of the final battle will appear at the beginning of 2012, when manufacturers will make the sales stock. South Koreans have counted on the two flagships – Samsung Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Nexus – while Apple has had success with the new 4S. According to Reuters, the company founded by Steve Jobs estimates the sales during the holiday season will reach almost 28 million units, an increase of 70% over the fourth quarter of last year.

    At the same time, although being leader at the total number of terminals sold, Samsung is unable to compete with the Americans in terms of individual sales. Thus, the Galaxy SII – the most valuable product of Asians – has reached this year 10 million units sold, well below iPhone’s. Holidays will be defining and stabilizing the market position of Galaxy Nexus, the first phone with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and with technical specifications far better than those seen on the iPhone 4S.

    2011 has brought Nokia’s decline

    Although has introduced new Windows phones, Nokia is not able to regain the leadership lost in the second quarter of 2011. Although still in the top with the total number of terminals sold, Finns are particularly preferred for their very cheap devices, but that do not reinforce the commercial power of the Finnish producer. According to latest data, in the UK, Nokia Lumia 800 is only the sixth most popular phone. The bad news continues: in the last quarter, Finns’ sales will fall by 31% compared to the same period last year.

  • Google, Sued by the British Telecom Operator BT

    British telecom operator BT sued Google in the United States for infringement of patents in areas such as mobile access to maps, Reuters.

    BT has launched the action in a court in Delaware. The complaint refers to six patents that would have been violated by https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Google, according to BT, by services such as https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Android, https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Google Maps, https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Google Music, Advertising, https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Gmail and other products.

    "It’s about protecting BT’s investment in intellectual property and innovation. We think we have a solid case," said in a statement the British group.

    In the telecommunications industry are currently taking place numerous conflicts on patents, while the number of operators, mobile phone manufacturers and content providers try to offer attractive services such as accessing the maps or entertainment.

    Google Group is already involved in several disputes with companies such as https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Apple, https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Microsoft and https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Oracle. A Google spokesman said the allegations are without foundation.

    BT announced that it has a total portfolio of approximately 5,600 patents and applications in the past financial year and demanded protection by patents of 62 inventions.

    The British group is the fifth largest company that sued Google for patent infringement.

    In August, Google announced that an agreement was reached regarding the takeover of https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Motorola Mobility for $ 12.5 billion, the largest acquisition in its history, partly to protect themselves from aggressive legal attacks. Motorola is one of the largest portfolios of patents in the mobile phone industry.

  • Top Smartphones of 2011

    The year of 2011 brought a series of major changes in the telecom industry. If at the beginning of 2011 the market started to be dominated by devices with 4-inch screens, now manufacturers already impose a new trend: devices with larger screens of up to 4.3 inches, so the potential buyer gets to a point where does not know if the terminal desired is a phone or…a smaller-sized PC tablet.

    Also, in what concerns the hardware part, things have evolved incredibly in just a few months. From the 1 GHz processors used for smartphones early this year, now we can see dual-core chipsets that defy the “older” laptops.

    We have tried to create a ranking of the most interesting smartphones launched in 2011. We were unable to include them all in here, but we invite you to come with proposals.

    Samsung Galaxy S2

    Samsung Galaxy S2 is one of the most anticipated models of 2011. After the success of its predecessor – Samsung Galaxy S – Galaxy S2 proved to be a top follower, the real flagship of the South Koreans this year.

    The Samsung Galaxy S2 screen surprises through its 4.52 inches and the AMOLED technology, while the processing power is excellent (1.5 GHz Scorpion dual-core CPU, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 chipset, 1GB of RAM).

    Galaxy S2 also comes with Android OS, the 8-megapizel camera with HD filming capabilities and the 16 GB storage capacity, plus the microSD slot.

    Apple iPhone 4S

    Surely, Apple’s iPhone prepared for 2011 was the most rumored smartphone of this year. Fans’ expectations have been so high from the Cupertino company that, many months before the launch, there were weekly versions over the Internet about how the new iPhone 5 should look like.

