Talkingapple's List: 102

• findings by research firm GfK, the Financial Times reported on Monday that Apple dominated the U.K. smartphone market for the four weeks ending on Dec. 9, lead by the best-selling iPhone 4S which accounted for nearly one quarter of all sales.
• five versions of Apple's handset, including the two and a half year old 3GS, ranked as one of the top 15 smartphones sold and took over 37 percent of a smartphone market
• figures from Ofcom, the U.K.'s government-approved regulatory authority for telecommunications, 46 percent of all mobile users are now smartphone owners.
• Nokia, which failed to translate a reported 20 million pound advertising campaign into Christmas sales. The company's new partnership with Microsoft has yet to bear fruit,
• The new Lumia sold barely more units than other Nokia "Touch and Type" phones during the one-month period.

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• • Apple is loosing some ground but gaining status. 

  • Money money my friends. Apple did well at letting the 3GS stay around. In Portugal I notice the desire to own an iPhone is huge and the second hand market is the way to go. 
    
    Remember also that in places like here, it is rare to see somebody signing up for a mobile contract, it's all pay as go...
• London-based research firm the Kantar Group, as detailed by Reuters.
• Problems for Apple exist in Europe, where Google's Android platform has been making gains because of low-priced devices. In particular, Apple saw its smartphone share drop from 29 percent to 20 percent in France, where the report said there are "increasing signs of price sensitivity."
   
   Similarly, Apple's smartphone share fell from 27 percent to 22 percent in Germany, while other iPhone drops were seen in Italy and Spain. The report noted that sales of "the expensive Apple model," the new iPhone 4S, were affected by weakening economies across Europe.
• Google has maintained control. The study found that Android accounts for between 46 and 61 percent in all markets.

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• Wolfram Alpha reports in its blog that it is now leveraging data from Best Buy's public APIs to enable queries against the retailer's database of 35,000 consumer products.
   
   "We’ve taken the strengths we’ve developed in math, science, and socioeconomic data and created something equally unique and useful for online shoppers," the search provider stated.
• users can search for a general product category or a specific product model and obtain a comprehensive report detailing product features, prices and availability, users ratings, price comparisons with similar models.
• • Again, apple is distancing themselves from google. Wait until next year...

  • Now this is bypassing Google. In fact, you can argue that google search makes no sence in a voice command envierement because it requires human decision at some point. 
    Google who funnily enough is announcing a Siri competitor. 
• asking for "the lightest digital camera under $100 with a pixel resolution greater than 12MP,” or compare multiple models to see how they stack up.

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• • Probably a loyalty card app to integrate with NFC

  • What could it be? I want all my photo collection in the cloud, I would pay for that. 
    Apple really needs to fix sharing stuff in the cloud.  For example, between me and my wife, I want to share our music and photos but not apps and contacts. 
    
    
• Apple's interest in further enhancing iCloud was revealed this week in a new job application published by the company and discovered by AppleInsider. The company is looking to hire someone for the position of iCloud Application Developer at its corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
   
   "The iCloud team is looking for a proactive, creative-minded (engineer) to build the next generation of cocoa-based client applications that integrate tightly with a set of cloud based services," the listing reads.

• The Recording Academy today announced the winners of its annual Special Merit Grammy Awards, with Steve Jobs being named a recipient of a Trustees Award for 2012. The Trustees Award category is designed to recognize those who have made significant contributions to music in areas other than performance.
• As former CEO and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs helped create products and technology that transformed the way we consume music, TV, movies, and books. A creative visionary, Jobs' innovations such as the iPod and its counterpart, the online iTunes store, revolutionized the industry and how music was distributed and purchased. In 2002 Apple Computer Inc. was a recipient of a Technical GRAMMY Award for contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. The company continues to lead the way with new technology and in-demand products such as the iPhone and iPad.
• will be held on Saturday, February 11th, with special recognition also being made during the main Grammy Awards ceremony the following day.

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• some newer replacements have instead been current-generation iPod nanos with the touchscreen interface, according to MacRumo

• • It is the obviously the nexus of tablets. A guiding device. Google is adamant that apps for phones should be the same as tablets. It's obviously a decision to prevent further fragmentation on the market place, but it is a stupid decision for the usability of those apps. 
    Add that to the fact that pricing of iPad will be hard to beat, and I see a dull future for Android tablets
• Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has teased that his company plans to release an Android-powered "Nexus" tablet within the next six months to take on Apple's market leading iPad.
   
