Apple have announced that sales grew 241% year on year for the fourth quarter of 2010 catapulting them no.3 in the world PC maker stakes.
Apple claim iPad and MAC sales in the holiday quarter reached in excess of 11 million units.. that?s pretty impressive really. The same period in 2009 delivered a unit count of a paltry 3.4 million ? nothing in comparison. testament to the huge growth of the iPad and Apple as a manufacturer.
Apple could soon be facing a class action lawsuit after claims by an American man that iPhone and iPad apps transmit personal information without consent.
Apparently a federal court in San Jose, CA saw the complaint filed last week on behalf of Jonathan Lalo, who is seeking class action or group status. The suit centres around Unique Device Identifiers (UDIDs). These provide a unique ID for every iPhone/iPad and can?t be deleted, changed or blocked. Mr Lalo is claiming that these UDIDs are used by iOS apps to track the usage habits of a devices user.
The complaint states that: ”Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users? location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views.”
Pandora, the Weather Channel, Paper Toss and Dictionary.com have been named as co-defendants. If the lawsuit is granted class action status, users who downloaded and app for their iPhone or iPad between the fist of December 2008 and last week will be able to join the complaint. Apple has not responded to any request for comment.
Wall street Journal tested 101 iPhone and Android apps earlier this month, more than 50% transmitted the devices UDIDs to companies (primarily advertising) without the consent or even awareness of the user. Pandora was among those indentified by the test as transmitting age, gender, location and phone identifiers to advertisers.
Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman, said at the time: ”We have created strong privacy protections for our customers, especially regarding location-based data. Privacy and trust are vitally important.”
The Journal quoted App Store guide line which state that an app: ”cannot transmit data about a user without obtaining the user’s prior permission and providing the user with access to information about how and where the data will be used.? Apparently Apple also regards UDIDs as ”personally identifiable information.”
It?s been reported that Apple and Google battling it out for patents up for sale from bankrupt Canadian telecom Nortel. Most of Nortel?s business units were sold to Ericsson and Hitachi back in Jan 2009 when it first filed for bankruptcy. It?s remaining assets, which include 4,000 patents, have been divided into 6 groups. Two of the groups are for 3G/4G wireless infrastructure and wireless handsets. Nortel used to be the second largest global supplier of CDMA equipment, and was involved in both WiMAX and LTE technology.
The patent sales are expected to raise $1 billion for Nortel?s creditors.
Reports claim that the wireless patents have attracted the attention of Apple, Google, Motorola, and RIM. According to research firm Fairfield Resources, Nortel owned 7 of the 105 patent families thought to be critical to the development and deployment of LTE and SAE (Service Architecture evolution), a core network architecture of LTE. Which makes this sale an excellent opportunity for the winning bidder. Patents like this very rarely become available. The bidding war apparently began 7 months ago and all current bids are sealed.
Google?s interest in the patents may lie in it?s battle with Apple for the number 2 OS slot. Winning would beef up it?s wireless patent portfolio. Apple?s interest may lie in future 4G versions of it?s iDevices. Though the fact that Apple is yet to release a device on Verizon Wireless has sparked rumours that it may be interested in releasing an LTE-enabled version of the iPhone for the wireless carrier.
The U.S? sole carrier of the iPhone is AT&T, who are also rolling out and LTE network. However, Verizon are a year ahead. LTE and WiMAX are slowly replacing the globes 3G technology. LTE and WiMAX look set to become the standard wireless technology of the future. Having this small arsenal of 3G/4G wireless patents under your belt would definitely give the winning company the advantage over it?s competitors.
Guessing what?s next to come from Apple is always fun, but the rumour mill can sometimes be way off. And when it?s right, Apple will often try to steer users away from this.
It been reported recently that Apple is working on a new iPad. Apparently it will have two cameras like the iPhone 4. So user will be able to use the FaceTime app for video chat. The screen will be improved, similar to the ?Retina display? that the iPhone has.
On top of these improvements, there is a rumour of it being smaller. Said to be nearly half the size, sitting between the iPod Touch/iPhone and the current iPad. Steve Jobs had squashed this rumour back in October, but a leak from a source in the supply chain said that smaller iPads are coming.
