Apple

Image via Cnet

Last month Samsung ramped up the anti-Apple rhetoric with a new ad campaign that depicted iPhone users as “wall huggers,” constantly tethered to a power outlet due to the inferior battery in their non-Samsung smartphones. Today Cnet reports that the company has taken its campaign one step further by trolling real-life iPhone users at power outlets throughout major airports.

The new ads take the form of posters near power outlets that read, “Samsung Galaxy S5 with Ultra Power Saver Mode,” followed by a tagline that appears to poke at Apple’s own recent ad campaign: “So you have the power to be anywhere but here.” If you’d like to take a gander at the latest salvo in the ever-escalating flame war between Apple and Samsung, you’ll be able to do just that very soon at JFK, O’Hare, and Midway airports. Samsung says even more airports could be getting the ads if they’re successful in the first three.

Apple is currently planning to announce the iPhone 6 on September 9th, though rumors say it doesn’t look like the new model will provide much hope for the “wall huggers.”

The latest enterprise market share data from Good Technology shows that Android gained five points from iOS, hitting almost a third of the market at 32 percent while iOS fell from 72 to 67 percent. Windows Phone remains flat (and irrelevant) at just 1 percent. (BlackBerry data is not included as the company uses its own servers and activations are invisible to Good Technology.)

What’s particularly impressive about the numbers is that Good’s technology mostly connects mobile devices to Exchange servers and organizations that use Google services for enterprise, which are more likely to Android, aren’t being counted here…

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Former Android head and Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra has apologized to owners of its smartphones for “any concern caused” by collecting contact data from address books without permission.

A recent […] report by F-Secure raised privacy concerns by stating that Xiaomi devices are sending phone numbers to Xiaomi’s servers. These concerns refer to the MIUI Cloud Messaging service. As we believe it is our top priority to protect user data and privacy, we have decided to make MIUI Cloud Messaging an opt-in service and no longer automatically activate users […]

We apologize for any concern caused to our users and Mi fans. We would also like to thank the media and users who have been sending us feedback and suggestions, allowing us to improve and provide better Internet services …

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Samsung’s troubles are far from over, says credit rating Fitch, predicting that the company’s share of the smartphone market will fall from 31 percent last year to 25 percent next year, reports the WSJ.

Nitin Soni, a Singapore-based director of corporate ratings at Fitch, warned that Samsung had lost its edge with consumers as Chinese companies like Xiaomi, Lenovo and Huawei make cheaper and cheaper products that meet most consumers’ needs.

He added that innovations like wearable devices and curved screens – two of Samsung’s recent tricks – are “unlikely to change the trend” …

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-GBfJ3Xork]

Getting smooth handheld video as you pan around with a smartphone isn’t easy, and professional Steadicam solutions run to four figures and up – perhaps just a little OTT for a smartphone.

But high-end smartphones have very capable cameras these days, and the StayblCam is a $75 device designed to give you some of the benefits of a Steadicam at a rather more smartphone-friendly price. Available for pre-order now for delivery in September/October, I tried out a prototype to see how well it performs … 
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Image via <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-01/tech-hubris-the-silicon-valley-antitrust-hiring-conspiracy#p2" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>

A judge has rejected a settlement that was reached earlier this year between employees of Google, Intel, Apple, and Adobe and their respective companies, CNBC reported today. According to reports from the courtroom, Judge Lucy Koh ruled that the settlement was not high enough and should actually be $380 million.

The lawsuit was brought against the tech giants in question by current and former employees who believed (correctly) that their employers had created agreements to avoid attempting to hire engineers from one another. The idea was that if no competitors were making offers, each company was free to pay its employees whatever it wanted without having to worry about them jumping ship for a better offer.

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A new NFL Now app has launched on Android & iOS, offering fans a personalized video stream of their favorite teams.

NFL Now delivers a personalized video stream of your favorite NFL teams, players and coaches right to your phone or tablet. Get exclusive interviews and stories about your team, breaking news on your fantasy players, and unlimited access to your favorites in the NFL Films Archives.

This official NFL product combines all of the intense football you love with a smart, easy-to-use interface. NFL Now learns what you like and delivers a non-stop stream of customized NFL content gathered just for you …

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Photo: ibtimes.com

Samsung and Apple just announced that they have agreed to drop all patent suits against each other in countries outside the United States, Bloomberg reports. The two companies will drop suits against each other in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, the U.K., France and Italy. This agreement does not include any licensing agreements, though. This has no effect on United States battles either.

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Samsung has announced a 31 percent drop in for its mobile division, broadly in line with its earlier guidance, when almost 200 managers “voluntarily” handed back 25 percent of their bonuses. Year-on-year operating profits fell from 6.43T won ($6.28B) to 4.42T won ($4.32B).

Chinese competition in low- and mid-range handsets was cited as one of the key reasons for the slump, with Samsung Mobile’s SVP Kim Hyun-Joon promising that the company would address this.

We will respond more aggressively to meet demand in the Chinese market […] in the latter half of this year by introducing more products with better specification as well as better price competitiveness …

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Following releasing its second quarter data for tablet shipments worldwide, IDC today released its Q2 2014 report for smartphone shipments during the three month period that ended in June. The numbers line up with Apple’s fiscal Q3 earnings call that took place earlier this month where the company reported iPhone sales of 35.1 million units for the quarter. With 295.3 million units shipped total during Q2, IDC notes that both Samsung and Apple lost share to the smaller Chinese manufacturers:
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The reason Amazon’s Fire Phone has failed to impress is that it spent so much on the “gimmick” of dynamic perspective that it only had enough cash left to build an otherwise mediocre phone – the conclusion of a component analysis of a teardown of the phone.

