Edible Apple

The Apple and Samsung case is now in the hands of the jury, after last-minute talks between Tim Cook and Samsung’s CEO failed to yield any type of settlement agreement between the two companies.

This past Tuesday, both Apple and Samsung delivered their closing arguments and Apple attorney Harold McElhinny spent a considerable amount of time highlighting for the Jury the plethora of evidence Apple introduced at trial which speaks to Samsung’s preoccupation with Apple and their unabashed efforts to copy Apple’s most successful products.

“Witnesses can be mistaken. They can be mistaken in good faith,” McElhinny said. “Exhibits that are created in a trial are always created with a purpose. They can confuse, and can mislead. Historical documents are almost always where the truth lies.”

And as for those historical documents, you might recall a damning internal Samsung presentation which went through, page by page, over 100 separate iPhone features with suggestions as to how Samsung might improve their own offerings by making their UI more Apple-esque.

What’s more, Apple showed how even Samsung’s icon design closely mimicked Apple’s own choices.

“They sat with the iPhone and went feature by feature, copying it to the smallest detail,” McElhinny explained to the Jury. “In those critical three months, Samsung was able to copy and incorporate the core part of Apple’s four-year investment without taking any of the risks, because they were copying the world’s most successful product.”

Apple also tried to play the “Samsung is a coward” card, so to speak, by pointing out that Samsung refused to bring down its top executives to testify. This of course stands in stark contrast to Apple who, from the get go, had top executives like Scott Forstall, Phil Schiller, and Greg Joswiak take the stand and testify.

From the very beginning, Samsung has disrespected this process. Apple brought you two of its most senior executives: Schiller and Forstall. They were willing to face cross. No Samsung execs were willing to come here from Korea and answer questions under oath. Instead of witnesses, they sent you lawyers.

“The damages in this case should be large, because the infringement have been massive,” McElhinny also added.

Apple of course is suing for upwards of $2.5billion in damages, though McElhinny, perhaps in an effort to cover all of his bases, explained to the jury that they have several different damages routes they can choose to take, ranging from $519 million to $2.48 billion. Still, McElhinny stressed to the jury that it was up to them to determine how competition in the tech sector is run, adding that if they just slap Samsung on the wrist, they won’t change their way of operating.

via CNET

Reuters reports that LG has already started producing the newer and thinner display set for use on Apple’s next-gen smartphone.

“We just began mass production and we don’t expect any disruption in supplies,” Han Sang-beom, chief executive of LG Display, a panel supplier for Apple products, told reporters late on Wednesday.

His comments were embargoed until early Thursday morning.

Apple is planning a major product launch on September 12, stoking speculation that the world’s most valuable technology company will announce the sale of its redesigned iPhone.

The new iPhone screens will be thinner on account of in-cell technology which attaches the devices touch sensors directly into the LCD, thereby eliminating the need for a separate touchscreen layer as is the case with current iPhones.

Well the Samsung/Apple trial has certainly had its share of interesting moments. And though both parties rested their case last week, this final tidbit of news is worth covering.

As part of Samsung’s defense, they called up Roger Fidler to the stand. Fidler is a tablet visionary, so to speak, and Samsung argues that Fidler’s tablet prototypes from the early 90s serve as prior art to Apple’s iPad patents.

Samsung is countering by saying that the 1994 video of Mr Fidler discussing his tablet- which looks noticeably similar to the iPad- shows that the idea of a tablet was public knowledge for many years before they even created their version.

As a result, they argue, there is no way that they are in breach of the patent that Mr Jobs filed for the device in 2004.

But interestingly enough, Apple’s expert design witness Peter Bressler went through the painstaking effort of creating an exact replica of the tablet device Fidler worked on back in the early 1990s when he headed up the Knight Ridder Information Design Lab. Note, though, that the prototype in question never made it to market.

In any event, the lengths to which Bressler went to recreate the tablet are worth mentioning and were first detailed by CNET.

