The Galaxy S4 may have fallen short of consumer expectations because its design was too similar to its S3 predecessor, Lee Young Hee said. The next handset likely will be different, she said without providing specifications, including screen size.
“When we moved to S4 from S3, it’s partly true that consumers couldn’t really feel much difference between the two products from the physical perspective, so the market reaction wasn’t as big,” she said. “For the S5, we will go back to the basics. Mostly, it’s about the display and the feel of the cover.”
If it looks the same, how will people know I upgraded?
This change relates specifically to FREE Super Saver Delivery - all other delivery services, including Amazon Prime, remain unchanged.
Our Super Saver Delivery service has changed. From 7 January 2014, all UK orders fulfilled by Amazon with a total value of at least £10 will qualify for FREE Super Saver Delivery. Previously, the £10 threshold applied to all our product categories except Books, Music, Film & TV, Blu-ray, Software or PC & Video Games.
The minimum spend requirement was first introduced back in July. Now, the threshold applies to all orders, including books.
When the £10 limit was originally instated for certain products, I assumed it was because the items in these categories were just too expensive to ship for free as individual items. Now that it applies to all goods, including books, it is obvious that this change is trying to force people onto Prime, which sucks.
Apple’s 2014 Lucky Bags went on sale in Japan today. The sale is an annual tradition in which Apple sells bags full of assorted Apple products and accessories, with buyers not knowing what they’re actually getting until they look inside. This year’s bags cost ¥36,000, which comes out to around $340.
Although every bag is guaranteed to have at least 36,000 yen worth of product, it’s gotta sting if you get lumped with an iPod nano whilst your friend lucks out with a MacBook Air.
In the past year, I converted my programming skills into a proper part-time job, started blogging at 9to5Mac and grew the readership of this blog by almost three times. My follower count has also more than trebled. As vain as it sounds, watching this number grow accounts for a disproportionately-large component of my self-satisfaction.
Thanks to everyone who helped me achieve these milestones: my clients, my readers, my employers and my friends.
Apple is rumored to release a 12.9-inch tablet in October 2014, targeting North America’s educational market, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Apple’s large-size tablet will be manufactured by Quanta Computer, and was originally expected to adopt either 12.9- or 13.3-inch panels, with recent rumors indicating that 12.9-inch has a better chance to be picked, the sources noted.
In addition to tablets, Apple is also rumored to be planning a larger size iPhone for May 2014, using a 20nm processor manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the sources noted.
As for whether the large-size tablet will also adopt the same processor, performance is expected to be a major factor as the tablet is being considered as a substitute of the 11-inch MacBook Air, the sources speculated.
I wouldn’t put much faith in a Digitimes report, but I do think that Apple will want to have major new products announced (if not released) in the first half of next year. I don’t think they want to cram all their announcements into the last three months of the year again.
Whether the iPhone specifically is coming out in June or not … who knows?
Back when PHP had less than 100 functions and the function hashing mechanism was strlen(). In order to get a nice hash distribution of function names across the various function name lengths names were picked specifically to make them fit into a specific length bucket. This was circa late 1994 when PHP was a tool just for my own personal use and I wasn’t too worried about not being able to remember the few function names.
As is tradition, Apple is airing a new holiday commercial this evening, this time highlighting the iPhone 5s, its movie making capabilities, and AirPlay with the Apple TV. The ad is set to the tune of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. As you may recall, last year Apple highlighted the iPad and FaceTime, with an ad set to “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”. In 2011, Apple featured Siri and the then-new iPhone 4S.
This year’s ad takes an entirely different approach, focusing on the iPhone and real world usage scenarios for it.
I think the pace is too slow for a ‘jolly’ Christmas commercial. Not enough happens. It’s not ‘bad’, but I don’t think it’s very memorable or provoking. I much preferred last year’s holiday ad.
Unfortunately, short of removing app ratings entirely, Apple can’t do much to stop them, and they’ll continue to “work” on enough people for many developers to continue using them.
I disagree; I think Apple wields enough control that this stuff can be regulated. Is stuff going to slip through the net? Of course, but some policing is better than none.
In a refreshing departure from its iconic flick-and-throw style animated gameplay, Rovio is out with a brand new Mario Kart-like game depicting the ongoing battle between the winged warriors and pesky pigs with Angry Birds GO!
