MacRumors

Apple senior software engineer Greg Christie took the stand today in Apple's second patent trial against Samsung, where he shared some details on the development of the "Slide to Unlock" function Samsung is accused of copying and gave additional details on the development of the original iPhone.

One of Apple's major arguments against Samsung is the fact that developing the iPhone was a serious risk for the company as it was new territory, a point that Christie reiterated in his testimony as he described the three year journey of the iPhone's development (via CNET).

The iPhone went through hundreds of different design tweaks as Apple worked to make the phone function in a way that anyone could understand. The company's focus on simplicity remains to this day, with Apple designing for "normal people," as described by Christie.

"One of the biggest challenges is that we need to sell products to people who don't do what we do for a living," Christie, one of the inventors of the slide-to-unlock iPhone feature, said. When designing products, Apple keeps in mind that it wants “normal people – people with better things to do with their lives than learn how a computer might work – to use the product as well as we can."

Christie helped develop some of the original iPhone's key features and he is known as the inventor of "Slide to Unlock," a function that prevents the iPhone from being activated accidentally while within a pocket. During his testimony, Christie also detailed the creation of the function (via Re/code), noting that Apple had originally aimed to have the device's screen on at all times.

A screen that was always on proved to be infeasible, with Christie citing an inability to meet power requirements. "We had to resort to a power button," he said, stating that the company was also concerned with "pocket dialing."

"We knew we had to have a locked mode, or a locked state, where it wouldn't let you do most things, except you could unlock it," Christie said.

That need resulted in the development of Apple's famous Slide to Unlock function, which Christie testified was an important feature on the phone because it is the first thing a customer sees on the iPhone, both in store and at home.

During this second patent trial, which covers newer devices, Apple was limited to levying just five patents against Samsung, making each one vital to the case. Apple is aiming to prove that each patent is highly valuable to the company and is seeking $2 billion in damages from Samsung.

Greg Christie gave additional details on the development of the original iPhone ahead of the patent trial, which can be found in his March interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Apple is worried about larger-screened, lower-priced Android phones, according to an internal document shared today in the ongoing Apple vs. Samsung patent lawsuit (via Re/code). The document, which is from the company's sales department, notes that iPhone growth could drop due to competition from smartphones that have larger screens or lower prices than the iPhone.

"Competitors have drastically improved their hardware and in some cases their ecosystems," a member of Apple's sales team wrote in a document that was prepared as part of a fiscal 2014 offsite meeting. Portions of the document were shown Friday to the jury in the Apple-Samsung case.

Other concerns noted in the document included the idea that Android rivals were "spending 'obscene' amounts of money on advertising and/or carrier channel to gain traction" and that mobile carriers had an interest in limiting iPhone sales because of, among other things, the high subsidies they had to pay on the device.

Samsung presented the document during its cross-examination of Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller, who was on the stand earlier today. According to Schiller, the document was not representative of Apple policy and contained information that he largely disagreed with.

Ahead of the release of the iPhone 5c, many thought Apple would enter the low-cost smartphone market for the first time, positioning the phone as an alternative to cheaper Android phones. The iPhone 5c ended up being priced higher than expected and was later described by Tim Cook as a mid-tier device rather than a low-cost option.

Though it is unwilling to sacrifice quality for price even amid fierce competition, Apple is gearing up to compete with Android phones and boost its growth through another arena in 2014 -- larger screens. Rumors have indicated the iPhone 6 may be released in two sizes, 4.7 and 5.5 inches, both of which are larger than the existing iPhone 5s. Analysts have already suggested the release of a larger-screened iPhone could lure back a significant number of Android switchers and cause a massive spike in upgrades.

Other tidbits from the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit include details on its "Holy War" with Google and the fact that Apple considered dropping its advertising partner, Media Arts Lab, due to its dissatisfaction with its advertising in early 2013.

Following Phil Schiller, Apple senior software engineer and inventor of "Slide to Unlock" Greg Christie has taken the stand, largely reiterating details on the development of the original iPhone, which were first published in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in March.

