Sep/100
Apple claims 50 percent of portable gaming market, iPod touch ‘outsells Nintendo and Sony combined’
Nintendo famously called Apple the enemy of the future in the video gaming space, and by golly, it looks like the Japanese giant was right; Steve Jobs just told an audience that the iPod touch alone outsells Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PlayStation Portable combined, worldwide. How many games iPod touch users actually play and for how long wasn’t discussed, but Jobs said 1.5 billion “games and entertainment” apps have been downloaded — again, on the iPod touch alone, never mind all those iPhones.
Update: As many fine readers have suggested in comments, this particular statistic seems a little hard to swallow, given that the Nintendo DS alone sold roughly 132 million units — a good bit less than the 120 million iOS devices Apple claims, and only some of which are iPod touch — as of the Japanese company’s July earnings report. We’ve contacted Apple for clarification and hope to be able to explain the discrepancy soon.
Check out our liveblog of the keynote event right here!
Apple claims 50 percent of portable gaming market, iPod touch ‘outsells Nintendo and Sony combined’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
iPhone 3G, iOS 4, and you — what’s missing (spoiler: multitasking)
While iOS 4 is delivering on every promise for the iPhone 3GS users out there, as we were all told up front, the iPhone 3G would be missing some of those touted new features. Granted, we knew such disparities would exist but were never given the finer details. Now that the final build is percolating through the internet, we decided to take a look at what features are and aren’t working on the earlier year’s model.
What’s there
- Folders
- Threaded mail
- iTunes playlist creation / editing
- 5x digital zoom: just tap on the display near the capture button, but be warned, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture
- iBooks: we were having issues with the earlier build, but it seems to be running fine after today’s official download — PDFs work, too.
- Photos: you can now sort by albums, events, faces, and places
- Game Center: the icon is present, but as of this writing we’re unable to connect to the servers. (Update: a number of readers saying it didn’t come with today’s download. We nabbed ours as a gold build, which might explain the discrepancy despite still being considered “up to date” by iTunes.)
- Spell check has been updated
- Spotlight search: you can search the web and Wikipedia from the home screen search bar. That said, not all our queries — “Engadget,” for example — weren’t offering the option. [Thanks, jkane08]
What isn’t
- Multitasking: this is the big one. Double-tapping the home button doesn’t give you the handy menu, there’s no fast app switching, and background use is missing in action.
- Screen lock: normally in the multitasking menu (which isn’t available on 3G), it’s nowhere to be found, even under Settings. Bummer.
- Home screen wallpaper: you’d think this simple addition would make the cut, but sadly no. The dock has been given a visual upgrade, though.
- Bluetooth Keyboard support: we haven’t tried this ourselves, but an influx of reports from Twitter suggest this is also a no-go.
We’ll keep testing, but be sure to let us know your own discoveries below!
iPhone 3G, iOS 4, and you — what’s missing (spoiler: multitasking) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apr/100
Microsoft snags $14.5b revenue, $4.01b net income for Q3
About an hour before the company’s analyst call, Microsoft has unloaded its third quarter fiscal results, which to be blunt, are a marked improvement over last year’s momentous (but not in a good way) profits downturn. Reported revenue is $14.5 billion for the quarter ending March 31st, beating Wall Street expectations and culminating in a $4.01 billion net income. Those figures exclude a $305 million deferral related to Office 2010 but do include $78 million the folks in Redmond gave to Yahoo! in a search deal. That didn’t help the Online Services Division’s bottom line — it reported a $713 million loss this quarter, compared to a $411 million loss this time last year. On the bright side, the Entertainment and Devices division (of which Xbox is a part) recorded $165 million in earnings, up from a $41 million loss year-over-year. Windows and Windows Live continues to be the breadwinner, unsurprisingly, with a $3.061b operating income (versus $2.273b in 2009 — before Windows 7’s debut). We’re still sifting through the paperwork and will also be listening in on Microsoft’s 5:30PM ET call, so stay tuned!
Update: Market Watch is reporting that Apple has today surpassed Microsoft on the S&P 500, with a float-adjusted market cap of $241.5b, compared with Microsoft’s $239.5b. Exxon is still at the top. It’s worth noting that this is a free-float index that only considers stocks readily available for trading, and not free-floating stocks such as those held by company insiders. According to the Wall Street Journal, that important caveat explains the discrepancy between those figures and what we’re seeing in full market value, where Microsoft’s $275.3b cap still bests Apple’s $241.63b. So which is the largest tech company based on market capitalization? That depends on how you measure.
Update: The call is on and yes, we’ll be liveblogging.
Microsoft snags $14.5b revenue, $4.01b net income for Q3 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar/100
FCC comes through with a Consumer Broadband Test app for iPhone, Android and the home
We talk about the FCC a lot here, but usually the ways ye olde Commission affects our lives are indirect. A little extra spectrum here, a nice leaked image there, that kind of thing. Not this time, though, as the FCC is getting involved directly with its own Consumer Broadband Test app, designed to probe network latencies and download speeds on your home connection or mobile device. Part of the hallowed National Broadband Plan, this will furnish the FCC will useful data to show the discrepancy between advertised and real world broadband speeds, and will also — more importantly perhaps — serve as a neat way for users to directly compare network performance in particular areas. It’s available on the App Market and App Store right now, with versions for other operating systems coming up, so why not get with the program and give it a test drive?
