Business News Holding

Tag: apple

  • The Most Efficient Mass-Media Apps for iPad

    It is known that Apple fans have for their devices hundreds of thousands of applications to choose from, but which are the best of them? In this article we will try to find the most interesting and effective tools for those who are interested to know the latest news in the media.

    AP News

    AP News is one of the best programs of its kind, although it has nothing revolutionary. The software includes articles, photos and video clips on the latest news. AP News has a clear interface, easy to use and supports news feeds of local news and weather.

    NPR iPad

    NPR iPad is very useful for users who want to know the latest news in music, arts and media. The design is simple, clear and easy to use, with three horizontal lines that bring users the latest articles and songs for each section. Internet users can listen to the song they want from the thousands of options available in the playlist. The player will start at the bottom of the screen in one click. In addition, you can explore all the details of the program while listening to the chosen song.

    StumbleUpon

    Those who are already addicted to the StumbleUpon site will definitely appreciate the similar program for the iPad, and others will be surprised by the ability of the online publication to find the most interesting information on the web and put them all together. Just select the topics you are interested in, such as nutrition, fitness, travel, design, etc. and StumbleUpon will gather the newest and the most commented news and articles.

    CNN

    CNN app is very useful for those who are greedy for news of any kind. The application can be seen in magazine type format, with a mosaic made up of text and photos, a list of titles or a format with large photos linked to articles. This layout quickly shows you the most important information and other features such as live video news, updates every hour and videos for most of news are making this app very efficient.

    Marvel

    For comic books fans, there’s the Marvel app. This is one of the most effective ways to track your favorite stories on the iPad. Each publication of its kind – here being included an important selection of free titles – can be explored page by page or in "guided tour", which helps user to easily choose from a very wide range.

    You may also want to read:
    Adobe Facilitated Android, iOS and BlackBerry with its Updates for Flash Builder and Flex
    LG Optimus 3D Officially Launched in Europe
    What You Should Keep in Mind When Buying a Smartphone

  • What You Should Keep in Mind When Buying a Smartphone

    Buying a smartphone is more difficult than it seems. Often, after you do finally purchase it, you feel like you didn’t take the best. And even if it is not so complicated it’s still a frustrating process. The guys at Business Intelligence did a survey in which they asked buyers what are they taking into account when buying a phone.

    On the 5th place came out that many of those who want to buy a new smartphone think of how difficult it’s for them to move the context from one phone to another – all the messages, pictures, calendar, settings, accounts, says one of the authors of the survey.

    He added that for doing this you need to consider the phones you use for transfer, and if you’re still in this chapter, you’d better get something to eat as it will take a while until you’ll succeed. So if you want to know more … Google it.

    In the 4th place in the top things to keep in mind is the mobile operator. This rule is valid in any country, a telephone buyer, especially when buying the phone under subscription, has to choose the operator depending on family and friends.

    The selection of applications is also a priority for consumers, so it is considered "worthy" of a 3rd place. That’s because our phone is so smart depending on how many applications we put on it. But do not forget that the Internet, which all the smart phones can access it, is the ultimate application.

    The phone features are a very important element to be considered by customers. Slider or not, battery lifetime, screen size, storage capacity or Flash support – all these are factors which consumers take into account. The leaders of this survey warn not to fall into the trap of the camera. It does not matter how many megapixels the camera has, so think efficient.

    The most important thing to consider is the platform. For the most of those surveyed it matters if the phone is running on Android, Windows Phone, Web OS, iOS – basically, the operating system dictates, in many cases, what is the best phone. The way icons are placed, how you interact with it matters a lot, because if you do not like, then you bought the phone for nothing.

    In the survey I mentioned above, surprisingly, price was not one of the most important characteristics that consumers take into account when buying a smartphone.

    Related stories:
    Nokia E6 and X7 Ready for Delivery in Europe
    ASUS PadFone – a hybrid between smartphone and tablet
    Microsoft Announces Windows Phone Mango
    The Future Smartphone Designs Presented

  • Windows Phone Will Dictate the Smartphone World Soon?

    There is a huge race among smartphones as currently Apple and Android leading this market. The prevailing interest for smartphone is making much famous research firms to conduct various researches on this market on constant basis and coming up various predictions. The latest research and results from IDC lifted a new veil for these predictions.

    This IDC research revealed that Windows Phone will pretty soon lead the market almost all over shadowing the current popular contenders Apple and Android.

    This research also started soothsaying that by 2015 the Windows Phone occupies the throne successfully. The research result said the there will be one out of five smartphones sold will result from Microsoft. Is it really necessary for Apple and Android to react to this research?

