Last week, we reported that Samsung had beaten Apple and claimed the top spot in J.D. Power’s latest tablet satisfaction survey. On closer inspection of its findings, it was unclear how the South Korean company had earned first place after its tablets received lower ratings than the iPad in so many areas.
J.D. Power has since explained why that’s the case.
Apple was bested by Samsung in the results of J.D. Power’s latest tablet customer satisfaction survey, marking the first time that Apple hasn’t come out ontop in the rankings in over two years.
Samsung was the only tablet manufacturer to improve its score since the last survey was released in April by jumping from a 822 to a score of 835, even though it finished third behind Apple and Amazon in the last survey. Apple ranked second in the latest survey with a score of 833 with strong scores in both performance and ease of use.
Following on from the news that Samsung shipped 2.6x the number of smartphones that Apple did last quarter, new figures released by research firm IDC show that Samsung tablet shipments grew by 123% to 9.7 million tablets over the same period. While Apple still leads the way with 29.6% of the tablet market, this is down considerably from the 40.2% share the company captured during this same quarter last year. Samsung meanwhile holds a company record 20.4% of the market, while Asus holds 7.4% (representing a 53% year on year increase). The two biggest growth companies for tablets are Acer and Lenovo — with their shipments increasing 346% and 420% respectively to represent 0.9% and 1.1% of the overall market.
If you switched from an iPhone to an Android-powered smartphone because you felt a 4-inch display was just too small, then Apple may give you a reason to switch back next year. Several industry experts are predicting that the Cupertino company will step up its pursuit of high-end Android smartphones by finally introducing a larger 5-inch display with the iPhone 6.
A Google smartwatch powered by Android with built-in Google Now is in the late stages of development, according to people familiar with the matter, who have been speaking to The Wall Street Journal. Google is now in talks with Asian suppliers, which could begin mass producing the device “within months.”
Although Apple is still (very) profitably plugging along with the iPhone, there’s a new king of smartphones, and it’s Samsung. The Korean gadget maker continued to dominate smartphone sales in the third quarter, shipping over 88 million smartphones this quarter compared to just 33.8 million iPhones shipped. And it gets worse for Apple.
Samsung has struck a $100 million deal with the NBA that will see its tablets and televisions used courtside during games. The deal is seen as a strategic move that could expand the global reach of both parties, shoving Samsung’s logo and devices into the faces of NBA fans, and putting NBA content into the hands of Samsung’s customers.
Samsung has been fined $340,000 by Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission for an Internet campaign against HTC that violated fair trade rules. The South Korean company paid students to praise its own smartphones in online reviews while slamming those of rival HTC.
When you’re the head of one of the nation’s four largest mobile carriers, you’ve got access to a lot of phones. You’ve probably got to try them out all the time. But do you ever have access to so many phones that you forget which is which, or that the iPhone in your hand is not, in fact, a Samsung Galaxy phablet?
Samsung looks to be preparing its own extended warranty plans that will provide additional coverage for its smartphones, tablets, and other consumer electronics, according to a new trademark registered with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
Called “Protection Plus,” the service is expected to offer the same kind of protection that is available to iPhone, iPad, and iPod users with AppleCare+.
Apple has gone and topped the J.D. Power rankings for smartphone satisfaction. Again.
This marks the tenth straight time Apple has dominated the likes of Nokia, Samsung, HTC, and Motorola in the bi-annual poll, and with the iPhone 5s shattering sales records on opening weekend, the streak looks like it might continue for some time.
This year’s survey included a breakdown of smartphone satisfaction by carrier for the first time ever and revealed Verizon customers are slightly happier with the iPhone than those on AT&T, with scores of 861 and 856 respectively.
Here’s the full breakdown:
When you’re browsing the web on your mobile, prepare to stumble across new popups that bash the smartphone you’re using.
LG, together with advertising agency M&C Saatchi, has designed intelligent new ads that find out what smartphone you’re using to take trolling to a new level. They’ll pick common faults with your iPhone, your Galaxy S4, or your HTC One — and then tell you why the LG G2 is better.
Given Samsung’s habit of shamelessly copying everything Apple does, I wasn’t at all surprised to see this morning’s report that the South Korean company had just spent $650 million on a fingerprint scanning firm called FingerPrint Cards. In fact, I simply rolled my eyes when I saw the news and thought, “there’s a surprise.”
But it appears that the whole thing was completely fabricated. The press release that went out announcing the move was false, and both Samsung and FingerPrint Cards have denied the acquisition.
Fitbit has today announced its new fitness tracker, the Force, which combines all of the features found in the original Fitbit Flex with some of the more advanced features found in the Fitbit One tracker. It costs $129.95, slightly more than the $99 Flex, and it’s available today.
