Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web that you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: iPhone versus Android revenue from Google, the feasibility of Retina display MacBooks, the profitability of the Flashback botnet, and Apple gets approved for a greener data center. Read more »
Foodspotting is putting great services offered by Yelp right into its social food-finding app: reviews, as well as OpenTable reservations and menu pages from Single Platform. Plus: Restaurants will find more informative dashboard pages and users will see far more data on their profile pages. Read more »
With a reported 11 teens killed while texting and driving per day, parents are turning towards apps to limit their kids phone use behind the wheel. SecruaFone offers one for iPhone and Android handsets that diables some features when in motion, but it doesn’t stop there. Read more »
Google just launched an iOS app for its other social network: iPhone users can now access the social activity service Schemer with an app that allows them to find things to do and share those plans with their friends. The app closely mimics its Android cousin. Read more »
Over the past year as more consumers have adopted smartphones the number of installed applications is up from 32 to 41. Yet the amount of time spent using those applications hasn’t changed much, indicating that developers might be challenged when it comes to increasing application engagement. Read more »
Hope you’ve got a screen protector…Sesame Street has a new iOS app, “Potty Time with Elmo,” that is aimed at kids and parents going through the potty-training process. Read more at paidContent »
Apple’s next iPhone model will have at least a 4-inch display according to sources “familiar with the matter” says the Wall Street Journal. A larger iPhone simply makes sense at this point in time due to increased consumption of the mobile web, video and apps. Read more »
Is your Facebook mobile app slow to update or showing old data on Android or iOS? If so, you’re not alone. I’ve noticed a degradation in the mobile application’s performance for months but I never knew exactly why it was. Until now. Read more »
Don’t have enough space to download your favorite app’s update? For those of us that fill our phones to the brim with apps and media, it’s a familiar scenario. However, there’s a neat trick to easily and temporarily reclaim space on your iOS device. Read more »
Google’s Chrome browser is will appear on Apple’s iOS devices this quarter suggests Macquarie (USA) Equities Research, reducing the payments that Google makes to Apple for search results in Safari. That sounds great but Apple’s third-party browser limitations will surely minimize any benefits for Google. Read more »
Facebook users on Android, iOS and mobile browsers aren’t stuck with postage-sized pictures and posts any more. Facebook announced on Monday that it now supports full-sized pictures on all three platforms as well as posts that will automatically scale from edge-to-edge of a handheld device. Read more »
There’s quite a ruckus going on over ARM-powered Windows 8 tablets: Mozilla and Google are crying foul over third-party browser restrictions Microsoft has put in place in Windows 8. Here’s why this isn’t really a new problem and why it’s likely to get worse over time. Read more »
Google has rolled out a significant update to its Google+ iPhone app that comes with an interesting approach towards mobile platforms: This time around, iOS is getting to experience the UI changes first. An update to the Google+ Android app is planed for the coming weeks. Read more »
You may have already heard of The Elevation Dock for the iPhone or the LunaTik Watchband for the iPod nano or even the Pebble E-Paper Watch, but here are seven equally great product concepts for iOS products that you may also be interested in supporting. Read more »
During the first three months of 2012, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint collectively sold 9 million iPhones. Altogether, those same three carriers sold 13.5 million smartphones, which means that for every three smartphones they sold, two of them were iPhones. Read more »
News and talk radio app Stitcher, is gearing up for the presidential elections with a dedicated election service for users to follow their favorite candidate and get elections news from select sources. The app can even transcribe reports so users can jump to particular topic areas. Read more »
The Financial Times is preparing to kill off its iPad and iPhone app for good, signalling its final conversion from executable-app to web-app publishing. Read more at paidContent »
Inkling, which started out as an iPad textbook publisher and recently launched an interactive e-book publishing platform called Habitat, is moving further into the consumer realm with a new series of Frommer’s interactive digital travel guides. Read more at paidContent »
Eighty-five percent of the global population owns mobile phones. This report forecasts the global handset market, examining the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific. Drivers include an increased number of subscribers in developing countries and the rollout of 3G and 4G wireless networks. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Microsoft’s effort to merge the Windows Phone look and feel with Windows 8 will pay off in the form of causing Google Android to “fade away” says a mobile market watcher. That’s possible because Microsoft — and Apple, as well — have something that Google doesn’t. Read more »
