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Posts tagged with "apple"

Square Set To Add Encryption To Next Generation Of Card Readers

Yesterday Square revealed that it had received from financial services superpower, Visa, strategic investment of an unspecified size. However in a lower key announcement it also revealed that this summer they will be releasing a new card reader that uses encryption on the read head.

You may recall the little squabble a few months back where VeriFone and Square traded blows over whether the Square card reader was secure enough. VeriFone claimed it wasn’t and that Square should recall all their readers because thieves could easily skim credit card information using the device. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square, hit back at VeriFone saying it was “not a fair or accurate claim and [that] it overlooks all of the protections already built into your credit card.”

Yet despite all that, Square will soon be addressing those “concerns” that VeriFone had, and release a card reader that employs encryption. The Square COO, Keith Rabois, notes that they are adopting Visa’s newly released (yesterday) mobile application best practices. He says that the “adoption of best practices will help increase trust in innovative payment solutions” although equally stresses that Square currently complies with all industry standards. TechCrunch rightly highlights that it is clearly no coincidence that Square’s endorsement of Visa’s best practices came on the same day as their funding announcement.

TechCrunch inquired as to whether users would have to replace their current readers but Rabois declined to comment specifically but he did continue to affirm Square’s previous rejection of VeriFone’s demand to recall the Square readers. Rabois also noted that encryption will not be the only new feature of the third iteration of readers coming this summer.

[Via TechCrunch]

White iPhone 4 Sells Out In Hong Kong And Beijing

It was delayed and delayed for 10 months but yesterday the white iPhone 4 went on sale…and promptly sold out in Hong Kong and Beijing where there were long lines around Apple stores and resellers. Some shoppers in Hong Kong began queuing up at midnight the day before, and they are probably glad they did, in some stores in China the device was gone within an hour.

It was a different and much more subdued affair in the US where few, if any lines were reported at Apple Stores, and as far as we are aware most stores should still have stock. Although on the online Apple Store there is a 3-5 day wait before shipping for the white model, with the black model shipping in the standard 24 hours.

No one is really sure why the white iPhone 4 sold out in China and not in the US but one could guess at a few factors from the white being more preferred, less stock given to Chinese stores or perhaps an increasing appeal of Apple in China. In any case its an early sign of the expected rapid retail sales growth of Apple products in China which Forbes predicts will propel Apple shares upwards.

[Via Cult of Mac]

 

Zynga Acquires UK Developer Wonderland Software

Zynga is becoming a growing powerhouse for casual and mobile gaming and their latest acquisition of Wonderland Software further demonstrates their tenacity to expand. Wonderland software is perhaps best known for making GodFinger – which was published by Ngmoco as freemium iOS title.

As a result of the acquisition, Wonderland Software has been rebranded as Zynga Mobile UK and it is pretty clear that Zynga’s intention is to use the company and resources to build out Zynga’s brand and developer network in the UK for mobile and social games. The buyout of Wonderland Software follows the earlier acquisition of Area/Code (developers of Drop7), which now head up Zynga New York and also NewToy (developers of Words with Friends), which was rebranded as Zynga with Friends.

[Via TUAW]

Samsung Doesn’t Give Up, Counter-Sues Apple In The United States

Samsung is not giving up. After countersuing Apple in Europe and Asia for patent infringement in technologies like power conservation and 3G data transmission as a legal action against Apple’s lawsuit (which claimed the company copied the iPhone and iPad “look & feel” with the Galaxy series devices), Samsung is now suing Apple in the United States as well, as reported by Bloomberg. According to Samsung, Apple is infringing 10 patents related to mobile phones with its iOS devices, and whilst it’s clear that Samsung is simply trying to defense itself and counterattack to Apple’s original lawsuit, it’s still interesting to notice the cellphone maker is committed to broadening the litigation to the US, with documents filed yesterday in federal court in San Jose, California.

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.”

The patented technology includes ways that a phone allows calls and Internet surfing at the same time; improvements in how text messages and attachments are sent; reductions in interference among mobile devices; and increases in the capacity of mobile networks, according to the complaint.

At the Q2 2011 earnings call, Apple’s COO Tim Cook said Samsung is an important partner to Apple’s supply chain (the company provides chips used in the iPhone and iPad), but he also stated that the mobile division of Samsung “crossed a line” and, after several attempts to resolve the situation without going to court, Apple felt like it was time to sue to protect their intellectual properties.

Samsung, which received the second-highest number of U.S. patents last year after International Business Machines Corp., is seeking an order to prevent further use of its innovations by Apple, plus cash compensation.

“Apple continues to violate Samsung’s patent rights by using these patented technologies without a license,” Samsung said in the lawsuit.

Both companies are trying to protect their IP by seeking orders to pay up for infringements and block further use of patented technologies, but as the lawsuits extends to outside the US and Samsung countersues Apple, we’ll only see a final decision or settlement years from now. But in the meantime, Samsung has decided that it’s time to move and sue Apple in its own territory.

Report: Apple Grabs 74% Of Tablet Market

According to a new report by research firm Canalys, in the first quarter of 2011 Apple grabbed 74% of the worldwide tablet market. Canalys is the first firm to include tablets and, more specifically, the iPad in total PC shipments, and as the PC market grew 7% overall in Q1, the research group notes how the most impressive growth was reported by Apple.

Taking into consideration the iPad’s ‘halo effect’ on the company’s other products, Apple has grown considerably in most markets worldwide,’ said Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling. ‘As the iPad 2 and its competitors continue to roll out, we expect pad sales to propel PC market growth for the rest of the year.

