iPhone share slump spurs calls for low-price model

Computerworld - Analysts argued today over the significance of Apple's falling market share, reflecting the uncertainties the Cupertino, Calif. company faces in a transition to lower profits.

"The current iPhone portfolio is under-performing and Apple is at risk of being trapped in a pincer movement between rival 3-in. Android models at the low-end and 5-in. Android models at the high-end," contended Neil Mawston, executive director at U.K.-based research firm Strategy Analytics, in an email.

Mawston pointed to a drop in Apple's share of the global smartphone market for the second quarter; Strategy Analytics estimated it fell from 16.6% in the second quarter of 2012 to 13.6% this year, the lowest in three years.

Samsung, meanwhile, boosted its share from 31.1% to 33.1% in the last 12 months, while other smartphone OEMs, including LG, ZTE and Huawei, also gained share, according to Strategy Analytics' data.

Yesterday, U.S. researcher IDC plotted a similar decline in Apple's smartphone share, from 16.6% a year ago to 13.1% in the second quarter of 2013.

But Ramon Llamas of IDC didn't agree with Mawston that the share slump forecast Apple's doom. "The sky is not falling," said Llamas in an interview Friday. "We expected this [because] this is the usual seasonality you see in iPhone sales. There was going to be a dip in market share."

Llamas referred to the typical decline in iPhone sales as the newest model ages and a replacement approaches.

Apple's share will bounce back in the fourth quarter, Llamas maintained, assuming Apple reprises last year's timetable and launches a new iPhone in late September.

Even so, the declining market share numbers are important. If market share impacts Apple's iOS ecosystem, as the analysts maintained, then Apple must react to keep what it has or have a shot at growing its share in the battle against Android.

"Market share isn't everything," said Kevin Restivo, also of IDC, and like Llamas part of the team there that tracks smartphone shipments. "The number one goal of any publicly-owned company is to generate profit. That said, for the long term, market share does matter. It's a question of reach. The more people who have iPhones, the greater Apple's ability to sell software, unique online services and other incremental offerings."

While that revenue may have been incidental in the past, it's becoming more important as the smartphone industry steps away from the initial "land grab" of users and -- as saturation approaches in developed markets like the U.S. and Western Europe -- shifts to a software and services model, said Restivo.

Apple has hinted at the transition to software and services in its earnings statements this year, breaking out those revenues for the first time. In the second quarter, for example, the category Apple labels as "iTunes/Software/Services" booked $4 billion in revenue, 11% of the company's total and 25% more than the same period the year before. No other reporting segment came close to that year-over-year gain.

But market share is linked to more than software and service revenues.

The iPhone has been successful, most agree, because of the "virtuous cycle" of sales that lead to developers committing to the platform that leads to more apps that leads to more iPhone sales. A shrinking market share means an end to that cycle, or at the least, a departure of developers.

Small and midsize businesses are moving to the cloud to host their communications capabilities. Learn how enterprise-quality phone benefits, online management, conferencing, auto attendant, and ease of use are built into a system that is half the cost of a PBX.

Read now.

View the original article here

iPhone share slump spurs calls for low-price model

Computerworld - Analysts argued today over the significance of Apple's falling market share, reflecting the uncertainties the Cupertino, Calif. company faces in a transition to lower profits.

"The current iPhone portfolio is under-performing and Apple is at risk of being trapped in a pincer movement between rival 3-in. Android models at the low-end and 5-in. Android models at the high-end," contended Neil Mawston, executive director at U.K.-based research firm Strategy Analytics, in an email.

Mawston pointed to a drop in Apple's share of the global smartphone market for the second quarter; Strategy Analytics estimated it fell from 16.6% in the second quarter of 2012 to 13.6% this year, the lowest in three years.

Samsung, meanwhile, boosted its share from 31.1% to 33.1% in the last 12 months, while other smartphone OEMs, including LG, ZTE and Huawei, also gained share, according to Strategy Analytics' data.

Yesterday, U.S. researcher IDC plotted a similar decline in Apple's smartphone share, from 16.6% a year ago to 13.1% in the second quarter of 2013.

