Thanks to those leaked screenshots that appeared on Tuesday, we’re pretty confident that Google Babel is no longer just a rumor, but a real product that’s patiently waiting to get its grand unveiling. And according to sources that are familiar with Google’s plans, it’s worth getting excited about.
They claim Babel aims to be “everything we have ever asked for in a unified messenger service,” with cross-platform syncing and a “first class iOS experience.”
Looks like Brian K. Vaughn’s Saga isn’t the only digital comic getting warned off by Apple’s terms against material it deems to be pornographic lately. French comic app portal app, Izneo, has also been affected by a recent Apple warning to remove a ton of the comic books from its app offerings that Apple deems pornographic, and thus in violation of its Terms of Service.
Another publisher is feigning surprise about Apple’s App Store policies today, claiming that Cupertino has “banned” an upcoming issue of a digital combic book from being sold in any iOS app due to “two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex.”
Google has been stepping up its game with app curation in Google Play. TechCrunch has discovered that a record 60,000 apps were pulled from the store in February alone. Coincidentally, Google just launched a major redesign of Play today that focuses on highlighting great Android apps.
While not all of the bad apps are being pulled by Google directly, many of the deletions are related to spamming and other Google Play terms of service violations. You don’t normally think of Google when you hear about an app being pulled, but Apple isn’t the only one who regulates its app store—the two companies just do things differently.
The App Store and Google Play continued to drive mobile app downloads during the first quarter of 2013, while BlackBerry World and the Windows Phone Store remain “distant challengers.”
That’s according to the latest figures from Canalys, which say a whopping 13.4 billion apps were downloaded across these four stores over the last three months, raking in $2.2 billion in app sales, in-app purchases, and subscriptions.
There is nothing worse than going somewhere and realizing you forgot your iOS charging cable. I’ve been there – and it sucks.
I’ve seen a number of cables – manufacvtured by Apple and by others – that could serve as my alternate charging cable (for travel or for home purposes), but there’s something about the one we’re offering here at Cult of Mac Deals that is particularly appealing. Perhaps it’s the length of the cable, making it more versatile than my stock cable. Maybe it’s the quality and the durability.
Actually, it’s both of those things – and the price is appealing as well…just $14!
Samsung has today announced its estimated earnings for Q1 2013, and it looks like the Korean electronics giant is set for another record quarter, exceeding Wall Street expectations. The company has forecast a 53% rise in profit to 8.7 trillion won ($7.7 billion) for the three-month period between January and March, driven by smartphone sales.
According to “two people familiar with the matter,” Apple is super close to closing a deal with a couple of major music labels for its own streaming music service, one which is reportedly better than the deal that the labels are getting from rival service, Pandora.
While other reports have Apple “lowballing” the record industry on royalty rates of up to half what Pandora pays, CNET is reporting that new revenue options could make the iRadio deal better for labels in the long run.
Today Facebook unveiled “Home,” its new, immersive Android experience. HTC has partnered with Facebook to launch the HTC First, a smartphone designed from the ground up for Home. Other Android handset makers are in the pipeline to release Home-based devices down the road.
Home is a great idea for Facebook and Facebook lovers, and it will probably be very popular on Android after it becomes available next week. But don’t expect to get Facebook Home on your iPhone. Not in this lifetime.
Given that Samsung clearly likes to follow in Apple’s footsteps, it comes as no surprise to us that it is set to open 1,400 Apple-esque Experience Shops in Best Buy stores throughout the United States.
The Korean company is aiming to give potential customers the opportunity to get their hands on its mobile products and “experience how the devices connect together to enrich their lives” before they decide to purchase them. Specially trained “Samsung Experience Consultants” will also be there to offer post-purchase support.
I have done a lot writing in my day, and there are times when I want to just let the words fly freely faster than I can possibly type them. When I’ve worked on my talks for seminars or wanted to work out some thoughts on a major piece of writing, I have given the reins to Dragon Dictate.
This Cult of Mac Deals offer has a huge savings on Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac – which has been an indispensable tool for me as a writer. You can get it for only $100 – that’s 50% off the regular price!
It’s no secret that Samsung outspends Apple on advertising by a huge margin. Whether those ads are crap or strokes of genius, of course, is a matter of opinion. But dollar for dollar, the truth is clear: Samsung has to spend more money to get its smartphones noticed than Apple does.
One would think that the self-evident answer to the question posited in this post’s headline would be “No,” followed by a pregnant pause, a licking of the lips and then followed it up with the words “You idiot.”
And, in fact, that probably is the answer. But if Apple’s not working on a robot, then why the heck is Apple hiring one of the country’s foremost robotics experts, John Morrell?
A common method for finding apps in the iTunes App Store is to do a quick search in Google. Searching the App Store for “Tweetbot” can take a lot longer than Googling “Tweetbot App Store” in a browser.
Links to iTunes have always been near the top of the first page when you search for an app, but iTunes results have recently started appearing lower in Google’s search results with no explanation.
On April 1st, 1976, Apple Computers was officialy founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne to sell the Apple I computer kit, personally hand-built by Wozniak himself. Thirty-seven years later, Apple is the most successful and profitable technology company in the world.
There’s no way to celebrate an anniversary that weighty with proper due reverence, so let’s celebrate it in a more frivolous (and delicious) way: looking at the best Apple-themed birthday cakes ever baked!
Apple and Foxconn’s jumper problem might not be a thing of the past after all, as reports over the weekend broke that two workers have jumped from the roof of Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory on Friday in reaction to job cuts, lowered wages and the end of free amenities at the world’s largest gadget manufacturer.