When it comes to pure rumors of silly schematics of the next iPhone magically falling into the hands of little blogging sites, I cringe. Then there are the rumors that could fall into the big "maybe" camp. Today, iPhon.fr (France) found a unique photo of a plausible next generation iPhone faceplate showing a much wider design. Is it the real deal? That's for time to tell, though the dimensions would seem to be right for a larger iPhone. Unless Apple has a new radical design in the wind to surprise us all with, the rumored photo has to be considered.
Yesterday we posted a report titled "Samsung's Galaxy S5 is a Dud According to Korean Carriers." In a new article published today in the pro-Samsung website Korea Times, they make a rather startling statement: In order "to appeal to the new jury and judge, Samsung needs to provide evidence. That's why the company is heavily pushing the S5." The report also noted how Samsung had shipped 63 million Galaxy S4 units in the past but only sold close to 40. This is a continuing tactic of Samsung's to promote what they're shipping in their interviews with the press instead of what they're actually selling to fool the market and consumers.
Behind the worsening performance at Korea's CrucialTec, it was revealed during their annual shareholders' meeting that they failed to strike a supply deal for fingerprint sensors in Samsung's new Galaxy S5. With their performance on shaky ground, CrucialTec's CEO recounts a tale of his meeting with Apple's top brass including the late CEO Steve Jobs.
Late last week a news report from Korea delivered a blow to Samsung by exposing just how poorly their new Galaxy S5 is really selling. Considering that this is Samsung's home turf, if the Galaxy S5 is selling that badly, it's likely being mirrored around the globe. Our report will show you just how bad it is.
If developers are wondering what platform to choose for their beacon technology rollout, it's a no brainer. The current score has 87% of iOS devices ready and 2.5% of Android devices ready at this very moment. Here's a trend Google apparently never saw coming. A new slideshow is now available that can provide everyone with the ABC's of beacon technology and applications. It's not iBeacon specific, but it does illustrate Apple's iOS dominance in this area of technologies.
Last month Patently Apple pointed to a new wearable computer idea from Google that will be one of their Google Glass spinoff devices involving smart contact lenses. While our other IP blog called Patent Bolt will be covering many of Google's many patents on this subject throughout the coming week, the one that I wanted to bring to Patently Apple is one that discusses Google's intent to integrate micro cameras right in the very fabric of a future contact lens system. There's an adage that states "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer." Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt knows that tune all-too-well as he was able to weasle himself right onto Apple's Board of Directors and learn what he could about Apple's coming iPhone to help Google's secret Android OS project. So even if you don't like Google, you still might want to understand what the other side is up to in repsect to important future trends like wearables. Additionally, if you happen to be a contact lens wearer yourself, then this idea my pique your interest. And yes, there are millions of contact lens users around the world. For more on Google's latest invention regarding contact lenses with built-in cameras, check out Patent Bolt's latest report.
One of the reasons why developer's love Apple's iOS so much is that it's adoption rate within Apple's iDevice ecosystem is the fastest in the industry. Case in point, iOS 7 was introduced to the Apple community on September 13, 2013. Seven months later it's now on 87% of iDevices. Yet a quick look at Chitika's latest statistics on Android for smartphones it's clear there's a deeply fragmented landscape in place that's a nightmare for developers.
Patently Apple has discovered that Apple has been granted two design patents for their new Mac Pro in Hong Kong China. Apple filed for these design patents just days before officially putting the Mac Pro on sale. Today, China's Hong Kong IP Office published Apple's granted design patent documentation. During Apple's 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) opening keynote on June 10, 2013, Apple's VP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller introduced the radically redesigned Mac Pro. In a radical departure from the previous designs, the new Mac Pro's cylindrical design was wildly applauded. The Mac Pro is assembled in Texas in a state of the art facility using robotics.
