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Facebook tests split News Feed that keeps friends front and center
Facebook is currently testing a new dual-feed setup that separates Page-generated posts from ads and posts from friends, The Guardian reports. The trial is currently underway in six countries -- Bolivia, Guatemala, Cambodia, Slovakia, Serbia and Sri Lanka.
A WWDC keynote would be the longest gap between events ever
Jay Yarow's done the homework and determined that if Apple takes the stage as expected at WWDC, it'll be 230 days from the last big Apple event. That would make this the longest wait for a new Apple event ever, at least since the iPad's launch in 2010. The previous record was 132 days between the launch of the MacBook Air and the iPad 2, so this wait trumps that by at least three months. Yarow cites that wait over at Business Insider for the recent drop in Apple's stock price, and indeed, you can see on the line above that Apple's stock does seem to line up to the reveal events. But there are a lot of factors going into that stock price. The difference in event timing could just be attributed to CEO Tim Cook -- as Yarow notes, he's a very different person from Steve Jobs. Cook has suggested that the company could be a little more careful about new product releases, in order to line up more sales when the release actually arrives. Whatever the reason, it seems very likely that Apple will host an event at WWDC in June, if not before. It's unknown if that event will feature new hardware. Usually Apple uses the WWDC event to show off new version of iOS and OS X. But considering the wait, it seems likely Apple has something to show us.
How the iPhone surprise was almost given away by Steve Jobs
Apple's curtain of secrecy surrounding new products is almost legendary, but a former Apple employee passed along a story to Business Insider's Seth Fiegerman about how the secret of the iPhone was almost revealed to the world -- by Steve Jobs. The setting for the story was at the house of Steve Jobs in early 2007, described by the employee as "a no man's land for WiFi, with thick walls." The iPhone team was trying to debug issues with Wi-Fi on an early build of the device, and finally went to Jobs' house to figure out what was happening. As the team began to debug the issue, "this crazy ass medieval buzzer starts going off and startles us, and even startles Steve. He quickly figured out it was coming from the pedestrian gate on the other side of his house." The story continues -- "Up walks the happiest FedEx guy you have ever seen, coming up to the door. It's not Steve's normal guy, which is why he was surprised. So Steve goes out to meet him because he has to sign for this package, but he's got the iPhone in one of his hands. Steve just walks out casually, drops the phone behind his back, signs the package, and the FedEx dude marches off." The Apple employee explains that "when we carried the phones to his house, we carried them in these Pelican lock boxes. These phones were never to leave Apple's campus, and Steve just casually throws it behind his back. That was the first time I saw someone casually come close to seeing the iPhone before it was announced, and he didn't even know it. If the FedEx guy had just tilted his head, he would have seen it." It's not quite as good a story as leaving an iPhone prototype in a bar, but almost. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; } #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Video of Siri working perfectly for users with a variety of accents
Are you excited about Siri? If so, this video on Stuff.tv is going to knock your socks off. In the video, users ask Siri to open a website, send an IM to someone, ask it about the weather both locally and in San Francisco, set an alarm, do some currency conversions, and find the distance to the Moon. Be sure to watch the end of the video, where a young woman asks "Is it going to rain tomorrow?" and Siri responds with "Looking at London weather, it doesn't look like it's going to rain tomorrow." It's obvious in the video that the users switch between the English-US and English-UK settings, as Siri's accent goes between American and British depending on the speaker. In every case, Siri provides a correct answer and does an amazing job of taking dictation. When Siri isn't exactly sure, it responds "This might answer your question." It certainly works much better than this voice recognition. I ... can't ... wait!
"iPhone dead in water," claims Business Insider
Henry Blodget at Business Insider has posted about Comscore's latest smartphone market share survey: "Apple's share increased slightly, but is dead in the water and has now fallen way behind Android. Android now has a third of the US market (33%). RIM's share has plummeted to 29%. Apple is holding at 25%." The Android market share figure for the quarter before, Sep-Nov 2010, was just 25%, so it certainly shows a sharp increase. Blodget's article is incredibly linkbaity from start to end, but the underlying Comscore data is interesting nevertheless. Is it true that "Apple fans should be scared to death," as Blodget surmises, though? His contention is that, with a higher (and growing) market share, app developers will soon come to prefer Android as their main platform and iOS will gradually whither away as it becomes more and more of an afterthought. Although not impossible, I'd suggest this is quite unlikely and (even if Blodget is correct and the mobile market will converge onto a single OS) it is far, far too soon to say which OS that will be. Firstly, consider that despite Android's rising market share Apple owned 83% of all mobile transactions in 2010. This has led many to suggest that Android users simply don't like paying for apps, which might be true; there are many mid-range Android handsets marketed at cost-conscious consumers, whereas the iPhone is a resolutely expensive device. Google, as an advertising-driven firm, would also perhaps prefer to have an app store full of free apps that show its adverts, rather than one full of premium apps.