Steve Jobs is best known as the co-founder of Apple and the man who spurred the company to greatness, but he also co-founded Pixar Animation Studios, another company that's both highly successful and widely admired for the quality animated movies that it produces.

In a new book that's slated to be released next week, Pixar president and co-founder Ed Catmull gives an inside look at Pixar and what made the company so successful. An early excerpt describing Steve Jobs and his influence on the company has been published at Gizmodo, giving an inside look at Jobs' later years.

Though Jobs is often described as obsessed with perfection and relentlessly tough on his employees, Catmull notes that he underwent a significant transformation as he matured, becoming sensitive to other people's feelings and their "value as contributors to the creative process" during his last two decades of life.

Catmull attributes some of that personality shift to Jobs' experiences at Pixar, a company that he was particularly proud of because of the lasting impact its films had on the world. Jobs believed that movies endure because they "dig for deeper truths" and later in life, he fully embraced the "nobility of entertaining people."

His experience with Pixar was part of this change. Steve aspired to create utilitarian things that also brought joy; it was his way of making the world a better place. That was part of why Pixar made him so proud—because he felt the world was better for the films we made. He used to say regularly that as brilliant as Apple products were, eventually they all ended up in landfills.

During Pixar's early years, Jobs is described as the company's benefactor, later becoming a "protector" who gave constructive criticism within the company but defended it to the outside world. As a side project, Pixar was a "place [Jobs] could relax and play a little," which changed him for the better, according to Catmull.

While he never lost his intensity, we watched him develop the ability to listen. More and more, he could express empathy and caring and patience. He became truly wise. The change in him was real, and it was deep.

Jobs was able to diagnose problems at Pixar with "startling efficiency," focusing on the problem itself and not the filmmakers. As he spent more time at the company, he became "more articulate and observant of people's feelings."

Some people have said that he got mellower with age, but I don't think that's an adequate description of what happened; it sounds too passive, as if he just was letting more go. Steve's transformation was an active one. He continued to engage; he just changed the way he went about it.

Catmull's Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration is currently available for preorder on Amazon.com and will be released on April 8. The full excerpt on Steve Jobs' role at Pixar is well worth reading and can be found over at Gizmodo.

Apple's (Product) RED contributions towards the fight against AIDS have reached $70 million, according to a Friday tweet from the (RED) Twitter account. That's up $5 million from $65 million in July of 2013, with 100 percent of that total going towards HIV/AIDS programs in Africa.

Apple has collaborated with (RED) since it was created in 2006, first releasing a special edition (RED) iPod nano. Since then, Apple has released a number of (RED) devices, including iPod nanos and shuffles, iPad Smart Covers, iPhone Bumpers, and iPhone 5s cases. With every (RED) product bought, Apple donates a portion of the purchase price to the charity.

Last year, lead Apple designer Jony Ive teamed up with designer Marc Newson to create a range of one-of-a-kind products that were auctioned off by Sotheby's, with proceeds going to (RED). Items included a red Mac Pro and solid gold EarPods, earning nearly $13 million in total.

(Product) RED is affiliated with several other companies in addition to Apple, including Starbucks, Nike, and American Express, raising more than $200 million to date.

Earlier this week, Amazon launched its Fire TV media streaming box, entering a crowded market with devices from Roku, the Chromecast from Google and the Apple TV. With the Fire TV delivering a number of features rumored for a future Apple TV, reactions to Amazon's new box have certainly been of interest to Apple fans.

With an immediate launch for Fire TV, the device has already landed in the hands of reviewers and at popular repair shop iFixit, which promptly tore the device down. Early analysis of the Fire TV suggests the device has market-leading hardware that is hindered by less-than-perfect software.

