iPhone News Desk

Best Buy Chairman to Step Down After Probe

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:47:00 EDT

Best Buy founder and its largest shareholder Richard Schulze, 71, will be stepping down as chairman June 21 after a board investigation found he didn’t disclose CEO Brian Dunn’s “extremely close personal relationship” with a 29-year-old female employee to the board’s audit committee. Instead, based on an informant’s written testimony and ignoring possible liabilities to the company, he confronted Dunn who denied it. Dunn and the woman maintained to investigators that their relationship wasn’t “romantic or otherwise improper” – although he called her 33 times, sent 149 text messages and 42 pictures or video messages during two trips abroad last year and she wasn’t discrete among co-workers about favors he did for her like soliciting a vendor for a ticket to a concert in Vegas and helping her pay for the trip.

HTC Phones Cool Their Heels in US Customs Due to Ban

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:30:00 EDT

Shipments of two new HTC smartphones have been seized for inspection by US Customs because of the limited import ban Apple got from the International Trade Commission in mid-December. HTC was found to have infringed an Apple patent on “data tapping.” That’s when you, say, tap on a phone number and the dingus dials it for you. The Taiwan company wouldn’t be in this predicament if it had followed through on its initial decision to just rip the functionality out. Instead it ultimately decided on a workaround and the customs people are checking to see if it’s abiding by the rules. That means that the HTC One X that AT&T just started selling out of shipments that beat the ban’s April 19 enforcement date is now listed as “out of stock” and the HTC Evo 4G LTE that Sprint was to start selling this Friday has been put on hold. Sprint is taking pre-orders.

Speech and Sound: The Next "Killer Paradigm Shift"..?

Thu, 17 May 2012 10:15:00 EDT

There was a time, not so very long ago, when IT directors and chief information officers dismissed the Internet as something of a passing fad. Somehow though, things took off pretty well with the whole web thing didn't they? Mobile telephony has also grown to a level of dominance that we could never have predicted when it first started appearing around 30 years ago. Then came the tablet... just another fad right? Well, the first few were, but then "Magic Steve" produced the tablet we all love and cherish didn't he? (OK yes - I know Android is doing well in this space too, you don't need to write in)... so what's coming next?

Apple Said to Buy Half of Elpida’s Output

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:48:00 EDT

Hmm, apparently Samsung has pushed one too many of Apple’s buttons. According to DigiTimes Apple has bought up half of Elpida Memory’s total chip production of mobile DRAM rather than give the iPad and iPhone order to Samsung, its largest supplier, accused of ripping off its technology in courts throughout the world. Reuters said the report – citing unnamed industry sources – cost Samsung, the world’s biggest DRAM factory, $10 billion worth of market cap on Wednesday. Hynix also took a hit.

ScaleMP to Exhibit at Cloud Expo 2012 New York

Wed, 16 May 2012 12:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that ScaleMP, a leading provider of virtualization solutions for high-end computing, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. ScaleMP is the leader in virtualization for high-end computing, providing maximum performance and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). The innovative Versatile SMP (vSMP) architecture aggregates multiple independent systems into a single virtual system, delivering an industry-standard, high-end symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) computer. Using software to replace custom hardware and components, ScaleMP offers a new, revolutionary computing paradigm.

Facebook Ups Its IPO Price

Wed, 16 May 2012 07:00:00 EDT

You knew this was gonna happen, right? Facebook has repriced its IPO upwards from $28-$35 a share to $34-$38 a share giving it a valuation of $92 billion-$104 billion, a neighborhood more to its liking than the original $77 billion-$96 billion. The actual price won’t be set until Thursday night. Bloomberg claimed the company’s IPO roadshow was producing less institutional demand for the stock than expected because of less-than-rosy revenue forecasts last week – though the increase in the price would seem to belie that statement – and the AP and CNBC did a survey that found half the people polled thought the original asking price was too high – more among active investors.

GM to Pull Facebook Advertising: WSJ

Wed, 16 May 2012 06:45:00 EDT

Here we are less than three days before Facebook’s historic $100 billion IPO and General Motors or “people familiar with the matter” let slip to the Wall Street Journal that GM’s going to stop advertising on the social networking site because the paid ads are ineffective. The big American carmaker still reportedly intends to do marketing through Facebook but that’s not going to put any money in Facebook’s pocketbook. The paper says GM started having doubts earlier this year and met with Facebook managers, leaving the meetings “unconvinced advertising on the web site made sense.” GM reportedly spends about $10 million advertising on Facebook and another $30 million on its Facebook promotional content and managing its Facebook pages.

