Tag: apple

Apple ruled Christmas

Posted on December 30, 2014 by - News

two-applesA report from Flurry indicated that Apple seriously outdid its competitors over the Christmas period.

The metrics company said that of all the devices activated in the week up to Christmas Day, Apple ruled the roost with 51 percent of device activations.

Samsung devices took second place with 17.7 percent of activations, Nokia took 5.8 percent, Sony took 1.6 percent and LG managed a measly 1.4 percent.

Microsoft owns Nokia now so it could be said to be third in the pecking order.

Flurry Analytics said the figures indicated that the introduction of Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus had a “blockbuster” holiday season, beating the somewhat dismal gizmo trend.

Flurry also said that the largest number of app installs on Christmas Day, with 2.5 times the installs compared to any day in the previous three weeks.

The company also managed to track the type of device, with full size tablets taking 16 percent, small tablets 17 percent, “phablets” three percent, medium phones 58 percent and smalll phones seven percent.

Analysts tip tablet sales

Posted on December 30, 2014 by - News

new-ipadDespite evidence that sales of tablets showed signs of decline in 2014, one market intelligence is bucking the trend by predicting healthy sales in 2015.

ABI Research said that although 2014 was “lacklustre”, it predicted that there will be solid growth during the next five years with shipments of tablets close to 290 million units in 2019.

But the growth is not for every vendor – Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google will show year on year falls in shipments.

On the other hand, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft and Samsung are predicted to show higher volumes in 2014.

Senior analyst Jeff Orr doesn’t have good news for Apple.  He said: “Historically, Apple has counted approximately 35 percent of its iPad sales in the last calendar quarter of the year.  Unless Apple can pull off a 32+ million unit quarter, sales for 2014 will be down for the first year since the iPad launched.”

He said that Apple probably shipped 68 million iPads in 2014, but managed to sell 74 million in 2013.

On the operating systems front, Android has 54 percent of branded tablets, Apple iOS has fallen to 41 percent, and Windows 8 has a meagre five percent of shipments.

Qualcomm’s Chinese nightmare to spread

Posted on December 29, 2014 by - News

1900-intl-forces-including-us-marines-enter-beijing-to-put-down-boxer-rebellion-which-was-aimed-at-ridding-china-of-foreigners-Making China’s antitrust probe go away is going to cost Qualcom more in the long run.

Word on the street is that other countries are going to have a look at the firm’s highly profitable patent licensing business, and may even call into question its worldwide contracts with smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is close to completing a 13-month investigation into the US chipmaker as soon as possible.  It will almost certainly mean that Qualcomm will have to write a cheque for a record fine and change the way it licenses its technology to handset makers in China.

Qualcomm has tried to paint the situation as being part of the sort of problems western companies have working in China but it seems that the mess will not end behind the bamboo curtain. Anti-trust probes in Europe and by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) seem to be connected to China’s investigation, Qualcomm has admitted.

Qualcomm is the top patent holder for mobile phone technology, including many that form industry standards like CDMA and LTE. Charging royalties based on the mobile phone selling prices, even those made with competitors’ chips, provided more than half of its $8 billion net income in 2014.

The NDRC, one of China’s anti-trust regulators, has said it suspects Qualcomm of overcharging and abusing its market position in wireless communication standards.

Qualcomm is expected by industry sources to agree to changes in how it charges royalties on mobiles flogged in China, which will hurt its bottom line.

It could affect its contractual relationships not just with local manufacturers such as Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE and Xiaomi, but also with bigger global players that make and sell phones in China, such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics.

Daft patent war averted

Posted on December 24, 2014 by - News


3fe8db8858c39f54433f183e26cf400f94346c028d4ae31c8ec349fc12868e98What was shaping up to be the daftest and most expensive patent war in history has been averted.

Apple and Microsoft had teamed up to form a super patent troll called the Rockstar Consortium in a bid to take out Android. The Troll outbid Google, Intel  – and a few others – in buying thousands of Nortel patents.

