Apple

Apple wins ITC ban on Samsung products

Cody Lee ∙ August 9, 2013

Apple picked up another major victory in its ongoing patent battle with Samsung this afternoon. The International Trade Commission has just handed down a decision in the company's case against Samsung, finding the Korean tech giant guilty of infringement.

The final ruling on the complaint, which Apple first lodged in July 2011, finds several Samsung products guilty of infringing on two of Apple's patents. An import ban has been ordered on those products, and will take effect at the end of the 60-day Presidential review period...

Cincinnati Bell landing the iPhone 5 on August 16

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 9, 2016

Another regional United States telco is about to land Apple's iPhone 5 soon.

Cincinnati Bell, the leading wireless carrier in Cincinnati, Ohio, and its nearby suburbs in the U.S. states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, will start offering the Apple smartphone next Friday, August 16, The Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper has confirmed.

Although the device will be priced a bit higher versus other prepaid carriers, the launch festivities are said to include a nice $100 trade-in promo. I've included the full details after the break...

Blizzard posts StarCraft II World Championship Series streaming app

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 9, 2013

Blizzard, the maker of the award-winning Starcraft and Diablo series, has released a new iPhone and iPad app, called Blizzard WCS. As the name suggests, it's basically a client designed to allow for live streaming of the StarCraft II World Championship Series (WCS). If you can't make it to the WCS, the app will "keep you updated, informed, and entertained all the way through the Global Finals of the World Championship Series and beyond," Blizzard promises...

DoJ again accuses Apple of conspiring with publishers

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

In another twist to the e-book case involving Apple and five major book publishers, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) on Friday said Apple and publishers have “banded together once again," arguing strict regulation is necessary. Apple of course argued a stay. The government may be attempting to gain leverage here by accusing (again) Apple of conspiring with publishers ahead of today's decision on punishment in the e-book antitrust case...

Without iPhone exclusive, China Unicom now turns to low-cost handsets

Ed Sutherland ∙ August 9, 2013

There is a surge of demand for low-cost smartphones in China. Latest to ride the wave: local carrier China Unicom, which lost its exclusive deal to sell iPhones in 2012.

Apparently, the shift toward inexpensive phones is paying off, the company reporting a 55 percent jump in profits for the first half of 2013.

While there is still room for high-end smartphones, vast growth is seen selling inexpensive handsets to emerging markets, such as China and India. Apple could unveil a plastic iPhone aimed at first-time smartphone owners and still make "decent profitability" one analyst said Thursday...

New photos of iPad 5 front panel surface, again show thinner bezels

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Back in January of this year, iLounge's Jeremy Horwitz claimed to have seen a physical model of the fifth generation iPad. He said it was "a lot smaller than one would guess was possible" with "virtually no left or right bezels."

Since then, all of the reports and part leaks we've seen have corroborated Horwitz' description. We've seen rear shells of the tablet—more than once—and a few cases, and today we have new pictures of a black front panel...

President Obama meets with Tim Cook and other tech execs to talk surveillance

Cody Lee ∙ August 9, 2013

According to a report from Politico, President Barack Obama met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and a number of other tech executives yesterday for a closed-door discussion on government surveillance. The site says this was the second meeting of its kind this week.

Cook was joined by the likes of AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Google's chief Internet evangelist Vint Cerf, and Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn, to talk about various surveillance strategies and tother topics such as the recent NSA PRISM program scandal...

Roku updates iPhone app with AirPlay-like content streaming

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 8, 2013

Good news, Roku set-top box users! A significant update to Roku's iOS app has just been issued, enabling an AirPlay-like functionality that works with photos, music and iOS video content. In a nutshell, a new Play on Roku feature works similar to AirPlay, a media streaming technology from Apple. The freshly updated app can now stream content stored on an iPhone, iPad or iPod directly to a bunch of Roku's set-top box products. Jump past the fold for more information...

Apple’s Board of Directors reportedly pressuring Tim Cook to innovate

Cody Lee ∙ August 8, 2013

Looking at headlines produced by the Apple rumor mill over the past several months, there's no way you could accuse it of not innovating. We've seen reports that the company is working on everything from an advanced smart watch, to a cloud-based DVR, and everything in between.

But looking at the shelves in Apple's retail stores tells a different story. The Mac-maker hasn't released a new version of its iPhone or iPad—its two best-sellers—in nearly a year, and it hasn't introduced an all-new product since 2010. And apparently, Apple's Board is getting concerned...

Google updates Play Books with rentals and sepia mode, starts rolling out textbooks

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 9, 2016

I like Google's Play Books app even though it's severely crippled due to Apple's policy of prohibiting links to external stores, which doesn't make it very useful if you want to browse and download some new reading material to your device (to shop books, visit Google Play in your browser).

Other than that, it's a solid reading app and perhaps a nice gateway drug to Google's other content stores.

It's been a while since Google last updated Play Books so today saw an interesting update which has brought out three useful features. I've included the description and a few nice screenshots right after the break...

Apple’s iPhone activation servers knocked offline, all over again

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 8, 2013

"Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable," used to be the unmistakable declaration of crazy high demand.

Each time an influx of buyers rushed to simultaneously power on their brand spanking new iPhones on launch day, Apple's iTunes servers struggled to keep up.

Nowadays, it's just plain embarrassing.

Just as Apple is coping with bringing the remaining Dev Center systems back online and less than 24 hours after a two-hour outage had knocked offline Apple's App Store and other iTunes content stores, the Apple cloud is acting up - again.

This time around, users on Twitter and elsewhere are reporting not being able to activate their brand spanking new iPhones because iTunes activation servers are experiencing another outage...

Vevo Apple TV app reportedly in the works

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

Specialized publication AdAge is out with a new report which asserts - based on chit-chats with the obligatory "people familiar with the matter" - that Apple and the Vevo music website (no, I'm not capitalizing the name) have teamed up on providing the official app for the Apple TV to stream music videos 24/7 over the Internet. Akin to the Vevo TV feature found in Vevo's existing iPhone and iPad programs, the Apple TV application would offer non-stop streaming of music videos from Vevo's content partners.

Such a piece of software has the potential to effectively turn your $99 set-top box into the MTV jukebox for the 21st century. Keep in mind Vevo controls a catalog of 75,000 music videos from more than 21,000 artists...