MacRumors

Research firm IDC today announced its preliminary estimates of worldwide tablet shipments for the second quarter of 2013, finding that Apple's share of the market has fallen to under a third. According to IDC's numbers, Apple held a 32.4% share of the market for quarter, compared to 39.6% in the previous quarter and a 60.3% share in the year-ago quarter.

While other top tablet manufacturers saw their shipments rise by 100-300% over the second quarter of 2012, the lack of a new iPad launch from Apple in the March-April timeframe resulted in a 14% drop in Apple's numbers. Still, other top vendors saw their shipments drop sequentially, with IDC attributing those drops to a lack of a general boost in tablet interest that accompanies iPad launches.

In years past, Apple has launched a new tablet heading into the second quarter, which resulted in strong quarter-over-quarter growth. Now, Apple is expected to launch new tablet products in the second half of the year, a move that better positions it to compete during the holiday season. Meanwhile, the other two vendors in the top 3 also saw a decline in their unit shipments during the quarter. Second-place Samsung shipped 8.1 million units, down from 8.6 million in the first quarter of 2013, although up significantly from the 2.1 million units shipped in 2Q12. And third-place ASUS shipped a total of 2.0 million units in 2Q13, down from 2.6 million in 1Q13.

"A new iPad launch always piques consumer interest in the tablet category and traditionally that has helped both Apple and its competitors," said Tom Mainelli, Research Director, Tablets at IDC. "With no new iPads, the market slowed for many vendors, and that's likely to continue into the third quarter. However, by the fourth quarter we expect new products from Apple, Amazon, and others to drive impressive growth in the market."

Second-place Samsung continues to close on Apple in the tablet market, garnering 18% of the market as all of the other major tablet makers continue struggling to hit the 5% mark.

As always, it is important to note that IDC's numbers track shipments instead of sales, and thus how many shipped devices are making their way into consumers' hands remains unclear. IDC's figures are also estimates, as most companies do not release their exact tablet shipment data and thus research firms must rely on supply chain data and calculations from information that is made public by manufacturers to build their estimates.

After the Obama administration vetoed a partial ban on the import and sale of some Apple products, Samsung announced that it has been granted a hearing in a US appeals court next year against the original ruling, as reported by the Financial Times. Concurrently, The Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung has lost $1 billion in market value after the weekend veto. The South Korean government has also criticized the decision, saying it had "concern over the possible negative impacts that this kind of decision could have on Samsung Electronics' patent rights".

Samsung revealed on Monday that it had filed a court appeal on July 18 against the original ITC finding, because the ITC ruled that Apple had infringed only one patent, rather than finding in favour of Samsung on all four patents it had claimed were violated.

The appeal was filed at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, a Samsung spokesman said, adding that an oral hearing was scheduled for the first quarter of next year.

Originally, the ban of Apple products was granted back in June in response to a ruling made by the USITC (United States International Trade Commission) and applied to AT&T models of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, as well as the 3G models of the iPad and iPad 2. The USITC ruled that all four products infringed on a Samsung patent, specifically Patent No. 7,706,348, titled "Apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system."

Apple and Samsung have been in a long, ongoing legal battle that started in 2011, with the first U.S. trial awarding $1 billion to Apple in 2012. However, a judge voided nearly half of that amount in March, and a new trial between the two companies is set for November of this year.

The Obama administration has vetoed a partial ban on the import and sale of some Apple products which was granted back in June in response to a ruling made by the USITC (United States International Trade Commission). The ban, which applied to AT&T models of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, and the 3G models of the iPad and the iPad 2, was granted after the USITC found that the aforementioned products infringed on a Samsung patent, specifically Patent No. 7,706,348, titled "Apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system."

Today, in a letter to Irving A. Williamson, the Chairman of the USITC, the United States Trade Representative Michael B. G. Froman declared the following:

After extensive consultations with the agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee and the Trade Policy Review Group [...] I have decided to disapprove the USITC’s determination to issue an exclusion order and cease and desist order in this investigation.

The letter further went on to note that the Obama administration was "committed to promoting innovation and economic progress, including through providing adequate and effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights".

The Verge has noted that this is the first time since 1987 that the President of the United States has interfered with a decision from the ITC. This comes after the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) recently criticised this sort of use of sales bans (rather than monetary compensation) as a means of executing patent infringement – as it in effect harms rival products and companies and does not promote a competitive trading environment. CNet had previously cited experts who believed it was unlikely for the administration to step in on this case.

Just last week, Verizon attorney Randal Milch published an open letter calling for presidential intervention in this case to veto the ban. The ban would have otherwise gone into effect on August 5th, 2013.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the comment thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All MacRumors forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Following a report from earlier this week that appeared to show photos of the iPad 5's silver rear shell, Mac Otakara (via Sonny Dickson) has released a brief video that allegedly shows the front panel and back shell of the iPad 5 assembled together for the first time.

