Apple s iPad of the global tablet market in the fourth quarter of 2010, down from 96 percent in the prior quarter, according to a new report. Citing market researcher Strategy Analytics, Bloomberg reports that while iPad shipments jumped 74 percent compared to the previous quarter, to 7.3 million, shipments of Android-based tablets driven by sales of Samsung s Galaxy Tab devices went from 100,000 in the third quarter to 2.1 million units in the fourth, good for a 22 percent share of the market. “The Samsung Galaxy Tab was the main driver of Android success,” Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics, wrote in the report. “Tablet makers like Android because of its perceived low cost and an accompanying range of compelling media services such as YouTube and Google Maps.” Apple is expected to face increasing competition in the tablet market this year, as rivals such as Motorola, HP, RIM, Samsung, and Acer are all expected to launch tablet devices in the first half of 2011.Update: Samsung has its sales numbers for the Galaxy Tab, saying that the two million unit figure it reported last week was actually the number of devices it shipped to wireless companies and retailers. According to the Wall Street journal, Samsung executive Lee Young-hee went as far as to say that actual sales to consumers were quite small, which would obviously have an effect on the figures provided by Strategy Analytics.
Galaxy Tab sees 15% return rate, iPad at 2% (Updated)
Its literally an insult for someone to call the Samsung tablet the competitor of the ipad seriously the Samsung Tablet is just a large verison of Android though the ipad does the same thing, it uses stock iOS (only iOS there is).. Samsung used Android 2.2 touch wiz I like iOS, but not as much as Androids Stock. Posted by Tom on February 2, 2011 at 10:36 PM (PDT)
Apple releases iOS 4.3 beta 3 to developers
Apple has released the third beta version of iOS 4.3 to its paid developers. Listed as build number 8F5166b, it is unclear what has changed in the new version from prior betas, which included the new Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi sharing feature and enhanced AirPlay support for Safari and third-party apps. In addition, the release is once again accompanied by a new preview build of Apple TV Software 4.3. Separate versions of iOS 4.3 beta 2 for the iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, third-, and fourth-generation iPod touch are available as downloads for paid iOS developers from Apple’s .For more information on iOS 4.3, see .
Apple, developers sued over app privacy concerns
Apple and a handful of app developers have been sued not once, but twice over the collection and sharing of user data with outside companies. Both suits Lalo v. Apple and Freeman v. Apple were filed in the Northern District of California; the former was first while the latter was . Both suits appear to be heavily based on research by the Wall Street Journal, which showed that some apps send age, gender, location, and phone identifier information to ad networks without notifying the user.“Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users’ location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views,” reads the Lalo suit. The Freeman suit claims that [d]efendant Apple, by exercising significant control over App developers and sharing profits with them, has created a community of interest with the other Defendants to render them joint venturers, who are responsible for each other’s torts. Defendant Apple has also aided and abetted the remaining Defendants in the commission of their legal wrongs against Plaintiffs and the proposed class. In addition to Apple, Pandora, Paper Toss, the Weather Channel, Dictionary.com, Toss It, Text4Plus, Talking Tom Cat, and Pimple Popper Lite were all named in either one or both the suits; both are seeking class action status.
Apple sued (again) over iOS privacy concerns
Apple has been over the alleged sharing of Unique Device Identifiers (UDIDs) and user information, according to an InformationWeek report. The suit, filed in San Jose, CA by Alameda resident Anthony Chiu, claims that Apple knowingly transmits to third parties, without user knowledge or consent, data which could be used to identify individual users. In addition to Apple, the suit also names 50 John Doe defendants, leaving open the possibility that some third-party developers could also be added to the suit. Consequently, anyone who has used a mobile device to browse the Internet to obtain advice about hemorrhoids, sexually transmitted disease, abortion, drug rehabilitation, or care for the elderly; to search for jobs, seek out new romantic partners, engage in political activity; in fact, to do more or less anything; can be reasonably sure that the browsing history created by such investigation has been incorporated into a detailed dossier for sale to marketers, reads the complaint. Apple was targeted in a filed in December following the publication of a Wall Street Journal article which claimed that some apps shared personal information without consent.
