Iphone, Gadgets | featured news

Apple has become the leading U.S. mobile-phone vendor for the first time last quarter, securing a record 34% of market share, and knocking rival Samsung off the top spot. The Cupertino, Calif., company shipped 17.7 million phones during the fourth quarter, growing 4% annually, according to a new report by research firm Strategy Analytics. For comparison; that number jumped from 12.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, when Apple captured 25% of the market.

The launch of the iPhone 5 and the declining popularity of non-smartphones have made Apple the biggest seller of phones in the U.S. for the first time, research firm Strategy Analytics said Friday.

The slump in Apple Inc's share price from its September high has badly dented the returns of hundreds of mutual funds that had maintained outsized holdings of the stock. But some went sour on the iPhone-maker just in time.

Apple Inc missed revenue expectations for the third straight quarter after sales of its flagship iPhone came in below Wall Street's targets, driving its shares down 6 percent.

Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Global Marketing, said in an interview to a Chinese newspaper that “cheap smart phones will not be developed in order to grab market share away”. There have been a number of analysts, especially over the past few days, and the Wall Street Journal who have speculated that Apple will come out with a lower priced iPhone in potentially a smaller format.

Developers told the Next Web that they’re seeing some activity on their user logs that indicate Apple may be testing its next-generation smartphone and mobile operating system. According to a Monday report, some app developers have logged activity from a device called the “iPhone 6,1” that also appears to be running a new mobile operating system.

A lot of good things happened in tech this year, including the debuts of the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III. But where there’s good, there’s bad. There were plenty of major tech fails this year.

Poor Microsoft. People who use your search engine seem especially interested in ... Apple. Bing published its most-searched news stories for 2012, and topping the list -- ahead of the presidential election, Superstorm Sandy and the London Olympics -- was the iPhone 5, the newest version of Apple's iconic smartphone.

When the iPhone 5 was released, Samsung added it to the ever-growing list of devices that infringe on its patents. Now Samsung is making the list even longer. In a new court filing, the company has asked for a few more of Apple’s devices to be included in its patent lawsuit against Apple. These devices include the new iPad, the iPad mini, and new iPod touch.

Samsung sold more than 97 million mobile phones in the third quarter, besting Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone by more than 74 million units. According to Gartner (NYSE: IT), nearly 428 million mobile phones were sold during the quarter. Approximately 23.5 million of those phones were manufactured by Apple — 97.9 million were made by Samsung.