Category Archives: Computers
AT&T to allow FaceTime, other video chat apps over cellular for all customers
AT&T on Monday said it plans to more broadly enable the use of Apple’s FaceTime for users over its cellular network in the next few weeks, and by year’s end plans to allow video chat apps use over its network by all customers. This latest position on FaceTime and similar apps represents total shift from its position almost a year ago.
AT&T’s statement to the Verge on Monday notes that “by mid-June, we’ll have enabled those apps over cellular for our unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices from [Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry].” Besides FaceTime, Samsung and BlackBerry’s pre-installed video chat apps will also be included.
And more will be coming for all of its customers before the end of the year: “Throughout the second half of this year, we plan to enable pre-loaded video chat apps over cellular for all our customers, regardless of data plan or device; that work is expected to be complete by year end.”
When Apple updated its mobile video chat app to work over cellular last summer, AT&T came under fire when it announced subsequently that only customers who subscribed to one of its Mobile Share plans could use it. Several open internet groups threatened to file complaints with the FCC, calling the carrier’s policy a violation of net neutrality. Several months later, AT&T opened the service to anyone with an LTE device.
Based on broadness of the statement, it sounds like video chat apps like Google’s new Hangouts app, available for both iOS and Android, will also be free to operate over AT&T’s network later on this year.
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Surprise: Yahoo’s mobile push is working better than you think
Don’t look now but it looks like Yahoo’s mobile apps push is bearing fruit, at least according to new data from Onavo.
Case in point: Yahoo Weather, which rolled out recently, already has what Onavo CEO Guy Rosen calls an “unprecedented” 3 percent market share among U.S. iPhone owners. That’s about 1.5 million users total which makes it the 91st most popular iPhone app three weeks after release, according to Onavo Insights data. That’s very good for a new app, Rosen said in an interview.
Other Yahoo mobile apps including Yahoo Messenger and the Yahoo app are also doing well. “In general, what we found is that although Yahoo has been quiet on mobile, when we look at the top apps, we see quite a few up there. They have a decent footprint.”
According to Onavo stats, the Yahoo app is the most popular of the company’s suite and among the most popular in the App Store overall. In the past three months, active usage has risen to 9.02 percent from 6.5 percent (or to 4.5 million active users from 3.2 million active users.) Not too shabby.
How does Onavo get to these numbers? It uses data gleaned from its free iPhone (and now Android) apps including Onavo Extend, which compresses data flowing into and out of your phone; Onavo Counts, which watches how much time you actually spend using a given app; and Onavo Protect, which scans traffic flowing into your phone for malware. Then it aggregates that data (minus the personally identifiable bits) and runs statistics to suss out usage patterns. That data forms the core of reports that the company then sells to app developers.
This data is far more useful to app makers than app store download figures because it shows actual engagement. If your app is the mobile equivalent of shelfware, it’s helpful to know that.
Rosen said “millions” of people use Onavo’s iPhone apps but would not specify further. “We use a panel methodology with our user base as the sample and apply statistical methodologies to make sure it’s valid,” he said in an interview.
The current app stats do not yet factor in Onavo’s Android users, although they will be incorporated in time.
Note: This story was updated at 12:38 p.m. PDT with a new chart on Yahoo app usage growth and additional data on that usage.
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How iPads, apps and YouTube can be a band’s best practice tools
It started innocently enough. “Let’s get together and jam” lead to a rehearsal song list, and the possibility of starting a band. I had about a week to organize and prepare for a mostly full band rehearsal. We don’t have a singer yet, so that duty, sadly, has fallen on me until we get someone. As noted on this site before, I’m a guitar player. By nature, I’m a very organized an prepared individual, and I wanted to get everyone prepared for the songs ahead of time. After I sent out links to YouTube clips of the songs to the other members, it was time to get to work.
Here are the apps and devices I used that made my life a lot easier during this process.
Practice, practice, practice
One of the nice things about being the person everyone points to and says, “pick some songs” is, well, the songs I picked I already pretty much knew. However, there’s a huge difference between kinda knowing the song, and knowing it enough for a rehearsal. The first thing I did was create an iTunes playlist with the tunes. When I was driving around, I played nothing but those songs to get them stuck in my head.