    But, surprise, Apple has released iPhone 4S just two days before the death of Steve Jobs, a more powerful version of the 4th generation that does not differentiate esthetically with nothing from its predecessor.

    Even if it hasn’t released the iPhone 5, the “4S” aroused strong reactions of admiration from the Apple fans. iPhone 4S’s advantage is the personal assistant Siri, the first step towards adopting in daily life the Artificial Intelligence.

    Samsung Galaxy Note

    Samsung did not bring only the Galaxy S2 model this year. In fact, we believe it can be said that the South Korean company is the most prolific in the industry.

    Through the Galaxy Note release, Samsung has imposed on the market (although Dell tried it too) a new device: the tablet phone, a device having a 5.3-inch screen and being perfectly situated in between the two concepts. It’s portable almost like a phone and provides excellent ergonomics for the use as tablet.

    Tell us your opinions about which are the best smartphones launched in 2011.

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  • iPhone 4S Could Be Banned in Europe

    iPhone 4S, Apple’s latest smartphone, could be banned in Europe along with all Apple devices that have GPRS connectivity and run iOS, following a lawsuit filed in Germany by Motorola.

    The number of lawsuits in which the company in Cupertino is involved grows with every passing day. After last week a court in Australia has unanimously decided to withdraw a preliminary decision prohibiting Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to be sold in Australia, Apple faces a new threat from Motorola.

    The company, acquired this year by Google, has won in Germany a preliminary injunction through which obtained prohibiting the sale of Apple devices that have the GPRS  technology, namely iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G, in Europe.

    The case represents a huge loss for Apple in the patents war that they are carrying with the Asian manufacturers of Android devices in several countries worldwide.

    “We will appeal the decision immediately. German consumers who want to buy an iPhone or an iPad for the holidays should not have troubles finding them,” said Apple representatives shortly after the decision.

    In the light of recent events, the Motorola Mobility purchase by Google, recorded this summer, seems a natural one. Market specialists have speculated even since those times that Google has paid $12.5 billion for the U.S. company only for its patent portfolio in the telecom area, and only in order to defend Android, the mobile platform that develops, by the trials filed by Apple against several manufacturers.

    Legal conflict between Apple and Android manufacturers has a long history, most of the lawsuits being filed by the U.S. company against the South Koreans from Samsung.

    Apple accuses them of copying the design and functionality of the iPhone and iPad smartphones and tablets of the Galaxy series models. In response, Samsung accuses Apple of violating several patents in the telecommunications area.

    Currently, between Apple and Samsung are opened 23 lawsuits in countries like France, Japan, Germany, South Korea and the United States.

  • Sales Below Expectations For Nokia Lumia 800

    Nokia Lumia 800, although very promising at the time of launch, fails to stop the Finnish manufacturer from its sharp decline in the smart devices market.

    Despite efforts made by Nokia to promote their new model Lumia 800 and the encouraging sales figures announced at the time of launch, the reality seems to be different at all. The direction taken by Nokia Lumia 800 is actually moving toward sales far below the Finnish manufacturer's expectations.

    According to analyst James Faucett at Pacific Crest, if current trends maintain, sales figures for the Lumia 800 will not exceed 500,000 pieces sold, four times less than expected by Nokia.

    Given that the design team has done their homework, creating a very successful handset, which should easily convince the audience it is addressed, the only culprit remains its operating system – Windows Phone 7.5, still regarded with suspicion by many users.

    Nokia can only hope not to end the year with disastrous financial results. They only have the winter shopping season, which could raise again the sales figures.

    Unfortunately, at least for now, the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft does not seem to give the results foreseen by the CEO Stephen Elop, putting the company in disadvantage by using a too-new operating system, with many limitations artificially imposed and unable to convince in front of the competition presented by Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

    Despite the optimism shown by Nokia, the success that Lumia 800 enjoys in the UK cannot be entirely attributed to the design team. Orange UK recently launched a very aggressive campaign to promote Nokia’s handsets, rewarding about half of customers who have pre-ordered the phone with an xBox console completely free. As expected, the offer was very useful, even if it’s just a low-end version of the xBox console.

