News tagged ‘Icy’

Yesterday Apple has unveiled its new App Store subscription service, which allows publishers to offer recurring billing.

When The Daily was presented last month, the same digital billing service was launched along with it, but then Eddy Cue, who is an Apple's iTunes chief, said that more details on the subscription service will be revealed in the near future, and that is finally happened.

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The Wall Street Journal has published another interesting survey of 101 different applications for iOS and Android devices, which were examined to find out what information they send to advertisers. Here are the results:

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According to the Wall Street Journal, yesterday the Japan Book Publishers Association, the Electronic Book Publishers Association of Japan, the Japan Magazine Publishers Association and Digital Comic Association issued a joint press release, where Apple's content is called as infringing and "illegal". Particularly, the works well-known Japanese authors Keigo Higashimo and Haruki Murakami were mentioned as illegally scanned and distributed via the App Store.

“The associations we represent believe that Apple bears grave responsibility for this problem".

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This week Google has released a new version of its client app for Android Market, which will work on any smartphone running Android OS 1.6 or higher.

The company aims to facilitate the process of discovering new software and its purchase. That's why new Android Market will have a Cover Flow-like style of app listings and include new categories like Widgets and Live Wallpapers, as currently the catalog is filled pretty much with these kinds of software. Besides that, app pages will now have more info and links to related content.

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Social Bicycles - a bike sharing system with a twist – plans to start using an iPhone application, the system allows users to drop off, locate, and borrow a bike nearly anywhere. The bikes are equipped with a GPS device which is locked to one of the wheels, and when the bike is locked, it's locatable using the application, so that someone can borrow it; when it's in use and unlocked, it doesn't appear in the app. The real upside to Social Bicycles is that the regular infrastructure required for bike lending systems are unnecessary, which can make lending much cheaper.

According to a report by iLounge, iTunes privacy policy has been updated to inform buyers that it will start collecting user data for iAds.

The statement reads that the company uses cookies and certain other technologies to control how many times you see a certain advertisement, to show the ads equitable to your interests and to determine how effective the ad campaigns are.

However, according to Apple, you can opt out of this service by visiting http://oo.apple.com from your device.

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Today Katy Huberty, who is an analyst at Morgan Stanley, revealed a survey for investors that found out interesting forecasts about Apple. It is said that 58$ of all iPhone customers are going to upgrade their mobile device in 2011. In 2008 there were only 18% of them. That means that Apple will sell 18 million more iPhones in 2011. Such a big demand in turn can cause a 50$ drop in prices or $20 in case of service plans costs.

Morgan Stanley also predicted that Apple stock will rise to $310 and even to $400 if Apple is going to be more aggressive in its pricing policy.

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Some time ago one of the TV-channels in San Francisco, California, broadcasted a news report that highlighted a woman who wanted to purchase an iPad with cash but was denied by Apple representatives in her request. Diane Campbell, who lives on a fixed income and was just saving money for an iPad, became a victim of the company's policy that ensures the device is properly distributed.

Now we received information that Apple had changed its policy and presented her the device for free. The company's senior vice president of retail Ron Johnson told the newscast Apple will stop following credit-only policy.

"It came to our attention that Diane, through your story was very interested in buying an iPad with cash. And we made a decision today to change that."

Two Apple employees came personally to Diane's home to deliver her an iPad for free. Later she talked to the ABC station with an iPad in her hands and said:

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Recently The Wall Street Journal had reported that Verizon collaborates with Google to create new tablet device that will compete with the iPad. The information was confirmed by Lowell McAdam, who is a Verizon CEO, in his interview to the paper.

"What do we think the next big wave of opportunities are? We're working on tablets together, for example. We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience."

Still there were no information revealed about the device's hardware and its manufacturers. McAdam said that collaboration with Google has already led to success in company's efforts to combat the iPhone with Android-based handsets, so he's looking forward for the same result in creating new tablet device.

Verizon CEO also told that the company now will close the gap with AT&T which offers exclusive only 3G data plans for the iPad in the USA. In early 2011 Verizon will present 4G-capable device along with its new high-speed network, which by the end of 2010 will cover 25 to 30 cities. It is planned that there will be more price plans for every selling device, and it may be more expensive than current offers of other carriers who have 3G network.

