Also most likely to be next purchased phone

 

The iPhone made enormous strides in penetrating the enterprise in 2011, a new survey from iPass shows. The Apple handsets jumped from 31 percent share to 45 percent in a single year, while Android phones also did well, going from 11 percent to just over 20 percent, an even higher growth rate that put it in third place. The growth came at the expense of rivals, principally Symbian and Windows Phone, though the Blackberry suffered a small drop as well.

The rise of both iOS and Android in the business community is credited in part to the dropping median age of mobile employees, down five years to age 41 in this year's survey compared to last year, and also in part to a growing trend among companies to let employees self-select what smartphone they want. This policy was also reflected in the statistics that arose from the question of what the workers' next smartphone purchase would be. The iPhone dominated the responses with 18 percent, followed by Android at 11.2 percent and the rest in low single digits, with Blackberry trailing behind Windows Mobile (2.3 percent compared to 3.6 percent for Windows Mobile).

The survey also looked at tablet ownership, which has jumped a third from 2010 to 2011, with 44 percent of employees now saying they own one. More and more mobile workers now have what iPass calls a "mobile stack" of tools (notebook, tablet and smartphone) and are increasing choosing to do more work on the smartphones and tablets, leaving the notebooks or desktops to handle only the most complex or back-end tasks.

The number of mobile workers with smartphones has now climbed to 95 percent, up from 85 percent a year ago. Over 91 percent of those surveyed said they use their smartphones for work, compared to just 69 percent in 2010. 42 percent of the respondents said they leave their company-issued laptops at work and use the more mobile devices more when away from the office.

The survey questioned 2,300 mobile workers across 1,100 firms over a month-long period in September and October.

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Samsung Electronics Co., embroiled in patent disputes with Apple Inc. around the globe, won an early trial on its claim that the iPhone and iPad 2 in Australia infringe its patents on 3G wireless transmissions.

Australia Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett today ordered that a trial on Samsung’s claims be held in March. Cupertino, California-based Apple had opposed an early trial, with its lawyer Stephen Burley saying the company needed more time to prepare the case and favored a hearing in August.

Samsung, the world’s biggest maker of smartphones last quarter, dropped its bid for a temporary injunction barring Apple from selling the iPhones and iPad 2 and instead is seeking an early hearing. The Australian trial will be a prelude for Samsung in its U.S. case before the International Trade Commission on similar claims, which Burley said will be heard in May and June.

Burley had sought to delay the Australian trial to August, after the ITC hearing. The ITC has the power to block imports of products found to infringe U.S. patents.

The world’s two biggest makers of smartphones and tablet computers have widened their litigation to Europe, Japan and Australia since Apple sued Samsung in the U.S. in April, claiming the Suwon, South Korea-based company “slavishly” copied the designs of iPhones and iPads.

‘Informal Policy’

Samsung and Apple had a “very close relationship” until April, Samsung’s lawyer Neil Young told the judge today, with Samsung adhering to an “informal policy” not to pursue patent claims to maintain the relationship.

That was terminated in April, Young said. Apple never sought to obtain a license from Samsung, although “other major players” have, he said, without identifying the companies.

Samsung sued Apple in Australia in September, claiming the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad 2 infringed its patents for wireless transmission. The lawsuit was in response to Apple’s request for a court order barring the sale of the Galaxy Tablet 10.1 in Australia, claiming the device infringed its patents. Bennett granted Apple’s request for an injunction on Oct. 13.

Samsung has appealed the ruling, with a hearing before the full court of the federal court scheduled for Nov. 25.

Samsung also sought an order from Bennett declaring that Apple’s patents, at issue in the Galaxy tablet dispute, be revoked. Samsung claims the Apple patents on touch screen technology, sliding to unlock, scroll bounce and scrolling photos aren’t new.

The case is: Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. NSD1243/2011. Federal Court of Australia (Sydney).

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Apple Inc. has named Arthur Levinson as its non-executive chairman, a move that rewards the longtime Apple board member who chose it over Google Inc. when the technology giants began competing with each other.