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  • Smartphones – Present and Future

    More than 200,000 units of iPhone 4S, the world’s leading smartphone, have been sold following its release into the market in the past week, and sales worldwide are still picking up. Just what is it about smartphones today that make them the hottest item in the global shopping list?

    Market analysts this week indicated that the success of the leading smartphones available today may be attributed to the specialized niche for the product created by Apple when the company launched its first iPhone model in 2007. The researchers pointed out that smartphones were not an invention of Apple; the device has been in the market for a couple of years before the 2007 iPhone launch.

    However, the iPhone defined the smartphones once and for all: hands down, it became the most dramatic universal device ever invented as the human race left the old and entered the new millennium.

    So many things can be said about this gadget and still leave so many things unsaid. The most recent studies showed that the smartphone is so common, in fact, so universal that it became as vital as breathing and as handy as a handkerchief.

    The growth of the smartphone market is due to the astonishing uniqueness of the device. Unlike any telephone ever invented, it has an entirely new name which describes its singular position as THE as a communications device of the day.

    There are currently scores of smartphone models from the four biggest cellular phone manufacturers worldwide, excluding knockoffs and imitations (of questionable quality and origin) from Asia. While the cell phone and the smartphone are essentially both hand-held wireless telephones to allow one to communicate with anyone anywhere in the world so easily and so inexpensively, smartphones occupy their own unassailable niche. Smart-phones are basically hand-held, pocket computers with features and capabilities far and away more superior to their older cellular phone cousins.

    The future of the smartphone remains awesomely bright, as technologies it thrust into the spotlight are further perfected such as its multi-touch screen that dispensed with the keyboard and its walk-around computer feature that makes smart-phones so updatable.

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  • Steve Jobs Dies at 56

    Steve Jobs, the hero from Silicon Valley, died at the age of 56 years of pancreatic cancer. Passionate, brilliant and irreplaceable in the consciousness of fans and investors, co-founder of Apple dared to defy the rules and to revolutionize an entire industry.

    Steve Jobs is the one who brought the entrepreneurship spirit in Silicon Valley, after he quit school to start his own company in 1976. Together with Steve Wozniak he founded Apple in a garage, without having any technical or entrepreneurial experience.

    "Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest American inventors – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it," said U.S. President Barack Obama.

    But Jobs was not only a visionary but also a capable director, who built the second most valuable company in the world after Exxon Mobil. Under the leadership of Jobs, Apple has become to dominate the digital age, initially by Macintosh computers and later by the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

    With every new product, Apple provokes its opponents – IBM on the hardware side, Microsoft in operating systems, Sony on portable media devices and Google in the smartphones battle.

    The first attack launched by Jobs was the Apple II computer in 1977, a device that resonated with the small consumers' needs and which has created an alternative to IBM's solutions, the largest computer manufacturer in the world. Later, in 1983, Macintosh was born.

    "We versus IBM" was the message behind the TV commercials announcing at that time the Mac computer. The 60-second spot was aired once during the 1984 Super Bowl edition.

    But in 1985, Jobs resigned after an internal struggle for power. He decided to give birth to a new company, NeXT Computer, also buying a digital animation studio from the filmmaker George Lucas. The studio later became what is now known as Pixar. Finally, Steve Jobs returned to Apple.

    Magic and excitement
    His work has not only reduced to think about leading products and to lead a company from the position of CEO. He created an aura around the Apple devices by the unique way he presented them in front of consumers. We are talking about launching new products. Jobs was preparing intensely for each such event, organized either in Apple’s campus in Cupertino or in San Francisco. He repeated his presentations until he was convinced that the performance is strong enough to create excitement among consumers and even obsession.

    In the previous quarter of Jobs’ resignation, Apple's sales increased by 82% to the record of $ 28.6 billion, the company being valued at $ 328.8 billion.

    According to former subordinates, friends and associates, all this success is also due to Jobs’ stubbornness, seen by many as being obsessed by control.

