Apple Asks Supreme Court to Curb Patent Abuse Amid New $2 Billion Patent Lawsuit Posted: 05 Feb 2014 07:46 AM PST Apple is joining Google and 13 other companies in a combined effort to curb frivolous lawsuits from patent holding companies, reports Bloomberg . Speaking to the Supreme Court justices, Apple said it has been sued 92 times by patent companies in the last two years. It currently has 228 unresolved patent claims and employs two lawyers who are dedicated to responding to royalty demands.
Apple and the other technology companies are asking the Supreme Court to make it easier for companies to collect attorney's fees when patent holding companies lose infringement lawsuits. This allocation of fees, they argue, would cut down on the number of frivolous suits. Just as Apple moves to seek judicial assistance in addressing patent abuse in the U.S., German patent holding firm IPCom has filed two patent infringement lawsuits in the German court system that accuse Apple of infringing on cellular technology it owns (via FOSS Patents ). Both the European and German patents describe methods of managing priority emergency access when wireless networks are overloaded. Apple could pay more than $2 billion in damages if it loses these legal battles.
IPCom obtained both patents from German automotive parts company Robert Bosch GmbH. Apple, Nokia, HTC and others asked the European Patent Office to invalidate the European patent, but the EPO denied this request. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
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Apple Captures 19.5% of Global PC and Tablet Market in Q4 2013 Posted: 05 Feb 2014 05:40 AM PST Apple again led the combined PC and tablet market in shipments during Q4 2013, according to a report from research firm Canalys. Apple shipped 30.9 million Mac and iPad units, accounting for a 19.5% share of the market. Lenovo secured the second spot behind Apple by increasing its market share 25.5% year-over-year, as the Chinese company jumped over HP and now has an 11.8% share of the global PC market.
Overall, the worldwide combined PC and tablet market was bolstered by strong consumer interest in tablets and grew 17.9% in the final quarter of 2013. The tablet market increased 65.2% year-over-year, while PC shipments declined 6.9% yearly. In total, tablets now account for 48.3% of the total PC market. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
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Posted: 05 Feb 2014 03:43 AM PST Ahead of a second patent infringement lawsuit set to take place on March 31, Apple and Samsung have filed a final list of the accused patents and products being brought to trial, reports FOSS Patents.
Apple's asserted patents: Samsung products accused by Apple: Samsung's asserted patents: Apple products accused by Samsung: Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents noted that both companies' current products do not appear on either list due to the lengthy process of U.S. patent litigation lawsuits. However, the list of accused products and their outcomes in the trial may be used as a basis for damages and injunctive relief going forward. Mueller also noted that the anonymous request to reexamine Apple's infringed autocomplete patent has been granted, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) now scheduled to take a closer look at the viability of the patent:
A mediation meeting between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung Electronics CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon is scheduled to take place before the trial, with the date for the session set for on or before February 19. Both companies will also partake in a separate trial centered around Apple's new call for a U.S. ban on Samsung products set for January 30. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
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Apple Hires Sleep Expert From Philips Research to Work on iWatch Posted: 04 Feb 2014 02:24 PM PST Apple has hired Roy J.E.M Raymann, from Philips Research, for its iWatch team, according to a report from 9to5Mac. The hire is the latest in a long series of recent reports that suggest Apple is hiring a wide variety of health and medical sensor experts for its upcoming iWatch product. According to Raymann's LinkedIn biography, his main research is in "how to optimize rest and activity", "non-pharmacological approaches to promote sleep", and "interpretation of ambulatory physiological and biomechanical data". He did other research on sleep and coffee, power napping, and he founded the Philips Sleep Experience Laboratory, a non-clinical sleep research facility.
The hire suggests Apple could be looking to help iWatch buyers with tracking and improving sleep, while also possibly tracking other health data like pulse and activity, and blood data like glucose levels. Several current fitness tracking devices are designed to track both sleep length and sleep quality. For example, bands like the Jawbone UP and the Fitbit Force are both able to slip into a night time monitoring mode that keeps track of sleep. Philips confirmed to 9to5Mac that Raymann no longer works at the company, but would not say where he was currently employed. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
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iOS 7.1 Beta 5 Tidbits: Redesigned Shift and Caps Lock, Public Launch Expected Soon Posted: 04 Feb 2014 12:25 PM PST Earlier today, Apple released the fifth beta of iOS 7.1 to developers, which included both bug fixes and a minor updates to the operating system. While previous iOS 7.1 betas introduced several visual changes, iOS 7.1 beta 5 included just a few additional tweaks to further streamline the look of iOS 7 ahead of a prospective public release. Keyboard: In iOS 7.1 beta 3, Apple introduced a new design for the shift key, which was unpopular with many beta testers as it made it unclear when shift and caps lock were activated. With iOS 7.1 beta 5, Apple has tweaked the keys once again to make it clearer when shift and caps lock are enabled.
