Protest against Apple nothing more than a publicity stunt

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I admit, I was a bit surprised when I received a press release on February 8 that a group of protesters were going to deliver a petition with 250,000 signatures to Apple demanding they respond to allegations of worker abuse in China.

I wondered if the group had done any homework at all. Do they not know that Apple is leading the industry in factory audits and its concerns for workers, not just in China, but all over the world?

This is not the iPad 3

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John Gruber talking about 8-inch iPad reported by WSJ: This is not the iPad 3, which I believe will have a same-sized (9.7 inches) double resolution display. This is a different iPad, which, last I heard, Apple was only considering, … Continued

Apple’s purchase of Nortel, Novell patents approved

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Josh Ong: The U.S. Department of Justice approved on Monday several patent purchases and acquisitions, including a collection of Nortel’s intellectual property to be acquired by Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion and others and Novell patents that Apple has purchased. … Continued

Canada’s Lawful Access Bill

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Michael Geist: Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is expected to introduce lawful access legislation tomorrow in the House of Commons. An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and others … Continued

iPad 3 event pegged for March 7

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Rene Ritchie:

According to sources who have been reliable in the past, Apple currently plans to hold their iPad 3 announcement on Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Yep.

RIM director scoffs at BlackBerry critics

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RIM director Roger Martin speaking to the Globe and Mail:

I laugh at the vast majority of critics when they say ‘Oh, you should have made this CEO transition, like, four years ago.’ Yeah, right – like, to who?

I guess the co-CEOs aren’t the only ones that need to go.

VLC 2.0 coming this week

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The design obviously boasts a fairly sizable departure from previous iterations of VLC, most obviously with 2.0 consolidating much of the UI into one window.

Using Gobbler

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Gobbler transfers files extraordinarily fast from one account to another, and is geared towards musicians. If you decide that you can’t live without it, you want all your stuff backed up to your Gobbler account, and you need to send out even more projects at lightning speed, starting at $8 a month it’s still a steal! And, it also works really well with SoundCloud.

I’ve had a Gobbler account for some time now, but haven’t really used it a lot. However, the more I share files, the more I’ll be using it.

SlotZ Racer for iPhone and iPad

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Many thanks to Strange Flavour for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed with SlotZ Racer, its free iPhone and iPad racing game. Strange Flavour are back with a new spin on their hit slot car racing game SlotZ Racer! SlotZ Racer … Continued

Trust

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Ben Brooks talking about the Path/Address Book kerfuffle:

If you live and play in the Apple world, you need only trust Apple. This is what Apple tells us — it’s a ‘feature’ of the Apple ecosystem.The fact is, that in this instance, Apple broke that trust.

I read that a couple of times and thought about what my reaction was to this whole mess. I don’t think Apple broke my trust though. If Apple told me my Address Book data was safe and this happened, then yeah, they would have broken my trust.

However, my reaction to this was that there’s obviously something that needs to be fixed.

Apple is worth 56 RIMs

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Using today’s market cap numbers, Apple is worth $459.2 billion and RIM is worth $8.2. And RIM said in 2007 that the iPhone wouldn’t impact their business. Good call RIM.

Apple retail growth

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Horace Dediu:

Apple’s retail stores increased sales by nearly 60% in Q4. This is a dramatic though not unprecedented change from Q3′s 1% growth rate. The growth rate faithfully tracks iPhone releases as demonstrated in a post last quarter.

Apple to announce iPad 3 first week of March

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John Paczkowski:

Sources say the company has chosen the first week in March to debut the successor to the iPad 2, and will do so at one of its trademark special events. The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these.

Yep.

Dirty little secret

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Jason Kottke: Maybe I’m being old-fashioned here, but this seems unequivocally wrong. Any app, from Angry Birds to Fart App 3000, can just grab the information in your address book without asking? Hell. No. I bet Apple will change this … Continued

GigaOM buys paidContent.org

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Om Malik:

First the news: Yes, the rumors are true. We are indeed buying the assets of ContentNext Media from Guardian News & Media Limited. And no, we are not disclosing the terms of the deal, except that we are buying the entire group of properties — paidContent.org, mocoNews.net, contentSutra and paidContent:UK and that a representative of Guardian News & Media will join our board of directors as an observer.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Om and what he’s done. Good luck with this.

ARM and Intel chips

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John Brownlee:

Apple’s not serious about ditching Intel for the Mac, but even so, the next few years will be very interesting as ARM and Intel trade body blows. If Intel plays its cards right, come 2015, we could all be talking very seriously indeed about whether or not Apple will be putting Intel’s new mobile chips in the iPhone 8 and iPad 6.

Interesting rundown of the chips and what we may see.

RIM says it’s ‘ready to compete’

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Reuters:

Next-generation software for BlackBerry’s smartphones is “ready to compete”, Research In Motion’s new chief executive, Thorsten Heins, told more than 2,000 technical developers on Tuesday, expressing confidence in RIM’s long-term future.

I hate to tell you this, but that train left five years ago.

Pain in the ass portability

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Abdel Ibrahim talking about the Galaxy Note:

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind a slightly bigger display on my iPhone, but not if it means a significantly bigger footprint. The prettier visuals just wouldn’t make up for the pain-in-the-ass portability factor, and you’d better believe I’m not alone in that sentiment.

Right.

Sprint sells 1.8 million iPhones in Q4

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Forty percent of Sprint’s 1.8 million iPhone sales in the fourth quarter were to new customers.The company reported total net subscriber additions of 1.6 million during the fourth quarter of 2011 – the best quarterly result in six years – bringing total ending subscribers to the highest level in the company’s history.

It was still a tough quarter for Sprint, reporting a net loss of $1.3 billion.