Apple

The unstoppable sales juggernaut that is the iPad has pushed Apple past Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba into the No. 3 slot for laptop shipments, according to a Deutsche Bank analyst.

So, how did this happen? Investors will begin to categorize the iPad as a laptop, according to a Fortune magazine blog citing Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore. Based on this and the fact that Apple has sold more than 3 million iPads since sales began back in April, Apple jumps to No. 3. from No.7 in laptop sales, according to Whitmore. IDC had Apple ranked No. 7 in laptop … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--A speedy launch of an iTunes cloud music service hasn't materialized the way many at the large record companies expected.

After Apple acquired Lala.com last December, the thinking among some music insiders was that Lala's streaming-music technology could easily be plugged into iTunes--once Apple obtained the proper music licenses. Lala.com, a music service launched in 2006 and shut down by Apple last May, possessed technology that scanned hard drives for existing music libraries and then enabled users to play back the same songs from Lala's servers via Web-connected devices.

But eight months after the … Read more

Back at the World Wide Developers Conference in June, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the company had paid out more than a billion dollars to application developers through the App Store. But what about those developers who had created something that hadn't sold so well?

There's a new service from application tracking site iPhone Application List, called the App Exchange that is playing matchmaker to such developers. There, they can effectively offload their creation to another party who might be able to do a better job, or at least use some of the app's technology in … Read more

The iPhone 4 may have gone through some troubling times with its antenna issues, but a study from a market research firm shows that users don't seem to care.

According to a new study from Netmarketshare, Apple's iOS mobile operating system experienced its largest single month market share gain ever in July. Apple's iOS market share grew from 0.59 percent in June to 0.7 percent in July.

The report also said that the iPhone usage share grew at over twice the pace of Android.

Another market researcher, Canalys, on Monday said Apple's smartphone market grew by 61 percent, … Read more

Add Nielsen to the growing list of research groups that say sales of Android phones are outpacing the iPhone's.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, research firm Nielsen has found that among those who bought a smartphone in the first half of the year, 27 percent acquired an Android phone while 23 percent bought an iPhone. Research in Motion and its BlackBerry phones beat both of them with 35 percent, the LA Times reported.

Nielsen's study appears to support similar findings from the NPD Group, which reported in May that Android had surpassed the iPhone … Read more

Microsoft on Monday announced pricing and availability for its Office for Mac 2011 software suite.

The version of the Office suite for users of Apple's Mac computers is scheduled for release via retail outlets at the end of October, in two editions: Office for Mac Home and Business 2011, and Office for Mac Home and Student 2011.

"For better alignment across platforms," Microsoft said in a statement, "the Office 2011 pricing and edition options map closer with Office for the Windows operating system."

The software titan also said that anyone buying Office 2008 for Mac … Read more

The unlocked iPhone 4 is now technically legal and technically possible.

Just days after the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that bypassing a manufacturer's protection mechanisms to allow "handsets to execute software applications" no longer violates federal copyright law, the iPhone Dev Team on Sunday released a jailbreak for the iPhone 4 at JailbreakMe.com.

Unlike previous jailbreaks, which required the device to be connected to a computer to run the update, the latest jailbreak is accomplished completely via mobile Safari loaded on the device. The browser-based software bypass reportedly works on all iOS devices, including iPhones, … Read more

Updated at 11:54 a.m. PDT with comment from Apple.

Perhaps you remember the videos in which Apple proved beyond an unreasonable doubt that all cell phones have the same antenna issues of which the iPhone 4 is accused.

Hold, say, a Droid X just so, and, well, the signal bars go down like an Englishman after 11 p.m.

Strangely, these videos appear to have made something of a sudden disappearance from Apple's own site. Their disappearance seems first to have been noted by Noah Hendrix, a computer science student at Kansas University.

His observational skills were … Read more

At first a bit of a utilitarian mystery, the iPad has evolved, for me, into a practical device.

A previous post notwithstanding, the iPad 3G has finally become, practically speaking, what it is: a tweener device, but one staking out distinct territory between a smartphone and a laptop.

3G and weight: these, I have come to realize, are two of its best features. Thanks to 3G and its gossamery 1.5-pound portability, I can whip it out anywhere and work, navigate with the GPS, or just relax. And I am doing this with increasing regularity sans laptop.

Always on, always … Read more