Apple’s online services struggles continue with GameCenter, iCloud, iTunes outage
Tuesday morning’s outage is the second multi-hour problem Apple iCloud and online services users have experienced in the last two weeks. Read more »
It’s a big market for little chips: 2.6B ARM chips shipped last quarter
The mobile market has been good to ARM Holdings, which designs the chips that power most smartphones and tablets. The company is growing revenues and nearing 1,000 licensees. Read more »
Older model iPhones are more popular than ever
By the end of March, Apple was selling more iPhone 5 devices as a share of iPhones than in December. But at the same time, the share of older model phones it is selling has never been higher. Read more »
AppShopper returns to iOS App Store with more Social approach
After being removed from the App Store last fall for violating Apple’s rules, the app discovery service returns. The most notable difference from the old app is a switch from a Popular list of apps to a new Stream list. Read more »
Vubooo’s take on the second screen: Less talk, more gooooooals
Forget badges, trivia and long-winded discussions: The soccer-centric second screen app Vubooo is all about a whole lot of virtual shouting. Read more »
Without a big product launch, don’t expect too much from Apple’s Q2 earnings tomorrow
photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images
January through March sales are always slower compared to the holiday buying period. And all of Apple’s major products — iPhone, iPad, iPad mini, Macs — were refreshed in the fall, leaving Apple with no major new device release during the quarter. Read more »
Planes, trains and automobiles: Waymate unveils its ambitious travel comparison app
Presenting a clear comparison of multiple local and long-distance transport options by price and duration is no mean feat. But Waymate has even greater ambitions, allowing trip booking from within its service. Read more »
Why are bad email habits so hard to break?
photo: Thinkstock
When it comes to mobile mail, today is one of the best times in recent memory to find a better solution. But changing email habits, even when they’re bad, turned out to be tougher than I expected. Read more »
Games for the weekend: Repulze
In what plays out as a roller derby style of fighting, you can either race ahead and avoid the fight entirely, or lag behind and take your opponents out one at a time. Read more »
As Straight Talk starts selling the iPhone, TracFone sees jump in subscribers, revenue
Prepaid mobile giant TracFone had a massive quarter, adding 839,000 subscribers and even beating out Verizon Wireless. TracFone didn’t say why, but not coincidentally its Straight Talk brand and partner Walmart began selling the iPhone 5. Read more »
Ever wonder what Apple does with your Siri data?
Apple confirms the anonymized information may be kept “for up to two years.” But when Siri is turned off all the user data is deleted. Read more »
How to quickly edit and share photos from your point-and-shoot camera on your iPhone
With sales slumping due to the popularity of cameras in smartphones, companies like Canon are making cameras that let smartphones access photos directly for editing and sharing. Read more »
MoPub says 3/4 of mobile ad spending went to iOS devices during Q1
MoPub’s report says the share of ad buying on Apple phones increase 12 percent between January and March. Android tablets saw less than 1 percent of money spent on ads for the quarter. Read more »
Crowdsourced network tester OpenSignal releases on iPhone app
OpenSignal is expanding its mobile networking crowdsourcing project from Android to the iPhone. Though OpenSignal uses that crowdsourced data to generate its own detailed metrics, there’s plenty in the app for consumers as well. Read more »
Yahoo outs new Weather, Mail apps for iOS, Android. And they’re nice!