   Schmidt's comments, in which he said the device will be "a tablet of the highest quality," came in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera (via Slash Gear). The comments signal that Google plans to make another push to counter Apple's iPad.
• comments, in which he said the device will be "a tablet of the highest quality," came in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera (via Slash Gear).
• The latest version of the Android, dubbed "Ice Cream Sandwich," unites Honeycomb, the tablet-specific variant of the mobile operating system, with Gingerbread, which was

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• At a price of $13.44, RIMM stock finished last week at a total value of just $7.04 billion. That's less than the $7.08 billion that Apple's App Store is estimated to be worth, as noted by author Brian S. Hall.
• AAPL stock has a market cap of $354 billion, or more than 50 times greater than RIMM
• RIM's stock has plummeted since the company announced last week that BlackBerry shipments saw a slight decline year over year while the company managed to ship just 150,000 PlayBook tablets last quarter.

  • being sold at currys for £169 down from £400.
• next-generation smartphone operating system, BlackBerry 10, has been delayed until the second half of 2012

  • Will not make a difference. RIM and the blackberry reminds me of Apple and the Apple 2. It's not an OS that will save them, it's a change of mentality. The need to let the bb go. 

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• Citing unnamed sources close to the matter, the Chicago Tribune reports that the embattled BlackBerry maker has turned down takeover offers by Amazon.com and others, choosing to look internally to remedy ongoing losses and a plummeting stock price.
• h stock prices falling 77 percent after failed handset launches,
• BlackBerry maker has made it clear that they do not want to sell or break up the company at this juncture, the sources told Reuters. Following a weak earnings call last week

  • I don't really think selling is the solution here, necessarily. But something big needs to change. I really feel that the only way RIM is gong to be a force in the future is to let the keyboard go. 
• RIM was pitched to other mobile phone makers like HTC and Samsung

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• • Trade shows are shows to bring in attention of a product to the trade. People like Microsoft and Apple don't need it. It is a disadvantage really, because everybody is hyped up, and if you don't give them something wow, then you actually lose stock and all sorts. 
• In its announcement, Microsoft said that the way the company must communicate with its customers has changed. After consideration, Microsoft officials decided that this January's CES will mark Microsoft's last keynote presentation and booth.
   
   "We'll continue to participate in CES as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries, but we won't have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don't align with the show's January timing," said Frank X. Shaw, corporate vice president of corporate communications at Microsoft.
• three years after Apple decided the 2009 Macworld Expo would be its last

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• Employees at Anobit were said to have been recently informed about the finalized deal, according to Hebrew-language newspaper Calcalist.
• increase the amount of memory in its portable devices, like the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air, as well as to improve the reliability of solid-state memory.
• Rumors of a deal between Apple and Anobit first surfaced a week ago from the same source. Anobit is a 200-employee Israeli fabless semiconductor company that specializes in flash storage, and Apple is said to be particularly interested in the company's proprietary memory signal processing technology.
• Apple's alleged purchase of Anobit also comes as the company is rumored to be planning to build a semiconductor development center in Israel. That facility would be Apple's first strategic development center located outside of the company's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.

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• Apple then makes a case for using fuel cells to power portable electronic devices, noting that hydrogen and associated fuels could allow such devices to operate "for days or even weeks without refueling." But the company also notes there are challenges in creating hydrogen fuel cell systems that are portable and cost-effective.
   
   The solution presented by Apple describes a fuel cell system that can both provide power to and receive power from a rechargeable battery found in a device like a MacBook.
• This eliminates the need for a bulky and heavy battery within the fuel cell system, which can significantly reduce the size, weight and cost of the fuel cell system," one filing reads. "This fuel cell system includes a fuel cell stack which converts fuel into electrical power. It also includes a controller which controls operation of the fuel cell system."
• was first filed with the USPTO in August of 2010
• Apple's interest in fuel cell technology is not new, as in October AppleInsider highlighted another pair of patent applications from Apple that described lighter and more efficient hydrogen fuel cells

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• • Bearing in mind that you use a Mac much further away from your face than an iPhone or iPad, it will be nice, but not as important. Especially on the air, where ppi is already very good. 
• Apple's continued work on HiDPI has shown up in developer builds of OS X 10.7.3, with the "Get Info" window for applications seeing the addition of an "Open in HIDPI mode" checkbox. But while that checkbox would presumably automatically use higher-resolution fonts and graphics that would display at the same absolute size as existing elements, it has not been functional in developer builds where it is present.
• Apple has now removed that checkbox from the "Get Info" window entirely.

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• FocusTaiwan reports (via 9to5Mac)
• A local Chinese-language newspaper reported Friday that iPad3 might be launched on Feb. 24 to mark the anniversary of the birth of Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs.  
    
   Citing sources close to Taiwanese makers in the iPad3 supply chain, the Economic Daily News said the gadget could be launched in mid-first quarter of next year or by the end of next March.

• ITC issued an import ban against HTC on Monday that would block it from selling its Android handsets in the U.S. The ban is set to take effect on April 19, 2012. According to Chou, HTC has already developed a workaround and has been testing new phones with the software.
• Data Detectors
• The ITC's final ruling reversed a previous judgment that HTC had infringed on a real-time signal processing patent by Apple. A work around for that patent would have proved more complicated than simply removing "Linkify."

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