News tagged ‘Europe’

According to Reuters, an executive of Orange has confirmed the French carrier is backing Apple’s plans for a new standard to make SIM cards smaller in order to use them in future thinner mobile devices. The proposed standard aims at reducing the size of SIM cards, which are currently implemented as “micro” models in the iPhone 4 and iPad.

We were quite happy to see last week that Apple has submitted a new requirement to (European telecoms standards body) ETSI for a smaller SIM form factor — smaller than the one that goes in iPhone 4 and iPad,” said Anne Bouverot, Orange’s head of mobile services.

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Bloomberg reports that Samsung now countersues Apple in the Unites Stated. Samsung already sued Apple in Europe and Asia for patent infringement in technologies like power conservation and 3G data transmission, in response to Apple’s lawsuit accusing Samsung of coping iPad and iPhone design with its Galaxy series devices.

In the U.S. complaint, Samsung accuses Apple of violating patents that “relate to fundamental innovations that increase mobile device reliability, efficiency, and quality, and improve user interface in mobile handsets and other products.”

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This week Morgan Stanley analyst Kate Huberty released "10-Q Tidbits", conclusions based on Apple's 10-Q form filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Kate found that Apple is going to spend $11 billion on components and other purchases in the March quarter, which is a record $3,1 billion (39%) increase in comparison to the end of 2010.

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iPad 2 was expected to hit Europe on March 25th. However Czech Republic iPad website now shows that iPad 2 will be available April 25, so they might just got pushed back a month. (for those not in the know, Dubna=April).

The Independent has reported that Apple informed its European partners that the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology wouldn’t be used in the future iPhones and iPads to allow customers to use those devices to make purchases at retail stores.

The new iPhone will not have NFC, Apple told the operators it was concerned by the lack of a clear standard across the industry.

Although the fact that Apple isn’t going to implement NFC technology into iPhone 5 does not mean Apple isn’t working on their own NFC service for a 2012 launch.

Apple is understood to be working on its own NFC proposition, which would link payments through iTunes. It hopes to introduce the technology in a handset likely to be released next year.

Today Apple should start delivering its sealed product line of MacBooks Pro to brick-and-mortar stores of its largest European resellers, according to the information sent by the company to those resellers last weekend.

But February, 21st is also a President's Day in the US, and Apple has been avoiding launching major products on federal holidays, so the partners were told that an official announcement will follow shortly after shipments will be delivered, according to AppleInsider that in turn cites a person familiar with the matter. It was also reported that Apple has vocalized its right to cancel reseller licenses from those dealers who will tamper with the sealed shipment before the announcement will be made.

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According to The New York Times, Apple has forbidden all developers including Sony to sell content or provide access to purchases outside its iOS App Store.

After that Apple rejected a Sony Reader iPhone application, as it allowed users to buy and read electronic books from the Sony Reader Store. So now all in-app purchases must go through Apple, president of Sony's digital reading division Steve Haber told.

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A new job listing appeared on Apple’s website. Now the company is looking for LTE 4G connectivity expert. This is the first time LTE is mentioned among the “specific duties” for an applicant.

Specific Duties

- Implementation, Integration, customization, enhancement and maintenance of L1-3 Protocols for one or more of the following air interface: GSM/UMTS, CDMA (1x/EVDO), LTE etc.

Job listings often provide good indications that Apple is working on a new feature, which might be implemented in Apple’s devices in the feature. Moreover, US carriers are updating their networks to provide support for 4G network and some European carriers confirms that they start working with LTE during 2012 and 2013.

Frank Muller, a luxury fashion brand well-know in Europe, makes great and really expensive accessories. Recently the brand launched a new line of iPhone 4 cases, which is manufactured in Europe and distributed though Japanese carrier Softbank. Soon the cases will be available for pre-order. This series will be produced as limited edition, 6 different models manufactured 500 times each. Each case will cost $1270. It’s more than the iPhone 4 price.

Yesterday Apple reported its best quarter in the company's history. That what numbers tell and Apple's CEO Steve Jobs said at the beginning of a conference call:

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales. We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

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White iPhone 4 will be available starting February 27th according to Best Buy inventory system and Vodaphone Europe. Rumors say that both 16 GB and 32 GB model will be present.

This week Google has released a new version of its client app for Android Market, which will work on any smartphone running Android OS 1.6 or higher.

The company aims to facilitate the process of discovering new software and its purchase. That's why new Android Market will have a Cover Flow-like style of app listings and include new categories like Widgets and Live Wallpapers, as currently the catalog is filled pretty much with these kinds of software. Besides that, app pages will now have more info and links to related content.

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DisplaySearch has published results of their research, which reveals that Apple is the number one mobile PC manufacturer in North America and third overall in the world. But these results are given for all Apple’s mobile computers, so the iPad alone gets 8% of mobile computer shipments in the third quarter alone. Of course, that percentage will be increased, because Apple pushes their device into other markets, such as Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Hewlett-Packard’s mobile PCs remained number one with 17.3 percent of the market share. Acer came in second with 16.5 percent. Apple finished third with 12.4 percent. Noteworthy that HP and Acer market shares are only getting smaller.

As you may know, today's StatCounter published its fresh report based on web analytics about mobile users. Unfortunately, StatCounter can monitor only web traffic, but not the way the smartphones are being used. However, the results of such research can offer many different data that can be organized in different ways.

For example, a vendor of network server monitoring tools Pingdom also took the Statcounter's results but analyzed only mobile OS usage, including the stats for iPod touch (iPad wasn't included). It was found that though the sales of Android-based smartphones have overtaken the sales of the iPhone in the US, such a statement does not take into account the fact that iPod touch is the most popular portable media player, and it is also based on iOS, which makes the latter the most popular mobile OS in the country.

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The Chinese Economy Daily News reports that the Apple's next generation iPad will add 5 distinct new features, including:

• Video phone
• Better mobility
• USB port
• New display technology
• 3-axis gyroscope

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