Samsung goes back to Apple swiping with latest Galaxy S4 ad [Video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DlXp41WwpOs
Some things you’ll never use. We missed these.
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Instagram updates mobile apps with new ‘Photos of You’ feature
http://vimeo.com/65246801
Instagram announced today that it is updating its iOS and Android apps with a new feature dubbed ‘Photos of You’ making it easier to view and be notified of photos you care about most. The feature will make it easier for users uploading images to add mentions of people or things and also adds a new “Photos of You” section on your profile where tagged photos will gather:
When you upload a photo to Instagram, you’re now able to add the people and things in the photo as easily as you add a location and hashtags. When someone adds you to a photo, you’ll receive a notification and the photo will appear in your “Photos of You” – the new section on your profile where you can curate all of the photos you’ve been added to. Want to make sure you like the photo first? No problem: you can easily adjust your settings so nothing appears on your profile until you approve it.
The feature will be in a sort of beta mode until May 16th at which time the Photos of You section will become visible on users’ public profiles.
Version 3.5 of Instagram with the new Photos of You feature should be hitting the App Store any minute.
You can check out the feature via profiles of a few Instagram employees already using Photos of You:
http://instagram.com/Jeffreydgerson
How to enable Google Now on iOS for Google Apps accounts
Earlier today Google officially pushed out an update to its existing Google Search app for iPhone enabling the Google Now service with weather and traffic conditions, updates on breaking news and sports, and more. Some users logging into Google Search through a Google Apps account might have noticed that using the features would prompt an error that “your administrator hasn’t enabled Google Now for your domain.” Hanselman.com shares instructions on enabling the feature which aren’t exactly obvious since the setting is buried in “Android settings”.
Google Apps for Business, Education, and Government: Google Now needs to be turned on by an administrator before it can be used.
If you are an administrator, you can enable Google Now for users in your organization by following these steps:
- Sign in to your Google Apps control panel.
- Go to Settings > Mobile > Org Settings > Android settings.
- Click the checkbox next to Enable Google Now to turn on Google Now.
- Click Save.
Google Fiber TV remote app for iPad released
Google launched its Google Fiber TV for iPad app today allowing Google Fiber customers to transform their iPads into QWERTY keyboard, TV guide yielding TV remotes.
For the past month, our Fiber TV customers have been able to control their TVs with any recent Android device. Using the Fiber TV app from the Google Play Store, they can search for programming, browse listings, and select shows or recordings with just the touch or swipe of a finger. Now, iPad users can enjoy this simple, intuitive experience, too.
This should come as great news to tablet owners in Kansas City, Austin, and Provo.
Google Fiber TV for iPad is available for free in the App Store.
(Source: Google)
Nexus 10 is no iPad-killer, says strategy analyst
Strategy analyst Benedict Evans (via Daring Fireball) has done some admittedly rough-and-ready number-crunching on Nexus sales based on Google development data to come up with a figure of just 680,000 Nexus 10 tablets in use.
Given that Apple sold 36.9m iPads sold in the second half of 2012 alone, we’re guessing they’re not too concerned about the competition. Even the Microsoft Surface tablet is believed to have beaten the Nexus 10 numbers, with a rumored 1.5m sales.
iPhone, iPad leads in business, profitability, Android leads in smartphone marketshare
via techin5.com
Henry McCracken over at Time has done us all a favor by collecting various data sets that illustrate the state of iOS versus Android.
The data ranges from device marketshare to revenue from app downloads, which presents some stark differences between the two platforms.
We unpack the results below.
Pebble Watch SDK goes live, new watch faces and apps to come
Pebble, the E-Ink smart-watch for iPhones and Android devices which raised over 10 million dollars on Kickstarter is about to get a lot of new features. Today, Pebble announced that the watch SDK is being released today. The SDK will allow developers to create custom watch faces, alerts and new apps.
At the moment, there’s less than 10 available watch faces and only one app, but expect those numbers to grow dramatically now that developers can get their hands on a public SDK.
You can grab the SDK from Pebble’s website right here.
BlackBerry 10 launch: Over 50% returns, 71% don’t want ever, 83% unaware it even launched
Six years after Apple took the smartphone industry by surprise with its release of the iPhone, former market leader BlackBerry Limited, or RIM as it called itself until just recently, launched what some consider to be a true iPhone competitor.
