Tag: iPhone

iPhone 5 Concept Images Show What The iPhone Could Be

All the rumors and wild speculation about Apple’s forthcoming products can sometimes get to be a little much, even for an admitted Apple fanboy like me. Once or twice per product cycle, though, someone comes along who can take all the buzz and do something really creative with it.

Artist Frederico Ciccarese is such a person. He recently released a series of iPhone 5 concept images. Clearly inspired by products like Apple’s Magic Mouse, the images suggest a return to the smooth, tapered form factor of the iPhone 3G and 3GS. While the iPhone in the images is almost certainly too thin to be feasible, it is nonetheless a very sleek and attractive design. In addition to the lead image above, there are three additional images, all but one showing a white iPhone. Check them out below.

What do you think? Would you buy an iPhone that looked like this? Sound off in the comments.

February 23, 2012
T-Mobile Loses 800K Customers, Blames Lack of iPhone

2011 was an interesting year for T-Mobile, mostly due to the AT&T merger drama whose slow death was finalized in December when AT&T officially pulled the plug on the deal. After the FCC and DOJ voiced their disapproval, the deal began a slow decline that eventually ended in AT&T talking about failures in innovation and owning Deutsche Telekom billions in breakup fees.

Now, some bad news about T-Mobile on the subscriber front.

Deutsche Telekom announced that T-Mobile USA lost 802,000 contract customers in Q4. They seem to blame it on the lack of the iPhone:

For T-Mobile USA, the past year was characterized by significant challenges, particularly in the fourth quarter, following the market launch of the new Apple iPhone model by the three major national competitors in October.

Although the rumors were everywhere preceding the release of the iPhone 4S that it would be coming to T-Mobile, they all proved to be incorrect. Sprint ended up getting the iPhone, making T-Mobile the only major carrier in the U.S. to not offer the popular Apple device. Recently, there has been new talk of T-Mobile getting the iPhone – whenever the iPhone 5 finally drops. T-Mobile’s CTO told the CES conference in January that that the new iPhone would include a chipset that could make bringing the device to T-Mobile a possibility. Of course, it all really depends on whether or not they can reach a deal.

It appears that the lack of the iPhone really hurt T-Mobile in this most recent quarter. Revenue sank 3.3% to $20.6 billion.

It wasn’t all bad news from Deutsche Telekom. They also said that T-Mobile will debut an LTE service next year. They would most likely be the last ones on that ship as well.

February 23, 2012
Smartphones Becoming A Major Shopping Accessory

Smartphone owners are becoming increasingly dependent on their phones to help them shop, according to a recent report from Nielsen. Nearly a third (29%) of smartphone owners use their phones while they shop. What’s more, many want the option to use their phone to pay for their merchandise.

The most popular activity for shoppers using their smartphone is price comparison. Countless apps in the iOS App Store and Android App Market allow users a myriad of ways to check prices of products at both online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Thirty-eight percent of smartphone owners check prices online while they’re in a store, and 38% also shop from their phones. Reading online reviews of products was the second most popular activity at 32%, while nearly a quarter (24%) look for online coupons.

Interestingtly, the least popular activity on Nielsen’s list is also the thing the most smartphone owners wish they could do. Only 9% of users said that they use their phone to pay for goods or services at the point of sale, yet over 70% of all app downloaders said they were at least slightly interested in doing so. Interestingly, iPhone users expressed more interest in mobile payment technology than Android users.

Several Android phones have the necessary near-field communication (NFC) technology to power mobile payment systems. Google even has its own mobile payment service, Google Wallet, that is available to some Android users. The iPhone, on the other hand, has no NFC capabilities, despite persistent rumors that the technology would be coming to the previous two generations of iPhone.

Rumors that the next iPhone would be getting NFC technology gained new life earlier this month when MasterCard executive Ed McLaughlin said in an interview that every handset manufacturer he knew of had NFC technology in the works. When asked if that included Apple, McLaughlin avoided answering directly, but insisted that every manufacturer was working to incorporate NFC.

Whether Apple really is working to incorporate NFC into the iPhone is certainly up for debate, but Nielsen’s numbers suggest that they have good reason to consider it. Almost 40% of iOS users said they were either extremely interested or very interested, while a further 36% said they were somewhat or slightly interested, leaving only 25% of iPhone users who were not interested in the technology at all.

