When Apple introduced the new iPad earlier this year, it didn’t just discontinue the iPad 2; it dropped its price and sent it out to do battle with cheaper, Android-powered tablets from the likes of Amazon. But that’s not the only change the Cupertino company made to the device.
Although there’s no mention of it, if you buy a brand new iPad today, it will pack a new A5 processor under the hood that’s a little different to earlier A5 chips, and delivers much better battery life.
This morning Samsung announced their newest high-end Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S III. With a release date of May 29th, the new phone comes with a lot of crazy new features, like Smart Stay, that uses facial recognition to determine if you’re looking at it, and if not, it’ll turn the screen off. But topping the list of awesome new features is the “innovative” voice recognition feature. It’s innovative because you can say things like, “Hi Mr. Galaxy phone, what’s the weather gonna be like today?” and S Voice will pop-up a screen that looks exactly like Apple’s Siri feature does on the iPhone 4S.
Keep it up Samsung.
Source: Sebastiaan de With
Via: Rene Ritchie
May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac,
Boxtone offers a range of mobile management capabilities for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry. The company has strategic partnerships with multiple carriers as a device and expense management solution. Boxtone also has partnerships with companies like Good and Accellion for secure on-device data storage as well as a range of other enterprise technology vendors. These relationships can help integrate services that Boxtone doesn’t provide one its own. The company also offers a support and operation management capabilities that go beyond traditional mobile management.
While Apple saw strong sales for all its iOS devices during its post-holiday quarter, Android tablet sales slumped, giving up any gains that Android had seen as a tablet platform during the holiday shopping season.
According to IDC, overall tablet shipments were down more than the analyst firm had expected. The decline to 17.4 million units represented a 38.4% drop off from the holiday quarter shipments of 28.2 million units – a notably steeper decline than IDC’s predicted 34% decline.
While overall tablet shipments were down, Android tablets slumped significantly more than Apple’s iPad, which gained an additional 13.3% of the tablet market.
Practically every mobile phone carrier in the U.S. has relied on the iPhone to boost their sales numbers and increase customer satisfaction in recent years (sorry, T-Mobile). It turns out that betting on the iPhone isn’t just great because it gives customers the pretty device they want, but converting users into iPhone owners might mean that they will be more likely to stay with your carrier in the long run even when your service sucks. On the other hand, BlackBerry and Android owners are quicker to jump ship when the service has problems.
According to reports from Twitter, the music subscription service Rdio, appears to have secretly launched in the U.K. and France. While Rdio has yet to chime in on the subject, users in those locations are now able to sign up for a free 7-day trial of unlimited listening. Everything seems to work, although I’m hearing quite a few people in the U.K. are unable to stream or download a significant number of albums (probably why we haven’t heard an official announcement from Rdio).
When analysts and companies compare mobile devices, the big number everyone focuses on is how much market share each platform or product has in relation to its competitors. While this makes for a good overall view of the playing field, it doesn’t always give a clear or accurate picture of which companies are doing well on a single metric as a model for success and ignores others, like whether a platform or manufacturer managed to turn a significant profit.
This is, of course, a very big point when discussing Apple’s iOS succes compared to Android as a whole or to individual manufacturers – and something that Asymco’s latest review of the mobile phone market in which Apple accounts for a small 8.8% of handsets but reaps a whopping 73% of the industry’s profits.
If you’re a fan of first-person shooters and gaming on your mobile devices, then you should be looking forward to N.O.V.A. 3 from Gameloft. The company’s first N.O.V.A. titles have been two of the best smartphone shooters available — particularly on iOS — and the latest promises to be even better.
In its latest trailer, Gameloft teases N.O.V.A. 3’s incredible multiplayer mode, and damn… it looks good.
May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac,
AirWatch provides a full range of mobile management features and implements all of the iOS 4 and iOS 5 management and monitoring capabilities. The software integrates with a range of enterprise technologies including directory services. The service works with a wide range of clients including small and mid-size businesses, large and enterprise organizations as well as government agencies.
You may have been quite content using such unofficial apps as the UK Train Times for your detailed, real-time U.K. train information but we thought you’d like to know that an official U.K. National Rail app has finally made its way to Anroid and iOS. Announced yesterday, the official National Rail Enquiries app for iOS and Android feature detailed, real-time information as well as:
Back in March, Amazon offered up certified refurbished Amazon Kindle Fires for an amazing $139. It was only a 24-hour deal but sold out in half the time. Well, the deal is back, and yes, it’s another 24-hour deal. It’s already about half-way through the deal but they still appear in stock so you might want to take this opportunity to pick up a nice little tablet for cheap.
The Instagram phenomenon continues to captivate mobile users across the globe and now generates over 5 million new users a week, according to its API. Those are absolutely amazing numbers for the once iOS exclusive photography sharing app that now boasts over 50 million total users thanks to its recent launch on Android. With numbers like this, it’s no wonder Facebook reached deep in their pockets to snatch them up.
