News tagged ‘U.S.’

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revealed a patent application from Apple entitled "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device." The invention describes methods to identify users through a picture, the sound of their voice, or even their heartbeat.

"The photograph, recording, or heartbeat can be compared to a photograph, recording or heartbeat of authorized users of the electronic device to determine whether they match," the application reads. "If they do not match, the current user can be detected as an unauthorized user."

If an unauthorized user were to attempt to access an iPhone or another device, the owner of the handset could be notified via a phone call, text message or e-mail. It could send the owner - or the police - a picture of the unauthorized user, or other information specific to the potential thief.

The handset could recognize an unauthorized user if they do certain uncharacteristic activities with the phone, such as hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or removing a SIM card.

New report published in the San Jose Mercury News reveals that recently Apple’s global supply manager Paul Shin Devine was accused by the US Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation in a fraud scheme. It is claimed that Devine was using his security clearance to obtain confidential information about Apple’s upcoming products and provide it to the company’s suppliers. The latter then used the info to make favorable deals with Apple and after that paid Devine kickbacks. One of the suppliers was Andrew Ang from Singapore, who is also named in the indictment as an accomplice, as Devine was sharing his kickbacks with him.

To receive payments Devine held a series of accounts inside and outside the US. Payments were marked as “samples” so no attention was attracted. Bank accounts were registered under his and his wife’s names. It is reported that sometimes Devine received bribes on the meetings with suppliers in Asia.

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Last week organization Americans for Fair Patent Use filed a lawsuit in a U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas. Apple, Samsung Telecommunications America, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. are named as the defendants. The lawsuit says that these companies produce and/or sell falsely marked products with a patents that are expired or do not cover these marked products, with a purpose "to deceive the public about the patent coverage for their products."

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More news from Steve Jobs’ outbox: even due to the very high demand for the iPhone 4 in the U.S., the device launch won’t be delayed in Canada.

A customer has sent an e-mail to Steve Jobs, asking

Has the Canadian iPhone 4 release date been pushed back to august due to such high demand in the U.S.?

Steve Jobs’ laconic reply was negative.

Good news!

In spite of the problems with ordering and receiving, the iPhone 4 has enjoyed a really successful launch across the world. The first place for the iPhone 4 to go on sale was Japan, with more than 300 people lining up at the main store for Softbank, the mobile carrier for the iPhone 4 in Japan. By early afternoon all the devices in stock had been sold.

The next countries to launch the new device were Germany, France and the UK, with the U.S. East coast following them shortly afterwards. At most of the places the lines were incredibly long – actually the longest for any iPhone release.

According to Mobile Mix Survey, conducted in May by advertising agency Millennial Media, 56% of all developers in the USA write software for Apple’s mobile platform iOS. This is almost as twice as more than Google’s Android developers. 5% goes to Nokia’s Symbian and 4% of devs work on software for RIM’s BlackBerry OS.

But there are more surprising facts unveiled in the survey.

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So today is the day when iPhone 4 becomes available for preorder in the U.S., Germany, France, Japan and the U.K.

The Apple's site reveals that the white model is currently unavailable, which was explained by yesterday's AT&T memo, where it is said that supplies may be scarce at launch. The AT&T site reveals that white iPhone 4 is "coming soon", though it is disclosed in the memo that the company's stores will actually take reservations for white model, but it will be shipped later this summer.

Anyway, black iPhone 4 and 8GB iPhone 3GS may be freely preordered, and then picked up in stores or shipped directly to your home on June 24.

The price for iPhone 4 with a two-year contract with AT&T in the USA is $199 for 16GB model and $299 for 32GB model.

The price for unlocked iPhone is €629 for 16GB model and €739 for 32GB model in France, the prices for U.K. customers were revealed earlier.

Today, Apple announced that iPhone 4 is available for purchase through Apple's online UK store. The good news is that there are unlocked versions. The prices are £499 and £599 for 16 GB and 32 GB versions respectively.

Special pricing like in the U.S. and contract with carriers will be also available.

