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Posts Tagged ‘Apple’

The newest and major version of Microsoft’s operating system Windows 8 has opened this week and has just made one the biggest changes in the platform history.

At a Microsoft’s conference, they have spent more than two hours to discuss in detail the next OS. The software is yet to be released and used by consumers next year. However, a clearer picture of Microsoft’s position to the industry, shifting their purchases from personal desktops to handy notebooks, and now, they’re open to more portable devices like smartphones and tablets.

In other words, Microsoft’s ace in broadening their landscape is Windows 8. It is a powerful product which works on almost all machines with a convenient interface which adapts along the way. With that vision, we can differentiate Microsoft’s purpose to that of Apple’s. Apple has created a different OS for their portable, and kept a different one for their Intel-based devices.

But then, the separation affected consumer’s views on operating systems, the frequency of updates, and introducing of features after years or months of purchase. If OS’ are separated, the maker can iterate quickly, and they could provide major releases every year while still continuing to offer updates on Mac OS X.

For Microsoft, they have been releasing new versions of Windows every few years. But users are more used to having frequent service updates. Apple and Android are proofs of providing users frequent software updates.

After Apple lost a bid on blocking the tablet computers and Galaxy phones in the US, Samsung Electronics Co. sales went up in Seoul trading. The South Korea company continues to be the largest maker of mobile phones in the world.

A gain of 1.5 percent was posted by Samsung at the end of Seoul trading. Kospi Index gained 0.4 percent.

Last December, the District Court in San Jose, California released its verdict on Apple’s plea to block Samsung from selling their Galaxy Tab 10.1 and its 4G smartphones in the US.  They have lifted the sanction on the tablet. The same victory happened in Australia.

Apple and Samsung have went through many suits against each other for the past eight months, on over four continents.

According to Normura Holdings Inc. analysts, Marcello Ahn and C.W Chung, the situation has become positive for Samsung. In fact, at its best case, Samsung will be receiving patent license fees from its rival, Apple.

However, the conflict between the two may probably continue despite the recent San Jose ruling. Analysts believe that a negotiated settlement is still far from the picture.

In Australia, Apple gained a one-week extension on the injunction on Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Meanwhile, it is not only Samsung which faces ban, HTC may face the same case against Apple.  According to a statement released by Forbes, the worst case for HTC may be that after trade commission bans the Android phone during the peak of holidays shopping season, 25% of its market share may drop to as low as zero-percent (0%.)

Apple is now talking on its potential event for 2012. A blog from Wall Street Journal wrote on a media-related event Apple is planning to hold. Kara Swisher of AllThingsD said a source revealed that the event will take place in New York City which was later confirmed by Jim Dalrymple of The Loop.

If you’re thinking of a new version of iPad or the Apple TV everyone’s looking for, this is quite a bad news. The event will not involve a new hardware. AllThingsD pegs the news will be sort of an advertisement or an announcement since it is set in New York.

It may even have to do with the Apple executive Eddy Cue who was recently promoted as senior vice president of the Internet software and services department. His role is to oversee assorted online retail outlets such as iTunes, iBookstore, and App Store as well as monitoring the progress of iCloud and iAd.

Traditionally, Apple’s publishing announcements are held in Apple’s Cupertino home.  But iPad and iPad 2 were both unveiled in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, Google has sponsored for the media hangout center for Iowa Caucus. It will be held at the Polk County Convention Complex. Google is currently persuading political journalists with bean bag chairs and treadmills.

Google has designed their Media Filing Center, co-sponsored with AARP, to cheer up the exhausting days of political blogging on the campaign.  Google also said they have prepared a lot of surprises for the caucus night. Politico’s Mike Allen will also be camping out in the media center.

Google has been attacked by Amazon.com and Apple stating that they are not on the search business.  Google is now preparing a counterattack against Amazon.  As for Apple, Google does not seem to be using full force.

