Apple, Google remove Trojan spamming app from stores

Apple and Google removed an app from their app stores after it was revealed to be harvesting users' phone contacts as spam targets.

The Find and Call app was originally thought to be an SMS worm but later discovered to be a Trojan, according toKaspersky Lab. The Russian software security firm said it alerted by Apple and Google to the presence of the malware in their stores, leading to the app's removal.

Apple confirmed it removed the app for violating App Store rules."The Find & Call app has been removed from the App Store due to its unauthorized use of users' Address Book data, a violation of App Store guidelines," Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller told CNET.

CNET has also contacted Google for comment and will update this report when we learn more.The app required users to register their e-mail address and phone number and then would offer to find friends from users' phone book. The phone book data would then be captured and transmitted to a remote server, Kaspersky said.

The malware would then spam the user's contacts with text messages that appeared to come from the original user and including links to download the malware."The 'from' field contains the user's cellphone number," the report says. "In other words, people will receive an SMS spam message from a trusted source."

Both the iOS and Android versions also uploaded users' GPS coordinates to the remote server. The app also allowed users to enter information for social networks, e-mail, and even PayPal.

The app's author told Russian blogAppleInsider.ru that the app was still in beta and blamed a "failure of one of the components" for the spam. "This bug is in process of fixing," the app author said in a translated e-mail.

While malware is no stranger to Google's app store, Kaspersky points out that this is a first for Apple."It is worth mentioning that there have not been any incidents of malware inside the iOS Apple App Store since its launch 5 years ago," Kaspersky Lab said.

The malware discovery comes as Apple grapples with a binary corruption problem that led to incomplete app downloads and app crashes. After reports of the problem surfaced, Apple acknowledged the issue and said was working on a solution.

This article comes from:http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57467274-83/apple-google-remove-trojan-spamming-app-from-stores/

Google, Apple Tighten Grip on Smartphone Market

Apple is marching into new markets—most recently U.S. prepaid mobile phones—to continue the growth of its iPhone and iPad devices and iOS software.

At the same time, the Cupertino, Calif., company is developing software, such as mapping, that it once obtained from Google to make its devices stand out and to control some features more tightly.Google is shifting gears with its Android software to exert greater control over its destiny. In the past, Google relied on hardware manufacturers to build Android devices and on carriers and other retailers to sell them to consumers.

Today, Google is partly adopting Apple's integrated model by manufacturing some devices on its own and it plans to sell several devices directly with big marketing campaigns.

What's behind these moves? Apple and Google see bigger gains ahead. Of the about 1.4 billion phones sold this year, only about 35% will be smartphones, a percentage projected to climb to 75% in the next five years, according to research and trading firm Wedge Partners. That potential bounty is intensifying the fight to sell more devices and accompanying services.

Their ambitions are squeezing onetime market leaders RIM and Nokia. Last week, Nokia said its cellphone business is deteriorating rapidly and it would cut another 10,000 jobs by the end of 2013. BlackBerry-maker RIM is undergoing a strategic review under a new chief executive as its losses have mounted and its stock has slid.

Nokia, RIM and others "really underestimated what Apple and Google could do," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. While Apple and Google have built up a "tremendous lead" thanks to their ability to offer books, music and hundreds of thousands of mobile apps, he said the mobile market is accelerating so much that "anything could change very quickly."

Overall, Google's Android held 59% of global smartphone shipments in this year's first quarter, up from 36.1% a year earlier, while Apple had 23%, up from 18.3%, according to IDC. Smartphones powered by Nokia's Symbian OS, which it is phasing out in favor of software from Microsoft, dropped to 6.8% from 26% over the same period, and RIM's share fell to 6.4% from 13.6%.

Yet Apple and Google—just bit players in the mobile market five years ago—face challenges that could trip up the two amid fast-changing consumer tastes and evolving technology.

Google, which gives away its Android software to device makers, doesn't make much money from the devices, even though it comes preloaded with Google's search engine and other services, analysts say.

This article comes from:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303379204577474794114369320.html

iPhone, iPad iOS 6 news: Apple's vendetta against Google continues, Google’s mapping service dumped

Apple is escalating the feud between two of the world’s most influential companies by dumping Google’s mapping service as a built-in feature on most iPhones and iPads. Apple is also making it easier for users of those devices to share their lives on Facebook instead of Google’s competing social network.

The snubs are part of an upgraded mobile operating system that Apple previewed Monday to kick off its 23rd annual developers conference in San Francisco.

Google’s mapping service will be replaced by an Apple-designed alternative when the new software for mobile devices, iOS 6, is released this fall. Those who want to continue using Google Maps will have to go through additional hurdle, such as finding and installing its app.

It represents a major blow for Google Inc., which stands to lose mobile advertising revenue and valuable insights about people’s whereabouts if users of the popular iPhone and iPad devices switch to Apple’s mapping service.

Apple and Google are locked in a fight for the attention of hundreds of millions of mobile device users. The battle has been building since Google’s 2008 release of its Android operating system to compete against the iPhone.

Android smartphones from companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Google’s own Motorola division are the chief alternatives to the iPhone. Apple has sued those manufacturers, accusing them of ripping off the iPhone’s ground-breaking features.

