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  • Apple Strikes Again: Galaxy Tab 7.7 Out From IFA

    The war Apple takes against Samsung is reaching a new milestone: the tablet Galaxy Tab 7.7, presented last week at IFA 2011, has been removed from Samsung’s stand after a court order, the reason being violation of patents owned by Apple.

    The Court in Dusseldorf, the same that has also decided to ban Galaxy Tab 10.1, was the decision-maker in this case.

    Apple has legally obtained an order according to which Samsung is prohibited from marketing and promoting this product.

    James Chung, a spokesman for Samsung Seoul declined to comment on the court decision, but said that Samsung will respect the legal order, despite the fact that it is severely limiting the consumer. Furthermore, the company will defend itself in court.

    Samsung and Apple have been in disputes over time, because Apple claims that the Galaxy products from Samsung are copying their iPad and iPhone. Just a month ago, the court from Dusseldorf has temporarily banned Samsung to promote their Galaxy Tab 10.1 in 26 out of the 27 EU member states. The first trial in this series took place in April, in the United States.

    The legal order received late last week comes with losses of over half the units, according to Strategy Analytics. In the first quarter, Samsung had a market share of 16%, well below the iPhone's 69%.

    Galaxy Tab 7.7 has been released last week in Berlin. The first tablet in the world with Super AMOLED screen resolution of 1280X800 has a thickness of 7.89 mm, weighs 335 grams and comes equipped with a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor and 1GB RAM. The tablet is running Android 3.2 Honeycomb and has WiFi, HSPA + 21 Mbps and 2 cameras of 2 and 3 megapixels, respectively.

    Samsung had no details about the price of the tablet and when it will arrive in stores.

    Further reading:

  • Apple Falls While Samsung and Android Take the Lead in USA

    Google and Samsung have managed to surpass Apple and its products, iOS, iPhone and iPad, ok the U.S. market, as the latest statistics are showing.

    Out of the 82 million Americans who own a smartphone, most devices (41.8%) are running the Android operating system developed by Google. Apple, with its IOS, ranked second with a market share of 27%, while the third place was occupied by Research in Motion (21.7%), with the operating system designed for their Blackberry.

    Interestingly, while Google gained 5.4% since April 2011, Apple's share grew by only 1%, and RIM has lost 4%. The last two places in the ranking are occupied by Microsoft and Symbian, which have 5.7% and 1.9%, respectively, of the market share.

    Samsung, market leader

    In the smartphones brands rankings, on the first place is Samsung, with a slightly increased market share compared to April 2011, from 24.5% to 25.5%. In second place is LG, which has stagnated at 20.9%, while the third place is occupied by Motorola with a decrease in the market share of 1.5%, from 15.6% to 14.1%. Apple was ranked only the fourth, with a market share increased by 1.2%, from 8.3% to 9.5%. The top is completed by RIM with a share down by 0.6%, from 8.2 to 7.6%.

    SMS, vital for Americans

    Another interesting ranking shows that the Americans are using the phone, beyond the calls, mainly to send text messages, in 70% of the cases. The percentage of those who surf the internet on their smartphone has increased from 39.1% to 41.1% and just the same as the percentage of those who download applications, up from 37.8% to 40.6%.
    The study shows, on the other hand, that 30.1% of the Americans who own a mobile phone are accessing social networks and blogs, 27.8% are playing games on the phone, while 20.3% are listening to music.

    Further reading:

  • HTC Sues Apple

      HTC, the second largest Asian producer of mobile phones, filed a complaint against Apple, claiming the U.S. giant has infringed three patents.

    The movement made by HTC aims at blocking the imports of gadgets such as iPhone and Mac computers. The Taiwanese company accuses Apple that has infringed three patents related to wireless technology. The General Counsel of HTC, Grace Lei, said that Apple needs to stop violating HTC invention rights. She says HTC started this action against the U.S. company in order to protect their intellectual property, their partners and, most importantly, their customers.

    Apple immediately came with a response to accusations, a spokesman for Apple saying that their competitors have to create their own original technology, not to steal theirs.