Yesterday, in a somewhat surprising announcement, Microsoft and Barnes & Noble agreed to a deal that resolved their ongoing patent dispute, spun off the bookstore’s Nook business as a subsidiary into which Microsoft invested $300 million, and ensured that a Nook app will be available for Windows 8 when it launches later this year.
Although rumors have been floating around for months that Barnes & Noble was planning to spin of the Nook as a separate company or subsidiary, Microsoft’s involvement came as a surprise – one that raises interesting questions about what the two companies have in mind for their new joint business.
The projected May release of Cognovant’s health record management app, PocketHealth, looks to become a reality thanks to a recent $500,000 seed round closing. The announcement was made today by Cognovant, the Kansas City, Mo.-based startup that specializes in personal health record technology for mobile devices.
“This seed round of funding enabled development of PocketHealth and its forthcoming introduction into the Android and iOS markets,” Ketcherside said in the release
When it comes to our mobile devices and the operating systems we use, we can sometimes be a bit defensive and downright vile. We’re usually quick to make a joke or two at the expense of one another, but in the end, we’re all human, and most of us are surprisingly close friends who frequently kick back and enjoy a cold beer together (even if some of us accidentally leave our prototypes behind). That’s why this next invention will have tech-loving beer connoisseurs foaming at the mouth (literally).
It’s hard to believe a mobile game franchise that’s about four years old could be more popular than ever but that seems to be the case with the uber-popular Angry Birds. Today, Rovio announced their latest iteration, Angry Birds Space, has broken all previous records and surpassed 50 million downloads in just 35 days — making it one of the fastest growing mobile games of all time.
Patent Armageddon is set to take place in less than a month thanks to dates set by Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero. The settlement talks were originally ordered by Judge Lucy Koh of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, in hopes that Samsung and Apple’s CEOs and their chief lawyers could reach an agreement to end the 50+ lawsuits filed by the two.
Despite his love for the iPhone and its iOS operating system, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak surprisingly feels that Windows Phone apps are “more beautiful” than their counterparts on Android and iOS, and jokes that Steve Jobs may have been reincarnated inside Microsoft.
Woz also revealed that he favours Windows Phone over Android, but that iOS is still his number one choice.
Games have held a remarkable 40 month lead over all other categories when it comes to mobile apps. Mobile games have become so popular that even powerhouse console gaming companies such as Nintendo have seen their profits plummet because of them. They’ve given developers the highest ad revenue and have consumed more of a consumer’s time than any other app category. Unfortunately, like all good things, mobile gaming’s reign has come to an end. There’s a new head honcho in app land and its name is social networking.
AT&T today announced it would be adding Salt Lake City to its list of markets expected to get 4G LTE later in the year. AT&T continues expanding other areas, with Austin, TX seeing additional coverage just the other day. It’s going to be a slow and steady pace with AT&T so if you’re looking for 4G LTE right away, you may want to consider Verizon, otherwise sit tight and be happy you’re not on Sprint.
Earlier in the year, Apple acquired app discovery engine Chomp in an effort to improve app discoverability in their App Store. As we all know, discovering apps among the hundreds of thousands that populate popular app stores can sometimes be a chore, so it would make sense for Apple to acquire such a company as Chomp. However, Chomp also improved app discoverability of Android apps and since Apple’s acquisition we’ve wondered if this would one day change. Well, guess what? That day has come and it looks like Apple has chomped out Android app discoverability completely.
Ever think your mobile game high score was Guinness World Record worthy? Well, starting today it just might be. Although arcade and console game high scores have long been recognized by the Guinness World Records, mobile gamers have been left with screenshots, Facebook shares, and tweets as their only method of grandstanding.
ZeptoLab recently updated their Cut The Rope app on both Android and iOS with a new DJ Box featuring 25 vinyl-scratching levels. Om Nom has been sitting idle long enough and he’s hungry and ready to party. These additional levels should keep you busy for about an hour and then it’s back to waiting. Other features included in the new update include:
Maybe for some odd reason you decided to buy an Android phone rather than the iPhone 4S. Maybe you wanted a phone with 3D video and 16 processing cores so you could dual-boot the same crappy games in both Android and Ubuntu at the same time. I do not know your reasons, but if you’re suffering from iPhone envy there’s a new app that can transform your ugly Android device into an iOS styled phone so you can be like the rest of us at Cult of Mac.
Mobile management and security vendor Good released its quarterly device activations report. The report covers January through March and showed that the iPhone 4S was the commonly activated mobile device among Good’s business and enterprise customers followed by the iPad 2. The iPad overall (original, iPad 2, and new iPad) accounted for virtually all tablet activations.
Good’s quarterly report focused on iOS and Android device activations. The data is based on a mix of both business-owned devices and employee personal devices used in the workplace as part of a BYOD strategy.