According to a new patent application, Apple has a new app in the works that will allow non-programmers to develop iOS apps for their mobile devices. This move may make it easier to get new apps to market without the need for understanding or working with actual code.
In the summer of 2011, Lodsys took aim at several iOS developers (ranging from small development houses to larger organizations like Angry Birds maker Roxio). Their claim was that they had all violated an in-app purchasing patent held by the non-practicing entity. Not long after the suit was filed, Apple filed a motion to intervene stating that these app developers were licensed as an extension to the arrangement the tech giant already had in place.
Despite Lodsys’s opposition to Apple’s motion, the courts have (finally) granted them the ability to step in and help (at least as it pertains to the the issues of patent exhaustion and licensing).
Earlier this week the Department of Justice filed suit against Apple and five other publishing houses: Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Penguin, and Macmillan with accusations of alleged price fixing (with the group colluding to raise the price of electronic books for iPad and iPhone).
Three of the publishers (HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster) were quick to sign settlements, but Apple has held firm in their resolve to defend themselves and issued a response of their own.
With the help of Firetide, a company described as the leading wireless infrastructure in the industry, Archbishop McCarthy High School in Florida has made the switch to campus-wide iPad-based learning.
By providing a secure, reliable and affordable wireless infrastructure, Firetide has helped the 1,500 student school to adopt a new educational process that is more motivational for students while giving teachers the opportunity to provide a more personal and structured level of instruction that is more helpful for long-term goal reaching.
With another 1% upward move, Apple stock hit a market capitalization of $600 billion just shy of 6 weeks after hitting the $500 billion milestone.
With this upward momentum, some analysts are starting to wonder if Apple really could hit the $1,000 per share / $1 trillion market cap that is being predicted for sometime over the next year. They certainly seem poised to make it, but does the current product offering have strong enough legs to take them there? Are they banking on the continued success of the current iPad and iPhone line-up?
This afternoon, Apple pushed out an update for its iAd Producer software, which contains several new features and quite a few enhancements for already existing features, providing faster load and save times and improving overall performance.
The new version of iAd has also added support for the third generation iPad, to allow for on-device ad debugging and WebGL assets, but the most exciting new feature is the addition of Twitter integration.
Where has the time gone? With pre-orders that started on March 12, 2010 the first generation iPad was delivered to consumers in the US about two weeks later on April 3. For those of us who watched the product launch from the edges of our seats, we were waiting (not so patiently) to “get [our] hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with [our] apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”
Happy second birthday iPad, may you find continued success as the market leader among tablets and further strive for innovation with imagination as your father had intended. Too cheesy? I apologize.
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs dreamed of a world in which children would learn from inexpensive, digital textbooks, and that dream may not be far from reality. With the introduction of educational apps like iBooks Author, iBooks 2, and iTunes U, Apple’s secured itself as the premier option for classrooms looking to move away from traditional learning techniques to a more interactive learning experience.
That shift may happen sooner than we think. On Thursday, a group of educational publishers, technology companies, and two government agencies held a meeting in Washington to promote a plan for transitioning U.S. classrooms (K-12) to digital textbooks over the next five years.
The Justice Department, Apple, and five major e-book publishers may reach a settlement regarding the allegations that the tech giant colluded with Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Hachette Group, MacMillan, and HarperCollins to keep e-book prices high, while simultaneously delivering a blow to rival Amazon.
Although the situation is still in flux, sources close to the negotiations report that a settlement would likely end Apple’s “most favored nation clause,” which currently prevents publishers from selling electronic books to retailers such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble for less than they sell digital books to Apple.
According to a recent CNBC poll, half of all U.S. households own at least one Apple product. The poll, which is part of the financial network’s All-America Economic Survey found that more than 55 million households have an iPad, iPhone, one of the many available iPods or an iMac.
Moreover, one Apple product is not enough for the American consumer. Of the folks who owned an Apple product, the average owner had three devices at home. Plus, there’s no sign that demand for the Cupertino-based tech giants products is slowing since 10 percent of those who had yet to buy an Apple product planned to purchase one in the next year.
Apple head honcho Tim Cook is currently in China, meeting with Chinese officials as part of a political public relations campaign, as Apple is currently in the middle of a dispute about its iPad trademark in the country.
Cook was spotted visiting an Apple Store in the country, and now Apple has confirmed that he was given a personal tour of the Foxconn plant that assembles Apple’s iPads and iPhones, in Zhengzhou, China.
Are sports scores coming to Siri? That’s what one app developer says.
Evan Coleman is a developer of AssistantExtensions and SiriSports for Cydia, a Siri add-on that allows jailbroken phones to relay sports scores. For his app, he’s done extensive research on Siri; research that’s led him to believe that Apple is working on a deal with ESPN.
Apple’s new iPad sold a whopping 3 million units in the first few days, so you might imagine that future sales might be a bit more limited. Not so, says a survey conducted by William Power of Baird Equity Research, which revealed that 24 percent of Americans are planning on purchasing the new iPad within the next three months.
The survey asked 488 young and tech savvy people whether or not they planned on purchasing the new iPad, and the results were surprising. In addition to 24 percent of Americans planning on buying the tablet, 29 percent of those surveyed internationally also said they want to purchase Apple’s new iPad in the coming months.
Apple and Nokia have been embroiled in a battle over the design of the new industry standard for SIM cards – the nano-SIM – for which there are currently two designs, authored by rival companies.
Nokia, Motorola, and RIM have teamed up with one proposal for a simple nano-SIM design, while Apple has another proposal, with a more complicated design that requires a card tray. As in Highlander, there can be only one. Who will win?
While some people may argue that America’s favorite passtime is baseball, I would like to suggest that it may actually be trying to predict what Apple may come up with next.
Following the successful launch of the third generation iPad, attentions are now being directed toward the next expected product upgrades –particularly the next iPhone and the (insinuated) promises of a truly different AppleTV. In support of the suppositions and theories, Apple has filed a number of new patents that have us all wondering what they might be up to.
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