But Ramon Llamas of IDC didn't agree with Mawston that the share slump forecast Apple's doom. "The sky is not falling," said Llamas in an interview Friday. "We expected this [because] this is the usual seasonality you see in iPhone sales. There was going to be a dip in market share."

Llamas referred to the typical decline in iPhone sales as the newest model ages and a replacement approaches.

Apple's share will bounce back in the fourth quarter, Llamas maintained, assuming Apple reprises last year's timetable and launches a new iPhone in late September.

Even so, the declining market share numbers are important. If market share impacts Apple's iOS ecosystem, as the analysts maintained, then Apple must react to keep what it has or have a shot at growing its share in the battle against Android.

"Market share isn't everything," said Kevin Restivo, also of IDC, and like Llamas part of the team there that tracks smartphone shipments. "The number one goal of any publicly-owned company is to generate profit. That said, for the long term, market share does matter. It's a question of reach. The more people who have iPhones, the greater Apple's ability to sell software, unique online services and other incremental offerings."

While that revenue may have been incidental in the past, it's becoming more important as the smartphone industry steps away from the initial "land grab" of users and -- as saturation approaches in developed markets like the U.S. and Western Europe -- shifts to a software and services model, said Restivo.

Apple has hinted at the transition to software and services in its earnings statements this year, breaking out those revenues for the first time. In the second quarter, for example, the category Apple labels as "iTunes/Software/Services" booked $4 billion in revenue, 11% of the company's total and 25% more than the same period the year before. No other reporting segment came close to that year-over-year gain.

But market share is linked to more than software and service revenues.

The iPhone has been successful, most agree, because of the "virtuous cycle" of sales that lead to developers committing to the platform that leads to more apps that leads to more iPhone sales. A shrinking market share means an end to that cycle, or at the least, a departure of developers.

Small and midsize businesses are moving to the cloud to host their communications capabilities. Learn how enterprise-quality phone benefits, online management, conferencing, auto attendant, and ease of use are built into a system that is half the cost of a PBX.

Read now.

View the original article here

Apple in China recommends use of official power adapters for iPhone

IDG News Service - Apple is advising its customers in China to use the company's official USB power adapters when recharging their devices, as police continued on Friday to investigate the death by electrocution of a local woman that may be linked to an iPhone.

The company has updated its China-based website to include a new page detailing the company's different USB power adapters.

"Apple has always put user's security first, and as result all our products have gone through rigorous security and reliability testing," the page said. "They are also designed in compliance with government safety standards around the world."

The company posted the page about two weeks after a 23-year-old woman named Ma Ailun had been found dead by electrocution. Family members suspect Ma's recharging of her iPhone may have caused her death, according to local Chinese reports.

Apple has said it is investigating the matter and is cooperating with authorities. The company did not immediately comment on Friday.

Internet users in China have expressed their suspicions that Ma may have been using a third-party power adapter with her iPhone. News video footage of the evidence in the case showed an iPhone 4 with visible burn marks on the side, along with what appears to be a USB power adapter not built from Apple.

Local police on Friday said they are still working on the case, without providing further details.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Apple in China recommends use of official power adapters for iPhone

IDG News Service - Apple is advising its customers in China to use the company's official USB power adapters when recharging their devices, as police continued on Friday to investigate the death by electrocution of a local woman that may be linked to an iPhone.

The company has updated its China-based website to include a new page detailing the company's different USB power adapters.

"Apple has always put user's security first, and as result all our products have gone through rigorous security and reliability testing," the page said. "They are also designed in compliance with government safety standards around the world."

The company posted the page about two weeks after a 23-year-old woman named Ma Ailun had been found dead by electrocution. Family members suspect Ma's recharging of her iPhone may have caused her death, according to local Chinese reports.

Apple has said it is investigating the matter and is cooperating with authorities. The company did not immediately comment on Friday.

Internet users in China have expressed their suspicions that Ma may have been using a third-party power adapter with her iPhone. News video footage of the evidence in the case showed an iPhone 4 with visible burn marks on the side, along with what appears to be a USB power adapter not built from Apple.

Local police on Friday said they are still working on the case, without providing further details.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Vine 1.3 (for iPhone)

Pros Lots of new capabilities like "revining" and "protected Vines." Simple interface. Shares to Twitter and Facebook. Discoverability of videos by hash tag or popularity.