On Monday we reported that Apple's iBeacon was ready for the Minnesota's Twins game opener. As we noted in our report, Major Legal Baseball has installed iBeacon at 20 of their 30 stadiums including San Francisco. It was also announced just yesterday that Apple's iBeacon will be debuting at a stadium in Australia this weekend. In January Forbes noted that Apple's iBeacon was the future of mobile shopping and noted that iBeacon based mobile shopping had kick started this past January in more than 150 U.S. Giant Eagle and Safeway supermarkets. Today, a brief overview of a new ABI study claims that iBeacon technology could break 30,000 indoor location installations by the end of the year.
Earlier today Patently Apple discovered a patent application filing that listed one of Apple's leading product design engineers. The patent application was published under its inventor's names as a means of avoiding being published under Apple's name at the US Patent Office. Legally speaking, Apple only has to appear as the assignee after the patent application has been granted. This is a somewhat common practice that Apple uses to keep specific intellectual property out of the lime light until the last possible moment. The discovery today covers a rather simple invention. It's about providing Apple TV with a much larger heat sink. Today's Apple TV supports a 32-bit single-core A5 processor. But if Apple should ever decide to adopt their faster A7 or future A8 64-bit single or multi-core processors to support gaming, it would need a larger heat sink. In context, last Wednesday iFixit uncovered a larger heat sink in Amazon's new Fire TV that's aiming at Android gaming. The trend is obvious.
With all the hype about electronic health bands and the iWatch, Tim Cook's initial leeriness about consumer wearables in the form of a wrist band watch may have been more plugged in than you might think. At last year's D11 conference (between the 19-21 minute marks of the Walt Mossberg interview) Cook grumbled at the idea of a watch of any kind, though later admitted that "other wearables" could be interesting down the road. Today, a survey showed that only 4% of UK consumers are interested in a wearable device like a Samsung Gear smartwatch. That's not to say that Apple couldn't create an iWatch and take the whole category to new level like they did with smartphones. Yet for now the data confirms Apple's initial research that ten to twenty year olds have no interest in wearing anything on their wrists as Cook eluded to. Apparently Apple's head-fake put Samsung on the fast track to nowhere. Report Updated March 11, 5:20 AM PST.
In March, Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a statement about a new book about the tech giant called, "Haunted Empire," saying that it was "nonsense" and failed to capture Apple or former CEO and Co-Founder Steve Jobs. Cook indirectly included the book's author Yukari Iwatani Kane as just being one of Apple's many doubters throughout the years. Today, Kane takes a kick at Tim Cook interestingly enough from a publication in Samsung's home turf of Korea. It actually makes one wonder if the timing of Kane's book wasn't purposely designed as a pre-trial publicity stunt by Samsung.
Earlier this week we posted a report titled "Apple Secretly Moves Next-Gen iPhone Baseband Processor Development In-House to Possibly Enhance Security." Today, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that may reveal yet another aspect of Apple's future radio systems. Apple's new patent relates to the field of wireless communication, and more particularly to a system and method for performing location-based updating of subscriber identity information in an iDevice which utilizes an embedded subscriber identity module (eSIM).
In late March Patently Apple posted a report entitled "Facebook to buy Oculus for $2 Billion," where noted that Apple's acquisition of PrimeSense could advance Apple's previous work on a video headset. Today the US Patent and Trademark Office reveals that Apple has revisited their patent application regarding their video headset that could be a future Apple TV accessory or an Apple TV iDevice for those on the go; A nice spin-off product if you will. Coincidentally news surfaced late yesterday from KGI securities analyst Ming Chi Kuo is claiming that Apple will revamp their Apple TV device later this fall. It would be very cool timing if the Apple TV accessory would be ready at that time to create some major buzz in the industry. However, it's unclear if Apple is really committed to such an iDevice or accessory. It would be great for gaming and a way to get ahead of Oculus. But for now it's just an open question mark. In this report we also note that Apple has filed a continuation patent regarding their Shanghai Apple Store Building.
News from Zurich this morning states that technology group Kudelski said its OpenTV and Nagravision subsidiaries have filed a lawsuit against Apple in a court in northern California alleging the iPhone maker has infringed five U.S. patents.On March 28, 2010 OpenTV became a fully owned subsidiary of the NAGRA Kudelski Group – Nagravision.
