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Mobile apps leaving the web behind in usage
Mobile ad company Flurry has released a new analysis on its official blog stating that customers are making the transition lately from using the mobile web to spending more of their daily time in mobile apps. In the early days of smartphone prominence (and by "early days," we mean about three years ago), the main feature on mobile phones was the web. You could check email, look up web pages, or browse the web on your smartphone, and that's how most people used them. Since the rise of iOS, however, mobile apps are picking up that time spent. And as you can see from the chart above, customers are now putting more time into mobile apps (about 9 percent more, it turns out) than browsing the mobile web. It should be noted that both stats are still growing -- customers are spending more time on mobile phones than ever. But mobile app usage is growing even faster. It's not hard to see why this is, either. Mobile apps are maturing quickly, and it's easier to get information from many of them now than it was just browsing around the web. Mobile apps also offer features like offline access and other things that the web doesn't, so this shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone.
Apple has more cash than most mobile phone manufacturers combined
Horace Deidu of Asymco did some number crunching and calculated the enterprise values of the major mobile phone manufacturers, including Apple. Apple $70 billion Nokia $22.6 billion RIM $13.8 billion HTC $25.4 billion Motorola Mobility $4.2 billion Sony Ericsson $3.0 billion Samsung $53 billion LG $10 billion When all is said and done, Apple has enough cash and liquid assets to buy every phone manufacturer except for Samsung. As companies like Nokia and RIM continue to decline, Apple's cash could increase to the point where it can gobble up Samsung, too. Obviously, regulators would not let this happen, but it's still fun to think about.
Shocker! Gamer behavior is actually quite predictable
Isn't it curious how you always crack open a beer before settling in for some GTA? Or how you tend to put an anxious hand over your wallet when logging onto PSN? No soldier, it is not curious. Not at all. But this is: Researchers at North Carolina State University claim they've found a way to predict your in-game behavior with "up to 80 percent accuracy." After analyzing the decision-making of 14,000 World of Warcraft players, they noticed that different players prefer different types of achievements. These preferred achievements clump together into statistically significant groups, known as "cliques", even if they have nothing obvious in common. So a WoW player who likes to improve their unarmed combat skills also, for some psychological reason, tends to want points for world travel. What's more, the researchers believe that clique-spotting can be exploited outside the rather specific world of WoW, in which case their method could prove lucrative to game designers, online retailers and pretty much anyone with an interest in predicting your next move. Want to know more? Then we predict you'll click the PR after the break.
Report indicates iOS users stick with platform due to 'lock-in effect'
Citing a report from research2guidance, GigaOM notes that Apple's market share of app downloads reversed the backward slide that began in 2009 and recently increased by 2 percent. This is a far cry from the doom n' gloom predictions many pundits have been espousing for Apple's platform, and it shows that Google's Android Marketplace still has a long way to go before unseating Apple's App Store. The report speculates that a "lock-in effect" is partially responsible for users sticking with Apple's platform. iOS users, whether they're iPhone, iPod touch or iPad owners, tend to download a large number of apps, with a fairly high percentage of those apps being paid versions. The higher number of paid apps a user downloads, the more likely it is that user will stick with the same platform. This makes perfect sense; if you're like me and you've got a couple hundred bucks worth of apps on your various devices, that's a lot of inertia to overcome if you decide you want to switch platforms. When you flip it around and look at things from the Android perspective, things don't look as rosy. GigaOM recently cited research from Distimo that showed paid downloads represent a truly minuscule proportion of total app downloads from the Android Market. 79.3 percent of paid apps on the Android platform have been downloaded less than 100 times, and only 4.6 percent of paid apps were downloaded more than 1000 times. A 2010 Distimo report (again cited from GigaOM) noted that Android users download a disproportionately large number of free apps compared to the iOS platform, and that trend doesn't appear to be reversing. The end result is that for all we hear from various tech pundits about Android's ascending smartphone market share being the only metric that matters, other numbers are showing that not only are users more likely to stick with iOS due to app 'lock-in,' Apple's App Store also remains a more attractive market for app developers who actually want to make money with paid apps. CNNMoney's analysis of the same Distimo report paints a very stark picture: of 72,000 paid apps on the Android platform, only two have sold more than 500,000 (but less than one million) copies over the history of the platform. Contrast that with six paid applications generating 500,000 or more downloads just in the US version of the iPhone's App Store in March and April alone. How many paid apps have you downloaded for your iOS device, and do you consider that an impediment to switching platforms? Let us know in the comments.
Metaphor recognition software aims to distinguish friend from foe
While it's only right that people be protected from bad poetry, this could be taking things a tad too far. Intelligence officials at the Office of Incisive Analysis (no, really) have determined that metaphors could be of vital significance to national security. By, well, incisively analyzing the way people use metaphors in everyday conversations, they believe they can reveal "underlying beliefs and world views" -- such as negative feelings towards a particular country. Now they're calling on civilian scientists and academics to help them do this automatically using pattern recognition and supercomputers. Of course there's always the risk that smart terrorists will switch to using similes instead.