The newest Weather app for iPhone and iPod touch to hit the market uses gorgeous photography, well-designed informational icons and simple navigation. And it’s from Yahoo. Really! The company also has a new take on email for tablets. Read more »
Verizon grows by another 720,000 subscribers, continues shift toward LTE
Verizon’s generated some impressive activation numbers in the normally slow first quarter: 5.9 million LTE devices; 7.2 million smartphones; and 4 million new iPhones, half of which were the LTE-capable iPhone 5. Read more »
Twitter rolls out #Music app for iPhone and web, with iTunes, Spotify and Rdio integration
Twitter’s new #Music app will be available on the web and in the iTunes store on Thursday. The app integrates music from iTunes, Spotify and Rdio and lets users tweet songs from the app. Read more »
Ness updates its iOS app, a personalized dining guide for you
The subject happens to be dining, but what Ness is up to is really about maximizing the accuracy of personalization. Read more »
New iPhone 5 gives T-Mobile’s MVNOs a network boost, but still no LTE
photo: T-Mobile
Solavei will sell the device for steep price of $700, but unlocked versions of the new iPhone 5 will work with its SIM cards. Solavei resells T-Mo’s service, giving access to its nationwide HSPA+ network, but not LTE. Read more »
Apple stock tanks on bad news from audio chip supplier
Cirrus Logic is believed to be the main supplier of audio chips for the iPhone and iPad. It missed badly on revenue and has some investors worried that Apple way overestimated the number of mobile devices it could sell during the quarter. Read more »
China raps Apple once again, but this time over porn distribution
Echoes of the conflict with Google surface in the Chinese government’s attempt to crackdown on “obscene pornographic content” that it says is coming in through Apple’s App Store. Read more »
MLB At Bat app now sees 1M users a day, but won’t take over your homescreen
Not every content company wants to monopolize your homescreen a la Facebook Home. Read more »
Hopscotch iPad app looks to teach building blocks of coding to girls
Rather than making young people wade through incomprehensible strings of words and numbers, writing code in Hopscotch consists of dragging and dropping different cute characters and running scripts on them. Read more »
This is why Apple wants to launch iRadio
People still buy a lot of music downloads, and most of them use iTunes to do so. That’s why Apple is now building its own streaming service. Read more »
Facebook iOS app will get Chat Heads feature very soon (Update: it’s out now)
Facebook’s CTO said Tuesday the update should arrive in the App Store this week. Read more »
With over 200M monthly users, WhatsApp CEO boasts, “We’re bigger than Twitter”
photo: WhatsApp
WhatsApp users get 8 billion inbound messages per day and send over 12 billion per day. Read more »
Snapchat CEO: users taking 150M images a day (before they disappear)
Most users are snapping photos with iOS devices, though Spiegel predicts Android growth will come. Eighty percent of users are in the U.S. Read more »
Gracenote co-founder on ‘iPod day’ and better music through data
photo: Flickr / ヨシキ
More than a decade ago, Gracenote received some cryptic advice from Apple to buy more servers. What followed — the launch of iTunes and iPod — blew up Gracenote’s database to epic proportions and laid the groundwork for a metadata empire. Read more »
What Apple is up against in two growing mobile markets: China and Brazil
Xiaomi, a high-end smartphone maker in China, and Movile, Brazil’s biggest and most important wireless carrier, showcase the challenges Apple faces in those two markets. Read more »
More Bloomberg users turn to Apple devices for financial information
photo: Bloomberg
A new version of Bloomberg’s iPad app reflects a shift to mobile and tablet usage among financial professionals. The pattern mirrors what’s taking place in the consumer realm. Read more at paidContent »
Foxconn nearing new iPhone production, reports point to summer launch
photo: Credit: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc. via Bloomberg
Bloomberg says the hiring began in mid-March at a Zhengzhou factory for work on a new Apple device as well as older model iPhones. The Journal says Foxconn has been hiring 10,000 new workers every week since then. Read more »
My iOS 7 wish list
While I may be wishing upon a star here, I’m hopeful that Apple beginning support for a third-party audio interface is a sign of change from Cupertino regarding features they may add to iOS. Read more »
Hope you’re ready developers, the Pebble smartwatch SDK is here
photo: Pebble
It’s been a long wait for the Pebble watch software development kit and now it’s here. Developers can start creating app for the unique smartwatch that works with both iPhones and Android handsets. Read more »
Games for the weekend: He-Man
This is a great game if you are looking for a platform-based, arcade-style game and, of course, 1980s cartoon heroes. Read more »
Apple set to pay $53M in water-damaged iPhone warranty dispute
According to court documents found by Wired, Apple’s method for detecting water damage in iOS devices may not have provided totally clear-cut evidence. Read more »
French minister defends AppGratis, lashes out at Apple for app’s removal
France’s minister of digital economy is speaking up for Paris-based AppGratis, which was kicked out of the iOS App Store for recent rule violations. She called Apple’s decision “brutal” and implied Apple was behaving unethically, according to accounts of her comments. Read more »
Personal assistant iOS app Donna puts your phone to work for you
The iOS app blends location services, calendaring, reminders and push notifications to mimic the work an actual personal assistant that keeps your schedule for you can do. Read more »
Beyond App Store search: how to find the iOS apps right for you
With over 800,000 apps in the iOS App Store to sift through, Apple isn’t helping by cracking down on some of the better apps for discovery. Here are some tips to find stuff you might like. Read more »
The PC market is a horror show right now
We can pretty much stop arguing about whether the PC industry is deathly ill or not: the numbers speak for themselves, with its worst quarter since tracking began in 1994. Read more »
Foxconn sales drop could foreshadow Apple earnings
photo: Credit: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc. via Bloomberg
Hon Hai Precision Co. is the parent company of Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner. On Wednesday it reported it saw a 19 percent drop in its sales for the first quarter of 2013. Read more »