What do you think? Would you like to see mobile payment technology come to the iPhone? Would you like to see it expanded on Android phones? Sound off in the comments.

February 22, 2012
Twitter Offers Tips On Smooth Animation For iPhone

Is your iPhone app plagued by slowdown when attempting to scroll down pages? Does the animation hit lag? Twitter could have potentially hit similar problems with their newest app update for iPhone, but avoided it with some simple tweaking.

Twitter’s engineering blog addressed the concern above in a blog post titled, “Simple Strategies for Smooth Animation on the iPhone.” The entry explains what causes slowdown in animation on the iPhone, how they avoided it and what others can do to make their apps run smoother on the device.

The post first explains how the iPhone handles animation. They say that animation on the iPhone is powered by Core animation layers. The GPU is not optimized to animate layers, so the CPU handles all the cell drawing. It then hands off the rest of it to the GPU as a texture to be displayed on your screen.

The problems with can come from two sources – either the GPU is being overloaded with too many operations or the CPU is not drawing the cell fast enough.

The team displays a simple short tweet as an example for how they fixed the problem of a GPU being overworked. Under normal circumstances, every element of the tweet from the avatar to the text would have to be drawn as separate cells by the CPU. The Twitter team fixed this problem by compiling all the text and the image into a single cell. This reduced the amount of work the CPU and GPU had to do.

Another way to reduce lag is to avoid blending. They point out that tweets on the iOS app have a “drop shadow on top of a subtle textured background.” They avoided the problem of blending by “reducing the area Core Animation has to consider non-opaque, by splitting the shadow areas from content area of the cell.”

They also suggest that developers check for pixel alignment. If the the width of the pixels is set an odd number, the program will set out to apply anti-aliasing to smooth out the edges. Anti-aliasing is one of the most expensive operations to operate on GPUs.

The team goes on to provide some code that will help solve an animation problem called a “pop” that occurs when a cell is about to scroll into view. They say that a cell only has 17 milliseconds “to provide content before you’ve dropped a frame.”

At the end, they point out that sometimes you just can’t apply any tricks to make animation go smoothly. The biggest problem comes from pictures in the “Discover” tab on Twitter for iOS. They succeeded in keeping smooth animation on these pictures by turning them into a pre-rendered image and storing them in a cache.

Hopefully these tips will help you to develop smoothly animated apps for the iPhone. I don’t know much about app development, but I know that a smooth framerate in video games keeps the player invested. I’m going to assume it’s the same in the app development world.

February 22, 2012
E-Prescriptions May Reduce Medication Errors

Preventable Adverse Elements, or PAEs, account for 50 to 100,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. One major contributor to PAEs is patient medication errors, and the implementation of e-prescription systems can cut down on these mistakes, according to Patexia.

Part of the problem with medication errors is the multiple steps needed to administer a drug in a traditional hospital setting. In the inpatient setting, a doctor writes the prescription order for the patient’s chart, a nurse transfers the order to the pharmacy, the pharmacy reviews it, sends it back, and the nurse finally administers the medication. Mistakes can be made at the many points of this process – handwriting can be illegible, drug allergies or drug interactions can be missed, etc. E-prescription systems seek to eliminate these sorts of errors, which can cost hospitals up to $3 million per year.

E-prescription systems allow healthcare providers to log prescription medication into a computer, which is then sent to a pharmacy, and administered. Many of the aforementioned points of error are eliminated, and doctors have better access to menus regarding dosing options, routes of administration, patient medical history, possible drug allergies, etc. A recent Australian study reports that the use of e-prescriptions cut down on medication errors by about 60%, and reduced serious drug related errors by 44%. Hardwriting legibility issues and incomplete prescription orders were mostly eliminated with the e-system, though interestingly, drug allergy/interaction errors were not really affected – though these issues were rare going into the study.

The use of e-prescriptions is in the rise, according to a report by Cal eConnect, which shows a jump from 3% to 25% between 2007 and 2011. Coupled with the latest developments of an iPhone-connected smartpill, advances in e-prescribing for the administering of e-drugs might all but eliminate preventable adverse elements in the future.

February 22, 2012
iOS Games Get Backing From Major Players

It looks like iOS devices may be getting some more star power from the games industry.