Xeround Adds AppHarbor and PHP Fog Integration to Cloud Database

Tue, 15 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

Xeround, the Cloud Database Company, on Tuesday announced the availability of their database-as-a-service for MySQL applications as an add-on for the AppHarbor .Net platform and for AppFog's PHP Fog PHP platform. Xeround's add-on provides .NET and PHP developers using these platforms with a zero-management, highly available and scalable cloud database solution in just one click. Xeround's add-on on AppHarbor and AppFog platforms provides simple one-click integration between the applications hosted on these platforms and Xeround's Database-as-a-Service. From the users' perspective, all they need to do is add the add-on to their application from within their environment. This automatically creates a MySQL-compatible cloud database that easily connects to their application.

Proview’s US Suit Thrown Out

Fri, 11 May 2012 08:00:00 EDT

A California Superior Court last Friday threw out Proview Electronics’ three-month-old infringement suit against Apple over the iPad trademark. The dismissal only came to light the other day. Proview claimed Apple duped it when Apple bought the iPad trademarks from it in 2009 for $55,000 because it didn’t disclose who its middleman was working for. The trademark was reportedly registered in 10 countries. Proview wanted the 2009 deal set aside and Apple stopped from using the iPad name. Proview Electronics is the Taiwanese subsidiary of Proview International Holdings, and a sister firm of the Chinese Proview that sued Apple in Mainland China claiming to still own the mark. In probably the kindest rendition of the facts the Taiwan company apparently sold Apple the Chinese trademark without authorization. Apple claims it reneged.

Mobile Banking, Mobile Payments, M-Commerce

Fri, 11 May 2012 05:30:00 EDT

The Mobile Commerce News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile payments, mobile money, e-wallets, mobile banking and mobile security that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP

Enterprise Mobility and MEAPs - The Mobile Cloud Avatar

The Evolution of Enterprise Mobility

Mobile Adoption Among Gas and Electric Utilities

Mobile Adoption in Life Sciences

Mobile Adoption in Oil and Gas

Mobility Innovations for the Next Generation Utility

On The Road to Agile Mobile Business Applications

Unvired Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP)

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM

5 Lessons for Enterprise Mobility Success in the Cloud

Enterprise Mobility in 2012: One Solution for Multiple Devices

Healthrageous Mobility Case Study

Making Sense of Mobile Middleware Strategies

The Latest m-Business Trends and How the Onslaught of Mobile Devices Affects Development Strategies

The Real-Time Mobile Enterprise: The Benefits of Rapid, Easy Access

Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform

Ruggedized and Industrial Mobile Device Articles

Consumer Smartphones or Industrial Smartphones?

You can follow me on Twitter @krbenedict and read my blog, Enterprise Mobility Strategies.

I have added a feature to my blog site that supports email subscriptions. You can now receive all blog articles directly via email. If you are interested, click here.

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus

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Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Apple in Settlement Talks with Proview over iPad Mark

Tue, 08 May 2012 08:15:00 EDT

Apple has made an offer to resolve the imbroglio over the Chinese iPad trademark according to Roger Xie, a lawyer representing the Proview Technology (Shenzhen), the bankrupt company that claims the mark wasn’t included in the rights Apple acquired from a sister company in 2009. Whatever amount Apple’s offered it apparently isn’t enough to satisfy Proview, which owes $400 million to Chinese banks. Apple has been under pressure from a Chinese appeals court to settle but has been reluctant to sit down. It is believed the court could uphold a lower court’s decision that Proview owns the trademark.

Apple Releases iOS 5.1.1

Mon, 07 May 2012 18:20:00 EDT

Apple has just released iOS 5.1.1 update for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. This update fixes a number of bugs, including a particular annoying one affecting the iPad 3 which resulted users losing access to their cellular data connection until they rebooted their tablet. Read the full story at ZDNet

The Innovation Show

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:06:14 EDT

You're just a few clicks away from the first edition of The Innovation Show, from SAP. This brand new, 30-minute online show on May 3rd 2012 at 1400Hrs London time will update you on the latest technologies and IT innovations that are impacting your business. Innovation is anything but business as usual. Innovative thinking has the power to transform how we work, live, and play. Presented by technologist and broadcaster David McClelland, this first show will discuss two key innovation topics: Big data – big challenge or big opportunity? Our experts will be talking big. Enterprise mobility – from creating business-ready apps to device security and the rise of what analysts are calling the “prosumer.”