“I went to Missouri with a model maker laser scanner and digitized the surface of (the) model, photographed them, measured them so that we could fabricated it to be exactly the same…right down to the scratches and the paint,” Bressler testified.

Bressler, with the recreated tablet in hand, explained that it differs quite significantly from Apple’s iPad and associated design patents. For one, Bressler explained that Fidler’s tablet prototype does not have edge to edge glass like the iPad. Further, Bressler pointed out that the Fidler tablet “had cutouts for memory cards and a stylus”, something which the iPad obviously does not have.

Closing arguments in the case were today and jury deliberations will begin on Wedndesday.

And quickly, below is a promo video detailing Fidler’s efforts to get a tablet computer up and off the ground.  The video below was created by newspaper publisher Knight Ridder and describes a tablet housing an interactive newspaper capable of blending text, video, animations, audio and graphics together.

Earlier this Summer, Apple was granted a preliminary injunction against Samsung’s flagship Android device – the Galaxy Nexus. Shortly thereafter, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted Samsung’s request for a stay.

Now as the two companies take to court this week to determine whether or not the stay will be lifted, both sides are pulling out their big guns as much is on the line.

Yesterday, Apple’s attorneys argued that the Galaxy Nexus was Samsung’s “beat Apple” strategy. Indeed, court documents released in the recently closed Apple/Samsung lawsuit (which doesn’t encompass the Galaxy Nexus) show that Samsung was uniquely preoccupied with taking on Apple at all costs.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s top dog attorney John Quinn argued that Apple’s iPhone, in contrast to the Galaxy Nexus, has a huge market share and that the Nexus therefore doesn’t pose any sort of threat to  Apple.

A key issue in the arguments yesterday before the appeals court was whether Apple must prove it lost market share to the Galaxy Nexus to obtain a pre-trial ban on sales, and whether the patented feature drove sales of either product.

Apple reported that it sold $16.2 billion worth of iPhones in the third quarter ended June 30. By contrast, Quinn said, Samsung sold $250 million of the Galaxy Nexus device in the first two quarters it was on the market.

“This is a product that, at most, captured 0.5 percent of the market,” Quinn said. “Nothing in the record here would support a finding of irreparable harm” to Apple.

The patent both sides are arguing about, and the one at the root of the initially granted preliminary injunction, pertains to unified search. As a quick primer, unified search allows iPhone users, for example, to search for a particular item and have the phone scan multiple sources concurrently, from a user’s email to his/her iTunes Music library.

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There’s some Apple legal news to report, and surprise surprise, it doesn’t involve Samsung or any other tech company matter.

The name Wayne Goodrich may not sound familiar, but he’s a former Apple employee who reportedly helped produce a good number Apple’s keynote events. Goodrich was fired from Apple back in December and now he’s suing the company arguing that former CEO Steve Jobs promised  him that he’d have a job for life at Apple.

Bloomberg reports:

Goodrich, who worked for Jobs since 1998, was promised by late chairman of the world’s most valuable company in a one-on- one meeting in May 2005 that he would always have a job at Apple, according to the complaint. The conversation took place after Jobs’s return from medical leave to receive treatment for pancreatic cancer, Goodrich said.

“This express promise by Steve Jobs was consistent with a practice that Steve Jobs had, acting on behalf of defendant Apple, of promising job security to certain key employees who worked directly with him for many years,” Goodrich said in the complaint.

And so, Goodrich is suing for breach of contract and unfair business practices.

And what does he want? Well, he’s looking for damages relating to lost restricted stock units, lost salary, benefits, and get this.. emotional distress.

As for the stock units, Goodrich was let go before they were able to vest. The shares in question were awarded to him back in 2008 when Apple was trading at $97.40 a share. Today, those shares would be worth quite the pretty penny as Apple shares have been skyrocketing as of late into unchartered and record territory.