Cons Videos too short to have substance. Choppy video output. No video editing. No effect filters. Private option is all or nothing. Bottom Line Twitter's micro-video-sharing app gets some nice updates, but still falls short of the competition.

By Michael Muchmore

Despite its shortcomings, Vine is a hit. In case you're not familiar with it, this free social video app from Twitter curtails your iPhone videos to a mere 6 seconds—a sort of video-only Instagram. Though still in its infancy, the video-sharing app has undergone a fairly substantial, feature-adding update in the new Vine 1.3 version. While the update brings real improvements, the app is still lacking compared with Viddy and Instagram, which recently added video shooting and sharing with more editing capabilities than Vine.

First off, here's a list of the major new attractions that have made their way in the app:

• Channels—Browse or submit your posts to 15 new channels—from Comedy, Art & Experimental, to Cats, and more.
• On The Rise—Discover new and interesting Viners right from your Explore screen.
• Revining—Share your favorite posts with all your followers on Vine in one tap.
• New Capture Tools—Shoot with style using the new focus, grid, and ghost tools.
• Protected Accounts—Allow only people you approve to follow you and view your posts.

I'll discuss these new features in the relevant review sections below. But first off, let's be clear: Vine isn't a case of "video finally comes to Twitter." You've long been able to embed a DailyMotion, YouTube or Vimeo video into a Twitter post, so this isn't the first time anyone's been able to add video to tweets. Vine is more of an attempt to co-opt the craze for animated GIFs, most prominently evidenced on image-heavy mini-blogging site Tumblr, as well as to become the Instagram of video.  

Vine movies, which play to today's short attention spans, may be limited in length, but like animated GIFs, they loop infinitely, which actually does the opposite of increasing their impact. Let's see how it stacks up against other social video apps, such as Lightt,  Yahoo's new Qwiki, Socialcam, Viddy,  and Instagram itself.

Signup and Setup
The app store entry for Vine says you must be over 17 to install it, and that it contains "Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity." That actually was a problem at its original launch, when a porn Vine made it to the app's Editor's Picks section (which no longer exists). The app requires an iPhone 3GS or later running iOS 5.0 or later. It's optimized for iPhone 5, but not for iPad, where you'll either have to view it in a small window or zoomed to 2x. Like a good many of the latest crop of iPhone apps, Vine asks whether it can interrupt you with notifications and wants access to your location.

As you'd expect with an app just acquired by Twitter, you can sign in with your Twitter account, or create a new Vine account using an email address. The typical social app would also let you sign up via Facebook, but that's not an option for obvious reasons. Conveniently, you don't need to actually provide your Twitter credentials, the app can take them from your iPhone's Settings. But even though Vine is owned by Twitter, you'll still have to create a new Vine account even if you sign up via Twitter.

The new private option is similar to Twitter's—it's all or nothing. You can't designate some videos as private and others as public, as you can in Viddy. To go private, on your Settings page, scroll down to "Your content" and you'll see to slider options: Posts are protected and Sensitive posts (for aspiring pornographers). Both choices apply to all your posts.

Interface
After setup, my view was of an Instagram-like newsfeed of GIF-like videos from contacts I didn't know I had. Apparently, these were preselected Vine/Twitter employees' accounts. The well-designed and simple interface has but two buttons in the top corners above the feed—on the left Home, and on the right a movie camera. Pressing the home button offered three more options in addition to the home view I was already viewing: Explore, Activity, and Profile. These first two were encouraging, reminding me of the addictive similar pages of Flickr.

A banner across the top of the home screen encouraged me to get my own new Vine follows. I could find these by scanning my phone's local address book, Twitter (of course). Facebook has been removed as a source of new contacts. Tit-for-tat for when Twitter blocked the Facebook-owned Instagram. This means war! I could also simply search for Vine user names, or invite friends to the service using email or SMS.

As in every self-respecting social network, each user gets a profile page, and Vine's resembles Twitter's, except it offers separate tabs for Posts and Likes. On top is the user's photo, a text area for inspirational self-description and a big Follow button. If something or someone offends you, you can report or block a profile for inappropriate posting.

