Don’t know when Apple will come out of its pool of problems related to iPhone 4. Apple made an official announcement that it would launch the white iPhone 4 in the later part of this year.
The gadget which had already been facing Antennagate problems is finding the job of manufacturing white iPhone more challenging than originally anticipated by Apple. The company however did not reveal much detail about the difficulties cropping its way which earlier said that white iPhone would be released by the second half of July.
Apple is said to be facing this problem due to the colorant which is used in the material required to give the white finish to the iPhone according to Ars Technica. The site further said that the difficulty is probably being faced during the ion-exchange hardening process to make Gorilla Glass.
Engadget, the popular tech site which has its own reasons says that possibly Apple’s glass supplier, the Chinese glass-etching company is facing much trouble in finding an elusive combination of paint thickness and opaqueness.
Already, many people are transforming their existing black iPhone 4 into a white model by swapping the external enclosure. The only problems they faced in doing so are the speaker grill and the home button. Apple who acknowledged the reception problems related to the iPhone 4 announced to offer the iPhone users with a free case or a refund.
Lot many factors are to be taken into consideration while buying an iPhone 4. It all depends on whether you opt to pay less for the handset and more on monthly contract or shell out more on the iPhone and less monthly.
With three major network carriers viz. Vodafone, Orange and O2 unveiling their tariff plans, now 3 is geared up to throw its hat into the ring. The smallest of UK’s mobile carriers, 3 UK is the last one to announce its tariffs for the iPhone 4 as it wants to compete the best with its rivals in terms of package and cost.
3 UK is said to be in direct talks with Apple in order to offer the best and cheapest tariffs to its UK customers. It is following a similar trick which it played to introduce the iPad package earlier with a monthly package of 10GB for just £15.
It was even reported earlier that iPhone smartphones were being offered surreptitiously to some 3 UK customers so that they don’t switch to other networks. However, 3 is currently inviting parties so as to register their interest on 3 UK website. The interesting thing is that the most expensive current 3 UK tariff of £30 a month happens to be less than the cheapest iPhone 4 contract on the market.
Register your interest for the iPhone 4 here
It’s been more than a couple of months since Apple accused HTC that it infringed 20 patents (owned by Apple) used in the iPhone. The infringements are related to technology used in the architecture and underlying hardware as well as the iPhone UI. As is widely known, HTC manufactures handsets for many companies including Google and it is behind the Nexus One handset.
In continuation of that legal tussle, the Taiwanese handset major, HTC backfired at Apple by filing a lawsuit in the US for patent infringements. HTC has claimed its 5 patents being infringed and asked for halting the sale of iPhones, iPods, and iPads.
HTC has demanded a ban on import of all happening Apple gadgets i.e., iPhones, iPads and iPods from other countries as well.
The legal tussle carried out by Apple on HTC is being seen a proxy war by Apple on Google which has worked extensively with HTC so that it could develop the Android mobile platform. 2010 will see the war between Apple and Google reach the next level.
HTC started with Windows Mobile platform phones but switched over as a partner of Google later on and worked on the Android mobile OS. And that turned out to be an ace as HTC’s sales zoomed like never before thanks to its innovative handsets (Smartphones) with the Android operating system.
Meanwhile, Apple is already fighting a legal battle with the Finnish mobile giant, Nokia. Nokia sued Apple for infringing on its patents in October 2009. Apple filed a counter suit in December 2009 and Nokia fired another round of legal suits towards the end of 2009.
Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, sued Apple for infringing on five of its patents for making the iPad 3G and iPhone.
The infringements are related to technology used for enhancement of data and speech transmission and antenna related innovations for such small devices. Nokia fired this new salvo while there continues to be a long-drawn legal tussle involving the bigwigs.
The two companies are already at logger-heads in another dispute about the iPhone. Nokia claimed that it invested around £34bn for R&D to achieve 11,000 patents over the last two decades.