Apple’s search engine Siri has reformed the way users use the Internet. Its elegance has regarded Google’s search engine cumbersome. However, Siri’s availability is only limited to those who have iPhone 4S. The three databases it utilizes are Wolfram Alpha, Yelp, and Wikipedia. But since Siri is still a work in progress, people are expecting to have more specialized databases available in the search engine. Thus, it is expected to deliver better results for search queries than what Google does.

But the indexed searches offered by Google will still pop up in some search queries.  Apple’s Siri can win the business in more lucrative categories like restaurants.

Indeed, Google is working hard to muster a counterattack for Apple. As of now, it has not yet fully developed the plan for said attack since Google is focusing on its business model. Their business still focuses on selling advertisements.  Searching in Google is free of charge. It might be the reason why it only produces links which possibly contain the answers rather than actually producing the answer to the question as what Siri does.

Meanwhile, as Google is prepared to attack Amazon, another party is ready file a lawsuit against Amazon. The case to be filed against Amazon is patent infringement over its way of providing an instant search result. The case was filed by  MaserObjects.  No official statement has been released by MasterObjects.

NTT Docomo denies any agreement made with Apple Inc. Rumors have circulated that Apple Inc. has offered their iPad tablet or iPhone in Japan.

According to Nikkei Business Daily, the two companies have agreed that Docomo will be offering iPad this summer and the iPhone will be available in autumn. Moreover, the deal says Japan’s largest mobile carrier will go on with this deal as soon as their new set-up for high-speed LTE network will be established.

Docomo however states that there were no specific talks regarding the matter.

In another news, insiders averred that Tim Cook, chief of Apple, is supposed to meet with Kiyoyuki Tsujimura, VP of NTT Docomo and Takashi Yamada. This is to finalize an agreement on the specific details such as the minimum volume for shipment.

NTT Docomo has recently launched a new service last September involving Xi 4G.  It is expected to reach a significant coverage by middle of the year.

Meanwhile, ChinaMobile has confirmed that it will be offering iPhone after the LTE plans are finalized. Both networks are left out on iPhone deployments due to implementations of 2G and 3G service in sub-standard.

Looking solely at Japan’s industry, competition has been more intensified as mobile carrier KDDI Corp. has just joined the Softbank Corp to launch the popular iPhone.  By the end of this year’s third quarter, NTT Docomo’s net profit dropped. KDDI and Softbank on the other hand, have seen their net profit increased.

Nintendo, the largest videogame maker in the world decided to cut drastically their annual profit and would give discount to its new handheld device on 3Ds. Nintendo decided to do so since they have been struggling with online game.

Nintendo said they had loss 25.5 billion yen for a period of three months. A year earlier, their sales have dropped 50%. This loss stimulated Nintendo to lessen their annual profit forecast from 110 billion yen to 20 billion yen for the end of the year until March. The exact drop was about 82%. Their annual sales forecast was also cut down to 900 billion yen.

Nintendo had been depending on the sale of their 3DS games. This is the first major latest gaming system since they had released their popular Wii home console. The handheld device enables users to play games which appear in 3-D minus the bulky glasses which is common with the 3-D technology.

However, the projected sales of the 3Ds appeared smaller than expected. This is unfortunately brought by the wrong timing of the release date in Japan during the earthquake crisis they had last March. The company based on Kyoto said they only sold 710,000 units for the past three months. The total number of units sold brought 4.32 million, a number they expected for the first three weeks of selling.

The sales is a sign of increasing competition from other video game companies which try to redefine the industry. Apple gained 200 million from their iPhone and iPad sales. Smartphones also gained profit from running Android OS which offers downloadable games.

C3 Technologies has been recently acquired by Apple Incorporated. This company is capable of producing 3D maps, and Apple may use the technology to come up with their own version of Google Maps or even the Maps version of Bing. Apple acquired the company for 240 million dollars.

Some are speculating that this is a move by Apple to get rid of all Google products in its mobile devices. That is motivated by the fact that the two companies are rivals in the industry of smart phones. Google’s Android OS is very popular and is used by vast number of smart phone products such as HTC, LG, and Motorola and is even used on tablet computers.

