Saturday, January 31, 2015
This Weekend in the App Store -- the best free apps, new apps and app updates
The Week in Review: news and features you don't want to miss
A roundup of recent hardware reviews on TUAW
Geek Trivia: Which American Professional Football Team Is Named After A Poem?
Which American Professional Football Team Is Named After A Poem? | |
Think you know the answer? | |
How to Use Google for Safari Search on Your iPhone or iPad
You might be asking yourself why we’d write an article about how to switch to Google as your default search engine on the iPhone or iPad when it’s already the default. The answer is simple: rumors are that Apple might switch the iOS default search engine to Yahoo or Bing at some point in the future.
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All the best app reviews last week on TUAW
And a final bonus Caturday: Graham's MacBook Air
Caturday: Jake's keeping your backups safe and warm
Android fans switch loyalties as iPhone 6 Juggernaut rolls on
Android fans can’t wait to have iPhones in their pockets it seems. Majority of the iPhone 6 and 6 + buyer were earlier Android phone users, informed Apple CEO Tim Cook.
In fact, the existing iPhone users formed less than 15% of the total iPhone 6 buyers. It was Android users all the way. And why not? iPhone has reached a point where it could match everything that Android is offering – and then some more.
Whether it’s those bigger screen like all of those fancy Android phones or the freedom to install third-party keyboards and widgets, iOS 8 has them all, which shines on the iPhone 6. Simply put, it’s got the relevant tech specs and software flexibility that Android platform boasts of.
And given the mounting demand for iPhones, the company is gearing towards selling the iPhone in various phases.
Cowen and Co. Analyst Timothy Acuri also concurred that iPhone 6 and 6 plus is able to steal customers from the competition because of its longer tail than prior product cycles.
iOS may never make it as the most used mobile operating system in the world, but Apple isn’t going to lay down its arms so easily.
Although Apple sold 1 billion iOS devices since 2007, some analysts predict slow growth in 2016. But such concerns has been expressed every year, but Apple continues to beat expectations without breaking a sweat.
Are App Revenues Really Roaring?
Or Is It Just Piggybacking on Bigger brands?
Bolstered by recent reports of iOS app revenues topping Hollywood’s box office receipts in 2014, app developers are putting in big money to drive app installs.
But is this boom there to stay? Or is it just piggybacking on bigger brands, given that about 95% of the apps have no use and anguish in graveyard.
No doubt, social networking giants like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter apps have good demand in the market. And Apple stores, in fact, has a mind-boggling inventory of more than 1.4 million apps. So, en masse and overall, it looks like the app industry is booming.
But then, what about those 52 apps available on an average U.S. Citizens phone. As per recent media reports of those 52 apps, only 19 are being used. That means 33 apps are a total waste. These stats attest to the fact that most of the apps go unused. As per one estimate only 12% people opened a given app more than once in a three-month period last year.
According to VisionMobile – a leading market analysis and strategy firm – of 50% of iOS developers and 64% of Android developers are below the “app poverty line, that is they are earning less than $500 per app per month.
As app engagement versus mobile Web war heats up (Flurry pegged apps market at 86% of our time spent in mobile), the reality is that just a few big-known names in apps account form the vast majority of the engagement.
iOS mobile software version 8.1.3 to accommodate more updates
Great news for iOS 8 iPhone users.
Installing updates in your iPhone has now become easy. The latest verison of iOS mobile software 8.1.3 shrinks the free space requirement needed for updates. However, it will vary depending on the iPad or iPhone model,
Prior versions of iOS 8 had forced users — particularly those with 8GB or 16GB devices— to delete apps, data and other media to connect their cables to perform tethered iTunes sync.
More than anything else, iOS 8.1.3 users don’t have to have their password requirements for messages and FaceTime. It was a glitch that kept apps out of search results; and also problems concerning iPad multitasking gestures. The release note also covers new configuration options for education standardized testing.
The new version promises increased stability, performance improvement, bug fixes and more.
Here's how to stream the Super Bowl on your Apple devices
Friday, January 30, 2015
Vine has released a special version of the app specifically for kids
Folderol: An amazingly useful OS X utility by one of TUAW's finest
Pressur is a simple barometer app
How to Change the Default Fonts in Your Web Browser
While changing your browser’s font may not be the most pressing issue, sometimes it is fun to make a change. That’s why we are going to teach you how to change the default font in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Internet Explorer.
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Apple releases iTunes 12.1
Geek Trivia: The Process Of Inserting Reversed “Hidden” Messages In Music Is Known As?
The Process Of Inserting Reversed “Hidden” Messages In Music Is Known As? | |
Think you know the answer? | |
Beginner: How to Create, Manage, and Assign Categories in Outlook 2013
Outlook 2013 lets you assign categories to stuff and customize said categories. The thing about categories is that they’re universal across Outlook, and can you assign each category to a keyboard combination. So, you can categorize email, calendar events, and notes with a couple quick key strokes.
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Today in the App Store -- the best free apps, new apps and app updates
AAPL reaches an all-time high share price
Yahoo updates its news and lifestyle app with more interactive features
Daily Deals for January 30, 2015, The Beats by Dre Giveaway
Flickr Find: It's Apple Time!
Learn the mental part of defense with Baseball Academics
Now Deep Links in Mobile Just Like The Web
The web, because of its deep links, gets you to the targeted pages, stories, messages and pics, instantly.