The redesigned Explore page is an even bigger treat than it was originally. You still get Popular Now, but this is joined by On the Rise, which makes discovering amusing Vines even easier. Colorful Windows 8-like tiles now offer YouTube-like sections, rather than hashtags; the latter now appear below the colorful tiles, and are now trending hastags, rather than just the preset ones like #sports, #travel, and so on.

Once you do discover a video you love, you can Like (thanks to a smiley face button), comment, and now "Revine" it. The last is just like retweeting in Twitter; it even uses the same button icon. It really is instantaneous, with no options required before taking hold. As with the Like button, the Revine button turns dark green, and you can tap it again to un-favorite it.

If someone shares a Vine link, you can watch it on a bare-bones Vine-hosted Web page, but there's no website where you can view all your own and contacts' Vines or do any of the social connecting and browsing. You can watch the videos inside Twitter apps or in your Twitter feed. Vine videos also can play on Facebook.

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Unu DX Protective Battery Case for iPhone 5

Pros Nearly doubles the iPhone 5 battery life. Thin and light. Micro USB port syncs and charges.

Cons Adds physical length to the iPhone 5. Recessed buttons can be hard to press. Bottom Line The Unu DX Protective Battery Case for iPhone 5 combines a thin and light design with a hefty battery pack, making it dollar for dollar one of the best battery cases available.

By Eugene Kim

Nearly half a year after its CES debut, the Unu DX Protective Battery Case for iPhone 5 ($79.95 direct) is finally here. It was one of the first iPhone 5 battery cases we saw, but while the company waited on Apple certification for the DX, competitors like Mophie were able to release excellent efforts like the Juice Pack Helium. The DX comes packing a relatively huge 2,300mAh battery, but manages to keep things thin and light. It turned in great performance, and is priced in line with lower capacity cases, making it our new Editors' Choice for iPhone 5 battery cases.

Design and Features
While Mophie opts for soft, rounded lines, the Unu DX features a more angular look. The beveled corners look pretty good and the soft touch finish feels great in the hand. At 5.5 by 2.5 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and 2.9 ounces, the DX is as thin and nearly as light as the 5.5-by-2.5-by-0.6-inch, 2.44-ounce Juice Pack Helium. There are cutouts for the Volume and Power buttons, with an opening for the camera around back. The buttons are a bit recessed, like on the Helium, so they're not quite as easy to access compared with cases like the Juice Pack Plus, which has built in buttons instead of cutouts. Like all iPhone 5 batter cases, the headphone jack is deeply recessed and requires the included 3.5mm extender for most headphones. The DX is available in black, white, or red finishes.

There are two pieces to the DX, but all of its guts are housed in the bottom portion, while the top is simply a plastic cap that slides on and off. Along the bottom you'll find a micro USB port, which can be used for charging and syncing. That's an advantage over every other battery case we've tested—they only allow charging through the micro USB port and require you to sync wirelessly. The button on the back serves two functions: A single press activates the battery indicator LEDs, while a press and hold activates the flow of power.

Performance and Conclusions
The Unu DX packs a 2,300mAh battery, which is significantly larger than the Helium's 1,500mAh pack and even the Juice Pack Plus's 2,100mAh battery. In my tests, making a continuous call with LTE enabled with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth switched off, the Unu DX added 7 hours, 53 minutes of talk time to my completely drained AT&T iPhone 5. That result compares well with the 7 hours, 23 minutes of the Juice Pack Plus and handily beats the 6 hours, 20 minutes from the Helium on the same test.

At $79.95, the Unu DX Protective Battery Case for the iPhone 5 is the best value out there. It's thin and light, but still adds substantial battery life for the iPhone 5. As such, it ousts the Mophie Juice Pack Helium as our Editors' Choice, providing more battery life for the same price, without adding unwanted bulk. 

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Vine 1.3 (for iPhone)

Pros Lots of new capabilities like "revining" and "protected Vines." Simple interface. Shares to Twitter and Facebook. Discoverability of videos by hash tag or popularity.

