News from category ‘Software’

Recently Billboard published a report that reveals new information on Apple's share on music sales market. When the first generation iPhone was presented, iTunes had only 12,7% of American music market. In 2008 Apple almost doubled it and made 21,4%. 2009 reveals five percentage points increase - now iTunes has 26,7% of music sales.

Such mobile providers as AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless on the contrary lose their positions, downing from 6,6% to 4,9% in 2009. Partly it is explained by lower priced ringtones in iTunes and its free tools for making custom ringtones. Both of these factors eventually attracted more people.

Physical media music in turn loses its popularity from year to year. Numbers reveal its share fell from 57,5% in 2008 to 49,3% in 2009. That means that iTunes actually makes a half of all digital music downloads overall.

iTunes' closest rival Amazon also increased its sales. But in digital MP3 sales the company's share grew from 0,8% in 2008 to 1,3% in 2009, which is not even close to Apple's 26,7% share. Such results, according to Billboard, were "still well short of where major labels had hoped Amazon's download store would be by now, dimming earlier expectations that it will be able to significantly reduce the labels' heavy dependence on iTunes for digital sales."

It is interesting to look forward for Google which recently acquired Simplify Media to expectedly turn it into iTunes rival for Android users. But for now the company's subsidiary AdMob reveals the amount of media bought or even downloaded by Android users is still so small that it cannot be compared with iTunes success.

Apple’s iBookstore is beginning to open internationally. It is accessible only on iPads via iBookstore app. Some day the service will be extended to iPhones and iPods.

Several international sites report that Apple's iBookstore is avaliable in several new countries. For the time being, international iBookstore offerings appear limited to free Project Gutenberg titles. Apple is doing its best to sign-up publishers in other markets, while local regulatory and business concerns are slowing the effort in some countries (like the UK).

Here are the latest news from Google I/O conference: Tablet based on Android operating system. This one is 8.9 inch widescreen from NVIDIA that runs a multicore ARM Cortex A9 processor and has a front facing camera and two USB ports. The video below shows it running the football. However this is only a demo at a tradeshow, not an actual shipping product.

YouPorn, one of the world's largest porn sites, has announced that they will be soon iPad compatible. The site has begun re-encoding their entire video archive to make them viewable on the iPad. In the App Store parental controls can limit access to content inappropriate for minors. On the web, this gets much more difficult.

Have you ever bought a wrong app? Wanted to buy an iPad app, but accidentally payed for iPhone one? Need a refund? It's easy, you have up to 90 days to return your app. CNet specialist will teach us how to do that. Let's watch:

Twitter, a wildly popular social networking service, now has its own official iPhone app that was released in AppStore.

The release of the Twitter app falls in line with the company’s announcement last month about its acquisition of Atebits’ Tweetie. Twitter had then stated that Tweetie would be re-branded to be the official Twitter app and would be offered for free.

Tweetie is now Twitter! We didn’t just do a name change, we’ve added a bunch of new stuff

• Search has been reorganized, now you can search all tweets and find users in the same spot, view
• Top Tweets and Browse Suggested users.
• Search results now include Top Tweets, try it with Trends…winner combo!
• You can now use Twitter without an account! Search, Browse uses, view trends and top tweets.
• Sign-up is now availabile within the application as well, complete with Suggested user list.
• More tab has been re-organized to accomplish all this. Users with one account can add a second account under the Accounts and Settings button here.
• Actions we’ve found people use most, like Retweet have been moved to the main actions bar.
• Minor tweaks were made to tweet rendering so they match Twitter.com tweets

Here are several screenshots of this app:

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As we wrote before, new iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4 had been released today by Apple and here are some other features found today by 9to5mac:

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Today Apple released iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4. New firmware is available for download at its developer's center. There is no changelog, but we already have some information about new features in it.

