The smartphone industry is no stranger to legal wranglings, with Apple and Samsung duking it out in the courts in a very high-profile battle over certain patent infringements. Samsung has already been ordered to pay Apple more than $1 billion in damages after being found to infringe upon various Apple held patents, but that doesn't seem to be enough as Apple is seeking to extort an additional $707 million from the Korean electronics giants. If recent reports are true, then it looks like Nokia and HTC could be heading for their own legal battle.
iOS 6 has, among a slew of new features and enhancements, brought two significant new native apps to the table. The first was Apple's publicly-flogged in-house Maps app displacing the popular Google offering, while the second - which has been viewed much more favorably upon - was Passbook. Billed as the answer to general pocket clutter like tickets, vouchers and such, it provides an easy way for such passes and gift cards to be stored digitally, utilized with ease, and readily located when required. In essence, it's another example of Apple attempting to change everything, again.
The iOS App Store is an extremely active place at the moment as the Apple review team struggle to fight their way through the barrage of apps that are being sent to them by developers with iPhone 5 and iOS 6 compatibility upgrades. We've already seen a number of notable and popular apps getting the support for the larger display of the new iPhone with Google now joining the party with a welcome update to their extremely popular Chrome for iOS web browser.
The iPhone 5, which you couldn't possibly have missed coverage of since it's been discussed and nauseam by geeks and non-techies alike, is actually Apple's sixth-generation smartphone, despite being handed the "5" moniker. In 2007, Apple introduced the original iPhone, then the iPhone 3G arrived, and a while later, Apple introduced the 3GS - a much faster, slicker experience than both of its predecessors. The iPhone 4 brought a radical new design and Retina display to a table now crowded by ravenous iFans, and the iPhone 4S cuts a more vivid picture, having been introduced only eleven months ago.
It has long since been known that Google could be offering as many as five new devices to its Nexus range this Fall, and seeing as Google brands rather than builds hardware, it teams up with reputable manufacturers in order to bring such new and exciting products to market. The Galaxy Nexus, for example, was made by South Korean mobile device glutton Samsung, while the much-lauded Nexus 7 tablet was hooked up thanks to the engineering work of ASUS.
The smartphone market is among the largest and fastest growing markets in the world of consumer electronics. It is currently dominated by the iPhone and Android smartphones, with BlackBerry and Windows Phone at a distant 3rd and 4th position. Now that Apple has released the iPhone 5, arguably the biggest smartphone of the year with 5 million units sold in the opening weekend, it’s time to take a look at the smartphone market and, more importantly, involved consumers.
The modern high-end smartphone is the ultimate example of the convergence of technology: besides being, you know, a phone, these devices are our music players, video players, alarm clocks, organizers, dictionaries, calculators, internet communications devices, full HD video recorders and go-to cameras.
The first weekend of iPhone 5 sales is now over and judging by the queues that were being experienced at various Apple Stores in available countries, it was expected that Apple would be seeing some extremely positive sales numbers after the first three days of availability. In a press statement coming out of California today, Apple Inc. have announced that they managed to ship five million iPhone 5 units following the release on Friday September 21st.
The iPhone 5 has been officially available through Apple and the carriers for two days now and although it has been heralded as a success, there are still a few issues that have some users expressing a little concern. One of the biggest talking points has been the removal of Google Maps in favor of Apple's own vector based mapping system, which in itself wouldn't be too much of an issue but Apple have gotten things drastically wrong in some users opinion.
It appears to be something of a trend these days, but the release of Apple's new iPhone 5 has done nothing but lead every two-bit tech fan with a video recorder to take to YouTube in an attempt to prove, or disprove, that the thing can be scratched. And by scratched, we mean pretty much obliterated.
