Apple

NEW YORK - Apple's profit surge halted in the latest quarter, as a flood of new products, such as the iPhone 5, meant high start-up costs for new production lines. Apple posted net income for the October to December quarter that was flat with the year before. It was the first time in years that Apple didn't post a double-digit earnings increase. The earnings report also made clear that Apple was no longer able to sustain the breakneck sales increases of the last three years, even with a fresh iPhone on store shelves.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A lawyer for Apple Inc. told a jury Tuesday that bitter rival Samsung faced two options to compete in the cellphone market after Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to critical acclaim in 2007: innovate or copy. Samsung chose to copy, making its smartphones and computer tablets illegal knockoffs of Apple's popular products, lawyer Harold McElhinny contended. Samsung "has copied the entire design and user experience" of Apple's iPhone and iPad, McElhinny told a jury during his opening statement at the patent trial involving the world's two largest makers of cellphones.

Apple Inc. has fired the manager responsible for its troubled mapping software, seeking to win back the trust of users disappointed after the program debuted in September, according to people familiar with the move. Richard Williamson, who oversaw the mapping team, was pushed out by senior vice president Eddy Cue, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because the information wasn't yet public. Cue, who took over last month as part of a management shake-up, is seeking advice from outside mapping-technology experts and prodding digital-maps provider TomTom NV to fix landmark and navigation data it shares with Apple.

Apple's stylish teal-blue iMac PC was a top seller last month, scoring a big win for the once-troubled computer giant. The rollout's success is a vindication of the strategy put into place by Steve Jobs, Apple's legendary founder, who returned to the company a year ago to bring it back from near-death. "Apple's future is in the consumer market," Jobs said in a recent interview. "There's no company doing a great job serving that market - Apple has that opportunity. " The iMac accounted for 7.1 percent of all PCs sold by retailers in November and 8.2 percent of PC revenues, according to market researcher PC Data.

NEW YORK - Apple Inc. said Sunday that it would announce Monday the outcome of its internal discussion concerning its huge cash balance, and analysts are expecting the company to institute a dividend. Apple can easily afford one, since it had $97.6 billion in cash and securities at the end of last year. That would be enough for a $100 onetime dividend for every shareholder, but analysts expect the company to institute a modest recurring dividend. Chief executive officer Tim Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer will discuss the decision in a conference call at 9 a.m. Eastern time Monday, the company said late Sunday.

Apple Inc.'s customers have downloaded more than 40 billion applications from the company's App Store, with almost half occurring last year as use of the iPhone and iPad surged. More than 2 billion apps were downloaded in December, a record, Apple said in a statement. The company, which has more than 775,000 apps available for its iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices, said it has paid more than $7 billion to the developers of those applications. Apple is counting on apps to help woo consumers who are choosing amid an increasing array of lower-price tablets from competitors, including Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Microsoft Corp.

When Fiona Apple first appeared on the Tower Theater stage Friday, she was clutching a stuffed animal and looking wary. Just days after melting down during an abbreviated performance at Roseland Ballroom in New York, the famously fragile waif, whose songs describe emotional troubles in exhaustive detail, appeared uneasy, maybe a tad anxious, not at all sure what would happen. Then she started to sing. Opening with the processional "On the Bound," Apple bellowed the melody as though battling a stubborn froggy throat.

NEW YORK - A sharp drop in Apple's stock pulled the Nasdaq down with it after the tech giant warned of weaker sales. Other stock-market indexes eked out slight gains. Apple sank $63.50 to $430.50. With iPhone sales hitting a plateau and no new products to introduce, Apple said sales would likely increase just 7 percent in the current quarter. That's a letdown for a company that has regularly posted growth rates above 50 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up 0.01 of a point to 1,494.82.

The smallest apple crop in a long, long time is being predicted for both Pennsylvania and New Jersey. New Jersey is looking at what may be its smallest crop since 1921. But New Jersey apple production is, in national terms, small potatoes. Pennsylvania, however, is the nation's fifth-largest apple-producing state. And Pennsylvania is hurting. Hard. State officials are expecting the smallest crop since 1976. The Pennsylvania Apple Marketing Board, a private agency set up by growers themselves, fears that it may be the smallest since 1953.

NEW YORK - A rare earnings miss by Apple pulled down technology stocks Wednesday. Broad market indexes turned lower in late-afternoon trading on reports of an impasse in talks to resolve Europe's debt crisis. The leaders of Germany, France, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank met Wednesday in preparation for a summit scheduled for this weekend. Markets sank and the price of oil fell after a report came out that French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Germany and France were in a deadlock over how to expand an emergency fund.