On the hardware front, iFixit confirms the Fire TV is a powerhouse with a quad-core, 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Krait 300 processor, Qualcomm Adreno 320 dedicated GPU, 2 GB LPDDR2 RAM clocked at 533 MHz, 8 GB internal storage, 802.11a/b/g/n MIMO Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The Fire TV has the power to play back HD videos, with extra to spare for games.

Though the hardware is impressive, early reviews suggest the device's blazing performance is overshadowed by a poor search experience that makes finding content on the Fire TV a chore, says Dave Smith in a review for ReadWrite. While Voice Search offers an improvement over typical manual input, its results are limited to Amazon services.

Due to the extreme limitations of Voice Search, browsing through Netflix — where you’ll probably spend most of your time, considering Amazon’s rather limited library of quality movies for free streaming — is, once again, manual labor.

In time, applications like Netflix and Hulu+ could support Voice Search—maybe even through a simple software update. But since searching is so important on this device, Amazon has really hung early-adopters out to dry. Even when Voice Search works, it can’t filter the results by movies or programs you can stream for free.

Because of its high-end hardware, Amazon couldn't undercut its competition and had to release the Fire TV at a price point that is on the high-end of the market as noted by Leslie Horn of Gizmodo.

"More features and more horsepower are rarely a bad thing, but in this case it's driven the price of Fire TV much higher than one might have expected from an Amazon product. In a world full of $35 Chromecasts and $50 Roku sticks — which definitely can't do as much as Fire TV, but can arguably do more than enough — forking over $100 for the ability to play some biggie-sized tablet games is a tough sell."

Scott Stein of CNET focused on the gaming feature of the Fire TV, saying it isn't groundbreaking and doesn't offer a compelling alternative to existing smartphone, tablet, or console games.

Don't expect anything more than what Android/iOS already offers: the Fire TV's initial offerings, while better than I'd expected, cover a lot of familiar bases. Terraria, Badland, Asphalt 8, Riptide GP 2, Dead Rising 2, The Walking Dead, even Minecraft Pocket Edition...you can already get all these in many other places.

To help set it apart from its competitors, Amazon included an app store, gaming and wireless controller support to Fire TV. Earlier rumors suggest Apple will bring similar features to its next generation Apple TV, adding support for games and Apple's iOS 7 controllers to the media box. Other rumors point to a device with the router features of the AirPort Express as well as a possible cable TV tie-in with partners such as Comcast.

Apple debuted its Touch ID fingerprint sensor in September of 2013 with the iPhone 5s, making it the first major smartphone to include fingerprint recognition technology. Samsung followed with its own version of a fingerprint scanner in the Galaxy S5, which is slated to be released on April 11.

A new YouTube video from Tanner Marsh compares Touch ID on iPhone 5s with the fingerprint scanner of the upcoming Galaxy S5, walking through the process of setting up fingerprint recognition on both devices and comparing and contrasting some of the available functionality.

The two fingerprint scanners are quite different, with Apple's Touch ID utilizing a round home button that captures a motionless fingerprint while Samsung's sensor is activated using a swiping motion that scans the finger from base to tip using a rectangular home button.

iPhone 5s users may be familiar with the setup process of Touch ID, which includes placing each finger on the home button multiple times in order to register a fingerprint from multiple angles. Samsung's setup is a bit different, involving multiple swipes downward on the screen over the home button.

Early reports suggested Samsung's fingerprint sensor was somewhat inaccurate, and the video depicts some of the same problems with fingerprint recognition. Marsh notes that he has to swipe directly over the center of the home button for a fingerprint to register and describes how the sensor on the S5 is hard to use with a single hand.

It seems like it's sort of hit or miss unless you swipe directly over the center of the button, covering most of it with your finger. Moreover because you have to swipe starting from the bottom of the touchscreen it makes the process nearly impossible with one hand.

As for the iPhone 5s, because the device essentially captures multiple scans of your finger in various positions you can literally unlock it from any orientation including upside down, left, right, or diagonally. It doesn't matter. It will almost always recognize your finger.