Nokia filed similar lawsuit against Apple for patent infringements and Apple shot back with a legal suit against Nokia for infringement of Apple’s patents while making Smartphones. There is another legal duel also between Apple and Taiwan-based mobile phone manufacturer, HTC wherein Apple sued HTC for patent infringements.
Analysts suggest that such patent related suits are common in the technology industry and that they generally end up in one or the other licensing agreement. Nokia’s latest lawsuit against Apple concurred with the day Apple announced the availability of the iPad in nine countries outside the US.
Adobe will not make software tools which would allow the Apple iPhone to use Adobe’s Flash technology on Apple’s devices though it earlier promised support to Flash on gadgets.
Adobe Flash is widely used on the internet for animations, and multimedia. However Apple does not support Flash and has been critical of the technology in public.
Adobe released software called Creative Suite 5 which translated flash code into programs which can run on iPhone, in mid-April and shortly before that, Apple came up with a new set of terms and conditions that iPhone and iPad app makers need to adhere to.
Application developers across the board criticized Apple’s move and the new rules simply ban all such apps which use code translators like the Creative Suite 5 from Adobe.
Apple stated on CNet that the Adobe Flash technology was closed and proprietary and went on to say that it would prefer to support more open standards technology which can do all that Flash does.
Adobe will now be concentrating on Google’s Android OS to make sure that Flash technology works on it, as per official reports.
This has kept the bells ringing for a long time now and it continues to be so after keeping innumerable rumour mills busy over a period of time. And this news can be yet another rumour but it is worth talking about it.
Is it going to be true that the iPhone model to be announced in June and slated for July release will be a superphone which can replace a PC with astonishing fast LTE (Long-Term Evolution) 4G internet speeds?
A look at the job requirements posted in May 2009 sought candidates with expertise in areas including LTE, WCDMA/UMTS, HSPA, and HSPA+. This news should be great news for people in the UK given the fact that the chances of the 4G network being LTE-based are more than WiMax.
The ad seeks candidates with “expert knowledge of WCDMA/UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, LTE etc,” which would be great news for us Brits as our future 4G network is likely to be LTE-based rather than being WiMax-based.
The record speed for an LTE test was set this week, clocking-up a massive 1.2GB/s, but we’re likely to see around 40-50MB/s on mobile handsets when the tech finally takes off.
The Sprint HTC EVO 4G previews have already created ripples by throwing up the challenge for fastest internet speeds on a mobile phone and it should no way be a surprise if Apple followed suit.
HTC will defend itself fully against the lawsuit in which it is entangled with Apple, as per official statements. As is widely known, Apple initiated legal proceedings against HTC claiming that the latter violated 20 of its patents pertaining to hardware as well as software.
As per the press release, HTC has carefully gone through the patent infringement claims made by Apple and it believes that it would be able to defend itself in all required aspects. HTC Corporation sounded as if it has drawn battle lines while claiming that it disagrees with Apple’s claims. HTC claimed itself as a strong advocate of Intellectual property rights and that it would respect other innovators and technologies as always.
Nokia, whose phones out number in mobile phone markets, slammed at Apple’s claims in U.S. court. Apple filed suit that Nokia is trying to monopolize mobile phone market using its patent holdings in form of industry standards and thereby demanding unreasonable royalty. Nokia slammed these charges to be incorrect.
Thrashing Apple’s charges as implausible, Nokia alleges in the court that these are all tricks to turn away attention from Apple’s free riding off of Intellectual assets of Nokia. This entire legal episode started with Nokia’s allegations that Apple is infringing 10 of its patents and demanding Apple to pay back royalty on more than 42 millions of iPhones sold across world.
Both the companies have filed suits against each other with U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington to stop each other’s exports.
Nokia is not the first company on which Apple has levied law suit, earlier it has filed a case against HTC to stop import of its Google Inc’s Android based smart phones into U.S. With over all projections of rapid increase in Smart Phone’s market all major players are getting into Cat fights to affect each other’s market shares.
