Report: iOS and Android make tech history with worldwide, fast-growing adoption

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Mobile analytics firm Flurry published a new report today asserting iOS and Android handsets have experienced adoption at such a supersonic speed that their growth rate has now eclipsed all consumer technology in history.

According to Flurry:

The rate of iOS and Android device adoption has surpassed that of any consumer technology in history.  Compared to recent technologies, smart device adoption is being adopted 10X faster than that of the 80s PC revolution, 2X faster than that of 90s Internet Boom and 3X faster than that of recent social network adoption.  Five years into the smart device growth curve, expansion of this new technology is rapidly expanding beyond early adopter markets such as such as North America and Western Europe, creating a true worldwide addressable market.  Overall, Flurry estimates that there were over 640 million iOS and Android devices in use during the month of July 2012.

Smartphones making headway as they spread worldwide is nothing new, but their history-making adoption rate is certainly notable. The report illustrated countries with the greatest number of device activations as well as the fasting growing markets. The results indicated the United States sits at No. 1 with 165 million iOS and Android handset activations for July, but China experienced a leading 401 percent activation growth during the same period.

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Dallas newspaper identifies ‘Evil Genius’ Apple Store, corroborates Gizmodo story

Jake Smith

Yesterday, Gizmodo posted a harrowing piece about one of the most corrupt Apple Stores in the United States. The story profiled many unethical tactics done by the store managers and employees. In one instance, a regional manager actually gave away a free Apple product in exchange for a weight loss surgery, and also leant Apple products out for months at a time. In another case, Apple Store Geniuses would actually take iPhones at their leisure, often breaking them and replacing them. But perhaps the most disconcerting bit from the Gizmodo piece is what Geniuses did to customer’s products. In one instance, a Genius actually  ”just erased people’s hard drives that are —holes.” Certainly shocking out of the company that’s already had 300 million visitors in its stores this year.

We weren’t sure how accurate the story was or if the sources had perhaps been embellishing at best and fabricating at worst.  However a separate second source has come forward with a separate but similar story and has named the store in question. Read more

How to watch official BBC Olympics coverage from the US

Jordan Kahn

For Americans, coverage of the Olympics in London is mainly limited to NBC’s video stream offerings. Unfortunately, the network’s coverage, especially online, is receiving a ton of complaints as witnessed by the #nbcfail hashtag on Twitter. Fortunately, there is a way to bypass NBC altogether and take advantage of the BBC’s official live stream coverage from inside the U.S. of almost every major event. There is not much to it; all you have to do is use a DNS routing service to get around the BBC’s region blocked streams. Below is a quick guide courtesy of Lifehacker that uses the Unblock Us service. It is free for a week, and then it is $5 for the month.

First, you will have to sign up for the service on its website. Once that is finished, you can configure the service for BBC using the steps below:

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Apple Store overnights happening July 24. Mountain Lion launch the next day?

Seth Weintraub

We’ve heard a few whispers (3 and counting) that Apple Stores both in the United States and overseas have planned overnights for Tuesday, July 24th. With OS X Mountain Lion launching “in July”, according to Apple, we believe that it is sensible to speculate that this overnight may point to a public launch the following day.

This purported launch would be July 25th, a date that we speculated when Apple announced that its Q3 2012 earnings would be announced on the 24th. For OS X Lion’s launch last year, Apple announced the July 20th release at its July 19th Q3 2011 earnings announcement. It appears that Apple may follow that same pattern this year.

This year, Mountain Lion isn’t being launched alongside hardware (last year new Minis and Airs launched with Lion) so there is less setup required and accordingly, we’re hearing that the overnights will be smaller.  One employee tells us that it is basically just a few guys running around with the master image installing it on every Mac.  Notably, some stores we’ve spoken to haven’t heard of any overnight…yet.

On the other hand, Apple often holds Tuesday overnights, so this July 24th overnight may simply be a coincidence, and Apple may not launch OS X Mountain Lion on the 25th. But, there is already under two weeks left in July, and with last year’s launch pattern prime for repetition (launch announcement during the upcoming earnings call), we’d say a July 25th launch is increasingly likely.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will be a $19.99 upgrade which will hit the Mac App Store on launch day.  Developers already have what is likely the Golden Master – build number is 12A269, a 4.34 GB Mac App Store download.

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Nielsen: Android and iOS are over 90 percent of US smartphone market, and growing

Seth Weintraub

…For the first time ever, two-thirds of new phone acquirers are buying smartphones.

Smartphone use is exploding in the United States, while PC sales are dropping. If 66 percent of mobile phone buyers purchase smartphones, and 36.3-percent of them get the iPhone, then that means almost a quarter of all phones bought in the U.S. are iPhones. That also means 36 percent of the purchased phones run Android OS.

More from Nielsen, including the incredibly skewed graphic, is below—which gives Symbian, Palm and Windows 7 devices almost the same amount of “fill” at 2.8-percent as Apple’s 34 percent.

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SoHo NY Apple Store to reopen July 14

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Apple just announced it will reopen its SoHo store in Manhattan on July 14 at 10 a.m. EST.

The Apple Store, SoHo, is completely redesigned and better than ever. There are more than twice as many products available for you to try. A new state-of-the-art theater with extra seating is the perfect place to enjoy events and workshops. We’ve added New York’s first Briefing Room, where you can get to know our Business Team. Even the Genius Bar is bigger, so it’s easier than ever to get an appointment.

The first 3, 000 customers win free commemorative t-shirts.

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