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There have been in-numerable threads on Geek sites and Computer websites about the Geeks complaining about the failings of the Apple iPad... and how the various Android tablets are going to kick iPad butt in the near to distant future because THEY will have what the iPad doesn't have. The Geeks have had a litany of items that the iPad is missing... it doesn't have this, and it doesn't have that... It fails to meet a list of specs this, and list of specs that... and when the Android or Windows7 tablets finally hit the market, everyone will throw their...

Politicians in Germany are using iPads en masse in the Bundestag, the German parliament chamber. According to the English translation of this Spiegel article, the iPad is a reasonable expense claim for the politicians, so ownership has spread like wildfire through the chamber. Although a popular tool for research and answering email, one member has been caught out playing chess during a meeting. There’s a photo gallery of smiling German politicians and their iPads here, if that’s your sort of thing.

Google faces a steep challenge in its defense against Oracle's lawsuit over seven Java patents and some copyrighted material. More than five months after Oracle's complaint, Google appears unable to countersue Oracle over patent infringement, while evidence is mounting that different components of the Android mobile operating system may indeed violate copyrights of Sun Microsystems, a company Oracle acquired a year ago.I have discovered additional material that Oracle might present to the court as examples of copyright-infringing material in the Android codebase: Two months ago I took a close look at Exhibit J to Oracle's amended complaint, which contained a...

To the average consumer, the war between iPhone and Android is probably very confusing. Most people don’t know there’s a difference between a “Droid” and an “Android” phone or why these new phones are so different from what came before.

Apple's 91-day quarter yields some impressive numbers -- take them apart a little and you get the kind of stats you can reel off at a dinner party without being seen as too utterly crushing a bore, for example, did you know there's one iPhone being sold for every two people being born into this world today? Apple sold 16.24 million iPhones in the December quarter. That sure is a lot of iPhones, and while dwarfed by the 650 million bottles of Heinz Ketchup sold around the world each year means Apple sells more iPhones each year than there are...

From its very first issue in 1953 to its latest incarnation, the full catalog of Playboy Magazine is coming to the iPad this March. And not only that, it'll be faithful to its original form by arriving to your Apple slate uncensored. Such is the word direct from the man responsible for that first copy, one Mr. Hugh Hefner. Anyone who's followed Apple's App Store rulings and Steve Jobs' forthright comments on the subject of keeping adult material off mobile devices will surely find this a bemusing, if not entirely inconsistent, decision. The details of how this slice of software...

Live notes from Apple Inc.'s Fiscal First Quarter 2011 Conference Call appear in reverse chronological order:• Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer opens conference call
• Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 first quarter ended December 25, 2010
• Record revenue of $26.74 billion
• Record net quarterly profit of $6 billion or $6.43 per diluted share 
• Versus revenue of $15.68 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter
• Gross margin was 38.5 percent compared to 40.9 percent in the year-ago quarter
• International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue
• 4.13 million Macs sold during...

NEW YORK, Jan 18 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have charged two people with stealing email addresses and other data of about 120,000 users of Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPad after finding a security weakness in AT&T Inc (T.N) servers. Prosecutors said the criminal charges arise from a "brute force" hacking over several days last June that affected iPad users who accessed the Internet through AT&T's 3G network.

The worldwide media tablet market grew 45.1% in the third quarter of 2010 (3Q10), driven almost exclusively by global demand for Apple's groundbreaking iPad. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker, vendors shipped 4.8 million units globally in 3Q10, compared to 3.3 million units in the second quarter of 2010 and Apple's iPad represented nearly 90% of the media tablets shipped worldwide in 3Q10. The growing popularity of tablet devices among consumers worldwide is evidenced not only by adoption of media tablets, but also of ereaders. The third quarter of 2010 saw global...

Street stays positive despite latest medical leave by Steve JobsSAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Apple Inc. shares recovered much of their lost territory on Tuesday afternoon following an earlier sell-off on news that Chief Executive Steve Jobs is taking another medical leave, for an undisclosed condition. After falling 5% at the open, Apple (AAPL 341.26, -7.23, -2.07%) was last trading down about 1.5% to $343 by early afternoon, as several Wall Street brokers reiterated positive views on the company’s and its management team. Apple is also expected to report strong earnings results after the closing bell. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook...