    In July this year, HTC made several acquisitions, a trend Google has followed by buying Motorola Mobility in order to maintain their market position in IT & C. The Asian company has bought S3 Graphics Co. This was a successful move for HTC, which won the lawsuit against Apple after a judge found that the U.S. company's operating system, Mac OS X, violated two patents of S3 Graphics Co.

    Another judge  discovered last month that HTC had violated two rights of invention from Apple. If this accusation is confirmed, it could lead to blocking the imports of certain mobile phones of the Taiwanese company.

    Apple filed a separate complaint this month that targets the phones and Flayer tablet from HTC. Motorola, Nokia, HTC, Apple, Google and Samsung are currently involved in one or more trials related to the violation of certain patented technologies.

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  • According to Nokia, Windows Phone 7 Excels Against the Android and iOS Popularity

    Nokia President Chris Weber has come up with a greatest insight into the Nokia’s latest strategy in an interview with VentureBeat. He made an astonishing comment saying that interfaces and app-based models such as Android and iOS will “outdate” soon.

    Nokia recently associated with Microsoft for its Windows Phone 7 mobile platform and coming up with some latest smartphone models pretty soon to regain its dominance like earlier. Nokia is seriously concentrating on a new strategy to gain upper hand over the currently popular Android and iOS. The new strategy of the upcoming smartphones from Nokia will be unique through arranging everything around the contacts unlike its competitors, which are based on the navigation among various apps.

    Windows Phone 7 coming up with a new interaction procedure known as “Live tiles and Hubs”. This feature offers all the key contacts along with mode of communication through dynamic tiles, which alters display as soon as a contact posts an update. Also, contacting someone is enabled through various options just through tapping, which will return back with various communication options including calling, Facebook, Twitter, email and many more. Definitely, this kind of approach is quite unique and away from the present popular mobile operating systems.

    The streamlined communication feature arranged in the Windows Phone 7 OS is quite novice and unlike apps based phones. Nokia thinking that this can gain back the throne like earlier. In fact, the mentioned feature success is mainly dependent on the mobile phone hardware. Perhaps, Nokia can succeed well to arrange require hardware for these feature through their devices, but other manufacturers such as LG, Samsung and HTC will think about this as they’re all already well associated with Android for their smartphones.

    Nokia is very well panning to make maximum out of Windows Phone 7 and planning for biggest marketing campaign for all their WP7 based upcoming smartphones. According to Weber’s latest interview, the upcoming smartphones will be available in the U.S. market “in volume” in 2012.

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  • Apple Launches New Lawsuit Against Motorola Regarding its Xoom Tablet

    Just one day after Apple convinced the court in Düsseldorf, Germany, that Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 imitates the iPad and obtained a court order that prohibits the sale of the South Korean tablet in few European countries, here’s that Steve Jobs and his team from Cupertino launches a new lawsuit, this time against Motorola.

    The incriminated product is Motorola Xoom, also for the alleged design elements inspired by iPad 2. The trial will take place at the same court in Düsseldorf. Even if Apple will win in the first instance, the companies accused can appeal, a fact already confirmed by the South Koreans.

    Apple has also won a major victory against its South Korean rival, Samsung Electronics, after the court in Dusseldorf has banned the sale of Samsung Galaxy tab in the European Union, except the Netherlands. Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet, confirmed that the court has issued a temporary ban against the Galaxy Tab 10.1. It is not yet clear why the order did not include the Netherlands.

    Samsung Electronics, the largest technology company in Asia in terms of revenue, said it will appeal German court decision. Samsung is also the world's largest producer of memory chips and televisions and the second largest producer of mobile phones.

    German court decision comes a week after Samsung was forced to postpone the launch of Galaxy tablet on the market in Australia because of similar legal actions filed by Apple.

    On the IT&C market, such lawsuits are on the agenda. There is a huge network in which many important companies are judging each other for the infringement of various patents. In terms of design-problem lawsuits and not software, is very difficult to make an objective judgment.

    If Apple will finally win all these lawsuits, it will be created a precedent under which the company in Cupertino could also attack other major manufacturers of tablets.

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  • Apple Took Two Thirds of Available Mobile Phone Profits in Q2

    iPhone is a huge success for Apple. Besides the fact that is making almost half of the company’s revenues, iPhone collects two-thirds of total profits of the smartphone manufacturers.

