Posts tagged with "apple"

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.

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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]

Pioneer AppRadio To Bring Apps And Deep iOS Integration To The Car

A new Pioneer car audio system is set to feature its own app system that also ties in with iOS devices and put it all on a very stylish iPad-eque front panel. The official FCC filing and a leak to CrunchGear reveals the Pioneer AppRadio, with a 6.1” display and an iOS-style home button in the center, will be loaded with specialised apps from Pandora Radio and iHeartRadio to GPS mapping software and traditional AM/FM radio.

In what is surely a sign of the times, Pioneer will not be including any optical drive in the device, opting instead for USB, RCA and S-Video inputs. CrunchGear contends in its report that the audio system will likely talk to iPhones and iPods through the USB interface for music as well as contacts and even some apps. The device also doesn’t have any internet access on its own and will likely rely on smartphones such as an iPhone to provide mobile connectivity for some of the internet apps such as Pandora.

To avoid problems surrounding distracted driving, the Pioneer AppRadio will also come with a steering wheel-mounted remote control as an option. Based on the FCC filing and the rumor, the AppRadio is believed to be “about ready” but no specific release date or pricing is yet known.

[Via Electronista]

Rumor: Apple’s Cloud Music Service Won’t Be Free

A new report by Cnet today claims Apple will charge users a fee for its rumored cloud-based music service, although no exact details on pricing have been provided. Citing “music industry insiders”, Cnet says Apple could offer the service free of charge initially as a promotion, but eventually they’ll have to charge users to keep the service running and pay music labels. It’s unclear whether the new cloud service will offer different kinds of monthly and annual subscriptions, although Cnet points to an old report that suggested Apple could go for a $20/year fee.

Don’t expect Apple’s cloud-music service to come free of charge, at least not forever.

Apple plans to eventually charge for its cloud music service, sources told CNET. Users would be able to store their digital media on the company’s servers.

Music industry insiders told me that Apple has indicated it could offer the service free of charge initially but that company will eventually require a fee. Google is also expected to charge for a similar service.

Several reports in the past weeks indicated Apple was working on a complete MobileMe revamp featuring new cloud-based music functionalities, social and location features, as well as a new price point to make basic parts of the service (such as syncing options) free for all iOS and Mac users. Last week, it was reported work on Apple’s new music service had been finalized, with the company seeking to close deals with music labels to push ahead the release of its new iTunes-in-the-cloud offering. Cnet also claimed Apple had signed a deal with the Warner Music Group, whilst Peter Kafka at MediaMemo said Apple had already closed deals with at least two of the four major music labels, with Apple’s Eddy Cue visiting New York City to ink the remaining deals.

No Revenue? No Problem. Apple Could Survive On Cash Reserves ‘Til 2018→

No Revenue? No Problem. Apple Could Survive On Cash Reserves ‘Til 2018

At the Q2 2011 earnings call, Apple announced its cash stockpile had increased by $6.1 billion, totaling $65.8 billion by the end of the March quarter. Asymco’s Horace Dediu decided to take a look at these numbers to put things in perspective, and came out with some interesting facts about Apple’s current cash. For instance, if Apple’s revenue stopped completely, its cash would keep operations going for at least 7 years until mid-2018 – that is, if Apple suddenly stopped generating any kind of revenue. If you consider, though, that Apple will keep selling millions of products in the next months, and that the cash pile will continue growing bigger, you get an idea of how cash allows the company to invest in pre-payment deals, or research & development for new breakthrough devices like the iPad. Other tidbits from Asymco’s research:

The funds are big enough to place Apple’s CFO office in the top 100 largest fund managers in the world and larger than any hedge fund manager.

Current cash is worth more than Nokia, RIM and Motorola Mobility’s market caps, put together.

Apple’s cash is worth half of Google’s enterprise value.

With the release of the white iPhone 4, more iPad 2 shipments and rumored iMac and MacBook Air updates on their way, we wonder what the chart above will look like after Apple’s Q3 2011 results. [via GigaOM]

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iPhone 6 To Use Next-Gen Thinner Displays from Sharp?

Japanese newspaper Nikkan is today reporting that Apple may have made a display component deal with Sharp for the display of the sixth-generation iPhone. It is based on reports that Sharp has begun preparation for the start of manufacturing in Spring next year at its Kameyama plant in Japan for an iPhone display using next-generation technologies.

Sharp will reportedly be producing “low temperature poly-silicon technology” displays, a next generation technology that will allow displays to be thinner and lighter whilst consuming less power than a current LCD display. The key component of these new displays is the polycrystalline silicon, which enables display drivers to be mounted directly onto the glass and thus have a thinner display. Other advantages of the technology include displaying a more vivid image and enhanced durability because of a reduced number of connecting pins.

Previous rumors had circulated that Apple had sided with Toshiba for future display manufacturing – but a Sharp representative disputed this at the time. In a similar vein, Tim Cook commented in January at the Q1 earnings call that Apple had entered a $3.9 billion component supply deal. He didn’t specify what component it was for, but it was speculated that it was for high-resolution displays and that the deal was between Toshiba, Sharp and a third manufacturer. Sharp was also at the center of another display rumor back in January in which they were supposedly preparing to manufacture glasses-free 3D displays for the iPod Touch.

[Nikkan [Google Translate] via AppleInsider]

 

Android Strides Ahead In US Smartphone Market Share

A new market survey by Nielson in the United States has shown Android drive ahead and gain 37% of the smartphone market share, a strong 10% margin over Apple and the iPhone which sits in second place at 27%. The figures show a significant change since the last Nielson survey, done in October that had the iPhone with the largest smartphone market share at 27.9% and BlackBerry in second place at 27.4%. Android has largely absorbed the 5.4% market share BlackBerry lost as well as the decreasing share of Symbian and older Windows Mobile devices to go from 22.7% in October to its 37% market share in March.

The survey also revealed that Android is now the most desired smartphone operating system for consumers, with 31.1% of consumers surveyed saying they would choose an Android phone compared with 30% who would go with an iPhone. In both the market share and desired operating system, Android is showing significant increases whilst Apple is seeing minor reductions compared to others such as BlackBerry or Symbian.

A final aspect of the survey was what recent smartphone acquisitions were and it reveals that 50% of all new smartphones purchased were running Android, whilst 25% were iPhones and 15% were BlackBerry phones. It is worth noting that this survey was solely focused on smartphones and as such did not include reference to the other iOS devices such as the iPod Touch or iPad. Jump the break for two more graphs.

[Via AllThingsD]

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