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  Kimberly White, AP

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fills the vacancy left when co-founder Steve Jobs died last month at age 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Jobs had been chairman for less than two months, a position created when he stepped down as chief executive in August.

Robert Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Co., was tapped as a director.

The appointments were announced Tuesday.

Levinson is chairman of pharmaceuticals company Genentech Inc. He showed his loyalty in 2009 when a federal investigation pressured him to choose between keeping his board seat at Apple or at Internet search leader Google Inc. At that point, the me rivals in mobile devices and Web browsers.Levinson said in a statement that he was honored to be named Apple's chairman.

"Apple is always focused on out-innovating itself … and that is something I am very proud to be a part of," he said.

Levinson's allegiance may have been especially appreciated by Jobs, who had become convinced that Google stole iPhone's innovative touch-screen operating system to develop its own platform called Android.

Jobs' antipathy toward Google and its former CEO, Eric Schmidt, was well documented during interviews he gave with his biographer, Walter Isaacson. In the book, titled simply "Steve Jobs," Jobs called Android a "stolen product." Schmidt was an Apple board member for three years until he resigned in August 2009 as the rivalry between the two companies grew. Levinson resigned from Google's board two months later.

Levinson joined Genentech as a research scientist in 1980 and led it as chief executive from 1995 to 2009. Levinson has been co-lead director on Apple Inc.'s board since 2005, serving alongside Avon Products Inc. CEO Andrea Jung.

In the years after Levinson became an Apple director in 2000, the board was periodically derided for being too deferential to Jobs.

Some of the criticism centered on the touchy subject about how much information the board should have shared about Jobs' health problems, especially after he took a six-month leave of absence in 2009. Most shareholders didn't find out that Jobs had gotten a liver transplant until reading about it in The Wall Street Journal just before he returned to work.

During Levinson's tenure, the board also approved the manipulation of stock options that increased their value to Jobs and other executives. The options were backdated to a time when Apple's shares were worth less than when they were granted — a move that increased the potential windfalls for the recipients

If companies backdate options without properly disclosing and accounting for the move, it can cause profits to be overstated. That's what happened at Apple and dozens of other technology companies in a scandal that rocked Silicon Valley in 2006 and 2007.

The Securities and Exchange Commission reached a $2.2 million settlement with Apple's former general counsel in 2008, but never took action against Jobs or the company's board.

Disney's Iger repaired frayed relations between Jobs and Disney after he took the reins of the media company in 2005. He first made ABC shows available on iTunes, and then led Disney's acquisition of computer animated movie studio Pixar for $7.4 billion. The Pixar deal made Jobs Disney's largest shareholder.

Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, said Levinson has made "enormous contributions" to the company since joining the board, saying "his insight and leadership are incredibly valuable."

Cook said that Iger, 60, was "a great fit for Apple" because his stewardship of Disney is based on principles that Apple shares — generating creative content, using new technology and expanding into new markets around the world.

Both men will serve on Apple's audit committee.

"I am extremely pleased to join the board of such a wonderful company," Iger said in a statement. "Over the years, I have come to know and admire the management team, now ably led by Tim Cook, and I am confident they have the leadership and vision to ensure Apple's continued momentum and success."

 

A teardown of Amazon's new Kindle Fire showed that the online retailer went with the 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 processor for its entry into the media tablet market.

iFixit took apart the device, undertaking in the process the publication's first in-house chip unmasking. The Kindle Fire proved to be relatively easy to tear down and earned a score of 8 out of 10 for repairability. By comparison, Apple's iPad 2 received a 4 out of 10 during its teardown.

In addition to the TI OMAP 4430 chip, the teardown of the Fire found 8GB of Samsung Flash memory, 512MB of Hynix RAM and several other Texas Instruments chips on-board the Fire.

Earlier reports had suggested that Amazon would go with the same chip as Research in Motion's PlayBook tablet in order to keep costs down and move the project along. The PlayBook does, in fact, also use the TI OMAP 4430 chip.

The teardown also noted that the tablet's only button is a power button, a fact that has drawn some criticism from reviewers. Reviews for the device have been generally positive, with most noting that the Fire is a good deal but no "iPad killer."