When it came to actually putting my fingers to the fretboard, I used AmpliTube on my iPad for 90 percent of my practice — the other 10 percent were with my live rig to get the sounds right. One nice thing with AmpliTube is it will load the songs from my Music.app playlists and let me play along to them, as well as speed up and slow down parts. If there was a part I found particularly tricky to learn, I used Riffstation on OS X to loop that segment while I used the AmpliTube Orange amps to play along. For the first set of rehearsals, I also didn’t worry too much about getting the solos note-for-note, and instead focused on catching the feeling of the solo. I used my Fender Squire USB guitar for most of my practicing since it easily plugs into my iPad and Mac.
For what I was doing, I didn’t really care about my overall guitar sound; I just wanted to balance the volumes so I could hear both the song and my guitar equally. Then, I practiced. A lot.
Charting
I was asked by the bass player to chart the songs for a cheat sheet during rehearsal. While there are plenty of programs that will let you chart songs, I found them to be too advanced for my needs. What I really just needed to do was have the lyrics and then put the chord changes over it.
So, I used Pages ($ 19.99).
I went to a lyric website, cut and pasted the lyrics into Pages, and then added the chords and beat markers over the lyrics. This worked fantastically. In addition to giving the bass player a cheat cheat, I also had something I could reference during rehearsals. If I couldn’t remember how the chorus went, I had my own little cheat sheet. I printed out charts for her and the drummer, and had my iPad ready for my reference.
Running the rehearsal
Generally, I frown upon singers who use cheat sheets live, but in practice, obviously they are fine. Plus, I’m just filling in until we get a real singer (hopefully soon, I really can’t sing). I needed cheat sheets where I could see them while standing up, and I didn’t have a music stand that went that high. Plus, I wanted them right in my face.
For my cheat sheets, I used the iKlip 2 ($ 39.99) from IK Multimedia. It’s a mic stand holder for your iPad 2, 3 or 4 in a fairly secure fashion. Note: it slides into the holder, so I’d be a cautious using it during gigs. Not because it’ll fall out, but it’d be easy for someone to just snag the iPad during breaks. So, if you use it, make sure you take the iPad off when you walk off stage.
I was able to position my iPad with the iKlip so I could read the lyrics while warbling. A minor pet peeve is that I can’t get the iKlip to hold my iPad in the portrait position on the boom portion of the stand. Instead, I had to clip it on the main stand just under the boom.
If a note about how we played something came up, I just edited the Pages document with the note. Usually, this is how long the solos were, or if we wanted to change how a bridge went.
Final thoughts
I’ve written before about how I continue to be amazed at the way technology continues to improve how I approach music. It’s been 20 years since I’ve run a rehearsal. Back then it involved a lot of cassette tapes, CDs and photocopies. While OS X continues to be a starting point for my music, I find now when it comes to rehearsals, everything I need is on my iPad. I also have all my music theory and chord books in the Kindle app, so if I need to learn a chord I’m not familiar with, it’s very, very easy.
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Games for the weekend: Skylanders Cloud Patrol
Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.
Skylanders Cloud Patrol ($ 1.99, Universal) is a carnival-style shooting game where you tap to shoot at your target to win coins. The targets you are shooting at are mischievous trolls that have broken out of prison.
In this game you play one of a number of different Skylanders. As a Skylander you are responsible for hunting down and eliminating the escaped trolls. To shoot a troll, or anything else for that matter, you simply tap on the screen at the target you want to hit. You can also swipe your finger up, down, across and in a variety of pattern to lock on to a series of targets in quick succession. When shooting in such a manner, the game has the same interactive feel as Fruit Ninja. And like Fruit Ninja there are targets on the screen, in this case mines, that you must avoid shooting at all costs. If you shoot and hit a mine, it will explode and end the game.
