Archive for April, 2013

Today 9to5Mac reported that Apple is looking to make considerable improvements to in-car integration with the iOS 7. In particular, the company is working with car manufacturers to integrate Siri and Maps services with the built-in displays in cars. The report said:

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According to research firm Informa (via BBC News), app-based messaging traffic has for the first time overtaken SMS text messaging.

“Informa said almost 19 billion messages were sent per day on chat apps in 2012, compared with 17.6 billion SMS texts … It has projected that nearly 50 billion messages will be sent per day using these apps by 2014, compared with just over 21 billion traditional SMSs”.

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Last month Google leaked a video showing that Google Now tool would be coming to iOS, and today the company has released the updated version 3.0 of its Google Search app with support for Google Now service.

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Tickets to the Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference sold out this morning for less than two minutes, leaving developers with error messages supposedly their purchase requests cannot be processed.

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In March, Apple added “offers in-app purchases” warning on the App Store and iTunes after a class action suit was brought by parents claiming that iOS in-app purchase service allowed children to easily spend thousands of dollars.

As noted by AppAdvice, today Apple has added a new section titled “Learn More About In-App Purchases” on the App Store, explaining how the app-purchase feature works and how parents can restrict in-app purchases.

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Earlier this week highly popular Swype keyboard become available for users of Android devices on Google Play, but only after the release of Jelly Bean with the built-in Swipe-like Gesture Typing functionality.

While it is known that Swype owner Nuance has a tight relationship with Apple through the Siri's voice recognition technology, a Swype executive has now confirmed that its company has had conversation with Apple over its keyboard technology. The Vice President Of Swype Aaron Sheedy said at Reddit AMA:

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Patently Apple reported on a two car-related patent applications from Apple, one helping you locate your car that is parked in a large car-park, the other allowing you to use the iPhone as a smart-key.

The smart-key concept is based on using a Bluetooth connection from the iPhone to unlock the car, which could be performed either manually or through a proximity rule, unlocking the car as you approach it.

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Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Amazon is working on a set-top box to stream video content over the Internet via its Instant Video and Amazon Prime services.

The box will compete with similar products like the Roku and the Apple TV, as well with a more versatile devices such as Sony's Playstation and Microsoft's Xbox that have moved into the streaming video field in recent years. The report notes:

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Today Apple announced that it will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference from June 10 through June 14 in San Francisco at the Moscone West convention center. The tickets for the event priced at $1599 will be offered for sale tomorrow. Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Philip Schiller said:

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Apple has donated 50 million RMB (about 8 million dollars) to victims of the devastating earthquake that took place in Sichuan, China last weekend.

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Today NPD published a new report on the U.S. Internet video market for 2012, noting that Apple continues to dominate both video rentals and purchases.

In looking at purchased content, Apple’s share reached 65 percent of the movie market and 67 percent of the TV show market, while Apple’s closest competitors, Amazon and Xbox Video, holding around 10 percent of the market each.

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According to Macworld, Apple has added a new option for iTunes large media purchases made on both the Mac running iTunes 11 or iOS devices running iOS 6 or later. Now when purchasing media content that includes a large download, such as seasons of TV shows or movies, iTunes will allow users to download the purchased file at a later time. Apple outlined the new feature, which presents users with a dialog box to “download “Later” or Download” now, in a knowledge base article.

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Susan Kare, the creator of many of the original elements of the interface for the Apple Macintosh in the mid-1980s, comments on her work at Apple in an interview with Path (via AppleInsider). Kare joined Apple the first time under the name "Macintosh artist" through software programmer Andy Hertzfeld, whom she knew from high school.

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According to a ChangeWave survey, consumers show a similar level of interest in purchasing a rumored iWatch from Apple, as were interested in buying an iPad just before the Apple tablet was announced.

14 percent of respondents indicated that they are ‘somewhat’ likely and 5 percent ‘very’ likely to purchase an iWatch, with current owners of Apple products significantly more likely to buy an iWatch.

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Wired reported yesterday that the American Civil Liberties Union was posing questions about Siri's privacy policies, citing privacy statements claiming that older "disassociated" voice input data would be retained for "period of time" even if a user turn off Siri on his or her device.

"It's not clear what 'disassociated' means. It's not clear what 'period of time' means. It's not clear what using it to 'generally improve Siri and other Apple products and services' means," says Nicole Ozer, a lawyer with the ACLU. "The only thing that's clear is we really don't know what may be happening to the personal information we have told Siri, even after we turn Siri off."

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