TECH-INFO-FIRST

Apple is finally breaking its mold and testing different screen sizes for its mobile gadgets like the iPhone and iPad.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple has asked its Asian suppliers for larger prototypes of its smartphone and tablet screens. The Cupertino, Calif. company wants prototype screens for the iPhone to be larger than 4 inches, and the prototype screens for the iPad to be just under 13 inches diagonally.

Currently, the iPhone 5 has a 4-inch screen, and the iPad's screen measures 9.7 inches. The iPad mini has a 7.9-inch screen.

This is a big step for Apple, and further shows how much has changed since former CEO Steve Jobs left the company. Jobs used to say that an iPhone screen size any larger than 3.5 inches (which was the screen size for all iPhones up until the iPhone 5) didn't make sense. He insisted it was the perfect size for holding it in your hand.

But Apple is now watching competitors like Samsung offer screens of various sizes for both smartphones and tablets, and customers are responding favorably to it. It offers consumers a variety to choose from, depending on what's best for them and their needs.

This method seems to be working for Samsung. The Android-powered device maker now has 33.1 percent of the smartphone market worldwide while Apple only has 17.9 percent worldwide.

Apple still holds the top spot for tablet market share, though. As of Q1 2013, Apple had 39.6 percent of the market while Samsung only had 17.9 percent. However, Apple's tablet market share fell from 58.1 percent in the year-ago quarter while Samsung's market share grew from 11.3 percent in that same time period.

Last month, Reuters reported that Apple was looking to launch two new iPhone screen sizes next year: 4.7-inch and 5.7-inch versions.

It also reported that Apple wanted to release a more affordable iPhone -- possibly with a $99 price tag and a variety of colors. 

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Navy are two massive federal agencies.  The FBI has over 35,000 active employees ; the Navy has 54,000+ officers .  What do all of those government employees have in common?  Most of them carry government-purchased smartphones from Canada's BlackBerry Ltd. 

But Reuters and The Wall Street Journal are reporting that Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930) is on the verge of signing new contracts that would break BlackBerry's exclusivity as smartphone supplier to these agencies.

The deal would be a massive victory for the world's largest smartphone maker, which has been lobbying the U.S. government hard to adopt its Galaxy S IV smartphones.  And it would be opportune timing given Samsung's growth had started to slow on a market-wide stagnation of smartphone sales.

At the same time, the deal would be a big blow financially to BlackBerry – a company whose future already looks uncertain given the slow sales of its tardy BlackBerry 10 platform.

BlackBerry 10 (BB10) -- originally scheduled for a H1 2012 launch -- was delayed a year, finally seeing a soft launch in January.  The first BB10 devices hit the U.S. in March, but the most popular variety of Blackberries -- keyboard equipped models -- were delayed even further, only starting to sell in May in the U.S.


That sluggish rollout may have been the last straw for more than one government agency that is losing faith that keeping BlackBerry exclusive is a wise logistics choice.  In May the Pentagon approved for the first time the use of Samsung and Apple, Inc. (AAPL) smartphones by the branches of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).