As you progress through the game you are presented with a never-ending series of targets at which to aim. Each collection of targets are laid out like individual levels. After you successfully hit all of the targets on a given level, you will be flown to the next level in the cloud and presented with a new collection of targets. These targets can be barrels, boxes, balloons, presents, sheep (yes, sheep) and of course trolls. Things do get progressively difficult as the targets you are aiming to hit do not stay in one place.
The trolls will hide behind shields, duck under rocks and even fly around the screen using propeller caps. It really does resemble a carnival-style shooting game. Some of the trolls are armed with weapons that they will use to shoot at you. You must shoot down the projectiles aimed at you before they get too close and kill your Skylander.
Swirling around the screen intermixed with the trolls are the mines. The mines always seem to change their pattern and place themselves right in front of a troll as you are tapping on the screen to shoot. There are also magical power-ups, crates packed with explosives that will kill all visible trolls on the screen, and golden coins that you can tap on to collect. When you do finally get overwhelmed and either shoot a mine or get shot by a troll, the game will end. Your score will be tallied, coins will be counted and you will be awarded gems for each of the posted achievements you have accomplished.
The coins and gems collected can be used to buy magic items as well as different Skylanders. The magic items can be used while playing the game to give you an advantage over the trolls you are shooting. However, switching out your Skylander for a more powerful Skylander with special abilities can really make a difference in how well you perform. Between each level, there are in-app purchases where you can buy more gems. The gems can be traded for gold coins. This can certainly help you power-up at a faster rate by enabling you to achieve your goals faster.
What really sets the game apart however is that you can also make out-of-app purchases. This is actually the main reason that the entire Skylander series of games exists. By purchasing real toy models of the Skylanders at your local toy or hobby store, you can use the web activation code that comes with the toy model to unlock its corresponding Skylander character within the game itself. Through earning gems and coins in the game, buying gems and coins through iTunes in-app purchase, or buying toy models at a retail store, you can grow your Skylander army.
Rather than exclusively use Apple’s GameCenter, Skylanders also utilizes Activision’s online gamers community, Activate. With Activate you can save game progress and challenge your Activate friends to various Showdowns. These Showdowns are like goals, and if you win the Showdown you will be awarded with gems and coins. The interaction between the game and Activate is smooth and reliable. This weekend is as good a time as any to Activate an Activision online gaming account and start hunting trolls.
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Android is just the beginning: How Bluetooth is preparing for the internet of things
Last night at Google I/O, Bluetooth scored a major victory for connected consumers when Google said it would support the Bluetooth Smart Ready platform natively in Android. This was functionality that iOS devices already have, and it should mean that Android users will get more functional apps to go with their Bluetooth-enabled devices.
As someone who spends a lot of time playing with connected home and personal devices this is fabulous news. I had started gathering research for a post about how as an Android user I feel like many of the popular connected devices are leaving me out in the cold with lame apps, while iOS users get sparkly interfaces and more functionality. The Hue app, the WeMo app, the BlueBulb app and the FitBit are all examples of this iOS first and foremost (and sometimes only) mindset. Or when it comes to specific devices such as the Wahoo Blue heart rate monitor my colleague Kevin Tofel wrote about last year, the Android support only extends to a few devices.
But one reason for the focus on iOS for many devices, especially those containing Bluetooth, is that native support and easy integration between the radio and the app wasn’t there. But with this announcement, which means developers will find it easier to build Android-based apps for connecting to Bluetooth devices, all that changes.
Then app developers building software for Bluetooth enabled gadgets no longer have an excuse. Although, as seems to be the case with Hue and WeMo which both work with Wi-Fi, perhaps they just think iOS users are more likely to buy their gear, so they’ve skimped on Android resources for the time being. Hue lightbulbs are also exclusively sold in Apple stores, which may also contribute to the meh nature of its Android app.
Bluetooth is serious about the internet of things.
