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ITC rules Motorola did not violate Apple patents
The U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled a couple of days ago that Motorola's Droid line of smartphones does not violate Apple's patents.
"We are pleased with today's favorable outcome for Motorola Mobility," Scott Offer, senior vice president and general counsel of Motorola Mobility, said in a statement. "Motorola Mobility has worked hard over the years to develop technology and build an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio. We are proud to leverage this broad and deep portfolio to create differentiated innovations that enhance the user experience."
Leave a commentApple Releases 2012 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report and Supplier List
Yesterday Apple released its annual Supplier Responsibility Progress Report for 2012, where the company details efforts to oversee working conditions and environmental responsibility at its suppliers around the world. Apple specially noted that it conducted 229 audits during 2011.
In 2011, we conducted 229 audits throughout our supply chain — an 80 percent increase over 2010 — including more than 100 first-time audits. We continue to expand our program to reach deeper into our supply base, and this year we added more detailed and specialized audits that focus on safety and the environment.
Target confirms it will open 25 Apple store-within-a-store outlets this year
Last week AppleInsider exclusively reported that Apple would plan to open 25 specialty stores inside Target's largest stores this year. The retailer confirmed those exact details in a presentation in New York on Thursday, according to The New York Times.
The concept is called "The Shops at Target," and the dedicated Apple ministores coming to 25 Target locations will not be alone. The Minneapolis-based retailer has also partnered with Boston's Polka Dog Bakery and Miami's The Webster, among others, for its specialty shops.
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 announces education event in New York City next Thursday, Jan. 19
On Wednesday Apple sent out invitations for a special event set for January 19. The event will be held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, where will be made an announcement related to education.
The invitation, as shown by The Loop, features a chalkboard-style drawing outlining the skyline of New York. Front and center in the skyline is the Apple logo, while the tagline for the event confirms that the event will involve an education-related announcement.
According to the previous rumors, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue will play a part in the demonstration. The event is highly unlikely to be devoted to a new device like an anticipated third-generation iPad or rumored Apple television.
Strong sales of iPhone 4S a precursor to 'monster' launch of redesigned 'iPhone 5'
The well-known Piper Jaffray analyst, Gene Munster, sent a note to investors on Wednesday where he increased his expectations related to the iPhone sales over the holiday quarter up to 30 million units. But the record sales aren’t the thing that really deserves attention. Instead, Munster 's looking toward the future, with a next-generation redesigned iPhone, which he believes is going to accelerate Apple's growth even further than the current iPhone 4S.
"If Apple sells 30 (million)-plus iPhones in Dec., with no new form factor, up from 17.1m in Sept., it would be evidence supporting our survey work indicating that 94% of iPhone users plan to upgrade to a new iPhone," Munster wrote. "This theme suggests iPhone 5, which we are expecting in Aug. with a new form factor, will be a monster upgrade."
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.
Greg Joswiak and other 250 employees from Apple were noticed at CES
Though Apple doesn’t officially participate at CES, the company continues to keep an eye on new products by its competitors, but is likely also interested in what companies are coming up with in terms of accessories for Apple's own products, and CES is a prime event for announcements for products of all types, including those within the Mac- and iOS-related markets. paidContent has in fact proven Apple's interest in CES when met accidently into iOS device marketing chief Greg Joswiak on the floor at the expo.
While wandering around the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, I bumped into Greg Joswiak, head of iOS product marketing for Apple, just outside of Sony’s booth. Joz, as he’s known within the Apple community, grinned sheepishly upon being recognized by a reporter and stopped to chat for a few minutes.
Kodak lawsuit accuses Apple of violating four patents
On Tuesday Kodak has filed lawsuits against Apple and HTC claiming infringement of patent violations regarding the sharing of digital pictures between various electronic devices. The claim accuses Apple of violating four digital photography patents Kodak said it obtained after "concluding it would be desirable for people to easily share pictures" from digital cameras without having to first upload them to a central PC. Apple and HTC are likely to cooperate with each other over the Kodak suit, although the companies are suing each other.
Essentially, any Apple product with a camera is affected by the proposed suit, but specifically cited examples include the iPad 2, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and the iPod touch (4th generation).It is unclear whether software like Apple's Photo Stream, which allows digital images taken on one iDevice to be pushed to other devices through the company's iCloud, or other third-party apps that allow for image transfer over Bluetooth or WiFi are being targeted in the suit.
Apple confirms purchase of flash memory company Anobit
Apple’s spokesman Steve Dowling confirmed on Tuesday that the company recently purchased Anobit Technologies, an Israel-based flash memory component maker, though it declined to reveal the cost of the deal. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” Steve Dowling added. As far as we remember Apple planned to spend for acquisition of the company as much as $500 million. According to a Hebrew-language newspaper, the deal was finalized in December.
Apple already uses Anobit parts in its iOS devices and the MacBook Air, and the firm's proprietary "Memory Signal Processing" (MSP) technology reportedly attracted the Cupertino, Calif., company's interest. Anobit claims MSP can improve the reliability, performance, efficiency and endurance of flash memory.
Apple's 2012 shareholder meeting set for February 23
Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel Bruce Sewell has issued a letter on Monday where Apple informs the company's shareholders that its annual shareholder meeting will be held at 10 a.m. Pacific on Feb. 23 and will include four shareholder proposals. Last year's meeting was also held on Feb. 23. Only shareholders of record as of Dec. 27, 2011 will be eligible to attend and vote at the meeting.
The agenda for the annual meeting includes: the election of Apple's board of directors, ratification of Ernst & Young as its independent registered public accounting firm for the year, an advisory vote on executive compensation and consideration of four shareholder proposals.
The first shareholder proposal is the request for a "Conflict of Interest Report" that requires to disclose any investments of board members that would represent a financial conflict of interest, describes the role board members play in the development of the company's policies.
Imagination Technologies Releases Details on Next-Generation GPU for iOS Devices
Apple has been long using graphics processing unit (GPU) manufactured by Imagination Technology in its iOS devices. Currently Apple is utilizing PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU in the A5 system-on-a-chip found in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.
Imagination has now revealed new details on the upcoming Series6 family, touting performance improvements of 20x or more for the G6400 and G6200, the first two members of the family.
Apple sold 1.2M MacBook Airs over holidays, new models with Ivy Bridge loom
According to DigiTimes sources, Apple sold 1.2 million of its thin-and-light MacBook Air over the holiday buying season. These numbers are 200,000 more than Apple achieved in the September quarter. Thanks to MacBook Air sales, Apple became the only vendor that managed to maintain its total notebook shipments from the third quarter to the fourth of calendar 2011.
DigiTimes also claims that another strong performance for the MacBook Air comes as Apple is expected to refresh the ultraportable notebook line in the coming months with Intel's next-generation Ivy Bridge processors. Apple PC competitors are doing their best to replicate MacBook Air success, and going to launch their own notebooks based on the "Ultrabook" specification from Intel. Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba reportedly plan to price comparable models $50 to $100 below Apple's MacBook Air pricing.
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.
Apple wins $920K tax refund from 1989
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that California's Supreme Court has affirmed a $920,000 tax refund for Apple dating back to 1989, but it refused to hear the company's request to lower its tax bill for income earned abroad. The court upheld an appellate ruling earlier this week that returned $231,000 in taxes to Apple, along with $689,000 in interest.
However, it is only a partial win, as the Supreme Court rejected Apple's request to reevaluate tax rates on foreign-earned income. "Apple argued that its foreign dividends from that year should be attributed to income from previous years that had already been taxed," the report read.