Sitting down to chat last year with Amazon.com Inc.’s Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, television host Charlie Rose announced that the two would discuss “the Kindle,” Amazon’s e-reader. But throughout the interview, Mr. Bezos repeatedly dodged the word “the,” saying how “Kindle is succeeding,” that “Kindle is a companion to tablet computers” and touting how many e-books are “available for Kindle.”

Mr. Bezos is part of a growing cadre of marketers who conscientiously object to using articles — the tiny English words “the,” “a” and “an” that typically precede many nouns.

Nintendo Co.’s website shows gamers “what Wii is all about.” As far back as 1984, Apple Inc. said in a commercial that it would “introduce Macintosh.” Today, an Apple video enthuses: “There’s never been anything like iPad.” Some companies make the drop official. Research In Motion Ltd.’s style guide specifies that “BlackBerry” should be used “as an adjective and not as a noun or verb.” An unacceptable usage, it says: “the BlackBerry.”

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The question now: Is his successor, Tim Cook, aggressive enough to muscle Apple into new turf like TV and publishing where the company hasn’t yet established a dominant foothold?

The real test for Mr. Cook will come when he is no longer benefiting from Mr. Jobs’s triumphs and must conquer new markets on his own. Executives in media companies, for instance, are reluctant to give up control of their products and fear Apple will end up eating away at their profits. Mr. Cook must win them over.

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On Tuesday, the Cupertino, Calif., company disclosed cash, including short-term and long-term marketable securities, for the quarter ended June 25 increased 15.8 percent since March to $76.2 billion. That’s more than the gross domestic product of 126 countries, including nations such as Ecuador, Bulgaria, Sri Lanka and Costa Rica, according to data from the World Bank.

The gigantic sum on Wednesday prompted some investors to call for it to use some of the cash for dividend payouts. “If they can’t find ways to use it to grow, they should be returning it to shareholders,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Asset Management, which owns Apple stock.

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The conversations weren’t explicitly aimed at recruiting a new chief executive and were more of an informal exploration of the company’s options, said these people. The directors don’t appear to have been acting on behalf of the full board, some of these people said. Apple has seven directors, including Mr. Jobs.

It is also unclear whether Mr. Jobs was aware. In response to questions from The Wall Street Journal about the discussions, Mr. Jobs said Monday in an email, “I think it’s hogwash.” An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

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According to a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal dated June 22, lawyers from New York’s Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP requested that San Mateo, Calif.-based GetJar stop using “App Store” on its website and elsewhere, and refrain from using the term in the future. The lawyers suggested that the company instead use the terms “mobile download service” or “application download service”.

The letter highlights the importance of Apple’s App Store to its mobile strategy and how much it views the storefront as a way to differentiate itself from competitors.

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The effort is aimed largely at spurring more subscription sales of digital content for Apple’s hit iPad, which the company hopes to accelerate with the aid of a coming new delivery and billing system that it discussed at an event Wednesday. At the same time, Apple is tightening enforcement of a rule governing how some apps for the iPad must handle sales, a shift that affects online books as well as other electronic publications.

Apple’s moves are a hot topic, in part because they could require publishers to share revenue from some content with the Silicon Valley company for the first time. The hardware maker also could require that publishers forgo collecting valuable subscriber data they rely on to market their products, an issue that has emerged as a sticking point in discussions with publishers, people familiar with the matter say.

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“We thought, ‘Wow, that idea is so bad, it might just work’” says Mr. Wang, looking back.

Almost seven months later in November, the company came out with Magic Fiddle, a violin app.

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The two partners are an unlikely pair. Taipei-based AmTran is best known for the TVs it makes for Vizio, the largest LCD TV maker in the U.S. based on shipments. Its new JVC lineup is sure to compete with Vizio, in which AmTran holds a roughly 20 percent stake.

JVC is a traditional Japanese company that made newspaper headlines when it balked at its parent company Panasonic selling its stake to a foreign investor a few years ago.

