Posts tagged with "apple"

New Apple Patents: Multitouch Display On Mouse, Heart Monitor for Music

A new day, new Apple patents surface on the Internet. Unlike most days when we get to know the latest inventions the teams at Cupertino have been awarded, today’s design embodiments and ideas are fairly interesting and not so much projected in the future like a touch-based iMac could be. As reported by Patently Apple, a new patent shows two new possible touch input systems that might soon replace our usual mice and physical keyboards.

The patent applications reveal a mouse equipped with a multitouch display capable of visualizing information and virtual keys such as a numeric pad on the device’s surface. The mouse would still come with standard features like soft left / right buttons, but in the middle there would be place for a display carrying an additional interface for users. Read more

Apple Sues Nokia Again In The U.K.

Back in September of last year, Apple sued Nokia in the U.K. over 9 patent infringements for technologies developed by engineers in Cupertino. The Finnish company had already sued Apple in the U.S., U.K., Germany and the Netherlands over 37 patent infringements claiming that Apple “owed it royalties for using Nokia technology that allows such basic mobile tasks as sending email or downloading applications”.

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has fired back in High Court in London challenging one of the seven patents filed by Nokia in its lawsuit against Apple in Germany. The patent covers scrolling on touch-enabled devices:

Apple Inc., maker of the iPad tablet and iPhone, sued Nokia Oyj in the U.K. over claims that one of the Finnish company’s European patents for scrolling technology on touch-screen handsets is invalid.

“Nokia is confident that all of the 37 patents it has asserted against Apple” are valid, Durrant said in the e-mail. “We are examining the filing and will take whatever actions are needed to protect our rights.

The lawsuit is another piece in the complicated puzzle of patent infringement claims that are going around between Apple, HTC, Motorola and Nokia, among others. Perhaps this can help.

Leaked Screenshot of Internal iPhone with Gestures?

Well after the 4.3 Beta that previewed multitasking gestures on the iPad, there is now some supposed evidence that suggests that the iPhone is also being considered by Apple to have gestures thanks to an internal build that BGR claims to have gotten some screenshots of.

Obviously there is an issue with the supposedly leaked pictures, gestures on the iPhone would likely have to be different to those previewed on the iPad that used four or five finger swipes because they would be pretty unreasonable to use on the iPhone’s smaller screen. That said it remains possible that the text is left over from the iPad and whilst being tested internally has not been edited to reflect the iPhone’s gestures.

Engadget notes that information from it sources says that since the lost iPhone 4 debacle Apple made significant changes to how it keeps track of it’s devices and that it added clauses to screens saying “Confidential and Proprietary, if found, please contact…” listing a Cupertino 408 number. The photo’s BGR have gotten a hold have this message, adding credence to this leak. All three pictures posted after the break.

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New iOS Features? An Apple Social Network? Photo Stream and Media Stream

Digging into the latest iOS 4.3 beta build seeded to developers a few hours ago, we found references to two new features related to MobileMe called “Photo Stream” and “Media Stream”. There are several files, folders and code references buried deep into iOS that point to these new features as part of MobileMe and accessible through a device’s Settings.app.

As detailed by the folks over at 9to5mac, who also found out about these new features and went ahead to discover more of the implications of “Photo Stream” and “Media Stream” in iOS, Apple may be working on a serious MobileMe overhaul to offer social networking functionalities that would allow Apple to directly fight Facebook in the future, perhaps with iOS 5, with a social network built into iOS and tied to MobileMe and the Cloud. Read more

Apple Enters $3.9 Billion Dollar Component Supply Deal

At Apple’s financial report yesterday there was an interesting revelation by Tim Cook that Apple had recently begun entering agreements with suppliers of key components. The agreement is presumed to be around $3.9 billion dollars and would secure the key strategic resources used in Apple’s products going into the future and there are suggestions it’s for high resolution displays.

As to what components are being secured, Cook didn’t elaborate but did say the deals were similar in nature to the flash memory deals of late 2005. That deal, and subsequent deals around flash memory secured supply for many of Apple’s portable devices including the iPhone and more recently the iPad.

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Apple’s 2011: iPad Bigger Than Macs, And Yet The Mac Is Growing

Apple’s Q1 2011 financial results are both unsurprising and, quite frankly, incredible. We all expected Apple to post record, blockbuster sales and revenue figures after the holiday season; yet, seeing the numbers on Apple’s official press release is a completely different story. Apple sold more than 7 million iPads in the last quarter, 16.2 million iPhones and more than 4 million Macs. Apple’s iPod business is “in decline” with 19.4 million iPods sold, but the iPod hasn’t been Appel’s main and only mobile business for four years now. Read more

Apple Q1 2011 Financial Results - $26.74 Billion Revenue, 7.33 Million iPads Sold

Apple just posted their Q1 2011 financial results. The company posted a record revenue of $26.74 billion with 7.33 million iPads sold, 16.24 million iPhones and 4.13 million Macs. The company posted record net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share. 19.45 million iPods were sold during the quarter.

