Apple’s next iPhone model will reportedly have at least a 4-inch display according to sources “familiar with the matter” and reported by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. Apple hasn’t officially commented, which is expected as the company doesn’t make statements on unreleased products. However, the WSJ has a history of reporting on solid information about future Apple products, possibly as planned leaks from Apple itself. Regardless of where the information came from, a larger iPhone simply makes sense at this point in time.

I recall an online debate I had with my then co-worker Darrell Etherington in February of last year on this very topic: Should the next iPhone have a 4-inch display? Darrell held his own in that back-and-forth, but I believed then — as I do now — Apple can’t stick with a 3.5-inch iPhone forever. Or if it does continue creating phones with that size, they’ll likely be priced lower than a larger model. I even suggested that Apple could use a 4-inch display without increasing the overall size of the device by much, explaining how it would improved the overall experience for both consumption and input:

“Larger screen devices — without much larger form factors, I might add — can provide a better user experience for many: Text is larger as is the software keyboard, for example, as is the media experience, especially as smartphones can play back higher-resolution video. Think of it as moving from a 32- to a 40-inch HDTV set, only on a smaller scale. It’s not really about the screen size, or even about “keeping up with the Androids;” it’s about the improved experience that such a change can bring, and that’s not something you can see from a spec sheet.”

As I said back then, moving to a larger screen on the iPhone has nothing to do with keeping pace of Android handsets which are now topping out at 5.3-inch screen sizes. Between mobile apps, web browsing and online video, a larger display that’s still usable with one hand and fits in a pocket is simply more useful. Not everyone will agree, but of course, Apple doesn’t care about the fringe cases: It develops products for the masses with attributes that appeal to most. And if my suspicion is correct, Apple may still keep the 3.5-inch model around at a reduced price from any bigger siblings.

How will Apple accomplish the feat of using a larger display while maintaining its Retina Display definition? My guess is that the phone uses a 1024 x 768 panel which is the same resolution as the company’s first two iPads and works out to 320 pixels per inch. That would allow a 4-inch iPhone to natively run all of the existing iPad applications that aren’t optimized for the new iPad, which is double the resolution in both directions. Thoughts?

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Apple may not be buying a high-design German home entertainment device maker, but that doesn’t mean investors in the rumoured target company won’t make a killing – and it doesn’t mean they won’t still have a part to play in Apple’s iTV.

This is a classic weekend story conundrum…

• In the early hours of Sunday morning, AppleInsider reported an anonymous source as saying Apple has offered €87.3 million ($112 million) for Kronach-based Loewe, which makes sleek TV sets and speakers.
• By Sunday morning, a Loewe spokesperson quoted by German press (Heise Online) said there was “absolutely nothing to it”.

But the apparent rebuttal didn’t gain as much pick-up as the excited speculation about the sexy products Apple might be buying.

Net effect: When German markets opened on Monday morning, shares in publicly-traded Loewe rocketed by around 25 percent.

That pushed Loewe’s market cap to over €77 million ($99 million) by mid-morning – up from what had been €59.1 million before the rumours, and not far off Apple’s rumoured offer price.

And the price kept rising even after traders had a chance to read the apparent denial over their morning coffee.

What we do know is…

• Loewe in 2011 made a €10.5 million loss on €274 million revenue.
• Its largest shareholder is Sharp, with almost 30 percent.
• Sharp has formed a joint venture with Apple’s assembly contractor Foxconn.

Ahead of the weekend, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou was reported as confirming production of the forthcoming set…

China Daily: “Gou said Foxconn is making preparations for iTV … although development or manufacturing has yet to begin.

“iTV reportedly features an aluminum construction, Siri, and FaceTime video calling

“Foxconn’s recent 50-50 joint venture factory with Sharp in Japan is one of the preparations made for the new device, Gou added.”

AppleInsider had reported Loewe would decide on a deal or otherwise by May 18.

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Google fellow, founder of Project X and self-driving car pioneer Sebastian Thrun became the latest to publicly rock a Project Glass prototype (after company co-founder Sergey Brin) on a recent episode of Charlie Rose, and managed to show off a whole new side of the project in the process. While the 19-minute interview was mostly unremarkable product-wise with a focus on higher education and his Udacity project, we did get to see him take a picture of the host (about a minute in) by tapping it, then posting it on Google+ by nodding twice. Also, as Electronista points out, in a brief reverse shot (17:20) of Thrun we see for the first time what appears to be a small battery pack / transmitter portion lodged behind his ear. Of course, we’re still not any closer to rocking the latest in bionic man-chic ourselves, but at least we can start getting fitted for one now.

Project Glass makes a TV appearance on Charlie Rose, flashes its rear for the cameras originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look at the bright side, Bears fans: At least it’s not Kim Kardashian.

Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher is reportedly hot and heavy with former Playboy playmate, actress and anti-vaccine advocate Jenny McCarthy. The two were leaving a Beverly Hills steakhouse earlier this month when they were “accidentally” caught by TMZ cameras. (It seems to me that if you didn’t want your relationship public, you’d choose a nice Japanese restaurant out in San Marino rather than flaunting it in the heart of paparazzi country but, hey, I don’t have a TV show to promote.) Now, McCarthy tells Parade magazine she’s “giddy” about her new relationship, even if she won’t specifically say who it is.

McCarthy was asked about Urlacher while doing PR for some NBC reality show this week. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” she said unconvincingly, demonstrating why her acting career never took off. “Um, you know, we shall see.”

Urlacher has been mum on the subject, no doubt counseled by quarterback Jay Cutler on how to not talk about celebrity romances.

The linebacker made headlines in 2003 when Paris Hilton sat in a luxury box at a Bears game while wearing his No. 54 jersey. (Has Paris Hilton really been famous for that long?)

View full post on Shutdown Corner – NFL – Yahoo! Sports

The mobile social Pictionary-style smash hit has become the fastest-growing original mobile game of all time. In a span of only 50 days, the game, originally created by OMGPOP and then acquired by much larger social gaming company Zynga, has reached more than 50 million downloads. It recently leapfrogged ahead of Angry Birds Space to be the #1 paid app in Apple’s App Store.

It’s always difficult to guess what the next great big online sensation will be, but Draw Something gained extreme popularity because of its ease of use and the masterful way in which it allowed users to invite friends to play and create a fun, social experience. Zynga’s purchase of the startup that created the game was $180 million, a very nice lump of cash for a company no one even knew about a couple months ago.

Of course, the 50 million download milestone announcement came with a bunch of other fun statistics. For example, players have created a combined 6 billion drawings since the game launched. That number is now growing at a rate of around 3,000 per second (on its first day, that number was an average of three per second). According to Zynga, the most popular words in the game are starfish, pregnant, hangman, six pack, and boom box. The least popular word? Latrine.

[via VentureBeat]

Zynga’s Draw Something makes mobile gaming history is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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Bless your heart, Chan Gailey. Bless your sweet, visionary heart.

Via Michael David Smith over at PFT, word is that Buffalo Bills head coach Chan Gailey is pushing for a rule change that will enable an official upstairs in the booth to make the call on instant replays, instead of the referee on the field. This would eliminate the whole process where the stupid referee goes over to the stupid sideline to look at a stupid monitor, under a stupid hood, with his stupid face.

[Related: NFL's overtime rules headed to regular season as well]

The idea is that it will speed up the replay process, and thus, speed up NFL games. Nearly anything that helps us toward this end will be wholly embraced by me. Tell me more about your exciting plan, Captain Chan.

“I just think it would be a lot faster to get that done. I think it would take all that time where you have to go to the sideline, go under the hood — and there’s some drama to that that maybe they like. But I don’t know that that’s necessary … So I just felt like the game would flow faster if you didn’t do that … Who’s got the best chance to get it right? The guy who’s got the most views. But if they don’t (pass it), they don’t.”

SOLD.

I know it’s important to get the call right, but instant replay stoppages have become a scourge. It can turn any average, run-of-the-mill second down into the last minute of a tied basketball game when both coaches have all their timeouts remaining.

What we do now really is a silly process. It’s silly to have that giant monitor contraption on the sidelines. It’s silly that it gives the official more privacy than a fella in a private viewing booth at your local all-night. It’s silly that we have to wait for the referee to jog back and forth to the booth.

There’s no downside to doing things Chan’s way. The guy upstairs can get started looking at the replays faster. It’s his only responsibility. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be on top of everything, and already looking at replays of things before they’re even challenged.

Embrace the Chan plan, owners. We all deserve the Chan plan.

More news from the Yahoo! Sports Minute:

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Twice as many Netflix customers are streaming vs having discs mailed to them, but that doesn’t mean it should be difficult to manage a Netflix disc queue. ScanFLX, a nifty new $0.99 iOS app, makes it easier to add titles to your list of DVDs or Blu-Ray movies by using the camera on your device. Simply scan the barcode of a movie and with one tap, the title is added to your Netflix queue.

GottaBeMobile found the new app earlier today and says the $0.99 is a launch promotion. The iOS software is slated to sell for $1.99 at some future point. Even at two bucks, I think it’s well worth it, provided you still subscribe to Netflix for the physical discs.

The convenience really comes from wandering around the movie aisles at Target, WalMart, Best Buy or wherever DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are sold. Instead of trying to remember the interesting looking titles, taking photos of them or writing them down for later input to a Netflix queue, a simple barcode scan in ScanFLX does trick. You get a brief summary of the movie, the number of stars earned by reviewers and the option to add to a Netflix queue. Brilliant!