    This figure was provided by the consulting company Asymco, founded and led by Horace Dediu. He gathered data from financial statements of the main protagonists that are competing on market for our money for phones.

    Asymco says that Apple has 66.3% of the pie, followed by Samsung with 15%, Research in Motion (RIM) is gathering with its BlackBerrys 11% and HTC has other 7.4%. Moreover, four major global manufacturers – Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG – have losses in the last quarter.

    According to Strategy Analytics, Apple now holds the crown of smartphone shipments, with 18.5% of market, followed by Samsung with 17.5% and Nokia with 15.2%.

    Samsung, the main threat, is using three platforms

    Unlike its analysts, who give Samsung with 19.2 million smartphones sold, Dediu estimates the giant at 19.9 million units shipped. Apple has already announced officially that they have 20.3 million terminals. The problem is that Samsung is producing phones that are running on three platforms, Android, Windows Phone 7 and its Bada OS. Rumors say the company refrain from publishing the breakdown and the number of phones, not only because of patent problems they had with Apple and Microsoft, but just because Android deliveries were under Nokia sales, 16.7 million Symbian phones.

    HTC will surpass Blackberry and Nokia

    Asymco analysts also write that the era of slightly increase of the smartphone producers already ended and that is very clear that Symbian and BlackBerry OS have become a burden to their developers and users are not buying any, since the decreases are not cyclic. Nokia already jumped in the Microsoft boat, but RIM is trying a transition to QNX, the operating system on the PlayBook tablet. Also, the hot competition could strongly hit smaller companies such as Motorola and Sony Ericsson. In addition, with iPhone nano entering the fight for the low-cost and medium segment of smartphones would be almost equivalent to a disaster for the small producers of Android or LG, who cannot make profit even so. And that's exactly what Apple is going to do.

    Also, at this rate, HTC will surpass RIM over the next three months in terms of units sold, after giving 12.1 million units in the last quarter (+142%), while RIM has sold 13,2 million BlackBerry phones (+18%).

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  • Samsung Out from Apple’s Suppliers List of Components for iPad

    Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), a Taiwanese company producing chips, began manufacturing a new generation of components for Apple’s mobile devices, which could mean that the manufacturer of iPad tablet will break the contract with its supplier of Samsung Electronics chips, according to several sources close to the situation.

    Samsung is the only supplier of A5 chips used for the iPad 2, but Apple has suggested that wishes to depart from the Korean company.

    The two companies have each other filled a complaint in court accusing of infringement of patents, while Samsung has proven to be the fiercest competitor of Apple in the battle on the smartphones and tablets market. Apple is faced with several obstacles if would want to make a transition to TSMC.

    "Apple is trying to diversify its source of components, but will continue to be some way in a relationship with Samsung," said William Wang, an analyst at Fubon Securities.

    "I believe that TSMC will receive orders for the new chips, but the problem is how many. Apple will not provide 100% of the orders of a single supplier, such as TSMC. Maybe will allocate only 20-30% of the orders", he completed.

    The analysts and other sources have previously said that TSMC, the largest manufacturer of chips under contract, will become the supplier for the next generation of chips for Apple devices, probably starting from next year.

    TSMC is an obvious candidate to win the future business with Apple, because it has budgeted 7.8 billion dollars this year to update the technology and to add capacity of production.

    The company has experience with the architecture of the British ARM Holdings chips, widely used by Apple to make efficient mobile chips in terms of energy consumption.

    "Taiwanese company already has all the details and authorizations in place," said another source.

    Tablet market, which last year was aggressively dominated by Apple's iPad, is expected to grow to 108 million devices next year, from 70 million as estimated for 2011 and 17.6 million as it was in 2010, according to Gartner.

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  • Apple Ready to Launch the Production of the New iPhone

    Apple is close to launch the next generation of iPhones in an attempt to stay on top of their rivals from Samsung, says WSJ.

    The company has ordered some important components for a new iPhone in order to launch the next generation in late September, according to several people close to the matter. Sources say that the new iPhone is expected to be much like the current iPhone 4, but thinner and lighter, plus an 8-megapixel camera.