Angry Birds GO! delivers ‘breakneck speed’ downhill racing on Piggy Island in the first three-dimensional version of the series for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
The game works off a freemium model. Some of the cars cost $50 to buy.
Nokia has been building its own Android phone according to multiple sources familiar with the company’s plans. Codenamed Normandy, and known internally at Nokia under a number of other names, the handset is designed as the next step in low-end phones from the Finnish smartphone maker. We understand that Nokia has been testing “Normandy” with a special “forked” variant of Android that’s not aligned with Google’s own version, akin to what Amazon does with its Kindle Fire line.
If this project isn’t scrapped, the day this ships to consumers will be the day that perfectly epitomises all that is wrong with Microsoft.
Apple suggested that he speak with its employees who actually have something to do with antitrust, such as its general counsel or chief compliance officer, whereupon Mr. Bromwich had a tantrum. He made blanket requests for proprietary documents well beyond his mandate and bypassed Apple’s in-house counsel by sending letters directly to board members and executives ordering them to meet with him without their lawyers present, accusing the company of “a surprising and disappointing lack of cooperation.”
Then, shortly before Thanksgiving and out of the blue, Judge Cote proposed to amend her injunction to grant Mr. Bromwich even greater powers than he already claimed and also to make monthly briefings to her on what he finds—without Apple present. She denied any previous ex parte contact, but Apple’s lawyers say Mr. Bromwich told them that he doesn’t need to wait for the January deadline because Judge Cote privately instructed him during the interview process for the position to get off to a “fast start.”
The company demonstrated the technology to The Associated Press this week at its busy, 24-hour Fifth Avenue store in New York City. At this particular store, Apple has installed about 20 iBeacon transmitters, some of which are simply iPhones and iPads, which come with the capability as part of the iOS 7 mobile software released in September. The transmitters use Bluetooth wireless technology to sense your exact location. That’s not possible with GPS, which don’t work well indoors and aren’t good at distinguishing between locations that are just a few feet apart.
Apple likes giving small exclusives to different news publications at the moment. The Associated Press seems to be the only institution that got a demo of the iBeacon technology. TechCrunch and Mashable were the only sites to get access ahead of time to the iPad Apple Store app.
In the past, Apple gives out one embargo to many sites, like with iPad and iPhone product reviews. More minor features wouldn’t be given to anyone — they’d just announce via a press release. “Doing things differently now” rings true here.
As we’ve previously reported, Apple began giving away select paid apps in its Apple Store app recently as an added incentive to download and check out the app.
This week in particular Apple has replaced the free app with free music from iTunes instead. The playlist is appropriately holiday themed and features songs such as Silent Night by Kelly Clarkson and The First Noel by Mary J Blige.
I don’t think the song choice is particularly compelling, but this is not the only opportunity for Apple to give stuff away — it will likely do the ==‘==12 Days of Christmas’ giveaways soon.
Still, whatever Apple chooses to give away is better than the ‘gift’ Apple retail store employees received. Their Christmas gift was the opportunity to buy a $50 iTunes gift card for $40. Big whoop.
The toolkit will help developers create Android and iOS hybrid native apps with Chrome app polyfills, through Apache Cordova. The steps include modifying for mobile design, fixing bugs, working around limitations, and of course, testing.
After all the work is done, Google says the apps will be good enough to publish to both Google Play and Apple’s App Store. The requirements suggest Android 4.x will be supported initially, although Cordova could work with Android 2.2 and 2.3 as well. iOS support is still marked as “TBA” but development has already started.
App approval is going to have a field day with this one.
We’re excited to share Prime Air — something the team has been working on in our next generation R&D lab.
The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles.
Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance the technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations.
If this was April 1st, I’d happily accept this as an amusing prank. But it’s actually real.
We mentioned a couple of days ago that AAPL stock was approaching a high for the year, and it has now broken the $549.02 at which it began the year.
The company has experienced a roller-coaster ride in its stock price, almost entirely divorced from any product-based reality. The value placed on the company by the market at any given time has more to do with the gap between rumors and product launches, and of course short-term speculation.
It’s been a bad year for Apple stock. Growth of their stock price in this calendar year is zero, even with Apple’s share repurchase scheme and more-favourable dividend policy in play.