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You have to ask yourself whether HTC enjoys floundering. The company was doing so well, with an eye-catching range of appealing new devices that didn’t feel like yesterday’s hardware, along with the promise of a more proactive approach to software and services. Now it has dropped the bomb on HTCSense.com, its web-based hub for smartphones and tablets: after April 30, Sense online syncing of Contacts, Messages, Footprints and Call History will all be wiped out. There’s “renovation” incoming, HTC claims, but it’s hard to think of a much worse way that the company could’ve handled it.

I’ve been a vocal advocate of HTCSense.com in the past, and an equally vocal critic. The cloud service should’ve been the jewel in the company’s crown, a potent value-add to lure in new customers and a compelling reason to upgrade to another HTC handset for existing owners. Instead, after a loud inception and a long fallow period, Sense online shudders to a halt with hardly a whimper.

HTC insiders have been telling me that the company was planning a change to HTCSense.com for some time now. My mentioning the service has become a sort of refrain at every device briefing and product launch: “when will you be doing something with Sense online?” has been my refrain, and their “officially, no comment; unofficially, there are changes afoot” the inevitable answer.

Well, here are the changes, and who would’ve guessed yanking the plug was the best option. With the rise of Apple’s iCloud and HTC’s own struggles to differentiate on hardware alone against the comprehensive component options of, say, Samsung, a decent cloud sync service seems like an obvious thing to have. In fact it’s an advantage we’ve highlighted again and again, but it’s one that HTC has obviously decided it can do without.

Even the way HTC is handling the shutdown rankles. Yes, there’s a download of user-data, but frankly that’s the bare minimum it should be doing. It’s the complete hand-washing of service responsibility that is gobsmackingly awful. “If you would like phone location or backup services for your device,” the open letter to users reads, “please visit Google Play (formerly Android Market) and download an application that best meets your needs.”

“Did HTC give up without even searching the Play Market for alternative services?”

That’s it. No suggestions, no “why not try these links” or guidance to safe app choices. No prompted downloads from the on-device HTC appstore, something the company has previous championed as a great way for hand-picked developers to get extra attention. Did HTC decide there was no way it could pick between the range of apps out there or, more likely perhaps, did it simply give up without even searching the Play Market for location and backup services?

HTC promises new “services and value” in the pipeline, but exactly what they are is a poorly-handled mystery. Look at, for instance, the way Apple handled the MobileMe to iCloud transition: it didn’t spend time telling users about what was being taken away, but built enthusiasm about what was going to be added. HTC should’ve taken this opportunity to shout about its new, exciting functionality – especially on the eve of the One X and One S releases – but instead it merely told its loyal supporters that they were losing something.

Perhaps there’s magic ahead. Perhaps HTC has finally decided to do something Loudly Brilliant with OnLive, and Beats Audio, and HTC Watch. Perhaps there’s a MOG-powered cloud jukebox service coming, and user-created multimedia sharing, and more. We wouldn’t know, though, because HTC decided it was better to pull the plug on HTCSense.com before telling us how it was doing something so much better.

HTC makes no Sense is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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Imagine for a second that you’re John Elway. You’re in charge of building the Denver Broncos into a championship contender, and Tim Tebow is currently your quarterback. You like and admire Tebow, but you have doubts about whether or not he’ll develop into a legitimate passer, and if he can’t, that the Tebow run-option offense will work forever.

Still in Elway’s shoes, imagine what’s going to happen to you if you have Tim Tebow on the bench to start the 2012 season. You’ll spend the next six months scraping eggs off of every car on the lot at John Elway Chevrolet.

That is, unless, there’s some kind of mega-star quarterback available. Someone who’s mentioned in every conversation about the best quarterbacks to ever play the game. Someone against whom even the most devout Tebowite couldn’t argue.

And hey, look at that ‒ there happens to be such a quarterback available.

There’s no shortage of reports indicating that the Broncos are interested in Manning. Here are four of them.

[ Related: Peyton Manning free-agent firestorm could burn some team executives ]

If you’re one of the people who believe that Tim Tebow is not the long-term answer at quarterback, you can make a pretty good argument that Denver needs Peyton Manning worse than anyone else does. The Broncos are going to sign someone. If it’s not Manning, maybe it’s Alex Smith or Jason Campbell. Maybe Donovan McNabb. Maybe they bring Kyle Orton back.

Imagine the revolt if someone from that group starts over Tebow. Not just from the fans, but from the locker room, too. Denver’s season will be over before it starts. There is exactly one quarterback out there who gives the Broncos an upgrade at quarterback and squashes a Tebow-crazed revolt. Peyton Manning.