Nokia, world’s largest manufacturer of mobile handsets, has recently secured another patent for a new kind of battery, which charges itself from body movement similar to recent automatic wrist watches. This battery uses piezoelectric elements to generate energy out of the body movements and convert this energy into electricity to charge the battery. Though energy generated is not very high amount, but will be enough to be used as supplemental energy preventing battery from totally drying-off.
This battery ensures that battery is alive at any moment till it goes for next re-charge. This is ideal for new generation devices like touch screen devices, which consumes a considerable amount of energy. When most of manufacturers are trying to reduce consumption of battery, this kind of battery comes handy.
This application for patent has been developed in 2008, while on an average it will take six years to secure a patent in U.S. With this consideration it will still take some more considerable amount of time to secure this patent and starts rolling out into devices.
Recent reports and trends suggest that Apple’s iphone is all set and geared up to overtake Research In Motion (RIM)’s BlackBerry by sometime in early next year.
Currently BlackBerry commands 3% of market share when compared to Apple’s 2% of market share. Currently Apple is running faster to close the gap and in fact with a pace to overtake its lead.
Apple’s larger system of consumer product suite and services are more wide and appealing to costumers than that of BlackBerry. While wider range of products are playing a prominent role in retaining customer base, Apple’s exclusive partnership with AT&T is increasing reach of iPhone through its unbeatable distribution network.
iPhone has taken considerable big leaps in terms of Market Share from 0.3% to 2% in 2007, while BlackBerry has grown from 1% to 3%. But scope for BlackBerry to improve its growth pace is very limited when compared to the same of iPhone. Thus iPhone is applying right gears with right amount acceleration and all set to overtake Research in Motion (RIM)’s BlackBerry.
Despite no official news coming out from Apple regarding the launch date for its tablet-style, touch-screen computer, the buzzword is that the Wi-Fi only version of the iPad will go on sale from March 26. It will be another month for the Wi-Fi and 3G model to be available.
As per Apple website, MacRumours a source close to the company has stated that the iPad would go on sale at 6pm on March 26. And tipster says that gadget freaks who queue up to pick the first few iPads will receive a “special gift”.
Apple iPads are believed to start arriving into the Apple stores by March 10th so that the employees get enough time to get accustomed to the device. The advertising streak is expected to start from March 15.
Short supply of the iPads can be anticipated given the problems at Apple’s manufacturing plant as per analysts. A production problem at Hon Hai Precision, the iPad’s manufacturer, will in all likelihood limit the number of iPads available to around 300,000 in the month of March and the region to the US. The initial estimate of one million units is far higher than this number.
While the entry-level, Wi-Fi only iPad will be sold at $499, it is expected to cost around £389 in the UK.
We can expect far reaching implications for all handset manufacturers who use Google’s Android operating system, if we are to believe some analysts. Forrester Research suggests that this law suit against alleged patent infringement could just be the first of several such suits.
A lot of the patents named in the suit relate to operating system processes though Apple did not target Google in its law suit. And HTC has got support from Google which sounds unusual in such cases. Google claims not being a party to the lawsuit, but supporting Android operating system as well as the partners who helped them build it.
The first manufacturer to use Android as the operating system in its phones, HTC is also the manufacturer for Google’s debut handset, the Nexus One. Analysts are floating views that Apple is attacking Google “in proxy” by suing HTC.
HTC has meanwhile denied commenting on the suit, before assessment of validity of the claims.
Forrester research believes that this suit could have implications for other manufacturers including LG, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung who showcased their phones at the prestigious Mobile World Congress, last month.
Apple has accused HTC that it has infringed 20 patents (owned by Apple) used in the iPhone. The infringements are related to technology used in the architecture and underlying hardware as well as the iPhone UI. As is widely known HTC manufactures handsets for many companies including Google and it is behind the Nexus One handset.
