Beijing Apple Store Egged by Crowd; Apple Loses Lawsuit Against Motorola

Every week, makes news with technology developments, business deals and, more often than not, controversies.

That’s where our weekly "Core Bytes" column on Apple comes in. We’ll relay the past week’s news highlights from our favorite backyard tech giant.

• When Apple failed to open a flagship Apple store in Beijing, the public pelted it with eggs. A crowd of more than 1,000 had gathered outside the store overnight and, scared of unrest, Apple ordered the store not to open. Many in the crowd were scalpers, who had waited overnight in frigid temperatures to purchase the newly-released iPhone 4S and resell them at heightened prices. In China, demand for the product outweighs its supply. 

• Apple has had of luck in its patent cases. But not this week, when it lost a lawsuit against Motorola Mobility. The International Trade Commission said that they didn’t violate Apple’s rights on three patents. Apple has also been waging a patent war against Samsung and HTC, other manufactures of Android handsets—which Apple believed was a stolen product. 

• A famous point in Steve Jobs’ biography was when he was fired from Apple in its early days. But, wait, that never happened, said former Apple CEO John Scully (1983-1993), who points out in the Mac Observer that Jobs left on his own will because he was not satisfied with the direction of the company. 

• When it plays at the New York Philharmonic, Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is a dramatic piece. But it was more so this week when the conductor drew the performance to a halt when an elderly man’s iPhone kept ringing. It was the first time, according to the conductor, that a symphony had ever been stopped due to a noisy phone. 

• In attempts to deflect criticism it received about poor labor conditions in Asia, Apple detailed 97 percent of its global suppliers in a list it released this week. In compiling it, Apple said it found six active cases of underage labor in its labor supplier. 

• Apple has just published a patent for a “Sensory Based Display Environment,” which would allow people to navigate their phones simply through using motion. The patent reads that the new devices would take away the need for conventional means of operation, such as a “finger or stylus.”