windows 7 Break the Market By Selling 60,000 Apps
It turned out only some several weeks before windows 7 reach their 75,1000 software milestone. Solely 20 a short time eventually, the particular Home windows7 Publication rack remembering the provision of 61,000 apps . General, a 3rd of your total keep has been included in previous times 3 months.
That claims lots for the expansion of Windows 7 phone. When they nevertheless aren’t with the place, either quantity and quality clever, involving iOS and also Android os, this stable success is a plus information for beginning House windows 7 adopters looking to view system realize success.
The other great news regarding these kinds of software is always that now there isn’t only junk, junk applications. There were many quality applications having great feedback within the last few 10,1000 lets out. It is often rumored that this “top 30 apps” will be introduced from the first and second groups with 2012. If pertains to fruition, Windows Telephone found on its own in the wonderful situation throughout Next year.
Along with it consuming 45 nights to move out of 40K in order to 50K, and 30 days to weeks to look out of 50K for you to 60K, it will be intriguing to see if that development proceeds, if and ways in which fast Windows 7 Current market can catch up for the competitors.
Apple introduces iBooks 2, textbooks at $14.99 or less
Apple has announced their reentry into the education market by revealing iBooks 2 at a media event at the Guggenheim museum in New York City. Fueled by claims that there are 1.5 million iPads being used in education, Apple’s Phil Schiller feels that iBooks 2 will reinvent the textbook.
With iBooks 2, students will be able to interact with textbooks in a whole new way. Gestures like swipe and pinch-to-zoom will supplement 3D models and video clips within a book’s chapters. Users will have the ability to view content in portrait or landscape mode and even highlight text for note-taking or to make virtual flash cards. Always up-to-date content could potentially render traditional print textbooks obsolete even before they leave the printing press.
Apple has also launched a free Mac OS X application called iBooks Author to help developers create textbooks for iBooks 2. The app includes templates to aid in book creation as well as the ability to drag and drop images, videos and even Word files into a page.
Apple is initially partnering with publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill and Pearson who are responsible for 90 percent of all textbooks sold in the US. Individual textbooks are being priced at $14.99 or less – a far cry from the cost of many physical books that can easily command $100 or more per title (at the college level). Once a book has been digitally purchased, it can be redownloaded at no additional charge.
iBooks 2 is available for the iPad starting today through the App Store for free. The first series of textbooks online focus on math, science and other disciplines.
Nokia Lumia 800 smartphone rolls out battery fix
Nokia’s much anticipated first Windows Phone release following its Microsoft partnership last year was definitely tarnished by almost immediate complaints regarding the handset’s poor battery life. Despite at first trying to sidetrack the issue, the Finnish firm did eventually acknowledge there was a problem and promised an update to resolve it.
Nokia has now released the patch in question, bringing the firmware on the Lumia 800 to version 1600.2483.8106.11500, while also introducing a few enhancements for wireless connectivity.
As is standard Microsoft procedure, the update will be phased out to Lumia 800 owners over the next two weeks — a move the company insists is required to ensure all users have a smooth, glitch-free update.
It will not be over the air though. The phone will provide a notification when the update is available, but users will need to connect their devices to a PC or Mac via the USB cable, then download the update and install it using Microsoft’s Zune software. Detailed information on how to update your Lumia 800 smartphone can be found in the support section of Nokia’s website.
Disappointingly, early feedback suggests the issue has not been resolved for some users. According to user WPCentras posting on the Nokia website, the battery problems are still there, and a new bug with softkeys and brightness was detected. Another user, buhaha, posted: “it seems like battery troubles are not solved with this update! Lets wait for the next one.” However, some users are indeed seeing improvements in battery life.
Right now the real success of the update is questionable, but as the days pass and more users update their Lumia 800 phones a clearer picture should emerge of whether it resolved the problems users were having.
Motorola Xoom gets Ice Cream Sandwich WiFi only for now
Motorola has started rolling out Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Xoom tablet owners this week as part of a staggered release. The update is initially only being served up to WiFi devices; those with cellular-enabled tablets remain on the waiting list.
WiFi users should see an update notification on their device the next time they log into a wireless network. If there’s no auto-update notification, owners can check on the status manually by going into Settings -> About tablet -> System updates on the device.
Motorola promises that users who upgrade to ICS can expect an updated browser with faster rendering, zoom and pan, swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks and browser tabs, a redesigned app launcher and a new system font for improved readability. In addition to the new font, widgets are now richer and resizable, allowing you to show more content or shrink them to save space.
An updated “People” app replaces contacts and integrates with Google+ and other social networks, tying all of your contacts into one central location. Tablet users will now also have the ability to “type with their voice” to create emails, SMS or any other text simply by speaking into the microphone.
Motorola began accepting orders for free 4G LTE radio upgrades for 3G tablet owners last September after promising the upgrade shortly after launching the Xoom on February 24. As of writing, Motorola hasn’t announced when ICS will be available for cellular models aside from mentioning that the update will roll out in phases over the course of a few weeks.
Source :Techspot
PayPal is aggressively expanding in-store payments to 2,000 retail stores
Previously, the popular payment service managed to kick things off by initializing its mobile payment pilot program to 51 Home Depot stores. However, they’re now ready to expand it to an unprecedented level that will see its reach to more than 2,000 locations with various retailers.
Concurrently, PayPal is developing its own mobile wallet app, which essentially stores pertinent payment information on a PayPal card or smartphone. From there, users can then use their mobile devices and a required pin code to make payments at the registers of the participating stores.
