For years, Apple has been rumored to be working on an iPhone partnership deal with China Mobile. The carrier is the largest in both China, and the world, with more than 660 million subscribers.
China Mobile's network is already overflowing with unlocked iPhone users, but technology has been standing in the way of an official offering. And it doesn't look like that's going to change this year...
Apple is planning to open an iTunes store in Russia later this year or early 2013, a local business journal reports. The Russian iTunes Store could offer music cheaper than in the US. While licensing deals are still underway, the Cupertino, Calif. digital music giant is expected to unveil tracks costing under $0.99, the newspaper says.
The supposed deal could prop up flagging Russian sales of digital music. While physical music sales are in free-fall, even digital music purchases -- which have been growing elsewhere -- dropped by 40 percent to levels not seen since 2009. The chief reason: "a culture of copyright infringement," according to music industry group IFPI. The nation's leading music service is operated by vKontakte, which also offers file-sharing, according to the IFPI.
Google today pushed an update to its cloud-storage app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad that leaked last week in a prematurely published blog post.
With Google Drive 1.1, you can finally create new documents on your device, move your cloud files between the folders and edit documents on the go.
Native editing doesn't feel buttery-smooth as in Apple's Pages app and you cannot paste Camera roll images into your docs, but overall it's a far less clumsy experience than having to edit your files in the Safari browser...
So this is kind of interesting. Remember that list of 1 million Apple device IDs that the hacking group AntiSec claims it stole from the FBI and then leaked online? Well it may not have actually come from the FBI.
According to a new report, the UDIDs in the list matched up with data from Blue Toad, a digital publisher that specializes in bringing hard copy content to the internet. And the company is taking full responsibility...
Ahead of the iPhone 5 launch this Wednesday, T-Mobile, the nation's fourth-largest carrier and the only major U.S. carrier without the iPhone, today kicked off its new initiative meant to lure existing iPhone owners and unlockers to its stores, where they can get support on running their iPhones on T-Mobile's iPhone-friendly HSPA+ network.
Additionally, the Deutsche Telekom-owned telco committed to developing iOS versions of its popular mobile apps like T-Mobile myAccount, T-Mobile Visual Voicemail and T-Mobile TV. If only they landed the next iPhone...
Research firm Nielsen is out with a new survey this morning that focuses on the U.S. smartphone buyer. According to the findings, three out of every four U.S. consumers (75 percent) age 25-34 now have a smartphone in their pocket, an increase over 59 percent measured in July of last year.
And if you believe comScore, one out of every three who own a smartphone have an iPhone. The fastest-growing segment are teenagers between 13 and 17 years old who file as the nation's quickest smartphone adopters.
In July of 2012, 58 percent of polled teens said they had a smartphone, compared to roughly a third, or 36 percent, of teens saying they owned a smartphone just a year ago...
Apple commands cult-like following and rivals like Samsung and Motorola (Verizon, too, in its pre-iPhone days) were quick to isolate Apple's core base as both its biggest advantage and a major PR vulnerability. If you believe a series of anti-Apple ads by Samsung, people who stand in the line for a new iPhone are weirdos collectively known as iSheep.
These ads play to the widely accepted notion that die-hard Apple lovers are fanatics. Just ask Mac consultant and FileMaker Pro developer Scott Rose, the brains behind a pair of clips conveniently titled "Shit Apple fanboys say" (here and here).
The funny videos that rationalize on Apple’s behalf blew up in no time and became a trending topic on social media sites, racking up nearly a million views on YouTube in just a couple days, here's how he went about doing them...
If Apple's "thermonuclear war" on Android had a leader, it would be Noreen Krall, chief litigator for the Cupertino, Calif. iPhone maker. Indeed, Bloomberg's profile of Krall describes her as Apple's legal "field marshall."
"Krall has become a familiar sight in courtrooms around the world as Apple’s chief litigation counsel," Bloomberg writes. Even before Apple won a $1.05 billion patent-infringement decision (now being appealed) against Samsung, Krall thanked junior members of the legal team for all the hard work...
Sprint two weeks ago added four more United States cities to its 4G LTE network deployment efforts and today the company announced that it will deploy the speedy network technology across a hundred major cities in "coming months", including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Sprint is late to the LTE party, having commenced the high-speed network deployment on July 15. Contrast this to AT&T and Verizon, the nation's leading carriers, that began upgrading their towers to 4G LTE last summer and are expected to wrap up commercial deployment of their nationwide 4G LTE by the end of 2012 or in early 2013...
Apple started prepping for its highly-anticipated iPhone event last week, hanging colorful banners outside of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
The company's venue decorations are typically more interesting than they are insightful. But this time, they may contain clues to its upcoming announcement...
A new week is coming, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on what happened last week. If you think you may have missed a few of the top stories from last week, don't sweat it, we've got you covered.
We've gathered the top 10+ most popular stories from iDB last week for you to check out. As always, make sure that you're friends with us on Facebook, Google+, and that you are following us on Twitter...
After months of waiting, we should finally get to see Passbook in action this month. Apple unveiled the app, which stores digital gift cards, event tickets and boarding passes, during its WWDC event.
As cool as the idea of Passbook is, it will only be successful if it can garner support from major businesses. But if the enthusiasm of the airlines is any indication, that won't be a problem...