Fortune magazine has completing its annual ranking for most admired company, and for the third year in a row, Apple was the highest fruit on the tree branch. Not only did a poll of 4,200 executives, directors and industry analysts rank Apple as the number one most admired company in Fortune magazine’s annual rankings, Cupertino won by the highest margin ever, according to Brainstorm Tech . That’s saying something, since the company has won three years in a row now. “What makes Apple so admired?” asks Christopher Tkaczyk in the magazine’s write-up on Apple. “Product, product, product. This is the company that changed the way we do everything from buy music to design products to engage with the world around us. Its track record for innovation and fierce consumer loyalty translates into tremendous respect across business’ highest ranks.” Particularly noteworthy on the Fortune ranking is that Apple has bested even its current rival for cellphone dominance, Google, who ranked at number two. The top ten list includes: 1. Apple 2.

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Talk about having the brakes applied before things even get going: The Federal judge overseeing Apple and Nokia’s patent violation case in Delaware has put things on hold pending the results of the ITC investigation. Looks like we’ll have a bit of waiting before the patent spat between Apple and Nokia heats up. According to The Mac Observer , the judge overseeing the patent dispute as “temporarily put the proceedings on hold while waiting for a U.S. International Trade Commission investigation to run its course.” Finnish cellphone giant Nokia lobbed the first strike back in October, with a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple over “claims that the wireless technology the company uses in most of its products violate patents the cell phone maker owns.” Less than two months later, Apple fired back with a lawsuit of its own against Nokia for the same reason. At the same time as the lawsuits were filed in Federal court in Delaware, both companies also lobbed their complaints at the ITC, who has agreed to formally launch an investigation into the situation. “Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours,” Apple General Counsel and senior vice president Bruce Sewell commented in December after Cupertino launched their countersuit against Nokia. It’s common knowledge that the Finnish cellphone maker has been hit hard by new competitors such as Apple in recent years, and they have thus far failed to come up with any compelling technology to hold the iPhone’s explosive growth at bay.

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When Apple does eventually get around to shipping the iPad, which may not be as soon as many of us had hoped, we’ll at least have some good quality, familiar content to enjoy on the platform according to an internal announcement by Condé Nast as reported by the New York Times. Five well known magazine titles will be making the jump to the iPad shortly after it begins to appear on store shelves. The titles in question are Wired, GQ (for which an iPhone app already exists), Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour. Video has already been making the rounds about what an iPad (and other tablet) based version of Wired will look like and how it will function. We’ll probably see something very similar from the others, although it will be interesting to see if each takes a different approach to the new medium. The schedule for release of the above-mentioned titles is staggered, with the tablet version of GQ due in April to coincide with the iPad’s launch (if indeed Apple makes that date). Vanity Fair and Wired are said to then be following with a June release, and The New Yorker and Glamour are bringing up the rear with a much more vague summer timeframe for deployment. All of the magazines will reportedly be sold through iTunes, though Wired is planned as a multi-platform release, and Condé Nast is also involved in the multi-publisher project that aims to be “Hulu for magazines.” When Apple introduced the iPad, it spent a lot of time talking about the iBookstore , and about its arrangement with book publishers to bring novels and non-fiction content to the platform. What it didn’t really mention at all was how periodicals would fit into this new device’s repertoire.

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While Tuesdays are known for Apple product launches, today the company announced not a new Mac but a lawsuit over patent infringement related to the iPhone. The target was mobile phone maker HTC , and none other than Steve Jobs was making the accusations. “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” At issue are some 20 patents relating to the “iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware,” though specifics have not yet been divulged, nor has there been a response from HTC. More details will undoubtedly be made public as the lawsuit proceeds in both the U.S. District Court in Delaware and with the U.S. International Trade Commission. Nonetheless, the accusation of intellectual property theft over handheld device patents sounds oddly familiar, except it wasn’t Apple making the accusation recently, but Nokia. In December, Nokia sued Apple over patents relating to standards covering “wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption,” accusing Apple of “attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation.” Apple promptly countersued , General Counsel Bruce Sewell also using the S-Word, stating that “other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours.” If this all sounds harsh, it is. The flurry of patent lawsuits and counter-lawsuits is something of an anomaly, in that companies like Apple, HTC, and Nokia normally use their massive patent portfolios to protect themselves from litigation.

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Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour could be the first magazines to offer an iPad version of print publications, according to a new report. The apps will be released by publisher Conde Nast as a test to end in the fall. In April, GQ will unveil an iPad app to accompany the existing