He received raises and bonuses each year, including from 2007 through 2011, according to the complaint. Goodrich was assured by Jobs in 2010 that he would be given another job at Apple if anything happened to his position and Jobs wasn’t around, according to the complaint.

And so there you have it.. yet another wild and wacky legal case involving Apple.

Oh, and one last thing.

Back in October we reported on a statement Apple board member Al Gore made at the AllThingsD conference. Gore noted how Jobs was very much aware of the Walt Disney effect wherein employees at Disney, after the death of the company’s founder, would try and figure out “What would Walt do?” instead of thinking for themselves.

Jobs did not want a similar dynamic to befall Apple after his death.

“And he made it very clear,” Gore explained, ‘I don’t want that.’ “He made it clear to Tim Cook and everyone else ‘Don’t ask what Steve would have done. Follow your own voice.’”

As if we need any more evidence that September 21 is when Apple is planning to launch the iPhone 5, in comes a report from TechCrunch relaying that Verizon is instituting a company-wide vacation blackout from September 21 through the end of the month.

A trusted Verizon employee has just confirmed to TechCrunch that the carrier is having an all-staff vacation blackout from the dates of Friday, September 21 to September 30. You know what that means, right?

The next iPhone, whether it’s called the iPhone 5 or simply the new iPhone, will almost certainly be available in stores (with lines wrapping around the back of them) starting Friday, September 21.

Indeed, it’s quite common for carriers to limit the vacation time of employees around expectedly busy time periods, and if you’ve ever been to an iPhone launch, it doesn’t get any busier than that. What’s more, and if history is any indication, the iPhone 5 – complete with a bigger 4-inch screen and 4G LTE support – is likely to be the hottest selling iPhone ever. If there were ever a time for carriers to demand “all hands on deck”, the upcoming iPhone 5 launch certainly fits the bill.

Following the release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, a growing number of Apple notebook users began taking to Apple’s support forums and complaining about a rather noticeable decrease in battery life. In some of the more extreme cases, users were reporting that battery life times were decreasing by almost half.

Now Ars Technica is reporting that the developer seed of OS X 10.8 reverses the aforementioned battery life problems.

According to Softpedia’s developer source, those differences in battery life are reportedly reversed with the 10.8.1 developer seed. “Until I installed 10.8.1, my MacBook was showing 4h:05m after a full charge,” the developer claimed. “After installing 10.8.1 it’s showing over 8h.”

Apple has been seeding developer betas of 10.8.1 for just over a week, the second of which came last Friday. The company has not said when it plans to release 10.8.1 to the public, but according toour own analysis of past OS X updates, it should be coming down the line relatively soon. Ever since the release of OS X 10.4, Apple averages just over 19 days for the first point release (Lion was the outlier at 27 days). We’re now at roughly 27 days since the release of Mountain Lion, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see 10.8.1 show up in the Mac App Store sooner than later.

Samsung today announced its plans to invest an additional $4 billion into its chip plant in Austin, Texas in an effort to keep up with growing demand for its system chips which are used in an assortment of tablets and smartphones, including the iPhone. Indeed, despite their legal squabbles, Apple remains Samsung’s most important and largest customer.

Samsung’s press release reads in part:

The remodeled fabrication line will mainly produce state-of-the-art mobile SoCs on 300mm wafers at the 28nm process node.

Starting work this month, the project is scheduled to initiate mass production within the second half of 2013. About 2,500 construction workers and equipment vendors will be at the site to retrofit the facility and set up the equipment.

Dr. Woosung Han, president of Samsung Austin Semiconductor said, “We are extremely pleased to extend our presence in Austin and reinforce Samsung’s capacity for highly advanced logic products. The added ability in production will allow our customers to better respond to market needs.”

The Statesman, based out of Austin, fleshes out some more detail, adding that the company “will replace older memory equipment with new manufacturing gear that is better suited to making advanced system chips for smartphones and other mobile devices.”

