Overall, between 2012 and 2017, more than 900,000 light-duty PEVs will be sold in the United States. But there remain hefty inhibitors to mainstream plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) use, including limited vehicle driving range and large battery packs, not to mention steep prices. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Admit it: you’ve always wondered what your portrait would look like as a Wall Street Journal hedcut. A new iPhone app called SnapDot will help give you an idea in far less time than the five hours it can take WSJ artists to draw one. Read more »
Swedish startup 13th Lab has just raised $700,000 from Nordic investors Creandum to help build its augmented reality browser and developer tools for iOS. But forget about tacky versions of AR: this team is trying to build a real interface between the digital and the physical. Read more »
The hits keep coming from day two of Google I/O: The company announced the long awaited Google Docs offline capability, allowing users to edit docs without a connection to the web. Apple iOS gained the Chrome browser earlier in the day, but also get Google Drive. Read more »
Google’s Chrome browser is coming to iOS devices: The browser will be available both for iPhone and iPad via iTunes later today. This brings cross-device Chrome synching to iOS – and for Google represents a significant step towards capturing the mobile browser market. Read more »
The new Google App Engine release gets more global with better European data center coverage, plus better search APIs, SSL support for custom domains, and more integrated PageSpeed optimization. On the flip side, the Cloud SQL database still isn’t fully baked. Read more »
Need to share your location for a limited amount of time and with just a single person? Mapfia is an easy method on iOS and Android. You simply call someone and Mapfia shares the location of both people for the length of the call. Read more »
No longer buried under menus in the Music app, Apple has created a standalone place to keep your podcasts: in an iOS app called, you guessed it, Podcasts. It’s free and is available now. It adds its own Top Stations, Top Charts and a sleep timer. Read more »
Gmail users on iOS have an early gift prior to this week’s Google developer event: The Gmail on iOS app was updated on Monday with Notification Center support and more, suggesting that Google wants users to access its services everywhere on all sorts of mobile devices. Read more »
Cloud storage player Box is launching its mobile app framework OneCloud for Android on Monday, just in time for the Google I/O Conference. Included in the apps selection is Docusign Ink, Breezy, iAnnotate and Fetchnotes, said Chris Yeh, VP of platforms for Box. Read more »
With the new MacBook Pro with Retina display, Apple made some small but important updates to its Aperture photo-processing app. Aperture 3.3 isn’t a full version upgrade, but the new features added tells us that Apple is serious about this program and its future. Read more »
The reasons cited by games factory Wooga when it pulled out of developing mobile browser-based games for Facebook’s platform are not going to be fixed anytime soon – and that fact should be cause for concern in the social network’s quest to conquer mobile. Read more »
Nailing the mobile experience is essential for online travel services. Orbitz’s new free app aims to make it much easier for leisure travelers to do trip research and book hotel, airfare and rental cars all within one app without going to a mobile website. Read more »
Apple’s new Maps app has its pros and cons. But it’s also becoming apparent that the normally conservative company has opened itself up to some significant potential risks by taking on the responsibility of creating and maintaining a mapping solution. Here’s a roundup of potential problems. Read more »
Creativity apps on Apple’s iOS platform aren’t just a consumer fad — investors want in too. Snapguide, an iPhone app that lets anyone create an easy how-to guide with their phone, snapped up a $5 million investment round earlier this month. Read more »
Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: Apple location tracking suit moves forward, Baidu to share iPhone search profits, the secret of Apple’s success, Time and Apple play nice, and GameCenter on the Mac. Read more »
Microsoft released an an updated iOS version of My Xbox Live that turns the iPhone into a remote control for an Xbox 360, while Android owners get their first version of Microsoft’s app. Microsoft ‘s new Smart Glass service will be on non-Microsoft platforms too. Read more »
Apple’s announced iOS 6 update is set to bring a lot of changes to its mobile platform, and after using it for a day, I’ve found plenty of new features Apple didn’t mention in the keynote: mostly design changes, and even a subtle dig at Google. Read more »
Once a Google Android exclusive, Amazon released an iOS version of its Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod touch devices. The free software provides streaming and download access to audio files on Amazon servers either purchased from Amazon’s music store or later uploaded by customers. Read more »
Sceptics have raised concerns recently about Facebook’s ability to show continued revenue growth, particularly in the mobile market, but the social networking giant just got a big boost in that area from Apple, which has integrated Facebook’s features into the new version of its operating systems. Read more »
