Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hates updating his iPhone apps just as much as the next guy.
In fact, it bothers the Senator so much, he decided to voice his frustrations to Apple CEO Tim Cook during a Senate subcommittee hearing on Tuesday.
“What I really want to ask is why the hell I have to keep updating the apps on my iPhone all the time and why you don’t fix that?” McCain asked Cook.
“Sir, we’re trying to make them better all the time,” Cook responded with a smile.
The purpose of the hearing was to investigate Apple’s tax practices, after a Senate investigation revealed the tech company avoided paying $9 billion in taxes in 2012, according to Reuters. Although Apple paid $6 billion in taxes last year, the Senate investigation found that by using three subsidiary companies in Ireland that pay taxes in no country, the tech giant avoided paying the larger sum of U.S. taxes.
Cook defended Apple’s case in front of the subcommittee, insisting Apple pays “every single dollar” they owe and makes sure to “comply with the laws.”
Aside from the serious business of the hearing, McCain wasn’t the only Senator to get personally friendly with the Apple CEO.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) accused Apple of “creative tax gimmickry,” but he also admitted he was a fan of Mac products.
“I have an iPhone in my pocket,” he confessed on the chamber floor.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) also drooled over the company.
“I love Apple. I love Apple!” she exclaimed.
Never fear, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — Tuesday’s hearing was seemingly more of a love-fest than ‘bullying.’
Watch McCain joke about updating his apps below.
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Get your DVR in order and control it from wherever you are with the updated TiVo app for iPad. The latest update makes it easier for you to find new content on your TV worth watching. Following that is Option Chain, a financial app designed to bring up-to-the-second market data to users, wherever they are. Finally, Star Trek Rivals turns the world of the new Star Trek films into a collectible card game and lets you challenge other fans in duels.
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Celebrate Memorial Day and summer while reading from a list of great magazines, thanks to Zinio’s recent Guest Post.
TiVo update (iPad) (Free)
What’s it about? TiVo brings full control of the DVR system to its users on their iPads, allowing for recording programming, using your iPad as a remote and more.
What’s cool? The TiVo iPad app basically turns your tablet into a full remote for your TiVo in an instant, giving you all the control you could need for the DVR from just about anywhere. The handiest feature is probably the ability to program the device to record stuff even if you’re not at home, but TiVo also supports using your iPad as a remote control, browsing through all your recorded stuff, viewing TV listings and more. In its latest update, the app adds the “What to Watch Now” feature that helps you find something worth your attention from multiple “feeds” like sports, kids and movies.
Who’s it for? If you’re a TiVo subscriber and an iPad owner, you should have this app
What’s it like? Get some similar functionality for other DVRs from Verizon FIOS Mobile and TWC TV.
What’s it about? Market analysis app Option Chain brings you information about the stock market, making it easier to make informed trades.
What’s cool? Option Chain provides up-to-the-second stock market data on your iOS devices, providing everything you might need to know in order to make trades throughout the day on your favorite stocks. You can search for ticker symbols and instantly get data on them, and with the app’s various subscription services, you can keep updated on changing prices. Option Chain also supports multiple devices, so you can keep your bookmarks and other saved information on your iPhone or iPad and use the app interchangeably.
Who’s it for? Option Chain is geared toward investors and others working in the stock market who need information updated frequently.
What’s it like? You can get more useful information from Dividend Predictor and TeleTRADE Analytics.
What’s it about? Star Trek Rivals creates a collectible card game out of Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness, the two new films in the Trek franchise.
What’s cool? Drawing on characters from the JJ Abrams Star Trek films, Star Trek Rivals tasks players with building decks of cards and using them to defeat other players. There are more than 100 cards based on characters and other elements from the films, and you can use them to take on your friends in multiplayer battles, or to challenge other random players from around the world. The more you play, the more credits you earn, which can be traded for new decks and upgraded cards that are more useful and powerful.
Who’s it for? If you’re a fan Star Trek and card battle games, you’re all set with Star Trek Rivals.
What’s it like? Check out Shadow Era TCG and War of the Fallen for more card-based strategy titles.
Best Educational Apps, Handpicked By Experts
Appolicious is pleased to introduce appoLearning.com, where parents, teachers and students find great education apps. Check out our introduction video here!
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This post is the first in the ReadWrite series Making Android Pay, in which we’ll explore the opportunities and challenges mobile developers face in trying to make money from Android apps.