Apple’s iPad still dominates the tablet market, but that alone shouldn’t be scaring PC and tablet manufacturers. Instead, the statistic that for one in four people buying iPads, it’s their very first Apple product is more concerning; it could lead to other Apple hardware sales. Read more »
The demand for Apple’s iPad is going through the roof and nowhere is its impact more visible than inside corporations. It is one of the reasons why demand for corporate Wi-Fi gear is going strong and benefitting the likes of Meraki and Aruba Networks. Read more »
For developers, consumers and even carriers, Android seems irreparably broken. But Google’s not likely to “fix” Android anytime soon, because despite the fragmentation problem, the company is getting what it wants: massive amounts of user data. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The challenge is no longer finding a great podcast, but automating the subscription process on the device you intend to listen on. Here’s a step-by-step guide for all the different ways you can subscribe and sync your favorite podcasts to any device. Read more »
There are 25 billion apps in Apple’s App Store, 450,000 in Google Play and 82,000 in Microsoft Windows Phone Marketplace. Making a successful app that stands out means looking beyond the popular gaming market toward areas like weather, news and productivity apps. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
From the iTunes interface it appears you have to choose the option of either local or iCloud backup of your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. But that’s not true. You can do both! Here’s a quick tutorial on how to do it. Read more »
Custom ringtones are great for knowing who’s calling, but those of us whose phones are on vibrate get left out of that party. One of the less advertised features of iOS 5 is the ability to to assign custom vibration patterns to individual callers. Here’s how. Read more »
In the first quarter of 2012 all eyes were on the screen, both big and small. Apple’s new Retina display pushed video streaming, and broadcast-TV streaming service Aereo’s launch was quickly followed with litigation. These events and more are discussed in a new quarterly report. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple and Samsung are closer than ever to a possible settlement in their long-running legal showdown over smartphone and tablet technologies. The both companies agreed to send their respective chief executives and general counsel to meet face-to-face in the next 90 days. Read more »
Smartphone sales surged both in the U.S. and worldwide, carriers struggled to cope with the ever-increasing consumption of mobile data, and the fight for spectrum remained front and center in the first quarter. Our latest quarterly wrap-up analyzes these trends and more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Placeme for iOS and Android may be both the scariest and amazingly futuristic app I’ve seen yet. The free software uses every sensor in your handset to track your activities, location and environment. Scary, yes, but it could power the smartphone personal assistant of the future. Read more »
Computing in the business market will change radically in the coming years thanks to mobility, apps and a shift toward tablets. Here we gather a survey of GigaOM Pro readers to examine the future of enterprise mobility. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A Kickstarter project to bring a new smartwatch to market blew through its $100,000 funding goal in its first day, and two hours later it crossed the $200,000 mark. What’s so unique about the Pebble E-Paper Watch? It works with both Android devices and the iPhone. Read more »
Can’t keep track of who’s suing who in “The Game of Smartphones”? This image will help. And two key Steve Jobs quotes explain not only why the smartphone battle is moving to the courts, but why it’s happening right now and why this will get worse. Read more »
One of the most popular productivity apps on the iPhone finally arrives on the iPad. Scanner Pro’s simple, straightforward functionality and integration into other iPad and cloud-based apps is another example of how easy it is for businesses and consumers alike to join the post-PC world. Read more »
Saavn has been hailed as India’s Spotify. But with much of its customer base being in India and much of its catalog being Bollywood fare, things work a little different for the company. One example: Saavn has high hopes for its Blackberry and Symbian apps. Read more »
What is about Instagram that has made Facebook open up its checkbook and spend nearly a billion dollars in stock and cash to buy up a company only in its third year. There are many reasons, and the biggest one is fear. Read more »
A new account says Apple is testing a 7.85-inch iPad. It’ natural for Apple’s labs to be filled with prototypes of all sorts of possible new and variations on existing products. But does it mean a smaller iPad is coming soon? Not necessarily. Read more »
Hyperlocal mobile advertising is at a critical juncture: Leading analysts predict that mobile ad spending will increase by more than five times between 2011 and 2015. But what are the forces at play, and how effective are HyLoMo ads? Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Google CEO Larry Page is either experiencing amnesia or consciously rewriting the history of Apple and Google in the battle for mobile developers and consumers. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Page says that for Apple, the “Android differences were actually for show.” Read more »
