Germany’s highest appeals court has ruled that Apple's famous slide-to-unlock patents are invalid, VentureBeat reported Tuesday.
The ruling basically reaffirmed a 2013 decision in which the lower Federal Patent Court rejected Apple's claims on the grounds of 'prior art'. The German courts discovered that Apple's slide-to-patent involves a similar technique as that featured on a smartphone released before the iPhone by a Swedish company called Neonode.
ABC News, which last year debuted its inaugural Apple TV channel in the U.S., is now available to owners of Apple's $99 set-top box in Germany, no subscription required. As first noted by German blog iFun.de, it includes live and recorded shows and local news broadcasts from major U.S. cities.
This includes content from WABC (New York), KABC (Los Angeles), WLS (Chicago), WPVI (Philadelphia), KGO (San Francisco), KTRK (Houston), WTVD (Raleigh), KFSN (Fresno) and WISN (Milwaukee).
Tipsters have confirmed that ABC News is now also available to Apple TV owners in France, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Sweden and other European countries.
Last month, Apple expanded its in-store trade-in program to include iPads. Under its Reuse and Recycling initiative, the program allows users to bring in their old iPads and trade them in for store credit, based on model, condition and other factors.
Initially, the option was only available at Apple stores in the US and Canada, but the company has expanded it overseas this week. Reports are coming in this morning that the iPad trade-in program is now available in France, Spain and Germany...
Good news for iOS users in Germany today, as Apple has expanded iTunes in the Cloud in the country. The cloud-based sync-and-storage service now supports the streaming of movies and television shows.
What this means is that German users will now be able to access previously-purchased movie and television content on any Apple device, including the Apple TV, by accessing the 'Purchased' tab in iTunes...
Apple's own iPhone trade-in program is now available across company-owned online and brick-and-mortar retail outlets in Germany. Now available via the Online Apple Store and through Apple's free Apple Store application for the iPhone and iPad, the initiative allows German shoppers to trade-in their existing device in good condition and receive a gift card worth up to €230, or about 315 in US dollars.
Like in the United States, German customers can then redeem the amount on the gift card against a new iPhone purchase to help bring down the upfront cost of the hardware. Your existing devices get disposed of in an environmentally friendly way instead of ending up in landfills...
Apple's newly launched cheaper iPhone 5c model with eight gigabytes of storage is only available in select few markets, a spokesperson for the company confirmed Tuesday. The device is available in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and China. It is not, however, on sale in the United States, for the time being.
By comparison, the relaunched fourth-generation iPad with Retina display is available across all territories because that device is a replacement for the company's phased-out iPad 2 and now represents the new entry-level, full-size iPad offering. The introduction of the entry-level 8GB iPhone 5c is largely viewed as an effort to help boost the device's lagging sales...
It is no secret that Apple's unapologetically plastic iPhone 5c has fallen short of Apple management's internal projections. As an effort to revitalize flagging sales of the $549 handset, Apple's uncharacteristically decided to run a series of new web and prints ads in places like the Tumblr blogging platform, NYTimes.com, Yahoo.com and the Rolling Stone magazine.
Apple's game plan for the iPhone 5c now appears to include a cheaper model with just eight gigabytes of storage. According to a new rumor, the 8GB iPhone 5c is launching tomorrow, March 18, in - of all places - Germany on the Vodafone unit's O2 network...
Earlier this month it was reported that Apple was getting sued for over $2 billion by known patent troll IPCom. The german company alleged that the iPad-maker violated one of its patents pertaining to priority access to channels for emergency responder.
But it doesn't look like the suit will ever make it to trial. FOSS Patents is reporting that in a string of rulings handed down by the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany today, two of IPCom's suits against Apple and one against HTC have been dismissed...
Following a flurry of reports which criticized various security holes allowing hackers to break into people's Apple ID accounts, Apple in March of 2013 finally stepped up account security by rolling out two-step verification for Apple IDs in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.
Two months later, the feature launched in nearly a dozen additional countries: Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland and Russia.
And now, as part of the third wave of expansion, the firm is enabling stronger account security for Apple ID users located in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Spain...
Google issued a major mid-August update to its free Search app for the iPhone and iPad with new Google Now cards for flights, reservations, package delivery information and more.
And last month, the firm followed up with another sweet update that implemented 'OK Google' hands-free voice control functionality, support for single sign-on, reminders, alerts for delayed flights and upcoming appointments/events and other perks.
This afternoon, the Internet giant pushed a minor update which expands international support to three new languages: French, German and Japanese...
During its October iPad event, Apple confirmed that its redesigned Mac Pro would be available in December, but it wouldn't get any more specific than that. The month has already started, so technically, we could see it any day now.
But according to German retailer Conrad Electronic, we still have about two weeks before we see the highly anticipated desktop. Conrad has begun taking pre-orders for the computer, and says it's officially launching on December 16...
The rumors were true: Apple launching its iPhone trade-in program in the United States in late-August, the company on Monday officially announced that customers visiting its retail stores across the United Kingdom can bring in their previous-generation iPhone for reuse or recycling and receive a credit that can be used toward the purchase of a new iPhone. More details right after the fold...