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Here is a video 'Shaping Digital Gaming' about the evolution of Gameloft company which is celebrating their 10th anniversary:

It 's a really great video. It starts with Nokia black and white, you see Java apps, than it goes to Palm Pre, iPhone and iPad. The graphical improvements are evident. We wish Gameloft other 10 years and more.

After several weeks of rumors concerning the future iPhone 4G (iPhone HD), it's internal components, memory and all the features, the guys from AppAdvice decided to create an image that sums up everything we know so far.

The iPhone is called iPhone HD and the specs are placed on a page similar to the Apple site.

iPhone HD will have a display with higher resolution of 960×640 pixels, 5 MP camera, flash, autofocus, video recording at 720p, iChat with a 2 MP front camera, 256 or 512 MB of RAM, better connectivity and more battery life.

According to Digitimes senior analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone 4G (iPhone HD) manufacturer Foxconn will ship at least 24 million units of the device this year. The shipments will start in June.

4.5 million units are scheduled for the first half and 19.5 million units for the rest of 2010. Apple is expected to present the new iPhone on June 7, 2010 during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference.

The new device will adopt IPS (in-plane switching) panels with FFS (fringe-field switching) technology and a 960x640 resolution, Kuo said, noting that LG Display and Prime View International are the panel suppliers. By incorporating FFS technology, which enables a wider viewing angle and clearer visual quality under in sunlight, Apple is aiming to improve the handset's e-book reader features and promote its iBooks Store.

As for internals the iPhone 4G will run on the Arm Cortex A8 processor and will have 512MB memory module from Samsung Electronics, doubling the memory capacity to enable better multi-tasking.

iPhone 4G will have a bigger battery supplied by Simplo Technology and Dynapack International Technology. This will be achieved by reducing the panel width by 33%.

Here are two more videos and couple photos of recently leaked next-gen iPhone. They come from May Guyen. This still might be fake. Take a look:

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You may remember our post about "Wi-Fi Sync" app that allows you to sync your iPhone/iPod touch with iTunes via Wi-fi. Well, this week Apple rejected it. But its developer Greg Hughes submitted it to Cydia (an unauthorized source of different software for jailbroken iDevices), and now it is available there for $9.99.

Greg also told Engadget that he talked to Apple representative and he said the case was not about any violations.

"While he agreed that the app doesn't technically break the rules, he said that it does encroach upon the boundaries of what they can and cannot allow on their store. He also cited security concerns."

"Wi-Fi Sync" is currently available only for Mac users, but Hughes promises to release version for Windows.

According to a new report revealed by Silicon Alley Insider on Wednesday iPhone OS 4 may possibly have built-in integration with Facebook.  The feature will probably be presented on June 7 at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference conducted by Apple.

An author of the report Dan Frommer says he doesn't have any details on how it works.

"...We also hear that Apple could be integrating Facebook Connect directly into its software developers kit so programmers can more easily add Facebook 'social' features to their apps".

There is also information about bringing Facebook messaging features to the upcoming versions of iPhone OS making it possible to send messages via Facebook Chat as easy as sending an SMS.

An idea of integration with Facebook was already implemented by Google in its OS Android 2.0. Windows Phone 7 is also expected to support strong Facebook connectivity.

An open letter published by Adobe co-founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke reveals their true position to Apple. They say Apple wants to "undermine the next chapter of the web". They also believe that the consumers must have a free access to the content regardless to their computers, browsers or any other stuff.

"No company - no matter how big or how creative - should dictate what you can create."

In answer to Jobs' saying that Flash is a closed system Adobe co-founders informed that specifications for Flash are published and available for free so anyone can make their own Flash player. What Apple does is creating walls for their applications and content, thus creating a threat to a future of free Internet, which actually cannot be controlled by anyone. The letter ends with these words:

"What we don't love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web."

It is interesting to notice that Adobe also started new advertising campaign on popular tech news sites and in newspapers. Their ads list technologies they "love". One of them even contains the tongue-in-cheek inscription "We [heart] Apple".