The problem is that almost no one has seemed to notice, and half of those who have were unhappy.
‘LookAway Player’ brings Samsung’s Smart Pause-inspired feature to iPhone
Sensitivity and Settings menu of LookAway Player
Samsung’s new eye-tracking features on its Samsung Galaxy S IV are arguably some of its coolest yet.
One of them, Smart Pause, is built right into the video player on the device and recognizes when you are watching a video. If you look away from the screen while it is playing, the GS4 automatically pauses the video for you and starts playing it again when you look back.
Many are wondering when or if a similar feature will launch on iOS. While Apple may never implement such a feature, iOS users can try out the feature.
LookAway Player for iOS is a YouTube player that includes the same look-away-pause, look-back-play features found on the Galaxy S IV. LookAway uses a technology developed by Cube26, which utilizes the front-facing camera to track eye movement.
While it is not yet clear how well the player actually works, it is available to try out yourself on the App Store.
comScore: Apple increases lead as top smartphone vendor in US, iOS steals market share from Android
Research firm comScore is out with its usual monthly report that ranks the top smartphone OEMs and platforms for the three-month period ending in February. Apple continues to grow its lead this month as top OEM in the U.S., jumping 3.9-percent from November to 38.9-percent of the market and increasing its lead on the second biggest OEM by subscribers, Samsung:
Samsung ranked second with 21.3 percent market share (up 1 percentage point), followed by HTC with 9.3 percent share, Motorola with 8.4 percent and LG with 6.8 percent.
It’s important to point out that the shipped vs. sold argument doesn’t apply to comScore’s results, as its data comes from surveys tracking smartphone subscribers and usage and not sales or units shipped. Google grabs the spot as top smartphone platform at the end of February, but Apple continues to close the gap capturing 38.9-percent of the market (up from 35 percent) compared to Google’s 51.7-percent (down from 53.7-percent):
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Facebook CEO Zuckerberg talks travails of iOS integration, answers are ‘above his paygrade’
Facebook introduced the HTC First with Home for Android today, and now CEO Mark Zuckerberg is doing the press rounds and discussing everything from “Facebook phone,” building for Android, Google’s reaction to Home, and even why iOS was left in the dark.
During the unveiling event, Zuckerberg described building Home for Android as “smooth,” because the platform is open and does not require any Google intervention, where as Home for iOS would require a direct partnership with Apple.
In a wide-ranging interview at Wired.com this afternoon, Zuckerberg gave a more detailed explanation on why Facebook launched Home for Android phones instead of iOS, as well as why the company ditched the idea of building a phone directly:
Why not just build a phone?
I’ve always been very clear that I don’t think that’s the right strategy. We’re a community of a billion-plus people, and the best-selling phones—apart from the iPhone—can sell 10, 20 million. If we did build a phone, we’d only reach 1 or 2 percent of our users. That doesn’t do anything awesome for us. We wanted to turn as many phones as possible into “Facebook phones.” That’s what Facebook Home is.
It’s only available on Android phones. Isn’t it ironic that your mobile strategy is now tied to Google’s operating system?
“We have a pretty good partnership with Apple, but they want to own the whole experience themselves. There aren’t a lot of bridges between us and Google, but we are aligned with their open philosophy.”
So do you think in, say, two years you will have this on the iPhone?
“That’s above my pay grade to be able to answer that.”
That’s a pretty high pay grade.
“Look, I would love for that answer to be yes. Facebook is in a very different place than Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and Microsoft. We are trying to build a community. We have a billion folks using our services now, and we want to get to 3 or 5 billion one day. We’re going to do that by building the best experience across all devices. Android is growing quickly, and we’re excited that the platform is open and that it allows us to build these great experiences. I think that this is really good for Google too. Something like this could encourage a lot of people to get Android phones, because I think people really care about Facebook. In a lot of ways, this is one of the best Facebook experiences that you can get. Of course, a lot of people also love iPhones—I love mine, and I would like to be able to deliver Facebook Home there as well.”
