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Apple Closing in on RIM in U.S. Market Share

Written on October 29, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 3 people have commented

A new survey by research firm ChangeWave has Apple’s iPhone on course to eventually best BlackBerry as the U.S. device of choice when it comes to smartphone options. It also reflects good news for the smartphone industry in general, since overall ownership of the data-hungry cellular devices is up to 39 percent of respondents, which [...]

iPhone Ranks First Again in J.D. Power Survey

Written on October 09, 2009 by Charles Jade and 13 people have commented

For the second year in a row, Apple’s iPhone is at the top of the global marketing firm’s satisfaction survey for business users of smartphones, and the iPhone also wins among consumers, too.

Based on a thousand-point scale, 1,148 business users were asked to rate smartphones on five weighted criteria: ease of use (29 percent); OS (23 [...]

Palm Pre Can Sync With iTunes Again Thanks to Latest Update

Written on October 05, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 7 people have commented

Palm is clearly very determined to encourage Apple to release updates for iTunes, because it keeps updating its own software for the Palm Pre to re-enable iTunes syncing. The latest update, 1.2.1, does indeed restore the device to the honored “Source List” in Apple media management software — this despite receiving a slap on the [...]

Palm Supposedly Rejected Employee Poaching Deal with Apple

Written on August 20, 2009 by Charles Jade and 3 people have commented

According to Bloomberg, former Palm CEO Ed Colligan rejected an offer by Steve Jobs to refrain from hiring each other’s employees.
Similar allegations have been made regarding Apple and Google recently, though in that instance the policy was supposedly an informal and undocumented one, but with Palm there are “communications” involved.

Weekly App Store Picks: July 18, 2009

Written on July 18, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 3 people have commented

Once again, it’s that special time of the week when we all join hands, take a deep breath and exhale as we take a spiritual journey through the latest app picks for iPhone.
Before we reach app Zen, however, it’s time for a refreshing run through of the week’s iPhone news and Apple happenings.
Credit cards at [...]

iTunes 8.2.1 Released, Rains on Palm Pre’s Parade

Written on July 15, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 15 people have commented

It appeared to be just another innocuous third-decimal-point minor update, but today’s release of iTunes 8.2.1 carried more than the usual “bug fixes and stability improvements.” (Those are still there, too.) For owners of the recently introduced Palm Pre unfortunate enough to have already downloaded and installed the update, it also ends the iTunes playlist [...]

Third-party iTunes Syncing: It’s Not Just About Palm

Written on June 18, 2009 by Tom Reestman and 50 people have commented

Apple’s recent tech note regarding third parties using iTunes’ syncing has caused plenty of discussion. Should Apple “break” the Pre’s ability to sync as an iPod? Why would Cupertino do this? The comments across the web vary in their opinions, so I’ll throw mine in here as well.
First, it’s no secret what I think of [...]

Zynga Wants Apple to Build Facebook Connect Into iPhone

Written on June 15, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 10 people have commented

The Palm Pre is here, and while it hasn’t exactly felled the Goliath of Apple’s iPhone, it does have some features that are making iPhone users jealous. One is greater built-in social networking connectivity, including Facebook integration. The implementation of Facebook in Palm’s WebOS basically allows your Pre phone to store Facebook friend info in [...]

The Truth About Software Keyboards

Written on June 11, 2009 by Tom Reestman and 24 people have commented

Harry McCracken at Technologizer wrote a nice piece about the virtues of hardware keyboards on smartphones.
I think one reason a keyboard argument even exists is because when competing in a given market, you have to tag a competitor’s hot product with a “missing feature,” and then provide that feature. (How many manufacturers claimed FM radio [...]

Jon Rubinstein to Helm Palm

Written on June 11, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 4 people have commented

Former Apple VP Jon Rubinstein will be shifting from his role as Chairman at Palm to the company’s new CEO. As many Apple fans already know, Rubinstein has been a prominent member of Steve Jobs’ core team since his original founding of NeXT in the early 90’s.

Dear Palm and Sprint: Is There Anything Else You Could Do Wrong?

Written on June 05, 2009 by Tom Reestman and 21 people have commented

Palm’s been working hard to mastermind the Pre launch this Saturday, but I think they’re getting it all wrong. Now Sprint has joined in. It’s reached the point where they look like a couple of companies seriously in need of some business acumen.
Early reviews of the Pre are promising, yet I wonder if the bumbling, [...]

The Palm Pre is an iPod? Yes, But We’ll See How Long That Lasts

Written on June 02, 2009 by Tom Reestman and 41 people have commented

A big story recently is how the Palm Pre syncs seamlessly with iTunes. It does so by making itself appear to be an iPod to iTunes.
Further details came out during an interview at the All Things Digital conference that indicate only non-DRM music and photos can be synced. It’s unclear whether non-DRM videos sync, or [...]

Palm Pre Can Sync With Apple’s iTunes

Written on May 28, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 13 people have commented

One of the nicest things about having an iPod or iPhone is the easy syncing with iTunes, especially for Mac users. In fact, it’s such a perk, that users are constantly looking for ways to get their BlackBerry and other devices to sync as well. How Palm’s upcoming Pre phone (which could be one of [...]

Palm Pre: Unlikely to Do Any Killing Just Yet

Written on May 27, 2009 by Liam Cassidy and 17 people have commented

In his “Palm Fights Back” article on CNN Money yesterday, Adam Lashinksy speaks glowingly of Palm and its imminent return to prominence with its so-called iPhone killer, the Palm Pre. He refers to Pre features that, he says, cannot be matched on the iPhone: “snazzy multitasking, universal search, a drop-down keyboard.”
I wonder if Lashinksy has [...]

Apple’s iPhone 3.0 Designed to Defend Against Palm Pre

Written on March 16, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 17 people have commented

With trademark confidence, Kevin Rose was pretty vocal about what we could expect to see from the new iPhone 3.0 software this Tuesday, and he claims to have it on good authority from a source who’s “been right before.” The basic purpose of the update, according to Rose, is to anticipate and match features that [...]

Apple’s Multi-Touch Patent Revisited

Written on February 03, 2009 by Tom Reestman and 5 people have commented

I wrote about the patent Apple received for this, but I’d like to comment further in light of all the discussion going on about the relative usefulness of this patent.
A lot of the discussion seems to stem from these sources:

A Gizmodo article using a “professor of patents law” as a source.
An analyst report that claims [...]