Apple continued with its strategy to dominate the pad market, with the iPad or iPad 2 available in 59 markets by the end of Q1. A combination of strong Q4 sales and the announcement of the iPad 2’s launch across major markets at the end of March contributed to Apple’s iPad shipments being down 31% sequentially. The full impact of the iPad 2 launch will not register until subsequent quarters, as Apple gets the product into the hands of consumers.

Apple positioned #4 in worldwide total PC shipments behind HP, Acer and Dell, shipping 8.5 million computers & tablets in Q1, as opposed to 2.9 million Mac shipments in the year-ago quarter. Whilst Dell was the only PC vendor of the three ahead of Apple to post positive growth in the quarter with a 2.8% increase, Apple reported a 187.9% growth with Macs and iPads combined.  Canalys notes tablet shipments reached 6.4 million units in the quarter, with Apple grabbing 74% of the market. In their Q2 2011 earnings call for the quarter that ended on March 26th, Apple posted record revenue of $24.67 billion with 4.69 million iPads and 3.76 million Macs sold. iPad shipments are expected to grow in Apple’s Q3 as suppliers recover from the Japanese disaster and are able to meet demand of tablet components such as LCD displays and RAM.

Three Foxconn Employees Arrested for Leaking iPad 2 Design

In the months leading to the iPad 2 announcement, several “leaked” case designs coming from China and Taiwan seemed to provide good indication of what the device would look like. These cases were all based on the same design principles such as tapered edges, thinner body and flat back, clearly suggesting manufacturers had access to the same design documents that were quickly spreading across the tech industry. Digitimes reports today Chinese-language publication sznews.com claims three Foxconn employees were arrested and charged for violating Foxconn’s trade secrets and leaking the iPad 2 design weeks before Apple’s announcement.

Several online shopping retailers in China were able to sell iPad 2’s protective case products before the iPad 2 was even launched, leading Foxconn to suspect that there might have been some employees leaking the design of iPad 2 which it reported to the local police.

The local police on December 26, 2010, arrested three employees that were suspected of leaking the design, and officially charged the three employees for violating the company’s trade secrets on March 23, 2011, the reported added.

Foxconn assembles several Apple products such as iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. It’s not the first time products leaks from China have offered a glimpse of future Apple devices months ahead of the official launch, but you might remember the situation last year with case designs for the iPad 2 coming out every few days was pretty bad for Apple. Foxconn also announced its plans to invest in a $12 billion facility in Brazil, and start iPad production there in November.

Apple, Location Services & The “Improved Traffic Service”

In Apple’s official response to the location tracking issue uncovered by security researchers last week, an interesting tidbit seems to confirm that the company is seriously committed to delivering improved mapping and navigation software to iPhone users by focusing on building a new “traffic service” to roll out publicly in the next couple of years. From the Q&A:

What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

The wording of the statement isn’t clear (some suggest “traffic” may be related to “internet traffic” according to specific locations), but let’s just play along and assume it’s linked to the turn-by-turn navigation software and new mapping features for iOS devices Apple has been rumored to be working on for a very long time. If “traffic” is related to navigation and mobile maps, there’s plenty room for speculation after today’s press release: in the past years, several job listings on Apple’s website hinted at open positions in the iOS team for map engineers and navigation experts, suggesting that Apple was working on its own proprietary solution to ditch Google Maps on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The acquisitions of mapping companies Placebase and Poly9 in 2009 and 2010, respectively, gave some credence to the reports that pointed at Apple willing to become the next major player in the mobile mapping scene. Read more

Apple Responds To Location Log Scrutiny With Extensive Q&A Response

Apple has today responded to the intense media scrutiny over the iPhone and 3G iPad location log that researchers claimed logged extensive data, by posting a lengthy Q&A response. Jump the break for the full Q&A.

In its response Apple categorically states that “Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone” and differentiates that the location log exists as a database to of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location so that when requested, current location data can be given quickly without waiting on the GPS which can take “up to several minutes” to calculate. By leveraging on Wi-Fi hotspots the iPhone can triangulate its location “within seconds”, these calculations are done with a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell tower data that is “generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.”

A portion of the crowd-sourced data (relevant to your location) is downloaded to the iPhone, and is left unencrypted - this is what the researchers discovered. “The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone”.

However Apple notes there are several issues that they plan to address in a coming software update in the coming weeks. These include ceasing the practice of syncing that location cache to a computer, reduce the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data stored on the iPhone and delete the cache when Location services is turned off. The cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone in the software update.

Apple also addresses related privacy concerns, noting that “Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.”. In particular it states that it does build a crowd-sourced traffic database but this is anonymised, as is everything else sent to Apple and as such can not be used to identify individual users. Furthermore third parties gain access to crash logs (which are anonymised) and the iAds system can use location to target specific ads, but this information is not sent to advertisers.

Jump the break for the full Q&A.

Read more

Zite Receives Update, CEO Discusses What’s Next

Zite, one of those ‘personal iPad magazines’ like Flipboard or the newer News.me, received an update yesterday that adds an in-app browser, better clipboard support and some much appreciated performance improvements.

TUAW spoke to the new Zite CEO, Mark Johnson, who used to work at Microsoft. He said that they were pleased with the success of the app, with positive reviews and over 100,000 downloads since launching. Customization, he says, is an oft-cited request by users and he said they are working towards adding more options and flexibility to the news sections. Interestingly, the Zite team is also working on a web version, improving the offline reading abilities and reducing the incidence of duplicate articles in the news stream.

In its initial launch, Zite received some cease and desists from various publishers around the web because of Zite’s ad removal. They have since accommodated the publishers concerns by adding a direct link and Johnson has said that this has quelled publisher’s concerns. You can download Zite from the iPad App Store for free.

[Via TUAW]