News tagged ‘Opera’

According to DigiTimes, production of iPhone 5 is in full swing with 150,000 manufactured units per day. However, this rate is not quite sufficient for Apple, as it plans to release the iPhone for the holiday season.

"Lens maker Largan Precision, touch panel maker TPK Holding, reinforced glass supplier G-Tech Optoelectronics and battery vendors Simplo and Dynapack are all operating at full swing currently, the sources indicated".

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Voice input in Android

9to5Mac has reported that Apple seeded some mobile carriers with a “near-final” build of iOS 5 with the enabling of Nuance's Speech to Text as a system-wide service:

According to a source testing the feature, it works almost identically (video above) to the Android operating system’s speech-to-text feature. It’s also very polished, quick, and accurate said the source – which is obvious for being an Apple product but also is indicative of the product being nearly complete.

The special microphone button was already noticed in iOS 5. This allows users to dictate rather than type. It seems that Apple plans to release its Nuance speech recognition system alongside the public release of iOS 5 set for launch in this fall.

Apple’s sales in China are up sixfold and reached $3.8 billion in second quarter revenues. Chinese market remains largely untapped and Apple could increase iPhone sales there by reaching agreements with additional Chinese carriers. However until now Apple hasn’t succeeded in reaching the agreement with the largest wireless operator China Mobile, and the sole Apple’s carrier in this country remains China Unicom. Moreover, according to DigiTimes, Apple’s iconic smartphone will compete with devices from both carriers:

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Today Deutsche Telekom has begun offering first-served reservations for the iPhone 5 whenever it debuts. The company confirmed that the program is now in effect.

Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) will allow customers to reserve the next generation of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone as of today in anticipation of supply bottlenecks for the device, spokesman Alexander von Schmettow said by phone. The operator will hand out coupons to people who expressly request the successor model to the iPhone 4, without providing the name or release details of the device, he said.

Apple typically keeps its carrier partners in the dark about its release plans until it is ready to make a public release. So Deutsche Telecom seems to work on the ground of rumors rather than official information. Hints have been multiplying since last week that Apple could be close to unveiling a fifth-generation iPhone. Apple store employees have received their iOS 5 and iCloud training materia and internal Best Buy documents have pointed to a Sprint iPhone 5 launch in the first week of October.

Yesterday, Tim Cook started redirecting customers’ e-mails to Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president for Internet services. Cook confirmed 9to5Mac that Cue was officially promoted to a senior vise president position.

From an internal Apple email sent by Tim Cook:

It is my pleasure to announce the promotion of Eddy Cue to Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services. Eddy will report to me and will serve on Apple’s executive management team.

Eddy oversees Apple’s industry-leading content stores including the iTunes Store, the revolutionary App Store and the iBookstore, as well as iAd and Apple’s innovative iCloud services. He is a 22-year Apple veteran and leads a large organization of amazing people. He played a major role in creating the Apple online store in 1998, the iTunes Music Store in 2003 and the App Store in 2008.

Cue's promotion may be the first move in a reshuffling of Apple's leadership. The position of Chief Operating Officer is now vacant. Apple’s COO was Tim Cook until his ascension to the CEO position. And soon a position of a senior vice president for retail will be vacant as he takes the CEO position at J.C. Penney.

Google and Apple, two main parties on the smartphone market, are continuously fighting for consumers especially those who have not yet decided which OS they want to have in their next smartphone. According to Nielsen survey in July 2011, these ‘undecideds’ will be the customers which manufacturers will be hoping to win over. It is interesting that late adopters are least sure among likely smartphone upgraders about their next phone platform.

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CNET reported that Apple once again have lost another unreleased iPhone model in Sun Francisco. As CNET claims, the device was lost in July.

Apple representatives contacted San Francisco police, saying the device was priceless and the company was desperate to secure its safe return, the source said. Still unclear are details about the device, what version of the iOS operating system it was running, and what it looks like, the source said.

Rumors claim that Apple managed to electronically trace the phone and found it in a single-family home in San Francisco. Apples representatives and local police visited the house and spoke with a man in his twenties who was in Cava 22 then the device was lost. The police searched the house but didn’t find anything. Whether or not, Apple did not file a police report about the missing phone.

You probably remember that last year Apple lost a prototype of iPhone 4 at a bar near the company's headquarters. This device was sold to Gizmodo. Apple initiated legal action that ended just couples of days ago.