Can You See Apple in a Tooth Fairy Tutu?

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:00:00 EDT

The Guangdong High Court in southern China that heard Apple’s appeal of a lower court decision awarding ownership of the iPad trademark in China to Proview Technology (Shenzhen), the financially desperate Chinese display maker that ostensibly sold Apple the trademark, is now reportedly trying to mediate a settlement between the two. Despite claims to the contrary, it’s unclear whether Apple is actually considering settling knowing full well it’s expected to buy its way out of a predicament it believes it’s on the right side of for some sky-high sum. Apple won’t say anything about it while Proview booster Ma Dongxiao, its chatty public-facing lawyer, claimed last week that “I don’t know if Apple has changed its attitude, but I believe that the key point now is the price.” (Yes, well then Apple’s attitude would have to have changed now wouldn’t it.)

Announcing JReport 11: Advanced Data Visualization and Dashboards

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 11:00:00 EDT

“JReport 11 continues our mission to deliver data visualization, discovery, and self-service tools to our users on all modern platforms,” noted Dr. Bing Yao, President of Jinfonet Software, on the release of JReport 11. The new release, which provides advanced data visualization with a powerful dashboard system and a mobile solution, features 40+ chart types and styles now enhanced with live charting including motion, real-time, and scrollable charts. Motion charts allow users to dynamically view data trends by auto-playing chart parameters. For example, you can put a chart in motion to show month-by-month changes over the course of a year. Real-time charts enable any web services data feed to be displayed and refreshed automatically. It can be used for monitoring applications, including system performance, stock charts, and real time applications. Scrollable charts let users easily zoom in and out on the chart axis for inspection of details.

Apple Taunts the Bears, Posts Blow-Out Quarter

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:30:00 EDT

After the bears lopped $70 billion off of Apple’s value in the last few days, the company went bear hunting Tuesday crushing estimates. Net profits in the March quarter were up 94% year-over-year to $11.6 billion returning $12.30 a share compared to estimates of $10.04 on revenues of $39.28 billion against projections of $36.81 billion. Apple sold a completely unexpected 35.1 million iPhones, up 88% and only two million short of Christmas, plus 11.8 million iPads – up 151% even though the new one was only released mid-quarter – and even a respectable 7.7 million iPods, down 15%. Macs, another spot that had the bears worried, were good for four million units, up 7% and in line with estimates, although Apple admitted they suffered iPad cannibalization. International sales accounted for 64% of revenue.

Samsung Sues Apple After Promising to Parlay

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:45:00 EDT

Right after agreeing at the court’s, um, insistence to sit down and parlay with Apple about settling, Samsung up and filed a countersuit claiming Apple’s iPhone infringes eight Samsung patents including a couple that are supposed to be standards-essential and FRAND-protected. (The European Commission, which is investigating Samsung for FRAND abuse, ain’t gonna like that.) The Samsung suit, which comes under the jurisdiction of the very same judge that’s having them try to settle with Apple, is a response to an Apple suit, filed in February, seeking to get Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus phone banned in the United States. FOSS Patents says, “So far, none of Samsung’s infringement claims against Apple has succeeded anywhere on Earth, despite efforts in nine different countries, but Samsung keeps on fighting.” The blog also thinks it’s not smart to provoke the EC.

Apple and Samsung to Take Stab at Settling

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:45:00 EDT

Apple and Samsung, the two leaders in mobile devices now suing each other in nine countries over Android, have agreed to sit down and try to settle a couple of US patent suits ahead of a trial due to start in late July. It’s not their idea. It’s the idea of federal court judge Lucy Koh, who drew the two Apple v Samsung patent infringement lawsuits, according to the FOSS Patents blog, which has been diligently following all the litigation. To at least look cooperative, the companies agreed to send their respective CEOs Tim Cook and Gee-Sung Choi along with their chief counsels to the San Francisco courthouse sometime in the next 90 days for settlement talks mediated by Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero.

