Some U.S. sales of Samsung smartphones will "probably be" banned, said Vel Hogan, the Foreman of the California jury in Apple's successful patent-infringement lawsuit against its South Korean rival. On Friday, the U.S. District Court awarded $1.05 billion in damages.
Although at first the jury was "inundated with evidence" and faced a stalemate, Hogan told Bloomberg TV momentum swung toward Apple after he had an "ah-ha" moment while considering the case at home.
Despite thoughts of a service call as akin to a root canal, iPhone maker Apple has turned service into a selling point. Nearly 60 percent of current Apple device owners say they'll buy another product from the Cupertino, Calif. company as the result of in-store service.
According to a survey by NPD Group, almost 90 percent of consumers who used Apple's Genius Bar tech service rated the experience extremely or very satisfying. "A major part of their satisfaction came from the fact that only a small percentage actually paid for their service. According to the report, 88 percent of Genius Bar consumers said their service was free compared to 78 percent of all consumers."
Samsung's $1 billion loss to Apple last week may have widespread repercussions, including Google's Android software. What previously was a proxy cold war with cell phone makers, the stand-in soldiers, could heat up dramatically and place the Mountain View, Calif. firm squarely in the middle of Apple's legal radar and making Steve Jobs' threatened "thermonuclear war" over Android a reality.
That legal war "is drawing closer to Google's doorstep," reports the New York Times. The court ruling that Samsung violated Apple patents related to changing a screen's view or tapping to zoom closer are all part of Android. Indeed, Google just recently removed from Android a feature that bounces your iOS screen to indicate you've reached the bottom. Dumping that feature from Android was more out of "design reasons" than Samsung's courtroom defeat, a source told the Times.
If Google wants to find somewhere not dominated by Apple's iPhone, they'll have to leave planet Earth -- which is exactly what's being planned. NASA will launch the Android-powered Nexus One smartphone this fall as the brains of a tiny nano-satellite.
The Android phone will be at the heart of PhoneSat, a 4-inch cube space agency engineers are building using off-the-shelf parts with a $3,500 budget. Turns out, the Android phone has all of the basic features to power what NASA hopes will be an orbiting ring of tiny satellites. Along with the Android operating system, the Nexus One has a fast processor, communications gear and a nifty camera with which to snap photos of Earth from space.
China has the big mo when it comes to smartphones. Although the US still leads with 165 million active iOS and Android devices, China is the fastest-growing market, according to analytics firm Flurry. Demand for smart devices in China grew 400 percent between July 2012 and the same period last year.
The nation far outpaced other countries, with Chile in second place at 279 percent year-over-year smart device growth. Brazil ranked next with 220 percent as Russia registered 179 percent growth and India's smart device growth rose by 171 percent.
In one of the most bizarre moments following its loss to Apple, Samsung executives met this weekend to discuss ways to keep its largest customer: Apple. At the heart of their strategy, the South Korean firm reportedly will rely on a "strict internal firewall" keeping separate its handset and chip units.
The Sunday meeting included Samsung's vice chair Coi Gee-sung and mobile chief JK Shin, Reuters reported. Left out of the discussion was Samsung CEO Kwon Oh-hyon, who oversees the component side of the company...
Whether or not Apple is granted an injunction preventing Samsung sales in the U.S. doesn't concern Wall Street. Following the iPhone maker's patent-infringement win against the South Korean company, the real question is whether this causes consumers to pause.
"The key question is whether operators/customers will be willing to buy infringing Samsung handsets/tablets if there is risk they may have to stop selling them in the future," writes Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um. Indeed, Um sees the only risk now facing Apple is whether they'll have enough iPhone 5 handsets to meet "unprecedented demand."
The wait to release the new iPhone is costing Apple some ground in China. Apple's 19 percent share of smartphone sales in the country was nearly cut in half to 10 percent in the second quarter, according to research firm IDC. At the same time, Apple once again finds itself competing with Samsung as the South Korean firm led the pack of smarphone sellers with 19 percent of the China market.
Amazon Prime, the online bookseller's answer to Netflix, Friday expanded its licensing arrangement with NBCUniversal, allowing TV programming like "Parks and Recreation," "Heroes" and "Battlestar Galactica" to be available to subscribers. The news follows the $79 annual service adding past seasons of "Parenthood," "Friday Night Lights" and "The Starter Wife."
Amazon's video content acquisition head Brad Beale described the firm's investment in Prime as "heavy," reports the Wall Street Journal. The comment is borne out by the company's 96% drop second-quarter earnings weighed by increased spending. Along with providing free two-day shipping of items and free Kindle book loans, Prime has offered streaming video since early 2011...
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Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, Samsung wants no talk of its new Sydney, Australia store looking "Apple-esque." Particularly while the South Korean company is being sued for allegedly imitating Apple's iPhone and iPad.
Despite the store being located just a block from Apple, using the same Apple minimalism, the same Apple-like packaging and staffed with the same blue-shirted employees, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company "didn't even come into the equation when we were looking for a location," Samsung Australia's vice president of telecommunication, Tyler McGee, tells the Sydney Morning Herald. In the business, we call that a non-denial denial...
Once again, Verizon Wireless is ranked the top U.S. carrier in fewest complaints of dropped calls, transmission problems and slow text messages. This is the 14th time the carrier has led J.D. Power's U.S. Wireless Network Quality Performance Study. AT&T and other major carriers landed further down in the cellular reliability survey.
While Verizon Wireless led in the busy Northeast corridor, it also trumped competition in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest and Westerns sections of the country. U.S. Cellular was picked as the best carrier in the North Central U.S. for the 12th time. AT&T's reliability was consistently ranked the lowest, except in the Mid-Atlantic and Southwest areas, where it was second to Verizon...
AT&T Wednesday tried to clarify its position on limiting the iOS 6 FaceTime over Cellular feature to its Mobile Share data plan customers. The carrier called concerns that last week's move might require subscribers change data plans "wrong" and "another knee jerk reaction" about net neutrality.
"The FCC's net neutrality rules do not regulate the availability to customers of applications that are preloaded on phones. Indeed, the rules do not require that providers make available any preloaded apps," AT&T said in a blog post. The cell provider said subscribers can download a number of video chat apps that compete with AT&T's service, a requirement of net neutrality laws...