The “Rockstar Consortium” was not subject to promises that Apple and Microsoft initially made  to license the patents under reasonable terms and launched its patent attack on Android last year.

It seems that a a settlement of sorts has been reached. Rockstar has agreed to sell its patents to RPX (with Google and Cisco picking up much of the bill).  RPX has so far been a “good guy” in that it collects patents to stop trolling.

It’s making sure that basically anyone can license these patents under FRAND (fair and reasonable, non-discriminatory) rates. The price being paid is approximately $900 million.

This is considerably less than the $4.5 billion Microsoft and Apple paid but this was for only 4,000 of the 6,000 patents.  It is safe to assume that Apple and Microsoft kept the 2,000 valuable patents.

Google and Cisco will license these patents to stop the majority of the lawsuits and can defend themselves if they feel threatened.

Cisco’s Mark Chandler celebrated the deal as a “common sense” solution. And, it certainly beats all out patent litigation war. But it’s still just about moving money around, rather than encouraging innovation. He notes that in settling this as a group, it helps keep things from getting totally out of control.

Apple auto-updates machines

Posted on December 23, 2014 by - News

Apple's CEO Tim Cook - shot from WikimediaA potential security threat has forced Apple to send an automatic update to machines without people saying yeah or nay to its installation.

Apple developed auto updates some time ago but this is the first time it’s taken advantage of the technique.

Microsoft has been auto updating its operating systems for quite some while, as security threats come to light.

The update patches problems highlighted by Carnegie Mellon University and the US Department of Homeland Security, relating to a part of Apple’s OSX operating system dubbed the network time protocol.

Apple is often perceived as having secure machines not subject to the type of threat Windows machines face.

Apple said the update doesn’t even need people to restart their machines, meaning that most people will have been unaware of the action taken.

Apple breaks promises on Chinese suppliers

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

appleApple products continue to be made by workers in shocking conditions, despite promises from Jobs’ Mob to the contrary, according to an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

Panorama found standards on workers’ hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories.

Workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.

Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: “Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn’t want to move.

“Even if I was hungry I wouldn’t want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress.”

Rather than fessing up, Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme’s conclusions, although it declined to be interviewed for the programme.

It insisted that no other company wsa doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions.

Apple said it was a very common practice for workers to nap during breaks, but it would investigate any evidence they were falling asleep while working. We guess it will want to make sure that someone comes along to wake them up.

It said it monitored the working hours of more than a million workers and that staff at Pegatron were averaging 55 hours a week.

Apple published a set of standards spelling out how factory workers should be treated. It also moved some of its production work to Pegatron’s factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

However, Panorama found these standards were routinely breached on the factory floor. Voluntary overtime was not what it said it was and one reporter had to attend unpaid meetings before and after work. Another reporter was housed in a dormitory where 12 workers shared a cramped room.

Apple insists that the dormitory overcrowding has now been resolved and that it requires suppliers to retroactively pay workers if it finds they have not been paid for work meetings.

Canada investigates Apple for antitrust antics

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

mountie-maintain-rightThe fruity cargo cult Apple has managed to fall foul of Canada over the way that it used its market power to kill off rivals.

The Federal Court of Canada agreed to order Apple’s Canadian subsidiary to turn over documents to the Competition Bureau to help investigate whether Apple unfairly used its control of suppliers to kill off competition.

The Competition Bureau said agreements Apple negotiated with wireless carriers may have cut into competition by encouraging the companies to maintain or boost the price of rival phones.

Under the order, Apple will have 90 days to turn over the documents, which include agreements it has reached with Canadian mobile carriers.

Competition Bureau lawyer Derek Leschinsky said Apple lawyers have threatened the company might launch a constitutional challenge of the right of Canadian courts to force Apple’s wholly owned Canadian subsidiary to turn over records held by the California-based parent company.

In other words, its lawyers were not going to tackle the problem of its anti-competitive behaviour, just that it has a right to do what it likes because it is a US company and did not have to hand over any incriminating documents.

Leschinsky pointed out that the provision of the Competition Act that gives Canadian courts the power to compel the production of documents held outside Canada has never been found to be unconstitutional.

