Apple is claiming that the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone is violating five of their patents. Apple is pushing to have the S4 added to an ongoing legal battle between Apple and Samsung. The lawsuit is being heard at the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Division. The S4 was announced in March and went for sale in late April.
Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared in front of a Senate hearing on Tuesday to discuss the company’s use of Irish subsidiaries to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes. Cook insisted that the tax code has not been keeping up with the digital age and it restricts the free movement of capital in comparison to tax policies in other countries. Cook asked the Senate to dramatically simplify rates and for reasonable taxes on foreign earnings.
According to an annual study, consumer satisfaction for the Apple iPhone is dropping at the gain of Samsung and Google subsidiary Motorola. The Apple iPhone is seeing a slowdown in sales due to the constant release of new competitive products by Samsung and Motorola.
AT&T is no longer blocking Apple FaceTime video chatting over cellphone signals. The company is also going to support pre-loaded video chat apps over LTE without service plan restrictions. These changes will be made before the end of the year. AT&T will allow FaceTime video chats on their data network only for subscribers on shared family data plans.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) reported in the first quarter that the average revenue per store was around $13 million. This is the highest level for a non-holiday quarter. According to Asymco, Apple hit a record $57.60 in revenues per visitor with around $12 of that figure being profit. Apple is outperforming all other retailers on a per-square-foot basis in the U.S. by a large margin too.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is going to speak in front of Congress next week with a proposal to simplify corporate tax laws. Cook’s appearance is taking place at a time that lawmakers are going to revamp the tax code as a whole. Cook is going to present specific proposals that are aimed at encouraging companies to bring back foreign earnings to the United States as part of an effort to invest in job creation and research and development, according to The Washington Post. Cook will be speaking at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that is going to take aim at companies shifting profit overseas as part of a method to lower tax bills.
Apple has been in talks with music labels about launching a streaming music service that would compete against services like Google Play Music All Access, Spotify, and Pandora. Apple wanted to roll out the streaming music service this summer, but some of the details that they are trying to figure out with Sony Music is how much Apple would pay for songs that people listen to for a short period of time and then skip, according to sources with CNET. There are also other issues in the negotiations.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS devices have been cleared for usage by the Pentagon, according to Bloomberg. This means that Apple will be able to effectively compete against Samsung Electronics and BlackBerry for military sales. The Defense Department released a statement saying that they have approved the use of Apple’s products that run a version of the iOS 6 mobile platform.
