For iOS developers, two very important things happen during the holiday season. The first is the App Store freeze, where Apple essentially stops accepting and reviewing app submissions and freezes chart rankings, and the second is big sales increases. Here’s how developers deal with both. Read more »
Issuu, a popular document sharing service that may have provided some competition for Apple’s planned digital newsstand, has abandoned plans to release an iOS app after Apple rejected the company three times. The company hinted that its openness was the cause of its rejection. Read more »
Earlier today, the web lit up with rumors that Apple was buying Nuance, which sent the Nuance stock soaring. Forget the rumors; there are some good reasons why Apple should buy Nuance, even if it costs a pretty penny, especially as it competes with Google’s Android. Read more »
Apple’s push for embedded or programmable SIM cards appears stalled by threatened carriers, but the GSMA is moving forward to research the use these chips. They may not appear in phones for some time, but there are other opportunities in web-connected machines and smartgrid devices. Read more »
Apple’s new iOS 4.2 introduced the ability to stream video from your iPad to the Apple TV. Sounds like a great feature, right? It does, until you realize that most apps don’t actually support AirPlay. Even Apple’s own YouTube application leaves a lot to be desired. Read more »
Samsung’s Bada is only a few months old, but already the operating system is accruing substantial market share. If the Korean manufacturer can overcome several key challenges, Bada could become a major worldwide mobile platform to compete with iOS and the increasingly fragmented Android ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
These days, the amount of content available for the average TV junkie is astronomical, and it’s the rare series that doesn’t bundle its episodes with an online presence. And though most television executives at this stage are relatively blunt about the fact that the web elements ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Medialets has found that competing against iAd can be a good thing. Now the New York start-up is looking to offer its ad tools to agencies and in-house creative teams to help keep the rich media mobile ad wave going. Read more »
There are a lot of Apple gift guides floating around, as we’re getting into prime holiday shopping time. We thought we’d instead use our collective experience here at TAB to create an anti-gift guide. Here’s what you shouldn’t give this holiday season. Read more »
The GSMA, the organization representing most of the world’s mobile operators, today changed its rules to allow for a programmable SIM card much like we described Apple building with Gemalto a few weeks back. It’s expected devices with remote-activated SIMs to be available by 2012. Read more »
I realize that suggesting a break from Apple products on an Apple blog is heresy, but there are good reasons to pop your head up and look around at what else is out there every once in a while. Here’s why I occasionally take time off. Read more »
The official Google Voice App for iPhone is now available in the App Store, following the arrival of a number of third-party solutions. The app was originally submitted sometime in mid-2009, and pulled from sale by Apple, but was never officially accepted or rejected. Read more »
A website has launched that puts popular smartphones through a series of controlled stress tests to see how they fare. Gadgetstress.com takes smartphones and puts some serious hurt on them, then ranks them so consumers can tell how each phone stacks up against the competition. Read more »
As today’s announcement of The Beatles on the iTunes Store illustrates, the thing about visionaries like Steve Jobs is that what’s important to them is important to us, even when it’s not. This is just the latest example, and probably not the last. Read more »
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said his company’s battle with Apple comes as a war is brewing to bring new applications to consumer electronics devices. That war is being fought to capture developer interest and ensure that the best applications are being built on different platforms. Read more »
The live-stream video market is entering an upturn in the typical hockey stick growth chart. Tens of millions of desktop viewers use browser-based players to find live-streaming content on an ever-increasing number of web sites and mobile devices. Raw viewership will grow fastest in the consumer segment, where sites like Justin.tv and Qik are focused. Those like Kyte, Livestream, Ustream and BitGravity, meanwhile, primarily offer platforms to commercial content providers seeking a mass audience. And as the market grows, both in terms of viewers and of the number and type of content providers, it will support both those with a diverse, one-stop-shop approach and those who specialize in particular content and audiences. Additional companies mentioned in this report include YouTube/Google, Sony, HTC, Vivu, Facebook and Apple. To see a full list of companies and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Even with release of the Galaxy Tab this week, it looks like the real battle to upend the iPad won’t happen until next year. Lenovo’s CEO confirmed that its LePad tablet won’t hit the market until 2011. LG also pushed back the release of its tablet until next year. Read more »
Recently, there’s been an explosion of new podcasts covering Apple and Apple-related technologies. But which ones are really worth watching? Here’s a list of some great video content, available on your Apple TV or other iOS device, to get you started. Read more »
Apple has opened up its Ping social network to Twitter’s 175 million users, allowing those users to connect their accounts to the iTunes-based network and share links and previews. The deal gives Apple more reach, and could help drive traffic to Twitter’s newly relaunched website. Read more »
More and more, web apps are becoming interconnected with one another. In general, of course, this is a very good thing, but it nonetheless introduces dependencies between these apps. And as more apps come to rely on one another to provide critical services in our day-to-day ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