Chief Justice Crampton agreed there is increasing legal consensus around the world that such provisions are legitimate.

Apple shuts Russia online shore

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

blue-appleDrastic fluctuations in the value of the Russian rouble has led Apple to shut down its online store in the country.

The reason is pricing for its products.  The rouble has fell in value by over 20 percent this week, and it continues to be in freefall, losing value today.

Apple moved to increase its prices by 20 percent but now feels that the currency is fluctuating so much it has to suspend trading.

Russia is suffering from a combination of sanctions imposed on it because of Ukraine, and because the price of oil is in freefall too.

Russia’s primary export is oil and gas.

Apple did not say when or if it would open its online store in Russia.  Earlier this week the Russian state bank put up interest rates to 17 percent, prompting fears of a recession in the country during 2015.

Jury clears Apple of antitrust allegation

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

Apple's Tim CookFruity cargo cult Apple has managed to convince a jury that deleting rival music from iPods was not really the actions of someone abusing their position in the market to snuff out competition.

The  jury decided Apple did not act improperly when it restricted music purchases for iPod users to Apple’s iTunes digital store.

The plaintiffs, a group of individuals and businesses who bought iPods from 2006 to 2009, sought about $350 million in damages from Apple alleging the company unfairly blocked competing device makers.

Patrick Coughlin, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said “the jury called it like they saw it”.

Of course Apple was over the moon.  “Every time we’ve updated those products — and every Apple product over the years — we’ve done it to make the user experience even better,” the company said.

In fact, the jurors deliberated for only a few hours on the sole question of whether the update had benefited consumers. Under US law, a company cannot be found anticompetitive if a product alteration was an improvement for customers.

However the trail revealed that Apple faced a challenge in the online music market from Real Networks, which developed RealPlayer, its own digital song manager. It included software which allowed music purchased there playable on iPods as well as competing devices.

Apple eventually introduced a software update that restricted the iPod to music bought on iTunes. Plaintiffs say that step discouraged iPod owners from buying a competing device when it came time to upgrade.

Apple argued the software update was meant to improve the consumer experience and contained many desirable features, including movies and auto-synchronisation.

The plaintiffs say that they will appeal the verdict

Samsung and Apple back together

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

Samsung HQ Silicon Valley - MM picThe dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn which claims that Apple is now back in love with Samsung and the pair have produced a new monstrous off-spring called the A9 chip.

According to the Korean IT News  Samsung Electronics has begun production of ‘A9,’ the application processor for Apple’s next-generation smartphone. It applies the 14nm FinFET microprocess for system semiconductors, for the first time.

Samsung began production of Apple’s A9 in the Austin plant in the US using the 14nm FinFET technology. Samsung has production lines capable of FinFET process production in Austin, US and Giheung, Korea, but began to produce A9 only in Austin as it is in the initial stage.

The outfit said that it would start production of the 14nm FinFET chip at the end of this year, but did not disclose whether the company received an order from Apple for the production of A9 chips or whether the production line is actually running.

Samsung is happy with the yield of the 14nm FinFET process, and supplied samples as good as finished products early enough.

The Austin plant began official production first at Apple’s request, and industry insiders said it is a move to produce the chip in the US, not Korea. They guessed that the Austin plant was chosen because of the next-generation chip’s problems with performance security and supply.

The initiation of the A9 chip production enabled Samsung to recover the foundry quantities from Apple, which have been discontinued for some time, and get the upper hand in the 14nm FinFET technology competition with TSMC, killing two birds with one stone.

However, this is clearly a burying of the hatchet between the two companies. Apple and Samsung stopped AP production as they were embroiled in patent litigation back in 2012. It appears that Apple has been lured back to Samsung with its winsome 14nm FinFET ways.

Relationship counsellors are quick to warn that it is early days yet.  Apple has been seeing other people during the break. Taiwan’s TSMC began the risk production of the 16nm FinFET plus (16FF+) process, and began to produce chips in July earlier than originally anticipated Q3.