    Coming to the facts, some people really find it tough to get along with Apple’s monopoly and Android’s beyond levels flexibility as a threat. Nokia was already in huge turmoil through its recent partnership with Microsoft. Nokia is no longer looking into the further developments for their Symbian as there is no such desired sales growth for it. Perhaps, all these conditions might fuel up the growth for Windows Phone besides the huge popularity for Microsoft. Practically speaking the IDC results are going to be true until and unless Apple and Android change their approach towards their customer base.

    The recent security threat at Android Market is still warning many smartphone users and asking them to take a wise decision. Apple is still trying to control its customer base through its strong iOS and iTunes. Market is always against to the controls and all of the sudden there is chances to cut lose and start to go against to the limitations through available choices. This is clearly indicating that the Apple and Android is the people to reconsider their approach keeping in mind the possible threat.

    Above details are released by the IDC basing on their research. Just look into those jaw dropping predictions.

    There is one more vital factor to be remembered by everyone. The 2015 predictions mentioned 23.7% as Android share and in fact this is a commanding figure when compared with other contenders. But, reality is Google will not be making any thing out of this success. The Android’s major success share will goes to Oracle for its java-related patent suit issues. This is according to the Google’s acquisition agreement of Sun Microsystems in January. Microsoft too got its share in Google’s success to bite, through Android original equipment manufacturer and gets a part of share on sold out every HTC device. It is clearly indicating how the Google is going to be squeezed and what it is going to make out of its own success. This kind of squeezing might make Google to neglect from concentrating much on Android’s developments and stays happy with whatever is coming through.

    All the mentioned situations are really supporting the IDC perditions and definitely a success path started to lay down on own for Windows Phone’s future.

  • iOS 5 Launched at WWDC 2011, 200 New Features

    WWDC, the annual Apple conference, passed without the much awaited launch of the iPhone 5, but the company has not left their fans empty-handed, presenting, among other, the new version of the iOS 5. iOS 5 will bring over 200 new features on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this fall, the most important being the Notification Center and the iMessage, Newsstand or PC Free systems.

    The Notification Center brings together all the notifications in one location that can be easily managed while iMessage is a redesigned messaging service that allows you to send messages, pictures or videos from all the devices running on iOS 5.

    Apple has listened to criticisms and has also launched the PC Free function, which gives iOS devices users the possibility of activating the product without a PC connection.

    With the new iOS 5 and iCloud, after you’ve entered your Apple ID, iCloud will integrate “into the cloud” all the applications, emails, contacts, photos and music, all without the need to be connected to a computer.

    iOS 5 provides Twitter integration for most applications, so you can access the tweet functions from Photos, Safari, Camera, Maps and YouTube, with a single touch.

    For the fans of magazines and newspapers, the new iOS 5 comes with Newsstand, a new way of organizing the subscriptions, more elegant and more intuitive.

    Safari has also undergone some improvements, including the Reader mode that makes easier reading the text.

    Other improvements that come along with the new iOS 5 are related to the Game Center, mail or keyboard.

    IOS 5 beta is already available for developers, and the final version will be available for free in this fall for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad and iPad 2, but also for the fourth and third generation of iPod touch.

    You may also want to read:
    Apple Presented the iCloud Service
    Nokia E6 and X7 Ready for Delivery in Europe
    ASUS PadFone – a hybrid between smartphone and tablet
    Google Wallet, Launch Followed by Trial

  • Apple Presented the iCloud Service

    Steve Jobs returned from his medical leave to present in San Francisco more novelties, including the iCloud service through which users’ files can be stored on Apple’s servers, they being able to easily access them from anywhere, using iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or other Apple products.

    Companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft have massively promoted the cloud computing, and Apple hopes to catch them up, helped by their efficient marketing.

    “The iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices," said Steve Jobs, who held a presentation in his style. He admitted that it’s annoying to have to synchronize with your PC order to transfer various files on them and added that iCloud is the solution because if the user buys a song from iTunes for example, it will be loaded automatically "in the cloud" and a user can easily access it via internet using any Apple device, without needing to synchronize these devices separately.

    Jobs says that iCloud was necessary because the PC is no longer the center of the "digital life", the PC drops in rank, being a simple device. He added that iCloud “is not only a hard disk in the sky", but is wanted to be "the latest great idea of us".

    iCloud is free except for an option that an iTunes version, called Match, scans and then sends into the cloud songs that users owned on their Apple devices without being bought from iTunes. Users will be able to listen to those songs anywhere, on any Apple terminal, but will have to pay an annual subscription fee of $ 25 for the privilege of listening to these songs.

