Apple’s share price has steadily been falling for some time now, and earlier this week it dipped below $400 a share for the second time this year. Meanwhile, Google’s has been on the rise. As a result, if you take away all the cash the two companies have sat in the bank and just look at their enterprise value, then Google is worth more than Apple for the first time ever.
The total number of mobile phones shipped in Western Europe fell to its lowest level in nine years during Q1 2013 as total units dropped 4.2 percent year-on-year to 43.6 million.
The slowdown in sales comes sooner than analysts were expecting even though Apple only sold 800,000 units fewer than Q1 2012 and Samsung sold 3.4 million units more.
The total number of mobile phones shipped in Western Europe fell to its lowest level in nine years during Q1 2013 as total units dropped 4.2 percent year-on-year to 43.6 million.
The slowdown in sales comes sooner than analysts were expecting even though Apple only sold 800,000 units fewer than Q1 2012 and Samsung sold 3.4 million units more.
The iPhone 5 has been branded the “slowest smartphone” by Which? magazine after going up against its latest rivals in a group of tests that evaluate processing power and graphics capabilities. The Galaxy S4, Samsung’s latest Android-powered flagship, came out top in the tests, with a rating almost double that of the iPhone’s.
Rdio has updated its family subscription plans to allow up to five people to enjoy its music streaming service at once. The family plans aim to prevent sibling squabbles over just one Rdio account, and they’re cheaper than buying separate subscriptions for everyone in the home.
Microsoft has teamed up with Japanese development studio KLab to bring its 1997 classic Age of Empires to Android and iOS. Microsoft is hoping the real-time strategy simulator will capture some of the success of the growing mobile game market, which is currently luring gamers away from traditional handheld consoles like the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation Vita.
BlackBerry has today launched its Secure Work Space service for Android and iOS, allowing enterprises to manage their fleet of devices through the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 administration console — regardless of the platform they’re running.
The service promises a higher level of control and security on Android and iOS, and the ability to secure and separate managed applications and data from personal content.
With Best Buy and even Apple itself offering deep discounts on iPhones, it seems like everyone is getting into the act. AT&T just announced a plan to offer users a trade-in plan for up to fifty percent off online or in-store purchases of mobile devices like the iPhone 5, Galaxy S4, or HTC One when an older phone is traded in towards the purchase.
Imgur has today launched its official Android app via Google Play. The free download brings all of your favorite Imgur features to your mobile device, including the ability to browse viral images, comment and vote on images, and upload images directly from your smartphone.
Don’t worry, iOS users — Imgur is also coming to the App Store soon.
Hutchison Whampoa, owner of Three U.K., has today acquired O2 Ireland in a deal worth €850 million ($1.1 billion). Telefonica, O2’s parent company, believes the move will “create a new competitive dynamic in the Irish market,” which Three can now claim 37.5% of with 2 million active subscribers.
People love large and shiny objects. So we can be forgiven for being absolutely blown away by Google’s idea of relaying IP across the skies via giant balloons to remote areas where Internet connectivity would otherwise not exist.
The most jaw-dropping aspect of the Loon project is the fact that the system uses algorithms to convert published windspeed and direction data into navigation using algorithms. (Balloons are moved by finding an altitude at which the air is moving in the right direction.)
So much about this project is dazzling — the scope and audacity of it; the solar-powered servers-in-the-sky; and the fact that balloons will deliver the Internet to remote areas — that the core aspect of Loon is easy to overlook.
The key thing about Loon is mesh networking.
Every day there seems to be a new alternative to Google Reader, the beloved RSS aggregator Google will bury once and for all on July 1st. Services like Feedly and Newsblur are already established with millions of users, and Digg has a service launching next week. Now AOL—yes, the company formerly known as America Online—even has a RSS reader.
