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News tagged ‘research’
Apple Researching Motion-Sensing Virtual 3D User Interface for iOS Devices
Patently Apple has discovered a newly-published patent application from Apple. The application describes the use of motion sensors to create a virtual three-dimensional interface for iOS devices. Such interface could be a co-called virtual room that could be navigated by changing the orientation of the device. Noteworthy, similar concepts are found in some augmented reality apps.
The invention covers a 3D display environment for mobile device that uses orientation data from one or more onboard sensors to automatically determine and display a perspective projection of the 3D display environment based on the orientation data without the user physically interacting with (e.g., touching) the display.
Apple awarded 676 patents in 2011
According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple was awarded a total of 676 patents in 2011. Now Apple is No. 39 among companies awarded inventions in the U.S., comparing with the last year result, when Apple won 563 patents and was ranked the No. 46 global company in terms of inventions.
The No. 1 inventor in America was IBM, which was awarded 6,180 patents in 2011. The second place belongs to Samsung, which won 4,894 inventions outside of its home country of Korea. The third place took Canon with 2,821 patents. Panasonic came in the fourth place with 2,559, while Toshiba took fifth with 2,483 inventions. Microsoft is in the sixth place, with 2,311 patents, Hewlett-Packard with 1,308 patents in 14th place, Intel with 1,244 patents in 16th place, and AT&T, whose 721 patents put it in 35th.
Apple becomes No. 3 PC maker in US
Research group Gartner released preliminary PC shipment results for the fourth quarter of 2011, showing that Apple climbed to third place among U.S. PC vendors as the rest of the top five vendors saw shipments decline year over year. Apple saw 20.7 percent growth of Mac sales in the U.S. market from the year ago quarter, and took the No. 3 spot behind HP and Dell.
However, customers shied away from the world's largest PC maker in the fourth quarter, causing a 26.1 percent decline year over year. Shipments fell from 5.6 million in the last quarter of 2010 to 4.1 million. Dell had a 4.5 percent decline in shipments from 4.2 million in the year ago quarter to 4.0 million in the most recent quarter.
iPhone 4S Significantly Increased Apple’s U.S. Smartphone Share During October-November
According to latest data from research firm NPD, iPhone 4S is turning the tables in the tough competition between Samsung and Apple. Analyzing U.S. smartphone sales data for November and October, the NPD found out that iOS considerably increased its share in U.S. smartphone sales, while the Android platform lost significant share to Apple ().
Saurik makes contribution towards iPad 2 and iPhone 4S untethered jailbreak
It looks like iPad 2 and iPhone 4S untethered jailbreak will truly be a team effort. Recently another hacker Saurik joined the team and made "some major contributions" yesterday.
Last week Pod2g announced that Planetbeing, MuscleNerd, and P0sixninja joined his effort to release an untethered iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak of the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 (A5 CPU devices).
Today, MuscleNerd noted that the team has received some major contributions from saurik:
54% of future smartphone buyers will choose Apple's iPhone
ChangeWave Research yesterday released the results of its new survey of North American smartphone customers. The survey demonstrates that over a half of those looking to purchase a smartphone over the next 90 days are planning to buy an iPhone 4S. But the 54% share of future buying plans held by Apple as of December was down from 65% in September.
The late December survey looked at smart phone demand trends going forward, and finds Apple iPhone demand remains incredibly strong more than two months after the iPhone 4S release.
Among respondents planning to buy a new smart phone in the next 90 days, better than one-in-two (54%; down 11-pts) say they'll get an iPhone.
Apple has never dominated smart phone planned buying to this extent more than two months after a major new release.
Smartphones eat up 5.9 percent of the electronic gadget market
According to market research firm NPD Group, sales of general purpose smartphones are causing the market for standalone gadgets such as cameras, camcorders and GPS devices to shrink, falling 5.9 percent overall during the holiday season in the US.
Sales of camcorders dropped by 43 percent, digital picture frames by 38 percent, GPS navigation devices by 33 percent and both MP3 players and "point and shoot" cameras were down 21 percent, all apparent casualties of the general purpose smartphone. Sales of electronic devices that don't directly overlap in functionality with the smartphone fared better, with PC and TV sales down just 4 percent. Desktop PCs were down 2 percent overall, while notebook sales were down 5 percent.
