Apple still negotiating with Sony over iRadio terms

By Cody Lee on May 9, 2013

For months we’ve been hearing rumors regarding iRadio, Apple’s upcoming streaming music service. It was initially supposed to launch in Q1 of this year, but the company has reportedly been having trouble reaching royalty terms with the record labels.

Then in April came word that it had locked up a deal with Universal, putting the project on track for a summer release. But it seems to have hit another snag this week, as a new report claims that the other record labels are still looking for better terms… Read More

 

Apple expands Maps Flyover coverage in France

By Christian Zibreg on May 9, 2013

3D Flyover, a headline feature of Apple’s in-house mapping service available on compatible iOS 6 devices, initially included only a handful of U.S. cities. The last major expansion was in March, when Apple added 3D Flyovers in twelve new cities – including such venues as Tokyo Station, Japan Imperial Palace and Tokyo Tower – and expanded Flyover coverage in more than a dozen U.S. cities.

Today, the company added 3D buildings for Paris, France and surrounding areas. I have a feeling iDB’s own Sebastien Page will have lots of fun playing with Maps on his iPad… Read More

 

AT&T announces Aio Wireless prepaid brand with $35-$70 tiers

By Christian Zibreg on May 9, 2013

While its fierce rival Verizon has chosen to sit on the sidelines and watch T-Mobile regain consumer trust with its newly found ‘Uncarrier‘ business model and no-contract plans, AT&T has jumped on the prepaid bus with a new Aio Wireless brand rounding on T-Mobile’s offering. Just like Sprint’s Boost and Virgin, Aio Wireless is a MVNO wholly owned by AT&T and marketed as a standalone brand.

As we explained last week, Aio (as in ‘All In One’) is aimed at those eager to avoid committing their soul to AT&T at all cost by opting for a month-to-month service instead. The offering includes $40/$55/$70 tiers (pricing varies by market) with unlimited talk/text and 250MB/2GB/7GB of data.

Aio Wireless also offers Apple’s iPhone 5 and a few popular Android and Windows Phone handsets. Go past the fold for more information… Read More

 

Canalys: one in five smart devices are Apple

By Ed Sutherland on May 9, 2013

Research firm Canalys Thursday offered data on first-quarter smart mobile device shipments, with an estimated 300+ million new units for a 37.4 percent year-over-year growth. Google’s Android powered 59 percent and Apple’s iOS powered a little over nineteen percent of these devices, according to researchers. Key takeaways: Android leads the smartphone race, Apple is holding onto the tablet market and laptop demand continues falling.

Pay attention to Canalys’s parlance because ‘smart mobile devices’ include smartphones, tablets and laptops. Another important caveat: Canalys stats don’t divulge shipped vs sold units. This is an important distinction as a device shipped into a channel does not automatically result in a device sold to a consumer… Read More

 

Netflix update brings better second-screen experience, new post-play features

By Christian Zibreg on May 9, 2013

After announcing a new $12 per month family plan and having rolled out a major version 4.0 update with a new episode selector on iPads, on-demand Internet streaming media provider Netflix today updated its iPhone and iPad mobile client with an enhanced second-screen experience, recommendations for movies and auto-play episodes for television shows. More information on the changes right below the fold… Read More

 

Apple wins iBooks trademark case

By Ed Sutherland on May 9, 2013

A New York judge has thrown out a trademark lawsuit against Apple’s iBooks service. A sci-fi and fantasy publisher had claimed Apple’s use of the ‘iBooks’ mark would confuse consumers. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote wrote that Black Tower Press “offered no evidence” that consumers would misinterpret Apple’s e-book service as a book publisher. In addition Cote said the publisher’s image of a lightbulb emblazoned with the word ‘iBooks’ was distinctive enough to merit continuing the 2011 case… Read More

 

Pegatron CEO: Bloomberg is lying about ‘falling iPad mini demand’

By Christian Zibreg on May 9, 2013

The credulous Bloomberg yesterday covered Pegatron’s investor conference where the contract manufacturer announced a whopping 80 percent year-over-year growth in first-quarter profits.

Pegatron also cautioned investors that second-quarter revenue may drop between 20 and 30 percent amid the broader decline in consumer electronics demand.

