Business

Billy Gallagher is a writer for TechCrunch. He is also the president and editor in chief of The Stanford Daily. Billy previously worked at The Stanford Daily for two volumes as a managing editor of news. He has also worked in sports and staff development at The Daily. In March of 2012 the Friends of The Stanford Daily awarded him... ? Learn More During the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, Apple aired three ads for its Genius Bar. Over the ensuing weekend, a number of widely-read blogs posted mostly negative pieces about the ads. Today, Apple’s ad agency told Mashable that the ads are no longer running and they were only intended to run the first weekend of the Games. Again, several posts were written on widely-read sites. And therein lies the real “Genius” of the ads: we’re still talking about them. Mashable, Forbes and Venturebeat all embedded at least one of the ads in their posts today. MacRumors linked to the ads on Apple and YouTube. GigaOm was the only reputable source that ...

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... ? Learn More Samsung and Apple’s big patent trial took an intriguing turn earlier this week when members of Samsung’s legal team decided to send information that was unusable in court to a handful of eager reporters. Of course, Apple wasn’t about to take that lying down. Apple attorney William F. Lee recently filed a motion that asked for the Korean electronics giant to be sanctioned (again). This time though, instead of monetary damages or a procedural edge in court, Lee’s newly requested sanction calls for the case to be dismissed and for Judge Lucy Koh to find in Apple’s favor. In Lee’s own words: “…Apple respectfully reque...

Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. ? Learn More Today the first shots were fired in the high-profile U.S. patent war between Apple and Samsung, beginning with Apple’s opening statements. And no punch was pulled — Apple’s lawyer made a few hard-hitting claims in the courtroom, providing documents that show Samsung thought the iPhone was “easy to copy.” Harold McElhinny (Apple’s lawyer) also showed documents prepared by a Samsung executive that claim that the company was in a “crisis of design” because of the iPhone. The presentation also included images of Samsung’s design evolution between pre-iPhone time and now. But despite the evidence, McElhinny’s most crushing blow may hav...

Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. ? Learn More On its Q3 earnings call, Apple announced that there are over 650,000 apps on the Apple App Store, up from 600K in April of this year. Apple exec Peter Oppenheimer also mentioned that 250,000 of those apps were developed specifically for iPad. Perhaps more importantly to you hungry entrepreneurs, Apple paid out approximately $5.5 billion to developers. This is a huge jump from the $4 billion figure Apple reported in April. iOS 6 — with its deep Facebook integration — and the new iPhone, which is expected in September, should only bolster these numbers. To get a little perspective, Google’s most recent numbers in the Google Play dep...

Matt is currently working as a writer for TechCrunch. Matt Burns is a family man first and attempts to be a writer second. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, only cars eclipse his love of gadgets. He previously wrote for Engadget and EngadgetHD before moving into the party house that is TechCrunch. He learned the retail... ? Learn More “We are not going to keep products around we don’t believe in,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in regards to the Apple TV on today’s earnings call. He also stated that Apple still considers the product a hobby although Apple keeps at the project because they stated “it will lead us [Apple] somewhere.” Apple is very happy with Apple TV’s growth. The company shipped around 4 million so far during this fiscal year with 1.3 million units over the third quarter — not so bad for a hobby. In many ways Apple TV is the missing link between Apple’s portables and the living room. It brings iTunes to the big screen but also, through the magic of Airpla...

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... ? Learn More Apple today noted in its earnings call for Q3 that two-thirds of its Asia Pacific revenue is coming from Greater China at the moment. CEO Tim Cook noted that revenues in the country were $5.7 billion for the quarter, 48 percent increase on last year, and still growing at an “incredible rate.” To date Apple’s revenues in China for the year now total $12.4 billion. To compare, in 2011 the company made $13.3 billion in China. Nevertheless, Asia Pacific was actually the only region where Apple saw declines in hardware sales in Macs. These were down to 593,000 units, four percent year on year in terms of Ma...

During Apple’s Q3 earnings call today, the company’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced that Apple now has 150 Million iCloud users. That’s up from 125 million users the company cited in its last quarterly earnings call in April. As Apple announced at its annual developer conference earlier this year, iCloud will be tightly integrated into Mountain Lion, the next version of OS X that’s scheduled to launch tomorrow. Apple sold 26 million iPhones and 17 million iPads in the last quarter, which surely helped to push the number of iCloud users up as well, though the growth in iCloud users is obviously lagging behind the overall growth in the iPhone and iPad ecosystem. The company also announced that it made $1.8 billion in revenue from iTunes (that’s from music, movies, TV shows and apps). During its earnings call three months ago, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced that there were 28 million songs and 45,000 movies available in iTunes. The company did not release any updated numbers for...

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... ? Learn More Apple closed its record June quarter with $117 billion in cash reserves, up from $110 billion last quarter. Crediting strong sales of almost all products as well as an improved economy. Asia-Pacific growth increased 25% this quarter (down from 100% last quarter), 2/3s of which came from China. Apple announced they would also continue their stock buyback program over the year. AAPL closed with a market cap of 561.90B while competitors like Dell and HP closed at 20.23B and 35.46B respectively. View the original article here This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not app...