In December 2011, Google chairman Eric Schmidt predicted that mobile developers would be building apps for Android first instead of iOS by the middle of 2012. That obviously hasn’t happened. But Google has doubled down on its push for more Android-first apps, largely by making it easier for developers to make money from them.
“It has taken a long time, it is slower than we like, but we are getting there,” Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, a product manager for Google Play Commerce, said during Google I/O last week.
Up to now, the main sticking point for many app creators has been simple: money. Make that, at least for most Android developers, the lack thereof. Until recently, Google just didn’t offer tools that would let developers fully exploit the global Android ecosystem for their own financial advantage.
Developers: Show Us The Money
There’s also the fact that, until Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and 4.1 Jelly Bean, Android apps just weren’t as good as iOS counterparts. Google first had to give Android feature parity with the iPhone and iPad before it could begin optimizing the ecosystem for money-making.
“Last year was sort of about reaching feature parity with, let’s say, other competitive platforms, where this year it has been all about going up to the next level. Innovating, doing things that are different,” Ellie Powers, product manager for Google Play, said in an interview with ReadWrite. “Like now we have the beta testing feature unique to our platform and other sources of analytics coming together.”
Google VP of Android Hugo Barra announces new tools at I/O 2013
Such bullishness hasn’t yet dispelled doubts remain even among some of Android’s stoutest supporters, including some developers at I/O last week. One grilled Elbouchikhi about how much he could expect to make from a bona fide hit app. There’s no easy answer to that question — let’s just say that lots of variables are involved in that particular equation — but it’s also a sign of just how heavily that question weighs on the minds of developers.
In this series, we’ll take a close look at the new tools Google has rolled out to lure developers away from Apple and get them to develop for Android first. Let’s just say that the thickness of developer wallets seems to be front and center in Google’s thinking.
Aww, What A Cute Widdle Android Baby
Google still thinks of Android as a very young, even though it has been on the market for nearly five years and in development since 2005. “I feel like Android is a baby,” said David Burke, engineering director for Android at an I/O session. “I think there is so much more we can do.”
If Android itself is a baby, that makes the developer tools and monetization techniques Google has been pushing nearly newborn. The Google Play Developer Console — a suite of tools for publishing and distributing Android apps — was announced at I/O 2012. and the company has only been working on solving developers’ biggest issues for about a year and a half.
Google realizes it still has developer issues with Android, from app discovery to user retention to the fundamental act of getting developers paid. But if we learned anything at I/O last week, it is that Google is aware of these problems and working hard to address them. In fact, almost every Android announcement at I/O last week was aimed at boosting Android’s standing among developers by addressing its perceived shortcomings vis-a-vis iOS.
Will that make Android No. 1 in the hearts of mobile developers? We’ll see.
“We are still very new. My mother still hasn’t figured out why people would want to buy apps. But most people have. I think there are a lot more business models that are going to develop in the future,” Powers said.
What will it take for you to build for Android first? Let us know in the comments.
Next: New tools in Google Play for getting you paid.
Top image: The Google Android team onstage for a fireside chat at I/O 2013. All photos by Nick Statt for ReadWrite
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Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) said it sold
10 million units of its latest flagship Galaxy smartphone within
a month of its release — about half the time it took the
previous model to reach that benchmark.
Galaxy S4 sales to retailers surpassed 10 million in 27
days, compared with 50 days for the S3, Nam Ki-yung, spokesman
for the Suwon, South Korea-based company, said by phone today.
The new device was released April 26 in South Korea and passed
the mark on May 22, Nam said.
Samsung’s newest addition to its four-year-old Galaxy
franchise may help the company maintain its leadership in the
$294 billion global smartphone market amid rising competition
from LG Electronics Inc. (006570) and Huawei Technologies Co. Apple Inc. (AAPL),
which sold 5 million units of its iPhone 5 during the opening
weekend in September, may not release a model until next
quarter.
Samsung had 31.7 percent of the global smartphone market in
the first quarter, ahead of Apple’s 17.3 percent and LG’s 4.7
percent, according to data from Bloomberg Industries and IDC.
Samsung, LG and Huawei each gained share from a year earlier
while Apple’s declined.
Apple’s share by sales value, at 31.8 percent, is higher
than its unit share because it sells higher-value devices.
