In the latest lesson on how to be a smart tech news consumer, we focus on why research pointing to Apple gains somehow is trumpeted as losses for the iPad maker.
Wednesday, research firm IDC announced Apple's tablet saw a 65 percent year-over-year gain in first-quarter shipments.
Yet several news outlets blared headlines of the iPad's market share falling below 40 percent. How was Apple's strong growth spun into an Android win?
With Google Maps launching as a standalone app last fall, and Apple's own Maps app getting progressively better, you probably aren't in the market for an alternative GPS application. But we're going to tell you about one anyway.
ForeverMap2, a maps app that uses OpenStreetMaps tech, has finally landed on iOS. Its claim to fame is its advanced compression technology, which allows it to serve up offline maps without taking up much space on your device...
The days of boxy computers are history, so why are the batteries which power them still the same shape? That's the question a pair of new Apple patent applications seek to answer. The patents filed in 2011 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office describe "non-rectangular batteries for portable devices."
The iPhone and iPad maker outlines a way to customize the shape of batteries to fit the flexibility of today's consumer electronics, including the growing array of wearable devices, such as the highly-discussed iWatch or Google's Glass eyewear...
As promised, Finnish mobile games maker Rovio today launched the mobile edition of Angry Birds Friends. The Facebook edition launched on Facebook a year ago.
Given that the Facebook edition of Angry Birds Friends sees 60+ million monthly installs and has over 1.2 million daily users, the iOS and Android editions of Angry Birds Friends should prove pretty popular.
If you're a fan of social gaming experiences, Angry Birds Friends will let you invite your Facebook friends to play, brag about your achievements by spamming your Facebook friends' Newsfeed, spend cash on virtual gifts and coins, earn bronze, silver and gold trophies and more. I've included the launch trailer, screenies and more info after the break...
Despite Apple's iPad growing 65.3 percent year over year, the company's share of the total tablet market dropped from the 58.1 percent a year ago to an IDC-estimated 39.6 percent during the first quarter of this year, largely thanks to Apple not participating in the sub-$300 segment.
The rise of these cheap tablets improved Google platform's web usage share, with Android smartphones and tablets now owning 26 percent of all web traffic, a 35 percent annual gain as measured by research firm NetApplications.
In other words, one out of each four mobile devices used on the web are Android-branded, though Apple's iPhone and iPad still account for a commanding 59.4 percent of the Internet's traffic generated by mobile devices...
Photoshop maker Adobe has a few more or less useful apps on the App Store, most of them tied to its Creative Cloud offering and the Creative Suite family of desktop products for pros.
Although the company caters to photography buffs with iPhone and iPad versions of Photoshop Express, Photoshop Touch, Ideas and other apps, they're pared down versions conceived as companion apps to their desktop counterparts.
But pro photographers have reasons to rejoice as Adobe's group product manager for Lightroom Tom Hogarty today on Photoshop guru Scott Kelby’s show The Grid showed off a yet unnamed prototype iPad app that will bring pro-level photo editing and image manipulation capabilities to the owners of the Apple tablet.
Among the features being promised: RAW image support, seamless sync that leverages Adobe's cloud technologies and advanced Lightroom parameters, such as exposure, clarity, shadows, highlights and white balance...
Australia's airline Qantas said back in November it would enable Passbook integration for boarding passes for domestic flights. In the meantime, Qantas partner American Airlines rolled out support for Passbook boarding passes, as did a bunch of major airlines around the world. Making good on its promise, Qantas yesterday finally released its own iOS app with Passbook integration for digital boarding passes, mobile check-ins, real-time flight changes and frequent flyers...
T-Mobile and MetroPCS completed their merger yesterday, combining the 4th and 5th largest carriers in the United States. And we figured this would be good news for the latter company's 9M+ subscribers, as they'd finally get a shot at the iPhone.
But not so fast, says T-Mobile's John Legere. Speaking with tech blog AllThingsD, the CEO said that while he thinks it's possible that MetroPCS might be able to offer the popular device at some point, there are currently no immediate plans to do so...
Former Apple SVP of Retail, Ron Johnson, lasted barely a year on the job. After the struggling department store chain reported a $13 billion annual decline in revenue, the board ingloriously booted Johnson whose greatest sin was trying to change way too many things at the same time, namely insisting on his shop-in-shop concept.
The irony of it: the boutique store approach could have easily breathed a new life into JCPenney's garage sale concept and stood a good chance of reinvigorating the firm's fugly brick-and-mortar locations.
Figuring the best thing to do at this point is wash its hands of this whole Ron Johnson adventure, JCPenney yesterday begun airing a new television commercial. Titled 'It's No Secret' it's a pathetic attempt at apologizing for chickening out of Johnson's vision for the company. The video is right past the fold...
Last month, Yahoo released a new weather app for iOS aptly named Yahoo! Weather. And its fit and finish actually surprised some people. Our very own Christian Zibreg said it's "the best-designed iOS app from Yahoo yet."
It's just too bad that you can't make the app the default weather application in iOS. Or can you? Actually, thanks to a new jailbreak tweak called 'YahooWeatherisBetter,' you can make Yahoo's new weather app your default...
A new report is out this afternoon, claiming the US Department of Defense is going to grant security approvals for Samsung's Galaxy smartphones, as well as Apple's iPhones and iPads running iOS 6 in the coming weeks.
The move is separate from the mobile device implementation plan that the Pentagon announced back in February, and could pave the way for Apple to gain more notable influence in the hard-to-reach government sector...
Microsoft has been hinting at the possibility of bringing its suite of productivity applications to iOS for a long time now. We’ve heard that Microsoft may bring Office to the iPad next fall. We’ve heard that the software giant is holding out until Apple agrees to take a smaller cut of the profits. What we haven’t heard is that Microsoft is officially bringing Office to iOS in its full capacity.
Most of us have figured out workarounds that make it possible to access Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents on our iPad or iPhone. But nothing will beat the original. If it ever happens.
CloudOn is a universal app that brings Microsoft Office to your iPhone or iPad. CloudOn lets you manage your cloud-based files, plus edit, create, and present Microsoft Office documents. That’s right. You can now use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on iOS...