Zuckerberg also talked with Fortune.com today about Google’s reaction to Home and what it’s like working with Apple:
On what Google will think of Facebook’s use of the open Android platform:
“I’m not sure how they’re going to react.”
On working with Apple:
“They really control the operating system… Android is different because it’s a much more open platform.”
On Google vs. Apple in mobile:
“I think that Google has this opportunity in the next year or two to start doing the things that are way better than what can be done on iPhone through the openness of their platform. We’d love to offer this on iPhone and we just can’t today. And we will work with Apple to do the best experience that we can within what they want, but I think that a lot of people who really like Facebook–and just judging from the numbers, people are spending a fifth of their time in phones on Facebook, that’s a lot of people. This could really tip things in that direction. We’ll have to see how it plays out.”
Safari’s mobile browser market share lead increases past 61 percent in March
According to the latest data from Net Applications for the month of March, Apple is steadily increasing its lead for mobile browser share over Android and many other platforms with Safari capturing 61.79-percent of mobile browser web traffic during the month. That’s a nice jump up from the 55.41-percent it had in February, while the stock Android browser lost market share by dropping from 22.82-percent in February to 21.86-percent in last month.
Opera Mini maintains its third position while dropping from 12.72-percent in February to 8.40-percent in March, with Chrome slowly closing the gap jumping from 1.96-percent in February to 2.43-percent in March.
Google releases free Quickoffice iPhone app for Google Apps for Business customers
After releasing a free version of the Quickoffice iPad app for its Google Apps for Business customers in December, Google today announced free iPhone and Android versions of the app exclusively for its Apps for Business customers.
Google Apps for Business can already edit Microsoft Office files using Quickoffice on an iPad, and starting today they can do the same on iPhone and Androiddevices. From Word to Excel to Powerpoint, you can make quick edits at the airport or from the back of a taxi and save and share everything in Google Drive… iPad and iPhone users can open and edit Office files directly from the Drive app. Just open Drive and select the file, make edits using Quickoffice and save it back to Drive.
Google noted the updated apps also bring new features including support for multiple Google Drive accounts, improved chart rendering, ZIP folders from multiple files, and the ability to sort Drive files by “Shared with me, Starred, and Recent”:
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Facebook to hold Android event next week, likely to announce an iPhone competitor
Mockup by Spencer Caldwell based on leaked descriptions
Facebook is having an event on April 4th where it will talk about the future of Android.
We’ve learned a little more.
Facebook and HTC are again tied up building a phone together in which Facebook plays a major role. This isn’t like the ChaCha or Salsa phones which were mostly flops. This is a “Face-forked” version of Android with many Facebook modifications. More details including information on the ad campaigns over at 9to5Google.
Invite below
Apple closes gap on Samsung for connected device sales in Q4 as market hits 1B devices
Research firm IDC is out today with its latest report on the smart-connected device market, and it includes worldwide shipments of desktop PCs, notebook PCs, smartphones, and tablets. IDC predicted the market in total grew 29.1-percent year over year in 2012, crossing 1 billion units shipped and hitting a total value of $576.9 billion. According to the report, Apple significantly closed the gap on Samsung during the last quarter of the year. It jumped from 15.1-percent in Q3 to 20.3-percent of unit shipments in Q4 2012. That brings the company up right behind market leader Samsung, which dropped slightly from 21.8-percent to 21.2-percent in the fourth quarter:
Looking specifically at the results for the fourth quarter of 2012 (4Q12), combined shipments of desktop PCs, notebook PCs, tablets, and smartphones was nearly 378 million and revenues were more than $168 billion. In terms of market share, Apple significantly closed the gap with market leader Samsung in the quarter, as the combination of Apple’s iPhone 5 and iPad Mini brought Apple up to 20.3% unit shipment share versus 21.2% for Samsung.
Not surprisingly, Apple dominated Samsung when it came to revenue share. It took in 30.7-percent of the market compared to just 20.4-percent for Samsung by revenue:
On a revenue basis for the fourth quarter, Apple continued to dominate with 30.7% share versus 20.4% share for Samsung.