Cons Videos too short to have substance. Choppy video output. No video editing. No effect filters. Private option is all or nothing. Bottom Line Twitter's micro-video-sharing app gets some nice updates, but still falls short of the competition.

By Michael Muchmore

Despite its shortcomings, Vine is a hit. In case you're not familiar with it, this free social video app from Twitter curtails your iPhone videos to a mere 6 seconds—a sort of video-only Instagram. Though still in its infancy, the video-sharing app has undergone a fairly substantial, feature-adding update in the new Vine 1.3 version. While the update brings real improvements, the app is still lacking compared with Viddy and Instagram, which recently added video shooting and sharing with more editing capabilities than Vine.

First off, here's a list of the major new attractions that have made their way in the app:

• Channels—Browse or submit your posts to 15 new channels—from Comedy, Art & Experimental, to Cats, and more.
• On The Rise—Discover new and interesting Viners right from your Explore screen.
• Revining—Share your favorite posts with all your followers on Vine in one tap.
• New Capture Tools—Shoot with style using the new focus, grid, and ghost tools.
• Protected Accounts—Allow only people you approve to follow you and view your posts.

I'll discuss these new features in the relevant review sections below. But first off, let's be clear: Vine isn't a case of "video finally comes to Twitter." You've long been able to embed a DailyMotion, YouTube or Vimeo video into a Twitter post, so this isn't the first time anyone's been able to add video to tweets. Vine is more of an attempt to co-opt the craze for animated GIFs, most prominently evidenced on image-heavy mini-blogging site Tumblr, as well as to become the Instagram of video.  

Vine movies, which play to today's short attention spans, may be limited in length, but like animated GIFs, they loop infinitely, which actually does the opposite of increasing their impact. Let's see how it stacks up against other social video apps, such as Lightt,  Yahoo's new Qwiki, Socialcam, Viddy,  and Instagram itself.

Signup and Setup
The app store entry for Vine says you must be over 17 to install it, and that it contains "Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity." That actually was a problem at its original launch, when a porn Vine made it to the app's Editor's Picks section (which no longer exists). The app requires an iPhone 3GS or later running iOS 5.0 or later. It's optimized for iPhone 5, but not for iPad, where you'll either have to view it in a small window or zoomed to 2x. Like a good many of the latest crop of iPhone apps, Vine asks whether it can interrupt you with notifications and wants access to your location.

As you'd expect with an app just acquired by Twitter, you can sign in with your Twitter account, or create a new Vine account using an email address. The typical social app would also let you sign up via Facebook, but that's not an option for obvious reasons. Conveniently, you don't need to actually provide your Twitter credentials, the app can take them from your iPhone's Settings. But even though Vine is owned by Twitter, you'll still have to create a new Vine account even if you sign up via Twitter.

The new private option is similar to Twitter's—it's all or nothing. You can't designate some videos as private and others as public, as you can in Viddy. To go private, on your Settings page, scroll down to "Your content" and you'll see to slider options: Posts are protected and Sensitive posts (for aspiring pornographers). Both choices apply to all your posts.

Interface
After setup, my view was of an Instagram-like newsfeed of GIF-like videos from contacts I didn't know I had. Apparently, these were preselected Vine/Twitter employees' accounts. The well-designed and simple interface has but two buttons in the top corners above the feed—on the left Home, and on the right a movie camera. Pressing the home button offered three more options in addition to the home view I was already viewing: Explore, Activity, and Profile. These first two were encouraging, reminding me of the addictive similar pages of Flickr.

A banner across the top of the home screen encouraged me to get my own new Vine follows. I could find these by scanning my phone's local address book, Twitter (of course). Facebook has been removed as a source of new contacts. Tit-for-tat for when Twitter blocked the Facebook-owned Instagram. This means war! I could also simply search for Vine user names, or invite friends to the service using email or SMS.

As in every self-respecting social network, each user gets a profile page, and Vine's resembles Twitter's, except it offers separate tabs for Posts and Likes. On top is the user's photo, a text area for inspirational self-description and a big Follow button. If something or someone offends you, you can report or block a profile for inappropriate posting.

