seasea: Apple

显示标签为“Apple”的博文。显示所有博文

2011年4月29日星期五

Jobs Says Apple Made Mistakes With iPhone Data

“We haven’t been tracking anybody,” Mr. Jobs said in an interview on Wednesday. “Never have. Never will.”

Mr. Jobs said that Apple would fix the mistakes in a free software update that it would release in the next few weeks.

Mr. Jobs, who is currently on medical leave, addressed the issue along with two Apple executives — Philip W. Schiller, the senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, and Scott Forstall, the senior vice president of iPhone software. A week ago, two researchers reported that they had discovered a file in Apple’s devices containing what appeared to be data of the locations visited by users over the previous 12 months. The discovery raised fears that Apple was tracking its users and prompted investigations by various European governments and demands for explanations from United States lawmakers.

Earlier on Wednesday, Apple posted a statement on its Web site explaining how its system used the file to pinpoint a phone’s location.

Mr. Jobs defended the timing of Apple’s response to the controversy, saying that “rather than run to the P.R. department,” it set out to determine exactly what happened.

“The first thing we always do when a problem is brought to us is we try to isolate it and find out if it is real,” he said. “It took us about a week to do an investigation and write a response, which is fairly quick for something this technically complicated.”

He added, “Scott and Phil and myself were all involved in writing the response because we think it is that important.”

Some privacy advocates who were harshly critical of Apple last week praised the company’s response, saying it was a step in the right direction.

“Apple acknowledged a mistake and they fixed it,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in an interview. “That’s a good thing.”

Confirming speculation from some security researchers, Apple said in the statement posted on its Web site that the file in people’s iPhones was not a log of their locations but rather “the locations of Wi-Fi hot spots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone.”

Apple said it used the data, which it called a cache, to calculate a device’s location more quickly than through GPS satellites.

But Apple acknowledged that it had made mistakes, which it attributed to programming errors, in storing the data for a long time, keeping the file unencrypted and storing the data even when users had chosen to turn off location services.

“The system is incredibly complex,” Mr. Forstall said. “We test this carefully but in such a complex system there are sometimes places where we could do better.”

Apple said it would reduce the location cache on the iPhone to no more than seven days. The company also said it would stop backing up the cache onto people’s computers and would delete the cache entirely when users turned off location services.

Apple also said that it updated its database of Wi-Fi hot spots and cell towers by using its customers’ phones as sensors. But it said that it could not locate users based on the file on the phone, and that it collected the information in an anonymous and encrypted form. The company cannot identify the phone user from the data, it said.

While some security experts have known about the existence of the file for some time, the issue made headlines last week after the researchers reported their findings at a technology conference in San Francisco. Apple came under heavy criticism for its silence after the discovery.

The location report attracted attention from some government officials, including Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, who sent a stern letter to Apple asking why it was “secretly compiling” the data and what it would be used for. Congressman Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general, also sent letters to Apple asking for an explanation of the issue.

Google acknowledged last week that it, too, collected data about the location of Wi-Fi hot spots and cell towers from its users.

Apple’s statement contained a tidbit about possible future product plans. The company said it also was collecting traffic data from its phones and tablets to build a crowd-sourced traffic database. That would enable Apple to provide real-time traffic information along with navigation advice. Google already uses Android phones to collect real-time traffic information.

Mr. Jobs declined to answer questions about his health or about any plans to return to Apple. Last week, during the company’s quarterly financial report, Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer, said, “He continues to be involved in major strategic decisions, and I know he wants to be back full time.”

Nick Bilton contributed reporting from New York.

Advertising: Lenovo Aims a Campaign at the Apple Crowd

That’s why the Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo, largely unknown to the average American consumer, is trying to get its products into the hands of the coveted 18- to 25-year-old Apple generation, which has been raised on all things iPod and iPad.

“The most difficult thing in marketing and branding is trying to change the perception,” said David Roman, the company’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, “but Lenovo had very little recognition in the consumer space.”

It’s a tall order, but in January, Lenovo partnered with Saatchi & Saatchi, part of the Publicis Groupe and the company’s agency of record, to work on a new advertising effort. The resulting campaign, which will begin in May, is estimated to cost $100 million.

The campaign’s focus is action, specifically the idea that Lenovo products are “for those who do.” One 30-second television spot shows a blinking cursor on a computer screen, the flame from a gas stove being turned on and a pencil being sharpened.

“The world won’t move forward by itself,” says a narrator. The world needs “the people who do. The ones who tinker, who build, who create.”

