Why even the best iOS app developers struggle to set the right price
Small app studio Impending is struggling with one of the most essential questions about today’s App Store: what to charge for a new app in the age of free-to-play apps. Read more »
Dish to Sprint: Stop whining and get out of the way of our Clearwire deal
photo: Everett Collection
Dish maintains that it’s offer for Clearwire is fair and legal, and Sprint’s attempt to block it in the courts is just an attempt to divert attention away from its own failed bid. Read more »
Dead battery relief: New York gets solar phone charging stations
photo: Pensa
New Yorkers soon will start seeing strange kiosks popping up in parks and other public places. They should be welcome sights, though, since anyone can plug their phones into them for a quick battery refresh. Read more »
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iZettle breaks out of Europe, bringing its mobile payments service to Mexico
photo: iZettle
Sweden’s iZettle is now at Square’s doorstep thanks to help from Banco Santander. The company has updated its credit card reader for the North American market. Could a push into the U.S. be far behind? Read more »
Punchey puts up its dukes to challenge Square in the mobile payments ring
Punchey hopes to carve off a piece of mobile credit card payments market by charging lower fees for high-dollar transactions. Read more »
Paper iPad app gets $15M for more productivity software, services — and hardware
The company behind one of the best and highest-grossing apps on the App Store landed its first round of funding from Andreessen Horowitz and others to grow its team and expand into new and somewhat unexpected realms. Read more »
A jilted Sprint sues Dish, claiming its offer for Clearwire is illegal
photo: Shutterstock / zimmytws
Sprint has filed a lawsuit in Delaware against Clearwire and Dish, claiming their pending nuptials violate state laws and the company’s shareholder agreements. Read more »
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Solar-powered phone screen could boost battery life
photo: SunPartner Group
A French startup plans to debut the thin, transparent screens in consumer phones next year. Cars, buildings and billboards could be next. Read more »
Is Samsung really launching an LTE-Advanced Galaxy? More like semi-advanced
Once more Samsung seems to be engaging in technical hyperbole. It told Reuters an LTE-Advanced Galaxy S 4 will soon go on sale in Korea. Here are the many reasons why that’s not true. Read more »
Apple sanctions iPhone game controllers: a first clue as to how they’ll look
What will iPhone gaming controllers look like? A first clue comes courtesy of Kotaku’s blurry shot of an alleged Logitech iPhone controller, said to be one of the first official Made for iPhone controllers. Read more »
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Sprint begins its big summer 4G push, flipping on LTE in 22 cities
The south gets special attention in this round as New Orleans, Miami and Tampa all join Sprint’s LTE footprint. This expansion is the first phase of a big 120-city rollout this summer. Read more »
So what if Apple copies your app? Get to work, like Sunrise did
Sunrise tries to keep ahead of new iOS Calendar features coming in iOS 7 by adding Foursquare, Crunchbase integration into its app. Read more »
Mobile sports consumption now at 35% – report
photo: NBC Sports
An industry group has put out an annual report showing trends in how America’s 170 million sports fans use media. Here are some highlights. Read more at paidContent »
How to build your own conference call number in the cloud
Do you hate conference calls? Or at least the tedium of dialing into them? Do you have 10 minutes and a credit card? Then why not build your own single-number conference line? Read more »
Not a good sign: Barnes & Noble just keeps slashing Nook tablet prices
Why is Barnes & Noble extending price cuts on Nook tablets? It may be because the retailer is trying to clear out stock. Read more at paidContent »
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ICYMI podcasts: Connected pets, 7 years of GigaOM and boosted battery life on MacBook Airs
Can one chip make a difference in your laptop’s battery life? Yup, and hopefully it comes to Chromebooks soon. Data from connected pets can help their health while Sony countered Microsoft well with its new PS4. Read more »
With wearable tech like Google Glass, human behavior is now a design problem
photo: CBS Television
Wearable devices will offer practical, novel and fun usefulness but will also be able to influence our behavior in ways good and bad, creating ethical dilemmas for designers. Read more »
Android this week: Galaxy S4 Zoom; New Nexus 7 tested; HTC One Mini pegged for August
First came the “phablet”, now we have the “phomera”: Samsung’s Galaxy S4 Zoom is part point-and-shoot with 10x optical zoom and part smartphone. A new Nexus 7 looks to be coming soon as does the HTC One Mini, perhaps by August. Read more »
If you believe the FCC (and I do), a new Nexus 7 is coming soon
After a trail of breadcrumb evidence, an FCC certification report indicates that a new Nexus 7 is on the way. The device forgoes an Nvidia chip for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S600. Read more »
Developer interest in iOS 7 beta is twice as high as iOS 6 beta
Unsurprisingly, there’s a crazy amount of interest in the biggest visual change to iOS since its introduction in 2007. Read more »
