Apple has finally opened the gates for pre-ordering their upcoming tablet, iPad. The new device, which pretty much works as a much larger iPhone and is build on the same platform, retails from $500. And while all iPhone apps will be compatible with the iPad, the new device will give media publishers a new platform to distribute their magazines, and, especially ebooks.
The iPad will ship to customers on April 3.
SmartPhone Technologies of Texas has sued 7 big name companies due to patent infringements. The 7 companies are Apple, Research In Motion, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sanyo and AT&T. SmartPhone Technologies is claiming that a number of patents have been infringed and these include email syncing, Bluetooth connectivity and other technologies.
They are seeking an unspecified damages, costs and expenses. The suit was already filed at the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.
Apple is on the offensive again and now they are putting the heat on HTC. This time, they are claiming that HTC has infringed 20 patents related to the iPhone’s interface which seems to be pointing towards multi-touch technology. The suit was filed by Apple with the ITC and in the U.S. District Court in Delaware.
Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch app store has reached another milestone: 150,000 applications are now available for download. It’s only a month ago when Steve Jobs revealed that there were 140,000 apps with 3 billion downloads to date.
Out of the 150,000 apps, only 25% are free, while the rest are paid, and quite surprisingly, the biggest app category are paid book downloads, which certainly makes the future look bright for the upcoming iPad.
There’s no denying that Apple’s iPhone is selling well — in fact, Apple is selling millions of them every year. Or month, it’s hard to tell, there’s just so many of them.
ComScore has revealed that Apple’s smartphone market share in the US has reached 25%, while BlackBerry is still in the lead with 41%, followed by Apple at 25%, Microsoft at 19%, Palm at 8.3% and finally, Google, with 2.5%.
Google’s iPhone rival, the Nexus One, doesn’t appear much of a rival after all — at least not sales wise. The Nexus One has reportedly sold only 80,000 units during its first month, compared to the few million iPhones Apple sells each month.
When first launched, the iPhone sold about 600,000 and even the Droid, another Android device, sold around 500,000 units. However, both Apple and Motorola had adverting budgets north of $100 million when their devices sold, and Google has only spent a fraction of that.
Apple has added a new feature to the iTunes app store: from now on, you can preview the app in your browser, instead of booting up iTunes every time. For instance, here’s the preview page for the popular free app “Molecules”, which includes all the details you’d find in the iTunes store page.
Apple added preview to its iTunes music store a few months ago, which was met with great success, and all Apple needs now is a preview app for its video store.
According to Cryptopath, a potentially deadly iPhone security exploit has been found. The exploit, which allows iPhone settings configuration files to be installed over-the-air through Safari, was originally meant for enterprise clients but is now available for folks with less honorable intents.
Usually this is secured by the user having to verify the install, and the setting files themselves are signed as “verified” by Apple or third part software providers.
However, hackers have found a way around it, so that files that aren’t verified by Apple can appear to be. If malicious setting files are installed, it pretty much gives the hackers access to the iPhone.
You can read more details about the exploit here.