Apple is effectively two timing the rivals. Shuttling between Samsung and TSMC, if TSMC’s production line is stabilised in the future, there is no knowing how SEC will respond.

Samsung’s foundry business was hit hard when Apple orders stopped. Although the entire semiconductor business is booming, securities companies predict that the system LSI business, including the foundry business, will suffer a loss to the tune of KRW800 billion this year. SEC is expected to recover sales loss to a certain extent with the production of Apple A9.

 

Sales of smartphones soar

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

android-china-communistEmerging markets worldwide have accounted for the growth of smartphones in the third quarter of this year, growing by 20 percent.

Gartner said Samsung lost market share, but Chinese manufacturers are showing positive growth.

Altogether, sales of smartphones accounted for 301 million units shipping in the third quarter.

Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner, said in the third quarter smartphones represented 66 percent of the total mobile phone market.  She thinks that by 2018 nine out of 10 phones will be smartphones.

Western Europe saw a decline in growth of 5.2 percent, but the USA saw high growth of 18.9 percent, fuelled by the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

In terms of market share, Samsung holds 24.4 percent of the market, Apple holds 12.7, Huawei holds 5.3 percent, Xiaomi has 5.2 percent of the market and Lenovo five percent.

As far as operating systems are concerned, Android ruled the roost in the third quarter (83.1%), Apple was next with 12.7 percent, Windows only held three percent and Blackberry 0.8 percent.

Cozza said: “The smartphone market is more than ever in flux as more players step up their game in this space.  With the ability to undercut cost and offer top specs, Chinese brands are well positioned to expand in the premium phone market too.”

Apple engineer admits blocking rivals

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

two-applesA former iTunes engineer told a federal antitrust case he was involved in a project “intended to block 100 per cent of non-iTunes clients” and “keep out third-party players” that competed with Apple’s iPod.

Plaintiffs subpoenaed the engineer, Rod Schultz, to show that Apple tried to suppress rivals to iTunes and iPods. They argue that Apple’s anticompetitive actions drove up the prices for iPods from 2006 to 2009. They want $350 million in damages, which could be tripled under antitrust laws.

Schultz said he was an unwilling witness and did not want to talking about his work on iTunes from 2006-2007, part of which was code-named “Candy”.

However, in 2012 Schultz wrote an academic paper citing “a secret war” Apple fought with iTunes hackers. In the paper, he wrote, “Apple was locking the majority of music downloads to its devices.” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not admit the paper as evidence in the case.

Outside the courtroom, Schultz said the early work of his former team reflected the digital-music market’s need for copyright protections of songs. Later, though, he said it created “market dominance” for the iPod.

Schultz was the final witness in the case after a 10-year legal battle. The testimony has offered a view into how digital music evolved in the mid-2000s as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and other Apple executives were shaping technology and a new marketplace.

Apple argues, and Schultz agreed, that it released many improvements to iTunes, and not isolated changes to stifle competition. Apple says the security measures that Schultz worked on were designed to protect its systems and users’ which would have been compromised by other players and file formats.

Judge Rogers said she plans to send the case to the jury early next week.

 

Apple faces antitrust investigation by Canada

Posted on December 12, 2014 by - News

watchdogCanadian antitrust watchdogs are about to sink their teeth into the ample rump of the fruity cargo cult Apple.

Canada’s Competition Bureau is investigating allegations that Apple Canadian unit used anti-competitive clauses in contracts with domestic wireless carriers.

The CCB has insisted that it has found no wrongdoing by Apple’s Canadian arm so far, and is not naming the person who laid a complaint. The Tame Apple Press is claiming that the watchdog has no evidence that Apple has contravened any rules and that it has not filed any application with the Competition Tribunal or any other court to seek remedies for any alleged anti-competitive conduct.

However, it is early days yet. The bureau sought a court order to compel Apple to turn over records relating to the ongoing investigation.

Canada’s antitrust watchdog has also been carrying out a similar probe into the country’s top grocer, Loblaw, ordering some of the chain’s major suppliers to hand over records relating to their dealings with the company.