[Update] DOJ Sues Apple, Five Publishers for Antitrust

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:00:00 EDT

The Justice Department sued Apple and five prominent book publishers Wednesday morning for colluding to fix the price of iPad-borne e-books. The suit was filed in federal court in Manhattan. Sixteen states have filed separate civil suits so far looking for money. Those charged include Macmillan, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Hachette and HarperCollins. Simon & Schuster, Hachette and HarperCollins immediately agreed to settle and terminate their arrangements with Apple, clear any joint e-book ventures with the government and report any communications with other publishers to the DOJ for the next five years.

DOJ To Sue Apple: Multiple Reports Say

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 03:00:00 EDT

The Justice Department is fixing to sue Apple, Macmillan and maybe Penguin for antitrust maybe as soon as Wednesday by all reports. The iPad-centered charges are supposed to be collusion and fixing the price of that newfangled invention, e-books. The DOJ essentially destroyed Microsoft at the height of its powers a generation ago with its antitrust suit. Ironically Apple hit an all-time high Tuesday and for one bright shining moment had a market cap worth $600 billion. The DOJ’s got a burr under its saddle because Apple and Macmillan won’t settle – or even talk anymore about settlement.

Five Points for Mobile Apps in Shaping the New Business Enterprise

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 13:14:00 EDT

Here is #4. Five points for Mobile Apps in Shaping the new Business Enterprise. 1. Cost reduction compared to existing systems. 2. Streamlining business processes. 3. Competitive advantage with up to date data at hand. 4. Increase Employee satisfaction and effectiveness. 5. Rapid response compared to existing processes

Apple Bubble Swells and Swells

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:00:00 EDT

Apple is having a heady time on Wall Street. Its stock pushed past $630 for a while Tuesday morning after its ax Gene Muster, the respected Piper Jaffray analyst recognized as having the most clout in the stock, pushed his 12-month price target from $718 to $910 a share. His call, which said Apple could go to a thousand bucks or better in 2014 and make Apple the first trillion dollar stock in history, came a day after Brian White, a “who’s he ?” analyst with Topeka Securities, thinking Apple TV and China, said Apple’s good for $1,001.

EC Opens Two Antitrust Investigations of MMI

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EDT

The European Commission Tuesday formally launched two parallel investigations into the prices Motorola Mobility is demanding for licenses to its standards-essential 2G and 3G wireless patents and Wi-Fi and online compression video patents. The formal investigations [formal as in “we’re already pretty sure where this is gonna come out”] come after both Microsoft and Apple complained that its prices were excessive – if not gouging – as well as anticompetitive when they were supposed to be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND). For instance MMI wants a very unFRAND $4 billion a year from Microsoft, almost half the sales of its entertainment division last year. Microsoft, which is suing MMI for breach of contract in the states, claims it already licenses similar patents through a consortium and asked the US court to forbid MMI from enforcing an expected German injunction. To play it safe it’s moving its distribution center out of Germany.

Apple Gets in Dutch with Ozzie Regulator

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:00:00 EDT

Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) filed a legal complaint against Apple Wednesday charging it with misleading consumers in promoting its new iPad. It said Apple suggests the iPad with Wifi+4G can connect to an Australian 4G mobile network with a SIM card when it can’t. The regulator wanted financial penalties, corrective advertising, refunds for the consumers affected and possibly an injunction. The one 4G network in the country is reportedly part of the spectrum the iPad can’t reach but Apple is pushing to retain its 4G branding.

Smartphones Are Trending Up: Clear Winner is Google

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 03:01:00 EDT

Smartphones are trending up, they now account for almost 50 percent of mobile phones in the United States. And, not surprisingly, feature phones are trending down – four out of five new mobile phone purchases are for smartphones. The clear winner is Google, about 48 percent of smartphones are Android devices. iPhone is second with [...]

FLA Reports What It Saw in Apple Plants in China

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:00:00 EDT

The Fair Labor Association (FLA), which Apple hired to look into working conditions at Foxconn plants in China a few months ago, said late Thursday that it had interviewed 35,000 workers and found no instances of child labor or forced labor. What it did find was people working an unsafe 60 hours or more a week in violation of even China’s labor laws (49 hours) to make “quick money.” Foxconn has reportedly pledged to reduce overtime and hire and house tens of thousands more people by July of 2013, which the FLA called “an unprecedented commitment.” Workers weren’t always paid fairly for the overtime and 64% of the workers said the basic wage of a few hundred dollars a month was insufficient although more than the Chinese minimum wage.

