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Apple television expected in mid-2012 as competition is 'scrambling'
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek claims that commercial production of Apple's anticipated television set is expected to begin in February. Sharp was chosen as a manufacturer of TFT-LCD panels. Other TV makers, of course, want to find out as soon as possible what features of the product may be.
"They hope to avoid the fate of other industries and manufacturers who were caught flat footed by Apple," Misek wrote. "Having said that, it appears that mainstream TV manufacturers are likely to be at least 6 to 12 months behind in a best-case scenario."
TV makers believe in Android potential that may compete with Apple’s television set and add cloud capabilities to thier TVs. The other reason for TV makers to worry about the launch of Apple’s TV is that Apple is rumored to implement its unique voice recognition service, Siri, in the device. According to Steve Job’s biography by Walter Isaacson, he wanted Apple’ TV to be a completely new product that would feature "the simplest user interface you could imagine," as he believed that there was "no reason" for televisions to be as difficult to use as they currently are.
Misek expects the Apple television will be launched in the middle of 2012.
Leave a commentAnandTech Compared Galaxy Nexus And iPhone 4S performance
The first smartphone with Ice Cream Sandwich, Galaxy Nexus, was released in the UK this week (launch in U.S. coming soon) and website AnandTech has the new Galaxy Nexus vs. iPhone 4S.
iDownloadblog Compared Apple’s iPad 2 And Amazon’s Kindle Fire
After Amazon put its Kindle Fire on sale, one question arose: Which tablet is faster, iPad or Kindle Fire? Wanting to figure it out, iDownloadblog the two devices with each other.
Qualcomm Announced Commercial Availability of 4G LTE Gobi 4000 Chips
Qualcomm has availability of its Gobi 4000 chips for HSPA+ and 4G LTE capable devices, which will quite possible ship in a next LTE-capable iPad.
Android Tops 50% Share of Smartphone Sales, But Apple Still Dominating Profits
According to the results of worldwide mobile phone sales for the third quarter of 2011, released yesterday by the research firm Gartner, Apple's share of the total mobile phone market came in at 3.9% for the quarter, down from 4.6% in the previous quarter. However, Apple still takes fourth place behind Nokia, Samsung, and LG.
Apple shipped 17 million iPhones, an annual increase of 21 percent, but down nearly 3 million units from the second quarter of 2011 because of Apple's new device announcement in October. Gartner believes Apple will bounce back in the fourth quarter because of its strongest ever preorders for the iPhone 4S in the first weekend after its announcement. Markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Russia and China are becoming more important to Apple, representing 16 percent of overall sales and showing that the iPhone has a place in emerging markets, especially now that the 3GS and 4 have received price cuts.
iOS share slipped from an 18.2% in the second quarter to 15.0% in the third quarter. Android and Nokia with its soon-to-be-defunct Symbian platform are now leaders of the market. During the quarter, Android’s share increased by 52.5%, more than doubling year-over-year.
But Android dominates the worldwide smartphone market by units while Apple by profit. Some researches show that Apple now takes more than a half of the industry's profits.
Developers crack Siri’s security protocol to enable it with any device
A team of developers called Applidium has announced that they managed to investigate how Siri, exclusive service available on the iPhone 4S, talks to Apple servers. Applidium notes that iPhone 4S uses standard HTTPS network requests to communicate with Apple's servers, but sends data using an "ACE" command rather than regular web GET requests. Moreover, each Siri request involves a unique identifier based on UUID. Such identifier prevents access of unauthorized devices to Apple’s servers. User’s requests are compressed with the Speex audio codec optimized for VoIP. Applidium discovered that iPhone, to provide Siri’s voice recognition, should support at least Siri's basic voice recognition features, but Apple doesn’t plan to port such capabilities on earlier iOS 5 models.
So far, Applidium's investigation has revealed that Siri packages requests in compressed property lists, but further exploration of the protocol is hampered by a number of issues, including the complexity of requests, the fact that they are tied to a hardware key, and that they are subject to change.
