News tagged ‘API’

According to Reuters, on Tuesday the first-instance court for all French patent litigation ruled against Samsung's request for a preliminary injunction against the iPhone 4S because the court found that Samsung's arguments against the iPhone 4S, so-called FRAND patents, were exhausted. That means that the South Korean company's use of 3G-essential patents against Apple will see worldwide failure.

"The court furthermore held that Samsung's request for an injunction was "disproportionate" and stated that this fact was apparent, without citing particular reasons for this finding," Reuters says. "Some of what the French ruling says indicates that Samsung's use of 3G-essential patents is going to fail everywhere at least as far as the iPhone 4S is concerned."

The French judge who rejected to issue the ban on Apple’s iPhone 4S made clear that Samsung was mishandling its FRAND obligations, noting that a holder of standards-essential patents is not allowed to capitalize on its "necessarily dominant position." "The French ruling makes it clear that there's every indication that Samsung's patent rights are exhausted and Apple is, therefore, effectively licensed," Reuters writes.

Now Apple and Samsung's global disputes over patent infringements have seen more than 30 filings in at least 12 courts in 9 countries that span over 4 continents. And it seems that the battle is far from the end, because patent cases are complex, and courts prefer not to make such decisions on the fast track.

Research firm ChangeWave released on Thursday results of an early November survey of iPhone 4S owners that shows that 77 percent of respondents indicated they are "very satisfied" with their iPhone 4S, another 19 percent said they are "somewhat satisfied," while j 2 percent fell into the "unsatisfied" category. After launch of the iPhone 4, 72 percent of Apple customers were "very satisfied" with their purchase, and 21 percent were "somewhat satisfied."

ChangeWave also asked customers what their favorite specific features of the iPhone 4S are. Siri topped the list of most-liked features on the iPhone 4S, with nearly half of survey respondents citing it. Second place was ease of use with 39 percent, and the new 8-megapixel camera took third with 33 percent. Faster Web browsing was the fourth most popular feature at 24 percent, the high-resolution Retina Display took fifth with 23 percent, and iCloud service was in sixth with 19 percent.

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During the last several days, there have been many reports on the findings of Trevor Eckhart revealing that logging software is present on many BlackBerry, Nokia and Android phones. The software called "IQRD"  was developed by the company Carrier IQ. The PCWorld summarized the video showing the scope of logging.

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After Steve Jobs’ death, speculations arose on what would be done with his huge estate, estimated in $7 billion. The majority of his wealth is represented by the 138 million shares of the Walt Disney Co. that were placed in trust. Jobs acquired shares in 2006 having sold Pixar to the company for $7.4 billion. Tax experts suggest that Job’s family should sell all Apple and Disney share to avoid higher taxes. According to Bloomberg, the family could save $867 million in capital gains taxes.

Noteworthy, placing shares in a trust is also a method to avoid higher taxed, though it’s not clear what type of trust was set up in this case. According to Bloomberg, Jobs moved his assets into trusts toward the end of his life.

Now the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell, will manage a $4.6 billion trust. Some experts expect her to use a portion of the trust for charity and philanthropic work, as she is an active participant in the non-profit sector.

According to VR-Zone's report, Intel is developing a standard docking format for their future Ultrabook platform. The new docking system would include a Thunderbolt connector as well as a proprietary connector.

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Analyst Brian Marshall with International Strategy & Investment Group claims that apple may finally pay its shareholders dividends, despite the company’s long resistance. Most investors do not believe Apple will initiate a dividend policy in 2012, but if the company will, it may gain an additional $4 billion in investments.

At the moment the current Apple’s CEO Tim Cook is reorganizing the company, so he may probably make an effort to optimize capital structure and start paying dividends Apple’s shareholders. Brian Marshall believes that Apple could "easily" implement a dividend yield of 250 base points, amounting to about $2.40 per quarter.

Apple’s previous CEO, Steve Jobs, didn’t support the idea of dividend distribution and preferred to invest in strategic opportunities such as last year purchase of Siri (Apple paid about $200 million).

"We strongly believe one or more strategic opportunities will come along we're in a unique position to take advantage of," the late Apple CEO said in 2010. "We don't let the cash burn a hole in the pocket or make stupid acquisitions. We'd like to continue to keep our powder dry because we think there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future."

Rumors about “iPhone 5” have been still circulating, even despite the fact that Apple launched last month updated iPhone 4S. The next-generation iPhone is expected to be released next year and will be redesigned significantly. Business Insider now reports that it has received information from the source who have had access to an iPhone 5 prototype, providing the following details on the device:

We've been told this by an industry source who has been right about future Apple products in the past. We have not been able to verify what he told us with a second source. So we're still treating these details as rumors. You should probably still read this post with a nice fat dose of salt.