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The Irvine, Calif., company said its first mobile phone, to be called Via Phone, will have a four-inch screen, a front-facing camera for video calls, a rear-facing five megapixel camera and the capability to shoot video. The larger mobile device, the Via Tablet, will have an eight-inch, high-resolution screen; WiFi wireless connectivity; three speakers; and a front-facing camera for video conferencing. Both items will be introduced this summer and run Google Inc.’s Android operating system, providing access to the application store associated with the popular operating system, Vizio said.

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These phones don’t keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

An examination of 101 popular smartphone “apps”–games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones–showed that 56 transmitted the phone’s unique device ID to other companies without users’ awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone’s location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.

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One is Vanessa Cole, a 31-year-old sales representative in Detroit, whose husband bought her an iPad as a gift in April. She had considered getting a low-priced laptop but said she prefers the iPad “for the bigger screen and apps” even though the tablet cost more at $499.

Analysts expect Apple to sell 11 million to 12 million iPads this year, more than double many initial estimates, and reach 20 million next year. Samsung Electronics Inc., Dell Inc. (DELL) and other companies are racing to introduce their own tablets.

The tablet frenzy contrasts with some indicators for laptops. NPD Group estimates that laptop unit sales in U.S. retail channels rose 12.3 percent in the first eight months of the year—well below 30 percent growth of the year-earlier-period—and were down one percent in July and August, the peak of the important back-to-school shopping season.

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Apple (AAPL) could announce a print-subscription offering as early as the next month or two, some of the people familiar with the matter said. One of these people cautioned that Apple is still working on the technology and may prefer to announce its periodical service early next year, along with the likely introduction of a new iPad.

The subscription push appears to be a sign that newspapers and magazines will be Apple’s next front in its sale of media like music, television shows, movies and books.

A hub for buying newspapers and magazines–similar to Apple’s iBooks storefront–also could help the iPad stand out from a coming wave of rival tablet computers backed by Google Inc.’s (GOOG) software.

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According to a new survey by Nielsen of more than 4,000 smartphone users who have downloaded at least one app in the past 30 days, the average number of apps they have on their phones has increased to 27 in August from 22 last December.

Users of Apple’s iPhone significantly tops that with an average of 40 apps on their phones. But Android and Blackberry owners’ app usage has also steadily increased to 25 apps and 14 apps, respectively, from 22 apps and 10 apps last December. Android phones can be made by a number of mobile phone makers but they all run on Google’s (GOOG) mobile operating system. Canadian company Research in Motion (RIMM) makes Blackberries.

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Since launching its iAd mobile advertising service on July 1, Apple has been slow to roll it out. Of the 17 launch partners Apple named for iAd, only Unilever PLC and Nissan Co. had iAd campaigns for much of July. Of the remaining 17, Citigroup Inc. (C), Walt Disney Co. (DIS) and J.C. Penney Co.—which tied its campaign to the back-to-school-season—have since launched iAd campaigns and other companies are planning iAd efforts.

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The Redwood City, Calif., videogame maker said “Madden NFL 11” will go on sale on Tuesday. It is expected to be priced at $7.99 for the iPhone version and $12.99 for the iPad version, compared to $59.99 for the console game.

The move is another step in EA’s strategy to increase its downloadable games business and pursue synergies between digital and console games. At the same time, it shows how the iPhone and iPad are becoming important game devices. While EA says it is also making stripped down versions of games for regular cellphones running Java or Brew mobile software, it said the ones for Apple devices will be the most robust. The company said a version for phones running Google’s Android operating system will be available later this year. EA declined to disclose how much it spent on developing the mobile games.

EA says the iPhone and iPad versions of Madden will have features that take advantage of the devices’ touchscreens and thus aren’t available on the console. For example, one feature called “hot routes everywhere” lets users map out a play on the screen before making it happen. EA offered the ability in last year’s game for just the wide receiver position, but it made it possible this year for almost all of the players. Users can also save the plays, so they can use them again.

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M5 offers mid-sized businesses and organizations including Amnesty International and Etsy the ability to manage work calls through the “cloud” — the tech term for the Internet — so employees can make and receive phone calls from anywhere in the world from any Internet-connected device, including cell phones and computers, as if they were going through their office line. Clients can also start a phone call on one device and seamlessly transfer it to another device mid-call.