To put this in Apple boss Steve Jobs words: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”
Apple has sought for an injunction in its legal filing, which could eventually bar sale of HTC phones that use the disputed technology in the US. The suit has been filed with the US International Trade Commission and a Delaware district court.
HTC has not responded yet. HTC has made several handsets based on the Android platform, the Google Mobile OS and has been in the limelight for designing the first handset branded by Google, Nexus One.
If you want to believe the relatively lesser known tech blog, Geeky Gadgets, Apple’s iPad is set to cost just £389 in the UK but may be delayed until April.
The rumoured £389 price is for the Wi-Fi-only 16GB version of the iPad; while the 32GB version would cost £439 and the 64GB would cost £489, though Apple themselves have not confirmed these prices, as yet.
As per the source, the tablet device which is currently being quoted on Apple’s website for a March release date is expected to hit the UK only around April.
People awaiting the 3G+WiFi version will have to wait for another 30 days in all probability. Prices for the 3G+WiFi iPad are not known, yet but they would be at $130 more than the Wi-Fi counterpart, coming in at $629, $729, and $829 respectively in the US.
There is no confirmation yet from Apple about who eventually gets to provide the 3G network and data access. Prospective major players like Orange, O2 & Vodafone are already holding talks with Apple. AT&T has got exclusive rights to market the 3G iPad in the US, and it’s possible that O2 may strike a similar deal as the one that was made for the iPhone.
With Apple’s announcement of the UK release of its recently launched multi-media gadget, the iPad, the bidding war between UK mobile operators for the UK rights of the device seems to be getting fiercer. A lot of speculation is floating around as to who is negotiating with Apple to provide internet services via 3G for the iPad.
The usual suspects are O2, Vodafone, Orange and T-mobile with the exception of 3 which seems to be staying out of the race.
On the retail side, there are rumours that the mobile phone giant Carphonewarehouse is interested is selling the iPad in its stores. However, it is unclear what Apple’s strategy will be, an exclusive provider or unrestricted mobile rights.
In an announcement on its UK website, Apple said it will be shipping Wi-Fi models of the iPad in late March and 3G models in April. However, the UK price of the device is still unknown and so is the service provider. In the US, Apple has once again chosen AT&T as the 3G provider, continuing the association since the iPhone.
UK mobile service providers are trying to establish their foothold on the European iPad market as well where T-mobile is said to have leaked its price at EUR 499.
Until official announcements are made its speculation galore!
Finally Vodafone is set to offer the best selling smartphone, the Apple iPhone 3GS to its customers.
With O2’s monopoly (since 2007) on the iPhone broken a few months ago by Orange (and then by Tesco Mobile), Vodafone is the next to do the same. Though a pre christmas launch would have been widely appreciated by the existing customers of Vodafone, they preferred to wait on till the new year. This was most probably done as their Christmas sales strategy revolved around the Vodafone 360 and other products. There was no space for the iPhone.
Vodafone’s pricing will be slightly higher than that being offered by O2 and Orange. A free iPhone would cost around £45 a month on a two year contract. An 18 month contract will cost considerably higher per month. Most mobile phone analysts had expected Vodafone to be the one to crash the pricing on the iPhone. However this is not expected to happen now.
Orange is still the cheapest to offer the phone. However the difference in pricing is minimal.
£89.00 £89.00 £179.00 £179.00
Source: OBIL.co.uk & vodafone.co.uk
Our suggestion to anyone looking for the iPhone is to wait for a few more months. March/April 2010 would be a good time to get the phone and hopefully a price war would have kicked off by then.
The official NASA App is out now.
The App connects you directly to all the high resolution pictures that are presently in NASA archives. Also included are the latest video updates, a countdown to the next major NASA launch and ofcourse the NASA official twitter update.
So for geeks around here, this is a one stop shop for all things ‘NASA’.
Hopefully NASA also comes up with an Android & Symbian version of this App for the other handset owners.
