Month: October 2012

Samsung dazzles with record Q3 earnings, profits rising faster than Apple’s

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Samsung Electronics, the flagship subsidiary of the Samsung Group and the world's largest technology company by revenues since 2009, reported earnings for the September quarter and the results are staggering. Year-on-year profit rose 91 percent as the company brought home $5.9 billion in net profit on $47.6 billion in sales, a 26 percent increase.

Operating profit margin also climbed to 18.8 percent. Much of the spoils came from Galaxy devices, especially smartphones where Samsung in the third quarter reigned supreme, grabbing twice Apple's market share. Apple yesterday reported $8.2 billion in net profit on $36 billion revenues.

While Samsung has a long way to go to match Apple's profitability, it's been growing at a faster clip: Apple's net profit in the September quarter grew 25 percent versus 91 percent for Samsung. No matter how you look at it, Samsung Electronics, which has headquarters in Suwon, South Korea, is evidently on fire. Does it stand a shot at beating Apple on profitability down the road?

This jailbreak tweak lets you unlock your iPhone with a pinch

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

If you're looking for an alternative way to unlock your iOS device, there's no shortage of tweaks available on Cydia for you to do so. In fact, pinch to unlock is a recently released tweak that allows you to do just that. Instead of sliding to unlock, the tweak allows you to perform a two finger gesture as a means to unlock.

Interestingly, you don't have to actually perform a pinch gesture in order to unlock your device. Pinch to unlock readily accepts any two finger gesture on your Lock screen as a means to gain access to your device. Check inside for the full video...

How to kill all running apps with a swipe

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

SwipeAway is a new jailbreak tweak that allows you to easily kill running apps with a simple swipe within iOS' App Switcher. The tweak includes two options in the Settings app: the ability to swipe up, or swipe down to invoke the killing measure.

This certainly isn't the first tweak that allows you to kill all running apps, but it's likely one of the more intuitive methods for doing so. Take a look at our full video walkthrough inside for all of the details.

Samsung’s smartphone market twice that of Apple

Ed Sutherland ∙ October 26, 2012

Samsung has become Apple's chief nemesis in court and on retail shelves. The South Korean smartphone maker now has twice the market share as the Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker, new research finds. According to IDC, Samsung controlled 31.3 percent of the smartphone market during the third quarter, handily beating Apple's 15 percent share.

The two companies have the smartphone market largely to themselves, with their nearest competitor - Blackberry maker Research In Motion - controlling only 4.3 percent, according to IDC. Nokia even fell from the top five, shipping just 82.9 million handsets in the previous quarter, a 22 percent drop from the same quarter in 2011...

How to create animations on your SpringBoard by shaking your device

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Some jailbreak tweaks serve no purpose as far as productivity or utility is concerned. Some tweaks are simply made to show off to your friends and family. ShakeAnimation fits squarely into this category. This isn't a tweak that you purchase to gain additional functionality on your iOS device. Instead, it's a tweak that you install solely to show off what you can do with your device.

As its name states, ShakeAnimation allows you to gain several different animations on your device with a simple shake. There are quite a few animations contained within the settings, and you can invoke them in a variety of areas such as the Lock screen, or Home screen. Talking about it can only tell you show much. For a tweak like this you really need to visualize it to get the full gist of it. Take a look at our video inside for a full visualization of ShakeAnimation in action...

Cook on iPad mini canibalization, Microsoft’s Surface and Apple’s position on tweener tablets

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 26, 2012

Apple CEO Tim Cook during yesterday's conference call with Wall Street analysts briefly touched on Microsoft's Surface tablet, which hit store shelves today, canibalization of its own products by the iPad mini and more. He also addressed his predecessor's public dissing of smaller tablets two years ago, insisting that Apple's position on the matter remains unchanged and stressing that the iPad mini, which has a 7.9-inch display, is "in a whole different league" than other seven inchers. Apple in fact, he said, "would never make" a seven-inch iPad...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City due on iOS and Android later this fall

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 10, 2018

Rockstar Games is celebrating tenth year of its Grand Theft Auto series and said it will be releasing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on iOS and Android platforms later this fall. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City debuted on October 29, 2002 on the PlayStation 2 and I've had lots of fun playing the various installments in the series throughout the years.

The new game should arrive approximately a year following the release of Grand Theft Auto III for iOS (still not updated for the iPhone 5 and Retina graphics). An Anniversary Edition of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for iOS and Android devices "will bring the full experience to mobile devices", Rockstar said. They are mentioning native high-resolution graphics and several enhancements that will be unique to the iOS and Android platforms...

Initial pre-order stock of white iPad mini sold out

Cody Lee ∙ Updated June 5, 2018

Apple made the fourth generation iPad and iPad mini available for pre-order earlier this morning. And as pointed out by some of our readers, the white version of the smaller tablet sold out rather quickly.

Here in the US, all models of the white iPad mini started showing two week shipping estimates within the first half hour. So if you're looking to score one on launch day, you'll have to head to a retail store...

Some hobby: Apple sold 1.3M Apple TVs last quarter

Cody Lee ∙ October 26, 2012

While going over its sales figures for the quarter yesterday, Apple once again neglected to mention the Apple TV. In fact, it wasn't even until an analyst asked a question about it, that Tim Cook spoke of the product.

This should kind of give you an idea of how Apple views the $99 set top box. It's obviously not near as important as say the iPhone or, any of its other iOS devices. But that doesn't mean that it's not selling well...

Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer defend iPad mini pricing

Cody Lee ∙ Updated November 20, 2017

You had to know this was coming: during the Q&A portion of Apple's conference call yesterday, analysts grilled Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer about the higher-than-expected pricing on the iPad mini.

As you would expect, the two defended the tablet's $329 price tag, stating that they didn't want to build a small, cheap tablet. "iPad mini is a fantastic product; it's not a compromise like the other 7-inch tablets."

Apple posts “Samsung didn’t copy the iPad” notice on UK site

Cody Lee ∙ October 26, 2012

A week ago, Apple tried appealing a recent ruling by the High Court in London that Samsung's Galaxy Tab didn't infringe on its design patents. As you may recall, this is the same case where the presiding Judge ordered Apple to run advertisements stating that Samsung didn’t copy the iPad.

Well, Apple lost that appeal. And this morning, it made good on its orders by posting a notice on the ruling to its UK website...

Fourth gen iPad and iPad mini now available for pre-order

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Here it is folks, the moment you've been waiting for since Apple unveiled the fourth generation iPad and iPad mini at its big media event on Tuesday. Both tablets are now available for pre-order.

As you may recall, the initial round of iPhone 5 pre-orders sold out within the first hour of availability. So if you're thinking about getting one of the new iPads, you might not want to wait...