Apple's Siri development team, one of the largest in the company, appears to be working to add sports scores to the mobile assistant service, possibly through a partnership with ESPN.
China Unicom executives this week revealed that the telecom's partnership with Apple has performed better than expected and contributed to a 14 percent rise in profits in 2011.
Apple added Japanese language support to Siri last week with the release of iOS 5.1, but some Japanese speakers are having trouble being understood by the voice assistant.
The iPhone 4S had a strong debut on another major carrier Friday, as 200,000 preorders were made ahead of Apple's launch on the China Telecom network.
iPhone 4S users on AT&T who update to iOS 5.1 will see their network indicator state they are on a "4G" network when utilizing the carrier's high-speed HSDPA network.
Despite not being an official Apple partner carrier, China Mobile announced on Monday that a spike of 5 million activations since October has brought the total number of iPhone users on its network to over 15 million following the launch of the iPhone 4S and a fix that allows the device to operate on the carrier's 3G network.
The Mobile World Congress on Tuesday announced the winners of the 17th Annual Global Mobile Awards, with Samsung dubbed Manufacturer of the Year for its Galaxy S II Smartphone of the Year, while Apple's iPad 2 took home Tablet of the Year honors.
Mercedes-Benz has announced comprehensive integration between Apple's iPhone and its new A-Class line of vehicles, including support for the Siri virtual assistant found in the iPhone 4S.
Apple has begun selling 8-gigabyte iPhone 4 models manufactured in Brazil to customers in that country, though prices on the units remain unchanged.
Apple's current iPhone models were the three best-selling smartphones in America in 2011, with the iPhone 4 beating out the legacy iPhone 3GS and new iPhone 4S to become the biggest seller of the year.
T-Mobile U.S. this week reported disappointing quarterly earnings, and blamed a loss of more than 700,000 contract customers on Apple's October introduction of the iPhone 4S.
A deal for Apple to offer the iPhone on the largest mobile carrier in the world, China Mobile, is said to now be "months away" after a newly announced deal with China Telecom.
Apple's share of the smartphone market in the U.K. jumped up 7 percent year over year to reach 29.1 percent, according to a new analysis.
China's third-largest wireless operator has announced that it will begin offering Apple's iPhone 4S in mainland China on March 9, breaking up rival China Unicom's exclusive claim to the iPhone in the country.
Apple was not only the largest seller of smartphones worldwide in 2011, taking 19 percent of all sales, but also overtook LG to become the No. 3 largest global mobile phone vendor, according to Gartner.
Apple's Siri virtual assistant for the iPhone 4S claims it can already speak Japanese, despite the fact that the language is not yet enabled in the feature's settings.
Apple stock broke the $500 barrier for the first time during Monday trading, and ended the day at $502.60 which gives the world's most valuable company a substantial leg up when compared to next-closest Exxon Mobil Corp.
Apple on Thursday posted two new video ads showcasing how the Siri virtual assistant on the iPhone 4S can help people achieve dreams like cross-country road trips and playing in a rock band.
An Apple software engineer reportedly working on the Chinese-language version of the company's Siri voice assistant says support for Mandarin, Japanese and Russian will be added in March, as well as localized navigation and information services.
Sprint, the third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., announced on Wednesday that it sold 1.8 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2011, with 40 percent of those to new subscribers.
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Daniel Eran Dilger
Josh Ong
Slash Lane
AppleInsider Staff
Mikey Campbell
Sam Oliver
Katie Marsal
Neil Hughes