Google’s Maps application has resided on the iPhone since the device’s 2007 debut. At that time, the companies were so close that Eric Schmidt, then Google’s CEO, appeared on stage with Jobs to hail their kinship.

Android destroyed the relationship.

Before he died last October, Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that he viewed Android as a form of “grand theft” from Apple and declared “thermonuclear war” against his former ally.

“This is a slap in Google’s face,” said Tim Bajarin, a Creative Strategies analyst who got to know Jobs well during his 32 years following the company.

“I don’t think Apple is ever going to be able to bury Android,” he said. “But this is making it clear that they aren’t going to send any more ad revenue Google’s way, if at all possible.”

Apple updates its iOS software every year, to coincide with the launch of a new iPhone. Google is scheduled to show off the latest developments in Android at a conference that will be held at the same San Francisco venue beginning June 27.

In a statement Monday, Google said it is “looking forward to continuing to build the perfect map for our users in the months and years ahead.” In anticipation of Apple’s announcement, Google last week previewed a series of upgrades to its mapping service in an effort to make it more convenient and compelling.

In another jab at Google, Apple also said it’s building Facebook into iOS 6. That threatens to make it more difficult for Google to drive traffic to its Google Plus social network, a high priority for the company. As it is, Google has more than 170 million users while Facebook has more than 900 million users.

Among other things, users of Apple’s new software will be able to update their Facebook status by talking to their phones and declare that they “like” movies and apps in Apple’s iTunes store.

The tie-in with Apple’s mobile devices could be a boon for Facebook Inc., based on the usage of Twitter since that online messaging service became part of the current mobile system, iOS 5. Apple says more than 10 billion tweets have been sent from its mobile devices since last year’s upgrade to iOS 5.

Facebook, though, has warned investors that it still hasn’t figured out how to make a lot of money from mobile devices, where so far it has proven more difficult to bring in as much ad revenue as on traditional computers.

The iOS 6 also will highlight more features from online business review service Yelp Inc. and online restaurant reservation service OpenTable Inc. Both of those companies are competing against Zagat, a review service that Google bought last year for $151 million.

Besides the upcoming iOS, Apple also showed off updated laptops and new features in its software for Mac computers.

Investors appeared to be expecting something more revolutionary, such as more hints about Apple’s ambition to expand into making TVs. Analysts had speculated that Apple would at least update the software on the Apple TV, a small box that connects a TV set to iTunes for movie downloads, as a prelude to perhaps launching a fully integrated TV set.

Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered the keynote Monday at an event that last year turned out to be Jobs’ farewell appearance. In a contrast to Jobs’ showmanship, Cook spoke only briefly during a nearly two-hour presentation orchestrated by his top lieutenants.

This article comes from:http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/news_archives/iphone-ipad-ios-6-news-apples-vendetta-against-google-continues-googles-mapping-service-dumped

Apple wants to squelch five Google patents issued to HTC

Apple has fired another shot at HTC in its patent wars with the Taiwanese mobile phone maker.
A motion filed by Apple with the U.S. International Trade Commission is seeking to throw out five patents HTC received from Google last year.
Part of an ITC document discovered online by Foss Patents' Florian Mueller said that Apple is calling for a partial termination of the investigation with respect to the patents due to lack of standing.
Translating the legalese into English, that means Apple believes HTC has no right to file a lawsuit or an ITC complaint over the patents in question.
The five patents relate to wireless technology and are part of a second ITC complaint issued by HTC against Apple last September. HTC also filed a federal lawsuit at the same time, accusing Apple of violating those same patents.
The new ITC motion filed by Apple is still confidential, so further details were unavailable.
But Mueller cited two possible reasons behind Apple's thinking. First, HTC bought the patents from Google just a week before it filed the ITC complaint, so the timing raises a red flag. Second, HTC may be seen as a "proxy" filing the complaint on behalf of Google.
"Google itself would definitely have been unable to fulfill the domestic industry requirement for those patents, simply because of its business model," Mueller said.
A couple of months after the filing, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt voiced his support for the company's Android partners, particularly HTC.
"We tell our partners, including the ones here in Taiwan, we will support them," Schmidt said at the time. "For example we have been supporting HTC in its dispute with Apple because we think that the Apple thing is not correct."
In essence, Google is using partners like HTC as a front to file lawsuits, according to Mueller.
"Acquiring a bunch of patents in week X and requesting an ITC import ban over them in week X+1 shows that HTC is merely a proxy, and the use of proxies is irreconcilable with the ITC's mission," Mueller added.
CNET contacted Apple, HTC, and Google for comment. An HTC spokesman said the company has no comment on the matter. We'll update the story if we receive a response from Apple or Google.
Apple's patent war with HTC also ramped up after a report yesterday saying that U.S. customs officials are delaying the import of certain HTC phones.
The HTC One X and Evo 4G LTE are being held up indefinitely by customs agents over unresolved patent infringement issues with Apple, HTC confirmed.
This article comes from:http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57435572-37/apple-wants-to-squelch-five-google-patents-issued-to-htc/?part=rss&subj=androidatlas&tag=title