Posts Tagged ‘Apple’

Connecticut AG calls Amazon, Apple to woodshed over e-book deals

Posted on August 3rd, 2010 • Filed under mediarosa • No Comments

Looks like the Attorney General of Connecticut is ready to stir things up over what he calls “anticompetitive” deals between Apple, Amazon, and various prominent publishers on the e-book market. That state’s Richard Blumenthal says that he wants representatives from both on-line giants in his office ASAP to discuss what Blumenthal calls their “most favored nation” arrangements with big book companies like Macmillan and Simon & Schuster.

The crux of the MFN concept is that a given product maker must offer a given distributor the lowest price it’s offering anyone. If a competing distributor gets a price break, they get it too.

“The net effect is fairly obvious,” Blumenthal warned in his letter to Amazon, “in that MFNs will reduce the publisher’s incentive to offer a discount to Amazon if it would have to offer the same discount to Apple, leading to the establishment of a price floor for e-books offered by the publisher.”

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Week in Apple: record revenue for Apple, white iPhone pushed again

Posted on July 25th, 2010 • Filed under mediarosa • No Comments

It has not been a busy week in Apple, but it has certainly been a contentious one. Other smartphone makers aren’t very happy that Apple dragged them into its own antenna mess, and the white iPhone 4 has been delayed again. Still, the company reported record results this quarter. Read on for the weekly roundup:

Liveblog: Apple FY2010 Q3 Earnings: Apple reported another record quarter, with huge Mac, iPhone, and iPad sales. In fact, the company sold almost as many iPads as it did Macs during the third fiscal quarter.

RIM, HTC, Nokia want no part of Apple’s “self-made debacle”: Apple’s competitors are displeased at having their products singled out by Steve Jobs during Friday’s press conference. Although they took a different tone in responding, they’re unanimous on one count: this is Apple’s problem, not theirs.

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Week in Apple: iPhone 4 review, spiked with antenna drama

Posted on July 4th, 2010 • Filed under mediarosa • No Comments

It was a tumultuous week for Apple, what with iPhone antenna issues, analysis of what’s really going on, and Apple’s explanation of the problem. We also published our in-depth iPhone 4 review, gave a look at iMovie for iPhone, and played around with an updated version of the Kindle software. Read on for a holiday weekend roundup of recent Apple news:

iPhone 4: the Ars Technica review: The iPhone 4 is finally out, and many potential buyers are wondering if Apple’s newest device is all it’s cracked up to be. Ars took the new iPhone for a spin to test calls, battery life, the new cameras, FaceTime, HD video, and all-around speed.

Why Apple’s iPhone 4 bumper case is a rip-off: Apple doesn’t typically get into the case-selling business, but it now sells multi-colored Bumpers to use with the iPhone 4. Are these things really worth $29 apiece? We don’t think so.

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Week in Apple: WWDC 2010, iPhone 4, Safari 5, oh my!

Posted on June 13th, 2010 • Filed under mediarosa • No Comments

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference dominated the week, and what a week it was. The new iPhone was finally announced, as was the release date for iOS 4. Safari 5 came out (and of course, we tested it), and awards went out to notable Mac, iPhone, and iPad developers from both Ars and Apple. Need a primer on the top news from the week? Read on.

iPhone 4 unveiled: gets HD video, LED flash, dual cameras: Apple unveiled the newest version of the iPhone during Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote, featuring an ultrathin design and vastly improved camera.

Ars at WWDC 2010: hands on, pics of the new iPhone 4: We got our hands on an iPhone 4 and played around with it to see how it felt, how the video functions work, and more. Check out some of our pics.

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Week in Apple: antitrust drama, performance vs. stability

Posted on May 29th, 2010 • Filed under mediarosa • No Comments

Does the long holiday weekend have you itching to catch up on hot Apple stories from the last week? You’re in luck, as we’re wrapping up the Ars Design Awards for Mac OS X, while covering more rumors about the new iPhone, and some legal drama over Apple allegedly abusing its dominant music market position. Read on for the roundup:

Reader’s Choice poll for 2010 Ars Design Awards: Mac OS X: We have compiled a final list of Mac OS X nominees for the 2010 Ars Design Awards in all five categories. You can also cast your vote for the next week for a special Reader’s Choice award.

Mac lags Windows in gaming performance, excels at stability: Mac OS X is still behind Windows when it comes to raw gaming graphics performance. Still, Valve founder Gabe Newell discovered that when running comparable code, the Mac is five times more stable than Windows.

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Apple faces patent suits over iTunes Store, Safari, Mac OS X

Posted on May 22nd, 2010 • Filed under mediarosa • No Comments

Apple is involved in some curious patent cases filed this week in Texas federal district courts. One suit claims that Apple’s iTunes Store (among many others) infringes on a patent for what is essentially an online store for music downloads. Another lawsuit claims that Safari, DVD Player, Front Row, and even Mac OS X itself infringe on a number of patents related to adjustable length displays of textual and other data.

The first lawsuit, filed in the patent-friendly Eastern District of Texas, comes from Sharing Sound LLC, which holds the rights to a patent for “distribution of musical products by a web site vendor over the internet.” The patent in question describes what is functionally any website you’ve ever visited to buy a music download, including song previews, a shopping cart, and even an accompanying app to play legally purchased music. The patent targeting Apple has a provision that downloaded songs have a unique identifier included in the file to link the files to a particular purchaser.

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