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Filed under: Hardware , Retail , Apple Apple has nailed down the number three spot on BusinessWeek’s fourth annual customer service awards , falling in right behind LL Bean and insurance company USAA, and way above companies like Amazon and Dell. The awards were based on survey results from a few different places, and Apple scored an A+ in both Quality of Staff and Efficiency of Service thanks to its Genius Bars and helpful Specialists inside Apple Stores . Of course we’ve heard the occasional horror story , but in general, Apple Store employees are beyond helpful, which is probably why BusinessWeek says that 66% of those surveyed would “definitely recommend” Apple products, and 58% said they would “definitely repurchase” the next time they needed something. Apple’s influence is also found elsewhere on the list — USAA, number two on the list, has had a lot of success with its iPhone application, which has also helped the company out on customer service scoring as well. And while Starbucks can’t necessarily thank Apple for a big boost in its business (it probably would have done fine anyway), it’s not surprising that companies that score high in customer service tend to have the same goals in mind. Congrats to Apple for yet another survey-based award. [Via Macworld's Dan Moren , not "Warren" -- sorry Dan!] Apple ranks third in BusinessWeek customer service survey originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Apple ranks third in BusinessWeek customer service survey originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Two years before the Macintosh was unveiled, Apple’s then-and-future CEO was photographed by Charles O’Rear for a National Geographic Magazine feature on Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, riding a 1966 BMW R60/2 motorcycle. 27 years old, with longish hair (no helmet), wearing tan boots and a light-colored shirt with sleeves rolled back (no black turtleneck), Jobs looks like he’s having the time of his life riding the two-wheel Bimmer in San Francisco freelancer Moira Johnston’s feature “High Tech, High Risk, and High Life in Silicon Valley,” published in the magazine’s October 1982 issue. However, notwithstanding his (excellent) taste in bikes, Steve’s stated ambition, when interviewed by Johnston over herb tea at a vegetarian restaurant, was modestly at the time to become “the Volkswagen” of the microcomputer sector rather than its BMW — which became a popular automotive analogy with Apple-watching commentators later on — although he emphasizes that “We’d rather call the Apple a personal than a home computer.” The article notes that the Apple computer “has inspired a dedicated cult of hard-core enthusiasts who trade new uses for the computer in the columns of Apple magazines” and that Jobs had “become a potent role model for a new breed of bright kids who are writing and selling software programs and, with their arcane computer skills, gaining the prestige formerly tasted only by the high-school football team.” Johnston also reports that besides the BMW two-wheeler, Jobs, already holding $100 million worth of Apple stock, also owned “the requisite Mercedes,” but that “success seems not to have spoiled the first folk hero of the computer age,” who still preferred according to an unnamed friend quoted, “to drive his motorcycle to my place, sit around and drink wine, and talk about what we’re going to do when we grow up.” Of more than passing interest is that not unlike Apple’s performance through the current economic recession, the company seemed to be weathering a late ‘82 downturn the microchip sector rather well, with revenues soaring 81 percent year-over-year and Apple occupying 22 buildings in Silicon Valley as well as having plants in Texas, Singapore, and Ireland. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Read here for a scan and transcript, with photos, of the entire National Geographic article. A tip of the hat to Modern Mechanix for posting the article scan and to Peter Orosz of jalopnik.com for drawing my attention to this fascinating snippet of history.

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Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s fourth annual customer service rankings show that Apple has increased from 20th to 3rd when it comes to customer service, according to MacRumors .  Apple finished behind catalogue retailer L.L. Bean and insurance company USAA.   According to the results, which brought together data from consumer firm J.D. Power, with survey results from over 1,000 of the magazine’s own readers, Apple received an A+ score in ratings for both "quality of staff" and "efficiency of service." "The company’s sleek devices and user-friendly software aren’t its only innovations.  Appointments at Apple’s ‘Genius Bars’ and its roving in-store checkout clerks are just two ways the company has pioneered new approaches to customer service.  The iPhone maker likely got a bump this year as more companies created customer-friendly apps for their own services, helping to burnish Apple’s customer service brand." Other factors in the survey showed respondents would "definitely recommend" the Apple brand at 66% and would "definitely repurchase" from Apple at 58%.  Dell was the only other computer maker to make the list of top 25 companies, ranking in 23rd place.   Apple had previously been ranked 21st in 2008 and then 18th in 2007.  This year’s improvement was based on a leap in the "quality of staff" category. Image courtesy of insidesocal.com  

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We’ve all known about the iPad since Apple first pulled the wool off of it on January 27th.  But certainly the question on most people’s minds is when they might actually be able to order it.  Well a new rumor out according to Cult of Mac , is that it will actually be available for pre-order starting Thursday. As pointed out, if Apple does get underway with pre-orders this week, more than likely one can expect the WiFi iPad to be sent out and sold live starting March 26th.  9to5Mac also noted that Apple generally releases new products on Fridays, and the 26th would be about 60 days from the iPad’s original announcement. But, the iPad still hasn’t gotten the official seal of approval from the FCC just yet.  Regardless if the rumor holds any merit or not, if Apple is to make their March ship date, more than likely pre-orders will have to start soon anyway. Image courtesy of Wired.com  

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(Image courtesy of AppShopper.com) In a followup to last week’s report on Apple removing Wobble iBoobs from the App Store, it now appears that more than 5,000 such "overtly sexual" apps have been removed since mid-last week — and the number keeps climbing. MacRumors is reporting on the App Store removals, complete with the graph featured above from sister website AppShopper.com showing the severity of Apple’s recent actions. According to the app price-tracking site, on a typical day there might be around 100 apps removed from the U.S. App Store on a given day, but that number shot up to 932 last Wednesday, February 17th and peaked at nearly 4,000 removals last Thursday, February 18th. The removals continued over the weekend and MacRumors is now reporting that the number exceeds 5,000 total apps, according to ChilliFresh . That number amounts to nearly three percent of the total apps in the App Store, removed in just days. While Apple appears to be hell-bent on removing what they consider to be “overtly sexual” apps — which includes novelty apps as well as adult-themed slideshow apps — there have also been a number of games removed, including Daisy Mae’s Alien Buffet . However, the change in policy appears to stop short of removing established brands from the App Store: Playboy magazine’s 99-cent app remains live in the store at this writing, complete with “overtly sexual” intact. A $1.99 Penthouse app called Your Face on PENTHOUSE is also still available. If you’re not a fan of “overtly sexual” apps to begin with, you’ll be pleased to know that one developer alone contributed nearly 500 different variants of their bikini photobooks to the App Store, all of which have now been removed. Now that’s some housecleaning we can all be happy about…

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