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July 9-10, 2013
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Early Bird Tickets on Sale

In a global smartphone market that Android has been expanding at a breakneck pace, a bright spot for Apple has been increasing market share in the lucrative U.S. domestic market. A new report from the Yankee Group says that’s going to continue, and that Apple is winning the slow way, via customer loyalty.

The difference, according to analyst Carl Howe, is Apple’s ecosystem.

“Apple’s “black hole” ecosystem captures subscribers who never leave, while Android smartphones are losing one out of every six customers to other manufacturers,” Howe wrote when publishing the study.

That’s iTunes, the App Store, iBooks, iCloud, and the entire physical ecosystem of iPhone-compatible speakers, peripherals, and even cars, which sync and integrate an iPhone with users’ devices.

It seems difficult to believe, given the avalanche of sales Android has captured — led by Samsung. But Kantar Worldpanel data from January supports the Yankee Group’s thesis: Apple briefly captured a majority of U.S. smartphone market share in late 2012. And earlier this month, ComScore said that Apple is growing overall iPhone sales and iOS market share, while Android share is dropping.

Interestingly, Tim Cook said in Apple’s quarterly earnings call earlier this week that a lot of that was due to Apple’ old phones.

“Market share is important, and unit share is important,” he said, adding that the company had reduced prices on the previous-generation iPhone 4 in order to make the phone more affordable to a wider range of people.

The iOS ecosystem is one reason, the Yankee Group report says, that 91 percent of iPhone users plan to buy another iPhone with their next phone purchase, compared to a still-high but clearly lower 76 percent of Android users who plan to switch away from the Android platform. And, in fact, 18 percent of Android owners plan to switch to Apple’s phones.

What that adds up to is the “black hole ecosystem,” as Howe puts it, that grows Apple’s market share slowly but surely.

The question for Apple is whether it can translate that stateside advantage into an international one, where it’s having a much more difficult time capturing huge swaths of market share.

photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video via photopin cc

Filed under: Business, Gadgets, Mobile, VentureBeat

Last November, I switched from an iPhone to the Galaxy Note 2. The iPhone just doesn’t keep up with my needs anymore. After years of waiting for Apple to bring new innovations to the iPhone, I’ve watched Google and its partners slowly begin to edge past what Apple offers – and now I’m moving with them. Continue reading →

The post Why I Switched from iOS to Android appeared first on SheGeeks.

We’ve seen a lot of leaked iPhone 5 parts, including a new battery and longer cases, but so far we’ve had to imagine how they would all fit together. Thankfully, a new diagram from the folks at iFixYouri makes sense of the madness.

Using what’s supposedly a leaked version of the next iPhone’s motherboard, the repair firm was able to make educated guesses of where many of the other leaked components would fit in, 9to5Mac reports. While it’s far from conclusive evidence that any of these parts are legitimate (especially since it’s not scaled for size), the diagram certainly hints at some interesting connections.

Or maybe we’re just reading way too much into images of mystery hardware.

Don’t expect the iPhone 5 rumors to slow down anytime soon. The closer we get to the phone’s announcement, currently expected for September 12, the more gadget geeks will scoop up any crumb of new information. And the potential for juicy revelations will be huge, since the next iPhone will likely be a major revamp on the iPhone 4′s design.

The next iPhone (which will likely just go by “iPhone,” like the new iPad) will likely sport a longer screen around 4 inches (compared to the standard 3.5-inch screen), as well as a thinner body. Sharp has said that it will begin shipping displays to Apple this month, which should be enough time for Apple to make a September launch. Sprint has also lowered the price of its iPhone 4S models, which is a sign that it needs to clear out stock to make room for something new.

Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat

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In the blogosphere’s continuing quest to assemble a virtual iPhone 5 before Apple unveils a real one in September, 9to5Mac has published images of what appears to be the next iPhone’s battery. Juicy stuff!

As expected, the battery is a bit larger than the last iPhone, but not by much. It jumps from 1430mAh in the iPhone 4S (up from 1420mAh in the iPhone 4) to a 1440 mAh battery. With the expected inclusion of LTE, plus Apple’s turn-by-turn mapping (which is a huge battery drain, at least in iOS 6 beta), we must simply hope that Apple’s dual-core SoC will use this relatively limited power source efficiently.

According to the label on the battery pack, it was created in June of this year, which is right in line with Apple’s iPhone 5 timing.

So what else can we expect in Apple’s next-gen iPhone? For one, a larger 4-inch display at a resolution of 1,136 x 640, along with a new two-tone back panel. You’ll also see a much smaller connector dock along the bottom, as Apple is allegedly replacing the worn out 30-pin dock Apple’s used for so long in its iThings with a 19-pin mini dock.

Of course, iOS 6 will ship with the device.

WordPress’ Matt Mullenweg just announced that the WordPress.com interface and all the blogs hosted on the site are now optimized for high-density displays like the ones found on Apple’s new iPad and Retina MacBook Pro. Through JetPack 1.6, which also launched today, users with self-hosted WordPress sites can also enable the same functionality.

The arrival of these high dots-per-inch (HiDPI) devices took many developers by surprise and while many Mac apps, for example, have already been optimized for Retina displays, most developers are still playing catch-up. Things are even worse on the Web. As Mullenweg notes, most web sites “don’t have high-resolution equivalents of all their graphics to take advantage of the new screen, so they get “doubled” and look fuzzy, they stand out like a sore thumb.”

