Steve Jobs

This week Apple Inc released an update to fix a problem in its iOS software that allowed its mobile devices to collect and store users’ location data. Last week Steve Jobs promised to adjust the company's mobile software to store less location data.

The update is available through iTunes stores. Besides, it automatically pops up when an iPhone or iPad is synced, said it "contains changes to the iOS crowd-sourced location database cache."

A group of consumers has filed a lawsuit against Apple on allegations the company tracks locations of users of iPhones and iPads.

"Irreparable injury has resulted and continues to result from Apple's unauthorized tracking of millions of Americans," say plaintiffs Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito.

"It is unconscionable to allow Apple to continue unlawfully and without proper consent tracking Plaintiffs and proposed Class members," they add.

US Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd, based in San Jose, California, ruled on Monday that Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs, though being on medical leave, will have to answer questions from lawyers for a group of consumers accusing the company of creating a music-download monopoly. The ruling says that the plaintiffs’ lawyers can question Jobs for a total of two hours.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the next generation iPad yesterday morning. The new tablet is simply called iPad 2 which is, as noted by Jobs, an all-new design “not tweaked”.

Thus, new features include among other things a new dual-core processor that Apple calls the A5 and up to nine-times faster graphics. Besides, it has two video cameras, one in the front and one in the rear, as does the iPhone 4.

A Steve Jobs team of paranoiac developers and creators has cut a new caper though not very surprising one. Apple is now locking its phones with new screws that cannot be unscrewed so that absolutely seal the inner parts of the iPhone 4 from users to prevent them from any modifications and changes.

Kyle Wiens, chief executive of iFixit, a prominent Apple repair and parts supplier, said the purpose of the new screws is to keep people out of the iPhone and prevent them from replacing the battery. He said he noticed in November that screws were being switched.

Apple generously continues to keep us absolutely calm about its irrevocable Big Brother position. This time in line with its usual “shut up, I ban this” policy the Cupertino dictator sent a frightening and threatening letter to a firm selling an action figure doll of its CEO Steve Jobs just after the company announced a new batch of Steve Jobs dolls following the fast sell-out of the first 300.

A professor that introduced the term “net neutrality” warned in his new book that Apple is becoming the company that most endangers the freedom of the Internet. In an interview with the New York Times Columbia law professor Tim Wu also tells the New York Times that he expects that danger to outlive Steve Jobs' tenure at Apple.

One of the few surviving old models of original Apple-1 machines is being auctioned off next week for approximately between $161,000 and $242,000.

The junk features 8KB of RAM, a cassette board connector, and a 6502 8-bit Microprocessor clocked somewhere in the 1-2 MHz range. No monitor or keyboard.

Apart from the hardware the winner at the auction will also be given the original box, manual, receipt, and a letter to the first owner from Steve Jobs typed on lined notebook paper.
 

According to the list of the most influential people in the world which was compiled by the Forbes magazine Bill Gates is more powerful than Steve Jobs, while Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison doesn’t matter at all, because he was not included in at least some lower position of the chart.

"There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. Here are the 68 who matter," is how Forbes introduces its latest list of world tycoons: "The World's Most Powerful People".

On the basis of a Barron’s report media sources reported that Apple may consider the acquisition of Sony which took the stocks of the latter up 3%. Reuters reported that Apple currently has $50 billion in cash reserves while Sony has a market cap of $34 billion. So, financially speaking, Sony is a strong possibility for Apple.

Barron’s said that cash-rich Apple could be contemplating a big acquisition and noted speculation about Adobe, Sony and Disney as potential targets.

At the company’s “special event” in San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, the CEO of Apple Inc Steve Jobs unveiled the next two generations of iOS, updates that will bring multiplayer gaming and high-definition photography to iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches next week and wireless printing and media streaming in November.

The Financial Times reported that Lenovo’s Chairman Liu Chuanzhi believes Apple is missing out on an opportunity to make profits in Chinese market.

"We are lucky Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn't care about China," Liu was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Liu said that the Chinese PC company's LePhone is also placed well to compete with Apple's iPhone in China because it is customized for Chinese users.

Several lawsuits were launched against Apple over the antenna problems with the new iPhone 4. One putative class action suit was filed Tuesday this week with the U.S. District court for the Northern District of California against Apple and AT&T Inc. The filing accuses the companies of fraud by concealment, negligence, intentional misrepresentation and defective design.

Apple was joined by a number of other companies who do not want to support Adobe Flash platform. Among them is Digital Playground, one of the major players in the adult film industry.

Digital Playground said that it will switch from Flash to HTML5 as soon as desktop browsers fully meet the specification requirements.

British users of the latest Apple iPhone model expressed their offense with Steve Jobs’ words about wrong holding the handset which results in errors in working. A new survey from rightmobilephone found that 63% of respondents were “particularly angered” by Jobs’ email in which he told one early iPhone 4 adopter to “avoid holding [the phone] in that way”.