According to France-based Hardmac, Apple is preparing a remote testing tool for iOS devices that will be used by its service personnel. It will remotely check a device and send the obtained data, relatively anonymously, over the Internet. Apple technicians have already used a similar tool, but, according to Hardmac, this one works remotely. Actually, it will operate entirely online.

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Third-party Dolphin Browser app has become very popular among Android users and has been downloaded nearly 9 million times. As TechCrunch reports, Sequoia Capital invested over $10 million in this app, and some part of that sum will likely be directed to developing iOS version of the browser, which has just appeared in the App Store.

The iOS version has most of the features that made this app so popular among users of Android devices. They are convenient sidebar for quick access to bookmarks, built-in translations, customizable gestures, tabbed browsing, speed dial and more. It should be noted that Dolphin is based on Apple’s WebKit, as well as other third-party browser available on the App Store, default Safari app, and majority of browsers for smartphones.

This browser has some main competitors like Opera and several smaller competitors like SkyFire that are steadily gaining popularity among iOS users.

Android users will find out that add-ons are absent from the version for iOS devices, as iPhone’s technical limitation doesn’t allow using native application add-ons. These add-ons are mainly used to change the look and feel of the browser. However, according to TechCrunch, development of JavaScript-based add-ons for iPhone may be underway.

Dolphin Browser app is available for free from the App Store. (iTunes link)

CNN reports that Wikileaks cables showed that in 2008 Apple formed an anti-counterfeit team to combat fake iPod touches and iPhones. Initially Apple planned to go after street vendors and retailers, cooperate with police to raid production facilities, and to catch online retailers.

The technology giant eventually organized a team in March 2008 to curtail the explosion of knockoff iPods and iPhones, according to an electronic memo from the Beijing embassy dated September 2008.

In recent years fake products has been a serious problem for Apple. More recently, several Apple stores selling almost identical devices were opened in China. It is likely that great amount of counterfeit sales is connected with insufficient number of stores in this region. At present, Apple has only 4 stores, and a new store in Hong Kong will be opened this year.

Recently Apple hasn’t managed to combat counterfeits, as more and more fake products appear ahead of iPhone 5 launch.

Reportedly Chinese government doesn’t give any help to Apple. CNN reports that, according to the cable dated April 2009, Chinese government refused to investigate facility where fake Apple laptops were manufactured, because this could affect local jobs. Also it doesn’t approve Apple’s plans for a raid on a mall selling electronics in the Guangdong province, as it could scare away shoppers.

Samsung, one of the main Apple’s component suppliers, is likely to face a financial blow from Apple. It is rumored that  Apple is actively looking for alternative A6 chip manufacturers. The designed in-house A6 processor is expected to debut in iPad 3 next year and afterwards find its way into iPhone 6.

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United Airlines has recently announced that it is going to use iPads as electronic flight bags to replace bulky and heavy flight bags full of navigational charts and other materials and rolling out 11,000 iPads to its pilots. The iPad offers quick and easy access to required data at all times and will streamline work of pilots.

Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot's flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot. The green benefits of moving to EFBs are two-fold--it significantly reduces paper use and printing, and, in turn, reduces fuel consumption. The airline projects EFBs will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper a year which is equivalent to more than 1,900 trees not cut down. Saving 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 3,208 metric tons.

Mozilla states that web apps will soon provide end users with a comparable to native apps experience and will represent better alternative for developers.

“We are aiming at providing all the necessary APIs to build a basic HTML5 phone experience within the next 3-6 months”

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The first authorized biography of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, a book with the simple  title  "Steve Jobs", reportedly set to be released on November 21, 2011.

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues this book chronicles the rollercoaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

As the publisher claims, Jobs has cooperated with the book and has not asked for any control over the final product. The book will probably yield the most open look at Jobs' personal and professional life.

Today co-founder and CEO of Google Larry Page officially said that their company has acquired one of the largest smartphone manufacturer – Motorola, specifically Motorola Mobility. The company was sold for $12.5 billion, which is 63% more than the closing price of the company on Friday, August 12. This deal has yet to be approved by several official authorities in USA and European Union, as well as Motorola Mobility’s shareholders. All transition processes is expected to finish in the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012.

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