Apple pushes for license deals as music streaming service launch at WWDC beckons

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Apple, especially, Steve Jobs, is known to be a hard negotiator. Having revolutionized the digital music industry with the iTunes store, the media industry is no stranger to the ways and methods of Apple negotiations. But recently, Apple seems to have been going through a hard time negotiating with record labels and artists for one little reason, they are late. The music streaming service, which was pioneered by various start ups like Pandora in the US and Spotify in the Europe, is a novel way to listen to music, for free. Supported by advertising, the streaming services apparently make far less money than the traditional a la carte way of buying music, like the iTunes. They might be late but that doesn’t stop Apple from launching their own streaming service, because that’s the demand of the day.

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Apple’s iPhone sales grow 400 percent in India

Credit Suisse has issued a note to clients stating that iPhone sales in India have shot up by close to 400 percent. Reported by the Economic Times, the note suggests that the EMI plans and other schemes initiated in India have had the desired effect resulting in quadrupled sales.

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Apple supply chain to shift from Foxconn to Pegatron

In a move aimed at giving Apple greater supply chain balance, the company is expected to shift over a greater percentage of manufacturing to Pegatron. Historially, Foxconn has been responsible for the production of all iPhones and iPads. However starting 2011, Pegatron has been responsible for making a small segment of iPhones and has since graduated on to production of the iPad Mini.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 vs Apple iPad mini

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While we are reviewing the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0, we saw it fit that we compare it with the other small tablets in our labs. The Apple iPad mini is the one and only smaller iPad with a cheaper price as well as better portability obviously, so how does it fare when compared to the Galaxy Note 8.0? Lets find out. Here’s the in-depth video comparison and read past the break for the text –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA6JVdlvpSs

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ASUS Fonepad vs Apple iPad mini

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We just finished reviewing the ASUS Fonepad and witnessed a launch of its beefed up variant too, but that won’t stop us from comparing the new calling tablet from ASUS with the similarly priced small tablets that we have in our labs. Like we compared it with the Samsung Galaxy Note 510 and the Galaxy Tab 2 310, we are now comparing it to the Apple iPad mini, which is probably the best small tablet money can buy right now. So, how does the ASUS Fonepad compare to the smaller iPad? We took them both in front of the camera to find out –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fIuZoCpels

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Smartphones outship Feature phones for the first time ever – IDC

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International Data Corporation(IDC), the market research firm that usually outs numbers for the mobile phone market every quarter has something new to say this quarter. According to them, the first quarter of 2013 has been the first time ever in the history of the mobile phone market that the Smartphones have outshipped feature phones. The whole worldwide mobile phone market seems to have grown 4% this quarter. Samsung still remains the leader in the mobile phone market dominating sales in both smartphones as well as feature phones.

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Apple announces WWDC 2013 for June 10th – 14th

Apple has just announced the dates for its annual developer conference, Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Scheduled to be held in San Francisco from June 10th to 14th, the event will showcase the next version of iOS and OSX.

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Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones, 19.5 million iPads – $43.6 billion revenue and $9.5 billion profit in Q2 2013

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Apple Retail Store in Barcelona, Spain

Apple just announced it earnings for the quarter ended March 30 2013 or Q2 2013 with revenue of $43.6 billion and net profit of $9.5 billion after selling 37.4 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads.The company also sold 4 million Macs.International sales contributed 66% of the revenue. Apple’s enormous cash pile increased to $145 billion. Looks like iPhone sales are slowing down in anticipation of the newer model. Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones in previous quarter in comparison. Continue reading “Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones, 19.5 million iPads – $43.6 billion revenue and $9.5 billion profit in Q2 2013”

Wireless charging: The future or a passing fad?

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Wireless charging, much like many other technologies that find their ways into the hands of the everyday consumer has a long and unspectacular past. First attempted, at least in the public sphere, in the early 1900’s by one Nikolas Tesla, whose many brilliant ideas and even more spectacular failures (this being one of them) coloured a rather interesting period in innovation and developments for consumer-facing products. The idea was revived in the mid-2000’s by a number of independent individuals working out of MIT, Jeff Lieberman and Marin Soljacic and team. Wireless power transmission is a bit of a misnomer as wires are almost certainly involved in nearly every step of the way with the sole exception being the wire usually linking the power supply to the “sink” which is the device using the power in the first place.

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Apple supplier Hon Hai shows record profits

Hon Hai or Foxconn Technology as it is popularly known as has reported earnings for the year with a net income of $3.2 billion. The company is  known for being the primary partner for manufacturing Apple’s iPhone, iPads in addition to other products.

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Apple acquires WiFiSLAM indoor-GPS mapping company for $20 million

In a bid to strength its mapping application and positioning technology portfolio, Apple has acquired WiFiSLAM. The Silicon Valley startup has been working on improving on and facilitating indoor navigation using Wi-Fi triangulation as opposed to the GPS based system in place as of now.

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Apple adds ‘In App Purchases’ warning to iTunes App Store

Apple has added an “In App Purchases” warning to apps in the iTunes App Store that contain such options. The move should serve well to let users know of prospective in app purchases in a single glance. The warning is currently noticeable only in the desktop version of the App Store but it is logical to assume that Apple will roll it out across their mobile platforms as well.

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Apple bags Microslot antenna patent

Apple has been looking to make serious changes to the exterior appearance of their devices as they have been applying for various kinds of patents like the fingerprint sensor, and now we have news that they have just been granted the patent for Microslot antenna by the USPTO which integrates cellular and wireless radio antennas into the case material.

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Apple files patent for unlocking phone by identifying contacts’ faces

We have seen multiple patents filed by Apple in the past few months which relates to unlocking the device like the finger print scanner, the face recognition and now Apple has filed a patent which  unlocks the device only if you  can identify your contacts.

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