With this update, WordPress.com will now serve high-resolution images on its blogs for all users who can see them. To do this, says Mullenweg, WordPress will take the images its users have uploaded and then sized down to fit their theme and serve them at a more Retina-optimized resolution. The WordPress team also optimized the dashboard, reader and all of its own sites to take advantage of these new high-density displays.

As for self-hosted blog, WordPress plans to integrate all of these Retina improvements into its upcoming 3.5 release, but for the time being, users will have to enable these features through Jetpack. Besides Retina support, the latest version of JetPack also introduces Pinterest share buttons.

Gravatar, too, is now Retina-ready and, as the company puts it, its users’ profile images will now “be looking extra sharp to anyone who views [a] Gravatar profile or Hovercard from a device like the iPhone 4.”

While the Apple v. Samsung trial in San Jose has been high on drama, it’s also given us the best look yet at Apple’s early designs for the iPhone and iPad.

Apple designer Christopher Stringer, the company’s first witness in the case, showed off the designs during his testimony yesterday, ultimately revealing around 40 different iOS device prototypes, The Verge reports. Stringer wasn’t shy with his comments while on the stand, saying that Samsung “ripped off” Apple’s designs.

With the early designs, we can see elements of features that would eventually show up on the iPhone product line, like the bulbous rear of the iPhone 3G(S), and the minimalist design of the iPhone 4. Stringer said that Apple created “hundreds” of different models while designing the iPhone.

It’s a good thing some of these designs never saw the light of day. One of the early iPad designs shows a thick curved bezel on all sides, which presumably would have made it easier to hold, but ultimately makes it look like a a children’s toy.

Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat

After leading the design of Apple’s mobile processors, which have powered the iPhone and iPad over the last few years, chip architect Jim Keller is returning to AMD to head up its microprocessor core design team, the chipmaker announced today.

Keller is an industry veteran who brought plenty of experience to Apple’s mobile processors. He was previously vice president at P.A. Semiconductor, which was acquired by Apple in 2008 for $278 million, and he went on to serve as a director of Apple’s platform architecture group.

Keller spearheaded the development of Apple’s custom mobile processors — including the A4 in the iPhone 4, the A5 in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, and the A5X in the new iPad — all of which have managed to keep Apple’s mobile devices on the cutting edge. His departure could be a big loss for Apple, which desperately needs smart chip designers to keep pace with the rapid evolution of mobile processors.

For AMD, Keller’s return is nothing but good news, especially after its recent disappointing quarter. He previously played a key role in the design of AMD’s Athlon 64 and Opteron 64 processors, which were among the last generation of processors where AMD was able to outclass Intel. Keller also co-authored the HyperTransport specification and x86-64 processor instruction set.

In short, he’s kind of a big deal. By taking a leadership role at AMD, Keller could potentially help the chip maker be more competitive against Intel and give AMD a leg-up when it finally decides to enter the mobile processor arena.

Via The Next Web

Filed under: VentureBeat

Wikipad, the company developing an identically named tablet that will ship with an attachable gamepad for console-style gaming, has revealed the specifications of the device in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat.

The Wikipad (tablet, not company) will have a 10.1-inch IPS display with 16:10 1,280 x 800 resolution. The actual tablet will weigh 560 grams and be just 8.6mm thick, making it one of the thinnest and lightest 10″ tablets ever, only slightly thicker than the iPad 2 and nearly 40 grams lighter. When the Wikipad was first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, it was a 7″ tablet that was more similar in design to the Amazon Kindle Fire.

The final design model, which the company revealed to us at a design office in Thousand Oaks, Calif., will feature the NVIDIA Tegra 3 T30 1.4GHz quad-core processor with 1GB of DDR2 RAM. For comparison, the recently released Nexus 7 uses the T30L, which is a 1.2GHz quad-core processor with a 416MHz GPU (compared to 520MHz on the T30) and slower DDR2 RAM (667MHz vs. 1066MHz), and the ASUS Transformer Prime Infinity 700 and upcoming Ouya will use the more powerful T33, which clocks at 1.6GHz and has bandwidth for faster 1600MHz DDR3 RAM.

The Wikipad will also ship with at least 16GB of internal storage, though the amount of local storage hasn’t been finalized as of yet. However, according to Fraser Townley, President of Sales at Wikipad, “we will not go down, we will only go up.” 16GB is the standard amount of storage for tablets today.

The battery is 23.46Wh, capable of six hours of continuous gaming and eight hours of video playback.

Instead of tapered edges, the Wikipad will have flat sides similar to the iPhone 4/4S. The rear panel will also have an elevated plastic lip designed for a better grip in any holding arrangement. This also enables the speakers on the back of the tablet to bounce off of any flat surface and deliver strong acoustics.

Every Wikipad will ship with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and the controller add-on. The controller, which connects to the Wikipad from the bottom with a proprietary connector, is designed similar to the Xbox 360 controller, though according to the company there is little relation to Microsoft’s nearly seven-year-old design. The controller features two sets of triggers, bumpers, and analog sticks, as well as four face buttons, start, and select. The controller is also designed to cover the speakers and flow sound through acoustic tubes out the front grill for better audio performance. The controller also has a port to connect it to a power source on the back.

Wikipad will also feature a built-in 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2 megapixel front-facing camera.

Finally, the Wikipad will not ship the first line of the tablet with a 3D display, which the company originally showed off at CES. Future models may ship with a 3D display. The Wikipad doesn’t have a definite release date yet, but according to Wikipad President James Bower, it will release later this year, and the company will reveal much more regarding the tablet in the very near future.

Filed under: games, mobile, VentureBeat