Foxconn Buys into Sharp, Likely Thinking Apple

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 08:00:00 EDT

Apple’s contract manufacturer Foxconn and its Taiwanese avatar the Hon Hai Group are buying 9.9% of struggling Osaka-based electronics conglomerate Sharp. They’ll get $1.6 billion worth of new Sharp shares. It’s the biggest investment a Taiwan company has ever made in a Japanese company and Hon Hai will be Sharp’s largest stockholder. It’s a big comeuppance for Japanese industry. Sharp expects to lose $3.49 billion this fiscal year, which ends March 31. Hon Hai will also take half of Sharp’s 92.96% position in its losing LCD panel unit. At least until September Sony owns the rest but won’t put any more money in it. The failure of the four-year-old Sharp-Sony alliance is said to be the reason Sharp turned to Hon Hai, whose LCD operation is also losing money. Sharp’s IGZO screen technologies and production facility are leading-edge.

Apple CEO Meets with One of China’s Top Dogs

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:30:00 EDT

Apple CEO Tim Cook is in China, the company’s second-largest market, meeting with unnamed government officials as well as Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, who may be running the country next year. The Chinese said they chatted about IP issues and greater cooperation. Seems China wants to enhance its “innovation capacity,” nurture and develop “emerging strategic industries” and speed up “the building an innovative country.” Bloomberg says Apple in the last couple of days has been talking about “greater investment” in the country. The news service imagines that might mean catching up with its retail store plans. Apple’s behind its own forecast. It’s got two stores in Beijing, three in Shanghai and one in Hong Kong. It should have 25 according to a two-year-old plan. It could reportedly support 100.

Getting Android Information Made Harder for Apple

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 07:00:00 EDT

Apple has failed to shake coveted information about Google’s development of Android and its $12.5 billion planned acquisition of soon-to-be Google satellite Motorola Mobility out of MMI. Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner, who will hear Apple’s patent complaints against Motorola this summer, said in a ruling the other day that Apple’s discovery motion was “vague and overbroad and Motorola’s objections are persuasive.” Apple will have to “narrow its request to a manageable and particularized set of documents” if it wants a new court order.

Three Million New iPads Sold over the Weekend

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:00:00 EDT

After Apple said early Monday that it would start paying a $10.60-a-year dividend and buy back stock to spend down its massive cash horde – something some people say Steve Jobs would never have done – and after its stock closed at over $600 for the first time ever – you watching this up there, Steve – the company put a figure on the initial sales of the new iPad, something it wouldn’t do during the dividend call. It said it sold three million of the slabs since they went on sale Friday. Worldwide marketing chief Philip Schiller called it a “blockbuster – the strongest iPad launch yet.”

Apple to Pay Dividend

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:45:00 EDT

Breaking with tradition – and changing the definition of a growth company in the process – Apple Monday morning said it would start paying a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share in the September quarter. At $10.60 a year that would currently be about a 1.8% yield, putting it among the highest dividend payers in the US, but disappointing analysts who thought it could easily afford 3% or more. It will also start buying back shares in the December quarter. It means to buy back $10 billion worth of its shares over three years. Many people regard buybacks as a waste of money. Apple’s got more than $100 billion in the bank – twice what Google had at the end of last year – and equal to somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 a share – but two-thirds of it is offshore in the Cayman Islands where it’s paying next to nothing in taxes.

Apple-MMI Licensing Talks Come to Naught

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:30:00 EDT

For some reason that isn’t clear, Apple and Motorola Mobility took a shot at negotiating a cross-license that might have covered all the Android OEMs late last year. So says the European Commission’s decision to clear the Google-MMI merger that Bloomberg pointed to Monday. The 38-page document indicates that Apple demanded what the EC called “carve-outs,” and FOSS Patents thinks that means exclusions on any portfolio-wide cross-license so Apple can keep its special distinguishing features to itself.

FRAND Wins One

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:45:00 EDT

A Dutch court Wednesday told Samsung it couldn’t have an injunction against Apple’s iPhone 4s based on patents it pledged to ETSI and 3G/UMTS standards. Not when Apple is willing to license them on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. It especially can’t have an injunction or otherwise call Apple to account because it’s already getting paid by Qualcomm for the patents; Apple’s just buying covered baseband chips from Qualcomm; it’s covered by extension. Samsung’s trick of terminating its Qualcomm agreement as far as Apple goes didn’t work in Holland because the widgetry was irrevocably pledged to ETSI.

