Apple agrees to $450 million dollar settlement in e-book antitrust case

Apple has resisted settling with the government over charges that it conspired with publishers to fix e-book prices. While its alleged co-conspirators have already opted to pay up and move on, Cupertino has been steadfast in maintaining its innocence. Though, it seems the tech giant has grown weary of the constant court battles and is ready to settle. The Department of Justice and Apple have a agreed to a preliminary settlement of $450 million, $400 million of which would be set aside and returned to consumers. There is still an appeal pending, however, which could either reduce the penalty or eliminate the payment entirely. But if Apple loses the appeal (and its success in court has been mixed at best in this case) it will be on the hook for the entire $450 million.

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Source: Reuters, US Department of Justice

Amazon Testing ‘Kindle Unlimited’ E-book Subscription Service

Amazon appears to be testing a new e-book and audiobook subscription service it’s calling “Kindle Unlimited,” which brings unlimited access to 600,000 e-books and thousands of audiobooks for a fee of $9.99 per month.

According to information discovered by users on the KBoards Kindle forum (via Gigaom) the Kindle Unlimited service will be available on all devices, including the iPhone and the iPad likely via Amazon’s Kindle app. Amazon has pulled the pages that were found this morning, but information on the service can still be seen through Google Cache and a single test page.

The now defunct Kindle Unlimited section on Amazon.com lists several popular e-book titles, including Water for Elephants, Life of Pi and the entire series of Harry Potter and Hunger Games books. The titles appear to mirror many of those available through Amazon’s existing Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, a service that allows Kindle-owning Amazon Prime subscribers to rent free e-books.

There are several existing e-book subscription services like those from Oyster and Scribd, but Amazon has a larger catalog of books to offer, advertising more than 600,000 titles compared to Oyster’s 500,000 and Scribd’s 400,000, plus more than 7,000 audiobooks. Thus far, Kindle Unlimited appears to include books from publishers like Open Road Media, Workman, Algonquin, Bloomsbury, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

It is unknown when Amazon might officially launch its Kindle Unlimited subscription service and thus far, it has not made a statement regarding the test pages.

Apple to Pay $450 Million to Settle E-Book Price Fixing Case

According to court records filed on Wednesday, July 16, Apple will pay $450 million as part of an out-of-court settlement with class action lawyers and state district attorneys over e-book price fixing, reports Reuters.

Apple first reached a settlement agreement with the 33 U.S. states and territories involved in the lawsuit in June, successfully avoiding a lengthy and expensive damages trial. Settlement details were sealed at that time, however, pending court approval. $400 million of the $450 million is earmarked for consumers.

The settlement is contingent on a pending appeals case Apple filed in February with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. In the filing, Apple asked the court to overturn the original ruling that found the company guilty of conspiring to fix e-book prices.

“We have obviously studied Judge Cote’s July 2013 ruling in detail, and believe that the 2nd Circuit will agree with her conclusion that Apple did violate federal antitrust laws,” said Steve W. Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman and lead attorney representing the consumer class. “In any case of this magnitude, there are high degrees of uncertainty, and Apple’s appeal of Judge Cote’s well-reasoned ruling is an example of that uncertainty.”

Though found guilty, Apple has maintained its innocence throughout the dispute, claiming that it “kick-started competition in a highly concentrated market, delivering higher output, lower price levels, and accelerated innovation.” Should Apple’s appeal be successful, sending the claim back to District Court, the company will pay out $50 million to settle consumer damages claims. If the appeals court reverses the initial decision entirely, Apple will pay no damages.

Along with $450 million in damages, Apple has also been subjected to several penalties levied by the U.S. Department of Justice, including an order to hire an external antitrust monitor. Publishers involved in the case, including Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin also settled for a total of $166 million, which has already been making its way to customers in the form of refunds.

iOS 8 Beta 4 Reportedly Coming Monday, July 21

As iOS 8 proceeds through development and testing, the fourth beta version will be seeded to developers on Monday, July 21, according to BGR. A release on that date would mark a two-week interval since the release of the third beta on July 7, down from a roughly three-week interval between the second and third betas.

BGR regularly publishes reports predicting future release dates for iOS betas, and while the predictions are sometimes off by a day or two as was the case with beta 3, they are usually close to the actual date barring any last-minute schedule changes by Apple. As a result, it is reasonable to believe the fourth beta should arrive early next week rather than the following week.

Paul McCartney Re-Releases Five Popular Albums as iPad Apps [iOS Blog]

Paul McCartney today announced the addition of five of his classic albums to the iOS App store as iPad apps, reports The Guardian. McCartney is following in the footsteps of other musicians such as Lady Gaga and Björk, who also used the tablet device to further the reach of their music.

McCartney’s iPad apps feature some of the musician’s most popular albums — Band on the Run, McCartney, McCartney II, RAM and Wings over America. Each iPad app contains premium content such as remastered audio tracks, archival video footage, interviews, photos and more. They are priced at $7.99, which makes them attractive to music fans who may prefer the discounted iPad apps over the more expensive music-only album versions.

McCartney may be the most long-standing successful musicians to adopt the iPad, but Björk holds the title as one of the first musicians to effectively promote an album using Apple’s iOS ecosystem. Björk made headlines in 2011 for her groundbreaking Biophilia iPad app that merged music from the album with mini-games and interactive art tools. The title was recently inducted as the first app in New York’s Museum of Modern Art permanent collection. The app also has been used to develop the Biophilia Educational Programme, which is being used as curriculum in several European schools.

FiftyThree’s Pencil iPad stylus arrives in the UK

Are you a Briton who’s been itching to try out Pencil, FiftyThree’s Bluetooth-connected iPad stylus? Until now, the only way to get hold of the device would be to order it from the US and bracing yourself for the inevitable barrage of paperwork and annoyance from customs. Thankfully, the company has decided to end our suffering, and is commencing sales of the device to the UK, Germany and France from today.

Pencil is the companion device to the company’s free iPad sketching app Paper, which was born from the ashes of Microsoft’s Courier project. Rather than undergo any needless pairing operation, you simply have to hold the tip of the device onto the logo in the artist’s palette, and the technology will handle the rest, normally within about three seconds. The company promises that Paper will charge from empty in around 90 mins, and will, apparently, last for up to a month with “normal use,” whatever that is.

I’ve never used it for anything more than doodling, since you’re only able to use a single, pen-style brush and the eraser before being required to pay for more functionality. If you introduce Pencil to the equation, then any and all features that are available in the app come alive. When we tried this the first time, a pop-up told us that the extra brushes, like blend, watercolor and marker would stop working as soon as we disconnected the device, although after turning off Bluetooth and restarting the iPad, those extra brushes are still working — something we’ll take advantage of until the company inevitably fixes it. Naturally, the rubberized tip will still work as a stylus even when powered off, but you won’t be able to take advantage of any of the other features until you activate it.

Like its transatlantic cousin, Pencil will also be getting the same pressure sensitivity update that US users will receive whenever Apple deigns to release iOS 8 — which is expected at some point in the autumn. If you’d like to snap up the hardware today, you can do so from Amazon, with the Graphite (unibody aluminum) version being priced at £50 and the Walnut (hewn from sustainable wood) at £65. Admittedly, that’s a little pricer than if you, somehow, were able to snag them in the US, since the former is costs $60 (£35) and the latter is $75 (£44), but just imagine that part of the extra fee is not having to deal with tedious missives from the HMRC.

Pencil / Think With Your Hands from FiftyThree on Vimeo.

Filed under: Tablets, Apple

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