Late last month, it added the ability to make and take calls through iPads. The app is still in the testing phase, but M5 Chief Executive Dan Hoffman says that it gives its clients yet another option for fielding their phone calls.

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Software developers say their new and updated applications are getting approved by Apple, even though the apps are enabled to serve ads by third-party ad networks such as Google’s Mobile Adsense and AdMob.

Apple and Google declined to comment on the ad services.

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At the E3 Expo videogame show last week, Parrot unveiled the final version of the quadricopter, which it calls Parrot AR. Drone. The company said the quadricopter would go on sale in September in the U.S. for $300.

Parrot said it will be offering three apps on Apple’s (AAPL) App Store to accompany the quadricopter. AR. Free Flight is a free basic app that will show users how to pilot the drone.

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Both Nintendo and Sony made 3-D a central element of their presentations at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo on Tuesday, with Nintendo taking the wraps off its 3DS handheld, an upgrade to its popular DS portable game machine.

Sony showed off new 3-D games including the latest versions of blockbuster franchises such as car racing game “Gran Turismo” and shooting game “Killzone.”

The 3-D products come as the videogame industry has struggled with continued slow growth despite an improving economy.

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Data tracking firm Nielsen Co.’s quarterly survey found that Apple’s iPhone is gaining on No. 1 device by ownership, Research in Motion Ltd.’s (RIMM) BlackBerry, in the U.S. The iPhone added two percentage points for a 28 percent market share in the three months ended in late March compared to the previous quarter. RIM still had the biggest market share at 35 percent but it lost two percentage points in that period.

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In his senior year, Beykpour is now balancing school with a job as vice president for Blackboard Inc., the course management company that acquired TerriblyClever. One of his first projects is a new iPad app that lets students and teachers manage their classes. The app lists courses, syllabuses, grades, and other course information including assignments and handouts. A user could pull up multiple pieces of content and hide them with a quick swipe of their fingers.

The app also lets users create content on the iPad. Professors, for example, can post announcements, while students can contribute to discussion threads. “We want to make this a one-stop shop for school learning experiences,” said Beykpour.

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Zynga produces simple online games that are typically played through Facebook as a way to socialize with friends. The games are generally free to play with options for users to buy virtual items.

Zynga’s “FarmVille,” in which players grow crops and raise livestock, is the most popular game on Facebook, with 78 million active monthly users, according to the measurement service Developer Analytics.

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The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, which are jointly tasked with enforcing federal antitrust laws, are holding discussions over which agency would hold the inquiry, these people said. Apple, the FTC and Justice Department all declined to comment.

The process is at a preliminary stage and any resulting investigation wouldn’t necessarily lead to action. It’s also unclear what grounds an investigation would cover. News of the regulators’ talks were earlier reported by the New York Post.

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The following is the statement in full by Mr. Hogan’s attorney, Jeffrey Bornstein of K&L Gates LLP in San Francisco. Mr. Hogan’s identity was earlier reported by Wired.com.

We represent a 21 year-old young man, Brian Hogan, who has never been in trouble with the law. Brian was in a bar with friends when another bar patron handed him the phone after finding it on a bar stool near the area where Brian was sitting. Brian said the phone was not his but the bar patron walked away from the conversation and left the bar. Brian asked others near him if the phone belonged to them. When
they disclaimed ownership, Brian and his friends left the bar with the phone.

Brian opened the phone onto a Facebook page but then the phone shut down. From that time on, the phone was inoperable the entire time Brian had it. He regrets his mistake in not doing more to return the phone.

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Mr. Hogan’s attorney, Jeffrey Bornstein of K&L Gates LLP, issued a statement Thursday saying that he was representing the 21-year-old Redwood City, Calif., resident, who “regrets his mistake in not doing more to return the phone.” Mr. Bornstein said Mr. Hogan “believed, and Gizmodo emphasized to him, that there was nothing wrong in sharing the phone with the tech press.” Mr. Bornstein added that Mr. Hogan has been cooperating with authorities regarding the matter.

A spokesman for Apple declined to comment. Mr. Hogan couldn’t be reached.

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