Released around the same time as HTC Corp. (2498)’s One handset,
the Galaxy S4 received mixed reviews with AllThingsDigital’s
Walt Mossberg saying the software is “especially weak,” while
Bloomberg News’s Rich Jaroslovsky described it as “soulless.”
Mashable’s Christina Warren called the S4 the best Android
smartphone.
IPhone Release
Analysts including Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray Cos. had
predicted Apple would release an iPhone 5S in June and changed
that timeline to September after Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said last month that new products would be released in the
fall.
In addition to leading the global smartphone market,
Samsung dominates profits among makers of handsets using Google
Inc. (GOOG)’s Android system, which accounted for 75 percent of all
smartphones sold last quarter. Samsung took 95 percent of the
$5.3 billion in operating profits generated by Android device
makers last quarter, researcher Strategy Analytics said May 16.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Tim Culpan in Taipei at
tculpan1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Tighe at
mtighe4@bloomberg.net.
Enlarge image
Samsung Galaxy S4 Sales Hit 10 Million in Half the Time of S3
SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
A visitor tries out a Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy S4 smartphone at the World IT Show 2013 in Seoul on May 21, 2013.
A visitor tries out a Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy S4 smartphone at the World IT Show 2013 in Seoul on May 21, 2013. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
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Chip maker VIA is adding another low power ARM-based processor to its Wondermedia Prizm lineup. The new WM8880 is a 1.5 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor with Mali 400 graphics.
VIA hasn’t added any information about the new chip to its website yet, but the folks at Chinese site 1pad have posted some details and test results from a 7 inch tablet powered by the WM8880 processor.
The new processor appears to be very similar to the WM8850 chip which launched last year, but the WM8880 features dual-core graphics while last year’s chip had a single-core Mali 400 GPU.
I tend to take benchmark results with a grain of salt, especially if I didn’t have a chance to run them myself. But it looks like the WM8880 chip scores reasonably well in performance tests.
It can play multiple HD videos at the same time, and holds its own in benchmarks including NenaMark, Quadrant, and Antutu.
That said, newer chips from Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Samsung, and others will offer more than twice the performance you’d get from a budget chip like the WM8880. But it’s likely we’ll start to see some low-cost tablets in China and other emerging markets featuring this processor soon. And it looks like it’s not half bad.
Some sort of WM8880 test device also showed up recently at the GLBenchmark website.
via AndroidPC.es
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Just a day after releasing Chrome 27 on the desktop, Google on Wednesday announced the release of Chrome 27 for Android, adding fullscreen support on phones and a tab history option on tablets. You can download the latest version now directly from Google Play.
The device-type features are fairly straightforward. To access the new fullscreen function on an Android phone, just scroll down the page and the toolbar will disappear (sidenote: full screen support for iOS arrived Chrome 26 stable). When you scroll back up, the toolbar returns automatically.
To use the new tab history on tablets, long press the browser back button to view what you’ve been browsing. This is one of those features that should have been in Chrome from the start, but as Android tablets become more popular, Google has finally been forced to add it.
Next up, we have “simpler searching.” Google is referring to a change regarding how its search engine (and possibly other search engines) work in Chrome. The company has been experimenting with leaving the search query in the omnibox, removing the need for a second search box on the results page, since December 2012.
So far, however, only beta and other test versions of Chrome have seen the change. Chrome for Android is thus the first stable release of Google’s browser to get the feature.
The full Chrome 27.0.1453.90 for Android changelog is as follows:
- Fullscreen on phones – Scroll down the page and the toolbar will disappear.
- Simpler searching – Searching from the omnibox will keep your search query visible in the omnibox, making it easier to edit, and show more on your search result page.
- Client-side certificate support – You can now access sites that require you to use a certificate and Chrome will allow you to select an installed certificate.
- Tab history on tablets – Long press the browser back button to view your tab history.
- And a ton of stability and performance fixes.
As you can see, Chrome also now has client-side certificate support. Most users won’t be using it on mobile but its addition does show Google’s dedication to having a full-blown browser on its mobile platform.
Top Image Credit: Half Cut
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The Dish Network mobile app just got a makeover, adding access to On Demand programming on Android and iOS, as well as Dish Anywhere integration with social networks.
iPad owners are no longer the only mobile users who can access the Dish On Demand library; those running Android 4.0 and higher or iOS 5.0-plus can view thousands of titles from a variety of networks watchable anywhere you can find an Internet connection.