iTunes to get Beatles LOVE exclusive tracks, documentary
iTunes is set to release a digital exclusive of The Beatles Grammy-winning album with two iTunes-exclusive tracks, as well as the All Together Now documentary. According to a post on , LOVE will be released on iTunes on February 8, with pre-orders already underway; the iTunes release of All Together Now will follow on February 15. The LOVE album serves as the soundtrack to The Beatles Cirque du Soleil show of the same name, and features remixed versions of some of the band s best-known songs. All Together Now is a documentary film that chronicles the creation of the show, including the collaboration between Cirque du Soleil and the band s remaining members, plus the wives of late members John Lennon and George Harrison. The iTunes LP version of LOVE is priced at $12.99, while All Together Now is priced at $12.99 in HD or $9.99 in standard definition.
Live video of News Corp./Apple subscription launch event
News Corporation has announced a for its launch of The Daily, an iPad-specific publication that will be introduced by company chairman/CEO Rupert Murdoch and Apple iTunes executive Eddy Cue. In-app subscription billing through iTunes is expected to be introduced during the event, enabling News Corp. to charge a recurring 99-cent fee to continue use of its publication. We will be updating this story with additional information regarding the event, which kicks off at 11:00AM Eastern Time today.Updated: A full play-by-play of the event can be found in chronological order by clicking on the title of this news story. In sum, News Corp. and Apple announced a 99-cent weekly recurring subscription package with an annual $39.99 subscription option numbers designed to make the $30 million dollar initial setup cost and $500,000 per week expense of operating the publication become profitable over time. Advertising is initially expected to be a smaller contributor than subscriptions to the publication s bottom line. News Corp. did not commit to the publication s editorial tone, deflecting questions from the audience as to whether it would shift from the company s traditionally conservative or downmarket perspectives, but claimed that it was being designed to appeal to everybody. Editor s Note: Comments to this article have been closed as they were largely impertinent to the announcements made today. We re not interested in hosting a debate on News Corp. s well-established political agenda, or discussing whether the company s products are actually fair and balanced. 11:47AM: Subscriptions advertisers like large audiences. Any thinking of how much better you could be doing if this was free? Murdoch: Advertisers would pay lower rates if it was free rather than paid-for publication. This will draw a better class of advertiser and better rate. Question – what will the split between ad and subscription revenue be, supported by readers or ads? Initially subscriptions, later ads, will eventually come to 50/50 split. That s it for the Q A – it ll be live to download in 10 minutes.11:43AM: Will Daily be free online on the web? What you share with someone will be free for them to see, but you can t go to Thedaily.com and read all the stories. What s the balance on investigative/long-term journalism? Answer: read the product every day and you ll find out. Question: How would you see this from an ad agency perspective? Answer: it s a chance to have a terrific marketing environment. We re encouraging advertisers to produce for this format. It will justify premium ad prices. A flat ad can look great and turn into a video. Pressing a button can take people to learn more about a product. Question: newspapers in general tend to be upmarket or downmarket. This seems to be blurring a lot of boundaries, any demographic information? Answer: targeting everybody.11:40AM: Steve Jobs was early into this. What can you say about what he might have said. Murdoch: He did call me last week and say the app was really terrific. Question: How will people discover this content from the web? It s an app. Eddy Cue: People have no problem getting apps. Daily crew: Look at the Apple store and you ll find it today there. The web makes you make compromises – we wanted to focus on a great experience, people will come to it. Question: Will any of the news/stories be available on the web? Answer: Yes, technically, it s mirrored on the web, but we expect people will want to see it on the iPad. Anything built on touch or other iPad-specific technology is within the app, but for pages we can mirror on the web, we share so they can be shared, searched, etc. We may choose to promote them on Twitter feed, Tumblr, etc. 11:38AM: How long will this be exclusive with Apple and the iPad? Does this marry Apple and News Corp. in any way that will be a concern for some people? Murdoch: We expect to be on all major tablets, but we expect that the market belongs to Apple for now. Question: What are Murdoch s favorite apps outside of News Corp s? I ve tried some of the games but my seven year old beats me all the time. Question: What s the voice you envision here? You have to make people think and smile. I want great content that s incredibly compelling, plus