 

According to the report, the capacity of the 3.7 volt battery stands at 16.28 Watt-hours, significantly less than the iPad 2's 25 Watt-hours. iFixit also pointed out that charging the Fire over a computer USB port will take longer than the advertised four-hour charge time for when the device is plugged into an outlet.

A recent survey of more than 2,000 developers found growing interest in the Kindle Fire, with 49 percent of those surveyed indicating they were "very interested" in developing for the device. Meanwhile, Apple maintained a dominant share with 88 percent of respondents interested in developing for the iPad.

 

As for consumers, 26 percent of Kindle Fire buyers say they delayed or put on hold an iPad purchase, according to a survey by ChangeWave and RBC Capital Markets.

Amazon revealed last month that it is building millions more Kindle Fires than originally planned. One recent report claimed the company is looking to build 5 million units by the end of the year.

But, Apple has said it is not worried about the Fire affecting iPad sales. Company executives recently indicated that they believe Amazon's tablet will further fragment the market because it is a fork off Android. Apple reportedly believes the more fragmentation the better, as it will drive customers toward its stable iPad platform.

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Samsung has successfully obtained a full hearing with an Australian court for its patent case against rival Apple's iPhone 4S, with the hearing scheduled to take place in March 2012.

Justice Annabelle Bennett told the court on Tuesday that the three-week hearing will begin next March, adding that she plans to fix the exact date on Friday. Apple had requested that the hearing take place next August, but Bennett said the timing was too late, Reuters reports.

"They [Samsung] are trying to expand the Android market. The longer it's left the harder it will be for Samsung," she remarked.

In the meantime, Apple will be allowed to continue sales of its latest iPhone, which launched in the country on Oct. 14. According to the report, Samsung's case against Apple in Australia accuses the company of infringing on three patents and carries more than 25 claims.

Samsung has opposed the iPhone 4S in several countries across the globe. For instance, the company filed preliminary injunction requests against the device in France and Italy almost immediately after Apple announced the handset. However, an Italian judge denied the South Korean electronics maker's request late last month and allowed Apple to launch its latest smartphone in the country.

 

Interestingly enough, Samsung has decided not to seek an injunction in its home country. A Korean newspaper revealed on Monday that the company opted not to file at the last minute because of public relations concerns.

"We concluded that we should engage in legal battles with Apple only in the global market," a spokesperson for Samsung reportedly said, "but not in order to gain more market share in Korea."

The two companies' fierce legal battle spans 10 countries and encompasses more than 20 complaints. Apple has seen some success against Samsung in Australia, winning an injunction against its rival's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the region. But, Samsung is appealing the decision, arguing that it was based on "irrelevant considerations" and that the judge made "errors of law in her approach." A formal hearing regarding the injunction is expected to be held next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After erasing developers' iTunes Match accounts, Apple has supplied its developers with a new beta of iTunes 10.5.1 to test the new $24.99-per-year service.

The third beta of iTunes 10.5.1 is now available to members of Apple's developer program. The company said it includes "a number of important stability and performance improvements for iTunes Match."

All who are testing the iTunes Match service, which also remains in beta, must update to the latest iTunes 10.5.1 beta in order to continue using the subscription service. The last beta was supplied earlier this month, and brought iTunes Match testing to the Apple TV.

The first beta of iTunes 10.5.1 was supplied to developers in October, soon after the public release of iTunes 10.5. Apple originally promised that iTunes Match would become publicly available by the end of October, but that deadline came and went without comment from the company.

As Apple continues to attempt to work out kinks with iTunes Match, the company once again erased accounts Saturday morning. Developers were notified on Friday that their iTunes Match beta libraries would be erased as Apple continues to prepare for the forthcoming launch of the service.

When it is eventually publicly available, iTunes Match will support music collections of up to 25,000 songs for $24.99 per year. The service will scan users' personal music libraries, including songs obtained from ripped CDs or other locations, and match them up with tracks sold on the iTunes Store.

iTunes Match subscribers will be able to re-download any of their matched songs on other enabled devices, including iPhones and iPads. Those downloads will be 256Kbps AAC files, even if the original user-owned files are of lower quality.