The majority of the big hits on portable devices such as smartphones have come from independent or small developers like Rovio with Angry Birds. The number of big developers making games for smartphones, however, has increased over the years especially with the high profile release of Infinity Blade by Epic Games and Chair Entertainment.

It looks like that recent trend is going to continue. Andriasang is reporting that Hironobu Sakaguchi recently commented on Twitter that he was making three iOS games. While Sakaguchi is a household name among gamers, those who just got into gaming through the iPhone may know him better as the creator of Final Fantasy. Sakaguchi has been involved with every major Final Fantasy release from the original to Final Fantasy X. More recently, he has been working on RPGs with his new company Mistwalker where they have made contemporary hits like Lost Odyssey and The Last Story.

If ridiculous hair, big swords and soliloquies on the meaning of life are not your thing, Rockstar Games will be bringing the original Max Payne to iOS devices as well. The news was revealed during a Rockstar Q&A posted on their Web site. Rockstar’s conversion of Grand Theft Auto III for the iPad seemed to do well for the developer, so Max Payne should be a solid conversion.

One final thing that should get mobile gamers excited is that Tim Schafer will be bringing Double Fine’s new adventure game to smart devices. We reported on the developers successful Kickstarter project that aimed to raise $400,000 but has since raised more than $2 million.

I know that I’ve been unfairly critical of smartphone gaming over the years as the games have generally proven to be not as sophisticated as the games I have been playing over the past 20 years. With these announcements, it may finally get me into playing games on a tablet or smartphone.

For that to happen though, I’m going to need something better than shoddy touchscreen controls. Maybe somebody will make a tablet with a controller that features physical buttons so games not specifically built for touchscreens don’t control like trash.

February 22, 2012
Twitter Updates Mobile Apps for Android, iPhone

For those of you who use the official Twitter mobile app on either your iPhone or your Android smartphone, it’s update time. Both platforms are seeing and “new and improved” Twitter app, although, the changes are a bit cosmetic; at least for the iOS environment.

Over at the Twitter blog, the changes are detailed, and for Android users, there isn’t much in the way of new features, save for the fact you can now run the official Twitter app on Android devices that are running the Ice Cream Sandwich version of their smartphone OS.

The official Twitter app, thanks to the update, now supports the Kindle Fire. In two days (2/23), the official Twitter app will be available for Barnes and Noble’s family of NOOK tablets, which means you’re going to be able to tweet (officially) from pretty much any device you have. While the iOS environment received the majority of the updated apps additions, both mobile operating systems will see new features, including:

Swipe shortcut: Swipe a Tweet in your home timeline to reply to, retweet, favorite or share it, or view the Twitter user’s profile, without leaving your timeline.

“Find friends”: We’ve added a confirmation alert when you select “Find friends”. This notification more clearly and explicitly messages the fact that when you upload your contacts’ email addresses and phone numbers, you can quickly find which of your friends are on Twitter (that is, if they’ve chosen to be discoverable by email or phone number).

The update also includes some new features specifically for iOS devices:

Copy and paste: We’ve returned the ability to copy and paste the text of Tweets and user profiles. Just press and hold to copy.

Link love: The “share” feature used to just give you the option to copy or email a link to a Tweet. Now, if there’s a link within a Tweet, you’ll see the option to tweet, copy or mail that link, or you can choose to read it later. (Select a “Read Later Service” under Settings > Advanced.)

Pressing and holding links provides similar options, along with the ability to open the link in Safari.

Direct messages: We updated the design for Direct Messages and returned the ability to mark all DMs as read. Simply tap the check mark in the lower right corner.

Font size settings: Change the font size under Settings > Advanced.

Aside from the NOOK, the updated official Twitter app is live and ready to be installed for those of you who are interested. Android devices here; iOS here; and the Kindle Fire here.

February 22, 2012
Facebook Improves iOS App Distribution

Do you have an iPhone app that gets traffic from Facebook for iOS? Maybe you want to start directing people from Faebook for iOS to your app? Either way, Facebook released some new tools for developers today that should make directing traffic to your app much easier.

For people who want to take advantage of these development tools, Facebook has detailed the process on their development blog. The first thing that developers are going to want to do is change the settings on the Dev app:

Enter an iOS Bundle ID that corresponds to your app

Enter an iPhone and/or iPad App Store ID

Enable the “Configured for iOS SSO” setting

The settings by default will link any news feed or open graph stories back to the provided story URL. App developers can link these stories to their mobile Web site or to an intermediate page that then redirects to a variety of options.

