Cult of Android - page 70

If you believe recent reports and predictions from analysts, Apple must make its iPhone cheaper or introduce a low-cost model if it wants to compete with Samsung going forward. The Korean company currently boasts the largest smartphone market share in the United States, and its lead is expected to increase throughout 2013. But did you know that Apple has actually sold more devices? 88 million more, in fact.

Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt has been comparing Apple’s cumulative smartphone sales with Samsung’s, and it appears the Cupertino company’s iPhone outsold the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines 219 million to 131 million.

Back in September, British carrier O2 teamed up with HTC and started an initiative to reduce the number of unwanted smartphone chargers in the United Kingdom. The carrier estimated that around 70% of handset buyers already had a charger that would be compatible with their new device, and so it started selling certain HTC devices without them.

O2 is now reporting that the initiative has been a big success. 82% of customers didn’t need to purchase a charger with their smartphone, the company claims, which surpasses its initial expectations for the effort.

Instagram has generated quite a bit of negative press in recent weeks since the Facebook-owned photography app updated its terms and conditions with some hairy verbiage regarding content ownership. Things have died down more recently since Instagram clarified its policies regarding how users’ photos can be used in advertisements.

Many assumed that legions of disgruntled Instagram users had jumped ship over the past month, but the social network has released its usage statistics for the first time to squash any concerns.

Samsung looks to be preparing to take on the iPad mini with the Galaxy Note 8.0, a smaller version of the Galaxy Note 10.1, which is expected to be priced very aggressively. In addition to an 8-inch display, the device will reportedly offer a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera, and of course, Samsung’s S Pen stylus.

After investing billions into the iPhone, Sprint is trying to play catch with Verizon and AT&T and deliver 4G LTE data across the U.S. They already have 4G LTE in nearly 200 cities, or are in the process of delivering it, but they’ll need to add a lot more coverage if they really want to compete with AT&T and Verizon.

Yesterday, Sprint announced that they are going to bring 4G LTE to 28 additional cities in the U.S. within the next few months. If you’re in one of the new cities, Sprint says that you can actually uses the 4G LTE network during the pre-launch phase as soon as you get a signal.

Here’s a list of all the new places that will get some juicy LTE later this year:

The iPad may be the king of tablets in some markets, but Apple’s device cannot compete with the Nexus 7 in Japan. Its premium price tag is causing tablet buyers to opt for Google’s 7-inch slate instead, despite its smaller display and lack of a rear-facing camera. One survey of Japanese electronics stores has found that the Nexus 7 has claimed 44.4% of the tablet market.

The popular Dolphin Browser for Android and iOS has been updated today to introduce a number of handy new features. In addition to one-tap sharing to Facebook and Twitter, users can enjoy Evernote clipping, and the ability to sync bookmarks and tabs between Dolphin and their desktop browser.

AT&T could acquire a European carrier as it looks to expand its business overseas, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company is reportedly looking at way in which it can escape the growth constraints in the United States by entering a new wireless market where it can “upgrade technology and rollout more lucrative pricing strategies.”

Although AT&T is only identifying targets at this point, it’s though the company could announce a deal before the end of the year.

A Dutch court has today ruled that a number of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets do not infringe Apple designs. The court cited a previous decision made by a High Court in the United Kingdom back in October 2012, which ruled Samsung’s devices are “not as cool” because they lacked the “extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design.”

HTC is set to announce a new flagship smartphone at Mobile World Congress next month, and recent rumors have revealed it’s set to be called the HTC M7. We already know a lot about its internal specifications, thank to previous leaks, but we had no idea what the handset would look like — until today.

Now we’re led to believe the device is going to look almost identical to the iPhone 5.

Apple and Amazon are set to enter settlement talks over Amazon’s use of the term “Appstore,” Bloomberg reports. Apple has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the retail giant, claiming that its Android software store could be confused with its own App Store for iOS. A U.S. Magistrate Judge has now ordered the pair to enter talks and try to settle the case ahead of the trial.

If you lose a smartphone and you use a service that can track its location via GPS, ignore it when it tells you that your handset is a Wayne Dobson’s house. For the past two years, this 59-year-old retiree has had cellphone owners showing up at his Las Vegas home demanding their devices back. They turn up at all hours of the day, yelling and threatening to call the police.

But Dobson is no thief, and he doesn’t have their phones. It’s a strange glitch that appears to be affecting devices on Sprint, and its making this man’s life a misery.