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Like it or not, all iOS 6 apps will need to be upgraded for iOS 7
Apple isn’t making it a requirement, but it’s something every developer should do anyway: because when you put an iOS 6-designed app next to an iOS 7-ready one, the difference will be incredibly stark — and not in a good way. Read more »
White House: Let’s all hold hands and share the airwaves
The full backing of the U.S. executive branch is now behind the idea of spectrum sharing, which would split time between federal and commercial users on the wireless airwaves. Read more »
Microsoft quietly pushes out Office for iPhone
Without any fanfare, the software giant has released the clumsily-titled “Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers”, which seems to do what it says on the tin. Read more »
Chrome, Vine, Yahoo use on the rise for iOS users
Exclusive: New usage data from Onavo shows that iOS users are taking to Chrome, to Twitter’s Vine and to Yahoo apps. Read more »
Messaging app TextNow is morphing into an all-IP mobile operator
TextNow today may be an also-ran in the crowded over-the-top communications market, but it plans to set itself apart by becoming a full-fledged carrier. It wants to be the first all-IP carrier in the U.S. Read more »
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No surprise here. Telcos hoping for big bucks from connected cars
photo: Life360
Connected cars will be a big business for cellular carriers as governments demand more embedded systems inside vehicles to meet safety demands. Tethering will also be big, but smartphone integration less so. Read more »
Sponsored post: Finding the tools to move the earth
Archimedes asked only for a lever and a place to stand and promised he could move the earth. Maybe he was only playing 200 B.C. hype man for his mathematical musings on levers, but it’s a point worth taking: Work smarter and accomplish great things. Read more »
Sony opens up SmartWatch platform to third-party firmware
The creation of the Open SmartWatch Project means developers can use the Android-companion Sony device to try out new peripheral use cases — at their own risk, of course. Read more »
Yahoo devours conference call service Rondee and photo app makers GhostBird
photo: Getty Images / Chris Jackson
Marissa Mayer’s hunger for fresh talent has clearly not yet been sated — in the last day alone, Yahoo has snapped up and announced the closure of two more startups. Read more »
Apple snuck a Google Now-ish feature into iOS 7 called “Today”
It’s not nearly as full-featured as Google Now, but Today gives notifications about weather, commute traffic and a quick glance at future events. Read more »
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Clearwire board backs Dish’s bid; tells Sprint to shove off
photo: Flickr / Dave Lindblom
Clearwire resisted Dish’s advances for five months, but it has finally given in. Clearwire’s board recommended today that shareholders give Sprint the old heave-ho and back Dish’s offer to assume a major stake in the WiMAX operator. Read more »
Cellular iPads consume 3x the mobile data as smartphones
It’s not the latest 4G-capable iPad that’s eating up all this data, though, it’s older 3G models, mainly the iPad 2 and iPad 3. Read more »
You might not know about stickers, but they’re changing the way we text
Direct from Asia, imported by Path and co-opted by Facebook, stickers are hitting the mainstream and becoming the new way people message every day. Read more »
Belly takes ‘Bites’ freebies program out of beta; beefs up loyalty platform
Belly is offering a bunch of new tools to small businesses to help them amp up their loyalty programs and market to new customers. Read more »
GigaOM Chrome Show 9: iTunes access, longer battery life and a possible ChromeKey
AMD is joining the Chrome game but we’re still waiting for Intel Haswell hardware. Apple has it and now the MacBook Air gets 12 hours of battery life! We share a pair of great extensions and talk about iTunes in the browser. Read more »
Caller ID outfit Truecaller doubles user base to 20M in under 5 months
The Swedish reverse-lookup phone directory service, which recently invited third-party developers to access its databases, is on a roll. And India continues to provide the company’s most fertile ground for growth. Read more »
The NSA could collect far more than your phone records from mobile operators
We know the NSA is collecting our call records, but there are far bigger fonts of information carriers hold. The mobile network is highly managed, tracking our internet habits from the websites we visit to the apps we use. Read more »
So, what happens to Passbook in iOS 7?
One of the “key features” of iOS 6 didn’t merit a mention by Apple in the introduction of iOS 7. But perhaps Apple has something bigger planned. Read more »
Sponsored post: The backend, the scrapers, and me. On mobile sites and security
New studies show websites fending off 95 percent more exploits than five years ago, and 30 percent safer than last year. Are mobile devices throwing a wrench in the works? Backend APIs, leveraging web logic for mobile and brute scrapers. How simple strategies are often most secure. Read more »
Rock on! Google Chrome browser is gaining access to iTunes music
Is iTunes not your media player of choice? No problem: You may have another option soon only this one will be in the browser. Google has added iTunes as a default destination for local media files usable by Chrome. Read more »