Noteworthy, Apple could at any time stop supporting a particular hardware identifier, if it is suspected of being used to exploit its servers, and change way of data transmitting.
Applidium says "anyone could now write an Android app that uses the real Siri! Or use Siri on an iPad!" But you will need a real unique user key of an actual iPhone 4S.
LG And Apple Are In Talks For 7.35-Inch iPad mini Displays
According to rumors from Apple’s back office, the company is developing a larger iPhone display and a smaller display for iPad. An insider to The Korea Times that Apple is engineering a shrunken version of the 9.7-inch iPad. the IDG, which translated the publication from Korean, a new iPad called iPad mini will feature a 7.35-inch display.
Android And iOS Account For 58% of Portable Gaming Revenue in U.S.
Flurry, mobile analytics firm, that portable gaming has seen a continuous shift from dedicated gaming devices to smartphones and other multifunctional devices.
Amazon Has Acquired Voice Recognition Company Yap
As The Atlantic , Amazon’s filings with a Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that the company has acquired speech recognition firm Yap, which may suggests that Amazon is going to compete with Google and Apple on this market.
Consumer Reports Recommends iPhone 4S As It Doesn’t Have Reception Problem
There has been concerns over the design of iPhone 4S that shares the same stainless steel and glass enclosure with iPhone 4. Because of that, some questioned if iPhone 4 has the same flawed antenna as iPhone 4.
Barnes And Noble Announced Its New $249 Nook Tablet
Today Barnes and Noble announced its Nook Tablet, the next-generation version of their current $199 . Compared to its main competitor $199 Kindle Fire, a dual core $249 Nook Tablet has 10GB more storage and the capability to add up to 32GB through micro SD card. Also it includes a superior screen and the popular Neflix and Hulu Plus for watching videos. The app library makes up a considerably smaller part of the Android market, but it better controlled so only quality applications are allowed in.
Google Chairman Eric tells US senators Apple's Siri could pose 'competitive threat'
Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, admitted to the U.S. Senate antitrust subcommittee that Siri, voice assistant, could threaten his business and could supplant Google's search engine. Schmidt even went so far as to call Siri a "Google killer" and Apple's "entry point" into the search engine business.
On the contrary, Android chief Andy Rubin doesn’t believe that phones should be assistants and doubted whether people should communicate with their phones. But Schmidt denied his opinion, citing a recent study that shows that "Android operates on only 34.1 percent while Apple’s iOS runs on 43.1 percent."
Schmidt also downplayed Google's role in the search engine market, instead attributing it to hard work and luck.
"I would disagree that Google is dominant," he said after senators asserted that Google is approaching a monopoly. "By investing smartly, hiring extremely talented engineers, and working very, very hard (and with some good luck), Google has been blessed with a great deal of success."
Over 10% Of Mobile Phone Users In U.S. Own An iPhone
Today comScore the results of its latest research of mobile phone usage in the U.S., noting that Apple has surpassed 10% share of mobile phone market in U.S. As before, Apple again outstripped all of the largest phone manufacturers in growth over the third quarter, increasing its share by 1.3% to reach 10.2% of the mobile phone market in U.S.
Apple Welcomes Low Priced Kindle Fire Tablet And Further Android Fragmentation
Barclays’ analyst Ben Reitzes just visited with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and CEO Tim Cook in a meeting where they discussed Amazon’s new low priced Kindle Fire tablet running on Android. According to his research note, (), Apple’s executives welcome the launch of the Kindle Fire on the market as it will contribute to further fragmentation of the Android ecosystem. And the more fragmentation of Android ecosystem, the better for Apple, as more customers will turn to stable Apple platform. The Kindle Fire runs on Android and at the same time it has been modified by Amazon to interact with its services and products.
Nielsen: Android And iOS Hold The Lead On The Smartphone Market
Today research company Nielsen its survey on mobile users for the third quarter, which confirmed that Android and iOS remain two main player on the smartphone market. Android platform increased its share of the US smartphone market by 4%, from 39% to 43%. During the same period iOS remained flat with 28% share.