Apple’s increase is likely thanks to strong iPad and iPad mini sales, as growth in the market was “largely driven by 78.4-percent year-over-year growth in tablet shipments.” IDC expected tablet shipments to outgrow desktop PCs by the end of this year, while the tablet market could surpass the portable PC market in 2014 and provide Apple with even more opportunity to outgrow Samsung for total connected smart device shipments this year and next:
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Andy Rubin leaves Android for new role at Google
Google posted an Update from the CEO on its Official Google Blog today where Larry Page announced that Android chief Andy Rubin will officially be leaving the Android team to take up a new role at the company. Taking his place to lead the Android team at Google is Sundar Pichai, who will also continue his work with Apps and Chrome.
https://twitter.com/arubin/status/211939156451012609
IDC estimates Android will pass Apple for worldwide tablet market share in 2013 on the back of smaller/cheaper tablets
Research firm IDC is out with an updated 2013 forecast for worldwide tablet shipments today and, on top of increasing its prediction from 172.4 million units to 190.9 million for the year, claimed Android tablets would continue to grow and cut into Apple’s market share. IDC said Android will capture 48.8-percent of the tablet market by operating system by the end of the year, while Apple is estimated to take home 46 percent. That’s down from 51 percent of the market for Apple in 2012 and just 41.5-percent for Android in IDC’s previous forecast. IDC estimated tablets in the 8 inches and below category will continue to grow and expects Windows tablets to increase from 1 percent to 7.4-percent by 2017 at the expense of iOS and Android:
Google updates Gmail web app with new UI inspired by iOS apps, improved search & Calendar integration
Google announced today that it updated the mobile web app for Gmail and the Gmail Offline Chrome app with a refreshed UI and new features similar to recent enhancements to its iOS apps. On top of the redesigned visuals, Google also included improvements to search and Google Calendar integration:
Today we’re rolling out a similar refreshed look to the Gmail mobile web app as well as Gmail Offline (http://goo.gl/0f1ae) that includes many of these same changes. Try it out at gmail.com in the browser of your Android, iOS, Blackberry or Kindle Fire device.
Google noted it decided to implement a design for its web apps similar to its iOS offerings after receiving positive feedback since first launching the new iOS design in December.
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Gogo: Apple and its iPads dominate in-flight internet usage
Gogo published the above infographic yesterday on the state of devices using its in-flight network that covers the air over much of North America.
Interestingly, Google’s Chromebooks currently offer free usage of Gogo’s in-flight wireless service yet tablets out number laptops (and by tablets we’re talking iPads). While Apple still owns 84 percent of the device market, Android is gaining some ground after climbing from a 3.2-percent low in 2011 to a 16-percent share in 2013.
Blackberry and Windows Phone? Combined, they don’t make up .02-percent of the share.
(via Daring Fireball)
Apps: Google Maps, Temple Run: Oz, RunKeeper, BeatBlaster, Everpix, more
Temple Run: Oz: Developers of the Temple Run franchise have once again teamed up with Disney to release a game built on the Temple Run 2 engine but set in the world of an upcoming Disney film. This time Imangi Studios brings the Temple Run gameplay experience to the world of Oz in support of the upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful film. The game is available for 99 cents now and features new gameplay elements you haven’t seen in past Temple Run titles.
NEW FEATURES
• Stunning environments inspired by the film – explore them all.
• Fly in a hot air balloon – earn even more coins.
• Explore different locations in Oz – follow sign posts!
• The environment changes as you run – test your reflexes.
• Compete in weekly challenges – beat your friends!
Google Maps version 1.1: Google Maps for iOS gets the ability to search Google Contacts, quickly access search for local places, and select between Kilometers or Miles. Google announced the new features in a blog post and also noted that it is rolling out the English version of the app to seven new countries including: Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.
Your Google Contacts are now integrated into Google Maps for iPhone – meaning that when you’re signed-in and search for a friend’s name, their address will appear as a suggestion (if you have their address saved). Simply tap their name to see the address, which will visible only to you, on the map. To learn an easy way to keep your Google Contacts synced with your iPhone, click here.
* Search your Google Contacts; sign in to have your saved addresses show up when you search for friends and family by name.
* Quickly search for local places by selecting popular categories such as restaurants, bars, cafes, gas stations, etc.
* Choose between Kilometers or Miles for your preferred distance units.
* Note that some features may not be available in all countries.
