Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, March 22

• Apple’s Modest Product Upgrades Take Back Seat to Worries on iPhone Encryption: Apple held one of its regular product showcases on Monday, but this time the products did not take center stage. Before the Silicon Valley giant unveiled modest upgrades to its device lineup, Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, defended the company’s stance in its fight with the federal government over the encryption on iPhones. The case had been expected to head to a court hearing on Tuesday, but the Justice Department abruptly moved on Monday to cancel the hearing, saying it might not need Apple’s help to break into the phone used by a gunman in last year’s San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting. In a news conference at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, Mr. Cook stressed that the company would stand fast. “We need to decide as a nation how much power the government should have over our data and over our privacy,” Mr. Cook said. “This is an issue that impacts all of us, and we will not shrink from this responsibility.”

• A Smaller iPhone, Cheaper iPad and Watch at Tepid Product Event By Apple:  Apple introduced a smaller iPhone, a smaller iPad Pro and new bands for the Apple Watch. The company introduced smaller versions of its flagship iPhone and iPaddevices, hoping to eke out more sales growth by filling gaps in its product lineup. The new devices, the iPhone SE and a 9.7-inch iPad Pro, represent a return to the form factors that prevailed before Apple supersized its smartphones in 2014 and added the large, business-oriented iPad Pro last year. So Apple upgraded the components of its new four-inch phone to largely match the speed and features of its flagship iPhone 6s, but at a lower price, starting at $399. The new 9.7-inch iPad Pro brings some of the features of last year’s 12.9-inch iPad Pro, including a stylus, a keyboard and four speakers, to a tablet the size of the consumer-oriented 9.7-inch iPad Air 2. The new Pro will start at $599, and Apple also cut the price of the Air 2 by $100 to start at $399. Apple also reduced the price of the Apple Watch by $100, to $299, and introduced new woven nylon wristbands for the device. More than one-third of Watch owners have more than one band, Mr. Cook said. Analysts say sales have been modest for the watch, which works as a companion to the iPhone. The price cut might encourage more people to give it a try. But Apple also acknowledges that the smartwatch category is in its infancy and it may take several more generations of the device before it really catches on.

• Apple's new iPhone faces challenge measuring up in China, India: Apple's new iPhone SE has first-rate features and a relatively low price tag, but its prospects in key markets like China and India may be limited by its diminutive size. At the product launch in Cupertino, California on Monday, Apple vice president of iPhone Product Marketing Greg Joswiak singled out China as a target market, saying four-inch displays like that on the iPhone SE were still popular with first-time smartphone buyers. Chinese buyers tend to start off with a phone with a 4-inch screen, just like the iPhone SE, he argued. China, Apple's second-biggest market, and India, one of the fastest-growing major markets in the world, are both seen as key for Apple, which expects overall iPhone sales to contract. The iPhone SE is seen as particularly important for India, where Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner, expects the smartphones market to double to 200 million units in the next two years. But in India and China, smartphones are often the main connection to the digital world, and a big screen is highly valued, analysts said. "(In India) the majority of the low-end, $100 phones have a five-inch display. The key reason being smartphone users are becoming more mature are preferring bigger screen size as many of them don't own a tablet or laptop," said Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research based in Mumbai.Only 10 percent of smartphones sold in India at the end of December had a four-inch screen, according to Counterpoint, and Apple accounted for only two percent of overall smartphone shipments in India last year.

• Andy Grove, Valley Veteran Who Founded Intel, Dies at 79: Andy Grove, who escaped the ruins of postwar Europe to become one of the architects of Silicon Valley’s growth into the world’s center of technology creation, died Monday. He was 79. The Hungarian-born refugee was one of the founders of Santa Clara, California-based Intel, playing a key role in building the company from a startup in the 1960s to the world’s largest semiconductor maker, a title it still holds. Grove, who literally wrote the book on how to foresee and overcome a corporate crisis with “Only the Paranoid Survive,” also broke new ground by making the component maker a household name central to the worldwide adoption of the personal computer.  Arriving in the U.S. with less than $20 in his pocket, Grove was taken in by relatives in New York. He studied chemical engineering at City College and graduated at the top of his class, teaching himself English along the way.He moved to the West Coast to attend the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1963. After graduating, he joined Fairchild Semiconductor, home to a future group of semiconductor industry leaders who would give Silicon Valley its name. In 1968, he followed Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce out the door as Intel’s first hire. For the founders of Intel, Grove was the perfect fit. Moore and Noyce, both inventors in their own right, were opposite personalities: one studious and low-key, the other a born salesman. In the middle was Grove, a writer of scientific textbooks who brought a fear of failure to the laid-back culture of Silicon Valley in the early 1970s. As a detail-obsessed taskmaster, he forced Intel workers, including Moore, to sign in if they arrived at work after 8 a.m. Always seeking to pass along the benefits of his experiences, Grove acted as a mentor to many of Silicon Valley’s elite -- from Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg.