News from category ‘Other’

Forbes ranked Steve Jobs the 136th Richest Man in the World. He has a net worth of $5.5 billion and shares his ranking with 5 other rich men.

Carlos Slim Helu tops the list with a net worth of $53.5 billion. More information here.

In a week after the story about the lawsuit Oppenheimer analyst Yal Reiner wrote a research note, where it is said that Apple started warning Motorola and HTC in as early as January 2009. The Cupertino's company was not so happy to see that rivals' new products look like iPhone (or at least use the same concepts).

Apple COO Tim Cook even commented on this situation:

"Apple will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we'll use whatever weapons that we have at our disposal".

The words were presumably about Samsung, LG and Nokia (Palm is not mentioned as its sales numbers are not so considerable).

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Chinese companies are producing iPad clones that will have Windows 7 OS pre-installed on it. Clone makers are interested in putting it on sale as soon as possible as there is still no information about whether Apple will ship iPad to China or not.

Some Chinese stores have already started taking pre-orders for the new Apple devices. They hope to import device from those of other countries where it will be officially on sale.

Whatever the outcome of Apple negotiations with Verizon will be, estimated sales of iPhones will equal 33 million devices in 2010, analysts say.

Moreover, Scott Craig, the analyst from Merrill Lynch, claims iPhone sales in 2010 won't be affected by the outcome of Apple and Verizon negotiations.

One way or another, Credit Suisse analysts reported of 75% chance of AT&T remaining iPhone exclusivity carrier also for the next year.

O2 plans to offer video calls on iPhone, as new generation iPhones will feature a camera for video calling and chatting. And what is more, making a video call will cost the same as traditional voice-only call.

Recent discoveries suggest that the iPad OS (iPhone OS 3.2) also offers the possibility to decline and accept video conferences and maintain video calls.

Apple announced a launch date for the iPad. The result is very exciting - Apple stock (AAPL) closed at an all time high, almost 219. This puts Apple's market cap near $199 billion dollars.

According to Gartner, PC shipments will increase worldwide from 305.8 mln. devices in 2009, to 366.1 mln. units shipped in 2010. The figures comprise not only traditional laptops and PC towers, but tablets and notebooks as well.

The variety of applications force vendors to provide users with something else rather than conventional general-purpose-PC-with-fast CPU approach. The new Apple's iPad belongs to the devices that will not only change PC ecosystem, but also overlap it with mobile phone industry. According to Gartner estimates, up to 10.5 mln. tablets (including new-generation devices) will be shipped in 2010. Analysts from Wall Street predict that iPad shipments will equal 5 mln. in 2010.

Neo-fight.tv created an adaptation of Old Spice Manmercial for Apple's iPad. It is so funny no additional comments are needed.

Original Old Spice Commercial is under the cut.

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On the iPad's presentation Steve Jobs noted that the iBookstore will be available only in the USA at launch. But few days ago new Apple job listing confirmed that company is planning to extend its book-selling business to other countries. Their new vacancy for manager of "Asia Pacific & Canada" iBooks divisions shows that in the nearest future their efforts will be concentrated primarily on Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The role includes: working with management, regionally and in Cupertino to determine strategies and priorities for iBooks in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries; identifying content providers to target, establish and develop relationships; working with legal and production teams to finalize relationships and secure content; and coordinate launches with partners, production, and marketing. This role will also be responsible for marketing the books offering on the iBooks store by coordinating with Apple's production teams, the marketing team, and the production and marketing teams of partners.

The successful employee will work in Sydney, Australia or Markham, Ontario.

It is possible that Apple looks for the possibilities to expand in other countries, though there are no open positions for that at the moment.

This amazing iPhone stand was made by designers at ForkedUpArt with their own hands. It is fully functional as the device can be charged while being held up by spoons for legs. Also it allows using not only iPhone but many other devices as well. The price is only $30 and there are two variants depending on what "head" you prefer - a spoon or a fork.

The job was posted on February 10th. Just in time!

"In this position, you will join HTC America, Inc. at one of its most exciting phases."

You can find more details here.

Here is the top 5 worst product names according to CNet. Guess who's got first place? Let's watch:

When HTC found out about Apple's actions, the company told Gizmodo website they will defend their technologies:

"We only learned of Apple's actions based on your stories and Apple's press release. We have not been served any papers yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. We respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. We have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years."

Steve Jobs expressed his opinion in the official press release:

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

It is interesting, that 14 years ago it was Steve Jobs who said: "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.".

Wow! It looks like Steve Jobs totally changed his mind?

After the news about Apple's lawsuit many of us have been wondering why Apple did this. Obviously, the thing is not about money as the company already has $40 billion of cash and investments. Digital Daily's editor John Paczkowski thinks the reason is a desire to extend iPhone's growing lead on the market.

"Apple is suing to make an example out of HTC and lengthen the engineering time-to-market for Android handset builders."

While other Android smartphone manufacturers will spend their time solving a problem with developing of noninfringing technologies to avoid lawsuits, Apple will continue to iterate the iPhone.

Ok, this is clear, but why Apple accused HTC now?

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As you remember, Steve Jobs clearly said at the iPad's presentation that the device will have a 1 GHz A4 Chip. But after that event there was no information given about this secret two-letter name "A4". And this isn't usual, as almost every company reports the specification of every announced device before it'll come to market.

Later it was rumored that the chip is based on Cortex A9 with dual cores. But finally Arstechnica author Jon Stokes revealed that A4 is a 1 GHz custom system-on-chip with a single Cortex A8 Core and a PowerVR SGX GPU. Though the information is not announced publicly, the author is sure it is true.

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