WWDC starts Monday morning, with the likely preview of iOS 6 planned for the keynote. Here’s a list of the things I want to see out of the latest mobile operating system from Apple: improved notifications, better inter-app communication, updated Siri, AirDrop and more. Read more »
Apple may be working a system to replace UDID use across iOS apps. The Wall Street Journal says a new tool for helping Apple’s mobile app makers track the behavior of their customers could be rolled out “in the next few weeks.” Read more »
Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web that you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: Samsung’s new CEO, Apple asks a judge to block the import of the latest Samsung Galaxy, Apple’s contribution to Google revenue, iOS’s popularity among mobile developers, and more. Read more »
Social virtual goods revenues will grow from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $4.1 billion in 2016. Leading this growth are disruptive factors such as mobile, regulatory changes and alternatives to the traditional OS. But the most important disruption vector will be increasing the universality of virtual currencies. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Research firm IDC offers up its look at smartphone market share through 2016 and suggests several surprising trends: Android may peak this year while Windows Phone will jump past iOS in 2016. A year ago, IDC said the same thing for 2015. Here’s the problem. Read more »
Microsoft unlocked an new achievement this month, surpassing 100,000 apps for its Windows Phone mobile platform. But there are several reasons why this number isn’t equating into sales of Windows Phones. There’s a still a key question Microsoft hasn’t answered about its mobile platform. Read more »
The last-minute hotel booking app has secured a $23 million Series C funding round from U.S. Venture Partners. Hotel Tonight plans to use the money to bring its iOS and Android app to more cities outside the U.S., and add more last-minute destinations at home. Read more »
A Wall Street Journal report details the falling out between Apple and Google over Google Maps on iOS devices. The two sides have bickered for years over the implementation of mapping technology, and it turns out Apple has already begun moving away from Google’s technology. Read more »
Another of the most popular iOS applications makes the move to Android as Instapaper becomes available in Google Play. Marco Arment, Instapaper’s creator, has noted that Android users prefer free software, so will they buy his app or opt for a free alternative? Read more »
It’s not often you hear this, but: One of the most elegant apps for Android is now available on iOS. The software is called Any.DO and it’s one of the best looking task managers I’ve used on any platform. It also arrives as a Chrome extension. Read more »
While Apple has welcomed Twitter into iOS, the biggest social network of them all has not been integrated into Apple’s mobile operating system. But it looks like that’s about to change. Apple is reportedly set to announce Facebook integration for iOS 6, said TechCrunch. Read more »
Cricket Wireless will offer two Apple iPhone handset models with monthly pre-paid plans beginning on June 22. The iPhone 4 and 4S will cost $399 and $499 respectively, without a contract, using Cricket’s $55 plan, advertised as unlimited voice minutes, text messages and data usage. Read more »
The adoption of tablets, social media and new interfaces and the changing nature of the TV itself mean the digital living room will continue on its path of rapid change, thanks to new ways of creating, viewing, bundling, distributing and selling content. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Moscow-based search engine Yandex is hoping to steal a march on international rivals with a new music subscription app for the iPhone — but it’s gambling that users will be ready to stump up cash for the service in a country where paid-for digital music is […] Read more »
Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web that you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: How Facebook is reminiscent of Palm, phones shipped versus phones sold, how doctors are using the iPad, and another clue that Apple is redesigning its mobile maps. Read more »
With its biggest developer event just weeks away, Apple is nailing down a few final details, including unveiling the official schedule. It was posted Tuesday morning for registered attendees on Apple’s developer website. There’s also an app they can download. Read more »
Daylite 4, the Mac and iOS CRM solution from Marketcircle, gets its first major redesign in a long time. Daylite has a decade-long history with the Mac, and has some very welcome improvements in this new version, but a lot of polishing to do too. Read more »
I’m starting to use iPhoto for iOS more often in my photography workflow. While it’s unlikely it’ll ever fully replace a true post-processing program like Aperture or Lightroom, for shots that don’t require that high degree of editing I find iPhoto for iOS to be suitable. Read more »
I used to use Bump, the mobile app that wirelessly transfers data between two smartphones, but over time, I uninstalled it. Now it’s not only back on my phones, but has a coveted home screen spot thanks to the latest share-to-desktop feature. Read more »
Yahoo launched its new Axis mobile browser for iOS devices and it’s surprisingly good. In fact, Yahoo’s peers could learn a thing or two from this fresh take on user interfaces: Axis is swipe-friendly and a fast way to get at search or other web information. Read more »
