Apple

Apple drops permanent injunction quest in Samsung lawsuit

Cody Lee ∙ July 29, 2014

Apple filed a motion with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in California yesterday, dropping its cross-appeal of Judge Lucy Koh's final judgement in its lawsuit against Samsung. The motion officially ends the company's pursuit of a product ban.

Now, this is just for the 2012 trial, not the one that ended in May. Apple had been looking to win a permanent injunction against all of Samsung's infringing devices in that case, and filed multiple appeals, but it appears to have given up on this particular battle...

Beats Music gains Tune Your Taste, Sentence History, Verified Badges and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

Beats Music, a music-streaming service that uses a combination of algorithms and good ol' human curation to make it easy to enjoy music based on your location, activities and other criteria, has just been updated with several new features.

The free iPhone and iPad app, now sitting at version 2.2, has brought out the ability to further tailor music to your tastes by changing your favorite genres and artists.

And, folks can now view their most recently played songs from The Sentence. Also, avoiding fake profiles is easier than ever because the app now has verified profiles - just look for a new red checkmark indicating a profile has been "certified as legit by Beats"...

Hilton rolling out iPhone door locks in all hotels globally beginning next year

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 9, 2018

Picture this: after a long and exhaustive flight, you finally arrive at a hotel. But instead of waiting on the lines clogging the front desk to pick up a key, simply bypass the receptionist and head straight to your room safely knowing that an iPhone in your pocket doubles as the room key.

It's precisely the kind of fantasy that Hilton has dreamed up and now working to make a reality across the vast majority of their hotels by 2016.

This is according to a Wall Street Journal report Monday. That's right, beginning 2015 some Hilton hotels will allow for door unlocking with a smartphone, with the global roll-out expected to complete by the end of 2016...

iPhone could automatically silence alerts when you exercise, Apple patent hints

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 28, 2014

Notifications on mobile devices are both a curse and a blessing. I don't think anyone in their right mind would diminish the value in receiving a timely notification about an important event while on the go.

On the other hand, virtually every app wants to send notifications these days. Even though iOS does offer some granularity as to the times of day when these alerts are allowed to buzz your device, by no measure is this sufficient.

An Apple patent publicized by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last Thursday gives an insight into Apple's research efforts that would automatically enable a Do Not Disturb mode (added in iOS 6) when the device has determined that a user is working out, saving you a few taps...

This is what new ‘EU Internet’ switch in iOS 8 Beta 4 does for you

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 28, 2014

The most recent beta of iOS 8 has introduced an easily overlooked new option under the Cellular section of the iOS Settings app. It's called 'EU Internet,' applies only to those traveling in the European Union and is a bit puzzling.

As a quick recap, exorbitant roaming charges for data downloads in the European Union have already been reduced in an effort to make prices more realistic for those using mobile devices outside their home country.

That's just the beginning as the European parliament recently passed a new regulation, currently needing an approval by the Council of the European Union, that promises to render all roaming charges in the EU illegal by December 2015.

As a result, European customers will always pay the same price for all phone calls, text messages and mobile data usage everywhere in the EU...

T-Mobile unveils time-limited $100 per month family plan with 10GB LTE data

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 28, 2014

"Leaving my office last week, I pulled alongside a bus covered with yet another ad for AT&T’s 'Best-Ever Pricing' for families," writes T-Mobile USA's outspoken CEO John Legere in a blog post Monday.

As is his wont, Legere couldn't resist offering a scathing critique of AT&T's family plan, calling it "funny" because "their deal is no deal at all" compared to the pricing of T-Mobile’s Simple Choice Family Plan.

Regardless, Legere went on to announce a new competitive offering which will be launching later this month to give a family of four a total of ten gigabytes of high-speed LTE data (2.5GB each) in exchange for a cool hundred bucks per month. By comparison, AT&T's “Best-Ever Pricing” offers four lines for $160...

Don’t expect to see iWatch or 5.5″ iPhone 6 before December, new rumor cautions

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 29, 2016

I don't think anyone in their right mind would seriously question Apple's motivation to reportedly market and sell bigger iPhones this year.

Moreover, many pundits and watchers are in agreement that Apple will indeed enter new product categories this year with a rumored iWatch wearable device, said to combine health and fitness functions.

What's unclear though is the timing for these product launches. We already know it's going to be action-packed Fall, but you'd be wise not to keep your fingers crossed for a simultaneous launch of both new iPhones and iWatches...

European Commission green-lights Apple’s $3B Beats buy

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 28, 2014

The European Commission has okayed Apple's purchase of the Beats Music streaming-music service and Beats Electronics' premium headphone business, concluding that the agreement would not be detrimental to consumers across Europe. This is an important though expected development as Apple hopes to complete the $3 billion transaction by the end of the September quarter, pending regulatory approval in the United States...

Microsoft airs Cortana vs. Siri ad showing contextually-aware tasks

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 11, 2016

Microsoft on Monday shared a new television commercial which the company first showed off at its annual conference back in April to rally up developers who were concerned that the software giant was losing its mojo.

The 30-second video depicts a showdown between Cortana, Microsoft's own digital personal assistant baked into Windows Phone 8.1, and Apple's Siri.

Microsoft's assistant is shown completing a number of contextually-aware tasks using a plethora of services and data sources...

Apple said to be buying Swell Radio app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 29, 2018

Following a TechCrunch report last Friday which claims that Apple has recently acquired data-style book analytics services BookLamp (basically a “Pandora for books”) to beat Amazon at its own game, Re/code is reporting early Monday that the Cupertino firm has another acquisition target in its crosshairs - a radio/podcast app Swell ("Pandora for talk radio") which raised $7.2 million from investors including DFJ, Google Ventures and InterWest Partners...

Swatch says it doesn’t need Apple, will launch its smart watch next year

Sébastien Page ∙ July 27, 2014

Some silly rumor made the rounds last week claiming Swatch was in talk with Apple to produce a line of iWatch devices. This was quickly denied by Swatch, who's now saying it will bring its own smart watch/fitness tracker to market by next year.

Swatch CEO Nick Hayek recently told Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag (via Reuters) that the company will soon update its Swatch Touch line, which will be equipped with features appealing to athletes:

Claimed circuit board hints at NFC-enabled iPhone 6 – again!

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 26, 2014

Combing through our archive of posts mentioning "iPhone" and "NFC" is all it takes to realize that talk of Apple allegedly adopting NFC is intensifying, not dying down. In fact, rumors calling for NFC-enabled iPhones date as far back as 2011!

Thus far, however, the iconic smartphone has not picked up support for NFC technology, which is an acronym for Near Field Communication. On the other hand, Apple has numerous NFC-related patents.

Additionally, it doesn't really hurt to mention that a growing number of high-end Android handsets include NFC as part of their standard feature set. Well, today a claimed image has surfaced apparently picturing an iPhone 6 printed circuit board with what appears to be an embedded NFC chip...