Developers can even have their stories link to their app or their app store page. To do this, you have to enable the “iOS native deep linking” on the dev app.

Facebook does want to remind developers that links in their stories should be compatible on all devices. Deep linking is an added incentive for app developers who want to link back to their apps.

The rest of the blog post shows the actual code that developers can implement into their apps that should improve the experience for their users and their traffic. Check it out and become informed!

February 21, 2012
China Telecom To Begin Selling iPhones Next Month

China Telecom has announced that they will start carrying Apple’s iPhone 4S next month. All models of the iPhone will be available on a selection of the company’s plans. Chinese customers who want an iPhone can pre-order one beginning March 2. The phone will be available for purchase on March 9.

Of the three major Chinese mobile carriers, China Telecom is the second to get the iPhone. China Unicom has had the device for some time. The third carrier, China Mobile, does not currently have the technology to offer the iPhone on its network.

The deal will no doubt be a big boost to Apple in China, where the iPhone has struggled to gain a foothold. A recent report showed that the iPhone’s market share in China had slipped to fourth place behind Samsung, Nokia, Huawei Technologies, and ZTE Corporation. Apple’s struggles in the huge Chinese mobile market have been attributed in part to the fact that only one of China’s three main carriers carry the iPhone.

February 21, 2012
iPhone Loss Leaves Man Blind In Atlanta

A Georgia Tech grad student found himself in a compromising position after he lost his smartphone. Vincent Martin is blind and his phone has special software that allows him to interact via voice recognition. Last friday he had to make a special trip to the veterinary clinic to allow his guide dog Karson to undergo a series of diagnostic tests. Normally Martin would take the bus to Georgia Tech, where he is a computer science major, but he cannot ride the bus alone. Without his K-9 partner he was resigned to a cab for transportation.

Upon exiting the cab and arriving at the college, Martin noticed his iPhone was no longer attached to his waste in the holster. By this time the cab had already left the campus. Somehow He managed to contact his friend Synge Tyson to tell her what happened. Synge had an excellent idea, she used her iPad to locate his iPhone. The only problem is that Synge is visually impaired herself, and is classified as legally blind. They used a magnifying glass to view the signal on the tablet and came to a conclusion about the device.

Tyson Comments on the event:

“It would change locations and I said, ‘your phone has gotta still be in this taxi because it’s a taxi pattern’,”

The couple did the next logical thing, they contacted the cab company who provided outstanding customer service by doing nothing. Of course, why would you help two blind people find an expensive device that helps them navigate the world? Customer service is horrible now days. Next they tried the police department. Again, no help. Unless you are the victim of theft or have been attacked they will not get involved.

The next day Martin’s brother drove the two of them around with their iPad and magnifying glass tracking the signal. The trail led them to the cab driver’s home. He had the device.

Martin comments:

“He was flabbergasted, he didn’t even know it was a phone; I really don’t think he had any idea what was going on.”

The phone was recovered and Martin has his lifeline to the world back on his hip. It’s crazy that two visually impaired people had to investigate the incident themselves and that the cab company couldn’t take care of this for them.

Synge elaborates:

“An everyday person like myself can help my friend, who’s blind, find his phone; I thought it was just wonderful,”

The technology in the iPad and iPhone made it possible for blind leading the blind to achieve better results than any customer service could provide. I am impressed.

Here’s a video about the incident featuring Vincent Martin, his dog Karson, and Synge Tyson provided by News 11:

February 21, 2012
Fake Pokemon Yellow Is On The iTunes App Store

Apple strictly monitors the App store to make sure that nobody uploads content that infringes on any other group’s copyright, but sometimes things get through. Somebody may want to tell Nintendo about this one then.

In what may be the most hilarious oversight on the part of Apple yet, a user by the name of Home of Anime has uploaded Pokemon Yellow to the iPhone app store. The game promises to be a complete conversion of the original game.

But wait a minute, how can this be? Well, let’s take a look at the app store page for the game, shall we? First things first, those press reviews seem suspect:

“Fantastic and addictive gameplay. Six stars.” 5/5

“Just like the original. Only better because you can play it on the most intuitive device ever – the iPhone.” 5/5

“Hundreds of hours of gameplay, fun and collecting all Pokémon. Great app from Home of Anime.”

