iPhone

Palm CEO holds court on patents, Pre

Palm CEO Ed Colligan does not appear worried about the recent flap over Apple's multitouch patents.

Apple COO Tim Cook touched off a storm of speculation a few weeks ago when he declared Apple's willingness to go after anybody who tries to rip off the iPhone's intellectual property, and based on the context of the question posed to him, it appeared he was sending a warning shot across the bow of Palm's Pre smartphone. But Colligan downplayed the significance of the dispute Wednesday morning at the Thomas Wiesel Technology and Telecom Conference in San Francisco.

Companies … Read more

Apple gearing up for $99 iPhone?

Come this summer, Apple is expected to dip its toe in the entry level market for its popular iPhone, according to a report by RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky.

Apple is expected to debut a $99 iPhone, as well as an iPhone 3G with updated performance, sometime in June or July, according to Abramsky's research note on Tuesday.

Abramsky, in his report, states:

Checks reveal further entry-level iPhone details, including launches on existing carriers June/July with a data plan, entry-level pricing and a lower subsidy. Also expected is a 3G iPhone performance upgrade (performance, features, form factor).

An entry level iPhone could increase Apple's overall iPhone unit sales by 25 percent to 69 percent and bump up its slice of the smartphone market from an estimated 12 percent to 14 percent to 19 percent, the report notes.

But it could come at a price.

Apple could find itself cannibalizing its iPhones/iPod business. For example, Apple would need to sell three $99 iPhones to replace the gross profits of one 3G iPhone, Abramsky notes in his report. And it could also create a situation where Apple would need to lower its iPod pricing to sustain the momentum with its media player since the iPhone also offers such capability. … Read more

Report: Apple nixed Android's multitouch

One of the chief complaints about Google's Android is its lack of multitouch support.

Now, according to a VentureBeat report by M.G. Siegler, we may have an idea of why Google skipped the feature on its mobile operating system:

Apple, which of course makes the signature multi-touch mobile device, the iPhone, apparently asked Google not to implement it, and Google agreed, an Android team member tells us.

Further, the Android team member went on to say that they were relieved that Google didn't go against Apple's wishes, given the legal storm that appears to be brewing … Read more

Report: Apple Snow Leopard takes swipe at location, multi-touch features

Apple reportedly is gearing up to offer location and multi-touch developer tools in its Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system, according to a report in AppleInsider

The geolocation tools will take a page from the iPhone software development kit (SDK), by way of the CoreLocation framework, according to AppleInsider. The CoreLocation works inconjunction with the Mac's networking hardware, aiming to provide a GPS-like experience.

Apple's next generation OS will also provide developers with programing interfaces that are Cocoa-based, as a means to maximize the use of the multi-touch features within the MacBook and MacBook Pro … Read more

Menstrual calendar apps...for men

Seems like every day brings news of a new iPhone app that makes the device all that more indispensable. Take for instance, PMS Buddy, which lets men keep track of the menstrual cycles of the women in their lives.

PMS Buddy, due to launch for the iPhone this week, has been available as a free service for nine months. The site's tagline is "Saving relationships, one month at a time."

"It has exploded. We've passed 150,000 registered users," Jordan Eisenberg, founder and chief executive of PMS Buddy, said in a phone interview on … Read more

Background processing coming with iPhone 3.0?

Apple might be planning to allow background processing in a future iPhone, perhaps having decided that its planned push-notification system for the iPhone was not the best solution.

MacRumors has a report out today saying they've "heard" that Apple is thinking about dropping its objection to having iPhone applications run in the background at some point in the future. If you'll recall, Apple announced last June that iPhone users wouldn't be able to run more than one application at the same time in order to preserve battery life and performance, which surprised developers used to … Read more

iPhone users lead way in mobile game downloads

The number of iPhone users downloading mobile games to their devices jumped 14 percent in November, putting them in the lead of all mobile-phone game downloaders in the U.S. that month, according to a ComScore report released Friday.

The figures, based on a year-over-year comparison of three-month averages, showed that game downloads in November rose 17 percent overall to 8.5 million.

Although mobile subscribers users are increasingly putting their phones to work to download games, only 3.8 percent of all U.S. mobile phone users took the time to download a game in November, according to ComScore. … Read more

Windows 7, Mac OS make gains in January

January was a good month for both the emerging Windows 7 and the venerable Mac OS, according to Web metrics company Net Applications.

The Mac OS is now hovering around the 10 percent mark among operating systems accessing the Web.

In its Operating System Market Share report for January, Net Applications showed the Mac OS at 9.93 percent, up from 9.63 percent in December. The iPhone also trended upward to 0.48 percent in January, from 0.44 percent in December.

In its recap of the Net Applications numbers, Fortune highlighted the ground gained by Apple's iPod … Read more

Adobe CEO: Flash on iPhone not so easy

The work at Adobe Systems toward getting its nearly ubiquitous Flash technology onto the Apple iPhone goes on...and on, and on.

Speaking with the Bloomberg news service on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen acknowledged that even after months of striving, a workable version of Flash for the iPhone remains a tough nut to crack.

"It's a hard technical challenge, and that's part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating," Narayen told Bloomberg Television. "The ball is in our court. The onus is on us … Read more