Apple plans smartwatch & larger iPhones

Apple, Google appeal rejection of $325-m hiring settlement

WHEN Apple wants to make a big splash, it returns to its history. Thirty years ago at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, a roomy auditorium in Cupertino, Calif., Steven P. Jobs introduced the original Macintosh. On Tuesday, Apple will return to the center to unveil a set of long-anticipated products: two iPhones with larger screens and a wearable computer that the media has nicknamed the iWatch.

The so-called smartwatch will be the first brand-new product unveiled under Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, who took the helm three years ago, shortly before Mr. Jobs’s death.

It is expected to come in two sizes and combine functions like health and fitness monitoring with mobile computing tasks like displaying maps. It will have a flexible screen and, like the new phones, will support technology that allows people to pay for things wirelessly.

“I believe it’s going to be historic,” said Tim Bajarin, a consumer technology analyst for Creative Strategies who attended the original Mac event in 1984. He added, “The design of this product is all Tim’s fingerprints."Apple, which is highly secretive, has not officially commented on any of the new products. But multiple employees of Apple and its partners who were briefed on the products shared some details on the condition that they not be identified.

With its first wearable computer, Apple will enter a growing market for fitness-tracking gadgets and smartwatches from Fitbit, Nike and Samsung Electronics. And with the two larger phones, Apple will fight back against Samsung, whose big-screen Galaxy smartphones have wrested sales away over the last few years.

While the iPhones are expected to be released in the coming weeks, the watch is unlikely to be in stores until next year, several of the people with knowledge of the products said. The price of the new devices is not yet publicly known.

Some said the smartwatch was one of Apple’s most ambitious projects to date. NYT San Francisco, Sept 5: Four technology companies including Apple and Google blasted a US judge for rejecting a proposed $324.5 million settlement over hiring practices in Silicon Valley and asked an appeals court to intervene, according to a court filing.

Plaintiff workers accused Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe in a 2011 lawsuit of conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s employees.

Last month US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Califor nia, rejected the proposed class action settlement, saying the amount was too low.

In a court filing late on Thursday, the companies asked the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to overrule Koh’s decision. Koh “committed clear legal error” and “impermissibly substituted the court’s assessment of the value of the case for that of the parties who have been litigating the case for more than three years,” they wrote. Adobe declined to com- ment, as did an attorney for the plaintiffs. Representatives for the other three firms could not immediately be reached for comment.

Tech employees alleged that the conspiracy limited their job mobility and, as a result, kept a lid on salaries.

The case has been closely watched because of the possibility of big damages being awarded and for the opportunity of a glimpse into the world of some of America’s elite tech fir ms. Plaintiffs based their allegations of conspiracy largely on emails circulated among Apple’s late cofounder Steve Jobs, former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, and some of their rivals. Reuters

Stephanie Arditte danced in front of Apple’s flagship store in Manhattan as she waited for a service appointment on Thursday