This app just launched today. How can there already be reviews for it, especially for this specific version? Also, there is no attribution to the reviews so we can assume this is just fake.

Moving on down, we get to the screenshots which are lifted directly from Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, the Gameboy Advance games. Pokemon Yellow was for the Gameboy.

What really makes me laugh is the disclaimer at the end:

All trademarks and copyrights are owned by their respective owners.

That’s not going to save Home of Anime from the legal beat down they’re going to receive from Nintendo. If the app was free, Home of Anime would just walk away with a slap on the wrist. The app costs $0.99 though so they are profiting off of another company’s IP.

It would just be illegal, yet funny if the app worked – too bad it doesn’t. Every review for the game mentions how the game crashes after the title screen.

So let’s get this straight – we’re dealing with stolen IP being sold by some random group on the app store preying upon those who would love nothing more than to get their Pokemon on, and it doesn’t even work. Either Home of Anime is a mastermind or just really gutsy.

It’s also worth mentioning that this isn’t just some random infringement for an app that nobody is buying. The fake Pokemon Yellow is the third best selling paid app on the iTunes app store right now.

Before we move on to the other great products from Home of Anime, it should be pointed out that clicking on the support link on the app store page takes you to a barebones WordPress site called Qeab.net. The message those wondering why the app doesn’t work is absolutely hilarious:

If you are experiencing issues with Pokémon Yellow, we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience.

Thanks for your patience while we thoroughly investigate this issue.

We are working on a new build and we anticipate this will be completed soon, which should overcome the issue.

Again, apologies for the inconvenience.

Home of Anime deals in other high quality apps, though not as outright infringing as his Pokemon Yellow app. They are selling Digimon and YuGiOh apps that appear to be just as much of a rip-off.

It’s amazing that Apple or Nintendo haven’t caught on to this yet. I do, however, believe that these apps will be gone by the end of the day. This particular brand of blatant copyright infringement never sticks around for long.

For now, just bask in the utter hilarity that is Pokemon Yellow on the App Store and feel sorry for those that have been duped into buying it.

February 20, 2012
BrailleTouch Aids Visually Impaired With Keyboard Of The Future

When you think about it, it really doesn’t make any sense that we still use QWERTY keyboards on handheld devices. There are so many characters that it actually requires two or three (or more?) screens in order to display all of them, the keys themselves are small enough to promote eyestrain, and typos are prominent if you don’t have thin-ish fingers (otherwise known as “fat-finger syndrome”). The design is purely the result of a rushed supply to satisfy the demand of people who want to continue their typing habits on smaller devices. But that doesn’t change the fact that the design is awful.

Thankfully, researchers at Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing realized the flaws in the prevailing design of touchscreen keyboards on handheld devices and have developed a new system of entering text into a phone or tablet that is based on the Braille alphabet. The new software, called BrailleTouch, is geared towards eventually replacing the QWERTY keyboard model and, as you can probably infer from the name, wouldn’t even require a user to even look at the phone’s touchscreen.

In a statement issued by Georgia Tech, Postdoctoral Fellow Mario Romero, who led the research on the software, said, “Research has shown that chorded, or gesture-based, texting is a viable solution for eyes-free written communication in the future, making obsolete the need for users to look at their devices while inputting text on them.”

Equally innovative is the way that BrailleTouch can enable the visually impaired and poor-sighted to more easily enter text on their touchscreens. Caleb Southern, a graduate student who co-authored the research, said that further research with BrailleTouch will focus on how visually impaired users can successfully utilize the software. In the initial study, researchers found encouraging results with BrailleTouch users who had some visual impairment: compared with other programs designed for eyes-free texting, users of BrailleTouch could type at types “at least six times the number of words per minute.” Additionally, BrailleTouch users were typed at 32 WPM with 92% accuracy.

Check out Romero’s demonstration of BrailleTouch in the video below, and pay especially to his comments at the end.

Did you hear that, class? “Cognitive centers in your brain will be overloaded if you tried to use BrailleTouch while driving.” Meaning: you will wreck if you use this app while driving. And Romero knows more about your own brain than you will probably ever know, so don’t doubt him.

