Although Apple is still floating on a fluffy cloud of victory after the weekend’s verdict in their San Jose trial against Samsung, they will understandably just be wishing that the legal system was simple and straightforward that forced Samsung to pay their dues and allow both companies to move in with minimal fuss. Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way, and although the nine man jury found in favor of the fruit company in pretty much all of their claims, there are still additional court dates required to determine the next steps for both companies.
The wild success of the iPhone isn't any secret anymore. The sales figures speak for themselves, the unprecedented interest level in the next iPhone paints its own picture, and the fact that iPhone sales generate more cash than all of Microsoft's products and services put together proves just how big of a smash hit Apple has on their hands with their iOS-powered smartphone. It isn't just one thing that captures the imagination of users when it comes to the iPhone, the whole package manages to pull the punters in and that doesn't seem to end any time soon.
Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II is only a couple of months away from public release. To raise the excitement level just that little notch higher, the guys at Activision and Treyarch have today announced limited collector’s edition sets for their much awaited upcoming title.
Attention PlayStation Vita owners. If you didn't already know, then it might be the time to power on that little portable gaming machine and update the device as Sony has made the 1.80 software update available for all owners. If you happen to keep abreast of these things, then a lot of the functionality and upgrades within the update will already be known to you, but it does offer one or two little additional inclusions that may just bring a smile to even the most entitled Vita owner.
If you enjoy being sociable, catching up on trends or just generally wasting time on the web, then the past week's releases will have been pretty useful to you. Facebook finally pulled its finger out and delivered a decent mobile app (well, at least for iOS), so your social networking can be done at light-speed, and now the new YouTube app for Xbox 360 is said to be up to five-times faster than its predecessor.
Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud service has been knocking around for a while now, and having been given a native iOS app a couple of months back, it has now arrived - fashionably late as with most apps - over at the Google Play Store.
You may have thought, with the San Jose court ruling, Samsung has to pay Apple in excess of a billion dollars for infringing on its patents and keeping it cool for copying its ideas - at least for a bit. The video of Samsung's new Sydney retail store made us all chuckle a couple of days ago for its almost inch-by-inch emulation of an Apple retail store, and now, it looks as though the Korean outfit is after snippets of Apple's desktop operating system.
Anand Shimpi has been rounding up the rumors with regards to the next iPhone, and yesterday concluded the likelihood of Apple implementing NFC into its smartphone was decidedly slim. Now, Jim Dalrymple has corroborated that notion, with the famous Cupertino insider chipping in with his familiar "yep" quip.
The Apple versus Samsung trial in San Jose has been grabbing all of the media attention in recent weeks, but now that the verdict is in and the judgment has been made, we can claw our attention back to what really matters, which in my opinion is the fantastic devices that both companies manufacture. Apple are looking to re-energize the smartphone industry with the announcement and release of the sixth-generation iPhone in the coming weeks, but until then our attention sits firmly with the gorgeous and very popular Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone.
What is it that makes a smartphone smart? Is it the advanced, flexible operating system that grants users the ability to install apps to extend their device’s feature set? Is it a high megapixel camera? A touch display that can differentiate between accidental taps and real ones? An HD display? GPS? Wi-Fi? Support for 4G LTE? It’s features like these that – according to today’s standards, at least – make up a smartphone.
