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Telefonica partners with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and RIM for global carrier billing
Making a half dozen attempts to guess your login info or typing each digit of a credit card account certainly can get in the way of following through on impulse purchases, which is exactly how you'd categorize FarmVille cash or a featured flick that you know you may not have time to watch within the month. The solution is carrier billing, eliminating those precious seconds between impulse and reconsideration, and Telefonica has just signed on to offer the service to Facebook, Google, Microsoft and RIM account holders. The partnerships will enable O2 users in Germany or Movistar subscribers in Spain to charge purchases to their mobile phone accounts, for example -- in total, 14 Telefonica subsidiaries should be up and running with carrier billing by the end of the year, though some services, such as Google Play and Facebook, have already begun to roll out. Click through to the PR after the break for the full breakdown.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me track my iTunes spending
Dear Aunt TUAW, Pardon the OCD question here, but I have not been able to find an adequate answer. Every time I purchase an item from Apple, I get an email listing the item and the price I paid. I have hundreds of these emails saved. Is there a tool that will parse them and summarize how much I spent on each app? There are tools that look at what you currently have in your apps folder (which may or may not be all of them) and indicates the current price on the app store (which may or may not be what you paid), but this is not what I am looking for. I would like to extract a full list of what I paid from the return emails. All Apple will suggest is that you tediously click in iTunes through hundreds of receipts, and even then, there is no way to copy (export) the text from iTunes. All you can do is screen shot one receipt at a time. How can I get a full list of my purchases? Help me, Auntie TUAW. You're my only hope! Your loving nephew, Sterling Dear Sterling, Auntie doesn't have good news for you here. She contacted Apple directly to see if she could request a sales history list in a more common form, like CSV. iTunes already uses this format for vendors, allowing them to review sales. Unfortunately, she got nowhere. With names and emails changed to protect the innocent, here's what iTunes support replied: I understand that you would like a spread sheet of your purchases by month wise or year wise. I will be happy to assist you further. Auntie, I am sorry to inform you that we would not be able to send any information as requested by you. Please review your purchase history for further help and let me inform you that I was unable to locate your account "auntie@tuaw.com". This was followed by standard instructions on how to use View My Account in iTunes. You can find a number of parsing solutions on this Ask MetaFilter discussion thread that may help with your archived emails (although the point of the discussion was on categorizing apps, not purchases in general). Auntie doesn't have your archive (she groups her work purchases by month via her credit card statement) so was unable to test them. Best of luck! Hugs, Auntie T.
Ask Massively: Big questions deserve big answers edition
Some questions are just too good to leave to my sole discretion. I like to think that I can provide a reasonable response to a number of questions, but I also think there are some questions that merit more opinions. Case in point: a question last week from potaco about whether or not it's harder to focus on a single game instead of several games as a Massively employee. So I'm consolidating responses from the whole team right now, and we'll have an answer to that question this week. This week's Ask Massively is still packed, however, with questions about getting a new computer for World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic as well as whether or not Guild Wars 2 will provide credible competition for other games when it launches. If you've got a question you would like to see answered in a future installment of the column, mail it along to ask@massively.com or leave it in the comments below. Questions may be edited slightly for brevity and/or clarity.
Audible removing in-app purchases according to Apple's rules
We've seen quite a bit of squabbling over the subscription and in-app purchase for content rules on the App Store in the past, but generally, things have tended to go Apple's way. Most companies, especially those who really depend on the iOS audience for buying their content, are eventually willing to put up with Apple's 30% cut of any content prices sold through an App Store app. But that's not the case with Audible, sellers of fine audiobooks for your iPhone and iPod touch -- the company has pulled the option to buy content directly through the app in the iOS version's latest update. iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users can still shop through the mobile store via Safari -- there's even a link inside the app that will open up the online store in your device's browser. So essentially, Audible's just working around Apple's restrictions here. Which make Apple's restrictions look a little silly, but the goal of course is to get that cut off of all content bought in the App Store. It's a shame Audible's customers have to deal with that extra inconvenience, though.
HP pays $10.4 billion for controlling interest in Autonomy, which will remain autonomous
VoodooPC. 3Com. And, perhaps most notoriously, Palm. The list of HP acquisitions grows by one today, with the purchase of UK information-software maker Autonomy, long a target of former HP chief Léo Apotheker. Apotheker, you may recall, was just ousted in favor of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. The deal began during Apotheker's tenure and went through with HP paying just about $10.4 billion for a controlling percentage of Autonomy stock. The UK firm will remain a separate unit, with Whitman saying, "Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making." Something tells us she's not the only one hoping for some better decision making. For full details on HP's latest buy, check the source link.