It might also be the best possible thing that can happen to Tebow. If you need to learn better throwing mechanics and the mental side of being a quarterback in the NFL, who better to observe than Peyton Manning? He’s the prototype. If reading defenses was reading books, then Peyton Manning would be this lady, and Tim Tebow would be Dexter Manley.

Maybe it’ll happen. Maybe it won’t. It might be a good idea for the people of Denver to start wrapping their heads around the idea, though.

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“Finance is not a very sexy category,” according to the designer of the iPad app StockTouch. It’s a somewhat ironic statement from Steve de Brun, since he’s designed the best-looking finance iPad app on the market. StockTouch, which provides interactive visualizations of current stock market information, is about more than just looking good. The three-person founding team at Visible Market, the company behind the app, has created a genuinely useful tool to understand at a glance how the stock market is doing over any period of time from a mobile device that not only consumers, but scads of workers are carrying around: the iPad.

StockTouch debuted at the iOS App Store in June 2011 for $4.99. By year’s end the company had spent many weeks as the No. 1 downloaded paid finance app in the App Store, and was named Best Finance iPad App of the year by Apple. To date, there have been about 30,000 downloads, according to de Brun.

What’s so great about it

StockTouch is visually very pleasing, and the ease of interacting with it makes understanding complicated financial information a snap. It’s also successful in its ability to present users with the big picture of the world of finance at any given moment. You get a grid of 900 of the largest U.S. companies, separated into the nine main industry sectors: finance, tech, healthcare, consumer goods, utilities, etc. The layout acts as a heat map, showing you the winners and losers of the moment, in real time (provided you’re connected to the web). Red indicates a stock is down, green indicates it’s up. A touchscreen slider lets you view the changes over the last day, week, month, three months, six months, a year or five years. The transitions are smooth, and as you bring up different screens, you get a pleasing audible feedback “ding.”

What StockTouch does is tap into an important trend we’re seeing with tablets — and that for now means the iPad — using the touchscreen device to create beautiful data visualizations that become interactive (subscription required) with a few taps or zooms. With StockTouch you can zoom in to see specific industries or companies. As you dig into the app and more data fills the screen, you get more information about the company or stock. You can also customize how you view the data: you can view the heat map in a spiral of largest to smallest companies, in descending order of best-performing to least, by stocks with the most activity, or alphabetically.

How they did it

The stock market data powering StockTouch comes from a fellow Silicon Valley startup, Xignite, which provides data as a service. The data from Xignite is slurped up in raw form by StockTouch, which then does historical analysis, compresses the information and sends it to their own Amazon S3 server, and the app gets the information from there.

The team that pulls this off is pretty lean: de Brun is the designer and person in charge of user experience. His background is not actually in finance, but he has a history of working in digital media and other tech startups that dabbled in information visualization over the years. And he sees a new opportunity with the sheer amount of data we can have access to right now.

“The finance side is out of curiosity and a desire to get information into people’s hands in a more democratic way,” he said. “For many years on Wall Street, people who were in the know had access [to information] that people in the general public didn’t have access to. And we believe with what we’re doing … that it’s more healthy for the markets the more you democratize any type of information, let alone financial information.”

The developer of the app is John Morris, an iOS app maker with a gaming background. You wouldn’t think gaming and finance go together, but for creating new ways of interacting with data, StockTouch is inspired by physics-based iOS games like World of Goo, that employ more natural user-interaction modes. ”Games don’t have a lot of data [visualization], but they have cool ways of manipulating [information] and are ergonomically advanced,” de Brun explained. “It’s much more human in terms of response times and sensitivity.”

Jennifer Johnson is the CEO of Visible Market, and she’s made sure they’ve been able to rise to the top of the iOS charts, with the help of friends and family angel investors, who’ve thrown in some $700,000 toward the company so far. StockTouch is just the first of a cluster of planned finance apps for iPad.

What’s next

Right now, the people that are most excited about the app are “retail investors,” says de Brun. “But people in financial institutions really like what we’re doing,” so Visible Market is working with companies to help them figure out ways to present and visualize their own financial information in a similar manner as StockTouch — making StockTouch more of a platform than a one-off app.

What the interest level in this app and dozens of other mobile data visualization apps that are hitting the market tell us is that people like to be able to look at raw data in ways that are visual and fun. And they like the ability to dive into the information themselves and draw their own conclusions. Luckily, there is so much more to come in this area, de Brun believes.

“We are just at the very beginning of the cool stuff people are going to be seeing. Whether financial info or business intelligence or data visualization on a consumer level, we’re just seeing the first seedlings of ideas,” said de Brun. “In three to five years everything will be built on these early ideas. People will have the expectation that you can move manipulate and dive into data.”

For more about iPad-based data visualization apps like StockTouch, see my GigaOM Pro report, 4 iPad apps to wrangle data (subscription required).

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