Perhaps the best part about BrailleTouch is that it is open-source, meaning it won’t cost users a dime. Currently, BrailleTouch has been developed for the iPhone but is not currently in the App Store, and the researchers are said to be working on a version for Android devices. Given the relative ease – I, for one, have no problem giving a couple hours out of one day to learn a new input method that will improve how I type texts for the rest of my life – anybody out there thinking they’ll give this app a try once it’s available to the public? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

February 20, 2012
Syrian Government Blocks Crisis Video

Friday morning, Syrian government blocked live streaming video broadcasted by Bambuser, a startup that has become popular in emerging markets due to it’s ability to be used on 320 different mobile devices, in areas with poor connections. During the Arab Spring protests throughout last year, anti-government activists were able to use the platform to great effect in documenting strife in the region, with a live stream from Homs recently being broadcast on BBC news.

Currently, when a Bambuser user attempts to access a video from Syria, they run into the following screen, where even archived Syrian footage appears to be blocked:

In January, Bambuser was blocked in Egypt to stifle the broadcast mass anti-government demonstrations, and the service has been cut in Bahrain for 6 months. In the past month, Bambuser video from Syria has increased, depicting bombings, government violence towards civilians and footage of decrepit field hospitals. Bambuser Chairman Hans Eriksson is not exactly sure how the Syrian government is blocking broadcasts, but goes on to say “we believe it really shows the true power of live video streaming and the confidence many activists have in our service,” according to Tech Crunch.

Recently, Syria had banned the iPhone, in an attempt to silence protestors, a more obvious device to attempt to block, yet somehow even the Nokia 6600 from 2003 is now on the list as a potential threat to the Syrian regime. It is evident that since Bambuser footage from the region had recently been streaming on CNN, BBC, AlJazeera, SkyNews and others, the government was prompted to shut it down. But Eriksson went on to say, “they (protestors) know the world is watching, sharing and it gives them hope.”

February 20, 2012
iPhone 4 Owner? Apple May Owe You $15.

When Apple released the iPhone 4, it was the company’s most successful product launch up until that date. A lot lot of consumers, however, were frustrated to find that there were major reception problems, in a scandal which became known as Antennagate. It led to the departure of Apple’s executive in charge of iPhone hardware, though it is even cited in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs bio as an example of when Jobs put design over functionality.

The issue led to a big thumbs down for the device from Consumer Reports.

The whole thing even inspired this, which Apple played at its own press event:

Jobs said at the event, Apple hadn’t figured out its “way around the laws of physics yet.” He recommended iPhone owners install an update, and announced that Apple would give them free cases, and that those who had bought one would get a refund (if they were not from third-parties).

Still, there were a number of lawsuits, which resulted in their consolidation into one class action suit. Now, a settlement has been reached, according to CNET, which reports that those who bought an iPhone 4 will be entitled to $15 in cash or a bumper case from Apple.

More details will emerge at iPhone4Settlement.com in the coming weeks, the report says, though there is nothing at that URL at the moment.

February 18, 2012
Gorillas As Fascinated With iPhones As Humans Are [VIDEO]

We here at WebProNews are not much different from the readers of our fair site because, like you, we love all things gadgety. Flash us a new hand-held device and we’re like Yogi Bear drifting toward a freshly set picnic. While the fascination with smartphones and tablets are fast becoming a standard component to the human condition, Mark Rober might have unexpectedly discovered that it’s not just a human thing.

During a casual trip to the zoo, Rober was using his iPhone to snap some photos of some gorillas when he noticed that they, orangutans, and other primates took a specific interest in his phone. They weren’t interested with the non-iPhoned humans, but his iPhone brought all the monkeys to the yard. Check out his video below, which includes the modified gorilla cam that he constructed in order to give the primates a good look at themselves on his iPhone.

February 17, 2012
iPhone Losing Market Share In China

While Apple enjoys considerable success in the sale of its iPhone around the world, the Chinese market has proven a particularly tough nut to crack. Overall, Apple has had an amazing year: they sold more iOS devices in 2011 than Macs in 28 years. In the last quarter of 2011 Apple’s iPhone business alone generated more revenue than Microsoft’s entire business. The iPhone even surpassed OS X in web market share in the last quarter. And yet, in the country where the iPhone is actually built, China, Apple’s share of the smartphone market fell.

In fact, Apple fell from fourth place to fifth place in the Chinese smartphone market. Chinese-based ZTE Corporation passed Apple to take fourth place in the world’s largest mobile phone market. The top three spots are occupied by Samsung, Nokia, and Huawei Technologies, another Chinese-based company.

