Apple yesterday announced its sales numbers for the latest quarter, and what results they were. 37 million iPhones sold is not a number to be sniffed at, and it's one that was enough to see Apple overtake Samsung once more as the top dog in smartphone sales.
The huge number of iPhones sold has also seen Apple's smartphone overtake Android handsets, with the competition – HTC, Motorola – reporting less than stellar figures themselves...
By now, most of you have heard Steve Jobs' infamous "war on Android" quote from his recently-released biography. It goes something like, "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
He wasn't kidding. The latest estimates suggest that Apple's litigation fees its incurred in its ongoing legal battles with Android manufacturers add up to more than $100 million dollars. And the war is far from over...
A few months ago, Samsung's mobile president Shin Jong-kyun told reporters that Apple would have a hard time finding any of their intellectual property in his company's new Galaxy Nexus handset.
He obviously underestimated Apple's legal team. Reports are coming in that Apple has just filed another lawsuit in Germany against Samsung for the use of — get this — its patented 'Slide to Unlock' feature...
New sales data from marketing firm Nielsen has revealed that Apple's launch of the iPhone 4S in October has had a tremendous impact on overall iOS market share in the past quarter. While Android had a stranglehold on the mobile sector in October, with an impressive 61.6% share of the market, its numbers slipped to just 46.9% in December due to an impressive 20% surge by iOS during the quarter.
According to AppleInsider, Apple's mobile platform peaked at 44.5% in market share, which put it neck-and-neck with its rival Android...
Google has always touted its Android operating system as being "open" when compared to Apple's "closed" iOS platform. In MG Siegler's recent blog post, the TechCrunch writer/Apple pundit explains why he hates Google for ultimately turning its back on the customer:
All of this backstory knowledge fuels my rage. When I see Google talk about how “open” the platform is, setting it up as the foil to the “closed” (and framed as “evil”) iPhone, I want to scream and rip someone’s head off. It’s not only the most extreme example of being disingenuous that I can ever recall seeing. It’s nuclear bullshit.
Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. We’re still thanking them for it!
Apple keeps hitting new app download milestones, with the latest number being all about the iPad and its huge popularity since its initial introduction in early 2010.
Since Apple made the iPad available to purchase, a massive 3 billion apps have been downloaded from Apple's App Store for the tablet. To put that into some kind of perspective, it took the equally-as-popular iPhone a whole six months longer to reach the same milestone after the App Store's opening in 2008.
The news comes as rumors begin to circulate about what Apple could be working on for the next-generation iPad...
Apple's iOS platform finished 2011 with a strong showing in the mobile web browsing department, with iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches combining to capture 52.1% of mobile devices accessing the web.
Apple was top of the list in 2011 with over half of all devices. Jave ME came second with 21.3% share, while Google's Android took third, coming in with a respectable 16.2% share.
The numbers, courtesy of Net Applications, show iOS actually dropping in share when compared to November (54%) and October (61.5%), although December's result was not Apple's lowest of the year...
It seems that someone at Google has been pretty busy. You may remember how we told you about "Siri for Android," an app on Google's Android Market which claimed to be just what the name suggested.
Siri has obviously has not been ported to Android, as the app was discovered to merely be a shortcut with a Siri-like icon that pointed to Google's own built-in voice recognition engine. The app's developer also called itself "Official App," which was clearly designed to confuse people into thinking the app was, well, official.
Google has since taken note, and the offending app is now gone from the Android Market...
Yes, you read that correctly. Siri for Android has apparently hit the Android Marketplace. A developer by the name of "Official App" has published a supposed Android version of Siri.
Apple introduced Siri alongside the iPhone 4S, and the virtual assistant has been the most talked-about feature of the new smartphone since. Does Android's version of Siri have what it takes to steal the limelight?
The iPhone 4S was met with much criticism when Apple debuted the handset back in October. Some publications have even listed the device as one of 2011's biggest flops, but sales have suggested otherwise.
In fact, according to popular marketing research firm comScore, the 4S has been so popular that it's managed to push Apple's US smartphone marketshare up more than 1% percent in the short time it's been available...
The patent wars that Apple and leading Android device makers are fighting is costing a lot of money in legal fees for everyone. Intellectual property expert Kevin Rivette speculates on how Apple could stop wasting money on attorney fees, and start cashing in from Android:
Tim Cook, who took over in August when Jobs announced he would be unable to come back as CEO, has many other ways to take advantage of the company’s patent portfolio. The company could probably collect as much as $10 in royalties for every device sold, more than the amount analysts speculate Microsoft (MSFT) receives from Samsung and HTC, which use its mobile technology, said Rivette at 3LP.
Not a bad idea, except when we know that Steve Jobs swore to go on a "thermonuclear war" with Google instead of settling. There's a new boss at Apple, though...
Apple had a hunch that its iPhone would be popular enough with consumers to "inspire" the competition. That's why the company was so adamant about protecting its technology in the handset, filing for over 200+ patents. But it didn't help.
Apple's legal team has seen mixed results in its ongoing patent war with Android manufacturers over the above-mentioned intellectual property. But the company was just awarded a core multi-touch patent that could turn the tide in its favor...