Dish Anywhere launched in January, and has since transformed viewers’ ability to watch live and recorded programming anytime and anywhere, the company said.
“The ability to watch TV anywhere is only as meaningful as the show you can view,” Vivek Khemka, senior vice president of product at Dish, said in a statement. “By adding access to On Demand programming on iPhones and Android devices, only Dish gives customers the power to view all their shows, including live TV, DVR recordings and On Demand, at no extra cost.”
Remote viewing of live TV and DVR recordings still requires a broadband-connected, Sling-enabled DVR.
The Dish Network enhancements also allow users to share their mobile viewing on social networks. Want your Facebook friends to know you’ve been catching up on Modern Family? Think your Twitter followers would be interested in your Game of Thrones viewing marathon? New social media options allow users to post what they’re watching in real-time, with personalized comments and hashtags.
Additionally, a new “Audio Only” mode lets users listen to any live or pre-recorded show, while doing something else, like driving or using other apps on their device.
The Dish Anywhere app is currently available for free in the Apple iTunes Store and the Google Play store.
Dish could soon break out of the TV/DVR world to run a terrestrial wireless network. The company got the go-ahead from the Federal Communications Commission in December to convert spectrum currently used for satellite service into a wireless service, which Dish has been eyeing for more than a year.
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First up today is Melt, a social networking app that lets you exchange photos with random people around the world.MONTAJ, our second app today, makes creating and sharing videos easy and quick, offering filters and some editing capabilities. Finally, Bombcats puts a new spin on physics puzzlers by including exploding cats.
Best Educational Apps, Handpicked By Experts
Appolicious is pleased to introduce appoLearning.com, where parents, teachers and students find great education apps. Check out our introduction video here!
What’s it about? Melt is sort of like finding pen pals, but with photos. It lets you send out a photo to another random user and get one back.
What’s cool? Plenty of social networks let you share your photos with friends, other users, and even followers. Melt mixes up the experience to make it a bit more random: You pick a favorite photo from your Camera Roll, give it a caption, and send it out into the world, and the app automatically sends one back to you from another user. You can then send a message if you’re impressed by the image and potentially strike up a conversation with the other person, who could be anywhere.
Who’s it for? If you’re into mobile device photography and social networking, check out Melt.
What’s it like? Instagram is also good for photo-sharing that’s a little less structured.
MONTAJ update (Free)
What’s it about? Quick and easy video editor MONTAJ makes it easy to create and share videos that highlight cool moments in life.
What’s cool? MONTAJ gives you the tools you need create cool videos and keeps the simple to use. You can use the app to shoot video, and once you’ve got some clips, you’ll find them all arranged on a storyboard screen, where you can quickly rearrange them. You can also apply things like filters and music from iTunes, and the app includes a “shake” feature that lets you randomize the arrangement of clips, the filters applied to them and the music that goes with them. When you’re done, you can share through email, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The newest update to the app makes sharing easier with quicker navigation and lets you follow other MONTAJ users to see what they’re creating.
Who’s it for? MONTAJ is geared specifically for iPhone and iPad videographers who want a simplified way to make short movies.
What’s it like? More great editing tools and sharing capabilities are available from Socialcam and Viddy.
What’s it about? Though it’s an arcade game with some familiar mechanics, Bombcats still manages to be lots of fun as players shoot explosive cats across various levels in order to blow up (and thereby free) kittens.
What’s cool? Bombcats will feel familiar to fans of iOS gaming. Drawing your finger back in one direction lets you fling your bombcat in the other, much like games such as Angry Birds, and your goal is to cross each level quickly and efficiently while also picking up points along the way. Each level has you reaching a caged kitten and using your exploding cat to free it, and as you progress, the puzzles become more difficult, requiring you to redirect your cat in midair, explode it early, and make tricky shots to avoid obstacles. Bombcats includes 190 levels to play through and seven different cats from which to choose, so having the right cat for the job is key to solving each of its puzzles.
Who’s it for? If you’re a fan of physics puzzlers, Bombcats riffs on familiar mechanics and adds something new that you’ll enjoy.
What’s it like? There’s more stuff to explode in iBlast Moki 2, and Land-a Panda also offers some fun physics puzzles.
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Celebrate Memorial Day and summer while reading from a list of great magazines, thanks to Zinio’s recent Guest Post.
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