Of course, PayPal’s offering is competing against other similar services – like Isis and Google Wallet. Not surprisingly, this move to expand will provide PayPal with a solid footprint, and ultimately put them at a health position. Well, 20 different retailers are on board with PayPal’s expansion, but more importantly, PayPal intends on completing the expansion by March. Therefore, if you happen to buy something at your favorite retail store, don’t be too alarmed if you see PayPal as a form of payment at the check out register.
source: BusinessWeek via Phonescoop
Apple closing in on Android
Strong demand for the Apple iPhone 4S following the launch of the latest iteration of the device allowed the handset to grab 44% of stateside smartphone sales in December, just 2% shy of the market share tallied by Android models. Whenever a new Apple iPhone model is launched, there is a rush to buy the device, even by smartphone newbs. For example, the percentage of buyers in the U.S. whom selected an Apple iPhone 4S over an Android or BlackBerry model doubled sequentially from the September quarter (when there was no new Apple iPhone model) to the December period which includes the unit’s launch in October.
Apple’s closing of the gap between itself and Android seems more impressive than one might think considering that there were few new features between the Apple iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S. The A5 dual-core processor, 8MP camera and Siri are the most prominent changes between the two models. The figures suggest that Android’s claimed 700,000 daily activations are not enough to run away from Apple. the gap might even close more when the Apple iPhone 5 is released. The latter is rumored to be redesignedand there is speculation that it will come to market with a 4 inch screen, a quad-core A6 processor and LTE connectivity. If this does pan out, the Apple iPhone 5 will bring the handset closer to an equal playing field with Android models, many of which already have screens over 4 inches and offer LTE connectivity.
source: Forbes
Nokia Lumia 710 and one year of free service
Continuing to celebrate the launch of Nokia’s Windows Phone in the US, T-Mobile is currently having a sweepstakes where four winners will be blessed with a free Nokia Lumia 710. Based on its name, the “my fist smartphone” sweepstakes, it centers around how a smartphone can impact your daily life. In order to qualify, all you have to do is fill out the usual set of information, and provide a 100 words or less answer to “what smartphone features change your life the most?”
Even though this might be your second, third, or fourth smartphone, you can obviously still sign up for the contest – despite it being called the “my first smartphone” sweepstakes. If you can’t figure out an answer to the question, just know that it’s set to expire at 2:00 PM EST on 2/12/2012 – so yes, you’ll have time to think it over.
For the lucky four people that win, they’ll also be granted one year of free service! Again, it goes to show that Nokia is committed to working with its partners in letting people know that they’re here for the long run.
Leaked images show even more of the Sony Ericsson Windows Phone prototype
Although we can visibly see the Sony Ericsson branding in these latest set of leaked photos, it’s more than likely to bear only the former’s name with the final product. From what we can gather this time around, it sports a landscape sliding QWERTY keyboard, which is very reminiscent to the one that we saw used by the “Julie” codenamed Sony Ericsson model from March 2011.
Moreover, it appears that this version uses a white and black color combination with its design, as opposed to the uniform black from the leaked images we saw a couple days ago. Aside from that, we can see a camera of some sort in the rear with a flash – and what seems to be the Sony Ericsson logo. As for the software, it’s said that the handset is running on beta software, but it seems to be working fine without any bugs hindering its operation.
Otherwise, that’s just about all the information that can be inferred from the leaked photos. With MWC being the next big thing in mobile, it’s just possible that we might see this device – then again, it can be scrapped altogether. Oh the wait…
Thanks Juddy!
source: NokiaWP
Google reports Q4 earnings, says a quarter of a billion use Android globally
As we reported earlier, the company said that is has over 90 million Google+ users with 54 million active daily. Around the world, a stunning 250 million people are using an Android handset and a total of 11 billion apps have been downloaded from the Android Market. Google CEO Larry Page said, “I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago. By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google+ we will create amazing experiences across our services. I’m very excited about what we can do in 2012 – there are tremendous opportunities to help users and grow our business.”
Assuming that the deal closes, next year’s earnings will be impacted by the inclusion of Motorola Mobility’s results. It will be interesting to see how manufacturing Android phones impacts Google’s bottom line. Wall Street didn’t go for the report too much as Google’s stock dropped more than 9% after hours, for a decline of more than $57 to $581.90.
source: Google, Yahoo!Financial
Apple iBooks 2 hands-on and demonstration
At one point or another, we’ve all had the experience of trying to stay awake in a classroom – reading long passages of text while trying to fend off sleepiness. Of course, we all know too well how difficult it can be to meticulously keep focus on something that seems to be laborious, and even worse, outright boring to the bones! In an age where whole books can be stored digitally on a flash drive or computer, it makes you wonder why there hasn’t been much of a revolution in the way we learn. However, as we know now, Apple intends on reinventing the textbook, in their own way not surprisingly.
Welcome to the new textbook feature found with iBooks 2, which is now available for download in the App Store. As it currently stands, there are very few titles available for download, but as Apple stated earlier today, it’ll consist of a plethora of textbooks for each subject and grade level – all of which will be priced at$14.99 or less. However, it’s worth noting that the free textbook that we downloaded, E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth, sized up at a staggering 1GB file size. So yeah, you’ll want to make sure you have a solid connection before proceeding to purchasing a textbook – albeit, we find some of the others to easily tally in at over 2GB in size.