While the Android news is great for the growing number of people toting those devices, it’s just one element in The Bluetooth Special Interest Group’s plans to make the radio technology ubiquitous for the internet of things. Bluetooth is already making huge strides in personal area networking compared with other standards I covered as far back as Jan. 2011. Bluetooth radios are set to be in 2.5 billion new devices this year, according to Mark Powell, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG, who I met with on Wednesday. That’s one fourth of the 10 billion Bluetooth radios that have shipped in the lifetime of the technology, according to ABI Research provided by the Bluetooth SIG.
Clearly Bluetooth is popular, and the acceptance by Google of the overarching Smart Ready application development framework will enhance the experience for more consumers, but Powell also detailed plans to create a secure end-to-end network layer for Bluetooth. That technology could ensure that communications between certain devices stay private, an important consideration for medical or personal data.
He also said that in addition to the profiles for data that the SIG had developed for formatting data (for example, it has a running profile that tracks the data associated with steps so an app developer doesn’t have to figure that out), it’s developing a service discovery layer. This will become more important as we get more connected devices and want them to talk to each other without human intervention. For example, if you have four connected Bluetooth lightbulbs in a room, you might want to turn them on all at once instead of individually programming them.
This is a concept I explored with Mike Kuniavsky, a principal in the Innovation Services Group at PARC, in a podcast in March. Foley also noted that in addition to the low energy specification the SIG released it’s working on extending the range of Bluetooth in some flavors to 100 meters. That means it can be used in the home, and not just as a personal area network, but for devices communicating between rooms. Combine that with the end-to-end security and suddenly my Z-wave door locks look like the wrong choice.
However, I won’t sweat that just yet. Even as Bluetooth beefs up for the internet of things, it won’t become the sole radio technology connecting my gizmos and gadgets to the web any more than Wi-Fi is my sole means of accessing the internet. However, Bluetooth has really grown up and moved well beyond its early days as a connection technology for wireless headsets and computer peripherals. Even if I’m not bullish on the future of the Bluetooth mouse, I’m bullish on Bluetooth.
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Apple’s app store hits 50 billion downloads
Apple announced Wednesday that the App store has hit 50 billion app downloads, a singificant milestone for the company only a few months after it announced 40 billion downloads back in January.
Apple’s app store downloads and downloads from the Google Play store became roughly even last fall, as Erica Ogg wrote recently, and then in the first quarter of 2013, Google pulled ahead in sheer number of mobile app downloads worldwide. However, Apple got 74 cents for every dollar spent on apps during the that quarter, according to a report by Canalys published in April, and the 50 billion downloads now puts Apple back with a slight lead.
The company announced the number of downloads on the first day of Google’s I/O conference, as Google announced that its Google Play store has seen 48 billion app downloads since launch in late 2008. However, it’s good to remember that app downloads only tell part of the story — someone could download an app and never use it again.
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Apple sued over faulty power button on iPhone 4
A Florida woman is seeking more than $ 5 million from Apple on behalf of thousands of iPhone owners who allegedly bought phones with defective power buttons that would not lock or turn off.
In a class action suit filed in San Jose, California, Debra Hilton claims that Apple knew about a defect in a flex cable that controls the on-off button, but chose to stay quiet about it so as to sell more phones.
As evidence, she points to Apple discussion forums viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors on which users complain of “wiggly” power buttons. Hilton also points to a fix-it video on YouTube and comments by a self-described iPhone repairman who says the power button defect is prevalent on the iPhone 4 which went on sale in 2010.
Apple did not immediately return a request for comment.
The lawsuit claims that the defect typically arises shortly after one year at which point the warranty has expired, forcing consumers to pay $ 149 for repairs.
Hilton is suing under the RICO statute, a federal racketeering law that has become a vehicle for national class actions. The lawsuit also accuses Apple of violating California’s unfair competition laws.
You can read the complaint for yourself here:
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Just one month in, T-Mobile raises its $99 iPhone 5 down payment
Remember that $ 99-down-for-an-iPhone-5 plan T-Mobile advertised as part of its game-changing new approach to the U.S. mobile market? Well, that’s over. As of Monday, if you walk into a T-Mobile store to buy a new iPhone 5, you’ll be paying $ 149 up front instead.