    "Steve Jobs is like a campfire," said Neil Sims, in an interview in 2008. "Everyone wants to be close enough to stay warm, but nobody wants to get close enough to get burned," said the former collaborator of Jobs.

    Born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955, Steve Jobs, on his real name Steven Paul, discovered in 2003 that has a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of pancreatic cancer. 7 years ago he underwent a successful surgery that removed the pancreatic tumor and in the coming years, Jobs began to reveal details about his health. In late August, Apple's Steve Jobs announced his resignation, he being replaced as CEO by Tim Cook.

    Jobs' wealth was estimated at by Bloomberg at $ 6.7 billion. His 7.4% stake in Disney worth $ 4.4 billion and the 5.5 million shares in Apple were valued at $ 2.1 billion.

    The echo of a regretted loss
    Among the personalities who expressed their regret for the death of Steve Jobs are included Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell and Larry Page.

    Bill Gates, co-founder and President of Microsoft, said: “The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.”

    Rupert Murdoch, CEO News Corporation, said: "Today, we lost one of the most influential thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs of all time. Steve Jobs was simply the greatest CEO of his generation. While I am deeply saddened by his passing, I'm reminded of the stunning impact he had in revolutionizing the way people consume media and entertainment. My heart goes out to his family and to everyone who had the opportunity to work beside him in bringing his many visions to life."

    Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of, said on his wall: “Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.”

    Arnold Schwarzenegger, former US Governor of California, has also posted a message on Twitter saying: “Steve lived the California Dream every day of his life and he changed the world and inspired all of us.“

    https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Michael Dell, founder and CEO ofDELL Inc. has also declared: "Today the world lost a visionary leader, the technology industry lost an iconic legend and I lost a friend and fellow founder. The legacy of Steve Jobs will be remembered for generations to come. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and to the Apple team.”

    Larry Page, CEO Google, said about Steve Jobs: “I am very, very sad to hear the news about Steve. He was a great man with incredible achievements and amazing brilliance. He always seemed to be able to say in very few words what you actually should have been thinking before you thought it. His focus on the user experience above all else has always been an inspiration to me. He was very kind to reach out to me as I became CEO of Google and spend time offering his advice and knowledge even though he was not at all well. My thoughts and Google’s are with his family and the whole Apple family.”

    Steve Case, AOL founder, said on Twitter: “I feel honored to have known Steve Jobs. He was the most innovative entrepreneur of our generation. His legacy will live on for the ages."

    Dick Costolo, CEO Twitter, wrote down on the micro blogging platform: “Once in a rare while, somebody comes along who doesn’t just raise the bar, they create an entirely new standard of measurement."

    Bog Iger, CEO Walt Disney Co., says Steve Jobs was a great friend and a reliable adviser. "Steve Jobs was a great friend as well as a trusted advisor. His legacy will extend far beyond the products he created or the businesses he built. It will be the millions of people he inspired, the lives he changed, and the culture he defined. Steve was such an 'original,' with a thoroughly creative, imaginative mind that defined an era. Despite all he accomplished, it feels like he was just getting started. With his passing the world has lost a rare original, Disney has lost a member of our family, and I have lost a great friend. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Laurene and his children during this difficult time.”

    Our editorial team also expresses its regrets about the death of the one who was Steve Jobs. Rest in peace, Steve!

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  • iPhone Did Not Conquer Yet the Hearts of the Rich

    iPhone is leading the smartphone market in terms of sales, but smartphone users can also be divided by income: a study conducted by prospermobile.com, shows that the brand of mobile phones most used by the rich is BlackBerry. The study was conducted in June 2011 by interviewing 25,000 respondents.

    According to the study, the BlackBerry is the most used smartphone among users with incomes over $ 150,000 per year. 11.3% of the richest Americans own a BlackBerry, while only 10.9% of them have an iPhone and only 7.2% have an Android smartphone.