Apple Says It Was Snookered

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:15:00 EDT

In the chattiest Apple’s been about the iPad trademark mess it’s in in Mainland China it said Tuesday that the financially squeezed Shenzhen Proview Technology, which claims to still own the mark there, insisted on selling the IP in 2009 through its Taiwan affiliate so its many creditors wouldn’t know it got the money. Apple claims it was snookered into dealing with the Taiwan subsidiary, which represented that it controlled two iPad marks in China even though they technically belong to Proview Shenzhen.

New iPad Reported Goes on Sale 8am Friday

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:00:00 EDT

The Mac Blogosphere has the new iPad going on sale in retail stores at 8am Friday morning March 16. 9to5Mac has got pictures of some Apple signage showing the time.

Apple May Sell 1M New IPads on Day One

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:16:00 EDT

Apple stock is at an all-time high pushed to its relatively dizzying height of $552 a share Monday by Wall Street’s supposition that it’ll sell more than a million iPads when the new widget hits the street Friday. The speculation is egged on by the fact that Apple said early on that it’s sold out of the inventory meant to fill pre-orders by the 16th. Pre-order started last Wednesday, the day the dingus was announced. “Demand is off the charts,” it’s telling anybody who asks. As a result it’s pushed back the shipping dates for incoming pre-orders two-three weeks and lines at the stores Friday are expected to be a worldwide feeding frenzy photo op. Early pre-orders are supposed to arrive at their destinations Friday. It’s possible that millions of pre-orders continued to pile up over the weekend as Barclays Capital’s Ben Reitzes suggests.

Apple Reportedly Conciliatory (Don’t Bet on It)

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 08:30:00 EDT

Its lawyers having wracked up mixed results seeking injunctions, Apple is supposedly ready to go back on its late chief Steve Jobs’ blood oath to wage “thermonuclear war” on Android for copying Apple’s widgetry and settle some of the legion of infringement suits it has filed against Android pushers. Quoting “people familiar with the matter,” the Wall Street Journal says Apple has made overtures to Samsung and Motorola Mobility, offering to license at least some of the patents they need to compete for the price of a royalty. The paper suggests there are “other terms” without saying what they may be.

Chinese Banks Reportedly Claim to Own iPad Trademark

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 07:45:00 EDT

It was just a matter of time before this elephant stomped into the room. The big Chinese banks that Proview Technology Shezhen – the Chinese company that claims to own the iPad trademark – owes a pot full of money to claim they relieved Proview of the Chinese rights to the mark in early 2009 when they seized its assets. That was nine months before Apple says it bought the trademark off a supposedly authorized Proview (Taiwan). This message comes from a consulting company called Hejun Vanguard Group that claimed to speak for the banks in an e-mail to press.

Apple Gets Android Secrets

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 07:00:00 EDT

US Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner, probably America’s most eminent jurist, ordered Google and Motorola Mobility to turn over information Apple has been seeking about Google’s acquisition of Android Inc, the development of the Android operating system and the pending $12.5 billion Google-MMI merger. His order Monday reads, “Motorola shall be expected to obtain full and immediate compliance by Google with Apple’s liability discovery demands.” The discovery is supposed to help Apple calculate damages. As you might expect, MMI resisted Apple’s laundry list of demands, arguing that Google isn’t party to the lawsuit and can’t be compelled to turn over documents. It will probably put up further resistance but FOSS Patents figures it’s possible Apple might find a smoking gun even if the broad discovery it’s been granted is curtailed.

DOJ Reportedly Threatens to Sue Apple for Antitrust

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 08:45:00 EST

The Justice Department has told Apple and five price-pinched publishers that it’s going to sue them for colluding to raise the price of e-books according to the Wall Street Journal. The story broke hours after Apple unveiled its latest iPad, a device that may not be quite as popular for reading books as Amazon’s Kindles. Amazon has capped the price of popular e-books at a cheap $9.99, a level disliked by publishers and hard for conventional booksellers to compete with. When the first iPad arrived, Apple let publishers set their own price and took 30% provided the book wasn’t sold elsewhere cheaper. The publishers then went to Amazon and insisted on the same deal, known as the agency model. The Journal says the DOJ “believes that Apple and the publishers acted in concert to raise prices across the industry” and is ready to sue them for antitrust violations.