AT&T seems to not support such policy (at least the company have been repeatedly denying such information), though its CEO Randall Stephenson thinks the industry will be proposing variable pricing once.

"For the industry, we will progressively move towards more of what I call variable pricing. The heavy consumers will pay different than the lower consumers."

As you remember, last week Steve Jobs posted a letter about his thoughts on Flash and that same day Adobe’s CEO commented on it.  Sometime later chief technology officer Kevin Lynch also expressed his opinion on the situation:

"It's not about HTML5 vs. Flash. They're mutually beneficial. The more important question is the freedom of choice on the Web."

In the meantime, Instead of using plugin-based technologies like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, Apple created a new client-side framework Gianduia to produce quality online applications for retail users.

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Yesterday The Wall Street Journal reported that this year Apple is going to charge companies 1$ million for iAds on its mobile devices. Citing an unknown but reliable source familiar with the matter those companies that want to become a part of the iAds launch will pay $10 million to be first in the door.

The pricing policy of iAds is pretty simple. Every time user sees an ad the advertiser is charged a penny. If he's tapping the banner, Apple charges $2. So $1 million ad buy will provoke a big amount of its views and user taps.

In addition to a higher price Apple wants to take more control over marketing campaigns of its clients. But still it doesn't reduce companies' interest in iAds:

"Despite the high price, ad executives at agencies from Boston to New York and San Francisco to Los Angeles have crowded into conference rooms in recent weeks to listen to the tech company's pitch for iAd".

One of the advertisements that is already developed is an ad for Nike's Air Jordan basketball shoes. It includes iAd logo and animated banner. If you select it, you'll see an interactive store locator, special videoclip and exclusive offers taking place at local stores. This iAd was also shown by Apple on its iPhone OS 4 preview event.

Some experts think Apple's appearance at the market of mobile advertisement may convince some other selling ads companies to switch to other mobile platforms (for example, Google Android).

With a growing popularity of apps for Apple devices advertisers and developers see iAds as a potential opportunity to reach a wide audience and raise more money on it.

Today Apple began selling iPhones without AT&T plan. Apple's new policy is that anyone can walk into an Apple Store and pick up an iPhone 8GB for $499, 16GB for $599 and 32GB for $699. They allow one unit per customer per day, up to 10 iPhones.

The iPhones are still locked to AT&T's network. Of course, these devices will be sold with the latest baseband which is not yet unlockable; however, you can use RedSn0w to perform a tethered jailbreak.

Apple just announced that iTunes users now have the ability to gift apps to one another. The process is quite simple, like gifting a song - all you have to do is click the 'gift app' button. You must use your credit card on the account and cannot use gift cards or any other types of promotional payment to gift apps.

If you want to use this feature you have to sign into your iTunes account and accept the new terms policy.

From Apple:

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The Wall Street Journal has information that nearly 10,000 iPhone users regularly access the Microsoft employee mail system. Such a number represents almost 10% of the company's global staff.

It is really interesting as Microsoft executives are not happy to see their employees using products of rival companies. Its CEO Steve Ballmer already had an accident last September when he caught a man from the company's personnel who tried to snap a photo of an entrance with his iPhone. At that moment he was so angry he put the phone on the ground and pretended to stomp on it. After that he walked away.

The WSJ also reports:

"...the company in early 2009 modified its corporate cellphone policy to only reimburse service fees for employees using phones that run on Windows Phone software."

It is obvious the company tries to reassure its employees to use its software and hardware, but they continue to hide and even customize their iPhones to make them look more like generic handsets.

As we wrote before, Apple started to delete apps with sexual-content in App Store two days ago. That was explained by changing their moderating guidelines. Yesterday Apple representatives commented on this situation:

“Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them. If we find these apps contain inappropriate material we remove them and request the developer make any necessary changes in order to be distributed by Apple.”

But since the Frasier Spears filed the radar bugs in order to filter the inappropriate content at his school and blogged about it, the problem seems to be solved. Obviously, it will be better for Apple to implement soft porn filters that prohibit access to apps with dubious content rather than change their policy.