Apple's Ping among Business Insider's tech flops of 2010
Business Insider lists Ping among the 15 biggest flops in tech for 2010. The reason for this listing is that Ping was launched with a great deal of publicity, but it still hasn't gained much of a foothold in the hearts and minds of its users. Business Insider cites the reminder mail about Ping, sent earlier this month, as evidence that Ping has failed. I'm not sure there's anyone jumping up and down about what a crazy, unbelievable success Ping has been, but the service has only been around since September. I don't think three months is enough time to count Apple out of the social network game, especially when we know they're still working to smooth things out with Facebook. While Ping hasn't set the world on fire in 2010, here's hoping it gets some traction and real motion in 2011.
iPad owners' usage increasing over time
Business Insider recently surveyed 500 iPad users about their habits with some interesting results. Among the most interesting is that nearly 80 percent of respondents (77.6) said they use their iPads more often now than they did when they first got them, suggesting that, after the novelty had worn off, customers continued to use their iPads. Even more so, in fact. The study also found that 71 percent of participants use their iPads between one and five hours per day. Additionally, 28.9 percent said that their iPad has become their primary computer. Personally, I use mine as a supplement, but my wife hasn't touched our MacBook Pro since the iPad came home. Most participants reported spending the bulk of their iPad time browsing the Web (37.7 percent) while 39.4 percent claim to have downloaded between 20 and 50 apps (most people paid for about 10 apps). There's more, of course, which you can read here. It's an interesting study with a decent-sized sample.
WSJ says iPads gaining acceptance in corporations
The past few weeks have been fascinating for Apple watchers. The business press has been reporting that the brand, formerly a pariah in the buttoned-down world of corporate IT, is now being accepted with open arms. We had a story yesterday about the growth of Mac sales in the government and enterprise markets, and now the Wall Street Journal is reporting on how the iPad is finding a home in the business world. In the WSJ Tech piece, reporter Ben Worthen notes how the iPhone was banned by companies when it first came out in 2007 for being inappropriate for the workplace. The iPad, however, has been quickly embraced by companies. One such success story cited in the WSJ piece talks about Chicago-based law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP. The company pre-ordered 10 iPads prior to the release of the device in April so that they could learn how iPads could be used with the company's internal systems. The technology department at the firm now supports more than 50 attorneys with iPads, and they plan on issuing iPads as a less-expensive alternative to laptops soon.
BusinessInsider insists Android is the new Windows. Again.
There's an old saying, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." For Henry Blodget of Business Insider, perhaps we should change it to "When all you have is a comparison between Windows and Mac OS from the 1980s, every situation looks like a repeat." In an article entitled Hey, Apple, Wake Up from January 5th, 2010, Mr. Blodget compared the "iPhone vs Android" market to "Mac OS vs Windows" of the 1980s. I missed the article the first time, but that turns out to be OK because 6 months later (almost to the day) he's written the same article again, but this time with a chart! Featuring a headline that couldn't be any more link-baiting if it included LeBron James' free agency choice or Lindsay Lohan's ice cream card, This Android Chart Should Scare the Bejesus Out of Apple rehashes what is almost exactly the same article ("NEW AND IMPROVED! NOW CONTAINS REFERENCES TO THE iPad!") and ends with a chart showing "Percent Of Developers That Have Developed For Each Mobile Platform" showing Android in the lead over iPhone/iOS. The body of the article links not once but twice to his previous article, plus a callout box to his previous article (which also links to another article about the same chart), and at the end of the article, in case you missed it, there is a "See Also" link which will bring you back to -- wait for it -- the same article he wrote back in January. Memo to H. Blodget: Saying the same thing over and over again does not automagically grant it the mantle of truth.
Gene Munster: 2010 is the "Year of the Mac," sales up significantly
When Gene Munster talks, people listen. The Piper Jaffray analyst delivered one of his missives this morning stating that his analysis of Mac retail sales in the U.S., based on numbers tracked by NPD Group, are up about 26% year-over-year for the December quarter. This is higher than the average Wall Street estimate of 19% year-over-year growth. What does that mean in terms of units sold? Munster, who is not pictured at right, believes that translates to about 3.1 million Macs sold in the U.S. last quarter. Munster's last estimate was for Apple to sell around 2.9 million Macs, so even his own estimates are turning out to be somewhat conservative. Munster believes that Street estimates for 2010 will need to come up. The Street shows about 14% year-over-year growth in Mac sales this year, which is well below the 20% or so growth that Apple is demonstrating. In his note, Munster wrote that "2010 is shaping up to be the year of the Mac." Munster concluded his note with a statement that he's confident in his estimate of 9.3 million iPhone shipments last quarter. We'll all find out for sure on Monday, when Apple reports the actual December quarter results. We'll liveblog the financial fun right here on TUAW, so stay tuned next week. [via Business Insider]