“Should evidence indicate that the Competition Act has been contravened, the Commissioner will take appropriate action,” said Greg Scott, a spokesman for the bureau, in an email.

The bureau did not state whether it has also approached Canada’s largest telecom players for records related to its probe.

Apple has been doing badly out of anti-trust investigations. This year it lost a case where it ran a cartel with several book publishers with the aim of killing off Amazon.

 

Apple antitrust case continues

Posted on December 11, 2014 by - News

courtroom_1_lgThe Tame Apple Press is aghast after a court decided that Apple’s antitrust antics were so important that a class action against the company could continue even if all the official plaintiffs had been ruled as inadmissible.

Apple lawyers managed to prove to the court that none of the official plaintiffs had owned an iPod 10 years ago and therefore could not have suffered from its competition snuffing DRM. So far it has not had to prove that it did anything anti-competitive, and was hoping to win on a legal technicality.

But the billion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Apple is expected to continue after a 65-year-old Massachusetts business consultant read about the plaintiffs’ floundering case online and volunteered to represent consumers in the suit.

A federal judge said she was tentatively satisfied with a proposal to add Barbara Bennett, the new named plaintiff, in the lawsuit over Apple’s iTunes software and the price of its iPods.

Plaintiffs are claiming that Apple’s restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed Apple to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal antitrust law.

Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009.

Each time an Apple user with non-iTunes music tried to sync their devices, between 2007 and 2009, the tech firm urged them to restore the players to factory settings which the plaintiffs claimed was a deliberate move to wipe the rival files, and cause the users’ music libraries to ‘blow up.’

Bennett, who sometimes used her iPod to listen to music while ice skating, boarded a plane early flew to California at the request of lawyers who are suing Apple. She told the court she bought a special-edition iPod Nano in 2006 because she liked its striking red case.

The Tame Apple press has been doing its best to cover up this set-back for Apple’s defence team.  The Daily Mail has been waxing lyrical about how the defence dug up Steve Jobs to testify by video.

“Legendary Apple CEO Steve Jobs held an Oakland courtroom transfixed as attorneys played a video of his testimony in a class-action lawsuit that accuses Apple of inflating prices by locking music lovers into using Apple’s iPod players,” mused the Mail.

“Looking gaunt and pale, Jobs spoke softly during the deposition he gave six months before his death in October 2011. Despite this, he gave a firm defense of Apple’s software, which blocked music from services that competed with Apple’s iTunes store,” it added.

What the Daily Mail did not say was that Jobs had form for anti-trust behaviour and was not the best witness.

Fortune magazine was even more overt in its defence of Apple  under a headline “How dumb is this Apple lawsuit?” Fortune claimed that the case was proceeding for the benefit of lawyers and not consumers. Although Fortune did not say how supporting the actions of a convicted monopoly like Apple over a consumer law-suit benefits the consumer either.  It seems that Fortune no longer favours the brave.

Apple gets into enterprise bed with IBM

Posted on December 10, 2014 by - News

ibm_appleApple and IBM have signed a deal over the Pad and the iPhone, reflecting greater use of the devices in the corporate marketplace.

Under the deal, IBM will release what it described as the first wave of IBM MobileFirst for the iOS operating system.

The applications also support web services and big data and analytic abilities to the iPad and iPhone.  IBM said  MobileFirst for iOS is aimed at enterprise sized companies in banking, retail, insurance, financial services, telecomms, governments and airlines.

Customers who have already signed up include Citi, Air Canada and Spring.

Philip Schiller, a senior VP of Apple marketing, said: “The business world has gone mobile and Apple and IBM are bringing together the.. technology with the smartest data and analytics to help businesses define how work gets done.”

The apps are intended for secure environments, linked to core enterprise processes and analytics.

Apps include Plan Flight and Passenger for airlines, Advise and Grow for the banking sector; Retention for insurance companies; Incident Aware for law enforcement; Sales Assist for Retail and Expert Tech for the telecomms market.