Developers get Google Wallet on original Nexus S, squares wiping your phone with $10
Previously the exclusive phone-swiping domain of Sprint's Nexus S 4G, it now seems possible to get the wonders of Google wallet on its decidedly 3G predecessor. However, it's not an operation for the faint-hearted. If the words Cyanogen, full wipe, flash and kernel resemble white noise, it's probably worth waiting for an official release. See how the forum members at XDA Developers got their NFC wallet fix at the link below. [Thanks, John]
Engadget giveaway: win one of five Nexus S 4G phones with $1,000 Google Wallet credit!
We're pretty excited about Google Wallet, but the service is currently only available for Nexus S 4G phone owners, leaving most of you waiting for broader implementation. Well, how would you like to skip the line, getting to test it out on a Nexus S 4G of your very own? Google has supplied us with five phones to give away -- the company is even throwing in $1,000 (yes, one THOUSAND dollars) of prepaid credit to help fund those first few dozen taps. There's one catch: you'll need to use your Nexus S 4G with a Sprint plan, though the carrier is throwing in one month of demo service to get you started. Check out our in-depth preview for a detailed look at the service, and simply leave a comment after the break to be entered to win -- after checking that you meet the entry requirements, of course.
A week with Google Wallet (video)
Contactless payments have been something of a curiosity in the credit card industry. MasterCard's PayPass has been around for the better part of a decade, but merchants and banks alike seem hesitant to adopt the technology required to make the system work, and inconsistent implementation adds to the confusion -- particularly for customers. Google's new mobile phone-based Wallet service has the potential to transform the technology from its current status as a transaction turkey, to a future as a checkout champion. But will it work? We spent a week with a Wallet-enabled Nexus S 4G, using the device to pay whenever we encountered a MasterCard PayPass terminal. Unfortunately, that wasn't often enough, limiting us to just a handful of transactions in the first week. Still, with Google just beginning to roll out the service and only a limited selection of launch partners ready to go, it's impossible to deliver a complete verdict just yet. Jump past the break for an inside look at Google Wallet, including a video of the service in action, and a brief look at what the world of contactless payments may look like in the future.%Gallery-130759%
The Daily Grind: What F2P game should offer a sub?
Free-to-play games, with or without a subscription option, have become the business model darling of the MMOsphere. There's no shortage of games that have switched over to the model, and certainly no dearth of games in testing and preparing for launch that do the same. But there are games whose free-to-play nature either doesn't quite fit or actively hampers enjoyment, such as the Allods Online death penalty, which many players felt enforced a de facto subscription price. Naturally, designers need to give players some incentives to drop money on the game -- you can't run an MMO for free, and most designers like to live indoors and not get eaten by wolves. But is there a game where you feel the core game would be improved if it didn't need a price tag mechanic? Is there a game among the legions of free-to-play titles that you'd rather see as a subscription title? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Younger audiences play more freemium games, but 25-34 year-olds pay for them
Flurry's latest post is yet another interesting read on freemium games on the App Store, specifically which age groups are playing them, and which age groups are paying for them. They've used consumer spending data across over 1.4 billion sessions, which means this information is as accurate as you're going to get outside of Apple's own databases. As you can see above, the patterns are interesting. Younger players are the primary users of freemium games, and that's not really surprising -- we've known for a while that the younger generation is downloading and playing more games than anyone else. But that third blue bar is the really interesting one: The people actually paying for freemium games are primarily in the 25-34 age group, right in the middle of the demographics. Sure, they're playing their share of the games, but freemium titles are almost completely funded by that stripe of the age demographic. And when you consider that the average freemium title only really pulls in-app purchases from a small percentage of its audience anyway, that age group becomes even more important. This seems logical, as most successful in-app purchase items are for convenience and time-saving. The 25-34 age group has more money but not as much free time as the younger audience, and thus are willing to shell out for items that help them in the game. But the big question is whether this will change as the years go by. As the younger audience gets older, will they become the main payers for these titles, or just stay the main players? We've only been playing with this model for a few years, and if the younger audience keeps playing without paying, freemium could be a short-lived trend.
