The e-book market on iOS is pretty crowded. There's Apple's iBooks, of course, and then there's Amazon's Kindle app and Nook by Barnes and Noble. And all of these services have extremely large e-book offerings and millions of users.
But apparently that isn't enough to stop Sony from throwing its hat into the ring. The electronics giant released its own free e-book app in the App Store today, entitled Reader — eBooks from Sony, for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch...
When Apple CEO Tim Cook last week fired abrasive iOS chief Scott Forstall, he also appointed the company's un-retired hardware engineering boss Bob Mansfield as the leader of the new Technologies group, which combines all of Apple's wireless and semiconductor teams. And in an email to employees announcing the management changes, Cook hinted that Technologies "have some very ambitious plans". But what could these plans be, apart from designing new processors for iOS devices, which is what Mansfield and his team have been doing for years now?
You're not thinking big enough. How about a transition away from Intel processors across the Mac lineup? But why on Earth engage in such a risky brain transplant? Aren't the chip giant's processors good enough for Macs? If "people familiar with the company’s research" are correct, Apple is secretly (well, not anymore) been seeking ways to one day take the processors it designed in-house for the iOS product family and put them inside Macs...
Though it hinted it was tiring of patent wars and even dropped its ITC patent infringement claims against Apple (the move some deciphered as a gesture of goodwill), Motorola could be off the hook as Google was quoted as saying Monday that that a Wisconsin federal court tossed Apple’s “patent lawsuit with prejudice” out of the window.
The search monster relayed willingness of its subsidiary Motorola to license its patents portfolio at a reasonable and non-discriminatory rate "in line with industry standards", court documents have it. Apple in a filing last week hinted it would accept a license at a court-determined rate of up to $1 per iPhone on FRAND terms. Also indicative, the two companies in August demonstrated ability to resolve differences, having signed a patent licensing agreement in Germany...
Facebook has just updated its iOS app with a couple new features that make it easier to chat with your friends and share multiple photos. You can now swipe left anywhere in the app in order to see who's available versus hitting the icon in the upper left to bring up the slide-out interface to hit Chat. Even more importantly, the program finally lets you share multiple photos at once and add friends you message most to the top of your Favorites.
UPDATE: As noted by many of our readers in the comment section, there seems to be a problem with this Facebook update. We recommend you stay away from it until Facebook can figure out what the problem is...
http://vimeo.com/52497584
Google's recently updated Voice Search iOS app is simply amazing as it demonstrates just how speedy Siri should be. Unfortunately, Apple's digital secretary remains reliant on network connectivity for voice recognition. Heck, this time last year some folks were even convinced only the iPhone 4S was fast enough to run Siri. That couldn't be farther from the truth because Google's iOS app comes with real-time voice recognition. So, how speedy is Siri compared to Google's refreshed app? Check out this clip by Gizmodo and meet us down in the comments. It's a couple days old but definitely worth watching...
Sharp, who makes TVs, displays and other electronics, is in serious trouble right now. The company is bleeding money, its stock price is plummeting and it says that it's not sure that it can continue to operate.
In fact, the dyer situation has Foxconn worried enough that it's thinking about pulling out of its deal to buy an 11% stake in the company. But according to a new report, Apple may be looking to help out...
Apple will sell 20.2 million iPads during the December financial quarter - half of them iPad minis, one Wall Street analyst predicts. The forecast comes as experts attempt to divine the meaning of Apple's record three million tablets sold over the past weekend.
Despite a Northeast US battered and bruised by Hurricane Sandy, Apple announced it sold three million new iPads this weekend, breaking a record of 1.5 million Wi-Fi-only units moved during the iPad 3 opening weekend in March. Analysts believe a large portion of new iPads sold this weekend were various iPad mini models...
I always hated that my Instagram account lacked a public profile easily viewable in a desktop web browser. That began changing with Facebook's acquisition of the popular image sharing service as Instagram slowly but surely started putting basic pieces of the web profile puzzle in place, letting people at least like and comment on photos without having to depend on mobile apps. Today, the company has finally rolled out full-blown web profiles and boy do they look a lot like Facebook's profile design...
Should tablets be considered computers? While experts debate the tech equivalent of how many angels dance on the head of a pin, consumers are voting with their wallets. Tablets sales increased nearly 50 percent during the third quarter while computer purchases are on life support.
Today's numbers from IDC reflect a continuing trend away from PCs and toward mobile devices. Globally, 27.7 million tablets were sold during the third-quarter. This follows last month's numbers which showed PC sales declined 8.6 percent to 87.7 million during the same period...
Not sure if this has anything to do with smartphone penetration rate in the United States and in various other markets passing the 50 percent milestone, but a credible analysis shows that even though Android's growth was unstoppable in the past twelve months, capturing a whopping 75 percent of all smartphones sold in the third quarter, Google's platform is slowing over past six months while iOS is still making healthy gains.
Respectable independent analyst Horace Dediu took the latest comScore data to chart the two platform's growth. He discovered a recent split of 23.5 million for Android and 17 million units for iOS as Google's platform gained 58 percent of the growth and Apple captured 42 percent. That's a notable change in spread in Apple's favor versus the 24-month period when Android captured 70 percent of the growth and iOS captured 30 percent of the growth...
Google submitted its native Maps iOS app to Apple in September with the hope of having it approved by Christmas. Two weeks later, its chairman Eric Schmidt acknowledged that a Google Maps iOS app is up to Apple and a newspaper report this morning now suggests that insiders don't have high hopes that it will be approved by the iPhone maker after all. Google previously released a native YouTube app for iOS devices following the removal of stock YouTube software from iOS 6. Last month, the search Goliath also enabled Street View as a web app in the mobile Safari browser...
Unofficial Lightning accessories that use cracked chips one-up Apple's offering on price, but the "Made for iPhone" (MFi) stamp of approval has its advantages, mostly by reassuring buyers that MFi accessories meet Apple's standards of quality and extensive testing. Belkin was the first third-party manufacturer out of the gate with 30-pin connector accessories back in 2003.
On Monday, it has also become the first official Apple partner to launch Lightning-enabled accessories. The company launched a car charger and a sync dock, both priced within reach of budget shoppers. Belkin is accepting pre-orders today, promising to ship the products later this month...