Apple, Nokia | featured news

Nokia and Microsoft Corp took the wraps off the struggling European company's most powerful smartphone on Wednesday, in what may be their last major shot at reclaiming a market lost to Apple, Samsung and Google.

Soaring sales of smartphones lifted Samsung Electronics's profit to a record and apparently pushed the South Korean company past Nokia as the world's biggest cellphone seller—and perhaps past Apple as No. 1 in smartphones.

Contract handset maker Foxconn International its loss in this year's first half to widen significantly from a year earlier as demand from major customers like Nokia weakened further in the period.

Apple and Samsung overtook longtime leader Nokia for the top two spots in the global smartphone market, highlighting the Finnish company's struggles even as it sets up a battle between the U.S. and South Korean rivals.

Nokia Oyj won an almost two-year patent dispute with Apple Inc., in a settlement that awards a one-time payment and royalties to the Finnish handset maker. Nokia rose as much as 4.1 percent in Helsinki trading. The agreement will bolster the Devices & Services unit’s second- quarter profitability, Espoo, Finland-based Nokia said in a statement today. The details of the contract, under which Apple will pay an undisclosed sum and royalties for the term of the agreement, are confidential, Nokia said.

Apple will remain firmly in control of the tablet market through 2015, according to market research by Gartner, which also shows Google’s Android will take the baton from Nokia’s Symbian to dominate the smartphone market through the same time period. Experts agree, though, that it will be strong ecosystems, allowing for tablets and smartphones to deliver a combined experience, which will take the day, possibly weakening Research in Motion’s capacity to deliver in a new environment.

Nokia is suing Apple in the United States for allegedly infringing patents in "virtually all" of its mobile phones, portable music players, tablets and computers, the Finnish company said Tuesday.

Technology titans Nokia and Microsoft are combining forces to create smart phones that might challenge rivals like Apple and Google and revive their own fortunes in a market they have struggled to keep up with.

Apple's competitors are displeased at having their products singled out by Steve Jobs during Friday's press conference.

The Apple-Nokia patent fight carries on, this time with Nokia extending its complaints to Apple's gadget du jour, the iPad. Nokia filed a lawsuit in a Wisconsin federal court on Friday ...