For instance, the deep links shared on Twitter, emails, or anywhere for that matter, allows you to zip right to the web page. Deep Links make web browsing easy. In fact, they are so much part of the online world that we take them for granted. At least on the desktop.
Mobiles, on the other hand, act pricey. Instead of letting you to the relevant pages, it will direct you to the app’s home page. And suddenly you reach a dead end. You will keep searching around the app in vain. You will never reach what you are looking for.
Without a doubt, you will be frustrated. The mobile app developers are considering to resolve this issue on a high priority basis. Deep links are not just being thought about, but are being worked out. Button SDK, an open source solution may be the answer to mobile’s deep linking problem.
Of the many iOS repositories on code storage community GitHub, Button has been among the top five for several weeks. Which means a good numbers of users are already downloading and using it to integrate deep linking into their mobile apps. Button, recently added Uber – ridesharing service company Uber.
Chris Maddern, cofounder at Button, said the SDK was built for its own app integration needs, but when they realized so many developers were facing similar issue, he made it an open source.
MS Outlook for iOS and Android is here and how!
The new Microsoft outlook app in on for iOS and Android finally. While iOS and Android devices already have calendar apps, Microsoft said that the new Outlook app makes it easier to sort through your e-mail, contacts, calendar and file-sharing. The app has been developed by Acompli, that Microsoft acquired in December for $200m.
Microsoft suggests that the outlook app will earn high user satisfaction with an advanced UI and features. The Outlook app separates mail into two tabs — Focused and Other. The important e-mails will be placed in the Focused inbox. If you move your e-mail in or out of your Focused inbox, Outlook will start to learn which type of messages are important to you. Swiping left or right opens up other options. This can be further customized as per the user’s preference.
There is also a “Schedule Email” feature that temporarily removes e-mails from your inbox and returns at a time of your choosing. Apart from that, Microsoft’s new Outlook app has predictive search so that you can quickly find the right e-mails, files and contacts.
The best thing about the app is you do not need a MS account to get started. All the features provided by the app can be used across all types of email accounts you have irrespective of their provider.
Keeping the features apart, MS has also laid focus on making the app multilingual . Here is the list of languages that Microsoft said it supports: English, Norwegian (Bokmål), Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
There are older apps from MS on stores already but it is most likely that they would be phased out with the arrival of this new outlook app. Microsoft said that they will be updating the Outlook app on a weekly basis so it will constantly improve.
Ola buys TaxiForSure, takes on Uber
Uber beware. Olacabs is gearing up to pull the rug from under your feet.
Olacabs is all set to acquire TaxiForSure for $200 million (Rs 1,250 crore).The acquisition will make Olacabs, a leader in the taxi aggregator business in India. And more importantly, fortify its resources to take on its biggest international competitor Uber, head on. Olacabs is said to be worth $2 billion after the takeover, while Uber is worth $40 billion.
Did someone say, David taking on Goliath. But remember, it was David who finally came up trumps.
As per the latest media reports, the deal has been finalized in terms of cash and stock. TaxiForSure investors will get stocks in Olacabs after the acquisition.
TaxiforSure kicked of its operation in 2011 and now has ridden across 36 Indian cities. Thus far, it has raised $60 million in funding from international players like Accel Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. But recently when the taxi app company was out scouting for fresh funds, Olacabs made an offer and TaxiforSure was completely swept off its feet.
Olacabs, on the other hand, managed to raise $210 million from Softbank and other existing investors like Tiger Global, Matrix Partners India and Steadview Capital.
The influx of international funding vouches for the growing popularity of on-demand taxi aggregator business in India.
Recently, Uber, TaxiforSure and Olacabs were facing hard times in Delhi after the rape incident. In fact, many aggregators were banned from operating in the national capital, and other cities.
However, recently, the ban was lifted, provided the taxi apps companies operate under the Radio Taxi license. Though all three companies have applied for the licenses, many errors have crept up in their applications, informed media reports. So the companies has received memos, to fill in all the ‘gaps’ with a ten – days time.
Both Olacabs and Uber are changing their business model to stay relevant in Delhi. However, Olacabs has an upper hand over Uber in terms of physical offices and customer care centres. Plus, it even has a fleet of registered taxis in the city.
Thanks to the ongoing fight between Uber and Olacabs, it’s seems the customers will be having the last laugh this time, with slash in prices.
Surprise! More Facebook Mobile Users In India than US by 2017
India will bypass U.S. in terms of Facebook mobile users by 2017, market research firm eMarketer revealed in a report.
“India has the world’s second largest Facebook audience, and it will surpass 100 million mobile phone Facebook users for the first time this year and by 2017, will have more mobile Facebook users than the U.S.,” eMarketer said.
As per the latest report, about 1 billion users world over will access the popular social network through their mobile phones at least once in a month in 2015.
While Facebook userbase in the US will hit 123.1 million, India will have 101.5 million by 2015. However, by 2017, India will lead the global tally with mobile phone user base touching 145.9 million followed closely by the US at 138.8 million, the report added.
Facebook, in a recent announcement said that India’s growing Internet market and youth population has helped it to touch base with 112 million users— which is the largest after the U.S. And, of the 112 million users in India, about 99 million users are using the platform on their mobile phones once a month. And a whopping 45 million users in India are using their mobile phones every day to chat with their friends on Facebook.
Today the company boasts of 1.35 billion users worldwide, with 864 million daily active users. And with a ban on social networks in China, and strong local social networks operational in Russia, Facebook users will still have 60 per cent of the worldwide mobile social audience.
Today in the App Store -- the best free apps, new apps and app updates
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