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.
Controversies
Apple and Google are two of the five companies tied up in a “poaching case.” A federal lawsuit claims that the tech giants violated anti-trust laws by entering into agreements not to recruit each other’s employees. From 2006 on, Apple and Google put each other on internal “do not call” lists, according to the Justice Department.
Apple continued waging its international patent battles this week. In Australia, its patent bid against Samsung has widened to 278 claims comprised of 22 patents and 10 products. In Germany, it blocked Motorola’s attempt to have it withdraw a number of iPhones and iPads from the country’s Internet store.
Over the years, Apple has sometimes received criticism of what outsiders saw as its lack of philanthrophy. This week, CEO Tim Cook dismissed those allegations, pointing out that the Big Apple has donated $50 million to Stanford’s hospital, and contributed $50 million to Project RED, among other charitable efforts.
New Products
Is the “iMac Touch” around the corner? This week, the U.S. Patent & Trademark office published a patent from Apple describing what could be seen as a giant iPad: a desktop with a touch screen in which a stylus of one or more fingers can be used for interaction.
Business Deals and Developments
Apple has raced to third place in the mobile market. In 2011, record iPhone sales allowed Apple to jump past ZTE and LG for the spot, putting it behind Nokia and Samsung, according to a recent report. It also seizes the spot for top smartphone vendor.
An Apple glitch has been cleaning up songs, whether their users like it or not. This week, those re-downloading songs through iTunes Match found that the service cleaned up songs with explicit lyrics.
