The price cut applies to the purchase of the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 in conjunction with a two-year contract with Verizon, AT&T or Sprint.

The company is also doing some shorter-term promotions over Memorial Day, cutting the price on several popular but older Android models. From May 26 to June 1, Best Buy is selling Samsung’s Galaxy S III for $49 on AT&T or Sprint, a $50 price cut. Meanwhile, it is offering the HTC Droid DNA for Verizon for $49 ($150 savings) and the HTC One X on AT&T for free (a $100 price cut).

The moves come as Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 is now available for a variety of carriers and with Apple’s iPhones getting a bit longer in the tooth. Discounts on the iPhone are infrequent but not unheard of, particularly in the weeks and months leading up to a new model.

But a new study suggests that owners of the iPhone and the Galaxy S III really aren’t that different from one another, especially when it comes to the types of tasks one is looking to do.

“Hate all you want, you’re all just the same,” screams the headline on a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

“Use for calling, texting, email, and Internet access was the same for both phones,” the company found when comparing separate surveys it did in January and February. “Use differed only for gaming and photos, with iPhone owners using their phones somewhat more frequently for these.”

One thing people aren’t doing much of on either device is making phone calls.

Both Galaxy and iPhone owners use their phones more to access the Web and send text messages than they do for phone calls. Phone use outpaced email, but only slightly.

That said, devotees of Apple or Samsung are likely to argue their device does those same tasks oh-so-much-better.

And, of course, when one looks a little deeper, there are demographic and other differences.

Galaxy S III buyers are most likely to have owned an Android phone in the past, with three-fifths of those surveyed having owned a prior Android, compared to just 9 percent that switched to the Galaxy S III from an iPhone.

By contrast, only 37 percent of iPhone buyers had a prior Apple phone, with fully one-fifth being switchers from Android. Just under a third of iPhone buyers were moving up from a standard phone, versus only 18 percent of Galaxy S III purchasers.

Chain image copyright Evgeny Mukhin

The flaw, posted on Terence Eden’s website, could allow a user to skip any security measures and open any app. Eden also posted a video showing how the flaw can be exploited.

“We are aware of this issue and will release a fix at the earliest possibility,” a Samsung representative told AllThingsD. “Samsung considers user privacy and the security of user data its top priority.”

The issue is unique to Samsung’s implementation of Android, and is not present in the stock build of Google’s operating system, Eden said.

Eden said the issue is definitely present on the Galaxy Note II, and is likely there on the Galaxy S III.

He added that he reported the issue to Samsung in February.

“I have delayed public disclosure of this vulnerability,” he said. “I also asked if they wanted me to delay publication until a patch was ready — however they declined this offer.”

But to really get a sense of what Samsung has or hasn’t accomplished this time around, one should look closely at the software that powers the device.

Let’s face it, hardware design these days has kind of hit a plateau. All modern smartphones are essentially a big slab of glass with a giant touchscreen.

Leaked photos paint a picture of a device that will look a whole lot like its predecessors, much as the iPhone 5 resembles a thinner, larger-screen version of the iPhone 4.

On the software side, the Galaxy S IV will certainly be based on the latest version of Google’s Android, but Samsung has been putting increasing effort into trying to build the kind of software and services that help its devices stand out from its Android rivals, as well as archrival Apple.

But Samsung is increasingly aware of the importance of the software and services on its devices. The company is working both to boost its internal efforts as well as to better partner with tech companies, particularly those in Silicon Valley.

The company has opened an array of incubators, accelerators and innovation centers, all aimed at expanding its already strong position on the device side.

An early test of just how far it has come will be in seeing how the experience on the latest Galaxy differs from its predecessors.

With the Galaxy S III, Samsung introduced a number of software-based experiences, including the ability to easily share photos among a group of fellow Galaxy devices.

There’s all manner of things the company could have focused on this time around. One rumored area is around gesture recognition, with the new Galaxy said to support scrolling on the screen based on eye movements.

The device will almost certainly feature built-in payments technology from Visa, with Samsung and the credit card company having announced a deal at last month’s Mobile World Congress.