TMoNews first reported the price increase, and notes that nowhere did T-Mobile make it clear at the time that the $ 99 down payment was only a temporary or introductory pricing.
The iPhone 5 pricing was part of what made T-Mobile’s big new “no-contract” phones push so attractive. From our coverage in March:
T-Mobile will finance the iPhone 5 for a down payment of $ 99.99 and payments of $ 20 each month for 24 months. That works out to $ 580, which is actually cheaper than the unsubsidized, unlocked device price of $ 650 Apple charges today.
Part of that plan included “eliminating subsidies” that end up chaining U.S. wireless customers to carriers via expensive two-year plans. We don’t know how much T-Mobile has to pay Apple for each device. It’s possible the pricing change could have been planned all along, or it could be that T-Mobile realized after a month that it can’t afford to keep subsidizing smartphones that much.
A T-Mobile representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But no matter what the reasoning is, the cheapest T-Mobile iPhone 5 won’t have a total cost of $ 579 anymore, but will jump up to $ 629, including the $ 20 monthly payments for 24 months. There’s nothing illegal about that. But if T-Mobile did intend that this was temporary pricing, the fine print must have been really small. And that’s disappointing.
The carrier’s posture since it first announced changes to its business model has been concentrated on being different and to standing out from its fellow U.S. carriers. But this pricing change comes off like nothing more than an advertising bait and switch. And there’s nothing different about a U.S. wireless carrier that gives its customers reasons to complain.
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ICYMI Podcasts: Chromebooks on sale, connected cornfields and Google’s iOS strategy
This week’s GigaOM podcasts were full of useful information, starting with the GigaOM Chrome Show. Besides a recommended extension of the week and several Chrome tips — including where to buy a Chromebook for $ 185! — I share experiences and features on the newest Chrome OS Dev channel.
On the Internet of Things podcast, Stacey Higginbotham spoke with Russ Fadel, CEO of ThingWorx. Fadel explains how predictive intelligence, big data plus connected sensors are changing farming and improving medical care.
And on the GigaOM Weekly Wrapup podcast, we have a round-table discussion on how Google is cleverly slipping through the cracks of Apple’s walled garden while also. Did you hear that YouTube has paid subscriptions now? If you subscribed to the podcast, you’d already know all the details!
(Download the GigaOM Chrome Show)
(Download the GigaOM Internet of Things podcast)
(Download the GigaOM Weekly Wrapup podcast)
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How Apple could pull ahead in the Mac vs PC speed race again
As computer sales overall have dropped sharply in recent years, Apple has put most of its attention on the source of its growth: mobile products. And its main focus on chips has transitioned to the kind that go inside its smartphones and tablets. Apple has spent a lot of time and money optimizing iPhone and iPad chips for speed and battery life. It still makes computers, but the focus is mostly on laptops, and making them fast, but also optimizing for weight, display quality and battery life. Meanwhile the company has let its workhorse, the Mac Pro, lapse.
With what most perceived as a minor update in 2012, the Mac Pro had gone two years prior to that before receiving a meaningful upgrade. Still, Apple has a loyal following among Mac users looking for power. Apple CEO Tim Cook stated last year that Apple is working on “something great” in reference to the Mac Pro, and we’re still waiting for that.
While things are not quite what they used to be, the company does still have a shot at impressing its seemingly forgotten Mac Pro customers by putting the power back into its Macs.
It was not too long ago when part of the Mac versus PC debate took place in the lab with a series of benchmark tests. Try to find such a comparison since Apple switched from IBM’s PowerPC chipset to Intel; you will be hard pressed to do so. When Apple first introduced the PowerMac G5 we witnessed the worlds first 64-bit desktop computer. Those days are long gone, as Apple has apparently elected to step out of the computer chip speed race.
To see how big of a gap we are talking about, we must first look to see how much faster today’s PCs are when compared to the Mac.
Benchmarking the current gap between Macs and PCs
Comparing Macs to Macs - If you look at Primate Labs, a long standing provider of benchmarking software on the Mac, you can see how each of Apple’s computers stack up against each other. Looking only at this list, one would think that Apple’s older lineup of Mac Pros is still doing quite well being situated at the top of the GeekBench’s performance list. That is until you look outside of Apple’s product line and see how the Intel Xeon X5675 chip that powers the top performing Mac Pro compares to other Intel chips.