    One source claims that the new iPhone will run on Qualcomm chips. iPhone 4 uses chips from a former division of the German company Infineon Technologies AG, which is now owned by Intel. Apple officials declined to comment on the data.

    The rumors on the appearance of the new iPhone version, the product that brought the most revenues for Apple, have increased after the company chose not to reveal a new model of smartphone at the CNDC held in early June, as they did in the past.

    Apple said at that time that the new version of iOS 5 will be available in this fall. This has fueled the speculations that the latest generation of iPhones will be introduced at the same time. A well- informed person said the American company initially planned the launch this summer, but the device was not finished on time.

    iPhone businesses have generated almost half of company’s revenues of 24.7 billion dollars in the quarter ended on March 26. The rivalry between Apple and Samsung has intensified in recent years, both companies being directly involved in a legal battle, both Samsung and Apple being accused of violating intellectual property.

    Tuesday, Apple filed a complaint against Samsung at the Commission on International Trade in the United States by trying to stop the importation of Samsung smartphones and tablets after the Koreans have asked the Commission to de-market certain models of iPhone and iPad in the United States.

    Wall Street projections for the new iPhone are relatively conservative because the analysts are not expecting the device to have major improvements and design changes to convince the current iPhone owners to buy the new version.

  • iPhone in a Smaller and Cheaper Version for Emerging Markets

    A few days ago have appeared a number of new rumors about iPhone 5, according to which the terminal will come equipped with iPad's processor, will have an 8-megapixel camera and will have a radically changed design, as "teardrop".

    The sources close to Bloomberg are disclosing some information that we won’t even dare to hope: Apple is preparing a smaller and cheaper version of iPhone, based on the iPhone 4’s hardware. The device aims the under-development countries, areas that until now have been dominated by Nokia’s handsets.

    The same sources are saying that Apple will soon release a new iPad, which uses an improved version of the “Retina Display” technology, which currently features the iPhone 4. The tablet will have a higher resolution and will include a touch layer to respond more quickly to commands.

    And as the sixth generation of iPhone is becoming more and more interesting for the Apple fans and the speculation have already started to flow, the enthusiasts claim that the iPhone 5 will hit the market in the spring 2012. The phone is expected to come equipped with major hardware updates, with a magnitude as great as the fourth generation had.

    The experts in this field believe that Apple should really embrace a more aggressive launch cycle to cope with strong competition coming from the growing army of Android smartphones.

    It is estimated that by the end of 2011, Apple will hold 18.5 percent points of the market share, while Google will have twice, 38.9 percent points. These are some bad news for Apple, which obtains more than half of revenue from the sales of iPhones.

    Meanwhile, new information on the final design for the iPhone 5 were used to create a portrait that we can form an opinion about how the future iPhone should look like.

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  • Apple Prepares the Next iPhone for September

    Apple prepares for September the launch of a new iPhone 5 which will have a more powerful processor and an advanced video camera, said two sources close to the situation.

    The phone will be equipped with the A5 processor of the iPad 2, and an 8-megapixel camera, compared to the 5-megapixel on the iPhone 4, said the sources, adding that Apple is also testing a new version of the iPad tablet, which boasts a higher resolution screen.

    Apple representatives declined to comment on this information.

    A faster chip will allow faster processing of data and will strengthen iPhone’s market position in relation with the smartphones launched by rival companies such as Samsung and HTC using Google’s Android platform.

    The new Apple phone will run the iOS 5, recently introduced by the company at a WWDC conference. The system has improved messaging features and photo-sharing and can run on all Apple mobile gadgets. By the end of last year, the iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch were using slightly different versions of the iOS.

    The company has delayed the introduction of the fifth iPhone to coincide with the launch of the iOS 5, said the sources.

    The iPhone is Apple's best selling product, generating half of the revenues in the last quarter.

    Market research firm, IDC, estimates that the smartphone market will reach one billion units sold by the end of 2015. The IDC also predicts that Apple will have a market share of 18.2% this year compared to 38.9% for Android phones.

    Apple is close to completing a cheaper and smaller version of the iPhone for consumers in emerging countries, the sources added. This gadget would use chips and screens close to the current seen on iPhone 4.

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