Survey suggests 50% growth in enterprise spending on Apple products in 2012
Forrester Research issued its Global Tech Market Outlook for 2012 and 2013 on Friday where the research company argued that Apple will “reshape the computing equipment market.” The study cited the adoption of iPad and Macs among professionals as proof that Apple is “dramatically disrupting” the corporate market traditionally dominated by Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, and HP.
Analysts have been predicting that cloud computing — specifically, infrastructure-as a service (IaaS) — will reshape the server and storage market… Actual adoption of IaaS remains limited…The biggest disruptive force in the computer equipment market thus is not IaaS, but Apple. This is a surprise, because Apple has not and does not directly address the corporate market, while turning a wide variety of consumer technology markets upside-down. But its rapid growth in the corporate market has been the big surprise of 2011, and it will be even more of a factor in 2012.
According to the survey, the business sector will buy $10 billion worth of iPads this year, up from $6 billion in 2011. IT departments are also projected to spend $9 billion on Macs in 2012, up from $6 billion in 2011. Mac and iPad spending will rise to $12 billion and $16 billion, respectively in 2013, according to the survey.
"Dream Team" will work on untethered iPad 2 and iPhone 4S jailbreak
Pod2g has recently announced that Planetbeing, MuscleNerd, and P0sixninja have joined his effort to release an iOS 5.0.1 untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2.
@planetbeing, the legendary hacker behind iPhone Linux and lot of jailbreaks has joined the A5 research! The famous @MuscleNerd, the leader of the iPhone Dev Team, who did a lot of tests for Corona and whom integrated it and made it simple in redsn0w is willing to help also. And last, but not least @p0sixninja, the leader of the Chronic Dev Team, and my partner for years on iPhone security research has started to code and fuzz the Apple sandbox.
That means that we now have a dream team to create a public release of the A5 jailbreak.
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iPhone 4S users consume nearly twice as much data as iPhone 4
Telecom network technology firm Arieso has found that data usage of the iPhone 4 was 1.6 times higher than the iPhone 3G, while iPad 2 tablets consumed 2.5 times more data. The iPhone 4S was the heaviest on usage with three times the amount used by the iPhone 3G.
"I use the iPhone 4 myself and when I first heard of the iPhone 4S features I was not compelled to rush out and get one. However, the data usage numbers I am seeing make me wonder what I am missing," Arieso's chief technology officer, Michael Flanagan, said of the study.
Flanagan also noted that tablet usage closely resembled that of high-end smartphones. "A tablet still looks like a big smartphone," he said. Bloomberg also confirms Arieso's research claiming that one percent of the high-use subscribers consumed half of the data volumes. “The hungry are getting hungrier,” Flanagan said.
The rise in iPhone data consumption comes as Sprint is the only U.S. network to offer an unlimited data plan. The iPhone has actually brought broad changes in the wireless industry. AT&T, Apple's original carrier partner in the U.S., was initially surprised by the amount of data users consumed. The iPhone maker has also opted to wait for 4G LTE to become more mature. CEO Tim Cook said that the first generation of LTE chipsets required "design compromises" that Apple was unwilling to make. Apple may release LTE iPad and iPhone models this year.
iPad App Store hits 3 billion downloads
ABI Research, which tracks mobile application downloads and revenues segmented by mobile operating system platform, announced in a press release on Wednesday that 3 billion applications designed specifically for Apple's iPad were downloaded via App Store since the iPad first launched in 2010. The iPad downloads represent 19 percent of all iOS App Store downloads.
"Discounting all of those apps that were originally downloaded for Android smartphones, Android still trails greatly behind the iPad in terms of its tablet app offerings," research associate Lim Shiyang said. "Many Android tablets in the market are still using older versions of Android, which disadvantages users from enjoying the better effects of apps produced from more advanced software development kits."
As of the third quarter of 2011 there are 120,000 applications created specifically for the iPad were available on the App Store, comparing with last June numbers that accounted 100,000 applications. The growth of iPad-specific applications and downloads of iPad software is comparable to the explosive start the iPhone had when the App Store first opened.
Apple's iMac accounts for 33% of all-in-one PC sales
All-in-one PCs have quietly become a booming market and Apple’s iMac now has a third of all sales. The all-in-one desktop market is expected to continue to grow and it could reach 23.3 million units by 2014.