Much of Apple’s difficulty apparently stems from the cost of the device, which is as much as two months’ salary for many Chinese workers. Apple’s market share in China fell from 10.4 percent in the third quarter of 2011 to 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter. The iPhone is currently only available through one Chinese mobile carrier, China Unicom, though Apple reportedly is working to bring the iPhone to China Telecom, the country’s smallest mobile carrier.

February 17, 2012
Apple Sells More iOS Devices Than Macs

Apple has been making Macintosh computers for the past 28 years. The company’s newer iOS devices, while only being on the market for a relatively short time, have already outpaced the Mac business.

Speaking to Fortune Magazine, Apple CEO Tim Cook, spoke on iOS growth especially that of the iPad which has sold 55 million units to date:

This 55 is something no one would have guessed. Including us. To put it in context, it took us 22 years to sell 55 million Macs. It took us about 5 years to sell 22 million iPods, and it took us about 3 years to sell that many iPhones. And so, this thing is, as you said, it’s on a trajectory that’s off the charts.

The fine folks at Asymco have created a graph that shows just how amazingly fast Apple’s iOS devices have sold in comparison to its Mac business:

Overall, Apple sold 156 million iOS devices last year. The company has sold 122 million Macs over its 28 year lifespan. That should blow your mind.

Cook spoke more on how the iPad has grown into almost its own economy. The device currently has 170,000 apps built specifically for it. That’s on top of the already massive amount of apps for the iPhone that are compatible with the iPad.

Apple bet on the tablet market overtaking the PC market which seems to be happening to an extent. While Apple still supports the Mac with the upcoming Mountain Lion release, it seems that they are moving towards more of a unified OS that will look similar on both their portable devices and home computers.

Microsoft is moving towards a unified OS as well with their Windows 8 release that will use the Metro style that is the same across both Windows phones and desktops.

The important thing to take from all this is that Apple’s iOS devices have changed the way we interact with computers. They are going to continue to change how we interact with our world. While people like myself are going to stick to our old-fashioned PCs, the new wave of interactivity will help more people use computers in new and interesting ways.

February 17, 2012
New SmartPill Broadcasts to iPhone

According to a new article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, drug companies have been studying a pill containing a biodegradable chip that can transmit information to a user’s iPhone.

Proteus Biomedical has developed a biodegradable digital device that transmits medical data to iPhones, or similar handheld devices, as soon as the patient swallows it. Swiss drugmaker Novartis has partnered up with Proteus, seeing the link between smartpills and smartphones as having potential in providing drugmakers with data on how their products are working.

Proteus’ product has three components: a powered sensor called the ingestible event marker (IEM), glued to a pill; a nonmedicated skin patch sensor that works like a drug delivery patch; and a smartphone app that collects and transmits data. After being swallowed, the IEM can transmit information on the type of drug, dosage times, and heart and respiratory rates to the skin patch, which likewise sends it to the smartphone.

One obvious benefit of the new smartpill is the potential for diabetes patients to monitor blood glucose more easily, and pharmaceutical companies hope to be able to glean more information about a how the body responds to new medications, than is presently available from traditional clinical trials.

February 16, 2012
Siri Will Be Learning Japanese Soon, Says Siri

Siri, the personal assistant software on the iPhone 4S, may have given clues about upcoming features. When asked which languages Siri speaks, she replies that she speaks English, French, German, and Japanese, and that the languages can be changed in the iPhone’s settings app.

What’s interesting, though, is that when you actually go to Siri’s languages settings on your phone, Japanese isn’t on the list. There’s French, German, and three dialects of English (American, British, and Australian), but no Japanese:

While it could be some sort of glitch, it seems likely that the response means that Siri will be getting Japanese support. Apple’s FAQ page on Siri promises support for Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish coming later this year. If this isn’t a glitch, then it looks like Japanese support will be coming soon – possibly with iOS 5.1, which should release around the same time as the iPad 3 launches. There are no hints yet of when support for the other four languages will follow.

When the iPhone 4S launched in October with Siri, language support was somewhat lacking. While English, French, and German are among the world’s most common languages, they are still only three among hundreds. To make matters worse, Siri has a notoriously hard time with accents. The software is optimized for native accents, and speaking a supported language with a foreign accent – say, Scottish – can create all kinds of trouble. The addition of Japanese support will hopefully open Siri up to a wider range of iPhone 4S users than before.