Samsung also points out that the $4 billion investment marks the largest single foreign investment ever made in Texas. Further, Samsung notes that its total investment in Texas since 1996 checks in at $13 billion

via Samsung

I can’t think of a busier period for Apple news and rumors than now. The Apple/Samsung trial has been tearing up the headlines over the last few weeks, coupled with heavy anticipation for a new iPhone model, rumors of an iTV, an anticipated iPod refresh, and of course, rumors of an impending iPad Mini launch.

The latest iPad Mini news comes courtesy of Digitimes which reports that supply volume for Apple’s miniaturized iPad is expected to reach 4 million units per month beginning in September as the company ramps up production ahead of what promises to be heavy demand during the holiday months.

Rumors are circulating in the IT market that Apple will launch its 7.85-inch iPad in October with a thinner screen frame to allow the device to feature a bigger display area than other competing products and will also feature a resolution similar to that of iPad 2.

The sources pointed out that the supply chain already started supplying a small volume of 7.85-inch iPad in June with a monthly volume at around several hundreds of thousand.

As it stands now, both the Google Nexus 7 tablet and the Amazon Kindle Fire retail for $199. It remains to be seen how Apple will price the iPad Mini, but if Apple decides to aggressively market it at $199 as well, Google and Amazon will have an incredibly tough time competing since they’re not really in a position where they can afford to make the price any lower.

A number of outlets are reporting that Apple is planning to hold a special media event on September 12th where they will likely introduce the iPhone 5 to the world. It’s also possible that they’ll use this event to introduce an iPad Mini as well.

Related:

Apple releases third TV ad for the iPad with Retina Display

Eddy Cue email reveals Apple and Steve Jobs had/have interest in 7-inch iPad

The first known photos of Apple’s iPad prototypes

Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Samsung CEO Kwon Oh Hyun at the request of US District Court Judge Lucy Koh. Koh was, for whatever reason, optimistic – or at the very least thought it was worth a shot – that the two company heads could reach a resolution without having to put the matter of their ongoing suit into the hands of the Jury.

The Apple/Samsung trial ended last week and closing arguments are scheduled to begin today.

Not surprisingly, nothing productive emerged out of the phone meeting held between the two CEOs. Samsung attorney Kevin Johnson informed Koh yesterday that while the two CEOs did speak on the phone, nothing of note was agreed upon.

“The CEOs did speak… There was no resolution”, Johnson said.

Again, closing statements begin today and Jury deliberations will kick off tomorrow.

via The Verge

When Steve Jobs turned 30 in February of 1985, his friends and co-workers created the following video for him as a present. Originally posted by Technologizer, the video features an incredible amount of never before seen photos and video footage of Jobs.

They set it to the wonderful song “My Back Pages” by one of Steve’s idols, Bob Dylan, and filled it with images from Jobs’ first three decades. You know some of them, but only some. And they include many ones of a happy, relaxed, even silly Steve Jobs that most of us never got to see.

Technologizer credits receiving the video to Craig Elliot, Apple employee 8128 who was reminded of its existance by former Apple employee Tom Hughes who helped design the Picasso inspired Mac logo from the 80’s.

9to5Mac is reporting that a number of nationwide retailers, from Best Buy to Amazon, are all experiencing noticeable shortages of in-stock iPod Nanos. Putting 2 and 2 together, this of course points to an upcoming iPod Nano refresh which, not surprisingly, we’ve seen a rumor or two about in recent weeks.

A few weeks ago, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo – who has a pretty spot-on track record when it comes to Apple rumors – issued a research report claiming that Apple is planning to release a new model of the iPod Nano this fall. Before that, a report from Macotakara claimed that Apple’s next-gen iPod Nano will have a form factor reminiscent of the iPhone, with a home button and all.

A rendering of the rumored device is below.

Apple is by all accounts planning to hold a special media event on September 12 where it will introduce the iPhone 5 and, perhaps, a completely revamped iPod line with new Touch and Nano models.