iPhone News Updated

Facebook deals and Apple’s elusive white iPhone

Facebook deals and Apple’s elusive white iPhone

Last week in Silicon Valley (and the tech world):

Monday

Sunnyvale Internet content giant Yahoo (YHOO) acquired IntoNow, a 3-month-old, seven-person Palo Alto online upstart that has developed an app designed to make television watching more social. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, although TechCrunch and other blogs put the deal’s value at $20 million to $30 million.

Palo Alto social networking powerhouse Facebook, meanwhile, gave its ubiquitous “Like” button a companion. According to a post on the company’s blog, Facebook’s new “Send” button is designed to share content only with specific friends or groups of friends. “Much of what we share in our daily lives is only meaningful to smaller groups of people, like our family, roommates or co-workers,” Facebook engineer Elliot Lynde explained in the post.

Tuesday

Speaking of Facebook, it launched its own daily deals feature in five cities, putting it into competition with Groupon and other social commerce upstarts. Facebook is offering deals in San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Dallas and San Diego. “We hope to expand this test to other cities in the future,” Emily White, Facebook’s director of local, wrote on the company’s blog. While Facebook will offer discounts to local merchants such as those on Groupon, “it’s more important to us that you find interesting experiences around you to do with friends,” White wrote. For example, the site launched the deals feature by offering an “all access experience” at Austin City Limits, with backstage passes, sound-check access and a catered dinner.

Wednesday

After a week of questions, Apple (AAPL) — the Cupertino maker of Mac computers and “i” devices — insisted it’s not tracking the whereabouts of individual iPhone owners. In a statement, Apple explained that the iPhone is “maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than 100 miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested.” Apple uses location data for such purposes as delivering ads and building a “crowd-sourced traffic database” for a future navigation service. Apple’s statement came after researchers at the Where 2.0 conference revealed the existence of a file in the iPhone and other “i” devices that holds location-related data for as long as a year. Apple described that as “a bug, which we plan to fix shortly,” saying it only needs to store seven days worth of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data. For that matter, Apple said the updated software will delete the information “entirely when location services is turned off.”San Jose online auction powerhouse eBay (EBAY), meanwhile, reported a $475.9 million profit for its most recent quarter, up 20 percent from a year earlier. Revenue jumped 16 percent to $2.5 billion. “In the first quarter, PayPal continued to drive strong growth globally, eBay sharply accelerated growth in the U.S. and we announced several acquisitions that we believe will enhance our leadership and innovation in commerce and payments. The year is off to a strong start,” eBay CEO John Donahoe said in a statement accompanying the results.

Thursday

After a 10-month delay, Apple finally began selling the elusive white iPhone 4. “We appreciate everyone who has waited patiently while we’ve worked to get every detail right,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in a news release the day before. Apple initially planned to sell both black and white versions when the iPhone 4 was released in June 2010. “White models of Apple’s new iPhone 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected,” the company said in a statement at the time.

Redmond, Wash., software megabehemoth Microsoft, meanwhile, reported a $5.28 billion profit for its most recent quarter, up 31 percent from a year earlier. Revenue jumped 13 percent to $16.43 billion. Microsoft makes the widely used Windows operating system and other products. Unfortunately, fewer people are purchasing Windows PCs as more consumers are using their tech dollars to buy smartphones and such mobile devices as Apple’s iPad. Fortunately for Microsoft, businesses are spending on such software as Office 2010 — and gamers are buying such gear as the Xbox 360 and Kinect motion controller. “We delivered strong financial results despite a mixed PC environment, which demonstrates the strength and breadth of our businesses,” Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein noted.

Friday

Microsoft stock dropped nearly 3 percent, but the major indexes edged higher on the last trading day of the week — and of the month. Investors in recent weeks have pushed the blue chip Dow Jones industrial average — which includes such tech blue chips as Cisco Systems (CSCO), Intel (INTC), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Microsoft and IBM — to its highest level since 2008. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index (a favorite in our tech-heavy valley) reached its highest point in more than a decade. For the week, the Nasdaq was up 1.9 percent, the Dow climbed 2.4 percent, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 2 percent. For all of April, the Nasdaq advanced 3.3 percent, the Dow jumped 4 percent, and the S&P climbed 2.8 percent.

[Thanks: http://www.mercurynews.com]

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