The campaign portrays these “doers” as people who are known for doing something extraordinary. Print ads feature a new Lenovo laptop in a variety of situations, including as part of the dashboard of a car outfitted with gadgets for a storm chaser, and harnessed to the space between the handlebars on a motorcycle as it is driven through a desert.

The tagline on the ads reads, “We make the tools. You make them do.” A digital billboard installation shows a 360-degree moving image of the motorcycle laptop contraption and provides technical details highlighting the laptop’s computing power.

To help develop the creative elements of the new campaign, Saatchi & Saatchi conducted research with 18- to 25-year-olds and learned that they were ambitious and optimistic, said Claudine Cheever, the agency’s chief strategy officer. The campaign was designed to embody the ideals of pragmatism, authenticity and the act of getting things done.

But aren’t millennials more captivated by design and coolness than pragmatic electronics? Not according to Ms. Cheever, who said technology was “not just a badge, it’s a tool.”

The advertising initiative includes digital banner ads and rich media ads on the Web, television spots, digital billboards and a smattering of print ads. The ads will run on cable outlets like ESPN, Bravo and MTV, and on technology Web sites like CNet.com. Outdoor advertising has begun in nine cities, including New York, Atlanta and San Francisco.

Lenovo’s last consumer campaign, called “Ideas Anywhere,” was tied to the company’s sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics and ran from August 2008 to November 2009.

Before heading out into the real world, the company brought the message in-house and rallied employees with new business cards, T-shirts, building signs and new e-mail signatures. The internal campaign events took place in April in Lenovo’s offices in Madrid and Raleigh, N.C., and was an extension of a employee training program called “The Lenovo Way,” which began in 2009.

Leaving no stone unturned, Lenovo also rebranded the packaging for its products and the kiosks it takes to trade shows.

One thing Lenovo already had going for it in the consumer brand space was its I.B.M. ThinkPad brand.

But Lenovo had to take that brand recognition and make it “relevant to a broader consumer base,” Ms. Cheever said. “How do you take the ThinkPad equity and mine that for something a 25-year-old is going to relate to?”

The company purchased the I.B.M. PC division in 2005, and has since begun manufacturing smartphones in China. It announced a hybrid tablet notebook, the IdeaPad U1, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The ad campaign will feature new products, including the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, a slim laptop aimed to compete with the MacBook Air laptop.

The campaign also includes various media partnerships, including one with the youth-oriented nonprofit organization DoSomething.org. The co-branded campaign will begin this summer and will encourage teams of people under 25 to take on projects to improve their communities. The winning teams will be eligible to win Lenovo products.

Lenovo’s Mexico office is also forging a media partnership with MTV Mexico to create a new reality show Web series and co-branding opportunities to aim at the youth market in that region. “I don’t believe you can have a technology brand that doesn’t come from the youth market today.” Mr. Roman said.

2011年4月28日星期四

Apple and Google Use Phone Data to Map the World

As those two companies battle for dominance in mobile computing, they have increasingly been using their customers’ phones as sensors to collect data about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots.

Google and Apple use this data to improve the accuracy of everything on the phone that uses location. That includes maps and navigation services, but also advertising aimed at people in a particular spot — a potentially huge business that is just getting off the ground. In fact, the information has become so valuable that the companies have been willing to push the envelope on privacy to collect it.

“Google envisions a world where even a small business can promote products to consumers nearby on a mobile device,” said Alistair Goodman, chief executive of Placecast, a location-based advertising company here. “That is a massive market.”

The companies are using the cell tower and hot spot data to build maps of the world, maps that help smartphones quickly pinpoint their locations. Using the signals as navigational beacons is particularly useful in places where GPS satellite signals are weak, like urban areas or anywhere indoors.

Shifting allegiances and legal battles in the world of location services suggest competition in this market is heating up.

Apple initially relied on technology from Skyhook Wireless, a company that was a pioneer in the technique of using Wi-Fi hot spots for location. But last year it began collecting its own data as well. And late last year, Skyhook sued Google, charging that Google had copied its technology and persuaded Motorola to break contracts with Skyhook and use Google’s competing service.

Google and Apple have said that they collect the information anonymously and use it to keep their databases of Wi-Fi hot spots up to date, not to track individuals. But because a person’s location is delicate information, the practices have raised privacy fears.

The use of this data by the companies has been under scrutiny since last week, when two technology researchers reported that a file stored on many iPhones and iPads keeps track of all the locations visited by a user. The file is unencrypted and is copied to people’s personal computers when they sync their devices.