A second video from Mac Otakara shows alleged rear shell and front bezel parts from Apple's lower-cost iPhone, which has been rumored to be called the iPhone 5C. A similar pairing surfaced in high-quality photos from Techdy last month with a full display assembly rather than just the bezel, although it is unclear if those parts were indeed genuine.

Apple on Thursday altered its iTunes Terms and Conditions to permit children under the age of 13 to operate individual iTunes accounts created at the request of an "approved educational institution," reports Macworld.

Previously, Apple restricted iTunes accounts to children aged 13 or older, but the company announced it would be changing its policy with the release of iOS 7.

These App and Book Services are only available for individuals aged 13 years or older, unless you are under 13 years old and your Apple ID was provided to you as a result of a request by an approved educational institution. If you are 13 or older but under the age of 18, you should review this Agreement with your parent or guardian to make sure that you and your parent or guardian understand it.

With Apple's new educational policies, schools will have a program to facilitate Apple obtaining "verifiable parental consent for personal Apple IDs for students under age 13." In addition, Apple also plans to introduce better tools for teachers.

iOS 7, which is expected to be released to the public in the fall, offers new Mobile Device Management options allowing teachers to set up managed apps, configure accessibility options, and restrict changes to accounts. Teachers will be able to lock student iPads to a particular app as well, to ensure that students are "on the same activity at the same time."

The new operating system will also bring an App Store Volume Purchase Program designed to allow educational institutions to assign apps to users while maintaining ownership and control over app licenses.

Apple's policy shift comes as the company continues its push for iPads in educational institutions. Apple has been involved in several large deals in recent months and won a $30 million contract from the L.A. Unified School District in June that will see the district purchasing iPads for every student in its 47 schools. Apple also met with the Turkish President earlier this year about a potential $4.5 billion deal that would provide Turkish schoolchildren with as many as 15 million tablets.

Earlier this week, Apple executive Bob Mansfield stepped down from his management duties at Apple in order to focus on 'special projects' -- reportedly working on the development of entirely new products for the company.

Now, 9to5Mac has additional details about how the shake-up affects other executives.

Dan Riccio, who was promoted to lead Apple's hardware engineering teams when Bob Mansfield first retired last year, will gain oversight of the company's antenna design teams in addition to his current leadership of Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod engineering.

Jeff Williams, who, as Senior Vice President for Operations, has been Tim Cook's right hand man for years, will take over the job of managing Apple's special projects engineering teams, while Mansfield gets to continue working with Apple's newest and most cutting edge designs without the distraction of management.

According to a source familiar with the former Technologies team, there has been a lack of formal internal communication regarding the reasoning behind the management shift. However, the company did make the new executive roles clear to these employees. Even with the lack of communication, sources say that the change is not unprecedented. Over the last couple of months, Mansfield is said to have been increasingly focused on chips (and some aspects of wireless) while delegating his other teams to other executives.

9to5 goes on to note that though Mansfield would like to retire at some point, he will likely never fully leave the company. Given the lengths that Tim Cook went in order to keep Mansfield at Apple, it's likely he will be given free rein to work whatever hours and on whatever projects he wishes.

Following the Department of Justice's release of a proposed remedy to address Apple's e-book price fixing, Apple has filed its own brief (via The Next Web) that calls the plan a "draconian and punitive intrusion into Apple's business, wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm."

Plaintiffs propose a sweeping and unprecedented injunction as a tool to empower the Government to regulate Apple’s businesses and potentially affect Apple’s business relationships with thousands of partners across several markets.

Plaintiffs’ overreaching proposal would establish a vague new compliance regime—applicable only to Apple—with intrusive oversight lasting for ten years, going far beyond the legal issues in this case, injuring competition and consumers, and violating basic principles of fairness and due process. The resulting cost of this relief—not only in dollars but also lost opportunities for American businesses and consumers—would be vast.

The DOJ's remedy would require Apple to terminate its existing agreements with the five major publishers that the company is accused of conspiring with in addition to allowing its e-book rivals like Amazon and Barnes and Noble to offer links to their own bookstores within their apps.

It would also require Apple to allow a third party to monitor its continued adherence to internal antitrust compliance policies and prevent the company from entering into agreements with music, movie, TV show, and book providers that could increase prices for rival retailers.

The App Store section of the proposal is particularly troubling for Apple, as it would potentially allow major e-book retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble to link to outside bookstores and sell e-books without being subject to Apple's 30% in-app purchase fee. According to Apple, its App Store is outside of the scope of the case and unconnected to evidence that was presented at trial.

There was no evidence admitted at trial, and certainly no finding by this Court, that Apple's general policy requiring e-book retailers to pay a commission on in-app digital sales was part of the conspiracy that this Court found. Likewise, there is no evidence that Apple conspired to restrain the distribution of e-book apps or to impose less favorable terms on such apps.

In addition to calling the remedy punitive and draconian, Apple argues that the DoJ's terms are "absurdly broad" and that the proposed compliance monitorship would be "unprecedented and unwarranted."

Apple asks the court to reject the proposed injunction entirely, or greatly narrow its scope. A hearing to discuss the proposal is set for August 9.