All-in-one desktop computer sales grew 39 percent in 2010 to reach 14.5 million units, research firm DisplaySearch revealed to Bloomberg. Among those desktop sales, Apple accounted for 32.9 percent, making it the single largest all-in-one PC maker in the world. The iMac is Apple's all-in-one system and the company's strongest selling desktop, beating out the Mac mini and Mac Pro. In the company's previous quarter, portable Macs represented 74 percent of Mac sales, but desktop sales still hit a new record for Apple.
Apple with nearly 33 percent share of all-in-one desktops is now leading the market, putting it ahead of the No. 2 company, Lenovo. Hewlett-Packard with 21.4 percent was in third place. Noteworthy, Hewlett-Packard plans to release a new pair of desktop PCs before next week's Consumer Electronics Show.
The HP Omni is an all-in-one desktop with a 27-inch screen meant for family use, and it will go on sale Jan. 8 starting at $1,200. It will be joined by a standard desktop geared at gamers, the Pavilion HPE h9 Phoenix, which starts at $1,150.
Apple's iOS finishes 2011 with 52% share of mobile Web browsing
The latest figures from Net Applications show that Apple closed out 2011 with a commanding 52.1 percent share of mobile devices tracked browsing the Web. In second place was Java ME with 21.3 percent, while Google's Android came in third with just 16.2 percent.
Apple's share slid from 54 percent in November of 2011, and is down from its high of 61.5 percent in October. But it's also up from the 46.6 percent share iOS was tracked at in February of 2011. Coming in fourth in the data was Nokia's Symbian platform, with 5.8 percent, while Research in Motion's BlackBerry holds 3.5 percent. Interestingly, while sales of new BlackBerry devices have been weak, December of 2011 proved to be the best month of the year for RIM.
If dividing Apple’s devices shares in mobile web-browsing, the iPhone took 25.2 percent and leads all mobile devices. The iPad, though, was the second most popular device, with a 24.5 percent representation.
In the PC market Apple’s Macs platform finished with 6.4 percent in December of 2011 comparing with the 92.2 percent share Microsoft held with Windows. Windows XP, despite being 10 years old, is still leading the market with 46.5 percent. Windows 7 is in second with 37 percent, while Windows Vista holds 8.44 percent. As for Apple's Mac OS X, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard platform remains its most popular at 3 percent, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, released in July, closed out 2011 with a 2 percent share in December.
Apple again rumored to switch to IGZO displays for 'iPad 3'
Digitimes has reported that Apple will be utilizing IGZO (indium gallium zinc oxide) flat panels instead of IPS (in-plane switching panels) in its "next-generation mobile display products" such as the iPad 3.
Starting with the new iPads, Apple will utilize IGZO panels from Sharp in order to upgrade the display resolution of the new tablets to full HD level, the sources indicated.
Though, such rumors aren’t new ones. We have already heard that Apple could use this technology in the next-generation iPad. A research note from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek back in November made very similar claims:
Also, we believe that Apple and Sharp together have a modified IGZO (indium, gallium, zinc) technology to achieve 330 dpi, which is sufficient for an HD display while not using IPS nor having to include dual-bar LED backlighting. In our view, this should lead to several design advantages, namely the device can be thinner, battery life should be longer, and the overall experience for users should be meaningfully improved.
In April, Sharp revealed its plans to commercialize new IGZO panels for mass production later this year. DisplayBlog recaps the advantages of this new technology:
The benefits of IGZO are plenty: lower cost of manufacturing, up to 30x higher electron mobility than a-Si (amorphous silicon), increased aperture ratio for improved light transmittance, higher resolution in terms of ppi, etc. IGZO would allow for significant cost reductions compared to LTPS (Low Temperature Poly-Silicon).
The new technology is said to allow Apple not to use a second light bar system that is presently used in the iPad and to avoid making the iPad 3 thicker than the current iPad.
Android and Apple Eat Into RIM and Microsoft Smartphone Marketshare
Market research company comScore their latest estimates of market shares taken by the main players on the mobile market. Apple’s share continues to slowly move upward with 11.2 percent of all U.S. Mobile Subscribers.