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “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.”

“We couldn’t be happier with the performance of our business, generating $9.8 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $22 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.90.”

In the last quarter, Apple posted record iPhone and Mac sales with 14.1 million iPhone sold, 3.89 million Macs and 4.19 million iPads. The company posted record revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion. In the year-ago quarter, Apple posted revenue of $15.68 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion. 3.36 million Macs were sold in Q1 2010, together with 8.7 million iPhones and 21 million iPods.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2011 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and we’ll update this story with the conference highlights.

Full press release embedded below. Unaudited summary data available here.

Notes from the call:

  • Revenue $26.7 billion, increase over $11 billion over year

- Income $6 billion, over $1,7 billion from year ago quarter

  • Strong demand of new MacBook Air

  • Strong sales of Mac Pro

  • Mac App Store available in 90 countries, doing well with over 1000 apps available

- iPod share remains at over 70% in market, iPod top selling in most countries

  • iTunes: $1.1 billion revenue

- iTunes users are renting over 400,000 TV show episodes, 150,000 movies per day

  • Enterprise: 88 of Fortune 100, 60% of Financial Times Europe testing or deploying iPhones

  • Fortune 500, Wells Fargo, Dupont, Staples, Starbucks made iPhone available to employees

  • iPad now available in 46 countries

    • - 160 million iOS devices sold to date

    • Over 80% of Fortune 500 are deploying or piloting iPad

  • Apple retail: revenue $3.85 billion

  • 851,000 Mac sold at Apple retail stores, half sold to new customers

    • - 323 stores worldwide, 87 outside US

    - 75.7 million customers in Apple retail stores

    - Four stores in China with highest traffic and highest revenue

    • Apple has $59.7 billion in cash now

    - $22 billion in revenue expected for next quarter, 38.5% expected gross margin

    Quotes From Q&A

    Tim Cook: “Very happy with the Mac App Store so far”

    TC: “We believe the results from the Verizon iPhone will be huge”

    TC: “We are working around the clock to build more iPhones”

    TC: Revenue from Greater China (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan) last quarter was $2.6 billion, up 4 times last quarter

    TC: 15 more countries to start selling iPhone in January

    TC: “Commodities – going into March quarter. Key metals pricing increasing but other commodities such as batteries and RAM we expect to fall.”

    TC: “Apple is doing its best work ever. We are all very happy with product pipeline and the team here has an unparalleled breadth and depth that Steve has driven in the company, and excellence has become a habit. We feel very very confident about the future of the company. I would also note that we’ve done outstanding job in our Mac: 19 straight quarters of outgrowing market, but still have a very low share. It would seem like still enormous opportunity there.” [via]

    TC: Apple is not doing a 7-inch tablet, which would be a scaled-up smartphone. It’s a bizarre product.

    TC: “Put Android & Windows tablets side by side with an iPad and an enormous percentage will choose iPad.”

    TC: “Next generation Android tablets - there’s nothing shipping. They lack performance specs, they lack pricing, they lack timing - so today they’re vapor.”

    TC: ” We’re very confident for entering a fight with anyone.”

    Tim Cook on iPad sales Vs. Mac sales: “Yes, I think there is some cannibalization”

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    Ahead of 10 Billion Downloads, Apple Updates “All-Time Top Apps” Page

    The clock’s ticking on the 10 billion app downloads countdown, and Apple has updated its “All-Time Top Apps” page to reflect the changes that have occurred in the App Store in the past 12 months. The iTunes pages that showcase “All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps” and “All-Time Free iPhone Apps” are available here and here, respectively.

    Unsurprisingly, games are among the top paid apps. And by games, we mean Doodle Jump, Angry Birds, Pocket God and Flight Control. Actual “apps” in the top paid list include SoundHound (the music scanning / discovery tool), I Am T-Pain from Smule, Air Sharing from Avatron and Awesome Note. The list is huge as it basically sorts any iPhone app ever released by popularity and sales in the App Store. It is nice, however, to see gems like 1Password, Convertbot and Hipstamatic in the first page.

    As for free apps, the usual Facebook, Pandora, Google and Shazam are the most downloaded apps of all time. Paper Toss, Bump, Skype and AroundMe are in there, too, together with dozens of other games in the first page.

    These charts give us an idea of the trends in the App Store, and the kinds of apps that people want to buy or download for free. Where by “apps” we mean games. [via iSpazio]