Fanboys and More Line Up Early for the Grand Central Apple Store

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

• A Chinese patent court ruled against Apple’s claim that Proview Technology, a Shenzhen-based company, infringed upon the iPad trademark in China. Apple purchased a “global trademark” for iPad from Taiwanese company Proview Electronics, but that purchase doesn’t include the trademark owned by its subsidiary, according to reports. So in China, Apple doesn’t own the iPad name.

What’s New

• Apple stores are officially more fun than Disney parks, or at least that what could be gleaned from the numbers reported by Apple and the Themed Entertainment Association, according to a Wall Street Journal article. More people visit Apple stores than walk through the gates of Disney’s four largest theme parks. The stores are so popular that when the newest store opened Friday in Grand Central Terminal in New York, hundreds of people stood in line for hours, some for as long as a full day. (Watch the attached YouTube video and get a peek at the store yourself without having to catch a plane across the country.)
• And in news closer to home, the lines were of the virtual kind as thousands of fans clogged the City of Cupertino’s website when news broke that updated plans for Apple’s new campus were viewable online. Minor changes were made to the plans, according to Gary Chao, City Planning Manager.

Business Deals and Developments

• The next iPad may be in the works, and one analyst suspects the iPad3 may be released as early as February. Richard Gardner, Citi analyst, told BusinessInsider that “several sources” confirmed the February release. The new tablet could be eye candy, the analyst said, that is, it will feature a screen with double the resolution of current versions.