Displaying items by tag: iOS

Apple’s iPhone 5 should launch tomorrow, but it might be a launch that is short lived if Samsung and HTC have anything to say about it. Both companies plan to aggressively pursue Apple over the use of Long Term Evolution (LTE) in their products HTC already has a complaint into the ITC.  To make matters worse for Apple (who is trying the invalidation tactic now) Judge Thomas Pender has ruled that HTC’s patents are most likely valid saying “Clear and convincing means something to me. I have to be pretty darn certain a U.S. patent is invalid”. Apple has also tried to claim that HTC only bought the patents to sue Apple. Judge Pender was quick with the reply: “I don't care if they bought these patents to sue you or not. They are a property right”.

Yesterday, pictures of what is apparently the new iPhone connector leaked to the internet. The new connector looks very similar to micro USB, especially in size. Pictures were leaked on French tech blog site NowhereElse.fr. While the old connector had 30 pins it was rumored that the new one will have just 19, but from the pictures we can see that it is only 8 or 9 pins if we consider the shell as one. Tomorrow it is expected that Apple will release new iPhone, but also several new iPods all are expected to feature a new dock connector.

With just a few days left until the announcement of the new iPhone from Apple, we bumped leaked photos of the battery that is supposed to be in the device on the internet. If you can’t wait to get a glimpse of something, anything from new the iPhone here are some photos for you. The guys at iResQ apparently have quite a few pieces of iPhone and they have decided to place this new battery in their chassis, and it fits perfectly. Hopefully it will solve issues with battery drain while using 3G and LTE which is still quite a big problem. It would be nice if you didn’t have to charge your iPhone literally every day if you intend to do a bit of surfing, check some videos online or maybe play multiplayer games.

Yesterday the Internet was caught up in the fact that for some reason an FBI Special Agent had 12 Million Apple UDIDs (Unique Device IDentifiers) along with connected personal information on his laptop. At the time the reports appeared to indicate that this was an FBI-Issued laptop and not a personal one. This small detail was overshadowed by many due to how the information was uncovered. A group known as AntiSec, who is part of the larger Anonymous collective, claimed that they found it after hacking into the agent’s laptop using a fairly common tool.

Since practically every single smartphone powerhouse has announced their big events, HTC just had to join the masses. They have decided to keep everything veiled by mystery, but some rumors are that it could include Windows Phone 8. The event will take place in New York City starting at 11:30 AM EST. The announcement states “Join HTC to see  what's next”, and if rumors of a WP8 device are true they could fall in the shadow of Nokia’s new Lumia devices that will be presented tomorrow, also in New York. There are three HTC devices that are expected to be revealed, from entry-level to new flagship range.

It seems there is a flaw in the way that Apple implements the SMS protocol on their phones. As most know there is no such thing as secure communication when you are transmitting data back and forth over the internet. There are methods that are more secure than others, but nothing is “secure”. This holds true for the PDU protocol (Protocol Description Unit which covers SMS) which has multiple pieces, standards and even methods for transfer. Because of the complex nature of this standard it is in the hand of the phone developer and the carrier to make sure the implementation is done correctly.

From the beginning of the Samsung V Apple case we have likened the situation to a battle field.  We have seen ambushes, feints, counters and now landmines. Landmines are one of the worst things that you can find in a battle field. It seems that Samsung laid one down for Apple to step on and the Apple team obligingly did just that. This was in the form of their expert financial testimony about the damages that were due to Apple. Simply put the claims that Apple made were flawed in their core premise that if someone had not opted to by a Samsung phone they would automatically have bought one from Apple.

Apple rested their case today in the Samsung V Apple trial currently underway. Apple’s last big hurrah was parade their licensing chief in front of the jury. From looking at the testimony it was an attempt to show how much Apple tries to cooperate with the competitors. We are not sure that their effort was successful though. The primary focus was to put in a value on the “infringement” that Apple claims Samsung is guilty of.

If there is one thing I really cannot stand, it is blatant spin (well, two things since you can also throw in FUD). These two items are becoming rather rampant in the technical media (almost as bad as in the TV news). There are some who have claimed it is because the technical press has become a big business now and is no longer concerned with the facts or anything close to them. What they want is entertainment.  There is another factor to this that many might be missing; technical sites are capable of spreading FUD and spin on a massive scale. If a company wants to get the word out they can “leak” information to a few chosen sources and it will spread faster than bad news.

One byproduct of the ongoing legal battle between Apple and anyone that makes a competing phone is that software developers are going to work out ways to do things better. This does not take away the fact that Apple’s insistence that they invented everything is not hurting consumers, but there will come a time when their pattern will only hurt them. One very cool thing that has popped up because of some of the search issues is a brand new search feature from Google. It is capable of taking your handwriting and converting it to a text based search string.