This article is all about Apple News Update 2012. All of the news updates From Apple Inc. (before the start of year 2012) are given below.
With the year coming to an end, 2011 has been a good one for Apple, despite heavy criticism of its iPhone 4S.
Even though people were made to wait much longer than usual for this year’s iPhone, and it was not quite as revolutionary as expected, it has quickly become the fastest selling iPhone ever.
With just a few weeks left of the year here have been a roundup of recent lawsuits, sales info, and more importantly, Siri developments, from Apple.
Apple no longer the only iPad name owner
A Chinese court has ruled that Apple does not own the iPad trademark in China. Apple had tried to sue Proview Technology, a Taiwanese company that originally trademarked the iPad name in 2000.
Apple claims to have bought the name from Proview, but the court ruled otherwise, leaving Proview open to counter-sue Apple.
Proview is reported to be seeking a 10 billion yuan (£1 billion) settlement. This is a serious blow to Apple’s ambitions in China, which it considers to be its largest up-and-coming market. Rumor has it that Apple plans to launch iPhone 4S contracts in China in the next few weeks, but their new legal woes could certainly delay the launch.
Apple sales still solid
Amazon’s new Kindle Fire is starting to eat in to Apple’s global tablet market, with the new Kindle expected to give Amazon second place in the tablet market by the end of this year, right behind the iPad, but the iPad is still selling very well. Any lost sales are almost certainly more than made up for by the massive worldwide growth in iPhone sales, heralded by the iPhone 4S.
Global iPhone sales this quarter are expected to top 30 million units. Based on the October sales, the iPhone has become the best-selling smartphone in the UK, finally ousting Android from its position as the top operating system for British Smartphones. Samsung remains the worldwide top Smartphone manufacturer, but its sales are definitely being eroded by Apple, particularly as the latter company starts to open up new markets such as Brazil, China, and Russia.
Launch of My Xbox LIVE for iOS
Apple fans who also own Xboxes can now get Xbox LIVE updates on their phones, with the launch of My Xbox LIVE for iPhone and iPad. Xbox LIVE was previously only available for Windows Phones, and the My Xbox LIVE app looks very much like the Windows Phone version, allowing access to news and video trailers for the latest Xbox games, as well as all the usual Xbox LIVE social networking and messaging aspects.
Siri: from strength to strength
Owners of the iPhone 4S generally love Siri, despite the app’s limitations (notably its poor location-based functionality outside the USA, and as has been recently discovered, its apparent pro-life political stance, whereby it “cannot understand” requests for abortion clinics and abortion info).
The convenience and sheer social cachet of a voice-activated virtual assistant seems to be a major driver behind the 4S’s massive worldwide sales.
Apple is committed to making Siri even better, as can be seen from six recent job listings there. They are looking to employ three full-time translators to take Siri into new languages, two full-time Siri software engineers, and a full-time Siri apps engineer (who will improve the way Siri interacts with all the other iPhone 4S apps).
This suggests that Apple is very keen to maintain their development edge over their rivals. No one else has anything even close to being as functional or accurate as Siri, when it comes to voice-activated apps, and it’s likely to take years before they even get close, particularly if Apple is constantly raising the bar.
Could Smartphones finally have their killer app? It does look like Apple has finally conquered the high end of the market – at least, for the moment.
