News tagged ‘research’
Apple Sold Nearly 500 000 iPhones in India in Q4 2014
According to the latest report published by a research firm called Counterpoint Research and first shared by Economic Times, in the last quarter of 2014, the guys from Cupertino managed to sold half a million iPhone units in India. I must admit, it is an impressive result, especially if to take into account the fact that in 2013, Apple marketed about a million smartphones in this country. Latest result indicates that the larger form factor was really something users around the world had been expecting for a long period of time. Apart from that, strong sales proved that in 2014, there were more people in India ready to purchase such device as the iPhone.
Experts Found Security Flaw in OS X Spotlight Search
A new OS X bug has been recently discovered by German security researchers. This software flaw allows spammers and hackers get access to IP addresses and other sensitive information through the Spotlight search feature of OS X.
Digital Music Sales Fell 9%, Streaming Services Saw 54% Growth
While streaming music services are gaining popularity, digital music sales continue to fall. According to the latest statistics published by a research firm Nielsen SoundScan, streaming services, which offer music and music-related video content saw a 54% growth in 2014. As to the amount of digital albums sold through world’s largest online stores, it fell 9% last year.
Half of Devices Activated During Christmas Week Were Apple Devices
According to the latest report from a research firm Flurry, more than a half of new mobile devices activated during the Christmas week were Apple’s iPhones. This means that the sales results of the holiday quarter will surely please the guys from Cupertino.
To be precise, I should say that Apple accounted for 51.3% of new smartphone activations in the period of time between December 19th and December 25th. As to the closest rivals, they include Samsung with 17.7%, Nokia with 5.8%, Sony with 1.6% and LG with 1.4% of activated devices. As you may see in the chart below, the gap between Apple and its rival from South Korea is massive.
Apple Releases Security Update for Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite Users
Apple on Monday released an important security update for Mac owners. According to what the guys from Cupertino say, this update contains a fix for the critical issue with Network Time Protocol service on OS X and is highly recommended for Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite users. Apple asks Mac and MacBook owners to “install this update as soon as possible”.
Apple Pay Accounts for 1% of Mobile Payments Market
Two months after the launch in the United States of America, Apple Pay currently occupies about 1% of mobile payments market. This is the information, which can be found in the latest ITG Investment Research Report on Mobile Payments (via MarketWatch). It should be noted that Apple's system still falls behind Google Wallet and its share of 4%. However, the adoption of Apple Pay rises incredibly quickly, so the time when it will beat all the rivals' systems is quite near, I suppose.
Apple Trying Hard to Keep Up with iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Demand
According to the latest report from a research firm called Piper Jaffray, the guys from Cupertino still have problems in meeting the demand for the recently-released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Every week the number of smartphones produced increases, but the speed of such growth is too slow.
iPhone 6 Plus Units Account for 41% of Phablet Sales in the USA
Although Apple’s 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus was officially released only in September, it managed to become one of the most popular phablets on the market. According to the latest report from a research firm called Kantar Worldpanel, 41% of all phablets sold in the USA over the last several months are iPhone 6 Plus units. Well, another incredible result for the guys from Cupertino.
Apple TV Loses Ground in the USA Because of Roku and Chromecast
Apple TV set-top box has reportedly begun losing ground as its main rivals, namely, Roku and Chromecast, have become much stronger. According to what was shared by a marketing research firm Parks Associates, Roku streaming media players currently occupy the first place on the U.S. market, Google’s Chromecast sticks stand on the second one and Apple TV boxes are down one position on the third spot.
World Tablet Sales to See Decrease This Year - Analysts
According to the latest report from a research firm called International Data Corporation (IDC), world's tablet market is expected to see a noticeable decline this year. In particular, the experts claim the year-over-year growth will be equal to only 7.2%, down from 52.5% in the last year. In general, world's tablet sales in 2014 will account for 235.7 units shipped.
Release of New iPhones Caused Noticeable Increase in App Downloads
According to the results of the latest research conducted by a marketing firm called Fiksu, the release of both iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus caused a substantial increase in app downloads in October. As noted in the latest report prepared by company's analysts, the number of downloads managed to reach an enormous figure of 7.8 million per day among the top 200 free iOS apps. I must admit, it is a truly impressive result for Apple's virtual marketplace.
iOS 8.1.1 Slightly Improves Performance of iPhone 4S and iPad 2
As you probably know, after the release of iOS 8 back in September, many iPhone 4S users began reporting various performance issues. On Monday, Apple released iOS 8.1.1, which, according to the release notes, was expected to improve performance on older devices, namely, the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. As noted by the researchers from Ars Technica, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system does improve the stability and performance of the older handsets and tablets, however, only slightly. Moreover, average users are very unlikely to notice these improvements as nearly all the build-in apps still work slower than that of iOS 7.
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Top 10 Stories of the Week
It is Sunday today, which means I should tell you about the most interesting stories of the past seven days. Let’s take a look at them right now.
Apple's iPhone 5s, Samsung's Galaxy S5, Nexus 5 and Other Devices Hacked by Security Researchers
At the annual two-day Mobile Pwn2Own conference held earlier this week by HP, several groups of developers managed to find a number of bugs in iOS, Android and Windows Phone platforms and successfully hacked Apple's iPhone 5s, Samsung's Galaxy S5, Google's Nexus 5, Microsoft's Nokia Lumia 1520 and Amazon's Fire Phone. What I find interesting is that the hackers were able to get full control over all of the handsets except for one. You will never guess, which device turned out to be the most reliable.
New iPhones Are Less Popular Among Former Android Users Than Expected
According to the latest survey results published by a research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), both iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are not as popular among Android switchers as they were expected to be. In fact, the amount of former Android users who decided to purchase Apple's handset this year is nearly two times smaller if to compare with 2013. Just look: 12% and 23%. I must admit, the difference is immense. What is even more interesting is that the number of Windows Phone or Blackberry switchers turned out to be smaller in 2014 as well; more people decided to upgrade to the iPhone 5s last year and not to the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus this year. This means that about 80% of the new iPhone buyers are former iPhone owners.