    The free iCloud services include:

    • The former MobileMe services—Contacts, Calendar and Mail—all completely re-architected and rewritten to work seamlessly with iCloud. Users can share calendars with friends and family, and the ad-free push Mail account is hosted at me.com. The inbox and mailboxes are kept up-to-date across all user’s iOS devices and computers.
    • The App Store and iBookstore now download purchased iOS apps and books to all your devices, not just the device they were purchased on. In addition, the App Store and iBookstore now let you see your purchase history, and simply tapping the iCloud icon will download any apps and books to any iOS device (up to 10 devices) at no additional cost.
    • iCloud Backup automatically and securely backs up your iOS devices to iCloud daily over Wi-Fi when you charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Backed up content includes purchased music, apps and books, Camera Roll (photos and videos), device settings and app data. If you replace your iOS device, just enter your Apple ID and password during setup and iCloud restores your new device.
    • iCloud Storage seamlessly stores all documents created using iCloud Storage APIs, and automatically pushes them to all your devices. When you change a document on any device, iCloud automatically pushes the changes to all your devices. Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps already take advantage of iCloud Storage. Users get up to 5GB of free storage for their mail, documents and backup—the storage for music, apps and books purchased from Apple, and the storage required by Photo Stream doesn’t count towards this 5GB total. Users will be able to buy more storage, with details announced when iCloud ships this fall.
    • iCloud’s Photo Stream service automatically uploads the photos you take or import on any of your devices and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices and computers. Photo Stream is built into the photo apps on all iOS devices, iPhoto on Macs, and saved to the Pictures folder on a PC. To save space, the last 1,000 photos are stored on each device so they can be viewed or moved to an album to save forever. Macs and PCs will store all photos from the Photo Stream, since they have more storage. iCloud will store each photo in the cloud for 30 days, which is plenty of time to connect your devices to iCloud and automatically download the latest photos from Photo Stream via Wi-Fi.
    • iTunes in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match, a service that replaces your music with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if Apple can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, it makes the matched music available in minutes, and uploads only the small percentage of unmatched music. iTunes Match will be available this fall for a $24.99 annual fee.

    According to Apple, they are ready to ramp iCloud in its three data centers, including the third recently completed in Maiden, NC. Apple has invested over $500 million in its Maiden data center to support the expected customer demand for the free iCloud services.

    You may also want to read:
    iOS 5 Launched at WWDC 2011, 200 New Features
    ASUS to Launch Four New Tablets by the End of 2011
    Nokia E6 and X7 Ready for Delivery in Europe
    ASUS PadFone – a hybrid between smartphone and tablet

  • Apple iOS 5 May be Credited with Widgets and Revamped Notifications

    The latest version of Apple’s iOS – iOS 5 – is almost ready and planned to be introduced at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference. It is already rumored that the upcoming OS is featuring many advancements along with widgets and revamped notifications.

    Last year June was the first time to rumors floats all around about the improved notifications for the latest iOS. This was started through Apple’s recruiting a designer to create notification system for Plam’s WebOS. The widget issue came into light when Apple started filing patent for the always-in-sync widget for touchscreen devices.

    Some sources already revealed that the Apple is more into pushing journalists for the introduction of iOS 5 and planning this announcement in a big way. It is also informed that the latest iOS changes are designed to make up the hardware deficiencies and this will be the highlight of the software announcement from Apple.

    It is also presumed that the Apple may make announcement about cloud storage for their both operating systems iOS and Mac OS X  Lion. In fact, Apple blog mentioned in March that they may not release cloud-based iOS 5 until this fall.

    Earlier we mentioned about the Nuance deal with Apple for Voice Recognition. Surprisingly, some of the reliable sources confirmed that the “voice control” feature with the latest Apple mobile operating system got nothing to do with the licensing deal with Nuance.

    It looks like Apple is not interested in taking chances as the current feature is doing pretty well with the customer base. Also, iOS 5 is still under test, and perhaps planned changes might take place at a later stage. Also, it seems to be the planned “Voice Navigation” feature through Nuance Technologies might have taken a back seat and some core aspects might have considered for this time.

    In fact, ignoring “Voice Navigation” feature definitely will be a greatest disappointment for the Apple’s customer base as most of the Android based smartphones overtaking the iPhone success just because of this only feature. Already many experts are clearly indicating this feature as a major drawback for the popular iPhone to maintain its ruling in the market. Everyone expected this feature from the latest iOS 5, but looks like still further wait is needed for this feature.

  • Nokia, At the Lowest Rate in 14 Years, on a Growing Market

    Nokia mobile phone market share dropped from 30.6% to 25.1%, reaching its lowest level since 1997, selling in the first quarter of 2011 107.6 million units, according to a study made by the research firm Gartner.

