Legal action about Apple's slide-to-unlock technology is on hold, while protesters greeted iPad buyers at several stores.
Also in the news, Google disclosed it uses recycled water from toilets and showers to cool its Georgia computer center, Pinterest users are seeing a different profile page and iPhone users are among the happiest smartphone owners of all, though they don't like the battery life.
Court Suspends Slide-to-Unlock Trial
A trial to determine whether Samsung copied the slide-to-unlock technology of the iPhone and iPad is on hold, pending the outcome of a separate lawsuit.
A Mannheim, Germany regional court said it would wait for a decision in continuing procedures in Munich over the feature, which allows users to turn on a smartphone by swiping over a touchscreen. The pending decision in Mannheim comes two weeks after the same court dismissed a lawsuit on the technology's patent.
Apple is also locked with Motorola Mobility in a separate legal battle over the patent.
Google Uses Old Toilet Water to Cool Center
Google is using recycled toilet water to cool its data center in Douglas County, Ga., after realizing the water used by its cooling system didn't need to be clean enough to drink.
When Google first opened its Georgia computing center, it cooled the equipment using the same water people drink. However, it now uses 100 percent recycled water.
"When the residents of the county take showers and flush their toilets, they're helping to cool our data center," Joe Kava, who runs Google's data center operations and construction team.
While Google saves money with the recycled water, the main focus for using old toilet and shower water is to make sure the company isn't a drain on local water supplies -- and that the center can survive a drought, if need be.
IPhone Owners are Happiest
IPhone owners are still the happiest with their smartphones, but they're still disappointed with the devices' battery life.
According to J.D. Power's most recent study, Apple owners had a satisfaction show of 839 out of 1,000, and the iPhone took top marks for performance, ease of operation, features and physical design.
HTC took second place, with a score of 798; Samsung had 769 and Motorola had 758. Most smartphone owners, though, said battery life was the worst part of having a smartphone, and 4G smartphones were the worst of all.
Pinterest Changing Profile Pages
Pinterest revamped its users profile pages, making the content itself the cetner of attention.
Now, a profile photo is displayed on the upper left, with the side bar items pushed to the center. The user's description and contact information is now next to the profile photo, along with names of people they've repinned.
The boards are also different. Users don't just look at nine small thumbnail-sized photos, but are able to see a larger image of one pin and thumbnail photos for the rest.
Protesters, Meet IPad Buyers
Protesters marched outside Apple stores Friday to protest the new iPads, which they say come from factoriess criticized for their labor practices.
The protests were organized by the same group that mobilized consumers to deliver two online petitions from Change.org and SumofUs.org to Apple employees at stores in Washington, New York, San Franciso, London, Sydney and Bangalore.
Protesters were outnumbered by people who were standing in line to buy a new iPad.
Americans talk over an hour less per month on their cell phones than in 2009, as texting, video chatting and mobile-based instant messaging rise in prominence.
Fewer calls are being made or received on mobile devices, with wireless customers using an average of 450 minutes a month, down 77 minutes from 527 in 2009, according to a new report by research firm J.D. Power.
But that doesn't mean mobile users are communicating less with their mobile devices. The decline is offset by the growing use of text messaging, instant messaging, emailing, and video chatting. The study found wireless customers sent and or received an average of more than 500 texts in a given month, a figure that varies widely depending on age.
The rise in texting, which has been beating out talking on smartphones since 2009, is becoming well documented and presents its own challenges.
For example, the new documentary "Thumbs," gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at nearly a dozen competitors through a grueling national texting championship, tracing a set of local speed texting champs as they make their way to final rounds in Manhattan and showing a new generation of phone users accustomed to heavy texting.
In addition, the fact that more people now need chiropractors because of strains created from chronic texting or "text neck," underscores the growing populatity of texting over talking.
Increased texting also creates challenges when users continue to text on mobile phones while doing other activities, most notably, driving a car. Cell phone use while driving increases the chance of crashing, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association, or GHSA, which studied more than 350 scientific papers about the connection between cell phone use and car crashes last month. Their research found a link between texting and higher risks while driving.
While texting is currently the most favored smartphone activity, mobile-based instant messaging services, similar to BlackBerry Messenger, are beginning to ramp up and may further pull away emphasis from voice.