According to CNET, Wal-Mart had confirmed information about carrying new iPhone in its stores beginning on June 24. It is a first time when Wal-Mart will start selling Apple's device on its official launch day. The price will be slightly undercut - $197 and $297 for 16GB and 32GB versions respectively.

Wal-Mart has gained much attention recently when it was announced that after iPhone 4 launch the company will start selling 16GB iPhone 3GS with a two-year contract for only $97. Currently it is unknown whether Wal-Mart will continue to sell 8GB versions of 3GS model in the next quarter or not.

The growing list of retailers in the U.S. also includes RadioShack and Best Buy, which will also be carrying iPhone 4 at launch.

New report published by Reuters reveals that Hulu is finally coming to the iPad and a bunch of other non-PC devices.

Unfortunately, there is little information other than that, but previous rumors indicated that the service will be subscription-based for those who want to have an access to a library of older content, and a library of newer episodes and randoms will be free.

It is likely that Hulu for the Xbox 360 console will be presented at next week's E3 gaming expo.

As you remember Hulu is a service that offers commercial-supported streaming video of movies and TV shows for users in the U.S.

Nielsen revealed the results of a new poll of 11,734 U.S. users that claims Apple is the No.2 smartphone maker with 28% market share of mobile devices, thus gaining 2% in compare with the previous quarter. The biggest share belongs to Research In Motion, which has 35% with its Blackberries. Other smartphone makers are showed on the pictures below.

It is interesting that study reveals most of the Android and iPhone users are male, and Android users are younger, less educated and less wealthy. If only 28% of Android users earn $100,000 every year, there are 40% of iPhone users that have the same income. 34% of all smartphone users have six-figure salaries.

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Starting from today Google allows looking for iPhone apps on its mobile search page. The feature was announced on its official Mobile Blog. The idea, according to software engineers Paul Hadfield and Milena Nikolic, was to help users quickly download a necessary application while searching information about it.

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Gene Munster, who is an analyst at Piper Jaffray, told yesterday that Steve Jobs won't allegedly make a surprise with presentation of the next generation iPhone at the WorldWide Developer Conference 2010. Because of numerous prototype leaks everybody expects the iPhone 4G to have thinner design, front-facing camera, improved battery and 5MP rear camera. But Gene claimed people should not expect that a Verizon-compatible model will be presented.

"We believe that it is unlikely that the next generation iPhone will be available at Verizon (or Sprint) at launch; rather, it is more likely that it remains exclusively available at AT&T in the U.S. at launch".

He also said Apple may start selling iPhone 3GS for $99 instead of iPhone 3G and provide a "limited demo" of new version of Mac OS X (10.7), that has all chances to support multi-touch technology as a key feature. But as we wrote before it looks like WWDC2010 will focus mainly on iPhone OS 4.0 so the preview of Mac OS X 10.7 will not allegedly happen.

Gene is assured that the presentation of iPhone 4G will have a positive influence on Apple's stock.

"...the new iPhone will likely drive unit sales beyond Street expectations, providing a positive catalyst for shares of AAPL in the coming months."

Yesterday we posted information about smartphone sales in the last quarter 2010, and as you remember Android-based phones become more popular than iPhones. Now it became known that Apple's spokespeople commented on this data.

In its research NPD group studied over 150,000 completed surveys, that were undertaken online every month in America. Apple's representative Natalie Harrison thinks it is not enough data to make precise conclusions:

"This is a very limited report on 150,000 U.S. consumers responding to an online survey and does not account for the more than 85 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide."

It is unknown why Harrison mentioned iPod touch when discussion was about smartphones market, but according to Reunters last week Harrison had referred to the IDC research. The latter also reveals that Apple losing its positions, but this time worldwide, with Nokia and BlackBerry sales ahead in first and second spots respectively.

Apple had recently announced that the iPad will be shipped to Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom on Friday, May 28. The delay for approximately a month was caused by a strong demand for the iPad in the United States. Preorders will begin on Monday, May 10, for both Wi-Fi and 3G models.

Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Mexico, Singapore and New Zealand will receive iPads in July. Precise date will be announced by Apple later.

International prices for iPad:

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