February 15, 2012
Apple Kills Siri On Jailbroken iPhones

Apple appears to have made some changes that make it difficult or impossible to run Siri clones on jailbroken iOS devices other than the iPhone 4S. According to a number of sources, Apple has changed the requirements for establishing a successful connection between Siri and the back-end servers that process most requests. Apple has reportedly added a SetAuthenticationToken command to the connection, which prevents Siri clones on non-iPhone 4S devices from establishing a working connection.

A response was not long in coming, however. Shortly after the problem was identified, reports of a workaround began surfacing. It seems that by using one of several file management tools available in the Cydia app store, users can get Siri back by deleting a file called com.apple.assistant.plist from their phone’s var/mobile/Library/Preferences/.

Apple may well have another response in the works, though. If not, it is likely that the forthcoming iOS 5.1, which will probably be released with the iPad 3, will contain fixes that make it harder to jailbreak.

Late last year Apple released a revision to iOS 5.0.1. While the goal of the revision was to fix a problem some iPhone 4S users were having with their phones not recognizing their SIM card, there was an unintended side effect. The new build of iOS left the iPhone’s file system completely unencrypted, giving developers in the jailbreak community free access to the files that make up Siri. Given its reliance on connections to Apple’s servers, Siri had proven extremely difficult to clone on jailbroken iOS devices other than the iPhone 4S. Just two weeks after the revised version of iOS 5.0.1 was released, however, jailbreak developer Grant Paul (chpwn) announced the release of Spire, a fully functional Siri clone that was available for any jailbroken iOS device running iOS 5. Now Siri was available on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and even both generations of iPad.

Now it looks like Apple may be getting itself into another battle with jailbreak developers. Apple has traditionally closed the holes in iOS code that make jailbreak possible, forcing jailbreak devs to find new ways to crack the operating system every time. Now it looks like they are going to be doing the same thing with Siri.

February 15, 2012
Smartphone Connectivity In Vehicles Grew In 2011

Do you still use the radio or CD player in your car or do you prefer to use new portable media devices like smartphones? A new study from the NPD has found the answer and it may suprise you.

The NPD Group has found that the popularity of using portable media devices is growing. How much has the use of these devices grown? NPD’s retail tracking service pegs the sales of devices that allow the integration of media players with cars at more than $170 million in 2011.

The study, “Mobile CE: A look inside the vehicle,” found that 84 percent of vehicle owners have a portable media device whereas 79 percent of vehicle owners are using them in their car. The devices are also used regularly with half of smartphone owners and 37 percent of iPod owners saying that they use their devices “always” or “most of the time” while driving.

The study doesn’t spell doom and gloom for traditional car audio products, however, with 73 percent of vehicle owners saying they use the FM radio on car trips. Interestingly enough, 57 percent of consumers said that the presence of a CD player will be very important in making the decision of which car to buy next.

“Traditional radio and CD audio remain firmly entrenched in the vehicle from both a device and entertainment standpoint,” Ben Arnold, NPD’s director of industry analysis, said. “But as ownership of mobile devices, digital content, and apps expands, consumers will be looking for ways to customize the in-vehicle environment with content and services.”

Auto manufacturers had better start putting in-vehicle connectivity in cars as 32 percent of consumers now look for that as a key component to their purchase decision.

The way consumers are connecting these devices to their vehicle has become more varied as well. Eighteen percent of vehicle owners have an auxiliary input while 11 percent are connecting via USB. Wireless connectivity is also gaining ground with 13 percent of vehicles now sporting the function. More than half of vehicle owners who have built-in bluetooth or wireless systems say they use it most, if not all, of the time.

“The key is for auto makers and traditional audio manufacturers to facilitate consumer use of connected devices in the vehicle, allowing content from the smartphone, tablet, or digital media player to easily stream or be controlled through the deck mounted in the dashboard,” Arnold said. “We’re only going to see greater consumer attachment to social media, streaming audio and video, and other services as content options grow.”

We reported back in January that such connectivity is what led auto manufacturers to show up at CES as they demonstrated their new smart cars that promise not just smartphone connectivity for media, but a whole variety of apps including Facebook and Twitter.

February 14, 2012