Five Companies That Dropped The Ball This Week
Apple Outed For Using Community Maps Project Without Credit
When Apple unveiled the new iPad this week, eagle-eyed pundits quickly figured out that the company had stopped using Google Maps for geo-tagging in its iPhoto app and had instead started using OpenStreetMap, a U.K.-based open-source mapping project.
Only problem was Apple didn't credit OpenStreetMap in its iPhoto, and this detail didn't escape the notice of the project's members. In a blog post entitled "Welcome, Apple", Jonathan Bennett of OpenStreetMap noted that Apple was using old data in its iPhoto demo.
"[The demo] is also missing the necessary credit to OpenStreetMap’s contributors; we look forward to working with Apple to get that on there," said Bennett said in the blog post.
AT&T Says It Won't Support New iPad Mobile Hotspot Feature
Apple's new iPad comes with the Personal Hotspot feature the company introduced with the iPhone 4. Verizon is supporting this in the 4G LTE iPad. AT&T, on the other hand, said it is "working with Apple to enable this feature in the future, but we currently do not offer it."
AT&T may change its mind some day, but in the meantime this could make the decision of which carrier to choose for the new iPad an easy one for many customers.
Yahoo Loses Key Search Executive To Google
Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs for the past seven years and also the company's head of strategy, left this week for a position at archrival Google, according to a report from All Things Digital.
The well-respected Raghavan, who is also a Consulting Professor of Computer Science at Stanford, is leaving ahead of a reported wave of Yahoo layoffs set to take place this month, which could impact thousands of employees.
'New iPad' Celebration Leaves Sprint Out In Cold
Apple is allowing Verizon and AT&T to carry the new iPad on their 4G LTE networks, but it did not extend this privilege to Sprint, which already sells the iPhone.
Sprint also is building out its 4G LTE network, but common wisdom holds that it's just not ready for prime time in Apple's eyes, hence the iPad snub. Better hurry up with that 4G build-out, Sprint.
Nokia's Decline Illustrated In Annual Report
Nokia, in its 20-F report filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealed that it had a $1.4 billion operating loss in 2011, after reporting an operating profit of $2 billion in 2010. In addition to declines in revenue and earnings per share, Nokia reported a 25 percent drop in smartphone sales last year. Nokia had better hope Windows Phone starts catching on in the marketplace because the future doesn't look so hot.