TV apps will soon be “everywhere,” according to attendees of a recent GigaOM Bunker event examining the future of the TV market. But how that market will develop, and which TV platforms will win out, is yet to be ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
When Apple began allowing free apps to include in-app purchases a little over a year ago, it opened the door for apps built on freemium models to flourish. They are doing just that with about one-third of the top-grossing apps using a free-to-use model. Read more »
It’s all about disruption today: Apple OS X becoming a more-appealing server OS, NoSQL being too disruptive for some, ARM enabling high-performance server systems, Apache threatening to pull the plug on Java development, and IT vendors not getting that cloud computing is supposed to be disruptive. Read more »
Gartner last year said Android wouldn’t be the No. 2 operating system in the world until 2012, but the future has come early: the platform grabbed 25.5 percent of the market in the third quarter, up from 3.5 percent a year ago, moving into second place. Read more »
AMD recently spilled the beans on an upcoming partnership with Apple during an AMD Financial Analyst Day presentation. Senior VP and Chief Sales Officer Emilio Ghilardi gave a presentation to analysts in attendance which confirmed Apple will be a hardware partner for its Fusion processing platform. Read more »
On November 9, we gathered more than 50 entrepreneurs, executives and investors at our San Francisco offices to engage in a town hall-style forum. The topic of discussion was to consider what could happen if we had the “app store” revolution on our TV sets. Would ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple has acquired Bluetooth headphone maker Wi-Gear. The purchase could result in new Bluetooth headsets for use with iOS devices and Mac computers, but what’s more interesting is what it says about Apple’s acquisition strategy and the future of accessory makers working in its ecosystem. Read more »
One analyst this week that Apple will ship between 45 and 48 million iPads in 2011. That’s a number that would a require some extraordinary shifts and macro-events in order to happen, and Apple needs much more than just the next-generation device to meet that figure. Read more »
The television business is on the cusp of the biggest technological upheaval since the introduction of cable TV. The addition of Internet connectivity to living room devices will enable new functionality around programming services, program discovery, social networking, ad targeting and measurement — aspects of the TV viewing experience that have remained largely unchanged for decades. These trends have the potential to become the foundation for new economic models around how viewers pay for video service and how program creation is financed. In this report, we examine the leading contenders’ strategic positioning, relative strengths and weaknesses, and provide the early line on their odds of success. Companies mentioned include Google, Apple, Boxee, Roku, Vudu, Samsung, Microsoft and Sony. To see a full list of companies and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Research In Motion, Samsung and Viewsonic are a few of the manufacturers looking to make a splash with seven-inch tablets. Apple has, in the past, eschewed the idea of a smaller version of its iPad, but here’s why the Cupertino gang should consider making ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Research In Motion, Samsung and Viewsonic are a few of the manufacturers looking to make a splash with seven-inch tablets. Apple has, in the past, eschewed the idea of a smaller version of its iPad, but here’s why the Cupertino gang should consider making one. Read more »
IT is undergoing a series of transformations right now, a few of which were highlighted today. Among them are Dell’s mission to change its business, major storage M&A, packaging hardware and software into integrated systems, and the ongoing transition of enterprise IT into the cloud. Read more »
Google Android is handily beating both Apple and Microsoft in the race to control the smartphone market. Yet, each company is responding to this threat in very different way, but with the same weapon: the open standards of HTML5. Read more »
Analyst Brian Blair predicted this week that Apple will ship between 45 and 48 million iPads in 2011. That’s a number that would a require some extraordinary shifts and macro-events in order to happen. In other words, Apple needs much more than just the next-generation device ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In September 2009, Intel demonstrated a new technology, dubbed Light Peak, that many were hailing as USB’s successor. Thirteen months later, and CNET predicts that Light Peak will be featured in new Macs in 2011 when it finally arrives. I’m not so sure about that. Read more »
We keep hearing about how developers are going to start focusing more on Android. But now in the last 24 hours, we’ve gotten some concrete signs that the platform is getting more attention from big time developers. Here’s what’s happened: Read more »
Skype’s new beta client for Mac computers is vastly improved with a native look, group video chat across platforms, floating toolbars, offline messaging capabilities and Address Book integration. All of a sudden, Skype for Mac looks sexy, and you can thank Apple’s FaceTime client for that. Read more »
A new class action suit accuses Apple of intentionally hamstringing the iPhone 3G with iOS 4 to boost iPhone 4 sales. The update seriously affected performance on the 3G, making it sluggish and unreliable. iOS 4.1 helped alleviate the problem, but didn’t fix it. Read more »
Many signs suggest Sony will soon launch a Playstation Portable Phone. It’s a move that invites comparison to Microsoft’s plan of integrating Xbox Live with Windows Phone 7, a far more software-centric method of attack than Sony’s hardware-focused strategy. Which has a better shot at ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Breaking down the Galaxy Tab into a list of components shows the 16-GB tablet carries an estimated price tag of $205 to make. This compares to the iPad’s estimated cost to build of $264, a difference due to the iPad’s larger screen and form factor. Read more »
