Mosk: Later That Day

MOSK: LATER THAT DAY No audio tied to today’s pretend print edition. Please enjoy the words and pretty pictures! Photo: Samsung.com Wednesday, August 29, 2012 Wednesday, Samsung Gets More Time to Tweak Its Smartphones With mere weeks before potential sales bans on several of its smartphones, The Mac Observer says Samsung is busy trying to change up its wares. Citing a report from the Wall Street Journal, which itself cited unnamed sources, the piece says Samsung has started chatting up wireless carriers about pulling features from smartphones to avoid sales shutdowns. The company may have been moving at breakneck speed, with a hearing on the sales bans originally scheduled for September 20th. But not any more. Late in the day, Tuesday, the story hit that Apple’s hearing on the proposed sales bans had been moved to the first week of December. Electronista says Judge Lucy Koh has moved the hearing to December 6th, since the two companies have new business on September 20th. Or really a new motion on old business. I told you yesterday that Samsung was seeking to have the preliminary injunction against sales of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 overturned. Apple had secured that injunction based on the argument that Sammy’s tablet borrowed too much of its look and feel from the iPad. But the jury in the San Jose case between the two companies said 1 Samsung did not violate Apple’s iPad But now, Samsung seems to be seeing design patents with its tablet. As such, a weird sort of second punishment. Samsung would like to be allowed to Marketwatch.com says owners of sell the tablet again and it would like to Samsung phones have started selling argue for financial damages as well. them in droves. August 29, 2012 And that’ll be the topic of the Quoting the piece: September 20th hearing. So I guess that gives Samsung and the carriers a Since the $1.05 billion verdict Friday — bit more time to deal with potentially which found that Samsung infringed on infringing features on the smartphones six Apple patents — customers of Apple wants to see banned. Samsung have been dumping their Android products on at least one major LATER THAT DAY DAY THAT LATER Marketwatch: Samsung resale site. Gazelle.com reports a 50% Smartphones Flood Resale Market increase in Samsung smartphones over Post San Jose Ruling the past three days, which has led to a MOSK: 10% drop in prices for those devices. And this could spread to other Android- based phones. The piece says some in the resale business think other models in the robot army will flood the market, as owners of those phones worry over updates that might make their phones less enjoyable to use. Apple and Motorola Mobility Settle Patent Violation/FRAND-Licensing Case in Germany Apple and Motorola Mobility have buried one of the many hatchets between them. Electronista says Apple and the Google subsidiary have settled Moto’s patent infringement suit against Apple in Germany. Until this week’s settlement, Moto had argued that Photo: Gazelle.com Apple had violated some of its standards essential patents, while There seems to have been a lot of Apple argued that Moto was trying to “knee-jerk” reaction to the Apple v. extract a price that was not Fair, Samsung verdict by investors on Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory, Monday. That was the first day of which are requirements for holding trading after last Friday’s ruling and standards essential patents. FRAND Samsung got punished. CNET says licensing it’s called. Samsung saw its biggest one-day drop in nearly five-years on the heels of the Under terms of the settlement, San Jose ruling. Motorola will offer Apple a FRAND 2 license for the patent or patents in Quoting the piece: question. In exchange, Apple admits to having used the technology without a Sources familiar with the iPhone- license and agrees to pay for the maker’s plans said that Apple wants to license not only going forward, but also improve the AirPlay wireless music for the time it’s used the technology so streaming technology, which currently August 29, 2012 far. requires Airplay speakers and a WiFi network. The new version will require IHS iSuppli: Smartphones to Make just speakers or a hifi and an iDevice; Up 54% of Cellphones Sold the iPhone, iPod or iPad would form its Annually by Next Year own network to allow a direct connection and music playback. Next year may be the first, true year of LATER THAT DAY THAT LATER the smartphone. Barrons has research This sounds kind of weird. I mean, firm IHS iSuppli revising its Apple makes money selling