Though these rumours are nothing new, they?re now reinforced by the fact that Apple has penned deals with several sourcing vendors to get these ne products made. So it seem more than likely that new devices are one the horizon. It probably won?t be at the beginning of next year, but expect an Apple announcement sometime soon.
Veteran games developer, Graeme Devine is leaving Apple, a major blow to the iPhone gaming community.Those that know Halo Wars and Ensemble Studios will know Graeme Devine. He was the lead developer and writer for Halo Wars, and joined Apple when Ensemble Studios closed in 2009. At Apple he became a key member of the elite iPhone Game Technologies division, dedicated to improving the gaming experience of iDevices.
Devine gave reasons his for leaving in an interview with kotaku.com. He seemed to enjoy his life at Apple and described the people as "the smartest and most talented group of people I have ever worked with" adding that he "loved my time, the people, and the platform I worked on at Apple." But the pull to get back to his roots as a game developer was too great, he describes himself as a "game designer that wants to make games." The good news it that Apple and it?s users will still be blessed with Devine?s skills as he will be creating games for iOS and Mac OS X. His first game for the Mac is already under development. He didn?t give any details away but did give a cheeky screen shot to tantalise.
Canonical host an online storage service called Ubuntu One, they are also the brains behind Ubuntu Linux distribution. Ubuntu One allows users to stream music from the cloud to their iOS or Android devices. It was confirmed today on their blog that their iOS application supports AirPlay The service synchronises mp3 files from your Ubuntu desktop to the Ubuntu One cloud service. The iOS app then streams your music from the cloud to your iDevice, and then redirected to your AirPlay enabled device. The app works over WIFI or 3G and also supports Multitasking and iOS 4 background audio.
The Ubuntu One Music app lets you stream your music to AirPlay compatible hardware including Apple TV and the soon to launch entertainment equipment from Denon, Marantz, or iHome. So, this gives Ubuntu the upper hand over Mac OS X when it come to cloud-based music streaming. iTunes doesn?t have a cloud service yet. But since Apple bought LaLa, a music streaming service, the rumour is that the development of a cloud based service for iTunes is underway. However, these rumours originally surfaced at the beginning of the year and there?s been now word since.
To get yourself set up with this service all you need is an Ubuntu One account, an iOS device with iOS 4.2.1, and an AirPlay-enabled device. Launch the app on you iDevice and choose the song you want to hear. When your song starts to play an icon on the right of the volume slider will appear, this allows you redirect your audio to you AirPlay-enabled device.
After upgrading to iOS 4.2.1 many iPhone 4 users may have been receiving random calls from FaceTime that were unable to connect. More than just an annoyance, the calls actually cause concern as they come from friends and are unable to connect.
A thread on Apple?s Discussion message board show 40 iPhone 4 users all experiencing the same issue. One bout of false call went out to user in the UK between 2-2:30am. All calls originating from someone in the users contact list.
Users in the UK seem to have been hit the hardest by this but user around the world experienced this issue at around the same time. One user even mapped out the reported times of users that have complained: "It does seem to be the same time across the world, 6:30pm LA, 9:30pm NY, 2:30am London, 3:30am Europe. What was Apple doing?"
The only connection at the moment is iOS 4.2.1. The phantom caller seem to have been selected from the contact list at random, not the first listed or even the last who called. Stranger still, many of the phone that were supposed to have called were turned off at the time.
FaceTime is maintained by Apple itself, not the mobile phone companies. It seems to have been caused by some sort of server blip, but what exactly that blip was isn’t clear. Some users have suggested it may have been the desktop version, but other users don?t have any connection to the desktop version, so the puzzle continues.
The issue isn?t just isolated to the one blip at 2:30am in the UK, similar phantom FaceTime calls hade been experienced before then. Most of which are connected to iOS 4.2.1. If it is an issue with the update, Apple should be all over it pretty soon.