FCC comes through with a Consumer Broadband Test app for iPhone, Android and the home originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar/100
HTML5 vs. Flash comparison finds a few surprises, settles few debates
Think we’d all be better off if HTML5 could somehow instantly replace Flash overnight? Not necessarily, according to a set of comparisons from Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center website, which found that while HTML5 did come out ahead in many respects, it wasn’t exactly a clear winner. The tests weren’t completely scientific, but they did find that HTML5 clearly performed better than Flash 10 or 10.1 in Safari on a Mac, although the differences were less clear cut in Google Chrome or Firefox. On the other hand, Flash more than held its own on Windows, and Flash Player 10.1 was actually 58% more efficient than HTML5 in Google Chrome on the Windows system tested. As you may have deduced, one of the big factors accounting for that discrepancy is that Flash is able to take advantage of GPU hardware acceleration in Windows, while Adobe is effectively cut out of the loop on Mac — something it has complained about quite publicly. According to Ozer, the differences between HTML5 and Flash playback on a Mac could be virtually eliminated if Flash could make use of GPU acceleration. Hit up the link below for all the numbers.
HTML5 vs. Flash comparison finds a few surprises, settles few debates originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Feb/100
2011 Chevy Volt pinned with a November 1st official production kickoff date?
Christmas isn’t coming early, but at least you’re getting a heads up. GM car dealers got their annual model guide, and what has our interests piqued here is the listing for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, the plug-in hybrid electric car that seems to make our heart race in equal proportions to our wallets crying. According to the chart, the company will be accepting orders starting in September, with the official production date (or “Job 1 date” in automotive lingo) starting November 1st. There’s a bit of a discrepancy, however, as the dealers won’t know their final allocation until two weeks after the startup time — notice how it’s typically done weeks before with the other models — but hey, maybe time paradoxes is just another bullet point on its list of features. It’s about time Doc’s DeLorean had some competition.
2011 Chevy Volt pinned with a November 1st official production kickoff date? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sep/090
Google says Phil Schiller himself rejected Google Voice from the App Store
It was always curious that Google’s response to the FCC inquiry about Google Voice and the App Store had been redacted, but now we’re starting to see why — El Goog and the FCC have just released the full text of the letter, and it flatly contradicts Apple’s take on the matter. If you’ll remember, Apple claimed that while Google Voice hadn’t been approved, it also hadn’t been rejected, and that its status was in limbo while the folks in Cupertino “studied” the matter. Not so, says El Goog: according to its letter, Phil Schiller himself told Google that GV had been rejected on July 7 for duplication of functionality, following a similar conversation on April 10th during which Schiller rejected Google Latitude in part because it might “offer new features not present on the preloaded maps application.” Yeah, that’s a huge discrepancy, and it makes Apple’s version seem even more divorced from reality that it already is. Things are starting to heat up — we’ll see what the FCC makes of all this.
Read – Google unredacted FCC filing [Warning: PDF]
Read – Google Public Policy Blog explaining decision to release letter
Filed under: Cellphones, Software
Google says Phil Schiller himself rejected Google Voice from the App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/090
Nokia N900 now giving Germany and Italy a way to pre-order
Now that Nokia’s Maemo-powered N900 is looking mighty nice and official, the company’s Germany and Italian arms have no problem going ahead and taking your hard-earned Euros in exchange for a pre-order. Both sites are actually listing it for €599 (US $860), or €99 more than what we heard yesterday. A pretty huge discrepancy, to be sure, but it’s not unlike Nokia to have a flagship phone fluctuate in price. That October release date is a ways off, but if you’re absolutely convinced this must be in your pocket by Halloween, you know where to go.
[Via Slashgear]
Read – Nokia Germany
Read – Nokia Italy
Filed under: Cellphones
Nokia N900 now giving Germany and Italy a way to pre-order originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/090
NPD finds featurephones account for 72% of new handset sales in the US
Smartphone sales may be growing at a steady rate these days but, if NPD’s latest numbers are any indication, it looks like they still have quite a ways to go before they become the norm among cellphone users. As the market research group found during its latest survey, less expensive featurephones accounted for an impressive 72% of all new handset sales in the US during the second quarter of the year, which is only a 5% drop even in the face of a 47% jump in smartphone sales (to 28% market share) over the same quarter last year — a 14% jump in overall handset sales accounts for some of that discrepancy. According to NPD’s numbers, the LG enV2 (pictured above) and Samsung Rant were among the best selling featurephones during the quarter, while the iPhone 3G and Blackberry Curve were the best selling smartphones. Other interesting tidbits include the fact that the average selling price for a phone rose 4% over the year to $87, and that WiFi capability is now found on 20% of new handsets, while 26% of new phones have touchscreens (compared to 35% with QWERTY keyboards).
Filed under: Cellphones
NPD finds featurephones account for 72% of new handset sales in the US originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/090
US, Canada, and Spain ‘win’ the battle for most expensive cellphone bills
It’s not the kind of thing you’ll probably want to brag about winning, of course, but, according to new research conducted by the OECD, people in the US, Canada and Spain come out on the top of the heap when it comes to high cellphone bills. The research was conducted by categorizing bills into three usage categories, with the mid-range being 780 minutes per year of voice calls, and 600 SMS per year. For that amount, people in the US of A pay about $635 (the highest rate), while runners-up Spain pay just over $500. The countries with the lowest phone bills include the Netherlands and Sweden, where that same usage runs about $130. Yes, that’s a huge discrepancy, alright, meaning that in the Netherlands you’d pay around $11 a month with that level of usage, while in the US the same amount will run around $53 a month. Then again, they don’t get to watch “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” in the Netherlands, do they?
Update: The CTIA has issued a statement in response to the OECD’s study, stating that it is, essentially, inaccurate by way or its choice of unrepresentative calling packages. The CTIA’s full statement is after the break.
[Via IntoMobile]
Continue reading US, Canada, and Spain ‘win’ the battle for most expensive cellphone bills
Filed under: Cellphones
US, Canada, and Spain ‘win’ the battle for most expensive cellphone bills originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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