On the other hand, it would be disadvantageous for Apple to get rid of Google Maps altogether, because other maps, such as Yahoo Weather doesn’t work in some cities around the world. This is especially true in the nonpopular cities of Asia, including the countries, Thailand, China and the Philippines. Google Maps, on the other hand, is available for all countries including the remotest rural areas of Europe and Asia.

The iOS 5, which is Apple Company’s latest OS, relies heavily on Google as a search engine. It also uses Google Maps as the primary application for Maps. If Apple would pursue no longer using the services of Google, they have to develop their own technology and this would indicate that Apple is continuing its anti Google strategies. So far, available technologies such as Yahoo’s Yelp are not as capable.

Apple has invited the media to pave way for the next generation of iPhone — the rumored iPhone 5.

Since the start of this year, rumors have been spreading across the tech-world of what kind of iPhone Apple will be releasing. People say Apple will only be releasing iPhone 5, while some expects two iPhones with the other one cheaper than the other, and there are some who only expects a cheaper version of iPhone 4S.

There are also speculations on three iPhone models to address three markets — low, mid, and high-end. With this, theories on the cheaper iPhone and how it will fit into Apple’s strategy have begun to flourish as well.

The most prevalent speculation lies only on an update of iPhone 4 into iPhone 4S. The said version is said to serve as an entry level for iPhone5.

Apple released some hints that it might probably release more than one iPhone version, but some Wall Street analysts  are not buying it.

Brian Blair, Wedge Partners analyst, said that people could not expect different iPhone models to address all the markets. If a new model shall be released, then iPhone 4’s price will drop to 99 dollars and will eventually attack those mid-tier and low-end markets.

Furthermore, the analyst questions why Apple would only hit the specs of iPhone 4 processors to iPhone 5 if their goal was to market it at a lower cost.

After Steve Jobs resigned as the chief executive officer of Apple Inc, the company admits they experienced a decline in their shares. Steve Jobs is known as the man who transformed the company from a personal computer company to one of the world’s largest technology company.

When Jobs was no longer part of the company, their shares dropped as much as 7 %.  Jobs, the future chairman of the company filed a medical leave since January 17. He was diagnosed with cancer last 2003 and underwent a liver transplant last 2009.

He was replaced by Tim Cook, the chief operating officer of Apple and is in charge of the company’s day-to-day operations.

In a statement yesterday, Jobs said if ever there would come a day when he could no longer hold his duties and responsibilities as Apple’s CEO, he would personally tell the public. Sadly, that day has come.

Under Jobs’ leadership, the company became one of the most desirable company in the world.  He has led the company in introducing new gadgets and systems which revolutionized the industry of mobile phones, music, and all sorts of computers.

Apple fell as low as $350 after this announcement. They went up by $376.18 dollars.

It is believed that this will settle down as people will realize that Apple is a company with a plan.

As Skype proposes their purchase of a mobile messaging startup, a new Microsoft Web 2.0 project seems to be also on the rise.

A mobile messaging named GroupMe will be bought by Skype which allows users to organize contacts into groups. The business a fund amounting to $10.6 million.

Skype is also “set” to be purchased by Microsoft for $8.5B.

With GroupMe, a user can put up private chats. One can also share photos and their location. Using its old voice service, users can set up conference calls with their contacts.

This mobile messaging service works on Android, Blackberry, iPhone, and Windows Phone.

The terms of their agreement have not been made public. However, reports say Skype is expecting $85M from it.

Skype has already bolstered out their defenses against other similar services from Google Huddle, Apple iMessage, Facebook Messenger, and Blackberry messenger.

Founders of the tiny GroupMe are said to have cashed rather than facing the possibility of getting crushed by other social media giants.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s We’re In may not be too bright. We’re In only works for Windows phone while GroupMe runs on devices other than Windows Phone.  Skype however continues to work on platforms other than Microsoft.