Weekly News Roundup – 12 April 2013

  Once again the week is coming to an end and that means it’s time for a roundup of the past weeks news!

Analyst Predicts “Killer App” For The iPhone 5S, Maybe iRadio Or Mobile Payments – Like a psychic, the bread and butter of most analysts is to make wild predictions to their clients and then, when they don’t come true, pretend like those predictions were never made to begin with. When that fails, another ploys analysts, like psychics, sometimes use is overly vague predictions that could literally be fulfilled by anything.

LinkedIn buys Pulse for $90M,moves deeper into content creation – In a tweet and subsequent blog post, LinkedIn announced on Thursday that it has acquired popular news aggregation and reader Pulse, with the buy signaling in no uncertain terms that the business networking giant is moving toward online content.

Morgan Stanley adjusts its Apple numbers – up and down – Like many Wall Street analysts who follow Apple (AAPL), Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty likes to issue estimates for the current quarter the day after the company reports the previous quarter’s results — and then stick with those numbers for the next three months.

Samsung Galaxy Mega is official and comes in 6.3- and 5.8-inch sizes – We knew Samsung was planning more devices, but we didn’t expect the arrival of two Galaxy Mega smartphones at the same time. Both are apparently headed to Europe some time next month, continuing to prove that Samsung are willing to test out any screen-size.

Verizon CEO takes credit for convincing Steve Jobs to make iPhone 5 LTE, says half of wireless traffic is now video – At NAB, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam told attendees that half of his network’s wireless traffic is used for downloading video. McAdam reportedly added that he expects video to take over 2/3 of the Verizon network by 2017. The CEO thanks the carrier’s investments in LTE technology for making this happen.

Apple Hiring an Engineer to Investigate Advanced Display Technologies, Including Flexible Displays – A job listing posted by Apple earlier this month indicates the company is indeed looking at using flexible displays in future products, along with high optical efficiency LCD and AMOLED units.

Apple Macs Are Getting Super-Fast – Rumor says that Apple will include 802.11ac wireless in its latest OS X Mountain Lion operating system. This is a much faster version of wireless technology than previous versions, and allows for extended ranges and faster speeds.

Low-end iPhone Part Leak:Photo of Low-end iPhone Part Leaks – The first photographic evidence of an upcoming new entry-level iPhone from Apple (AAPL) may have just been revealed.

French minister riled by Apple ban on app – France’s digital industry minister has become embroiled in a dispute between Apple and a French start-up, as she accused the US technology giant of being “extremely brutal” for banning the smaller company’s service from its App Store.

Despite layoffs, Ambrosia says it’s still in business– Ambrosia Sofware—the maker of Snapz Pro X, Soundboard, and other popular utilities and games on Apple platforms—on Thursday fended off suggestions it was going out of business, even as employees of the company reported being laid off.

HTC profit slump confirms Samsung and Apple as smartphone leaders – The divergent fortunes within the $200bn (£130bn) global smartphone market were laid bare this week when Taiwan’s HTC reported a 98% slump in profits, confirming Samsung and Apple‘s seemingly unassailable lead over their diminished rivals.

SimCity Cheetah Speed returns, Mac version in June – the Mac version of SimCity will be released on June 11. The Mac release will be available exclusively via Origin, with no plans for a retail version. As a nice bonus, those who own the PC version will automatically have access to the Mac version. Likewise, Mac players will be able to download the PC version at no extra cost.