The iPhone is easily the most anticipated device to be arriving from Apple in the coming months, although the purported smaller iPad, or iPad Mini as it is being referred, is hot on its heels. The device, we are led to believe, will counter the smaller tablets cropping up in the tablet market, including the cheap-yet-powerful Google ASUS Nexus 7.
Apple has been dealing Samsung a barrage of complaints in its court case against Samsung, claiming the South Korean company has infringed on many of its iPhone and iPad design patents in creating the Galaxy series. As well as the talk of hardware, Apple has, to a lesser degree, had a question or two to ask of various UI elements, but to head off its defense, Samsung has countered by claiming Apple has infringed on a number of its own software-based patents.
Way back when, before Apple officially announced the iPad and speculation was rife as to what the iPhone maker would make of a tablet device, we all wondered whether we would get an iOS tablet, or a Mac-like slate. We really didn't know for sure, and many people hoped, even begged that Apple would bring OS X to the touch-screen market.
The murmurs and speculation with regards to Apple's entertainment of a smaller iPad has fluctuated over the course of the past six months or so, and although the fruit company dominates the tablet market with an iron fist, bloggers, analysts and commentators seem generally convinced Apple will release a downscaled tablet to see off a lingering threat.
It will take weeks and months before the whole Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit in the USA gets resolved, and until then we’ll continue to receive juicy bits of insider information on both company’s design processes, prototypes for current products and plans for upcoming ones. Today, we’ve received news related to Apple’s previous intentions and efforts on striking a hefty per smartphone / tablet licensing deal with Samsung. Check out the details after the jump.
There are many companies embattled in a quest to gain the largest market share in both the tablet and smartphone markets, and the recent court cases between Apple and Samsung has offered us a strong indication as to the inner workings of the firms locked in the fight for supremacy. Internal documents have been leaked to the San Jose case revealing much about the practices of both companies, while some of the big cheeses of both electronic outfits have leapt from obscurity to make their feelings known.
Fueled by the release of Siri last October, 2012 has become something of a battle between a number of fledgling voice-recognition services. Following Siri, Samsung's S Voice offering has certainly made an impression, while Google Now also looks fairly impressive as the major players in mobile space compete to bring forth the very best service.
We are pretty sure that we will see an Apple media event being held in September, part of which will be dedicated to introducing the world to some new hardware. As things stand at the moment, it looks nailed on that Tim Cook and his colleagues will take to the stage to announce and show off the next-generation iPhone in all its glory, but apart from that, the jury is still out on whether or not they will use the same forum to tell us about a couple of new iPods we are expecting, as well as the baby iPad, commonly dubbed as the iPad Mini.
If you take away the fantastic customer service which I have always received, the wonderful quality and usability of their products, and the sense of fairy tale that has surrounded the company over the last few years, the one thing that I have always loved about Apple is their ability to produce wonderfully simplistic commercials that show off their products in the best light. Apple has a pretty decent history when it comes to advertising campaigns, with their 'Crazy Ones' commercial holding an iconic status around the world.
As Apple and Samsung's legal teams gear themselves up for another hard day in court, we sit patiently to see what little gems of information are next on the agenda to be released into the public domain. We have already seen Apple reveal prototype design information about the design iterations they went through in the early iPhone and iPad development stages, as well as a testimony from Phil Schiller and Scott Fortstall about how the company actually decided to design and build the two mobile devices.