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... ? Learn More In today’s Q3 earnings, Apple noted some strong increases in its retail operations, amid some other pressures in overall sales and numbers. Retail sales were up three percent in terms of Mac units, to 791,000 units, and $4.084 billion in revenue. That was a rise of three percent in terms of units, and 17 percent in revenue compared to the same quarter a year ago. In the conference call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer noted that half of the sales in retail were to people who had never owned a mac before. Apple now has 372 stores, 123 outside the U.S., Oppenheimer said. Those stores saw foot traffic of 813 millio...

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... ? Learn More According to Apple’s Q3 filing, OS X Mountain Lion will be released to the public tomorrow, July 25. The OS improves on the current version, Lion, by adding iOS-like notifications as well as improvements like Game Center and tweaks to the Mail app. Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote: “We’re thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter. We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.” Mountain Lion upgrades will come free to Mac users who purch...

The Apple iOS is surging ahead of the Google Android platform for enterprise development, according to survey results from Appcelerator, the mobile platform development company. In the largest survey of its kind, Appcelerator developers were asked what operating system is best positioned to win the enterprise market. Developers said iOS over Android by a 53% to 38% margin. Last year, in its second quarter survey, the two companies were in a dead heat for the enterprise market, tied at 44%. In a surprise of sorts, Windows showed some life as 33% said they would be interested in developing apps on the Windows 8 tablet. Each quarter, in conjunction with IDC Research, Appcelerator surveys its community of 340,000 developers. It is the largest survey of mobile developers. This quarter, more than 3,600 developers participated in the survey. Apple’s dramatic push ahead is in part attributed to developers perception about Android. When asked what interests them, developers said the size of t...

According to the U.S. Justice Department’s latest filing in its suit against Apple and a number of major publishers over alleged price fixing in the eBook market, the DOJ won’t make any major changes to its proposed settlement after receiving and analyzing 868 public comments about the suit. The settlement is currently under review in a federal court in New York and today’s document outlines some of the public comments the DOJ received after the settlement was announced. Earlier this year, three of the publishers named in the suit (Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster) quickly agreed with the Justice Department’s proposed terms and settled. Apple, Macmillan and Penguin Group decided to fight the charges, however. According to the Justice Department, Apple’s entry in to the eBook market led to a sudden and steep increase in the retail prices of eBooks, “affecting millions of consumers.” The government argues that “the seismic shift in e-book prices was not the result of ma...

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... ? Learn More Earlier today, a Reuters report added more fuel to a particularly nitpicky fire — according to its typically unnamed sources, Apple’s new iPhone indeed sports a smaller, 19 pin dock connector instead of the 30 pin relic the company’s iDevices have clung to for years. The news itself isn’t particularly shocking — our own John Biggs locked down the 19-pin number last month — but now a new report from iMore points to an even less surprising development. The Cupertino company is allegedly working on a dock connector adapter to keep those iDevice accessories from becoming completely obsolete, or so the story from iMore...

Matt is currently working as a writer for TechCrunch. Matt Burns is a family man first and attempts to be a writer second. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, only cars eclipse his love of gadgets. He previously wrote for Engadget and EngadgetHD before moving into the party house that is TechCrunch. He learned the retail... ? Learn More The latest Siri commercial just hit, and like recent ad spots, Apple turned to a celebrity to endorse the lackluster iOS feature. And, also like the other commercials, the dialog between Siri and the user seems a bit more simple, almost mundane, in comparisons to the early Siri commercials. The first several Siri spots were filled with pie-in-the-sky optimism. They were very dreamy and nearly promised that Siri would change the world. But then people started using it and quickly discovered that Siri fell short of expectation. A recent study found Siri to be horribly inaccurate. What’s worse, at least for Apple, users are finding that...

Kodak has lost its patent case against Apple and RIM over technology for previewing digital images. The International Trade Commission (ITC) said it agreed with a judge’s ruling that stated neither Apple nor RIM violated Kodak’s patent for digital image previews. This loss could hurt the company — which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January — as it is hoping to sell its patents as a way to revive the company. Kodak originally filed its lawsuit against RIM and Apple back in January 2010. At the time, Kodak was attempting to get RIM and Apple to pay licensing fees for using technology it said it patented over the way digital images are previewed on a screen. Kodak was seeking over $1 billion from Apple alone. Apple countersued Kodak in April 2010, claiming that it actually invented the image preview technology Kodak claims to own. That case is still pending litigation in a separate lawsuit. As The New York Times notes, this case has dragged on for more than 30 months. The original...

Ron Johnson is best known for creating Apple's retail empire. He's now CEO of retailer JCPenney. This week, he detailed his amazing vision for turning JCPenney into a techno wonderland in Apple's image. And he's turning to Oracle for help. Apple's store design gets almost all the attention. Not as flashy but just as important is the software that does everything from tracking inventory to letting salespeople ring up purchases with iPhones. Like a lot of retailers, JCPenney has old, proprietary code. Johnson is yanking out about 500 applications, nearly all of them custom applications created over the years, and having Oracle be its one-stop shop. This is a big win for Oracle, since its archrival IBM has been entrenched with retailers for decades. (Look at this 1976 article about JCPenney installing IBM cash registers, for example.) Neither company disclosed the size of this deal for Oracle, but it's easy to see that it's big. JCPenney already used quite a b...