RunKeeper version 3.1: Many new features for the popular RunKeeper iOS app today including a Night Mode, In-Activity Settings, and weight logging and visualization tools:
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If the latest Chrome update crashes your jailbroken iPhone, the fix is to enable crash reporting
Sigh. @googlechrome added untested jailbreak-specific code on iOS; if you have "send crash reports" off, it crashes. https://t.co/HyJnDmqezg
— Jay Freeman (saurik) (@saurik) March 5, 2013
We heard reports that yesterday’s Chrome browser update is crashing on Jailbroken iPhones. It appears there was some code that detected jailbreaks in the browser and assumed that crash-reporting was enabled. The fix is unsurprisingly enabling crash reporting.
Google said a fix will be in the next update, but it doesn’t have a timeframe on that.
We have found a bug that affects jailbroken devices with crash reporting and metrics *disabled*. The fix will be in our next release (we can’t say when that will be, please don’t ask).
One workaround is to enable crash reporting. Open “Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Local State” and change the “reporting_enabled” flag to “true”. That will enable reporting without needing to reinstall the app. Mind you, we haven’t tested this ourselves. :-) If you do not wish to do this, or are not comfortable doing this, you’ll need to wait for the next release. The other workaround is to uninstall and re-install and enable crash reporting, but you might lose data if you don’t use sync.
For those who are hitting crashes with 3rd-party add-ons, this workaround is not sufficient and you will need to contact the 3rd-party developer directly and have them update their add-on to work with Chrome M25.
@googlechrome Your jailbreak detection code has a scheduling issue. Bet it's fun explaining to Apple why you need a fast update.
— phoenixdev (@phoenixdev) March 5, 2013
To fix via SSH:
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Twitter puts TweetDeck’s mobile apps out to pasture
Twitter updated TweetDeck for Mac just last month with over 90 new fixes and features.
However, for those of you who use TweetDeck on iPhone, there is some bad news afoot:
To continue to offer a great product that addresses your unique needs, we’re going to focus our development efforts on our modern, web-based versions of TweetDeck. To that end, we are discontinuing support for our older apps: TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android and TweetDeck for iPhone. They will be removed from their respective app stores in early May and will stop functioning shortly thereafter. We’ll also discontinue support for our Facebook integration.
“Oh, and screw Facebook too.”
[tweet https://twitter.com/brucecaraway/status/308735851150573568]
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US Defense Department confirms plans to roll out 100K iOS and Android devices by next year
We heard reports in October that the U.S. Department of Defense was preparing to approve a large number of iOS and Android devices for use on government networks. Those reports were followed earlier this month with news that CACI International Inc. was modifying thousands of iPads for use in U.S. government agencies. The Pentagon confirmed in a statement today that it plans to open its networks to 100,000 new devices from Apple and Google by February of next year:
The Pentagon said it wants employees to have the flexibility to use commercial products on classified and unclassified networks. It plans to create a military mobile applications store and hire a contractor to build a system that may eventually handle as many as 8 million devices.
The move comes as iPad and other iOS devices continue to be adopted by government agencies over BlackBerry. Documents from October revealed the U.S. Department of Defense planned to deploy up to 8 millions devices partially made up of iOS devices, while a number of other U.S. agencies also switched from BlackBerry to iPhones over the last year. As for the App Store and system for managing the up to 8 million devices, the DOD will select one or more companies by summer to develop the necessary software:
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Official ‘second screen’ PlayStation PS4 app for iOS and Android announced
At Sony’s PS4 keynote, game developer Evolution Studios promised its driving game Drive Club would have a “second screen” option for Android tablets. This would allow gamers to socialize with other players from a tablet, but it was previously unclear if this feature would be compatible with games and devices other than Android tablets.
Just a mere four hours after today’s keynote, Sony has announced a new version of its “PlayStation App”. It is compatible, in addition to Android, with iOS devices. The app will turn tablets and phones into a “second screen” controller. Users will also be able to download games to their PS4 while on the go, so they’ll be ready to play once they arrive home.
It is currently unknown if the app will be similar to Microsoft’s Xbox app that allows users to view the stats of other gamers. Sony has yet to announce a release date, but the console is scheduled to arrive during the 2013 holiday season.