Tiny Tower picks up a million downloads in four days
Developer Ian Marsh of NimbleBit has been sharing some interesting facts and figures on Twitter about his new app Tiny Tower. Perhaps the most impressive overall is that the pixelated freemium tower simulation game has already gained a million players, despite only being on the App Store for four days. There's a large amount of engagement with these users as well; Marsh has also tweeted that each user is logging in for a number of different sessions during the day (the game encourages you to come back often to re-stock the various stores in your tower). That's added up to a lot of playtime -- over a quarter century and counting. Perhaps most importantly for NimbleBit, Tiny Tower is seeing about 2.6 percent of its users actually invest in in-app purchases, which is about double the standard amount for Marsh's other big freemium title, Pocket Frogs. Obviously NimbleBit hasn't released actual dollars earned, but you can do the math to know that there's some money coming in already. On a less-serious note, Marsh also tweeted something he calls "Tiny Tower Game Boy edition," basically just a grayscale graphics mode for the game. That's likely something that came up in development, but maybe NimbleBit is working on some new graphical styles (Update: Nope, NimbleBit was just messing around in Camera+. Oh well.). There is one update already out for approval (mostly bug fixes), and there's surely more to come.
iTunes moves to the iCloud, re-download of purchases now possible
Apple announced iCloud today at WWDC and with it the ability to re-download your previously purchased music. Re-downloading of 256 Kbps AAC tracks is now possible for the first time from iTunes, meaning that you can purchase your music once and download it to every device you own (up to 10 devices total), without any additional charge. Like apps and books, music also doesn't count against your 5 GB iCloud storage space. You simply search through your purchased music in iTunes and hit that cute little cloud icon to initiate the download. What's more, Apple has included Automatic Downloads for iOS in the mix, meaning that free and purchased music will be automatically pushed to any device you have connected to the Internet. Buy it on your iPhone and have it pushed to your iPad. Simple. We'll be going in-depth into the new iTunes Match subscription service in a few minutes.
Android Market gets in-app billing, your virtual nickels are now spoken for
Google said they were coming this week, and here they are -- Android apps can now have their own miniature storefronts for in-app purchases galore. You'll find Tap Tap Revenge, Comics, Gun Bros, Deer Hunter Challenge HD, WSOP3 and Dungeon Defenders: FW Deluxe accept your credit card for microtransactions starting this very instant, and Android developers can start building similar functionality into their own creations right now. Head on over to our source link for instructions on how to shake those extra coins out. Don't want to commit to a full transaction yourself? Hit the break for a quick video refresher of how in-app purchases work. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Android in-app billing coming next week, starts developer testing today
Google promised us the ability to buy stuff while inside Android apps, and sure enough, it's now just about ready to deliver it. Eric Chu, responsible for the company's Android Developer Ecosystem, has announced app submissions are now being accepted from those wanting to offer up purchasable items within their software. He also points out there'll be about a week's worth of internal testing before the whole system opens up to the public, likely before the end of the month so that Google may stick to its word of rolling out the service in the first quarter of this year. Once that's done, you'll finally be able to buy your way to in-game glory instead of having to grind away at it like some unenlightened schmo.
Apple doubles down on in-app purchasing security in iOS 4.3, password now required
As you might recall, a certain game was racking up credit card bills because of its in-app purchases -- something which probably resulted in some angry parents (or as the folks in Finland say, "birds"). In Apple's latest iOS update, a feature has been implemented that requires the user to input their password whenever an in-app purchase is made. Will this new security measure actually prevent those children from purchasing hundreds worth of virtual fruit? A big boon for grown-ups, a big downer for those who no longer have an excuse to explain their Smurfberry obsession.
NPD at GDC: PC retail to grow, physical and digital purchase gap closing
PC gaming is set to grow in 2010, according to NPD's Michael Klotz. Klotz hosted a panel here at GDC Online 2010 this afternoon, and said that expected growth can be attributed to two things: StarCraft 2 and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. PC revenue has reached $303 million as of August this year, and Klotz expects the WoW expansion to put the total over the top of last year's $538 million. Klotz also talked about the ongoing transition of customers simply buying physical copies of games to buying both physical discs and digital downloads. In terms of revenue, physical sales still outweigh the digital side, but digital purchases (including both full game purchases and DLC) have overtaken bought discs in terms of numbers. That means, said Klotz, that physical purchases are still selling at full price, while customers are paying much less for digital games, either because of sales or because they're buying casual or just cheaper titles online. Klotz credited Rock Band for pioneering the digital move -- lots of players weren't sure about digital purchases until they saw how seamlessly the Rock Band Marketplace worked, and then they were OK with downloading games and game content. Finally, Klotz shared an interesting stat: Physical point cards (like those for Microsoft points on Xbox Live) have overtaken gamepads as the largest accessory category for game retail in just the past six months. As long as he could remember, Klotz said, game controllers have always been the best selling game accessory, with power cables next on the list. But cards for DLC are now on top of the charts after a 37 percent increase in the past year, showing just how important it is for game retailers to try and get a piece of that pie.