However, writer Tim Culpan decided the story wasn’t newsworthy enough in and of itself. And in his quest for pageviews, the reporter reckoned he better run the piece under the more Apple’s doomsday headline, “Falling iPad mini demand to push Pegatron electronics sales down.”

Well, guess what? 24 hours later, Pegatron CEO steps forward and tells the media that Culpan put those words in his mouth and completely fabricated the ‘falling iPad mini demand’ part. And there goes Bloomberg’s credibility right down the drain… Read More

 

USPTO publishes Apple’s extensive Lightning connector patent

By Ed Sutherland on May 9, 2013

Much has been written about Apple’s new Lightning connector, introduced with the iPhone 5 to supercede the aging 30-pin Dock connection. Thursday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office published three Apple patent filings from 2012 detailing how the Lightning connector is built. Among the questions addressed: how did Apple create an “orientation agnostic” connector design while also ensuring stability and proper alignment? Read More

 

Alleged next-gen iPhone circuitboard part suggests optimized camera design

By Christian Zibreg on May 9, 2013

As WWDC 2013 draws near – and with supply chain increasingly pointing to Apple’s procurement of components for production of a next-generation iPhone – small wonder various parts are now cropping up on the web. It’s the very nature of the game: Apple just can’t control each and every one of its suppliers in Taiwan and China, let alone their individual employees.

A Japanese parts retailer, which recently leaked a next-gen iPhone components, is back at it, having published Thursday an image believed to depict a motherboard component, presumably belonging to an upcoming iPhone refresh… Read More

 

Samsung’s cash pile triples, but still no match for Apple’s $145B hoard

By Ed Sutherland on May 9, 2013

Much is being made of Samsung’s hoard of cash, estimated at $28.5 billion once the South Korean conglomerate’s debt is taken into consideration. At any rate, the Galaxy maker has watched its net cash almost triple in the past year, thanks to double-digit profits fueled by the rising sales of its mobile division which makes smartphones and tablets.

In just three years, mobile phones have grown to be 74 percent of Samsung’s profits, overshadowing sales of LCD TVs and memory chips. On other words, three out of every four dollars Samsung earns come from mobile devices.

However, Apple remains the industry’s most-profitable player, retaining a $145 billion cash pile while offering anxious investors a $100 billion stock buyback. Is Samsung destined to follow Apple’s footsteps, or repeat the errors of other Asian giants, such as Panasonic, drowning in debt? Read More

 

Apple close to striking landmark iPhone deal with China Mobile

By Christian Zibreg on May 9, 2013

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty was visiting Hong Kong and Taiwan recently. She is now back from China with some interesting Apple news. Tim Cook & Co., she wrote in her note to clients, may be close to striking an iPhone distribution agreement with China Mobile, the world’s top wireless carrier by revenue and subscribers.

Specifically, Huberty wrote that “TD-LTE licenses, and related phone launches, are expected by year-end,” in her note to clients. China Mobile debuted small-scale TD-LTE network in 2010 and last year expanded coverage to select large cities. In case you were wondering, TD-LTE is a variant of the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution radio technology, also known as LTE… Read More

 

Pegatron ramping up hiring for budget iPhone production?

By Christian Zibreg on May 9, 2013

Just a day after contract manufacturer Pegatron warned investors its second-quarter earnings could drop up to 30 percent due to softening demand for iPad mini, other tablets, e-books and games consoles comes word that the company has ramped up hiring as it needs an additional 40,000 workers on top of its existing 100,000 employees.

The 40,000 additional workers are needed to presumably assemble a rumored less-price iPhone model for Apple, Reuters speculated Thursday, reiterating it heard from suppliers that Apple is indeed “developing a cheaper model of the phone” in order to broaden its sales base to lower-income buyers in growth markets such as China and India… Read More

 

New Nokia video pits PureView camera against iPhone 5, Galaxy S3

By Cody Lee on May 9, 2013

Nokia has yet to find an answer to the iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy line, but it’s hoping it’s getting closer. The Finnish phone-maker is expected to release a new flagship handset, the Lumia 928, within the next few months featuring its patented PureView technology.

Adding to the speculation, Nokia posted a new video yesterday on the Lumia’s landing page of video shot with the 928′s PureView camera, and compared with footage taken with the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy SIII. And I’ll give you one guess who comes out on top… Read More

 

‘iPhone 6′ allegedly listed in Vodafone retail system

By Christian Zibreg on May 9, 2013

These things are easily fabricated (as is any Apple rumor, for that matter) so it pays to take this one with a few pinches of salt.

