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Reuters

Apple Store, New York City

Apple Inc plans to use a larger screen on the next-generation iPhone and has begun to place orders for the new displays from suppliers in South Korea and Japan, people familiar with the situation said on Wednesday.

The new iPhone screens will measure 4 inches from corner to corner, one source said. That would represent a roughly 30 percent increase in viewing area, assuming Apple keeps other dimensions proportional. Apple has used a 3.5-inch screen since introducing the iPhone in 2007.

Early production of the new screens has begun at three suppliers: Korea's LG Display Co Ltd, Sharp Corp and Japan Display Inc, a Japanese government-brokered merger combining the screen production of three companies.

It is likely all three of the screen suppliers will get production orders from Apple, which could begin as soon as June. That would allow the new iPhone to go into production as soon as August, if the company follows its own precedent in moving from orders for prototypes for key components to launch.

Apple's decision to equip the next iPhone with a larger screen represents part of a competitive response to Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Samsung unveiled its top-of-the line Galaxy smartphone with a 4.8-inch touch-screen and a faster processor earlier this month.

With consumers becoming more and more comfortable using smartphones for tasks they once performed on laptops, like watching video, other smartphone manufacturers have also moved toward bigger displays.

AESTHETICS AND DESIGN

A likely shakeup in the design of a larger-screen iPhone could go a long way in boosting its "wow" factor, convincing fans to trade in their old iPhones for new ones, said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee.

"Not only do users pay for features, but they also pay for aesthetics and design. That's as important, or more important, than features," Wu said. "People love the current design -- but it's 18 months old."

The latest iPhone 4S was introduced in October of last year and essentially has the same form factor as the iPhone 4, launched in 2010.

Samsung, which this year became the world's largest cell phone maker, sold 45 million smartphones in the first quarter, and sales of the Galaxy phones outstripped the iPhone.

Apple was not immediately available to comment.

Apple's move toward a larger display for the next generation iPhone was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal.

In addition to being Apple's rival, Samsung is also a major components supplier to the U.S. computer, tablet and phone manufacturer.

The share of the production of new screens that go to each of the three manufacturers working with Apple has not been determined, one source said.

Sales of the touch-screen iPhone now account for about one-half of Apple's total sales, and the phone has been a key source of growth for the company in Asia.

A report in March by a South Korea business newspaper said Apple would use a "retina" display on the next iPhone, the same technology in its latest iPad that enhance image quality.

PC World

Japan's Softbank will launch a phone with a built in radiation detector, the world's first, it said Tuesday.

The latest model in the company's popular, bare-bones Pantone line, built by Sharp, has a specially designed chip that can detect gamma radiation in the air at doses of between 0.05 and 9.99 microsieverts per hour. The phone then uses its GPS to place readings on a map. Due to go on sale in July, it runs Android 4.0 and features standard functionality for Japanese handsets, including mobile TV, touch payments and infrared transmission.

Over a year after an earthquake and tsunami that triggered meltdowns at a nuclear plant on Japan's northeast coast, radiation remains a major concern across the country. All of Japan's nuclear reactors have been shut down for inspections, with most local communities against restarting them, even with the approaching annual surge in power demand during the summer months.

"I received many tweets asking for some way to detect radiation" after the disaster, said Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son at a press conference in Tokyo. "So I decided, 'let's do it.'"

The phone is the fifth in Softbank's Pantone line, which features budget models that come in a wide variety of colors. The line started out with feature phones and has now expanded to smartphones.




Softbank also announced a new modem for its high-speed data network, which it says will provide downloads at up to 110M bps, faster than many wired connections today. The modem, about the size of a deck of cards, also features a battery that provides about seven hours of connection time. It is due to go on sale in September or later, and will run on Softbank's young AXGP network, which will compete with LTE networks from rivals.

The company's AXGP network uses an advanced version of an older Japanese standard, Personal Handy-phone System (PHS). Softbank has said it is "highly compatible" with TD-LTE, a Chinese standard also known as LTE TDD, which is growing in popularity throughout Asia.

Agence France-Presse



SAN FRANCISCO—Apple unveiled its own mapping program Monday, challenging Google for the popular software application and opening up a new front in the war with the maker of the Android operating system.

Apple’s new iOS 6 operating system for the iPhone and iPad includes “an entire new mapping solution from the ground up, and it is beautiful,” Apple’s Scott Forstall told the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“We are doing all the cartography ourselves. We are covering the world,” Forstall said.

Apple has “ingested hundreds of millions of business listings around the world,” he added, and has integrated with the consumer review service Yelp for reviews and ratings.

The Apple maps program will includes real-time traffic, updated with help from users “to keep traffic info fresh and up to date,” he added,

The move means Apple, which is in a battle against devices powered by Google’s Android operating system, will no longer rely on the Google program for its main maps application.


Apple has been in an intense legal battle with makers of Android devices, contending the open-source software infringes on patents from the iPhone and its operating system.

Although maps does little to generate revenues directly, it often links to searches for products and services such as restaurants or businesses.

Analysts say the Apple maps program could over time move iPhone and iPad users away from Google search and reduce revenues for the search giant.

Apple said its iOS 6 will be in devices shipped in the coming months that will also include the Siri personal assistant, which performs many of the search functions of Google.

“Siri has been out only eight months,” Forstall said.

“In these eight months Siri has been studying up and learning a lot more.”

Another improvement to the iOS will be to incorporate Facebook within the operating system of Apple devices.

“We have been working very closely with Facebook to create the best Facebook experience ever on a mobile device, we are integrating it right into iOS 6,” Forstall said.

Google last week unveiled a revamped maps program that allows mobile users to use the service without an Internet connection.

The service, which will be available soon on devices powered by Google’s Android operating system, allows users to select an area and save a local map which can be viewed when a user does not have a data connection.

This can be useful for people traveling to international locations where they do not want to pay Internet roaming charges, or for situations when someone is underground or on a plane without data access.

Google also unveiled improvements to its Street View, with access to more areas where cars cannot go, and a more detailed three-dimensional Google Earth map that allows users to view as if they were flying over a location.

A Retina display with 5.1 million pixels. An all-flash architecture. Quad-core Intel Core i7 processors. In a design that’s just 0.71 inch thin and 4.46 pounds. It’s not just the most advanced notebook Apple has ever made, it’s the most advanced Mac Apple has ever made.

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