We’ll know the full extent of the Galaxy S IV’s software side (and the hardware details) in a few hours. The Galaxy S IV is due to get its big reveal Thursday evening at a glitzy event in Manhattan. Of course, AllThingsD will have live coverage and analysis.

A Samsung representative confirmed the date and location for the event, but declined to offer further details.

The confirmation comes just as the world’s biggest cellphone show — Mobile World Congress — kicks off in Barcelona. Samsung used the show to launch an eight-inch version of its Galaxy Note tablet, but, like HTC, opted not to make its big news at the show.

The Galaxy S has emerged as the biggest single rival to Apple’s iPhone, and has propelled Samsung to become the most high-profile — and profitable — of the Android device makers.

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Those who want to take advantage of the deal need to sign up between Feb. 3 and Feb. 9. Then they can buy the phone anytime between Feb. 10 and Dec. 31, and they will get a $50 gift card.

Best Buy did the same thing last year, and plans to begin marketing it on Super Bowl Sunday. It will support the campaign with a TV ad related to a spot it will air during the Super Bowl.

Best Buy said it saw “tremendous results” with the similar campaign it did a year ago, particularly among its Reward Zone customers.

Separately, the store is also running a two-day deal through Saturday, offering the popular Samsung Galaxy S III for $99 with a new two-year contract on AT&T, Sprint or Verizon. That’s $100 off the usual price.

For about four months, phone- and gadget-oriented websites along with tech writers at South Korean newspapers have been trying to determine the details of Samsung’s next high-end smartphone, likely to be called Galaxy S IV after consecutively-numbered versions over the past three years.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

One thing drivers should know about the new Google Maps for iPhone is that the traffic-information display has to be selected each time you start the app up or traffic won’t show. Is there a way to keep it on between sessions with the app?

A:

Google says the app “preserves its state” (in this case, having traffic mode turned on) as long as you don’t restart the phone or manually close its Maps app. I have confirmed this in my own testing. If you turn on traffic, and then leave the app without manually closing it, then use one or more other apps, traffic information will still be enabled in Google Maps when you return to it.

Q:

I agree with you that the new Google Maps for iPhone is very good, but, unlike Apple Maps, it doesn’t tie into the phone’s Contacts app so you can directly map the location of contacts’ addresses. Will this ever change?

A:

The iPhone allows third-party apps to have access to Contacts if the owner agrees in the privacy settings screen. One such app you can enable to use Contacts is Google’s own Gmail. But there’s no similar option for Google Maps. Google acknowledges there’s a demand for such a linkage, but isn’t saying if or when it might be offered.

Q:

Is there a manual or instruction book, such as a “Dummies” guide, for my new iPad Mini? How do I get an instruction manual for the Samsung Galaxy S III phone?

A:

The iPad Mini is simply a smaller iPad, which functions identically and uses all the same apps and settings. So any guide to the iPad will suffice. However, there’s a new entry in the “Dummies” book series just for the iPad Mini. It can be found on Amazon at http://amzn.to/TA7fv4. As for the Galaxy S III, you can download the manual at http://bit.ly/TA8BWA.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

As an alternative, Samsung today introduced the Galaxy Muse, a compact MP3 player that lets you sync music directly from the Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

The Galaxy Muse measures just 1.7 inches tall by 1.25 inches wide and weighs 0.48 ounces. The face of the device, which resembles a smooth pebble (not unlike the company’s previous Pebble MP3 player) offers touch-sensitive controls. There’s also a built-in clip on back.

It offers four gigabytes of memory and promises up to six hours of battery life. The player is compatible with the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II.

Users can transfer music from their smartphone to the player with the included connector cable and free companion Music Sync Android app.

Samsung touts that this solution will free users from having to connect the MP3 player to the PC for syncing, but it still requires tethering it to your smartphone, so it’s not eliminating any extra steps. Still, the convenience of a smaller device might be worth it to some.

The Galaxy Muse is available now from Samsung for $50 and comes in blue or white.

Check out this list of 2012’s most popular tech ads, compiled by video tracker Visible Measures. Only a single Apple ad cracks the Top 10, and it’s not even a formal Apple ad — it’s the company’s seven-minute introduction for the iPhone 5.