You can sign up to get access to the private beta on a new webpage. That’s all we really know at this point. AOL will assumedly email people when it’s ready to let them in. Since it’s AOL, don’t hold out with too high of hopes. A lot of people (including this writer) are having trouble loading the website today.
But hey, I guess if Digg can do it, anyone can?
Source: AOL Reader
Apple has begun charting iOS adoption figures to help developers establish the percentage of users running different versions of iOS. Google has been doing the same thing for Android developers for some time, and Apple’s chart only highlights the massive difference in fragmentation between the two platforms.
If you’re dying for AT&T to roll out more bars into your area – so you can actually use the LTE on your iPhone 5 – then you’ll be happy to know that AT&T is activating its 4G LTE services in four new markets across the U.S. today.
According to AT&T’s New Room, the following areas are now covered by AT&T 4G LTE:
While alternate RSS services have started popping up left and right in the wake of Google Reader’s death sentence, the strongest contender so far is certainly Feedly. In a few months, the service already has 12 million users and a pretty sophisticated platform.
Today Feedly officially turned on its own cloud sync, effectively cutting ties from Google Reader for good. The web app has also been redesigned to adapt to multiple browsers on different screen sizes without the need for a plugin.
NEC became the world’s first and only smartphone manufacturer to launch a liquid-cooled handset back in May, but it may quickly lose that claim later this year. According to some sources, a number of high-profile smartphones makers, including Apple, Samsung, and HTC, will be launching their own liquid-cooled devices in the fourth quarter.
The demand for 4G LTE connectivity has never been higher, and companies are pulling all the tricks out the bag to try to fulfil the high demand. Last night, Sprint announced that it has turned on high-speed 4G LTE data in 22 new locations. The announcement was made in a single press release on the U.S. carrier’s website.
Apple’s iOS platform has continued to be the top platform for users who actually like to buy stuff via their smartphone, says a new study from Forrester. Consumers with iOS devices are 30% more likely to buy something via their device, than Android users.
Even though iOS is where more of the money is at, Android isn’t getting ignored by U.S. companies. Forrester’s study also reported that 96% of ebusiness professionals surveyed for the study plan to launch a native or hybrid Android app by the end of 2013, while 99% said they plan to do the same for iOS.
Famed iOS jailbreak hacker Pod2g hates the redesign of iOS 7 so much he might abandon Apple’s operating system all together… for Android.
Gameloft has today released a new teaser trailer for Modern Combat 4’s upcoming Meltdown update, which brings new maps, new weapons, new game modes, and more to the company’s popular first-person shooter. The update is coming to both Android and iOS, and it could be the last before Modern Combat 5 makes its debut.
Instagram is gearing up to take on Vine by offering a new video sharing service, according to a source familiar with the plans. The move is expected to be announced on Thursday, June 20, during a mysterious Facebook press event at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
How cool would it be if some big consumer electronics company that is really great at hardware design sold a smartwatch you could buy for under $100 that was open to any developer’s firmware?
That would be amazing, because as an open platform genius software developers could compete with each other to create the ultimate smartwatch experience, and they wouldn’t need to fuss with designing and manufacturing a physical hardware smartwatch.
Well, it’s happened. Sony this week announced an Open SmartWatch project that invites developers to create and flash their own firmware for the Sony SmartWatch.
This is bigger news than it sounds.
A new Android theme mimics the design of iOS 7, Apple’s newest mobile operating system. The theme is a combination of custom icons and the Nova Launcher home screen replacement for Android 4.0+.
Apple made a lot of significant changes in iOS 7, and some of those will be instantly familiar to those who are running the latest versions of Android. As is often the case, Apple has “borrowed” certain features from rival operating systems, and we’ve counted at least seven that were part of Android first.
Europeans will next year be able to take their smartphones anywhere within the EU and enjoy calls, texts, and data without paying a penny more than they do at home. Expensive roaming fees are set to be scrapped by July 1, 2014, after the European Commission voted to fast-track a major overhaul of telecoms regulation.