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T-Mobile on Monday boosted the upfront cost of the iPhone by $50 to $149.99 for the 16GB version, which T-Mobile Financial Chief Braxton Carter said Wednesday was the company's plan the entire time. However, T-Mobile didn't say at launch that the lower price was temporary. And the increase -- which brings the total cost for the phone to $629.99 after two years of $20 a month payments -- comes only a month after the iPhone became available at T-Mobile.

"When we look at the overall landscape, there's no … Read more

Apple violated antitrust laws by colluding with book publishers to raise the price of e-books in an effort "to strip retailers of pricing authority," federal prosecutors said in a court filing released Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.

In an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in April 2012, the government accused Apple and five book publishers of conspiring to illegally fix e-book prices to boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its discount pricing. All five of the publishers involved -- Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Simon & Schuster (owned by CBS, which … Read more

At least one Microsoft executive believes that Apple designs are good enough to cite as a yardstick.

After revealing that Windows Blue would officially be called 8.1 at the JP Morgan Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference on Tuesday, Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Tami Reller moved on to the topic of tablets, convertibles, and detachables.

"The HP envy x2 is a classic example of a beautiful detachable. When the tablet and base are together it looks like a MacBook Air competitor," she said.

How good is the Envy x2's design? "This 11-inch ultraportable laptop is cute, … Read more

A lawsuit has been brought against Apple for allegedly selling iPhone 4 smartphones with faulty power buttons. The suit, which seeks class-action status, claims that Apple knew about the issue and failed to fix the problem.

Debra Hilton filed the lawsuit in San Jose, Calif., alleging that she and "thousands of iPhone 4 users" were sold the device with on-off buttons that stopped working shortly after the 1-year warranty was up. The problem purportedly had to do with a defective flex cable that controlled the power button.

"The Apple iPhone 4 is plagued by a latent defect … Read more

After 86 bids, the coffee meeting with Apple's CEO has sold for $610,000.

The winning bidder is anonymous, and goes only by "a********s."

The "power meeting" was part of a campaign by auction site CharityBuzz to raise money for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. It promises little beyond some coffee and facetime with Cook at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

The auction is now officially tied for the highest-grossing CharityBuzz has ever had. It's matched up with last month's auction for a Lamborghini Aventador, which … Read more

If you're the type of person who asks long-winded questions, Siri would like to change your ways.

Apple's server-powered software assistant is now telling users to trim down questions that are too long or otherwise complicated -- a move that iLounge suggests is to retrain how users interact with the service versus an actual human being.

If Siri deems your question verbose, the software will serve up quotes that suggest brevity, a comedic -- though also passive-aggressive -- move. Some of the quotes come from author William Strunk, former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, and fictional characters like … Read more

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday granted Apple nearly three dozen patents, including one that covers how a device responds to acoustic signals such as scratching and tapping.

Patent No. 8,441,790, or "Electronic Device Housing as Acoustic Input Device," focuses on tech that would allow a device to detect and react to sound resulting from an impact with the housing, such as dragging a finger along the surface of the device. The sensors send information to a microprocessor, which can distinguish between different types of input as well as interpret what each input … Read more

Although a federal judge has requested that Samsung and Apple pare down the number of infringements in their lawsuit in California, the iPhone maker actually wants to pile on.

According to FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, Apple on Monday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh allow it to add the Samsung Galaxy S4 to the list of Samsung products that Apple believes violates patents it owns. Apple currently has 22 products that it claims violate its patents. The Galaxy S4 would be added to that list.

According to Mueller, Apple analyzed the S4 and "has concluded that … Read more

There's less than a day left in the auction that will net one individual a brief, and very expensive, sit-down meeting with Apple's top executive.

CharityBuzz's buzzy auction for a coffee meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook ends just after 1 p.m. PT on Tuesday, bringing to a close what is currently the group's second-highest auction ever at $605,000.

"We're truly amazed by the support for the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights through our coffee with Tim Cook online auction," Coppy Holzman, Charitybuzz CEO and founder said in a … Read more