Visible Measures says it comes in at No. 6, with 18.4 million “true reach” views, which is supposed to measure every version of the clip that hit YouTube and every other video site, as well as parodies, mashups, etc.

Of course, you could also argue that Apple gets partial credit for the top spot, as well, since that one goes to Samsung’s Galaxy S III ad, which lacerates Apple fanboys. This one brought in 71.8 million views, says Visible Measures.

Here’s the rest of the list. Note that Google, either directly or via Android, is involved in more than half of the clips:

2: Intel/Toshiba, 54.4 million

3: Samsung, 42.2 million

4: Samsung, 22.9 million

5: Google, 20.8 million

7: LG, 17.3 million

8: Samsung, 16.4 million

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmDtXHOi7bQ

9: Google, 13.8 million

10: Microsoft, 13.6 million

You may not be rioting at Walmart, but you’re probably still spending part of Black Friday talking about things you are buying, will buy or would like to buy.

Especially, if you’re on Twitter. Because we love to talk about Black Friday on Twitter.

And here’s a handy real-time — or close to real-time — chart that shows us exactly what kind of Black Friday stuff people are talking about on Twitter, sorted by different categories. The data comes directly from the Twitter “firehose” that generates 400 million comments a day, and it’s sorted by Mass Relevance, a company that makes its living sorting social media for brands and other clients.

Not surprising: Twitterers are talking about Apple more than any other electronics brand, by a long shot. A bit surprising: They are more interested in talking about the Xbox 360 than any other gadget.

And when it comes to toys, it’s Lego, then Barbies, and then everything else is so far behind it barely registers (click chart to enlarge).

You can see a live version of the chart here, along with other goodies like a stream of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pics, and breakout charts that compare things like the volume of tweets about iPhone 5s to tweets about Galaxy SIIIs — the iPhone is currently winning that one by a 4:1 ratio.

It’s sponsored by Starcom MediaVest, the big media planning/buying company owned by Publicis. Lisa Weinstein, who heads up digital for Starcom, said her agency is paying for it in order to help convince clients that getting people “engaged” on the Web — as opposed to just seeing banner ads — has “lower-funnel implications for brands” — that is, it can help convince people to buy stuff.

Next trick: Proving that this chatter actually does result in sales.

The company’s telecom unit produced an operating profit margin of 18.8 percent in the three months through September, the highest since it changed to international accounting standards two years ago. Samsung released its flagship smartphone, called Galaxy S III, in May and completed its rollout during the July-September period.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

She’s the actress best known as “the T-Mobile Girl.” Usually, she wears pink dresses, though she’s recently been playing around with leather.

But here comes a new, lady-free campaign for the carrier: A series of shorts featuring men who are famous to a few people, and likely unknown to the rest of the world. The idea: Even if you don’t know who these folks are, other people do, and they seem to have pretty cool lives. And they like T-Mobile.

Here’s the first one, which features proto-blogger Chris Pirillo, who runs the LockerGnome empire, and already does a lot of tech endorsing — earlier this year, he sang the praises of the Samsung Galaxy S III you see him brandishing here.

He also has a lifestyle that might seem familiar to some of you: Owns a lot of Star Wars and Lego stuff, works from home, reads his phone while his bedmate is still sleeping, seems to be pretty happy.

The rest of the semi-celebrity endorsers have lives that are a bit more exotic: Pro surfer Jamie Sterling, DJ RJD2, and Andy Blackman Hurwitz, who makes kids’ music that doesn’t suck. Social media agency Big Fuel put the campaign together.

Here’s Pirillo’s explanation, via email, of how he ended up working on this one: “I discovered through a business associate that an agency was working with T-Mobile to surface people who have found ongoing success with technology as an enabler – and that’s (pretty much) my story. So, I guess the agency didn’t necessarily approach me as much as serendipity landed the opportunity. That’s not double-speak, either – my story happened to fit the campaign. Difficult to say how that conversation started, though. “Hey, I get to tell my story? Cool.”

When looking at Web traffic from the two smartphones, Chitika said the iPhone 5 now accounts for 56 percent of pages, compared to 44 percent for the Galaxy S III.