Verizon Wireless has helped a critical infrastructure company based in the United States catch one of its developers paying Chinese workers to do his job so that he could browse the Internet all day. “Bob” outsourced all of his work to China and paid the workers just a fraction of his six-figure salary so that he could spend his time on sites like Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, and eBay.

Verizon has revealed the fascinating story in a new case study.

Amidst rumors of a mysterious smartphone and new iPad apps, Facebook held a big press event today at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California. The topic was search, or more specifically, social search. It’s a new feature Facebook is calling “Graph Search,” and the beta has started rolling out already. It will be available for all of Facebook’s one billion users soon.

Think of Graph Search as Google with a more personal touch. Facebook is leveraging everything it knows about you to help you connect with people who like what you like. Instead of leaving Facebook.com to get your results, all of your social data and timeline history is mined and collated inside Facebook’s walls. That’s good news for Facebook, and bad news for Google.

Facebook is set to hold a press event later today, and it appears the whole thing’s going to be a massive kick in the teeth for Google. Not only is the social network expected to unveil its own smartphone, possibly powered by its own platform, but it’s also expected to hit Google where it really hurts — in search. Rumor has it the company will unveil its own search engine, which will rollout to users “very soon.”

DeNA, the social gaming company that now owns ngmoco, just launched a new, free, 8-bit retro role-playing game, D.O.T. Defender of Texel, to the iTunes App Store and the Google Play store.

Texel is a world made of dots, at the end of a wormhole, waiting for you to jump in and save the world. The battles are turn-based, and you choose who will fight each battle by swiping across a grid of characters to place your fighters on the battle field.

President Obama will be officially sworn into office for his second term on Monday, January 21st at the nation’s capital. If you can’t be in DC to witness the event, The Presidential Inaugural Committee has you covered with a dedicated app for your Android handset or iPhone.

The free Inaugural 2013 app is available for free in both Google Play and the App Store.

So the Consumer Electronics Show is over for another year, and for those who’ve been in Las Vegas covering it for us, it’s back to normality. While we allow the Cult of Mac team to sober up, it’s time to look back at the best gizmos CES had to offer. There were thousands of products on show — far too many to cover in one week — but there were a handful that really stood out.

We’ve put together a list of awesome things that we were blown away by, including smartphones, accessories, gadgets, and more. Check it out and tell us what you’re most looking forward to getting your hands on in 2013.

Microsoft’s Windows operating system is often mocked for its blue screen of death, the dreaded error message that appears on an all-too-often basis when attempting to work the computer too hard. And now it seems the company’s Windows Phone platform has a nasty error message of its own.

This particular error message, spotted on the HTC 8X, rather hilariously asks you to “insert your Windows installation disk” and “repair your computer” to continue.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – We’re always a bit stumped at how PhoneSuit is able to stuff so much battery in to their batteries. Their new Flex line is another great example; those little battery logs above each contain 2600 mAh of juice, which is more than any iPhone battery case I can think of. And that’s not even the coolest thing about them.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – We’re a big fan of wireless Bluetooth speakers like the Jambox, but let’s face it: for most people, they are both too expensive, and too much of a pain in the butt to remember to pair and unpair. When NFC sees broad adoption, the latter will change, and you’ll be able to play from a wireless speaker just by laying it on top of the device.

Why wait for NFC, though? RCA of all companies is here at CES with a super cool new speaker line called the Soundflow, and it can play music from any smartphone or tablet just by laying it on top of the speaker. Best of all? The technology is so cheap that for the price of one Jambox, you could buy five or six Soundflows.

Angry Birds Space for Android and iOS has today received yet another big update, introducing a brand new galaxy with 30 new levels. It’s called Splash, and every planet is filled with water, strange aquatic life, and pigs in boats. The update also promises the “ultimate under water boss level.”

Amazon has today launched a new music service called AutoRip, which offers customers a free MP3 version of every album they’ve bought on CD from Amazon since 1998. The service currently boasts more than 50,000 digital albums from all the major record labels, and Amazon insists that new titles are added on a regular basis.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Our own Charie Sorrel wasn’t a huge fan of the BodyMedia Fit Link activity tracker when he reviewed it a few months back; negatives ranged from a user-unfriendly app interface and just the overall gawkiness of the device itself. BodyMedia has listened, and addressed at least one of those issues with a smaller, sleeker version of the Core called the Core 2 — and it’ll even allow you to pop the four-sensor device into elegant jewelry designed to accept the, well, core of the gadget.

We’ve been itching to get our hands on the Pebble smartwatch since it first hit Kickstarter, but that wait will be over later this month. At CES in Las Vegas today, Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that the device has now entered mass production, and that shipping will begin on January 23.