the smartphone supremacy predictions. hardware to marry an iOS device with MOSK: The firm is now calling for smartphones speakers, right? So they’re gonna cut to make up 54% of cellphone sales themselves out of that? Then again, I’d worldwide next year. That’s a mark assume any hifi maker would have to they’d originally not expected pay Apple a fee to be part of the smartphones to hit until 2015. AirPlay Direct family, so maybe that’d make up for the hardware loss. IHS Researcher Wayne Lam says smartphones have “fallen in price, and One other question: Not counting the a wider variety of models have become other times in this story, when’s the available, spurring sales of both low- last time you heard the term “hifi”? end smartphones in regions like Asia- Pacific, as well as midrange to high-end It doesn’t seem outlandish, though it phones in the United States and does feel like a strange thing for the Europe.” company to be concentrating on at this The Telegraph: Apple Working with time. Hifi-makers on “AirPlay Direct” No comment from Apple for The The Telegraph out of the UK is an odd Telegraph’s piece. source for an Apple rumor, but it is still August. The tech world picked up and ran with a story from The Telegraph, yesterday, that said Apple was working on something with the working title ‘AirPlay Direct.’ According to the piece, AirPlay Direct, which may not be the name under which the technology is marketed, will let iOS devices stream audio to hi-fi systems without Wifi. From the incredibly groovy Flickr stream of Nesster 3 Pinkykeos August 29, 2012 LATER THAT DAY THAT LATER From the Flickr stream of Apple Customers: The Genius Bar is Genius MOSK: What is Apple Retail doing right? While the Apple Genius may not have been a hit in the advertising realm, the Genius Bar is a big time hit with customers. NPD Group is out with the results of its recent Tech Services Study. According to their press release, reposted by 9 to 5 Mac: Nearly 60 percent of Apple product owners said they are somewhat or much more likely to make another Apple purchase following their tech support experience... The positive tech service also helped change consumer perception of Apple. Thirty-one percent said they had a much more positive view of Apple after their service. Stephen Baker, VP of industry analysis at NPD says: Tech support is a great service for the consumer, but more importantly it’s a brand- building element for the retailer and manufacturer ... People tend to associate any type of tech support as a negative experience, but Apple has demonstrated that those ‘negatives’ can be turned into positive brand experiences and result in a trip back to the store. One of the biggest bonuses was the Genius Bar’s physical presence in the retail location according to the piece, though there’s also a serious amount of training that goes into making an Apple Genius someone who’s decent at dealing with people as well. Apple Insider says Gizmodo has snagged a copy of Apple’s Genius training manual. Among it’s findings, a list of words Geniuses are not allowed to say, despite the fact that none of the words are dirty. "Crashed" is a no-no, with the terms “unexpectedly quit” or “does not respond” seen as acceptable substitutions. There are also no “bugs” or “problems.” Rather, there are “conditions,” “issues,” or “situations.” (Continued) 4 Also featured in the training, the three Fs, IFO Apple Store: Sources Say Apple which - surprisingly - are also not dirty. Not Reversing Retail Changes; New “Feel, felt, and found,” are those, though Focus on Individual Sales Numbers at two of those could - in fact - be dirty. Not Direction of Tim Cook when genius says ‘em though. Example: If a customer or potential customer says The space between the front door and the August 29, 2012 the price of a piece of Apple kit is too Genius Bar seems to be a bit more high, a Genius might reply, “"I can see troubling right now. We heard word a how you'd feel this way. I felt the price couple of weeks ago of a bit of was a little high, but I found it's a real consternation among the Apple retail value because of all the built-in software ranks. Reports had said that Apple had and capabilities." cut recently hired staff, though relatively LATER THAT DAY THAT LATER new head of Apple Retail John Browett reportedly said that that was not the case. Falling on (or at the very least near) his sword, the former Dixons CEO MOSK: said it was all on him. The company tried a new staffing formula that didn’t work, but don’t worry... we’ll fix it.

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