New Media News Every Morning
Today at WWDC, Apple unveiled slew of new products and features ranging from iCloud to Twitter integration (which explains why Twitter was eager to partner with Photobucket for image hosting).
While Apple did reveal that it boasted over 425,000 iOS apps, the mobile giant also disclosed how many of those were designed to work with the iPad. [Read more…]
Originally posted on June 6, 2011 @ 5:52 pm
Despite releasing a decent Blackberry smartphone as well as a tablet that is out selling everyone save iPad 2, investors do not seem to be pleased with RIM overall.
“We believe RIM has now squandered nearly every opportunity and competitive advantage it enjoyed through ineffective R&D resource management, delayed product launches and misreads of the competitive environment,†Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Gelblum wrote in a note to clients on Friday. (Wall Street Journal)
While it’s still too early to write off the company as the next Titanic, if RIM doesn’t find a way to change their current state of affairs, they will end up suffering Nokia’s fate (who ditched their home grown OS MeeGo for Windows Phone 7). [Read more…]
Originally posted on June 13, 2011 @ 4:16 pm
Apparently Apple isn’t invincible after all as it looks like the dying brand known as Nokia has actually beaten the Cupertino giant at something.
Apple has settled a lawsuit with Nokia, infusing the company with some fresh cash as well as future earnings via royalties paid out by the Cupertino giant.
While this episode concludes the Apple-Nokia war that seemed destined to drag on into the next decade, it may embolden Nokia to go after Android manufacturers according to FOSS Patents (who predicted Apple would settle).
Although Google is already embroiled in several Android lawsuits (including one with Oracle), Nokia may limit their targets to companies who have yet to embrace Windows Phone 7 as Microsoft is known to protect OEM’s from legal attack (to a certain extent of course).
Currently HTC, Dell, Samsung, and LG all sell Windows Phone 7 devices as well as Android, which means that unless Nokia wants to disrupt their relationship with Microsoft the Finnish company may have to “overlook” patent infringements from at least half of the Android industry.
Even though Nokia could go after companies like Motorola for violating their IP, it might be wiser for the company to focus their energy into making a decent smartphone as the latter will help boost Nokia’s global image (not to mention their coffers as well).
(Image Credit: Android Headlines)
Originally posted on June 14, 2011 @ 2:56 pm
It looks like China is going to have yet another reason to loathe Google after the search engine giant caught an entity trying to hack Gmail accounts via social engineering.
Through the strength of our cloud-based security and abuse detection systems*, we recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing. This campaign, which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists. (Official Google Blog)
Although Google isn’t directly accusing the People’s Republic orchestrating these attacks, they did note how unusual it was for those engaged in Phisihing campaigns to target specific users instead of going after the general audience.
Google thwarted the Phishing campaign and is encouraging everyone to utilize their 2-step verification feature to prevent similar attacks in the future.
Note: Is it me, or does it seem like China is either instigating or turning a blind eye when it comes to these types of attacks?
Originally posted on June 1, 2011 @ 5:14 pm
If this one fact hasn’t convinced you that we’ve officially entered the age of Android, perhaps nothing will.
According to Gartner, Google’s mobile operating system commands a staggering 36% global share among smartphone devices in , which is almost 4 times greater than Android’s market in 2010.
While Apple is weathering their onslaught from Android, Symbian’s lead has apparently been almost cut in half (which probably explains why Nokia abandoned Symbian in favor of Windows Phone 7).
Gartner unfortunately does not include tablets and mp3 players in the mix, which would make it easier to compare mobile operating systems (as iOS and Android have both expanded their reach to tablets and music players).
With Apple attempting to enter the prepaid market later on this fall, it will be interesting to see if Steve Jobs can thwart the rise of Android in the mobile arena.
Note: According to Gartner, Windows Phone 7 sold a modest 1.6 million smartphones, although truthfully that probably isn’t enough for Microsoft to threaten Android let alone iOS.
Chart Credit: Gartner
Originally posted on May 20, 2011 @ 1:53 pm