iPhone Winterboarder

As you could have seen the headlines today, on every major business news channel, Apple gave the boot to GV Mobile App.  This app brings Google Voice service to the iPhone for free and I””m pretty sure it ruffled a few feathers.  But who”’’s feathers? Apple feathers or the feathers of that “nice” Google exec who sits on the board of directors of Apple?  Who is not happy with this app? Apple, Google or At&t?

Anywho it doesn””t matter now. The app is available via ModMyi repository.  If you””re downloading it, please make a small effort and donate to the developer ( Sean Kovacs).  A tremendous amount of work goes into developing apps, and pretty much anything you get on the iPhone.

gvmobile-1 ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 3

Google Voice is NOT a VOIP service, you still need an actual phone plan.

GV Mobile allows users of Google Voice to:

• dial numbers via the iPhone address book or typing on the keypad
• Full SMS support (view historic, reply, send new)
• retrieve and delete recent call history
• playback and delete voicemails
• take calls from different phones other than your iPhone
• enable or disable the phones that Google Voice forwards calls to
• add or delete phones that Google Voice forwards call to.

Google Voice is currently in beta and invite only, but expect those floodgates to open soon enough when they remove the invite only restriction.

(GV Mobile is not a product of Google).

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Rumors have begun to swirl surround a potential acquisition of Twitter by Apple. Valleywag, quoting a source that has been recruited by Apple for a senior position, said the company is close to a deal to acquire the micro-blog site for as much as $700 million in cash. Google had previously tried to buy Twitter but, according to the source, was rejected by Twitter CEO Evan Williams. The deal is rumored to be announced in time for the WWDC in June. Twitter recently closed a private equity round valuing the company at approximately $250 million.

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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has notified Apple Inc. and Google Inc. that it is beginning an inquiry into whether ties between the boards of the two companies is a violation of antitrust laws, the New York Times reported Monday, citing several people briefed on the inquiry.
It’s going to be interesting tosee how this develops and whether the media is going to even cover this.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation and San Francisco Law Firm Keker and Van Nest filed suit against Apple today in defense of the First Amendment rights of OdioWorks, who runs BluWiki. BluWiki is a website that allows users to build free websites with no advertisements that other people can edit.
The front page states, “Imagine a world where everyone can publish online. Without censoring, popups, or banner ads. And you wouldn’t even have to know html! Thats right, just good old-fashioned publishing.” The parent company was warned by Apple lawyers to remove discussions about making iPods and iPhones interoperate with software other than iTunes.
EFF said that the lawyers “claimed the discussions constituted copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on circumventing copy protection measures.” Sam Odio, owner of OdioWorks stated that Apple “should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussions.” The EFF is an international non-profit advocacy group dedicated to preserving free speech.

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MARSHALL, Texas, The national law firm of McKool Smith is announcing a $19 million patent infringement verdict handed down in favor of technology provider Opti Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., against computer software giant Apple Inc.

The verdict in Opti Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 2:07-cv-00021, was delivered on April 23, 2009, by a jury appearing before Judge Charles “Chad” Everingham IV of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall.

Jurors in the case found that Apple infringed a patent issued to Opti in June 2002. The contested patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,405,291, covers a computer operation that enables a “snooping” function designed to help computers more easily retrieve previously accessed data.

Opti was represented by a team of attorneys from McKool Smith and Chicago-based Winston & Strawn. The McKool Smith team included Rosemary Snider, Gary Kitchen, Jason Cassady and Carol Butner. The Winston & Strawn group included Michael Brody, Taras Gracey, J. Ethan McComb, Eric Mersmann and Sarah Frey.

In the verdict, jurors found that Apple willfully infringed the contested patent. The jury also rejected Apple’s contentions that the patent should be declared invalid. The $19 million verdict amount was awarded as fair and reasonable compensation to Opti for Apple’s willful patent violation, according to the verdict form.

Even with this loss it looks like that stealing technology remains very lucrative for Apple. With a very rough estimate you can quickly realize that Apple needs to sell around 45000 iPhones to cover the expense. First quarter of 2009 Apple sold 3.79 million iPhones, and if you think about the iTouch sales also, 19 million is a drop in the bucket.

Apple can absorb any lawsuit thrown at them, so patent theft will continue as long as it is profitable. “Good job” Apple,showing everyone that with the right marketing team crime does pay.

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A French competition watchdog is trying to suspend a deal between Apple and  No. 1 mobile operator Orange run by France Telecom. which will distribute the Iphone exclusively in France, an executive told a French newspaper.

Executive Director Jean-Yves Larrouturou told La Tribune that suspension of the deal with will not impact France Telecom’s end-of-year financial figures.

But he said the decision challenges the group’s investment plans, which were based on an exclusivity deal of three years with a possible two-year extension.

The Competition Council’s decision announced on Wednesday wants to allow customers to buy the Iphone with a contract from rival service providers SFR and Bouygues Telecom in time for the Christmas.

France Telecom has said it intended to appeal against the decision as it placed France in a different position than Britain, Germany and Spain, where Apple has also struck exclusivity deals.

The council said that this five-year exclusive deal with Apple was “clearly excessive” and risked “serious and immediate damage to competition on the mobile market and to consumers”.

Wasn’t this the same exclusivity distribution methods Apple was complaining about Microsoft and IBM back in the day?  It seems being a hypocrit pays big nowadays.  I’m just curious why we are not hearing about antitrust suits against Apple like it happened with Microsoft.
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