    At the same time, Samsung’s sales increased from 64.9 to 68.8 million units, and the producer has a market share of 16.1%.

    The list is completed by LG, which has sold in the first quarter of 2011 27.2 million mobile phones, representing 7.6% of market.

    Apple is ranked four in the mobile phones top, but also in the operating system top, with 16.9 million iPhones sold worldwide, double value than in the first quarter of last year. The company’s market share, both in smartphones and operating systems, increased from 2.3% to 3.9%.

    The sales of the Canadians from Research In Motion, the Blackberry manufacturer, have increased in the same period from 10.8 to 13 million units, the company having a market share of 3%.

    In the operating systems, Android has become the most popular platform in the world, increasing its last year market share from 9.6% to 36%.

    The market share of Symbian, at which Nokia will renounce in favor of Windows Mobile, has decreased in the last year from 44.2% to 27.4%.

    In total, in the first quarter of 2011 were sold 427.9 million mobile phones, an increase with 19% over the number recorded in the first three months of 2010. Gartner says that, despite this 19-percent increase in sales, would have been sold even more smartphones, but several companies have announced the launch of new terminals for the current quarter, and many customers have waited them and haven’t bought any phone in the first three months of the year.

    Smartphone sales have doubled up in the period mentioned, to 100.8 million units, according to the source.

  • Apple Gaining Control over Android’s Dominant Features Speech and Navigation

    Apple is nowadays concentrating high over the things that are really causing hindrances to overtake the acceleration of Android. Android’s major plus points are Speech and Navigation features that are really gaining upper hand over the Apple’s iPhone. These two features are always successful at keeping intact their customer base and helping to improve further too.

    Most of the major features on Android such as SMS, email, search box and many more are speech-enabled. Here, iPhone successfully enabled their devices with “voice control commands” which allows user to perform few functions such as making call, playing music etc. In fact, this narrower facility on iPhone is failing to result as a match for the facilities that are available with Android. Here, it is essential to recognize that the voice search facility on iPhone over Google and Bing is supported through Microsoft and Google technologies and nothing to do with Apple.

    Recently some rumors and news floating all around mentioning that Apple is under talks with popular speech firm Nuance in this aspect. Nuance was the front-end speech facility provider for Siri, which was recently acquired by Apple. Also, Nuance provided speech-enabled keyboard in FlexT9 for Android and Dragon Search apps for the iPhone. This is clearly indicating that the Apple is moving its cards safely towards the “speech enablement”, which has been a competitive weakness for the iPhone since very long. Pretty soon Apple is going to conclude a deal with Nuance in this aspect.

    Smartphones mapping and directions is another vital factor that is ruling the market currently. Currently, Apple is using Google maps for this purpose. Here, the Google maps and direction experience over the iPhone is quite anemic when compared with Maps and Navigation with Android. Also, Google withheld releasing a latest Navigation version for iPhone keeping in mind the prevailing competition.

    Apple is calmly witnessing every development in the Maps and Navigation spectrum and slowly moving its steps towards the right direction. Recently, apple bought Placebase, which is a Google maps current competitor. In June 2010, Apple bought Poly 9 which is almost similar type as Google-Earth and offers 3D mapping successfully. Recently, Apple announced its interest for “locationgate”, which is mainly emphasizes over “crowd sourced traffic database…and will be available within coming two years.

    So, the current scenario is clearly indicating the major interest of Apple and perhaps intended to announce these specialities along with upcoming iPhone 5. It is definitely indicating that the Apple is intended to achieve upper hand over the lacking Maps and navigation aspects and trying to achieve the next level in it.

  • Android To Become the Most Popular OS by the End of 2011

    Worldwide smartphone sales will reach 468 million units in 2011, a 57.7 percent increase from 2010, according to Gartner. By the end of 2011, Android will move to become the most popular operating system worldwide and will build on its strength to account for 49 percent of the smartphone market by 2012.

    According to the report, sales of open OS devices will account for 26 percent of all mobile handset device sales in 2011, and are expected to surpass the 1 billion mark by 2015, when they will account for 47 percent of the total mobile device market.

    “By 2015, 67 percent of all open OS devices will have an average selling price of $300 or below, proving that smartphones have been finally truly democratized,” said Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner.

    “As vendors delivering Android-based devices continue to fight for market share, price will decrease to further benefit consumers”, Cozza said. “Android’s position at the high end of the market will remain strong, but its greatest volume opportunity in the longer term will be in the mid- to low-cost smartphones, above all in emerging markets.”

