The Apple Store app for iPhone has been updated with a handy little feature that will notify you when you’re eligible for upgrade pricing on a new iPhone. You can even buy your new iPhone directly with the app after receiving the notification since all you need is your Apple ID credentials to do so.
Neat integration.
“Put another way, the value lost over this seven-month period exceeds Friday’s closing market capitalization of the third-largest S&P index member, Google Inc., by more than $25 billion!”
And yet, Apple’s market cap is still 50% larger than Google’s. Tough life.
Is Apple secretly searching for a new chief executive to replace Tim Cook? Some Wall Street sources close to some Apple executives say such a move is afoot, although there’s yet no available evidence that the board of the once-mighty top tech-innovator is officially in such a game-changing mode.
Plain and simple, a six-month share price slump is not enough to justify a CEO change, especially when the company runs no debts, posts strong profits every quarter and has no signs of impending financial difficulty.
Marcial is one of Forbes’ “contributors”. From what I have seen, I feel like a more apt title would be “comedians”.
67 percent of all Nintendo 3DS owners have connected their 3DS to the Internet so far.
This may be a record for Nintendo, but — in absolute terms — 67% still sounds really low.
The worst part of this is that FoD could have created something really great. They have the resources and the manpower to produce a truly funny Steve Jobs parody. Others have done it before. Instead, they created this travesty. I feel like the only joke to be found in iSteve is the fact that Funny or Die tricked us into wasting an hour and twenty minutes watching it.
Do not watch this movie.
I watched this today and agree wholeheartedly with Beasley. This film is definitely in the ‘Die’ category.
Today’s Pocket update introduces a completely redesigned Share Menu—and we’re excited to introduce Send to Friend, a simple way to share with anyone without leaving Pocket.
Rather than just showing you a list of social networks, Pocket also shows you people. It makes the experience much more human, rather than the typical dry list of services. This feels like a next-generation interface.
The UI is well done too; the distinction between services and people is made very clear by the iconography. Services are represented by white icons in rounded rect’s, whereas people are depicted by circular-masked profile pictures. The effect is subtle, but has a profound effect in use.
In its own version of an upfront marketplace, Facebook is currently selling four daily summer “slots,” each targeting a relatively large demographic: women over 30; women under 30; men under 30; and men over 30. The ads will be capped at 15 seconds and frequency capped to ensure that no user sees more than three per day, with an asking price of upwards of $1 million, according to one executive.
To be effective, video ads require attention. Meanwhile, the News Feed is presented as a stream of scrollable content, which users tend to skim through. It doesn’t seem like a harmonious partnership.
Samsung has unveiled the biggest smartphone to date - the Galaxy Mega, which features a 6.3in (16cm) screen.
“Innovation”.
“They’re probably doing it because the most common compound words with ‘head’ in them are ‘dickhead,’ ‘shithead,’ and ‘meathead,’” says WIRED’s copy chief, Jennifer Prior, who has spent more than a dozen years assessing the grammatical validity of made-up tech terms. There’s also pothead, cokehead, crackhead, and butthead. “They clearly don’t want Chathead to have a similarly pejorative connotation,” says Prior.
It makes sense: When you launch a new product, you don’t want it associated with dickheads and shitheads.
This is a case of overthinking a situation. If people want to make ‘shithead’ jokes, having a space between the words isn’t going to stop them. This level of crude humour has no regard for grammatical correctness.
If Facebook was worried this was an issue, the solution would be to find a different name entirely, not debate over compound words. This article puts too much weight on the importance of good brand names. In the vast majority of cases, products survive or die based on their feature set, not on their names.
Case in point: the iPad.
“Today has been gangbusters for T-Mobile,” Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert said in a statement to AllThingsD. “We experienced lines out the door this morning at nearly all of our almost 3,000 stores nationwide.”
Not all the lines persisted, though, with some critics of the company noting that later in the day stores were marked by a lot of no-longer-needed stanchions.
Whereas most product launches don’t even get a line, Apple gets criticised for having thinning lines (which started off “gangbusters”) as the day ends, for a launch of an iPhone that is not brand-new nor exclusive and is considered to be nearing end-of-life.
Apparently, this is called “being objective”.
Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you’re gone is really important for the people you leave behind. So today, we’re launching a new feature that makes it easy to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account.
For example, you can choose to have your data deleted — after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can select trusted contacts to receive data from some or all of the following services: +1s; Blogger; Contacts and Circles; Drive; Gmail; Google+ Profiles, Pages and Streams; Picasa Web Albums; Google Voice and YouTube.
Great idea.
Microsoft is also working on some improvements to Xbox Live, including a switch to currency over the Microsoft Points system.
So much better.
Also on the roadmap for fall 2014 is what’s listed as iOS/Android support for Office. One would assume this is the expected and widely rumored Office for iPad release. It could, however, be Office for iPhone and Android phone, given that it’s not listed on the roadmap as being tablet-specific.
Every day, new users are joining iOS and Android. These people are developing habits and workflows that don’t include Office at all. Waiting until late 2014 to address these potential customers feels like an error that is irrecoverable, at least regarding Office in the consumer space.
But let’s talk about the real news: the next-gen Thunderbolt tech (code-named Falcon Ridge) enables 4K video file transfer and display simultaneously in addition to running at 20 Gbps. It will be backward-compatible with previous-gen Thunderbolt cables and connectors, and production is set to ramp up in 2014. An on-stage demo with fresh-off-the-press silicon showed the new Thunderbolt running 1,200 MBps, which is certainly a step up from what’s currently on the market.
Next year, 4K will be ready for consumers technologically. The content situation, though, remains murky.
Sony Electronics is announcing prices and availability for its new 4K Ultra High Definition TV sets unveiled at CES in January. The new XBR-55X900A (55-inch) and XBR-65X900A (65-inch) 4K Ultra HD LED TVs will cost $4,999 and $6,999 respectively and are available for order online and at retail beginning April 21, 2013.
That’s a lot cheaper than I expected, considering the panels are still really new.
The Ouya began shipping to early backers of its Kickstarter campaign late last month, and this week some unflattering reviews of the hardware appeared on tech sites like The Verge and Engadget. Those sites suggested that the system wasn’t ready for release, and in a statement to GamesIndustry International earlier today, Ouya suggested it wasn’t ready for review, either.
The representative called this a “preview period” for early supporters to get a first look at the hardware, and said the company hadn’t shipped any units to the press yet with the intention of them being reviewed.
The Verge gave the Ouya 3.5 out of 10. In two months of further development time, even if it improves so much that its final score was doubled, the product would still be considered mediocre.
Also, I can’t shake the feeling that the “better soon” statement is a hollow statement. I don’t think the problems with the Ouya can be solved with a bit of additional engineering. The software problems are an annoyance, but could be overlooked if the content selection was good.
It isn’t. I doubt it ever will be. The major game developers are focused on the next Xbox and the PS4. Gamers complain that smartphone and tablet games are basic — weak imitations of ‘real’ AAA titles. Seeing as the Ouya is a screenless tablet with a bundled controller, I don’t see why it will buck the trend.
At best, Ouya’s content selection is going to consist of ports of successful Android tablet games. Newsflash: the Android tablet app ecosystem isn’t exactly booming.