Companies like Apple and Samsung are rolling out their own mobile messaging apps and services, and Facebook also released a standalone messaging app for smartphones and tablets that allows users to communicate beyond voice.
However, the shift away from voice may pose more problems for carriers as they attempt to find new sources of revenue. Data plans have grown in emphasis with carriers, and if mobile-based messenging apps take off, pricing may go up to accommodate increased network traffic. Users may be talking less, but carriers will likely find a way for consumers to pay more as phones expand to other uses.
AT&T has the worst customer service among wireless carriers, according to J.D. Power, while Sprint and T-Mobile topped the list.
J.D. Power, which asked 11,000 customers who had recently bought cell phones to rate their purchasing experiences on a 1,000-point scale, found that AT&T ranked at 744 points, while Sprint and T-Mobile came in at 755 points each.
In Sprint's case, J.D. Powers determined its online sales and variety of offerings won it points, while T-Mobile offered the best service for consumers' dollars.
The company's findings are in keeping with an earlier poll by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which in May rated AT&T the worst carrier in terms of consumer satisfaction. Interestingly, T-Mobile's score was the second-lowest in that survey, possibly because its customers are increasingly apprehensive about the pending AT&T merger.
In further bad news for AT&T, an April survey by ChangeWave indicated customers blamed the network for dropping calls twice as often as Verizon. This data, plus J.D. Power's ranking and the ACSI's results, suggests AT&T has plenty of room for improvement when it comes to its customers.
Still, compared to all of the four major U.S. carriers, the non-contract company Boost Mobile beat out the competition at 766 points. J.D. Power said of the prepaid company, "Boost Mobile performs particularly well in phone sales representative, offerings and promotions, and cost of service."
Besides discovering consumer preferences among networks, the research group found, "satisfaction is lowest among customers who most recently conducted a Web sales transaction compared with retail and telephone channels."
In other words, people preferred personalized attention to navigating automated phone menus or surfing impersonal websites, even though retail stores often charge more for their products. Perhaps as a result, over 60 percent of those surveyed purchased their phones at a wireless retail store.
The results suggest carriers may gain ground with new customers by boosting their retail presences, giving sales associates up-to-date training and making sure demo models of all phones are available for perusal by customers.
Apple took top honors in customer satisfaction, followed by improving scores from Motorola and HTC, in a study released by research firm J.D. Power.
The report found that more owners were most satisfied with the iPhone 4, scoring 795 out of a possible 1,000 points. Its predecessor, the iPhone 3GS, scored a hair higher at 800 a year ago.
This marks the fourth consecutive year that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has placed first, highlighting its dominance in the smartphone sector.
Apple has enjoyed overwhelming demand for its products, especially its newly-launched iPad 2, and wider distribution channels. Its main challenger, Google and its Android operating system, is being backed by Motorola and HTC, which secured the second and third spots with 763 and 762 points, respectively.
"It really is Apple, and then the next tier," said Kirk Parsons, J.D. Power's senior director of wireless services. "The iPhone just keeps getting better. Apple keeps upping the ante by finding something, one key feature or a design change, to separate it from the rest."
Meanwhile, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion came out on the bottom with 732 points, underscoring its eroding market share in the face of challenges from Apple and Google.
Satisfaction ratings are less a measure of the phone and more of its mobile operating system -- and app ecosystem -- these days. Apple, by far, has the most apps in iOS with 350,000. And it's no wonder Motorola and HTC improved together -- both companies were bolstered by improvements to Google's Android platform, which now has around 250,000 apps. RIM, on the other hand, still runs its outdated BlackBerry OS 6.
Still, Apple, Google and RIM are in a neck-and-neck three-way tie for the lead in the smartphone market. But Google is gaining ground at RIM's expense. Apple is largely remaining stagnant due to difficulties penetrating emerging markets and Google's near-ubiquitous launches on all major carriers.
Additional handset makers ranked in J.D. Power's survey include Palm with 736 points, and Nokia and Samsung, which tied at 734. The industry average was 761.
J.D. Power measured customer satisfaction by weighting five categories -- ease of operation for 28 percent, smartphone operating system for 26 percent, physical design for 23 percent, features for 19 percent and battery functionality for 8 percent of the final score. The company polled nearly 7,300 smartphone owners in the U.S. to come up with its rankings.
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