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Smartphone duopoly, anyone? Source: Nielsen

There is no shortage of surveys proving that Apple’s smartphone market share has benefited from strong iPhone 4S reception thus far. A new report published this morning by reputable research firm Nielsen is another indication of Apple halting Android’s seemingly unstoppable rise as a growing number of United States consumers pick iPhones over other smartphones. Based on a poll of recent acquirers —among those who said they got a new device within the past three months— Nielsen found out that 44.5-percent chose an iPhone while 46.9-percent picked an Android phone. Contrast these figures to just 25.1-percent for Apple in October and 61.1-percent for Android.

Furthermore, 57 percent of new iPhone owners surveyed in December said they got an iPhone 4S. […] The high-profile launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S in the Fall had an enormous impact on the proportion of smartphone owners who chose an Apple iPhone.

Therefore, while fewer people bought an Android device in December compared to a month earlier, Apple substantially increased its share among recent smartphone acquirers. These findings are understandable given that iPhone 4S was announced on Oct. 4, 2011 and it became available 10 days later, selling 4 million units during the launch weekend. Pent-up demand and wider price gamut certainly did help boost domestic iPhone sales as did the fact that Sprint and local carriers Claro Puerto Rico and C Spire Wireless finally landed the device.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9h2dF-IsH0I]

Everyone has their SOPA/PIPA things today (and that is good!).  Here is ours.

My former professor, Clay Shirky, explains what SOPA and PIPA are, what will happen if these are passed and why it is bad.  He’s good at this stuff.

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Orkut, a Google-owned social network, has had little luck challenging MySpace, hi5, Tagged or Facebook —the undisputed social networking leader (some people even liken Orkut to a poor man’s Facebook). Nevertheless, Orkut is still popular in India and Brazil, where more than 80 percent of its 66 million active users come from, as of October 2011. Today, the search company released a native Orkut client for iPhone. It is available free of charge on the App Store and comes with the usual assortment of features, ranging from updating your status and checking your scraps and messages to browsing your friends’ profiles and uploading photographs. It is interesting that Google chose to release the app just as Facebook has finally managed to beat Orkut in Brazil, per latest comScore metrics.

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UPDATE [Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 7:35am ET]: Steve Wozniak commented on the original article on Facebook, saying he’s been misinterpreted (again). His full comment can be found at the bottom of this article.

Journalist Dan Lyons (aka Fake Steve Jobs) filed a report with The Daily Beast on Saturday that highlights Steve Wozniak’s thoughts on the iPhone 4S’s widely reported battery woes (that did not go away with iOS 5.1 Beta 3):

With the iPhone, something happened with the new OS or the new phone, and it just started running through the battery so fast. I’ve had a lot of issues with things I have to turn off just to save the battery life.

Wozniak, 61, who cofounded Apple with Jobs in 1976, also has gripes with Siri. The engineer thinks Siri is cool, but at times impractical compared to Android’s voice action. This is mostly due to Siri’s architectural reliance on network connectivity that is required to complete functions.

I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me. I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done. […] On the 4S I can only do that when Siri can connect over the Internet. But many times it can’t connect. I’ve never had Android come back and say, ‘I can’t connect over the Internet. […] Plus I get navigation. Android is way ahead on that.

Apple is thought to be creating its own navigation and mapping solution stemming from the company’s three mapping-related acquisitions: C3 Technologies, Poly9 in 2010, and Placebase. Wozniak is also good friends with Andy Rubin who heads the Android project and one said, “There’s more available [on Android] in some ways.”

Although Apple did not detail Siri, its voice recognition and artificial intelligence systems run on Apple’s servers rather than the phone itself. Siri may also infringe old Excite patents, said to be changing hands soon as a valuable asset in order to compete with Siri. In case you are wondering, the iPhone remains Wozniak’s primary phone. He loves “the beauty of it,” and he is first to recommend it to friends. However, Wozniak sometimes wants the iPhone to do “all the things my Android does.”

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In what is perhaps surprising to some, Apple’s iPhone 4S is turning the tables in the heated smartphone competition between Apple and Google, latest data from NPD reveals. Focusing on U.S. smartphone data for October and November, the research firm found out that iOS increased its operating system share of U.S. smartphone sales substantially while the Android platform lost significant ground to Apple (via Fortune). Yes, data only includes sales of smartphones, not tablets.

