Apple Inc.’s claims that some smartphones running Google Inc.’s Android software copy its inventions are approaching their first big judgment day in the U.S.

The International Trade Commission in Washington on Wednesday is expected to rule on whether some phones made by HTC Corp. violate Apple’s patents. The ruling could lead to a ban on handsets sold by the Taiwanese company, which uses the Android operating system and had the second-largest share of smartphone subscribers in the U.S. market for the three months ended in October, according to research firm Nielsen.

HTC isn’t alone. Apple has been tangling in courts with other prominent Android device makers, including Samsung Electronics Co. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. The cases reflect the Cupertino, Calif., company’s belief that many competing smartphones violate features that Apple popularized with its iPhone and iPad tablet computer.

Apple isn’t the only one complaining. The smartphone market has experienced a surge in patent litigation over the past few years as large and small players seek to hobble competitors or take share of their success through damage awards or negotiated settlements.

It’s an attractive opportunity. More than 645 million smartphones are expected to be sold world-wide next year, according to research firm Gartner Inc., jumping nearly 40% from this year’s forecast. By comparison, sales of personal computers are expected to grow 4.5% to about 370 million units next year.

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1. Apple Fights On Without Its Muse

When thousands of fans line up for Apple Inc.’s opening of its Grand Central Terminal store Friday, many won’t be queuing to ogle iPads.

They’ll be there for the T-shirts.

Since Apple opened its first stores in 2001, it has handed out tees sporting the new store’s name to the first 1,000 or so people through the door.

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(Originally published Dec. 9, 2011 on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.)

When Whole Foods Market Inc. opened a store in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury early this year, many locals and community leaders hoped it would help improve a grungy corner of their famous neighborhood. Nearly a year later, they’re still waiting.

Since the upscale market opened in February across from a section of Golden Gate Park known as Alvord Lake, known for attracting drug dealers and homeless people, crime within a 500-foot radius of the store has shot up, according to the San Francisco Police Department. At the same time, Whole Foods hasn’t lifted the overall neighborhood’s business prospects, sales-tax receipts data from the San Francisco Comptroller’s Office show.

While the Whole Foods store has brought new customers to the neighborhood, changing the feel of the area, “the riffraff hasn’t gone away,” says Joe Goldmark, who co-owns an Amoeba Music store across the street from the store.

For its part, Whole Foods has tried to meet these challenges. It hired security guards and one plainclothes officer who are at the store throughout the day. The store’s management also regularly confer with police about crime in the area.

The company has also tried to help improve the local economy in Haight-Ashbury by partnering with local food producers in its efforts to offer healthy food to customers. “We’re always concerned about the neighborhoods we’re in,” said Libba Letton, a Whole Foods spokeswoman, who added that the store’s managers are always looking for more ways to help the community.

Whole Foods’ experience in Haight-Ashbury so far shows how nearly a half-century after the 1960s “Summer of Love,” when thousands of people swarmed the neighborhood as part of the counterculture movement, the area is still grappling with the uneven gentrification unfolding there.

Today, vacationers flock to the area to snap pictures of the famous intersection at Haight and Ashbury streets. The neighborhood has become a destination for tech workers, as well as aging hippies and runaway youths. Amid that mix, property values have risen over the years, but some areas, like the end of Haight Street that Whole Foods inhabits, have improved at a snail’s pace.

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(Originally published Dec. 8, 2011, in the Wall Street Journal.)

Videogame retailer GameStop Corp. plans to begin selling tablet-style computers as part of an effort to expand its gaming device offerings.

The company plans to begin selling tablets based on Google Inc.’s Android mobile operating system during the holiday season at 200 of its U.S. stores on Friday. GameStop’s pilot program will include specialized tablets made by Asustek Computer Inc., Acer Inc. and Samsung Electronics Inc.

The devices, which will sell for their typical sticker prices in competing stores, will come with a set of seven free games, including Electronic Arts Inc.’s “Dead Space” sci-fi shooter and “Madden NFL” football game, as well as links to the GameStop’s mobile application store, called “Kongregate Arcade,” and the Android app marketplace.

“Customers have been telling us that they like to game on multiple devices,” said J. Paul Raines, GameStop’s chief executive. “We believe there is a gaming opportunity on tablets.”

Analysts are more skeptical, citing poor sales of Android-based tablets and a dearth of games that have enticed the dedicated gaming audience that GameStop tends to attract. Cost is another factor, said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, who added that any asking prices around $400 or $500 will be challenging.

“I don’t think anyone is going to buy one,” he said.

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(Originally published Oct. 31, 2011, in the Wall Street Journal.)

Sony Corp. is preparing to release its first major game for the PlayStation Network online gaming service since hackers broke in and stole account information from millions of users earlier this year.

The game’s release marks a milestone for the Japanese electronics giant in its ongoing recovery from the hacking attacks that occurred in mid-April, which compromised the personal information of roughly 77 million accounts in the system.

Sony voluntarily shut down its network for roughly a month, slowly bringing back different levels of functionality over time. The company said 94% of preoutage activity returned immediately, and that it hit 100% over the summer. The company says it has also added 3 million accounts since the outage.

This holiday season, led by Sony’s “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception,” will be the next test of the system. The game will be released on Nov. 1, and will join this year’s slate of high-profile games that rely heavily on network components, including Activision Blizzard Inc.’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3″ game and Electronic Arts Inc.’s “Battlefield 3.”

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(Originally published Oct. 27, 2011 in the Wall Street Journal.)

Apple Inc. executives and advisers rallied employees to maintain Steve Jobs’s legacy on Wednesday, as the celebrations of the Apple co-founder’s life continued two weeks after his death.