Vodafone U.K. has today announced that its new 4G LTE network will be available in Liverpool, Glasgow, and Manchester by the end of this month. It’s been just seven weeks since the service took off, and Vodafone says that more than 100,000 people have already signed up to a new 4G plan.
The U.S. government has no love for Samsung after the Korean company requested that President Obama veto a sales import ban that had been placed on some of its older products. Back in August, the ITC ruled in favor of Apple and placed a ban on several Samsung phones and tablets that infringe on Apple’s patents.
Samsung had hoped that the ban would be vetoed, but no dice.
I am not a fan of clutter – be it paper-based, digital, or otherwise. I’ve got a scanner that takes care of the first type, and a combination of apps (including Hazel) helps take care of the second type. But I’m also a guy who likes to keep things need and tidy in order to avoid clutter. My desk doesn’t have a lot of working space, so I really need to keep desk clutter at a minimum. I had yet to find a fully functional solution…until the latest Cult of Mac Deals offer came along.
The 100% bamboo Station is the solution I’m talking about. Functional, minimalist, eco-friendly – it’s the ideal desk organizer. And Station is at an ideal price as well – only $34.99 for a limited time.
Apple and Samsung are headed back to San Jose on November 12 to clash again over the retrial of their billion-dollar patent lawsuit that Apple won in 2012, and it looks like Scott Forstall might be coming back to testify as a witness for Apple.
The jury originally rewarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages, but after finding some errors in the awards, Judge Lucy Koh has cut $450 million from Apple’s award. Samsung and Apple filed a joint pretrail statement that listed the potential witnesses that might be called and both Scott Forstall and Apple’s marketing chief, Phil Schiller appeared on the list after both were witnesses at the orignal trial, before Forstall was fired.
What’d Samsung ripoff from Apple this week? Well, you may have heard that the Galaxy Gear just dropped a few days ago. The reviews have been less than stellar, but to promote its smartwatch Samsung released a commercial that looks a whole lot similar to the very first iPhone commercial Apple dropped at the Oscars in 2007.
The original iPhone ad featured tons of famous movie scenes with someone picking up a phone and saying “hello,” and then a shot of the iPhone was finally shown at the end. Samsung has taken inspiration from Apple and released their own take but all the scenes are people using smartwatches like in Star Trek, Predator, and Inspector gadget.
Take a look a look for yourself and tell us what you think:
Having a ton of cables all over your house, desk, or charging station is far from ideal. They get tangle,d they got mixed up, ad sometimes they even get misplaced in the mess. That’s why this Cult of Mac Deals offer is worth looking at – especially if you want to save on clutter, time, and money.
The 3-in–1 Lightning/30-Pin/Micro USB to USB Charging Cable replaces three cables with one that simultaneously charges all of your devices at once. And it can be had for a limited time for only $19!
Samsung’s chief product officer for the mobile division of Samsung Electronics, Kevin Packingham, has left the company after being a key player in the introduction of several of the past Samsung Galaxy devices.
Packingham’s reasons for leaving the company aren’t clear at this time, as the New York Times reports that Samsung and Packingham have declined to provide details about the departure. However, a Samsung spokeswoman did offer the following statement regarding the departure:
Samsung has today unveiled Shape M7, a $400 wireless speaker that hopes to compete with the Sonos. It connects to your smartphone, tablet, or computer via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or NFC, and there’s a handy companion app that makes setup easy on Android and iOS devices.
While the iPhone’s Retina display may no longer be king when it comes to pixel count, it’s one of the fastest smartphone displays on the market, easily outpacing all of its rivals.
According to a TouchMark test carried out by Agawi, the Retina display responds more than twice as fast as any of its rivals — including the Galaxy S4 and other high-end Android devices — even on the three-year-old iPhone 4.
Samsung’s Galaxy Gear has been on sale for a number of weeks now, but today the South Korean company lifted its embargo on reviews. If you’ve been trying to decide whether or not you should spend hundreds of dollars on one, then, now’s the time to find out.
To make things a little easier for you, we’ve put together a roundup of the biggest and best reviews so you don’t have to trawl through them yourself.
Over the last couple of years Samsung has earned itself a reputation for using Apple products as “inspiration” and then copying them in the most blatant ways possible.
The fury of Apple fans was ignited again last week as Samsung was caught shamelessly copying the Apple’s new golden iPhone creation – the golden iPhone 5s – when the South Korean smartphone maker announced it would be selling a gold variant of the Galaxy S4. Apple fans were quick to dismiss the smartphone as another copycat move,but Samsung took to its corporate blog to explain that it’s totally not copying the gold iPhone because they’ve made tons of gold phones in the past (kind of).