The Cupertino, California-headquartered iPhone maker is now within spitting distance of Google with only four percentage points of difference. iOS was close to doubling its share of the U.S. smartphone market, climbing from 26 percent in the third quarter of 2011 all the way up to 43 percent in October and November. During the same timeframe, Android fell from 60 percent to 47 percent.

Collectively, the two rival platforms grabbed an astounding 90 percent of U.S. smartphone sales. Moreover, the top three best-selling smartphones on NPD’s holiday list belonged to Apple, the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. What a difference a few weeks of sales make. Another interesting chart and more findings can be found right after the break.

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Clay Caviness, systems administrator on Google’s internal Macintosh Operations team, just announced on Google+ that the team will begin releasing a selection of scripts, tools, and utilities used internally. The goal is to help other Mac administrators, and the team is releasing the first set of items today for “managing and tracking a fleet of Macintoshes in a corporate environment.”

The first tool is an application usage module for crankd – a Mac administration tool used to execute scripts and Python code related to network and system activity. Administrators can find the Application Usage tool here. Also announced today was a simple facter script that will allow administrators to “create facts from the database.”

Caviness promised to release more Mac specific tools, scripts, and utilities over time. (Simian?)

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Analytics firm Millennial Media, the second-largest mobile advertising platform behind Google, on Tuesday, released its monthly Mobile Mix report for November. Similar to their October survey that saw Android’s growth slowing (and iOS gaining). Compared to the summer period for November, both Apple’s and Research in Motion’s respective platform grew at the expense of Google. Specifically, Android went from 56 percent ad requests in October to 50 percent in November.

Meanwhile, iOS went from 28 percent ad requests in October to 30 percent in November. The BlackBerry platform recorded the biggest gain of all mobile platforms, increasing its share of ad requests from 13 percent in October to 17 percent in November. Because both iOS and BlackBerry grew their combined ad impressions by six percentage points, the same amount Android lost in the period, it is safe to assume that Apple and Research In Motion gained traction at the expense of Google’s mobile platform.

The findings are in stark contrast to the seemingly unstoppable Android growth that appears to have slowed down during the crucial holiday sales period. Android in November doubled iOS in ad impressions, but last month – its respective share changed to 50 percent for Android versus 30 percent for iOS. The Kindle Fire vs. iPad adoption figures and more info graphic charts are available below.

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International web standards organization W3C last year created the Web Events Working Group to create a standard for the way touchscreen enabled devices interact with web content. The standard is known as the W3C Touch Events Specification. Now, according to Opera browser developer Haavard, Apple is delaying the process by using “invalid or irrelevant patents” to buy time, something the company has apparently done in the past.

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Pictured above: The Paradox iPod nano watch kit

The New York Time’s Nick Bilton, who reported in October Apple’s alleged television plans describing “large parts floating around” Apple’s supply chain that looked like they “could be part of a large Apple television,” is back with a new story. He recently implied Apple’s researched prototyped small and wearable devices.

According to the article published last night, both Apple and Google have worked for years on wearable computers that interface with smartphones (having the ultimate goal of selling more smartphones):

A person with knowledge of the company’s plans told me that a “very small group of Apple employees” had been conceptualizing and even prototyping some wearable devices. […] Apple has also experimented with prototype products that could relay information back to the iPhone. These conceptual products could also display information on other Apple devices, like an iPod, which Apple is already encouraging us to wear on our wrists by selling Nanos with watch faces.

Interestingly, a year ago, Apple hired wearable computer wizard Richard DeVaul. He is believed to be developing secret wearable product prototypes under the guidance of Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design. Specifically, aNew York Times story described a curved glass iPod:

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As originally reported on our sister blog, the search Goliath has published its annual list of top search queries, a tradition that started eleven years ago. It comes as little surprise that ‘iPad 3’ and ‘iPhone 5’ were among the fastest-growing search terms of the past year. More specifically, ‘iPhone 5’ was the sixth fastest-growing search term on Google.com in 2011, while ‘iPad 3’ ranked tenth.

Feverish iPhone 5 speculation hit its highest point in search the week of September 25, just a week ahead of the October 4 iPhone 4S presser. Searches for ‘iPhone 5’ rose 1,658 percent between 2010 and 2011, easily outnumbering those for the iPhone 4S, as seen in the above chart from the Zeitgeist site. Searches for ‘Steve Jobs’ grew 982 percent in 2011, enough to score the ninth spot.