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Apple's initial unsuccessful attempt to build a modern operating system in preparation for the switch to Intel processors led to the company's realization that it needed to purchase NeXT, a move that led to Steve Jobs' return to the company he co-founded.

During a panel entitled "Steve Jobs: A Legacy of Vision and Leadership" hosted by the Churchhill Club last week, several former employees from Apple's early days offered an inside look at the process behind the move to Intel chips, as noted by Forbes.

Panelists included Bill Atkinson, the creator of MacPaint and HyperCard; Jean-Louis Gassée, former head of Macintosh product development; Andy Hertzfeld, who served as a developer on the original Macintosh team and now works for Google; Regis McKenna, former marketing veteran for the company and Larry Tesler, former VP of Advanced Technology and Chief Scientist at Apple. Deborah Stapleton, Pixar's former head of investor and public relations, also participated in the panel.

According to Tesler, the need to transition away from Motorola's PowerPC processors in favor of Intel's chips led to the company's decision to acquire NeXT.

"We had actually tried a few years before to port the MacOS to Intel, but there was so much machine code still there, that to make it be able to run both, it was just really really hard," he said. "And so a number of the senior engineers and I got together and we recommended that first we modernize the operating system, and then we try to get it to run on Intel, initially by developing our own in-house operating system which turned out to be one of these projects that just grew and grew and never finished."

 

As the team realized the project wouldn't work, Apple eventually decided to purchase an operation. The company considered both BeOS and NeXT, both of which would make the switch to Intel possible. Of course, Apple eventually went with the company that Jobs had founded, a fateful decision that led to his impressive comeback.

Even so, it took Jobs several years to eventually make the switch. He first focused on modernizing Mac OS, releasing Mac OS X in 2001. Then, after years of rumors that a switch was coming, he announced in June 2005 that Apple would move away from the PowerPC architecture to Intel.

Jobs had wanted to go with Intel at least five years earlier. He said during his 2005 keynote that Mac OS X had been leading "a secret double life" with parallel in-house Intel versions developed alongside each public PowerPC release.

To ease the transition, Apple developed a "Rosetta" emulator that allowed legacy PowerPC code to be run on Intel-based Macs. The company quietly retired Rosetta earlier this year with the release of Mac OS X Lion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gorilla Glass

 

It is well known that most full touch-screen smartphones on the market today feature a scratch resistant display coating called the 'Gorilla Glass.' Made by a New York based company Corning Glass, the Gorilla Glass allows smartphone makers to feature a large piece of display on the front of their

device without the risk of excessive breakdowns or scratches. While this may seem like a easy fix today, back in 2006-2007 when Apple was gearing up for the original iPhone launch, this wasn't that simple.

Steve Jobs biography reveals his interactions with Corning Glass while creating a display for the iPhone that is "strong an resistant to scratches." While the logical place to look for any component is Asia, John Seeley Brown a friend of Steve Jobs, introduced him to Corning CEO Wendell Weeks. This marked the beginning of what went on to change Corning's fortunes and offer manufactures a tough glass not just for smartphones, but tablets, laptops and even TV sets.

In the 1960's Corning developed a chemical exchange process, which lead to the tough glass known as 'Gorilla Glass,' but Corning failed to find a market for the same and had quit making it altogether. Jobs jumped on the opportunity and offered to buyout all the Gorilla Glass that Corning could supply in the next six months, but since none of the plants that Corning operated were manufacturing this glass, the supply was in doubt. Jobs persisted and pushed Weeks to divert resources on the Gorilla Glass and eventually they were able to meet the demand in less than six months.

 

The first iPhone shipped in 2007 and the rest is history. It resulted in a mini-panic within the smartphone industry. While the entire industry jumped on the full touchscreen smartphone bandwagon, Corning made hay while the sun shined. Almost all smartphone makers looking for a good solution to strengthen their touchscreen ended up using the Gorilla Glass. We have seen the Gorilla Glass finding its way to notebooks and in all probability Apple might be using the same technology in its other product lines like the iPad and the MacBooks as well.