While Samsung's fingerprint sensor appears to have some issues, Apple's Touch ID faced its own problems early on, including "fade," or the increasingly erratic performance of the fingerprint sensor over time. iOS 7.1, released in March, solved the issue, bringing much-needed improvements to Touch ID's fingerprint recognition capabilities.

Apple also faced significant scrutiny over both hacking and privacy concerns after the launch of the iPhone 5s, leading it to publish multiple documents detailing how the feature works, assuring users that only mathematical representations of fingerprints are stored in the A7 processor’s Secure Enclave, which is walled off from the rest of iOS.

Samsung may face some of the same scrutiny following the April 11 release of the Galaxy S5, especially as the company has plans to allow developers access to the feature.

Samsung's S5 will also be compatible with PayPal's mobile payment app, allowing users to authorize PayPal payments with a fingerprint, a feature that could also cause concern with some users. Apple has plans to enter the payment arena with its Touch ID fingerprint scanner, but has yet to do so.

Apple is exploring touch screen technology that determines pressure sensitivity using a combination of capacitive touch and infrared light sensing, according to a new patent application recently published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (via AppleInsider).

The patent describes a method of determining the force of a user's touch on a capacitive screen using infrared transmit lines from transmitters and receivers positioned under the frame of the cover glass. Capacitive touch combined with light would determine both the position of the finger and distinguish a soft touch from a harder touch, allowing Apple to implement gestures that could vary with force.

Using infrared light to determine where a user touches a screen is a method known as Frustrated Total Internal Reflection, or FTIR. FTIR is essentially a light-based way to detect multitouch, bouncing infrared light off of the touch screen to detect interference from a finger. When combined with capacitive touch, the interference measurements can also deduce force.

FTIR has been used by Microsoft for its Perceptive Pixel products, as noted in Apple's patent application. Microsoft offers several large-screened multi-touch sensing devices that use FTIR and offers a technology called Microsoft PixelSense, which is used in the Samsung SUR40.

As implemented by Microsoft, the FTIR technology, which uses cameras to detect light refracted by pressure, allows multiple people to use the device at once and it also recognizes and distinguishes objects that are not fingers.

Though Apple has not yet built pressure sensitivity into the touch screens of its mobile devices, the company has been looking at various techniques for implementing pressure detection over the last several years. In addition to infrared light, Apple has explored force sensors, spring membranes, and pressure sensitive device casings.

Given Apple's continued interest in pressure sensitive touch screens and competing products that already include pressure sensitivity, such as Microsoft's Surface Pro line of tablets, the implementation of the technology in some form or another seems like a logical step for Apple's future mobile devices.

Apple purchased automatic speech recognition company Novauris Technologies last year, reports TechCrunch. Novauris' main product was NovaSystem, a server-based distributed speech recognition system.

According to the company's website, its technology is able to handle multiple simultaneous voice requests, recognizing complete phrases and analyzing syllable structure for better speech recognition.

NovaSearch doesn’t carry out recognition at the word or sequence-of-words level, but rather identifies complete phrases from start to finish by matching them against a potentially huge inventory of possible utterances. This enables it to assemble information about what has been spoken over utterances of virtually any length and take near-optimal decisions.

While the Novauris website does not mention its acquisition by Apple, TechCrunch notes that a phone call to the U.K. offices was answered with "Apple," by Novauris's co-founder, who confirmed that the team now works for Apple. Novauris's founders are well-known speech researchers and formerly worked at Dragon Systems, the company behind products like Dragon NaturallySpeaking and DragonDictate, now owned by Nuance.

One of the biggest differentiators about Novauris in terms of the competitive landscape, is that they operated in both the embedded and server space, and they also owned the core engine. This of course would make them a valuable asset for Apple, which had tried to acquire Nuance, the technology that powers Apple's Siri – a partnership that has long been known, but only officially confirmed last year.

Novauris's technology has been used by companies like Verizon Wireless, Panasonic, Samsung, Alpine, BMW, and more. It has also been used to power several different voice-activated mapping systems, as seen in the demo video below.