Included in the App are:
Enjoy !!
iPhone sales in the UK has been monopolised by O2, since the time the phone first arrived in the UK. This has pushed the prices up on the iPhone. The best contracts on O2 started at £34 a month, which ofcourse included a hefty initial charge for the handset. The prices on Carphonewarehouse (and their sister concern mobiles.co.uk which added the iPhone recently) mirrored the exact same pricing plans as O2 had set it. Generally Carphonewarehouse and its sister stores always offer better deals compared to the service providers (well most of the time).
This is all set to change. With O2 losing its protected right of sale on the iPhone early November, the other major players are already trying their best to get the best-selling iPhone on their inventory as early as possible. Getting it in stock early November would mean a good entry into the Christmas sale market (which is generally the high sales period). Missing the November deadline would mean O2 would have the massive share of the sales.
However looks like Orange might infact be ready to sell iPhone as early as the 2nd week of November. It would be a great coup if they could achieve that. The logistics involved in doing this would be phenomenal. Loads of marketing and sales guys will have to work overtime to ensure that they would be able to smoothly handle this transition. It is also likely that they could get it totally wrong, by hurrying things up and that means end users who pay for their phones, but do not eventually get hold of them in the specified time frame. Hopefully Orange does a good job with the planning.
Other networks, are not even remotely contemplating ending O2’s monopoly till just after Christmas and new years. Vodafone’s targetted release of the iPhone is early Jan 2010. This is most likely because Vodafone have already worked on a Christmas sales strategy and are unwilling (unable) to change it at the last moment.
Orange has been really bold and hope they can pull it off.
Ofcourse one thing is for sure, the iPhone is going to be highly affordable in the future.
The much awaited Nokia’s ‘Comes with Music’ service does not seem to have done well enough to dent Apple’s share in the online music download segment of the industry.
The service launched in the UK around an year ago, was Nokia’s first major step into the ‘contents’ industry. This move signalled the move away from being a pure handset manufacturing role that Nokia has played for ages. Nokia has always believed that, it should concentrate on making great new handsets, while the external industry would deal with the content and services aspect of things. The arrival of Apple (with its iPhone) dramatically changed the way business is done in the market. The aim now was not just to corner the market of the handsets, but also to monopolize the whole services and content that came along with the handset.
The number of subscribers to the Nokia service have crossed only the hundred of thousands and not the millions that Nokia would have hoped for.
The service has also suffered greatly due to the inability to package the deals well with the handsets. This has hence caused the service providers being non-interested in pushing and marketing the deals. No deal can be a success unless the actual service providers push for it. End of the day its they who decide what products sell and what don’t.
Nokia should work towards ensuring that the service providers in the future are a part of any future forays into content sales.
As of today Apple’s iTunes sits pretty with no new competition in sight.
(vs)
The best selling smart phone on the market has finally been challenged. Though not by a better phone from Nokia, but by a law suit claiming that the iPhone infringed on various patents that Nokia believes it needs to be compensated for.
The patents in question relates to the way speech is coded, the phone security & protection mechanisms and the wireless transfer technology applied on the iPhone and other Apple products.
Nokia, it must be remembered is not exactly doing well financially. Having recently reported a loss, this step by Nokia seems to be a step towards claiming back the ‘big daddy’ tag in the mobile phone handset industry. Apple however has been doing exceptionally well. While Nokia’s marketing strategy has always been to flood the market with various models of phones, each catering to a different segment of the market, Apple has stuck to the single product model, which means it just bets on a single product (viz. the iPhone). The product is simple and does best what it is supposed to do. Apple seems to have got it totally right.
It is important to note that Nokia is the largest player in the handset sector (with a massive 40% share of the global market). Apple and others have years if not decades to catch up with Nokia in terms of net sales.
Apple’s share price did drop during the last few trading sessions.
However the outcome of this judicial battle will take quite a long time to conclude.
Till then however the whole mobile phone industry will watch this case with the utmost of interest, as this could set a precedent with unimaginable consequences for the industry.
