Energy management startup People Power is back with a new remote monitoring app designed to reuse old iOS devices as security cameras. It’s a nice app and People Power’s gateway drug to the internet of things. Read more »
Want the creation story behind the Philips Hue connected light bulbs? In this week’s podcast we explore that and what people are doing with Hue and what might be next for Philips in the connected home. Read more »
Shanghai Zhi Zhen makes a product called Xiaoi, which the company calls a “chat robot system.” It says Siri violates a patent it holds on man-machine interaction. Read more »
T-Mobile’s $99 unlocked iPhone 5 may be one way of putting an iPhone in the purses and pockets of more price-sensitive customers in the U.S. Read more »
A report out of India says that Apple plans to “triple its exclusive stores to around 200 by 2015″ in the country. Read more »
With the smart watch making many headlines these days, we ask GigaOM readers to weigh in with their thoughts on the device: which features they want, how much they would pay, and which company will rule this market. Read more »
Apple’s presence in China and how its products and brand are portrayed are critical to its future. That’s why the recent run-ins with the country’s state-run media could become a concern for the company. Read more »
Apple is said to have paid around $20 million recently for the small, 2-year-old Silicon Valley company. Read more »
For companies in Silicon Valley who want to prioritize design, the real question is how to do it while also shipping engineering products to market. At Pinterest, the designers and engineers are vocal that you can, in fact, do both. Read more »
French carriers have reportedly made an unofficial complaint to EU competition authorities over Apple’s iPhone sales quotas. The Commission is unlikely to see this as a matter for an antitrust investigation. Read more »
With the Podcasts 1.2 update released Thursday, Apple’s own app is now on par with other iOS podcasting apps. One area in which it really excels now is automatic downloads of new episodes. Read more »
Other apps that won’t make the cut: those that are not optimized for the iPhone 5 or Retina displays. Read more »
Improvements to the app are long overdue since the Podcasts feature was broken out from iTunes as a standalone app last fall. Read more »
Do you remember Apple’s rounded rectangles patent? Well, this week Motorola obtained a patent for eight-sided smartphones. Read more »
Intertrust has 250 patents related to digital copy protection software security and has licensed them to plenty of Apple’s peers. Now it is using the iPhone maker for infringement. Read more »
The move to Apple is tinged with a bit of irony considering the bad blood between the two companies. Read more »
Apple says its latest iOS update should fix a security flaw discovered in February; it also includes an update to Apple Maps in Japan. Read more »
Apple’s warranty practices come under fire again in Europe as EU Justice Commissioner calls for better enforcement of current consumer protection laws. Read more »
While it’s amusing to hear critiques of iOS coming from the guy stuck with running BlackBerry, it’s clear that Apple’s competitors sense an opening. Read more »
I was an enthusiastic early adopter of the iPod nano with wristwatch case that arrived in 2010. But as a practical solution, it didn’t work. Here’s what I’m hoping a true Apple watch solution would be like and what it would avoid. Read more »
Last years’ gigantic court fight between Apple and Samsung continues to have ripples in the court and the press. This week, an appeals court agreed to let the New York Times and others argue that documents in the case should not be secret. Read more »
It was apparent former Dixon CEO John Browett probably wasn’t going to fit in at Apple to many of us watching. Five months after his firing, he says his tenure ended over “fit, not competency.” Read more »
A year after Apple’s CEO topped Glassdoor’s employee rankings as best chief executive, he dropped down to No. 18 this year. SAP and Facebook’s CEOs are the new highest-rated CEOs. Read more »
Surprise! Apple thinks Android is lame. In a brief, curiously timed interview with the Wall Street Journal, SVP of Worldwide Marketing Schiller ticked off reasons why he thinks iOS is better. Read more »
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Apple CEO Tim Cook must testify in the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple for conspiring to fix ebook prices, citing Steve Jobs’ death as a key factor in her decision. Read more at paidContent »
Samsung’s U.S. smartphone spending in 2012 saw a huge jump from a total of $78 million in 2011. In the meantime, the company actually outspent Apple, which put $333 million toward iPhone ads during the year. Read more »
That small slate market — which in Apple’s eyes, didn’t exist — will account for more sales than larger slates, says IDC. And due to lower prices, Android’s tablet market share will reach just past that of iOS this year. Read more »
A report shows that music subscription service Spotify continues to grow at a rapid pace. The growth validates Spotify’s business model but is also inviting a growing cluster of rivals. Read more at paidContent »
In a patent application filed Thursday, Apple outlined the possible creation of a marketplace for used digital goods. Amazon recently won a patent to create such a marketplace. Read more at paidContent »
A guide for how to watch one of your home movies in the privacy of your own home using the Apple TV, a Mac or an iOS device. Read more »
UBS compares Apple and IBM and suggests based on their similarities Apple should do a bigger stock buyback and start a yearly analyst meeting to get analysts more face time with company executives. Read more »
Danish weather app firm Robocat plans to move into hardware with Thermodo, a tiny digital thermometer for mobile devices. An SDK is promised, too, opening possibilities for new temperature-aware apps. Read more »
Even though it fell 1.3 percent between October and December to 52.3 percent share, Android still is the most popular smartphone operating system in the U.S. Apple’s share grew 3.5 percent to 37.8 percent. Read more »
In the slicing-up of the mobile content pie, carriers have been left out over the last few years. But, according to a new analyst report, that situation’s starting to change. Read more »
A Reuters report says Apple’s CEO and SVP of Internet Services paid a visit to the CEO of Beats Electronics, which is launching a music streaming service this year. Read more »
Microsoft was naughty and got caught, and now it has to pay handsomely. Here’s the rundown on what happened, why it mattered, and why it may not happen again in quite the same way. Read more »
Google’ vice president of data centers, Joe Kava, outlines how the search giant’s pursuit of data center designs corresponds nicely to the company’s ten governing rules. Well, almost. Read more »
The case accusing Apple of fixing ebook prices is heating up. New court documents show that Steve Jobs’ biographer have been dropped from the case but that Jobs himself is still at the center of it. Read more at paidContent »
The latest update to the app also includes quicker nearby search options and English language versions of the app and a choice of kilometers or miles in seven Middle Eastern countries. Read more »
For the first time Apple’s iBookstore will offer paid ebooks in the Japanese market, from major Japanese publishers including Kodansha and KADOKAWA. The iBooks 3.1 update also brings reading improvements for other Asian languages. Read more »