The acquisition took place in 2013 and the Novauris team has been working on improving Siri, Apple's voice-based digital assistant. Apple is rumored to be working on making some significant upgrades to Siri with iOS 8, possibly expanding its ability to interface with third-party apps.

Apple's customers may receive a boost in performance and improved battery life from the company's 2014 products thanks to improvements in Micron's LPDDR4 DRAM technology, claims Matt Margolis (Via 9to5Mac).

According to Margolis, Micron is ramping up production of its LPDDR4 RAM and will supply Apple with memory chips for its 2014 iPad, iPhone and Mac models, which are expected to debut later this year. Margolis believes a "mystery" $250 million payment Micro received for "product to be supplied through September 2016" is from Apple as part of a multi-year deal.

Apple is a current DRAM customer of Micron Technology, having last used Micron’s LPDDR3 DRAM memory in 2013. Micron presented detailed benefits and product highlights regarding their LPDDR4 DRAM Memory technology almost a year ago. Furthermore, just yesterday Micron’s Vice President of Wireless Solutions Marketing published an article highlighting the benefits of Micron’s next generation DRAM LPDDR4, which tells me this technology is ready for the big show. Lastly, Micron received a mystery payment of $250m from one customer that was reported during their Q1 2014 conference call and their 10-Q indicates that the payment was “for product to be supplied through September 2016″.

Apple is in an arm’s race to improve the performance of their mobile, tablet and ultrabook devices and improve overall battery life. There appears to be little doubt that Apple is going to be showing off Micron’s LPDDR4 DRAM memory across their 2014 iPhones, Macbook and Tablets. You can take my word for it that Apple users are going to love how “lightning quick” the 2014 devices will be compared to the 2013 devices.

Though not confirmed, this transaction is plausible as Apple currently uses Micron’s LPDDR3 DRAM in its 2013 models under the brand name of Elpida, a company that Micron acquired in July 2013. Even earlier, Apple reportedly inked a deal for DRAM chips with Elpida in 2012 that purchased half of the capacity at the firm's main manufacturing facility in Japan.

This new LPDDR4 RAM technology offers two times the bandwidth performance of the previous generation LPDDR3, while keeping power consumption low, claims Reynette Au, Micron's Vice President of Wireless Solutions Marketing, in an article at Wirelessweek.

These technological advancements in LPDDR4 RAM may complement Apple's 64-bit A-series processor, which powers the iPhone 5s, iPad Air and Retina iPad mini. Detailed analysis from Anandtech claims Apple's current A7 processor is so powerful that users are likely to encounter RAM bottlenecks and battery consumption limitations before overextending the CPU.

Apple today announced that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) for 2014 will be held June 2-6 at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco. The company also announced that application for tickets to the event will start today through Monday, April 7. Tickets will be issued to attendees via a random lottery.

“We have the most amazing developer community in the world and have a great week planned for them,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Every year the WWDC audience becomes more diverse, with developers from almost every discipline you can imagine and coming from every corner of the globe. We look forward to sharing with them our latest advances in iOS and OS X so they can create the next generation of great apps.”

To handle overwhelming demand for tickets, Apple adopted a lottery system that will issue tickets to developers chosen randomly from the pool of registered applicants. Developers who apply for a ticket via lottery will know their status by Monday, April 7 at 5:00 PM PDT. Scholarships will be given to 200 students, who will have the opportunity to attend the conference for free.

Apple's requirements for purchasing a ticket to WWDC include membership in one of the company's paid developer programs, including the iOS Developer Program, iOS Developer Enterprise Program, or Mac Developer Program. With the new lottery system in place, Apple also is requiring that developers be a member of a paid program prior to today's announcement, thus preventing last-minute signups from obtaining tickets.

As was the case in previous years, developers between the ages of 13 and 17 must have their tickets purchased by a parent or guardian who also is an eligible member. Tickets are limited to the applicant only and cannot be sold, resold or otherwise transferred.