    Gartner predicts that Apple’s iOS will remain the second biggest platform worldwide through 2014 despite its share deceasing slightly after 2011. This reflects Gartner’s underlying assumption that Apple will be interested in maintaining margins rather than pursuing market share by changing its pricing strategy. This will continue to limit adoption in emerging regions. iOS share will peak in 2011, with volume growth well above the market average. This is driven by increased channel reach in key mature markets like the U.S. and Western Europe.

    Research In Motion’s share over the forecast period will decline, reflecting the stronger competitive environment in the consumer market, as well as increased competition in the business sector. Gartner has factored in RIM’s migration from BlackBerry OS to QNX which is expected in 2012. Analysts said this transition makes sense because RIM can create a consistent experience going from smartphones to tablets with a single developer community and — given that QNX as a platform brings more advanced features than the classic BlackBerry OS — it can enable more competitive smartphone products.

    Gartner predicts that Nokia will push Windows Phone well into the mid-tier of its portfolio by the end of 2012, driving the platform to be the third largest in the worldwide ranking by 2013. Gartner has revised its forecast of Windows Phone’s market share upward, solely by virtue of Microsoft’s alliance with Nokia. Although this is an honorable performance it is considerably less than what Symbian had achieve in the past underlying the upward battle that Nokia has to face.

    Gartner analysts said new device types will widen ecosystems. “The growth in sales of media tablets expected in 2011 and future years will widen the ecosystems that open OS communications devices have created. This will, by and large, function more as a driver than an inhibitor for sales of open OS devices,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

    “Consumers who already own an open OS communications device will be drawn to media tablets and more often than not, to media tablets that share the same OS as their smartphone,” Milanesi said. “This allows consumers to be able to share the same experience across devices as well as apps, settings or game scores. At the same time, tablet users who don’t own a smartphone could be prompted to adopt one to be able to share the experience they have on their tablets.”

  • Novell to Enable Development of .NET Apps for Android using Microsoft Visual Studio

    Novell today announced the availability of Mono for Android, the first solution for developing Microsoft .NET applications for the Android platform using Microsoft Visual Studio.

    With the addition of Mono for Android to its existing Mono development tools, Novell is enabling Microsoft .NET and C# developers using Visual Studio and other environments to utilize a common code base to create applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

    According to statistics released by research firm Nielson, Android has a 29 percent consumer market share, making it the most popular smartphone platform. With Mono for Android, .NET developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) can utilize Visual Studio and their existing skills to build a vast array of Android-based applications and sell their products into this massive market.

    "Since the introduction of MonoTouch in 2009, developers have experienced how Mono streamlines mobile application development," said Miguel de Icaza, Mono project founder and vice president of Developer Platforms at Novell. "As a result, many asked us to build a similar tool for Android. We developed Mono for Android to give both individual developers and businesses a way of sharing their code across multiple mobile platforms, increasing efficiency and reuse of their C# and .NET expertise across the board."

    Mono for Android consists of the core Mono runtime, bindings for native Android APIs, a Visual Studio 2010 plugin to develop Android applications, and a software development kit that contains all the tools needed to build, debug and deploy applications. Developers trained in Microsoft Visual Studio can stay within their preferred IDE, while using their existing skills and .NET code, libraries and tools, as well as C# programming knowledge, to create mobile applications for Android-based devices. With the Visual Studio 2010 plugin, engineers can develop, debug and deploy their applications to an Android simulator, an Android device or the Android Application Store.

    Mono for Android complements MonoTouch, Novell’s popular solution for developing applications for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Developers utilizing Mono for Android and MonoTouch can save time and money by sharing common code between iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android phones and tablets, as well as Windows Phone 7, Windows desktops and Windows Server. A Mono for Android add-in also allows MonoDevelop users to develop on OS X.

    "As a mobile software developer and middleware vendor, Resco customers are enabled to use our products to develop MonoTouch, and now Mono for Android applications for Android and Apple devices," said Michal Sartoris, senior developer at Resco. "With more than 3,000 customers, our business success depends on us delivering feature-rich, highly-quality applications to the market before our competitors. Novell is providing us with innovative, cross-platform development tools that enable us to reduce the cost and resources required to create mobile applications."

    Mono for Android Enterprise Edition is available for US $999 per developer for a one-year subscription, which includes maintenance and updates. A five-developer Enterprise license supports five concurrent developers and is available for US $3,999 per year. Mono for Android Professional Edition is available for US $399 per developer for a one-year subscription. For a limited time, existing MonoTouch customers can receive a 50 percent discount off a similar Mono for Android Edition by using their activation code as a discount code.