    Moreover, the ranking is also the same for users which have income ranging between 100,000 and 149,000 dollars per year. 21.2% of them are using BlackBerry, 19.1% of them use Apple’s iPhone and only 15.8% use a smartphone running on Android OS.

    Interestingly, iPhone starts to lead the ranking of the most commonly used smartphones among users with an annual income between $ 75,000 and $ 99,000. 20% of them use Apple's terminal, while the BlackBerry smartphone is used by only 18.7% of users in this group.

    Android handsets, which are not so popular among wealthy users, seem to be the preferred choice of those with incomes ranging between 35,000 and 49,000 dollars a year.

    The study also shows that BlackBerry users are generally professionals, businessmen or managers and they are not active users of online applications or multimedia content. Only 59.5% of them are downloading applications, while the percentage among iPhone users is up to 85.

    Anyway, this study gets public even before the launch of the iPhone 5, which, according to the latest rumors, will be held in Cupertino, not in San Francisco as happened with the previous generations if iPhones and iPads. The launch will be live on internet, on the Apple’s official website, on Tuesday, October 4.

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  • Apple Launches Two New Smartphones in 2011: iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S

    Apple is about to launch this year two new smartphones – iPhone 4S and the new generation iPhone 5, said Mark Moskowitz, an analyst at JP Morgan. According to his sources, iPad 3’s launch would be postponed to 2012.

    Moskowitz said, in a statement quoted by Techspot, the new iPhone 5 will be thinner and lighter than the previous models. Among other things, iPhone 5 will have an 8-megapixel camera and will support CDMA and GSM, but not DNLA.

    However, the analyst’s statements come to confirm previous announcements made by the most important technology magazines. According to TechRadar, iPhone 5 will be launched in Europe, on October 15 within the Orange network. The new smartphone would include iCloud technology that allows user to store online music, movies and other files. In addition, the new iPhone 5 is expected to be charged wirelessly.

    Regarding the long-awaited iPhone 5, it seems that it will have a bigger display than its predecessors and will be thinner. Information seems to be confirmed by the several models of cases that have already appeared all over the internet. The phone will be available in two versions, black and white, 16 and 32 GB, respectively.

    Regarding the iPhone 4S, this would be launched simultaneously with the 5th generation and will be designed especially for emerging markets like China. The phone will bring a series of improvements, but not up to the 5th generation.

    About the 4S model, Engadget wrote that it had already appeared in the internal network of the U.S. telecom operator AT&T. iPhone 4S is basically an iPhone 4 with minor improvements, and those from Apple will promote it through a very competitive price.

    Beyond the expectations for the launch of the new iPhone models, the analyst at JP Morgan said the new generation of iPhones would be rescheduled for March next year, mainly for the reason iPad 2 records spectacular sales.

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  • Google Supplies HTC with Ammunition for the Battle Against Apple

    The legal war Apple bears with the biggest manufacturers of touchscreen mobile devices could take a new turn, after Google, the giant behind the most popular operating system for smartphones and tablets – Android – decided to help its customers by providing certain invention patents with which the companies can challenge Apple in court, writes Bloomberg.

    Google has transferred a package of nine patents in the property of the Taiwanese manufacturer, HTC, on which the Asian company has initiated a legal action against Apple. Google declined to comment on the reasons why they had made that transfer.

    Analysts consider that the move represents a new step in the fight which now bears in courts among the big companies. Google, which has been criticized before that it stood aside, while its partners that were using Android were being hit in court by Apple, decided to take a more active role in the fight on the so-called touchscreen market, considered as one of the most competitive.

    Recently, the company that owns the most popular internet search engine has announced that it intends to expand its patents portfolio in order to protect themselves against the legal actions concerning the theft of technology. Google faces in this race a strong competition from the same Apple.

    Google's decision to transfer the patents to HTC comes shortly after Apple acquired, from a German court, a blocking in sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, on the basis of infringement of some invention patents on the hardware side. Apple has also filed lawsuits to its rivals HTC and Motorola.

    Android, the operating system developed by Google for both tablets and smartphones, has supremacy in this segment with a market share of about 50%.

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