And the mobile advertising network says that the Galaxy S III itself has been a strong seller, outpacing the iPhone 4S in the U.S. for the month of August.

“However, only 18 days since the public release of the iPhone 5, the newest Apple device has overtaken the Galaxy S III in terms of Web traffic volume,” Chitika said. “Record-breaking sales numbers, along with new 4G browsing speeds which encourage data usage, are the most likely explanation for this tremendous growth.”

Chitika notes that businesses probably want to make sure their ads can reach both flagship devices, but adds that the head-to-head comparison “emphasizes iPhone users still being the most active — and hence marketable – users of the mobile Web.”

The Galaxy S III Mini is indeed more compact than the Galaxy S III, thanks to a four-inch HD touchscreen (versus 4.8 inches), but its feature set has also been scaled down.

First, the display has a lower resolution of 800 by 480 pixels, compared to the larger device’s 1,280 by 720 pixels. Replacing the main eight-megapixel camera and front-facing 1.9-megapixel camera are five-megapixel and VGA cameras. The Galaxy S III’s dual-core 1.5GHz processor has also been downgraded to a dual-core 1GHz processor.

One thing the Galaxy S III Mini has on its larger, more powerful sibling is that it ships running the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. The smartphone will also offer Samsung’s S Voice personal assistant app and the NFC-enabled S Beam feature, which allows you to share music files between Galaxy S III series and Galaxy Note II devices simply by tapping the phones together.

Samsung says the Galaxy S III Mini is designed for consumers looking for a more “practical” smartphone. The company did not announce availability dates or pricing for the smartphone today.

With its existing business in decline, RIM has been scrambling to reinvent itself by developing an entirely new mobile operating system and portfolio of smartphones to run it. But it has been hampered by repeated delays that have caused it to fall further behind nimbler rivals like Google and Apple. And while BlackBerry 10 is clearly moving closer to launch, with the company driving hard to actually meet its deadline this time — “We’re not sleeping much,” CEO Thorsten Heins said earlier this week — skepticism over its prospects for a turnaround abounds.

RIM’s struggle, which was already pretty dire, has become even more so in the months since it last reported earnings. Some formidable new marquee smartphones have hit the market — Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Apple’s next-generation iPhone 5 — and they will almost certainly continue to impact BlackBerry sales ahead of the launch of BB10. Meanwhile, fear is growing that the OS, RIM’s last-ditch effort to right its foundering business, is too late. As Jefferies analyst Peter Misek wryly observed to AllThingsD, “It’s tough to see anything good when we haven’t seen a new phone in what seems like years.”

And while RIM’s share price enjoyed a nice lift the past few days thanks to an unexpected increase in subscribers to its BlackBerry service in its most recent quarter, analysts say the optimism that news inspired will likely be short-lived. As Wedbush analyst Scott Sutherland said in a recent note to clients, “We remain cautious on RIM, and expect FQ2 results to be below expectations, and we expect reduced guidance. While we see some value in RIM, given the lack of content and device ecosystems, we believe RIM’s integrated strategy will continue to face significant challenges.”

So what sort of numbers is the Street expecting from the company? Consensus is a net loss of 47 cents per share — down from 63 cents a share in the same period last year — and revenue that has fallen 40 percent to $2.49 billion.

Investors will also be paying keen attention to the BlackBerry’s average selling price to get a sense of just how much it is reducing prices to gain market share. Another key metric: Cash on hand. RIM reported total cash and equivalents of $2.2 billion in June. What’s it got now and how quickly is it burning it as it scrambles to launch BB10? All these things will help investors determine how much faith to put into the claim Heins made earlier this week at BlackBerry Jam Americas: “I think we have a clear shot at being the No. 3 mobile ecosystem in the world.”

That’s the conclusion of research firm DisplayMate, in a report released Monday.

More technically, DisplayMate says the new iPhone has the highest contrast rating of any mobile device it has seen, along with improved screen reflectance and significantly improved color quality and color accuracy.

All that adds up to the best screen the company has seen on a mobile device.

“Based on our extensive lab measurements the iPhone 5 has a true state-of-the-art accurate display — it’s not perfect and there is plenty of room for improvements (and competitors) but it is the best smartphone display we have seen to date based on extensive lab measurements and viewing tests,” DisplayMate said.