The source confirmed that Apple planned to launch the iPhone 5 this year but was forced to change its plans. The source mentioned the following details of the next-generation iPhone:

• 4-inch screen
• Aluminum back
• Capacitive home button
• "Flatter" form factor
• Much faster than current hardware, but poor battery life
• 10-megapixel rear camera
• Siri prototype known as "Assistant", which had been the rumored name for the feature until its introduction

Flurry, mobile analytics firm, reports that portable gaming has seen a continuous shift from dedicated gaming devices to smartphones and other multifunctional devices.

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The newest Apple’s iPhone 4S became available for preorders in Hong Kong last Friday and sold out almost immediately. As Brian White, analysts at Ticonderoga Securities, said, iPhone 4S preorders sold out in their first 10 minutes of availability.

"In our view, this is a very positive sign for iPhone 4S demand in Greater China has Hong Kong represents the first entry of the new smartphone in the rapidly growing region, and we expect the 4S to reach Mainland China in December," White said in a note to investors on Monday.

"We believe this rapid sell out will rest concerns surrounding the uptake of the iPhone 4S in the Greater China region that were driven by the limited language capability of Siri, which did not launch in Mandarin or Cantonese."

Although, the current version of Siri understands only English, French and German, Apple plans to start supporting additional languages in 2012, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian and Spanish.

A successful start of the iPhone 4S in Chine is good news for Apple. Of course, the nation of over a billion people is an important part of Apple’s international policy and growth.

A new survey of 1,000 people working in the gaming industry that was conducted ahead of the London Games Conference 2011, has found that 26 percent of respondents consider  Steve Jobs as the most influential person in the industry, and 46 percent included him in their top five.

Steve Jobs, the iPhone’s driving force, was the ultimate independent developer -- uncompromising in his vision, with unquestionable influence, and hugely artistic and commercial results.

However, Apple’s influence on gaming industry extends beyond Jobs. 17 percent of respondents said that the iPhone is shaping the future of videogames.  53 percent of respondents included the iPhone in their list of top five most influential devices in the gaming industry.

"In just over three years the iPhone and the App Store have transformed what consumers expect of games, and how the industry makes and sells them - today, download games have come to the fore," said Michael French, editor in chief of gaming magazine MCV.

Last week, Apple released its annual financial report for fiscal 2011, revealing some interesting facts. Moreover, the report includes some Apple's planned capital expenditures for fiscal 2012

The Company’s capital expenditures were $4.6 billion during 2011, consisting of approximately $614 million for retail store facilities and $4.0 billion for other capital expenditures, including product tooling and manufacturing process equipment, real estate for the future development of the Company’s second corporate campus, and other corporate facilities and infrastructure.

The Company anticipates utilizing approximately $8.0 billion for capital expenditures during 2012, including approximately $900 million for retail store facilities and approximately $7.1 billion for product tooling and manufacturing process equipment, and corporate facilities and infrastructure, including information systems hardware, software and enhancements.

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Apple released three new advertisements for the iPhone 4S.

The first one is called iCloud and shows the out of the box iCloud integration for the iPhone 4S:

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Low battery life is one of the major issues for early iPhone 4S owners who constantly searching answers on Support Communities forum. Thus far Apple has remained silent about the matter. It appears that the problem is also affecting some iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, suggesting that it is rather a software defect than a hardware problem.

iDownloadBlog reports on interesting remedy that helped some users to improve the battery performance. The Setting Time Zone feature in iOS 5 appears to cause excess power consumption as the device repeatedly detect user location to set the time zone. To turn off this functionality, open Settings App, go to Location Services, System Services and disable the Setting Time Zone function.To make your iPhone last more, you may also want to switch off Diagnostics & Usage and Location-Based iAds in this menu.

Apple offers this advice to improve battery life of your iPhone:

“Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down)”.

Macworld’s mentions launching a system diagnostic app in order to pinpoint which unnecessary processes are running in the background and discover the cause of rapid battery drain.

Since the iPhone 4S launch, some users have complained about battery life issues. Apple actually reduced the battery life in a standby mode from 300 hours on previous iPhone model to 200 hours on the iPhone 4S, but battery life in active mode was considered to be the same or even better.

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iPhone 4S back camera is really good. Better lens, many megapixels. However the iPhone 4S back camera really benefits from the new A5 chip, that has image signal processor unit responsible for nice real-time image processing, including face detection, white balance and automatic image stabilization. The difference between shaky iPhone 4 clips and smooth stabilized iPhone 4S footage really makes all the difference

Check out iPhone 4S versus iPhone 4 video footage comparison:

Here is another video comparing iPhone 4S with Canon EOS 500D (T1i):

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