Dynamic perspective allows the phone to detect and respond to head movements when viewing the phone’s display, but has been widely seen by reviewers as a novelty or gimmick.

Following iFixit’s earlier teardown of the Fire Phone, re/code has been given sight of a component costing following a separate teardown by research form IHS. This reveals that the total component cost of the Fire Phone is around $205 – more expensive even than Apple’s flagship iPhone 5S. The cost of the dynamic perspective technology left little room for anything but mid-range specs in the rest of the handset, says IHS … 
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It may look like iOS, but this functional “Wico6” iPhone 6 clone is actually running a heavily skinned version of Android. Published by YouTuber Danny Winget, this functional clone mimics Apple’s iPhone in almost every way possible, all the way down to the packaging and accessories. So what’s the big deal? Apple clones pop up all of the time. Well, the Wico6 is designed to look like all of the iPhone 6 dummies we’ve seen up to the point.

This “fully functional” device does work as a smartphone (SIM card slot and all), but it’s not running iOS. There’s nothing fancy here as far as specifications go, but its user interface is shockingly detailed and does a very good job mimicking iOS. This device is powered by a 2.4GHz quad-core MediaTek processor, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, and has a 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 960 x 540 (234 ppi). Nothing impressive, but apparently it gets the job done.

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Flesky, a popular third-party keyboard option for Android, is rolling out version 3.0 that brings a refreshed user-interface design, new premium features, and more languages. Fleksy makes typing on smartphones quicker using a combination of advanced text prediction and an iOS QuickType-like function for predicting the next complete word in a sentence.

Today’s refreshed design brings clearer letters and new color tones. Besides the included color variations, users of the paid version of Fleshy from Google Play will be able to purchase additional themes through the keyboard’s settings. There will be six paid themes, and paid Fleksy users will receive one premium download at no cost. Fleksy is also bringing 17 new languages out of beta and enhancing the 40 previously available languages.

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Following pressure from the European Commission, Google has announced that it is making changes to how it brands and advertises apps with in-app purchases on the Play Store. This comes after the EU accusing Apple of taking too long to change its in-app purchase policy.

Google says that it will no longer use the word “free” when advertising games that support in-app purchases. It will also work to come up with guidelines for games and developers to prevent them from encouraging children to buy items using in-app purchases. Finally,  Google will also implement measures to monitor for breaches of European Union Law. Google plans to implement all of these changes starting at the end of September.

Meanwhile, the EU criticized Apple and said that it has “regrettably” not provided any changes or a timetable for changes to change their “misleading” in-app purchase measures.

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Reuters reports that almost 200 Samsung managers have “voluntarily” handed back a quarter of their first-half bonuses in anticipation of what is expected to be the company’s worst quarterly profit for two years.

The decision to return some of the bonus was partly a gesture to demonstrate that managers are taking responsibility for the earnings decline, and partly a way to show that management will work harder, the source told Reuters on Friday, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

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Image via <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml1LzNFn8kc">TechSmartt</a>

According to figures released by market research company BCN, Asus sold more tablets than Apple during the first half of 2014 in Japan. Asus’ market share rose 8 percent year-over-year during the first half of 2014, the report claims, giving it a 38.9 percent portion of the tablet market in Japan. Apple, on the other hand, holds a 36.4 percent share (via Nikkei). This is the first time Asus has ever held the top spot in Japan, according to the report.
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According to a new report out of Korean news outlet ETNews, Samsung is preparing to launch an all-metal device as early as next month called the Galaxy Alpha. According to the report, Samsung intends to heavily market the device as a competitor to Apple’s upcoming iPhone 6.

According to industry insiders on July 13, the Galaxy Alpha, which Samsung will launch next month, is a premium smartphone made of a metal. It is forecast to counter the iPhone 6 scheduled to be released in September. It appears that Samsung will rebound from its recent poor performance with a new smartphone lineup, not the Galaxy S or Galaxy Note Series.

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After becoming available to all Android users back in December, Google this evening finally launched its popular Ingress game on iOS. The game originally launched in a closed beta all the way back in 2012, but has slowly been expanding to gradually larger audiences ever since.

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Amazon is now a part of the Federal Trade Commission’s investigations into technology corporations with mobile application marketplaces unlawfully billing parents for in-app-purchases. Both Apple and Google have been tangled in the allegations with Apple settling earlier this year and Apple telling the FTC to investigate Google. The FTC today announced it is filing a complaint against Amazon, saying that children have been able to buy goods and extras within apps without the consent of parents. The full release from the FTC can be found below:

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdnp_7atZ0M]

In a ‘fireside chat’ with leading venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin talked about the moment they thought they’d sold the company to him for $1.6M.

There were four of us at the time – four grad students at Stanford. I remember, we fired off this note to Vinod. It was just a little e-mail that said, “We really don’t want to sell, but for $1.6 million, you got a deal.” And a few minutes later, we got a reply that said, “That’s a lot of dough, but ok we’ll do it.” That’s characteristic Vinod there. So then, ten minutes later, Scott – one of the four of us – comes running in, laughing. Huge grin on his face. He had faked the reply and back then, the ethics around faking emails weren’t quite the same. Anyway, so he had that big joke. The deal obviously never came to fruition, and we went our own way to build search …

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