Android is number one OS among US phone buyers over the last six months
BlackBerry OS? Dead! iOS? Dead! Symbian? Never stood a chance. Android's exponential growth has today been illustrated by Nielsen's statisticians who present us with the above chart of recent US smartphone purchases. It shows that over the six months leading up to August 2010, 32 percent of American new phone buyers had grabbed themselves a device with Google's OS on board, which is comfortably ahead of RIM at 26 percent and Apple at 25 percent. These results corroborate NPD's figures on the matter -- which peg Android at 33 percent of new US purchases -- and reiterate the idea that Android is headed to a place whose name starts with D and ends with omination. One more chart showing total market share can be found after the break (hint: BlackBerry still reigns supreme overall).
The Daily Grind: Are you buying Final Fantasy XIV?
In the relative drought of new releases for 2010, Final Fantasy XIV may look to some like a shining beacon. Beyond even that, it might look like a beacon even if the year was filled to bursting. Crafting classes, active combat, and the unique flavor that Square-Enix puts into a game all wrapped up in one system-intensive package. Of course, there are several people who look at the indisputably uncommon control scheme, early-game bugs, or even just the flavor of the game and see it as the exact opposite of a beacon. Today isn't the full release of the game, but anyone who purchased the collector's edition will get to log in starting today with an eight-day head start. Whether or not you decided to spring for the pricier edition, we have to ask -- are you planning on buying Final Fantasy XIV? Are you going to buy at launch, or do you plan to wait until more of the kinks have been ironed out? Or are you holding out for the PS3 release early next year?
Disney acquires social game firm Playdom
Stick with me on this one -- it's not strictly Apple-related, but I think it will have a big effect on the App Store in the future. Last week at Comic-Con, I saw the head of Disney's mobile gaming division, and I had to congratulate him; the company's Toy Story 3 app nabbed over 1.7 million downloads from the App Store. That's huge for them; as he'd originally told me at GDC earlier this year, the Toy Story app was part of a test to see if "selling" an app for free would increase its audience (which could then be sold on in-app purchases and add-on content). That test was apparently passed with flying colors. Then, of course, Disney purchased Tapulous a while back, and now they've picked up Playdom, an online social game developer, for a whopping $563 million. Connect the dots there, and it's pretty apparent that Disney has big plans for both gaming and the App Store. Social networking games are the hottest thing around in terms of in-app purchases, so I would not be at all surprised to see Disney combine its brands and marketing experience with Playdom's online gaming savvy and Tapulous' iPhone development talent in order to go big on some major free-to-play titles for the iPad and iPhone. And let's not forget that a certain black-turtlenecked CEO happens to be on Disney's board of directors, too. I doubt that he's solely masterminding any of these purchases, but Jobs would definitely have the access and intelligence to see the power of free downloads on the App Store, and how those apps can use programs like iAds and in-app purchases to make a big splash. I expect we'll see some really big initiatives by Disney thanks to these Tapulous and Playdom purchases -- it's only a matter of time.
iAds uses iTunes history, location information to target advertising
We've heard about this before, but now that it's up and running, this is probably worth a revisit. Apple's iAds system actually uses lots of your information, including your iTunes purchasing history, location data, and any other download or library information it can suss out about you, to determine what ads you see. So say a few marketing firms working with the large companies now buying and selling iAds. A recent series of ads for soap was able to target "married men who are in their late 30s and have children." That's very specific, and when Apple rolls out the full program, it'll even be able to use things like iBooks purchases and iTunes movie and TV downloads to target you with advertising. Is there anything wrong with that? Not really. Apple isn't running the only targeted advertising network, of course, and the whole problem with analytics firms like Flurry is that they were tracking and sharing this information anyway through third-party apps. Apple also isn't sharing your personal information; it's just connecting you with advertisers who want to speak with you, not actually telling those advertisers who you are. Apple knows what you've purchased in iTunes, but that information isn't necessarily communicated to Nissan or Best Buy. If you're still worried about iAds, though, Apple does offer a way to opt-out of sharing your location or purchase information; you can go to https://oo.apple.com/ in your iOS 4 device's browser and register to opt-out of that kind of targeting. You will still see iAds, but Apple won't use your personal information to choose them for you.