The redesigned Explore page is an even bigger treat than it was originally. You still get Popular Now, but this is joined by On the Rise, which makes discovering amusing Vines even easier. Colorful Windows 8-like tiles now offer YouTube-like sections, rather than hashtags; the latter now appear below the colorful tiles, and are now trending hastags, rather than just the preset ones like #sports, #travel, and so on.

Once you do discover a video you love, you can Like (thanks to a smiley face button), comment, and now "Revine" it. The last is just like retweeting in Twitter; it even uses the same button icon. It really is instantaneous, with no options required before taking hold. As with the Like button, the Revine button turns dark green, and you can tap it again to un-favorite it.

If someone shares a Vine link, you can watch it on a bare-bones Vine-hosted Web page, but there's no website where you can view all your own and contacts' Vines or do any of the social connecting and browsing. You can watch the videos inside Twitter apps or in your Twitter feed. Vine videos also can play on Facebook.

View the original article here

ifttt (for iPhone)

Pros One of the best apps and services for automating small tasks. Supremely easy to understand and use. Supports integration with dozens of other apps and services. Excellent and clear interface. Free.

Cons Could better notify user of problems with 'recipes.' Bottom Line 'If this, then that'—shorten that little tag line to ifttt, and you've got one of the best apps on the market. This amazingly simple yet powerful iPhone app can automate just about anything you'd want to do in your digital life, from backing up photos on Facebook to sending you text message reminders of upcoming appointments.

By Jill Duffy When ifttt (free) first arrived on the Internet in late 2010 in beta, it quickly became one of my favorite websites. The strange name, pronounced like "ift," stands for "if this, then that," the opening of a logic statement or command. It's where you start when using ifttt to create "recipes" of automation in your digital life, no programming required. The site now has an ifttt iPhone app (also totally free), which largely mirrors the full website, and gives you access to the commands you've created and a history list of actions ifttt has taken on your behalf. It's one of the most valuable services on the Internet today, and a superb app for your iPhoneto boot.

ifttt Examples
It's easiest to understand what ifttt does by looking at a few examples of recipes you can create: "If there is an upcoming event on my Google Calendar, then send me a text message reminder with the event name, time, and address." "If someone tags a photo of me on Facebook, then save a copy of that photo to Dropbox."

To use the ifttt iPhone app and website, you first must sign up for an ifttt account, and then activate "channels" or other services that you want ifttt to leverage. For example, you might authenticate access to Facebook, Twitter, Box, Evernote, Foursquare, Google Drive, Instagram, LinkedIn, and many more. You can also add your phone number if you want to create recipes that use text messages or phone calls. The list of supported channels is comprehensive. You can turn channels on and off at your will from both the website and the iPhone app, which means you're in control.

When you enable a phone number in ifttt for either text messaging or phone calls, you have to enter a code sent to that number, which helps ensure no one uses ifttt for nefarious purposes.

No Coding
The most amazing thing about ifttt is how simple it is to use. You might assume that the recipes would require some programming know-how, but they don't. Not at all. The iPhone app walks you through possible services and actions in one of the most simplified manners I've ever seen. It uses icons and large text to make the recipes completely easy to create.

While you can create your own commands from scratch using what boils down to a "choose from the listed options" kind of interface (see the slideshow for a more complete picture), ifttt also lets you browse recipes that other users have created and made public. A section for browsing public recipes lets you see ones that are featured, trending, or most popular of all time. You can also search for recipes, which I think is useful if, say, you know you want to do something with your Facebook status updates, but you're not sure what exactly. You can search for "Facebook status" and see what kinds of recipes other users have made.

Whenever I look through ifttt's suggested recipes, I always find automations that would make my digital life so much easier and richer, but that I never would have thought to create on my own. It's a marvelous place to explore.

Ifttt gives the user control over the recipes once they're created as well, so you can turn them on or off any time without deleting the recipe from your file. An activity log shows you not only the recipes you've created and when you toggled them on and off, but also other factors that might affect ifttt's ability to perform the function, such as failed API calls.

A Stroke of Genius
The iPhone app ifttt is a stroke of genius, and thus a PCMag Editors' Choice. It's also one of my favorite apps for making my life simpler and better organized. Ifttt is an app I will be recommending to friends, family, and colleagues for a long time to come.

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