San Francisco  - Apple has fired some 1,600 employees from its chain of retail stores due to slackening consumer demand, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The job cuts were referenced in a securities filing by Apple Thursday in which the company said it had 14,000 full-time equivalent employees in its retail division as of March 28, down from the 15,600 as of the end of December.

The move came as Apple's recent earnings report showed a drop in sales for its Mac computer line, which is the biggest earner at the stores.

San Francisco  - Owners of Apple's popular iPhones have downloaded over 1 billion applications for the must-have smartphones, Apple said Friday.

The landmark download was reached just nine months after Apple launched the App Store which allows users of the iPhone to download new programs for their devices. The program has proved so popular that thousands of companies and individuals are believed to be writing applications for the phone, which Apple then distributes via the online marketplace.

San Francisco  - Apple's iPhone could see wider distribution in the US next year as the company has not yet agreed to a request from AT&T to extend the telecom giant's exclusive rights to the hit smartphone, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The report said the exclusivity deal signed in 2007 is set to expire in 2010 and AT&T is asking Apple to extend it for two years.

The third beta of iPhone OS 3.0 has been launched by Apple, though with comparatively minor changes to the developer APIs. However, Ars has reported that the beta includes a rather significant transformation to push notification methods - badge, text alert, and sound.

San Francisco - Taipei-based company Elan Microelectronics has sued Apple for the alleged infringement of two of its touch screen patents in the iconic US technology company's iPhone and other devices.

The suit was filed Tuesday in the US District Court in San Francisco, close to Apple's Silicon Valley headquarters, court papers posted Wednesday showed.

Elan, which makes touchpads, claims it owns the patents covering the touch screen technology that has helped the iPhone, MacBook and other Apple products become huge hits.

San Francisco  - Apple unveiled its proposed new software for its genre-defining iPhone Tuesday and gave acolytes of the world's most popular smartphone the feature they most wanted: the ability to cut and paste text and pictures on the device.

Lack of the cut and paste facility had been one of the main drawbacks of the device, compared to competitors like the Blackberry.