Called Zeitgeist, the project “sorts billions of Google searches to capture the year’s ten fastest-rising global queries and the rest of the spirit of 2011″, per the official Google blog post. In a testament to the popularity of the Kindle Fire, positioned as an inexpensive iPad alternative, Amazon’s tablet placed ahead of Apple’s new phone, the iPhone 4S, which ranked second in the fastest-rising consumer electronics category, followed by the HTC Sensation, the Samsung Nexus Prime, Sony NPG and the yet-to-be-released iPad 3 (#9).

Two unreleased products piquing such a commanding interest – the cell phone that never materialized and the forthcoming tablet – wow, talk about the power of the Apple hype machine. More below the fold.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAIEamakLoY]

Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs made the list (mark 1:50) was the ninth fastest-growing search term on Google.com in 2011.

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Apple climbed into the list of top 10 places to work in 2012, alongside fellow technology giants Google and Facebook, according to a new Glassdoor survey.

The fourth annual Employees’ Choice award highlights 50 of the best workplaces. The findings are measured through company employees’ survey responses on Glassdoor.com.

“The reviews are in,” said the career community website in its Dec. 14 press release. “Employees have spoken, revealing the best companies to work for in 2012; and, they love working at some of the biggest tech, science and management consulting companies in the nation…
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Google’s Vic Gundotra just announced on his Google+ page a host of new Hangouts features meant to “go beyond the status update”. In short, you can now hangout on any post (an invitation will be added to the comments), call any phone number in the world and conference in anyone (free calling to US and Canada, international calling rates are “super, super low”), plus initiate a hangout session from the official Google+ iOS app by tapping the new hangout icon.

The executive also shared an interesting milestone for Hangouts on Air, saying “hundreds of people” whitelisted as part of their trial now have the ability to broadcast their hangouts to the world. “Our goal is to enable this for everyone on the planet”, Gundotra noted. You will also be able to automatically record a Hangouts on Air session and upload it to a private YouTube account for later viewing. These features require a new Google+ app, “coming soon” to the App Store. The official Google blog has more information.

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The Wall Street Journal reported this evening that Apple isn’t seeing the success they’d like with their iAd platform. The company has deployed iAd as an advertising platform throughout their iOS devices in the summer of 2010 and is now making changes in the hope of attracting both more developers and ad spending. First off, Apple is reportedly lowering the entry-level cost for marketers to $400,000 – down from $500,000 and even lower from the original $1 million when the platform was launched. Apple is also reportedly putting new caps on what it charges for clicks on ads, letting advertisers pay $10 each time an advert is viewed every 1,000 times (CPM) and $2 every time it’s specifically tapped on.

So why is Apple making these changes? Apple had tied for the lead in ad market share last year, but has reportedly fallen back to the third place in 2011 advertising market share, behind Millennial Media (#2) Google (#1), per IDC. Hoping to re-gain lost share, Apple is also launching a training program to bring in more advertisers onto the network, partnering with its media buying agency OMD, part of Omnicom Group Inc. to educate new advertisers on iAd, a standard practice providers of digital advertising platforms such as Google and Yahoo! have been exercising from the onset. In the recent weeks, executives from Pepsi, Clorox and JC Penny have reportedly visited Apple’s campus to talk about iAd. OMD also hopes to lure more advertisers in February 2012.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5LOcUkm8m9w]

As we reported over on the sister blog, Google just launched Currents, their Flipboard/Pulse style reader for iPhone and iPad (and I guess Android too).  Head over for the details.  (Yes, 9to5Mac is a launch partner so look for us on the App!)

Google Currents is now available for download in Android Market and the Apple App Store for US users.

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With Apple deciding not to include support for T-Mobile’s bands in the US, T-Mobile has turned into an Android wasteland with over 90% of the smartphones sold on the network running on Google’s OS. Looking for some diversification (besides the over million legacy iPhones), T-Mobile looks to be one of the first in the US to roll out one of the new Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices which they plan to announce on Dec 14th, a little late for the holidays.