Tens of thousands of employees tuned into a private memorial for Mr. Jobs on Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., campus that was also streamed to offices and Apple retail store locations world-wide.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over as CEO as Mr. Jobs’s health worsened in August, got choked up as he discussed his friendship with Mr. Jobs and his desire for excellence, according to two employees who tuned in. Two Apple board members—former Vice President Al Gore and Bill Campbell, Mr. Jobs’s longtime friend who is chairman of Intuit Inc.— also spoke, according to the people who attended.

Mr. Campbell shared a story about “Siri,” the company’s “intelligent” personal assistant that Apple recently shipped with its new iPhone 4S. Mr. Campbell said when the company began development of Siri, Mr. Jobs demanded he try the product, while another executive said the voice-recognition wasn’t ready yet.

Mr. Jobs then asked Siri whether it was a man or a woman, according to Mr. Campbell, who said Siri responded that it hadn’t been assigned a gender yet.

In other remarks, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president for industrial design, discussed some of Mr. Jobs’s quirks, including his high standards for hotels and penchant for making them switch to nicer ones on road trips, according to one attendee. Mr. Ive, who described Mr. Jobs as his best friend, said that his boss had a habit of calling some potential product designs “dopey,” according to one attendee. But when Mr. Jobs saw the iPhone, he was initially silent and then gave it the nod, Mr. Ive said.

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(Originally published Oct. 20, 2011 in the Wall Street Journal.)

Apple plans to close some of its retail stores for at least an hour Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter, a gesture that coincides with the company’s planned celebration of co-founder Steve Jobs’s life at its headquarters.

Retail employees were informed that a private company event was scheduled and that the retail stores will temporarily close during that time, according to two people who work for Apple but aren’t authorized to speak on its behalf. One of the employees said the event would last for up to three hours.

Apple hasn’t told retail employees why it plans to temporarily close the stores during normal working hours, though these people note that such closings rarely happen for events other than special product launches. Some retail employees were told about the meeting over the phone rather than by a widely distributed internal message, one person said.

Apple is planning a celebration of co-founder Steve Jobs’s life at its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters Wednesday. Chief Executive Tim Cook said in an email to staff that the event, which comes two weeks after Jobs died following a long struggle with pancreatic cancer, was meant “to take time to remember the incredible things Steve achieved in his life and the many ways he made our world a better place.”

A small, private funeral was held on Oct. 7, followed by a much larger event for coworkers, friends and other industry executives last Sunday.

Apple reiterated that the celebration on Wednesday is for employees only.

(Originally published Oct. 18, 2011 in the Wall Street Journal and on wsj.com.)

The funeral for Steve Jobs, Apple Inc.’s co-founder, is taking place Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The funeral is characterized as a small private gathering, this person said. The person wouldn’t say where or when the event was taking place, citing respect for Mr. Jobs and his family’s privacy.

The event comes two days after Mr. Jobs passed away after battling an undisclosed illness. He previously underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant.

Apple has said there are no public services planned.

In a letter to Apple’s employees on Wednesday, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said that the company is “planning a celebration of Steve’s extraordinary life” for staff that will take place soon.

Apple memorialized Mr. Jobs on its website after announcing his death, and has encouraged well-wishers to share memories and notes of condolence with a special email address.

(Originally published Oct 8. 2011 in the Wall Street Journal and on WSJ.com.)

Apple Inc. has lost its visionary at a time when the company is headed into battle with its most serious challengers yet—and has shown some rare signs of vulnerability.

The day before Steve Jobs died, his successor, Tim Cook, took the stage to sell the world on Apple’s newest iPhone. Though executives spent 90 minutes touting a raft of new features, the gadget didn’t create the sort of immediate buzz Mr. Jobs’s recent creations have enjoyed.

That muted response was ill-timed for Apple: Just a week earlier, Amazon.com Inc. unveiled its Kindle Fire, which costs less than half as much as the iPad and is seen by analysts as the most credible threat to Apple yet in the tablet-computer market.

Rival Google Inc., meanwhile, has used its free Android software to edge past Apple in the market for the operating systems that power smartphones. It has also struck a $12.5 billion deal to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., pitting the Internet giant directly against Apple in the handset market.

Apple still sells more smartphones than any competitor, and also leads by a wide margin in the tablet market that has emerged since Mr. Jobs unveiled the iPad in 2010.

“IPhone is the number one smartphone in the world and continues to be number one in customer satisfaction,” an Apple spokeswoman said in response to questions about the competition. As for the Kindle Fire, she noted others have introduced tablets with seven-inch screens and a limited number of apps, and “none of them have gained significant traction against iPad’s incredible momentum.”

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(Originally published Oct. 7, 2011 on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.)

One day five months ago, Karim Hijazi saw an unusual sight while reading his work email. A message that had been marked as “read” was suddenly marked “unread.”

What the founder of Unveillance, a computer-network security firm, soon learned was that hackers had broken into his account.

The hackers gained access to his email by stealing log-in information from an insecure website, which they then matched up with a password they found on the Internet. After downloading all of his emails, the hackers sent Mr. Hijazi a message demanding he share sensitive security information with them. When he refused, the hackers released his emails on the Web.

“It was like a baby with a gun,” he says.

Mr. Hijazi is one of the latest victims of computer hackers focused on getting into websites, corporate networks and email accounts by using legitimate passwords. Many break into poorly secured websites, steal databases filled with personal information and then comb through that data for log-in information for companies, government agencies and banks.

The growing frequency of these attacks has pushed companies to seek other forms of data protection than simple passwords.

Demand for additional barriers and detection programs is already large. Sales of these types of products topped $900 million world-wide last year, according to International Data Corp., and the Framingham, Mass.-based research firm expects the market to double by 2015.

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(Originally published Sept. 26, 2011 in the Wall Street Journal.)