The report prompted lawmakers in the United States to ask Apple for explanations. Several European governments said they would open investigations into Apple’s practices. On Monday, two customers sued Apple accusing it of privacy invasion and computer fraud. They contend the company is secretly recording and storing the location and movement of iPhone and iPad users.

Late last week, Google said it was collecting information about nearby networks from Android users, though it said that it was not tracking individuals and that it allowed users to decline to participate.

Lisa Madigan, the attorney general of Illinois, wrote to Google and Apple on Monday asking them to explain their location data collection practices.

Apple has declined to comment on the matter.

On Monday, the Web site MacRumors published an e-mail said to be from Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and chief executive, in which he replied to a person who had said he planned to switch to a Google Android phone because Google did not track him. The reply said: “Oh yes they do. We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.”

Apple declined to confirm the authenticity of the e-mail.

Some security specialists said they believed Apple was not tracking people, but rather collecting data to update its location databases, since Wi-Fi networks can quickly come and go. A letter sent from Apple in July to two members of Congress, Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, appears to confirm this and provides the most detailed explanation of the technology.

In the letter, Apple said it collects the location data anonymously and only when consumers agree to use its location-based services like maps, or any apps that ask for a user’s location, and for its advertising system, iAds. The company said it began relying on its own databases for location information in 2010. Explaining its need to collect data from its customers’ phones, Apple wrote, “These databases must be updated continuously.”

Security researchers said that they believed that the file with location data stored on iPhones and iPads was meant as a “cache” that would help the device pinpoint its whereabouts faster, and that it could help feed Apple’s giant database of network locations. But they said Apple should have been more diligent about encrypting the file and deleting old data.

“I don’t know why they would want to keep all that data on the device,” said Mark Seiden, an information security consultant in Silicon Valley.

Skyhook began collecting data about Wi-Fi hot spots by sending a fleet of more than 500 cars to drive around the streets of every major city in the United States, Europe and many Asian countries.

“We drove the world,” said Ted Morgan, Skyhook’s chief executive. The company updates the database by sending its cars to remap certain areas and by using phones as sensors when a user requests location data.

Google, which initially collected data on Wi-Fi hot spots with the same fleet of cars that was taking photos for its StreetView service, said it stopped doing so last year after it was found to have collected e-mails and other data streamed through those hot spots. It now collects much of that data and traffic information, through customers’ phones.

Mobile advertising could be a $2.5 billion market by 2015, according to Frost & Sullivan, and ads tied to a location are much more lucrative than other ads. But Mr. Morgan said the location data could be valuable in areas beyond the Internet and mobile phones.

For example, a retailer that has eight outlets in a city could use data about walking patterns to determine where to open its next outlet.

“You are basically getting insight into human behavior that we’ve never had before,” Mr. Morgan said.

Jenna Wortham contributed reporting from New York.

2011年4月23日星期六

Samsung Countersues Apple on iPhone and iPad Patents

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) — Samsung Electronics filed a patent lawsuit on Friday against Apple over the iPhone and iPad in a tit-for-tat case after Apple claimed Samsung’s smartphones and tablets “slavishly” copied its products.

Apple filed a lawsuit last Friday accusing Samsung of violating patents and trademarks of its iPhone and iPad, as the popular gadgets are being threatened by the fast rise of rival devices based on Google’s free Android operating system.

The legal battle could jeopardize business ties between the two technology companies. Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., relies heavily on Samsung for components like chips and LCD displays.

Operating systems have emerged as the crucial battlefield for dominance of the world’s smartphone market. Android became the most popular smartphone software in the United States in the three months ending in February, ahead of the software of Apple and Research In Motion, according to a recent survey by research firm comScore.

Samsung is one of the fastest-growing smartphone makers on the back of the Android boom and has emerged as Apple’s strongest competitor in the tablet market, with models in three sizes.

In a statement, Samsung said on Friday that Apple’s iPhone and iPad infringed its 10 mobile technology patents and it called for Apple to stop infringing its technology and compensate the company.

The suits, filed in South Korea, Japan and Germany, involved 10 claims of infringements mainly involving patents for power reduction during data transmission, 3G technology for reducing errors during data transmission and wireless data communication technology.

“Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business,” the statement said.

Global technology companies are locked in a web of litigation as they try to defend their shares of the booming tablet and smartphone market.