attitude, verve, and punch. Pictures and videos are so good. We want to think about how to create content for people who will spend time with this device. Usage time per session on iPad is 30-45 minutes, unbelievable. So question is how to keep them there with our application 11:36AM: Will there be an Australian launch of The Daily? It s a possibility. Question: Why focus on The Daily rather than existing brand like WSJ? Also, what s happening with the News of the World phone hacking scandal? Answer: WSJ was our first app and inspired us to do this. I have nothing to say, says Murdoch, as to the other matter.11:35AM: Guardian asks: What will the political tone be? You are going to go centrist to appeal to tech-savvy users? Murdoch: Editorial position will be in the hands of the editor. Others – read the editorial every day and you ll see our views.11:33AM: Breaking news – how do you break in? Web sites are constantly breaking news. Answer: We have a lot of different ways. Twitter feeds, tickers, we can drop in a new page and a new story whenever we want to do so, at any time of the day. It s not a once-a-day static product. But as a consumer, I wouldn t want something that changes all the time. I want to be told what s interesting.11:29AM: Question – how will you determine if it s successful or not? Answer, when we re selling millions. Costs are low. So to be a success financially doesn t take a lot. Just getting to this stage has taken $30 million, but it will be less than $500,000 cost per week without any subscribers or advertising for the company. We expect revolution when we hit the big figures. Question – will subscriptions impact in-app billing as it s been done? Answer: Apple wants to make it easy to get subscriptions to customers. Question – who is the biggest threat for this business model? Also, will you put Fox content and other News Corp. content into this publication. Answer: Everyone s a competitor given how much the iPad does, and we re competing with Angry Birds on some level, very broad competition. We focus on the voice, vision, editorial style. All of News Corp. s publications are competitive too. 11:27AM: Question – How will backissue content be handled? For launch, saved articles is the best way to find prior content. There will also be a web archive. But full content won t be there for the first version (1.0). Question – When will other publishers get subscriptions? Answer – announcement coming soon for other news publications. Question – how will ad impressions be measured? Answer – technology is built into the app to do that. 11:25AM: Billed weekly at 99 cents or yearly at $39.99, your choice. Simple as one click. That s it for details from Eddy Cue nothing more on the technical or business side. Photo op and then opportunity to take questions. Awkward photo op where the guys all take the stage together without any iPad in hand or version of the device. Chairs are then brought to the stage for the Q+A session.11:22AM: Apple s Eddy Cue on stage. Industry s first national daily news publication built from the ground up for the iPad, he says. iPad has created a whole new category of device, with 15 million sold, and 9,000 news apps available for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Over 200 million news apps downloaded so far. From first day News Corp. shared vision for Daily, Apple felt they were going to redefine the news business. They ve brought the company s powerful resources to bear in order to bring something new to the iPad it s amazing that something as complex as The Daily can be put together every day, he knows from watching it for the last two weeks. 11:20AM: Touch interactivity and animations can make portions of the experience fun a Super Bowl timeline with clickable hotspots and pop-ups of people. You can customize a sports team photo feed so you can grab shots of whatever team you want to follow. 99 cents per week, first two weeks free. 11:17AM: Carousel view lets you have a Cover Flow-like view of the pages so you can scroll through them visually, either animating their movement automatically, using a shuffle mode to skip through them; there s a video anchor to narrate through certain stories, and professional audio reading of certain headlines. There are also sharing tools so that you can tell others about articles goal is not to have it be an island outside of the web, but rather linked into the web, bringing up web content from within the application and sharing content in some fashion through social networks. 