Intel chipset benchmarks scores - One such benchmark to look at when comparing Intel chip performance is the PassMark CPU Mark. Using EveryMac.com as a guide to figure out what Intel chips are used in each of Apple’s Macs, you will find that the chips being used in today’s Macs are not among the fastest currently available. With a CPU Mark of just 9,382 for the fastest chip available in the Mac Pro, and a score of 9,461 for the fastest iMac chip, Apple comes in at roughly two-thirds the performance of the top rated Intel chip scoring 14,969. Keep in mind that this top performing chip is Intel’s Xeon E5-4650 with a street price around $ 4,000, for just the chip.
Intel PassMark CPU Mark Scores
A fair comparison to PCs - Looking at the chips used in last years round up of top performing PCs from both PC World and PC Magazine, the Falcon Northwest Mach V and the Maingear Shift Super Stock both used Intel’s Core i7-3960X processor. Since then, each PC company now offers an updated configuration with the slightly faster Intel Core i7-3970X. It is also worth noting that the newer i7-3970X is currently available in Dell’s own Alienware line of desktop computers. Each of these new systems sell at prices comparable to Mac Pros. With a CPU Mark score of 12,976, the i7-3970X is still faster than the CPUs used inside of Apple’s top performing Mac’s.
And that’s just the current state of where Macs and PCs in the CPU performance race. The GPU race doesn’t look any better for Apple. What may surprise many is that Apple does in fact support the latest drivers for many of the fastest GPUs on the market in each updated release of OS X. It is just not an option when you build your own Mac in Apple’s online store. You have to look elsewhere to get one added to your Mac after you buy it.
Why Apple should design its own Mac chips
Apple has two options to consider when it comes to increasing the performance of its Macs. A short-term tactical play where it catches up with the PC by continuing to make modest upgrades to its existing lineup of Macs, or a long-term strategic play to surpass the competition by boldly stepping away from the component-based chip market all together.
Matching the competition - The first option is to simply match the fastest PCs in performance by updating the chips being used inside Apple’s Mac lineup. This tactic of adamantly keeping pace with Intel’s release schedule has been employed by Apple in the past and every other computer vendor to keep making their machines performing slightly faster each year. So long as Apple continues to use off-the-shelf chips from the likes of Intel, AMD, Nvidia and ATI, Macs will never again be faster than PCs since everyone uses the same exact chips.
Surpassing the competition - The other option open for Apple is to follow the same path that it has taken with its mobile chips. That is to optimize the chip specific to Apple’s own software and hardware design specifications. Adding to this strategy, by continuing the complete adoption of Thunderbolt technology, Apple will likely be among the first to adopt Intel’s new Falcon Ridge Thunderbolt controller later this year. And finally with the advent of integrated SSD technology directly on a logic board rather than conforming to a more modular SATA design standard, the design of desktop powerhouse systems should start to change dramatically. Breaking from the modular design that has dominated the top performing computer market for decades now, a radical new design that maximizes the potential of all of these advances in technology is in order.
Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller Benchmarking the A5 and A6 Processors
Apple is not only not losing the laptop and desktop speed race versus the PC at the moment, it appears that it’s not even interested in competing in it. Apple’s own marketing shows how its newer hardware is only faster than its older hardware; as old Macs race against new Macs, PCs have meanwhile moved ahead in a race all their own. If Apple truly does want to get back out in front of the PC market, and produce a lineup of Macs or even one Mac that outpaces the fastest PCs available, it will have to leave the off-the-shelf chips behind and show the world how to best take advantage of all of the changes we have seen in technology over the last few years.
Taking a chip design and making it your own is not something that just any company can do. Apple has proven that they can do it with ARM-based chips on its mobile platform. The question remains if Apple can successfully pull off the same feat with a chip design that places them in the forefront of desktop processor speed.
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