Today’s updated Apple Headquarters Spaceship campus plans include a roof made almost entirely out of solar cells, according to details released today. With a building as large as Apple’s, that puts it in the top corporate solar installations in the world and the biggest in the US.  The current title holder is the 4.26 MW system in Edison New Jersey and another being built by ToysRus in sunny NJ is rated 5.38MW

From today’s plans

From today’s plans, we can estimate the roof surface area to be over 750,000 square feet.  Assuming (conservatively) 2/3rds of that, or 500,000 square feet of that is utilized for solar, that gives Apple close to a 5MW installation on the amin building alone. On average or as a general “rule of thumb” modern photovoltaics (PV) solar panels will produce up to 10 watts per square foot of solar panel area.  Since Cupertino is generally favorable in terms of weather and Apple will obviously use the latest Solar technology developed in the coming years, that could give Apple over 5,000,000 Watts of power to play with.  Additionally, Apple has a few other buildings on campus that could be outfitted with solar roofs. The plans list a photovoltaic roof canopy of 320,000 sq.ft. just on the parking building.
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The CTIA has introduced a new five-point mobile app rating system and voluntary program operated by the ESRB who have been slapping similar “everyone” and “adults only” ratings on video games since the early 90s. Not so surprisingly, the biggest and second biggest players in the mobile app space, Apple and Google, aren’t supporting the program. Bloomberg reports:

The app program is aimed at helping parents monitor children’s increasing use of wireless technology, an issue drawing lawmakers’ attention this year… Apple, maker of the iPhone and iPad, and Google, whose Android software is the most widely used mobile operating software in the U.S., aren’t taking part in the program and have their own ratings systems.

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Well, he’s made at least one good decision in the past few years.
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PatentlyApple point us to a few recently obtained Apple patents published by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Perhaps the most interesting of all is a patent covering 3D object recognition technology that could potentially be implemented in future iPads. While unsophisticated facial recognition tech is already present in consumer mobile devices, Apple’s patent details a method of automated biometric identification to identify or verify an object or face based on a 3D representation compiled by analyzing the curves, points, contours, etc., of a 2D projection. In other words, a three-dimensional “statistical shape model” could be pulled from a 2D image, allowing more accurate detection and verification of 3D objects, such as a face or objects from “airport security X-ray images”, for example. The report explains:

The recovered 3D shape is the most probable shape consistent with the 2D projections, i.e. the images. The statistical model needs a bank of data, denoted training data, where the 3D positions of the image features are known, in order to learn the parameters of the model. Such data sampling could be done using e.g. binocular or multi-view stereo or range scanners. Once the model parameters are learned, the 3D shape can be computed using one or several images. The 3D shape is then used, by means of the presented invention together with the 2D image data, to identify or verify the object as a particular instance of the object class, e.g. the face belonging to a certain individual. A positive (or negative) identification initiate proper action by means of the presented innovation.

It’s unclear when exactly Apple obtained the patent, which lists Professor Kahl Fredrik as the main inventor and dates back to 2005. However, PatentlyApple points out Jan Eric Solem, who owned Polar Rose before they were acquired by Apple in 2010, is also listed as an inventor. Polar Rose technology is currently being used in facial recognition and detection features in the iOS 5 Camera app. The report speculates the next-gen PowerVR GPU from Imagination Technologies will play a role in providing Apple with the juice necessary for advanced 3D rendering, despite the company not yet being confirmed as a licensee:

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Former Googlers Robby Stein and Kevin Palms have launched a new iOS app called Stamped. Stamped is backed by Google Ventures, among other investors, and allows users to check-in to locations in a very simple way. Instead of whether you didn’t like the location, thought it was just ‘meh’, or totally loved it, Stamped uses a five star only recommendation system. If you like something you simply ‘stamp’ it. But get this — you only get a limited number of stamps to use, and earn more as your friends like your recommendations.

Stamped joins other check-in and ranking apps like the new Oink, Foursquare, and more. The ability to rank only what you only enjoy seems like a very smart idea, and throwing in the limited number of rankings makes it even better. Like any social network it’s about where your friends are, but being backed by Google this app has the chances of taking off.

Stamped is currently available on the App Store for free. An Android version is also currently in development, and should hit the Android Market fairly soon. Check out a few more screenshots after the break.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=djw6AJqHFOU]

Google has just released an update to their Google Search iOS app bringing with it a brand new design for iPad and full-screen mode for search results and pages on iPhone.

The new iPad interface is noticeably inspired by the design recently rolled out across the majority of Google’s web services. The main search page now has four grey icons as shortcuts to History, Applications, Voice Search, and Goggles, while a new side-by-side view allows you to browse webpages and search results simultaneously. Also included in the update in a full-screen browsing mode for images and a new visual UI for history allowing you to  thumb through results as pages. Instant Previews and Google Instant are now also baked into the iPad version.

As for the iPhone, the update only lists the usual minor bug fixes along with the full-screen mode mentioned above. As always, you can grab the updated Google Search app as a universal download now (iTunes link).  More screenshots below:

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