Wendell Weeks is quoted saying "We produced a glass that had never been made." And a prized possession that he has today is the memento framed on display, it is a message from Steve Jobs that reads "We couldn't have done it without you" ... sent on the day when the original iPhone was launched. Corning's website may not mention Apple as a client or the iPhones as a product featuring Gorilla Glass. Rather it features a long list of manufactures using the Gorilla Glass and dozens of products using the same. Apple's role was silent, away from public attention and never advertised. Yes Apple reinvented the Gorilla Glass, just one of the many small things that changed the face of the smartphone industry.

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Here is a timeline of the battle between consumer technology giant Apple Inc and software company Adobe Systems over the latter's Flash technology.

 

NEW YORK: Here is a timeline of the battle between consumer technology giant Apple Inc and software company Adobe Systems over the latter's Flash technology, which is widely used to view videos and play games on the internet.

January 2007: Apple unveils its blockbuster iPhone with a browser that was not compatible with Adobe's Flash player, dealing a blow to the software maker.

June 2008: Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said the company was making internal progress on getting Flash to work on the iPhone but cautioned it was still in test phase.

Jan 2010: Apple unveils iPad tablet, which also doesn't run Flash software in browsers, and the company effectively asks developers not to work with Flash.

April 2010: Flash "platform evangelist" Lee Brimelow writes a blog post supporting Flash that ends with the words "Go screw yourself Apple."

April 2010: Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs posts a blog on the company's website simply titled "Thoughts on Flash" where he criticizes the technology as unreliable, ill-suited for mobile devices, and for being a buggy battery hog.

"We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device for a few years now. We have never seen it," he said in the unusual and nearly 1,700-word manifesto.

"Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we're glad we didn't hold our breath."

Jobs said the company prefers open standards for the Web and favors technologies such HTML5 for creating multimedia programs.

April 2010: Adobe Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen calls the technology problems noted by Jobs "a smokescreen," labels Jobs' letter an "extraordinary attack."

June 2010: Jobs snipes again at the "waning" Flash technology at the annual All Things Digital conference. "We didn't start off to have a war with Flash or anything else. We just made a technical decision," he said.

Sept 2010: Bowing to pressure from app developers, Apple eases restrictions for building iPhone and iPad applications, a move that allowed for the use of Flash software.

Adobe responds by saying it was "encouraged to see Apple lifting its restrictions on its licensing terms, giving developers the freedom to choose what tools they use to develop applications for Apple devices."

Oct 2010: Apple says will no longer ship Mac computers with Adobe's Flash player pre-installed but the decision does not ban Flash software from its computers.

Nov 2011: Adobe says it is halting development of its Flash Player for mobile browsers and conceded that HTML5 has become the preferred standard for creating mobile browser content. Adobe plans to infuse HTML5 technology across its entire product line over the coming years

After seeding a beta of an update to its iOS 5 operating system to developers, Apple Inc. has started seeding the update to a few selected end-users, an enthusiast site reported late Wednesday.

Enthusiast site 9to5mac.com said the lucky few who got the iOS 5.0.1 update included customers who "complained" about battery life issues in iOS 5.

It said the update also includes improvements to Siri, the voice-activated assistant in the iPhone 4S.

Last week, tech site Boy Genius Reports said Apple seeded the beta form of iOS 5.0.1 but only to developers.

On the other hand, Apple cautioned the end-users getting this week's update that their devices will not be able to be downgraded to iOS 5.0, although they will be allowed to upgrade to the final release of iOS 5 when it comes out in the next few weeks.

The 9to5mac.com article hinted the improvements to Siri are particularly for Australian users.

Other enhancements in the update include multitasking gestures to the first generation iPad, and other bug fixes.

Meanwhile, 9to5mac.com said Apple Stores have received memos of how to deal with battery life issues.

“Basically, stores are not to replace phones with battery life issues and are supposed to tell customers to wait a few weeks unit Apple releases a software fix. Basically, if your battery is not working properly: deal with it,” it said