iPad World

Motorola’s fall sale of refurbished Xoom tablets has gone about as wrong as it could possibly have gone.

The company said today that 100 of the 6,200 it sold through Woot.com between October and December of 2011 may not have been properly reformatted.

In other words, they still contained the personal information of their previous owners — everything from email and social networking passwords to photos and documents.

What an incredible cock-up.

Motorola’s solution to the problem? To “actively pursue the return of the impacted refurbished units” (visit motorola.com/xoomreturn if you think … Continue Reading

Apple managed to have an injunction against online sales of certain models of the iPhone and iPad in Germany suspended. But it wasn’t quite so lucky with a second injunction against iCloud push email notifications.

This morning, a Mannheim Regional Court granted an injunction against Apple’s implementation of push email in iCloud and its predecessor, MobileMe. Sought by Motorola Mobility, which claims Apple has infringed its European patent on a “multiple pager status synchronization system and method,” the injunction could force Apple to deactivate push email in iCloud in … Continue Reading

That was fast.

Apple, which has spent the past day pulling older model iPhone and iPad inventory from the shelves of its online store in Germany, is now scrambling to restore it. This morning, a court temporarily suspended an injunction that prevented Apple from selling or distributing iOS devices believed to infringe certain Motorola Mobility patents.

In a statement given to AllThingsD, Apple confirmed that the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and 3G/UMTS-based iPads should be returning to the shelves of its German online store in a matter of hours.

“All iPad and … Continue Reading

Google’s efforts to assuage concerns in Washington over proposed changes to its privacy policy don’t seem to be going well at all.

House lawmakers met with Google Deputy General Counsel Mike Yang and Public Policy Director Pablo Chavez Thursday to discuss new policy that unifies 60 of Google’s services under a single user agreement and grants the company greater license to share user account information between them.

But the closed-door session ended well short of resolution, with at least a few members of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that presided over it openly … Continue Reading

Nokia’s going through a challenging transition, but according to Jorma Ollila, it’s laid the foundation it needs to regain smartphone leadership.

Someday.

Though its Symbian platform is burning down to ashes and it has lost its title as the world’s largest smartphone maker, Nokia is going to be just fine, says outgoing chairman Ollila. In fact, with the help of Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 operating system, the company will remain among the top three players in the smartphone market, despite its plunging market share.

“Nokia will make it into the three,” … Continue Reading

IDC’S latest mobile rankings are out today, and they show a strong, continued shift in the industry. In the fourth quarter of 2011, the world’s top five handset manufacturers were Nokia, Samsung, Apple, LG and ZTE — in that order.

Nokia shipped 113.5 million units during the quarter, down from 123.7 million during the same quarter a year earlier, according to IDC. Meanwhile, Samsung shipped 97.6 million, up from 80.7 million a year ago.

That’s a nice jump, but nowhere near as impressive as the one charted by Apple, which shipped 37 million … Continue Reading

Robin Burrowes, former head of Xbox Live marketing in Europe, has a new job. At Apple. The exec, who served as head of product marketing for Xbox Live in Europe for three years — and before that, as marketing manager for Xbox U.K. — is heading to Apple’s European office to oversee App Store marketing. Burrowes is the latest hire in a parade of gaming executives recruited by Apple that includes former Nintendo PR manager Robert Saunders and former Xbox PR manager Nick Grange.

Apple’s celebration of a recent German court ruling upholding a sales ban on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablets was cut short when another German court handed it a defeat to go along with its victory.

The Munich I Regional Court on Wednesday evening denied Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus, Samsung’s flagship Android smartphone, and its Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a newer version of the tablet intended to further differentiate it from Apple’s iPad, keeping it immune from litigation.

That differentiation didn’t much come into … Continue Reading

The Macintosh TV

If Apple doesn’t already have a smart television in the pipeline, it’s almost certainly considering building one. That’s the latest from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who says the company has been scoping out the TV component supply chain as a prelude to entering the market.

“In January we spoke with a major TV component supplier who has been contacted by Apple regarding various capabilities of their television display components,” Munster wrote in a note to clients today. “We see this as continued evidence that Apple is exploring production of a … Continue Reading

Is there a culture problem at News Corp.? COO Chase Carey doesn’t think so.

Onstage at D:Dive Into Media Tuesday afternoon, Carey said the practices behind the phone hacking scandal that’s troubled the company since mid-2011 don’t extend beyond the publications at which they originated. Below, video highlights from the session which also include Carey’s thoughts on piracy, SOPA, TV everywhere and bridging the gap between consumers’ needs and News Corp.’s bottom line.

[ See post to watch video ]