DisplayMate did have a few niggles.

“The white point is still somewhat too blue like most smartphones, and at maximum brightness it has a shorter running time than the iPhone 4, which is not surprising since it has a larger screen and a larger color gamut but roughly the same capacity battery,” DisplayMate said.

For all of you super-techies, DisplayMate has tons more details in its report, including some comparisons with the Samsung Galaxy S III.

As Apple was buffeted by complaints about the various failings of the homegrown mapping app that replaced Google Maps in iOS 6, its Finnish rival published a timely blog post touting its own location and mapping platforms, Nokia Drive and Navteq.

These are solid platforms, and in addition to powering Nokia’s forthcoming Lumia 920 smartphone, they’re being used by Yahoo, Microsoft’s Bing and Amazon. So Nokia has some pretty clear bragging rights in the location space, and what better time to exercise them than when a formidable competitor is under fire for replacing a perfectly serviceable mapping app with a flawed one?

“Unlike our competitors, which are financing their location assets with advertising or licensing mapping content from third parties, we completely own, build and distribute mapping content, platform and apps,” Nokia said in a post to its Conversations blog. “In other words, we truly understand that maps and location-based apps must be accurate, provide the best quality and be accessible basically anywhere. That’s been standard practice at Nokia for the past six years, and we also understand that ‘pretty’ isn’t enough.”

In support of that assertion, Nokia posted some benchmarks comparing the Lumia 920’s location services to those of the iPhone and the Google Maps-powered Samsung Galaxy S III. And, as you might imagine, Nokia’s location services come out looking pretty good — better than Google’s in most measures, and better than Apple’s in all of them.

As far as competitive digs go, Nokia’s wasn’t petulant. Really, it was more truthful than anything else. And given the company’s current predicament and its own recent public relations foibles, why not take advantage of Apple’s misfortune to tout a Nokia strength that might be overlooked in a larger smartphone battle largely defined by Google and Apple?

Said Nokia, “We believe that the best user experience comes indeed from precise data, robust processing of core platform functionalities like routing, geocoding and traffic, and by user friendly apps. All this cannot be built overnight.”

All this cannot be built overnight. Harsh. Which is not to say that Apple attempted to do that. The company has spent a lot of time and money developing its own in-house mapping solution for iOS. But perhaps it was a bit too quick to push it out the door.

(Let’s pause here for a second. How long have you been using the Internet? Longer than a week or so? Okay, you already know what’s coming.)

The poll did pretty well, pulling in 11,000 responses. But, as you would think corporate social specialists would have learned, the masses tend to go off script, and a whole lot of those responses were from people snorting and saying they’d bring Apple’s iPhone or iPad.

I think Facebook user Dani Benko best summed up the poll, calling the Facebook campaign an “own goal,” the soccer term for kicking the ball into your own net and scoring for the other team.

While there were plenty of Apple fans and more than a few Samsung loyalists as well, others suggested a phone like the original Motorola Razr, with its long battery life.

Still others thought perhaps an electric boat might be a more useful gadget than any company’s smartphone.

The Korean phone maker will tomorrow start running a print ad campaign in national and regional papers that compares the features of its Galaxy S III with those of Apple’s iPhone 5.

The Samsung device does have a larger display, more RAM, and features like near-field communication. As with any competitive chart designed by one of the competitors, the Samsung list puts its own features in the best light and ignores the areas where it falls short.

Here’s our own analysis by AllThingsD’s Bonnie Cha of how the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III stack up.

Samsung is aggressively trying to pitch itself as the anti-Apple, saying it offers more capabilities with less cult.

This has been the company’s tune for a while now — we’ve covered a few more examples from its ad campaigns in the past year.

Though some saw Apple’s Passbook feature as a perfect companion to NFC, Apple opted not to include the technology in the iPhone 5. Passbook is used to store loyalty cards and gift cards as well as things like boarding passes and baseball tickets.

In an interview, Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller said that Passbook alone does what most customers want and works without existing merchant payment systems.

It’s not clear that NFC is the solution to any current problem, Schiller said. “Passbook does the kinds of things customers need today.”