11:13AM: Company s team takes stage to unveil the first edition. They wanted quality content wrapped in a new look, and have been testing the publication for 6 weeks, producing stories leading up to today. Looks like a magazine that fills the iPad screen in portrait mode, using Egypt story as the lead for the first edition. Flips into portrait mode to present full-screen view of photo content. App seemingly just crashed during 3-D panorama, but they restarted it quickly. HD video content is shown within the app, as is an attractive weather chart. Promise of up to 100 news pages per day.11:10AM: Aim is to make this the indispensable resource of information and entertainment. Take full advantage of what the iPad offers no paper, no process, no trucks to carry it. Fourteen cents a day. Readers will enjoy engaging design of a professionally edited magazine, immediacy of the web, distinctive voice, stunning photography, high-definition video – won t lack for wit, opinion, or sense of fun. Daily will continue to develop in utility and originality; it is not a legacy brand moving from print to digital world, so there s license to experiment, innovate, and evolve to meet customers needs. Suggests that Apple s been working around the clock to make this happen today.11:05AM: Rupert Murdoch takes the stage with an iPad. Thanks Steve Jobs for singlehandedly changing technology and the media. iPad is an incredible new platform, and he says Apple has put support behind the new venture, along with Eddy Cue. New times demand new journalism, challenge was to take best of traditional journalism and combine it with the best of contemporary technology. 360-degree photographs, touch-sensitive images, and iPad demands complete reimagining of the craft. Growing segment of population doesn t read newspapers or watch TV news, but is educated and wants it magic of newspapers and great blogs depends on good editing and surprises they can deliver. Goal is to make the business of newsgathering and editing viable again.10:59AM: The event is about to begin. Regardless of the value of The Daily itself, expect details on how subscription billing for iOS applications will work, as well as some details on how Apple will handle sharing of customer data with publishers, and possibly changes to the company s revenue split for downloadable content.10:53AM: A major question our editors been asking over the past couple of months as The Daily has moved from rumors to actual announcement is why iPad users should want to pay anything for (yet another) News Corp. publication. We re not fans of the company s bottom-feeding Fox News, and think Apple s increasingly prominent buddying up with this company is really unfortunate.10:50AM: The event is being held in New York at the Guggenheim Museum, with relatively few people in attendance. News Corp. has announced that The Daily will be available in the App Store starting at 12:00PM Eastern today. It is widely expected to be free for the first two weeks, with recurring charges starting thereafter giving Apple a window to release iOS 4.3 and introduce the subscription billing service in the meanwhile.
News Corp. launches The Daily iPad newspaper
News Corp. has launched , a new iPad-based daily newspaper. The Daily will offer over 100 pages of original content each day, including original video content, a selection of articles that users can choose to have read aloud, 360 degree photos that users can explore by swiping, and interactive charts and information graphics. Features will include the ability to save articles for later reading, web-friendly versions of articles for sharing online, in-app comments, including audio comments, local weather, scores and news regarding the user s favorite sports teams, and both crossword and sudoku puzzles. The app will also utilize a new In-App Subscription billing option from Apple. The Daily will be published 365 days a year, and will initially be available exclusively on the iPad in the United States, with pricing set at $0.99 per week, or $40 per year; the first two weeks will be free, courtesy of Verizon Wireless.
Apple updates iTunes terms for In-App Subscriptions
Apple has updated its iTunes Store Terms of Service to reflect the new In-App Subscriptions option, in News Corp. s The Daily newspaper. A notice at the top of the new terms notes that [a] new In-App Subscriptions section has been added to the Terms and Conditions to explain how in-app subscriptions auto-renew, how the auto-renewal can be managed and turned off, and that we may require permission to provide personal information to the Licensor for marketing purposes which, if declined, will not affect your purchase. Specifically, the section notes that subscriptions are non-refundable, and will automatically renew for the applicable time period you have selected, and your Account will be charged no more than 24 hours prior to the expiration of the current Paid Subscription. Users will be able to cancel automatic renewal by going to a new Manage App Subscriptions section of their account, and the auto-renew feature is turned off automatically should the publisher increase the price of the subscription.
Bump adds App Sharing
Bump Technologies has released an update to its sharing app for the iPhone and iPod touch introducing the ability for users to share App Store links for their favorite installed apps. Using Bump, users can share information such as photos, music, contacts, appointments, locations and social networking info from their iOS device with any nearby friend simply by bumping devices together. Users simply open the Bump app, select an item to share and then bump or shake their devices to initiate a connection and transfer the information. For content such as music and iOS apps, Bump simply transfers metadata and a link to the iTunes Store or YouTube for music or the App Store for iOS applications. Bump 2.4 is as a free download.