This post was written by Mary Joseff
Apple has launched its new MacBook consumer notebook family in India. The company is offering seven models in three product categories. All of them are built using the new mechanical design which uses a single ‘unibody’ ultra light aluminium chasis. This enables the company to claim the lightest, thinnest title in their class, for many of the offerings. The seven new releases include the MacBook, MacBookPro and MacBook Air categories. All the machines share Apple’s trademark design innovations: a gesture-sensitive touch pad; recessed ports; displays back lit with LEDs; light-adjusting keyboards.
Apple Inc. has filed a patent for a technology which would enable a layer of solar cells to be inserted under a touch-sensitive screen of the sort used in the iPhone. This would let owners of Apple devices, such as iPods and iPhones, charge the devices by leaving them out in the sun. If awarded, the patent has the potential to make the iPhone a truly portable device by eliminating the need for the phone to be connected to a power supply by wires.
Softbank Corp. has won the right to sell Apple Inc.’s iPhone in Japan and will market the popular next-generation phone in 2008, in a coup for the nation’s third-largest mobile communications carrier. For Apple, Japan’s large but saturated mobile phone market will be an important stepping stone in its bid to expand its global mobile phone share.
Apple has announced the launch of its new cross-border gifting service whereby the residents of the United Kingdom would be able to send Apple products as gifts for Christmas. This new facility provided by the company is limited to the delivery of products within select 15 countries of Europe. The door-to-door deliveries will be through courier. Any return or refund will be covered by the return policy of the Apple online store where the recipient of the gift will be based, in case of a need for return.
To fix its MobileMe software, Apple has released 27 patches, ending an embarrassing episode associated to the iphone launch. MobileMe is the e-mail service which was supposed to start working on the day of the launch of the iphone. However, it worked so unsystematically that the company had to keep shutting the service down and return the money to its customers. However, the provider had maintained that nothing was wrong with its service. MobileMe is a hosted service. Thus, Apple was able to make all the changes on the servers without the need to inform anyone. With the various aspects of MobileMe re-written, users report that the service is working fine now.
Apple Inc. has unveiled a service that allows users to wirelessly sync and access information across multiple devices. Dubbed MobileMe, it’s a cloud storage service that enables push e-mail and real-time synchronization of calendar items, contact information, and other data on an iPhone without the need for a Microsoft Exchange server. The Web-based MobileMe works with the iPhone’s mail, calendar, and contacts applications in addition to working with Mail, iCal, and Address Book on the Macintosh and Outlook on Windows. Additionally, MobileMe offers online storage for documents, files, and photos.
Apple Inc. and AT&T Inc. have settled claims that the iPhone’s “visual voicemail” technology infringed on the patents held by Klausner Technologies Inc. The visual voicemail feature lets iPhone users see a list of people who’ve left them phone messages and listen to the messages in any order they choose. With the settlement, in which Apple and AT&T have agreed to take out licenses on the technology, both the companies have joined eBay Inc.’s Skype division, which had also settled a similar lawsuit last month.
On VentureBeat, MG Seigler says that Apple Inc.’s newly launched App Store is set to transform the company in a big way. According to him, it would be hard to think about Apple without App Store. Barely two week into its launch, App Store continues to roll out more and more apps each day - it’s literally like the gift that keeps on coming. Even after gauging from what has been seen so far, there is a possibility that we’ll see versions of the App Store roll out across other devices in the Apple product line in the coming years, Seigler adds.
Apple Inc., which had made AT&T the exclusive carrier of its iPhone, has extended its exclusivity agreement with AT&T for a year. The exclusivity deal, which the company had signed with AT&T last year, was due to expire at the beginning of 2009. With the 120-year old brand becoming cool again due to its alliance with iPhone and the smartphone sales improving, both the companies seem to be happy with the results of the deal. By subsidizing each iPhone 3G sold by $300, AT&T is able to make the smartphone far more attractive to consumers.