Mobile computing devices are increasingly replacing the regular PCs. While PCs still remain the mainstream mode of computing, the mobile platform has experienced an explosive growth in the recent years. And at the head of this growth is Apple, holding the largest market share in both the mobile PC and tablet market.
Apple’s success in the smartphone and tablet market has brought it an unprecedented success. iPad and iPhone are flying right of the shelves in millions and this has hugely increased the semiconductor consumption of Apple, making it the largest chip buyer in the whole world. Although Samsung comes second in the list, it is still far off in terms of buying volume, when compared to Apple.
FaceTime, the video chat service that is available in Apple’s devices, has been wildly popular among iOS users. However, Apple has been rather reluctant in letting the users make use of the service over 3G. Currently, Apple allow users to make FaceTime calls only when they do so over Wi-Fi. But now, an iOS warning message suggests that Apple may have plans of changing this.
Apple’s patents often afford us glimpses to what the company is up to. They also occasionally tell us what we can expect Apple to include in its upcoming products. Now, Apple has patented a multi-touch camera focusing system which is quite unique. This system is to be used with multi-touch systems, so Apple may be considering it for the next iPhone or iPad.
Apple and Samsung have been engaged in settlement talks to sort out their patent issues. However, that does seem to stop Apple from actively pursuing any patent infringements by Samsung. The legal battle between the two has been continuing, although it is being hoped that after the settlement talks, which is now three days away, both may come to some kind of agreement.
We recently reported that Apple had filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization to gain control of the domain iPhone5.com. The domain was earlier a discussion forum about Apple’s upcoming iPhone device but Apple wanted to have it because it felt it had a right to. Now, sources are claiming that has been granted the ownership of the domain.
Apple has been quite keen in having its patents enforced around the globe, and particularly in U.S. One of the reason why the company is so hard-on about this is that Apple has pioneered a number of things in the smartphone market. Recently, Apple was able to gain a key victory against HTC by having certain HTC devices blocked because they infringed Apple patent. It now seems that HTC has found a way around this import ban.
Although Apple has been working on multiple data centers than run on clean energy, the overall percentage of Apple facilities running on green energy is not too high. And that is precisely why Apple has been criticized in the past for relying heavily on ‘dirty energy.’ Now, it would seem that the company plans to change this.