As for wireless charging, Schiller notes that the wireless charging systems still have to be plugged into the wall, so it’s not clear how much convenience they add. The widely-adopted USB cord, meanwhile, can charge in wall outlets, computers and even on airplanes, he said.

“Having to create another device you have to plug into the wall is actually, for most situations, more complicated,” Schiller said.

As for why the company is changing the dock connector that has been on nearly all iPhones and iPods since 2003, Schiller said it simply wasn’t possible to build products as thin as the new iPhones and iPods without changing the cord. Hence, the new “Lightning” connector.

That said, Schiller said that Apple doesn’t take changing the connector lightly.

“This is the new connector for many years to come,” he said.

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Apple on Friday amended its second lawsuit to add the Galaxy S III smartphone and Galaxy Note “phablet” to a list of products that it says infringe on its intellectual property. This is a second suit, also before U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, but separate from the one decided by a jury last week.

In the first case, a nine-person jury ruled that a number of older Samsung devices infringe on protected Apple designs and patents, and awarded more than $1 billion in damages. In the second case, Apple had been targeting some of the same devices, and some newer devices, including the Galaxy Nexus.

Koh had already issued an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus in the second suit, which isn’t expected to go to trial until next year. That injunction has been put on hold while an appeals court considers the matter.

The amended complaint was reported earlier by AppleInsider.

Amended Galaxy Complaint

Apple versus Samsung Full Coverage

The new smartphone was shown off during a Samsung press event at the IFA Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin, Germany.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II has a 5.5-inch HD super AMOLED screen — slightly bigger than the original Note’s 5.3-inch screen. It’s running a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, and has an eight-megapixel rear camera and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera.

The phone, which weighs just over six ounces, runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Google’s latest flavor of Android for mobile devices.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II boasts the same “hovering” stylus that was recently introduced with the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet. The stylus doesn’t require contact with the screen for input, and lets users preview apps without fully opening them; by hovering it over an email app, for example, a user can see the contents of a new email.

There’s also a feature called Popup Note — playing off Popup Play on the Samsung Galaxy S III — that lets users open up the S Note app while running other apps or while talking on the phone. And it’s got an onscreen video-recording function, allowing users to record their activities on the phone, then share the video file.

The smartphone comes in white and titanium gray, and is available with 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes of storage, with the 64GB model offering additional storage options through an SD card slot. It’s scheduled to launch in October in European, Asian and Middle Eastern markets. No word yet on a U.S. launch date or exact pricing, except to say that the U.S. version of the phone will be available later in 2012. And if the device’s predecessor is any indication, it will likely be in the $300 price range, with a cellular contract.

Samsung also hasn’t confirmed whether the U.S. version of the Samsung Galaxy Note II will be 4G or LTE-compatible.

With its hovering S Pen, advanced multitasking, built-in photo-editing apps, and a redesigned image gallery, Samsung is clearly aiming this smartphone at creative, productivity-driven consumers.

But as my AllThingsD colleague John Paczkowski asked late last year, is the market large enough to sustain a product like the Note? “It certainly wasn’t big enough to sustain Dell’s Streak 5, a similar smartphone-tablet hybrid that was scrapped about a year after its debut,” he pointed out.

Samsung did say earlier this month that it has sold — actually sold, not just shipped — 10 million Samsung Galaxy Note units since the phone’s initial launch last fall.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II’s debut comes on the heels of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet announcement, during which Samsung tried to appeal, once again, to the creative class, welcoming film director Baz Luhrmann and fashion designer Zac Posen onstage at a New York City event to tout the usefulness of the stylus-equipped device for their respective fields of work.

It’s also the first mobile product Samsung has unveiled following a high-profile legal battle with Apple, in which Samsung was found guilty of infringing a number of Apple patents pertaining to mobile devices. The Korean electronics giant was ordered to pay more than $1 billion in damages.

Apple has since asked the presiding judge for a permanent injunction against the eight phones that accounted for most of Samsung’s U.S. smartphone revenue in the first six months of the year — though the original Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone was not on Apple’s injunction list. Samsung has said that it will take all necessary measures to ensure the availability of its products in the U.S.