Strong sales of the iPhone and iPad translate into more revenue for Samsung. Apple was Samsung’s second-biggest client after Sony of Japan last year, bringing in around 6.2 trillion Korean won ($5.7 billion) in sales, and is widely expected to become Samsung’s top client this year.

The battle comes ahead of Samsung’s release of a new version of its successful Galaxy S smartphone next week in Korea, a crucial product for it to meet its goal of sales of 60 million smartphones this year.

Samsung Countersues Apple on iPhone and iPad Patents

The legal battle could jeopardize business ties between the two technology companies. Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., relies heavily on Samsung for components like chips and LCD displays.

Samsung is one of the fastest-growing smartphone makers on the back of the Android boom and has emerged as Apple’s strongest competitor in the tablet market, with models in three sizes.

In a statement, Samsung said on Friday that Apple’s iPhone and iPad infringed its 10 mobile technology patents and it called for Apple to stop infringing its technology and compensate the company.

Global technology companies are locked in a web of litigation as they try to defend their shares of the booming tablet and smartphone market.

2011年4月22日星期五

Apple Lifted by Verizon iPhone Deal and Updates of iPad and MacBook

A surge in demand for its products yielded gains in income and revenue that were impressive even by Apple’s lofty standards. If there is a problem, it is that Apple is having trouble keeping up with some of the consumer demand.

Apple’s deal to make iPhones available on the Verizon Wireless network helped to lift iPhone sales, which more than doubled, to a record 18.65 million. The phones had previously been exclusive in the United States to?AT&T’s network, which many criticized for dropped calls.

“We did actually very well everywhere,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, said in a conference call with analysts.

Apple did not give specific numbers for iPhone sales for Verizon. But overall sales for both AT&T and Verizon increased more than one and a half times in the United States compared with the quarter a year earlier.

The arrival of the iPad2, just before the quarter ended March 26, helped stoke tablet sales. Apple sold 4.69 million tablets in the quarter, including the iPad2 as well as the original version.

Consumers bought so many, in fact, that Apple is having trouble keeping up with the demand, prompting analysts to ask when Apple could ramp up production, and by how much.

Mr. Cook acknowledged the problem, calling it “the mother of all backlogs,” but he declined to be more specific about this quarter’s production. Apple’s Web site says there is a one- to two-week delay in shipping online orders.?

A. M. Sacconaghi Jr., an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said that while Apple’s overall results were extraordinary, the number of iPads sold was a disappointment. “Whether Apple somehow messed up or was unable to secure components is an open question,” he said, but added, “It does sound like production will increase dramatically in the current quarter.”

To underscore his confidence, Mr. Cook reminded analysts that he approved Apple’s introduction of the iPad2 in 25 additional countries in late March and that the device will go on sale in 13 more countries next week. ?

Even Apple’s MacBook laptop computers, an afterthought amid all the buzz around Apple’s phones and tablets, showed big gains after the introduction of updated versions during the quarter. Apple sold 2.75 million laptops, a 53 percent increase.

Sales of Mac desktop computers, however, fell 12 percent, to one million.

Apple’s computer sales defied an industrywide decline of 3.2 percent in computer shipments in the first quarter that was attributed to the disasters in Japan and a lack of better technology that would prompt consumers to upgrade, according to the research firm IDC.

Apple said it did not expect any significant impact on its supplies from Japan, where it gets hundreds of components.

The?iPod, Apple’s music player, was among the few disappointments. Sales declined again, yet another indication of how smartphones, generally incorporating music players, are replacing single-function products. Sales of the iPod fell 17 percent, to 9.02 million.

Apple reported that net income in the second quarter rose 95 percent, to $5.99 billion, or $6.40 a share, from $3.07 billion, or $3.33 a share, in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue climbed 83 percent, to $24.67 billion, from $13.5 billion.

The results surpassed analysts’ expectations of $5.35 a share and revenue of $23.27 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Shares of Apple rose 3.1 percent, to $353.02 in after-hours trading after the announcement. In regular trading, shares had climbed 1.35 percent, to $342.41.

Mr. Cook has been in charge of Apple’s day-to-day operations since early this year after Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive and co-founder, took a leave of absence. Mr. Jobs, who has battled pancreatic cancer, said he needed to deal with health issues.

Asked about Mr. Jobs and his role at the company these days, Mr. Cook said: “He continues to be involved in major strategic decisions, and I know he wants to be back full time.”

Apple said it expected third-quarter revenue of around $23 billion and $5.03 a share. That is below analysts’ forecasts of $23.82 billion in revenue and $5.25 a share in income.

2011年4月21日星期四