A new report Thursday by Stuff.tv suggests Apple this year could abandon iPhone S-upgrades, based on an alleged listing in Vodafone UK’s retail system which mentions a product listed as a ’4G iPhone 6’.

Evidence backing the report: a blurry image of a retail system listing purportedly taken by a Vodafone employee. Now, we’ve heard crazy stories of Apple potentially releasing not one, but a few new iPhones this year. However, the most credible sources point to an iPhone 5S upgrade and the rumored budget iPhone model in 2012, eventually followed by an iPhone 6 in 2013… Read More

 

Apple product photographer talks tradecraft, gear and more

By Cody Lee on May 8, 2013

Apple is well-known for its minimal, yet seemingly flawless product shots. With their realistic lighting and signature white backgrounds, the images of iPhones and iPads scattered across the company’s website almost look like they were computer rendered.

But as photographer Peter Belanger can attest to, that’s definitely not the case. The longtime product-shooter spoke with technology blog The Verge recently about his experience working with Apple, and what kind of preparation goes into each photo shoot… Read More

 

LinkedIn updates its Pulse iOS app with new sharing options

By Christian Zibreg on May 8, 2013

LinkedIn, the world’s top social network for people in professional occupations, recently purchased the popular news reader Pulse for nearly a hundred million bucks as part of its ongoing efforts to become a media company. Nearly a month following the transaction, LinkedIn has updated Pulse mobile software with the expected LinkedIn sharing. Other new features in Pulse version 3.1 include the much-needed ability to save stories for later reading to such popular read-later services as Pocket, Evernote and Instapaper… Read More

 

iOS 7 spikes in web traffic logs ahead of WWDC

By Christian Zibreg on May 8, 2013

With a little over a month until Apple’s summer conference for developers, web site owners are now beginning to see a noticeable spike in traffic from devices that run iOS 7 beta code. Analysis of traffic logs and IP addresses reveals some of that traffic originating from Apple’s Cupertino campus, which is usually a tell-tale sign that Apple is seeding the work-in-progress code internally to select engineers.

However, the mobile site conversion firm Onswipe over the past week or so started seeing iOS 7 traffic spikes across a bunch of web sites that incorporate its solutions… Read More

 

Pegatron sees softening iPad mini orders

By Christian Zibreg on May 8, 2013

In another sign of consumers postponing purchasing iPad minis in anticipation of a second-generation model, said to sport Apple’s high-resolution Retina display, contract manufacturer Pegatron has cautioned investors Wednesday to brace themselves for as much as a 30 percent revenue decline when it reports second-quarter earnings, the most since a 37 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Although Pegatron assembles Apples’ iPhone 4S and iPad mini, the Taiwanese corporation also acts as a contract manufacturer for consumer electronics from other makers. But as Apple is one of its principal clients – and given Apple’s high-volume needs – Pegatron attributed the decline to shrinking iPad mini orders… Read More

 

Kwikset outs iPhone-exclusive wireless door lock

By Christian Zibreg on May 8, 2013

Kwikset, the lockset maker owned by Black & Decker’s Hardware and Home Improvement Group, today announced an interesting smartphone-friendly wireless lock accessory that inches us closer to a fully connected home.

If you’re a fan of the app-enabled wireless lightbub from Philips, how about locking or unlocking your door by simply touching the deadbolt?

And I meant touching it with your finger – you don’t ever need to remove an iPhone from your pocket or purse. That’s what Kēvo, a UniKey-powered wireless deadbolt door lock, does for you by connecting with your iPhone, iPod or iPad through wireless Bluetooth Smart technology. Say goodbye to fumbling with or looking for your keys – your Phone is now your key… Read More

 

Bad Piggies update lets you record and share gameplay footage

By Christian Zibreg on May 8, 2013

We’re growing increasingly tired of Angry Birds here – that’s why we’ve stopped telling you about each and every content update Rovio puts out. This one, however, is newsworthy as it allows iPad and iPhone users to exclusively capture and upload gameplay videos straight from their devices.

Also new in this update: fifteen new levels to master and two brand new items to use – suction-cup tires and spring-loaded boxing gloves. I’ve included a gampeplay video showcasing these new items right after the break… Read More

 
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