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 first quarter ended December 25, 2010. The Company posted record revenue of $26.74 billion and record net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $15.68 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38.5 percent compared to 40.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter....

Verizon Wireless has posted their Apple iPhone 4 Frequently Asked Questions. Two of the FAQ's concern anyone who wasn't paying attention for the last few months or got a pretend iPhone as a "gift" this past holiday season: Q: I just purchased a new smartphone during the holiday season, but if I knew that iPhone 4 was going to be available soon I would have waited. What are my options now? A: Current Verizon customers who purchased and activated new smartphones, feature phones or certified pre-owned phones between 11/26/2010, and 01/10/2011, are eligible to receive up to a $200 Visa...

Apple will be fine, again, under veteran COO Tim Cook. But the day will inevitably come when the board will have to a find a permanent replacement for their iconic leader. Throughout the long, sad, information-deprived debate over the health of Steve Jobs, there have always been two parallel conversations about would happen if the Apple (AAPL) CEO were to leave his job prematurely. On the one hand is the question of what would happen to Apple in the near term. That matter was more or less laid to rest during the last two medical emergencies that saw Jobs take...

While awarding Apple's iPhone 4 its highest ratings across the board last summer, Consumer Reports is now warning users to wait, calling it "middle aged" and doubting whether Verizon will offer the unlimited data contracts it is said it would. In a blog posting, Paul Reynolds and Mike Gikas write that the Verizon iPhone 4 is "promising, but likely to be short-lived," saying that "it may be quickly replaced by a newer, cooler version more quickly than is customary even for the die-young life expectancy of most smart phones." Apple has historically rolled out a new iPhone model once each...

Earlier today, Apple officially launched its application store for Macintosh, with about 1,000 free and paid applications available. Snow Leopard users download the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update, and the store is included. But people using the software are in for a change. Consumers typically buy software by machine. Those people buying from the Mac App Store purchase by person. The software is attached to an identity. This is a dramatic departure from how consumer software is typically licensed. Licensing agreements typically restrict installation on one PC, sometimes two or even three...The Mac App Store changes the paradigm and usage...

Google isn’t a web application company—they’re an advertising company. That’s what they do best, and that’s what drives their company. Of Google’s $23.6 billion of revenue in 2009, all but $760 million of it was derived from advertising, and nearly 70 percent of it was from Google’s own websites. Everything Google does must be understood within this context. Google builds services like Google Maps, Gmail and Docs and gives them away for free not because they have a philosophical belief that web applications should be free, but rather because giving them away for free gives them a competitive advantage. Free...

The iPad is changing how folks read stuff online--no surprise if you think how different a gizmo it is to a PC. But a new study shows it's moving online reading into primetime TV hours, which is big news. Is evening reading coming back, just in a digital style? The study comes from internal data acquired by ReadItLater, a web service that lets users bookmark web content for perusal at a different time. Though you may think this slightly colors the dataset, the way this service works gives the company unique access to time-coded data on how iPad users (and...

"It is shocking to see how much head room Apple as a company has to continue to grow," Michael Shulman writes for SeekingAlpha. • The macro environment: Apple has grown in spectacular fashion through the worst recession since the Great Depression. For the last three fiscal years ending September 30, the company posted sales of $32.5 billion, $32.9 billion and $65.2 billion. According to Durban capital, in the calendar year 2010 up through October, 60%-65% of the entire growth in dollars spent by US consumers went to Apple. • The marketplace: Apple’s market share of laptops, desktops and of all smart electronic...

As of today, nearly 10 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 10 billionth app, and you could win a US $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. Just visit the App Store, and download what could be your best app yet. There are two ways to enter the Promotion: • You will automatically be entered into the Promotion by downloading an app from the App Store. • Non-purchase method: Go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/10-billion-app-countdown/entry-form/ fully complete an online entry, including your name, complete mailing...

After announcing only one new iOS feature—a five-device cellular data sharing feature called “Personal Hotspot”—at the debut event for the CDMA version of the iPhone 4, Apple unexpectedly released the first beta version of iOS 4.3 for specific iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Apple TV devices. Based on photos and details submitted by an anonymous source, we’ve compiled a collection of changes and improvements for your easy reference. Here’s what’s new and notable. General Discoveries About. All of the portable iOS 4.3 devices show “4.3 (8f5148b)” as their version numbers; the second-generation Apple TV shows 4.3 (8F5148c) as its iOS...