Shift enabled to the left, shift disabled in middle, caps lock enabled to the right Wallpaper: Apple has been tweaking the way wallpaper is handled throughout the iOS 7.1 beta testing period. Beta 3 introduced a "Motion" option to turn off parallax for wallpapers and renamed the function to "Perspective Zoom" in beta 5. iTunes Radio: iTunes Radio has gained a new "Buy Album" button which accompanies the option to buy an individual song that is playing.
Calendar: iOS 7.1 beta 2 introduced a new event list view within the Calendar app. In beta 5, the toggle for the list view has been made bolder and easier to see.
iOS 7 Jailbreak: Apple patched an evasi0n iOS 7 jailbreak exploit in beta 4 and it appears to have issued another patch for additional exploits in beta 5. Previous iOS 7.1 betas have also included a number of significant features like a "Button Shapes" option in Accessibility, more prominence for Touch ID and Passcode options, a new look for several aspects of the Phone dialer and shutdown screen, a new animation for "Slide to Unlock" and a slightly revamped color for the Phone, FaceTime, and Messages app icons. Details on features in past beta releases can be found in our previous beta posts: Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3, Beta 4. Though a December report from BGR indicated that iOS 7.1 would not be released to the public until March, today's build number, which is not much different than the build number of beta 4 indicates the software could be nearing a public launch. A new report from BGR issued today also retracts the initial March release estimate and suggests the software will be released to the public in the "coming weeks" following the debut of a golden master build of iOS 7.1 for developers. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
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Apple Releases iOS 7.1 Beta 5 to Developers With Siri Language Improvements Posted: 04 Feb 2014 10:00 AM PST Apple today released the fifth beta of iOS 7.1 to registered developers for testing purposes, following the release of the fourth iOS 7.1 beta on January 20. The update has a build number of 11D5145e and is available via an over-the-air update and through Apple's developer center website.
Earlier betas of iOS 7.1 have introduced a number of features, including "Button Shapes" in Accessibility, more prominence for Touch ID and Passcode options, a new look for several aspects of the Phone dialer and shutdown screen, a new animation for "Slide to Unlock" and a slightly revamped color for the Phone, FaceTime, and Messages app icons. Details on features in past beta releases can be found in our previous beta posts: Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3, Beta 4. Today's update also includes Xcode 5.1 Developer Preview 5 and a new version of the Apple TV beta software. Update: iOS 7.1 beta 5 includes redesigned shift and caps lock keys on the keyboard.
Shift enabled to the left, shift disabled in middle, caps lock enabled to the right Wallpaper options have also been tweaked slightly and the button to disable parallax is now called "Perspective Zoom" instead of "Motion." Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
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Apple and Samsung Continue to Dominate U.S. Smartphone Usage Share Posted: 04 Feb 2014 09:56 AM PST ComScore today released the results of its monthly rolling survey of U.S. mobile phone users for the October-December 2013 period, showing that Apple's U.S. smartphone market share has increased 1.2 percentage points since September, for a total share of 41.8 percent. Though Apple's share continues to grow, it still lags behind Android's total share of 51.5 percent, down 0.3 percent since September. Looking at handset manufacturers, Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the category, growing their control of the market by 1.2 percent each over the three month period. Motorola, LG and HTC round out the top five, with all of them seeing flat or negative growth. In Apple's earnings call last month, CEO Tim Cook warned that U.S. iPhone sales were weaker than expected because of U.S. carriers changing their upgrade policies. As a result, seeing share growth despite the headwinds is a positive sign for the company.
 Apple grew its smartphone market share by 0.6 percent from November, largely at the expense of Android and BlackBerry. Despite a significant marketing effort, Micrsoft's Windows Mobile has failed to gain any traction over the past three months, dropping 0.2 percent from 3.3% to 3.1% of total platform share. ComScore's data tracks installed user base rather than new handset sales, which means it is more reflective of real-world usage but slower to respond to shifting market trends than some other studies. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
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According to the release notes, iOS 7.1 beta 5 includes new natural-sounding Siri voices for English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), Japanese, and Chinese (Mandarin - China). It also notes that a 
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