If you use Firefox you?ll notice that every now and again a plug-in will appear without your permission. A Mozilla executive has decided to tell Microsoft Apple and Google exactly how he feels about it, and has asked them to stop the practice of allowing browser plug-ins to install automatically.
co-founder of the Spread Firefox project and a member of Mozilla’s leadership team, Asa Dotzler, has branded the big three ?evil?. He says their plugins or being installed without user permission. His blog goes slightly off on one about it all:
?Why do Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others think that it is an OK practice to add plug-ins to Firefox when I’m installing their software packages? When I installed iTunes, in order to manage my music collection and sync to my iPod, why did Apple think it was OK to add the iTunes Application Detector plug-in to my Firefox web browser without asking me? Why did Microsoft think it was OK to sneak their Windows Live Photo Gallery or Office Live Plug-in for Firefox into my browser (presumably) when I installed Microsoft Office? What makes Google think it’s reasonable behaviour for them to slip a Google Update plug-in into Firefox when I installed Google Earth or Google Chrome (not sure which one caused this) without asking me first??
A brave move attacking Google, as the search deal Mozilla has with them bring in most of their cash. Never the less he remained undeterred by this fact.
Google, Microsoft, Apple, RockMelt, and any others out there who are doing this, I’m calling on you to stop this now. If you want to add software to my system, ask me. Sneaking software onto my system that I didn’t ask for is evil (precisely in the Google "don’t be evil" sense.)
He finished by saying that Firefox could do more to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but that they shouldn?t have to waste their time fighting companies that users should be able to trust. He asked that the companies ?ASK first!?.
The rumour mill is in overtime when it comes to the iPad 2. While to word is that the next iPad will have a new screen, new touch technology and a lighter design, another word is that it will be released in January next year.
According to edibleapple.com, the first quarter of 2011 will see two press events from Apple. The first comes in January, when Apple will unveil its new iPad with incre4ased specs and front and rear camera. No surprises there really apart from the January bit.
They also claim that Apple will be unveiling a new MacBook Pro in April with plenty of new features. "The new MacBook Pros will move to solid state storage, up to 512GB, remove the optical drive, and we believe light-peak is being pushed to make it?s first-ever entrance into the market, another Apple exclusive".
If this is the case then the MacBook Pro will really become separate to the MacBook. Apple is usually at the leading edge when it comes to dropping outdated formats. They were among the first to remove Floppy disk drives from their PCs. Now, Apple have demonstrated with the MacBook Air, that it doesn?t need an optical drive to be functional.
Apparently there will also be a major revision to Final Cut Pro in Q1. According to a user, who e-mailed Jobs about an update to the platform, he replied with "stay tuned and buckle up." But don?t get too excited just yet, it?s all just rumours at the moment.
Sophos released a free version of their product for the Mac earlier in the month. They have since been gathering data from those who?ve installed it. Recent statistic compiled from this data show that there is cause for concern amongst the Mac community.
Sophos say that so far they have 150,000 Mac users, 50,000 of which have already reported malware on their machines. Curiously, the most common threat detected was Mal/ASFDldr-A, a malware that targets windows machines. It takes advantage of a flaw in Windows Media Player which allows it to open a malicious webpage rather than the intended content.
The majority of attacks were found to be Java exploits which are cross platform and usually found in the internet cache. But some OS X specific threats have been found, OSX/Jahlav-C and OSX/DNSCha-E. C being a variant of E, which is also a bit of malware known as DNS changer. When this hijacks your machine, your web browsing is pretty much completely compromised. Innocently browsing to Google can redirect you to a server in China that dumps a malicious payload on your machine through your browser.
The results show that most of the files detected are more harmful to Windows than Macs. But that doesn?t mean there?s no cause for concern. If you Mac shares files with a Windows machine you may want to get protected. Even if it just to prevent it spreading to more vulnerable operating systems.
We now have the silver Microsoft desktop comptenecy by passing another set of exams and completing 3 customer references... well done team!
Renewing our competencies - should have the Microsoft desktop competency by the end of the day...
4 New clients joined us this month and as usual - none have left us... A very good month already and we're only just over half way through!
Our London virtualization marketing campaign starts this month - very exciting...