NVIDIA CEO disappointed by Android tablet sales, blames pricing and poor app selection
It won't have escaped your attention that just about every Honeycomb tablet shipping in the first half of this year features, or will feature, NVIDIA's Tegra 2 hardware. Unfortunately for NVIDIA, reception for the Android 3.0 slates has been a little underwhelming, and the company's Chief Eloquence Officer, Jen-Hsun Huang, has had a few words to say about it. He sees the relative paucity of tablet-optimized Android apps as a weakness, while also expressing the belief that cheaper WiFi-only models should've been the standard shipping config rather than fully fledged 3G / 4G variants as Motorola has been pushing with the Xoom. All in all, his is a very sane and accurate analysis, but Mr. Huang loves to look to the future as much as he enjoys talking about the present, and in his opinion all these major downsides have already been "largely addressed" by "a new wave" of Android tablets. He doesn't specify the devices that constitute said wave, but his emphasis on thinness and lightness leads us to believe he's talking up Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 models. Hit the source links to read more from the bronzed stallion in charge of NVIDIA.
Mythos Europe attracts 250,000 players in two weeks, throws double XP weekend
It's only been 15 days since Mythos Europe launched, but the resurrected action MMO is already seeing impressive results. According to Frogster, over 250,000 players have jumped into the game for some hectic hack-n-slash fun. The company also provided some revealing statistics as it monitored its quarter-million playerbase. Apparently, the most popular class is the Bloodletter (40% of players), followed by the Pyromancer (32%) and Gadgeteer (28%). A full third of the playerbase chose the human race, with 28% going over to the Gremlins, 27% to the Satyrs, and 15% to the Cyclops. Finally, 66% of the characters created are male. So if you want to be a rarity, rolling a female Cyclops Gadgeteer is the way to go! To celebrate this auspicious milestone, Frogster is rewarding its enthusiastic players with double XP for quests and monster kills this weekend. You can catch all of Mythos' double XP action from now until Monday at 12:00 p.m. EDT.
Deep thoughts: Why Android's market share doesn't matter
According to Nielsen numbers released today, Android phones now represent over half of the US smartphone market. That's certainly worth noting. Then again, at least as far as Apple goes, Android's market share doesn't matter as much as pundits today seem to be emphasizing. To understand Android is to acknowledge convenience. I know many, many people with Android phones -- and they are, practically to a one, completely content with their purchase, with their service and so forth. These are not people looking for a magical and revolutionary device. They wanted web access, email and a camera on their phone -- at an affordable price -- and they got it. To talk about market share is to ask the wrong question because market share, in some sense, isn't the end-all and be-all of the mobile space. The better question is this: is iOS growing? And the answer, as you already know, is "yes." Developer engagement also matters, and there's no simple formula there: factor in the raw number of devices, sure (not forgetting iPod touch and iPad), but also consider the willingness of owners to open their wallets and the relative strengths of the app ecosystems. Apple is already winning hearts, wallets and developers with its lickably delicious product line. My dad is in love with his iPad, and my friends' kids wouldn't ever give up their iPods. So long as iOS continues to grow, does it really matter quite so much what the rest of the market is doing -- especially if it isn't innovative and pushing boundaries? There will always be budget alternatives that perfectly satisfy their users, just as there will be cheap rip-offs of quality goods. Neither group diminishes the market for quality, and both act as gateway drugs to bring users to the real deal. Should Apple worry about decreased market share in the phone arena? Not while the company has gone from zero to nearly a third of the smartphone market in only four years, and not while the iPhone continues to grow (a $12 billion/quarter business is a problem a lot of Android phone makers would gladly trade for). This last quarter alone, sales of iPhones in the US were up 155 percent year-over-year -- in China, sales were up 5 times over last year's figures. As for those happy Android users out there? More power to them. Not everyone needs to go Apple to get the phone they need.
AT&T aggressively moving against unauthorized tethering
AT&T is ruining a lot of people's days with a customer mailshot explaining that its "records show that you use [tethering] but are not subscribed to our tethering plan." iOS, of course, will disable the built-in tethering facility if you do not have an appropriate carrier plan. There are a few jailbreak apps, the most popular of which is MyWi (previous TUAW coverage), that bypass the plan check and enable tethering independently. When you run MyWi or similar apps, your iPhone creates a wireless hotspot that allows you to connect other devices without the explicit permission of your carrier. Until now, people have assumed that AT&T either doesn't care or cannot determine that the traffic comes from a connected device rather than the iPhone itself. Clearly, those assumptions are incorrect. OSXDaily.com has the full text of the letter. It goes on to state that users can either terminate their unauthorized tethering usage before March 27, or they will be automatically moved to AT&T's DataPro plan. DataPro includes tethering and doubles the data cap from 2 GB to 4 GB, but also costs an extra $20 per month compared to the normal smartphone data plan. Any customers on the grandfathered unlimited data plans from older iPhone plans would also lose that facility if they moved to DataPro. (Update: reworded this paragraph for clarity based on feedback from @GlennF and @Chartier; thanks guys!)
Report: Apple king of the tablet market until 2013
One of the stories making the blog rounds today is a new report from research firm DisplaySearch, which claims that Apple will stave off emerging iPad competitors. The iPad will be king of the tablets until 2013 when they'll be overtaken by competitors. A lot depends on not just how well competitors will do, but the access to supplies. As we reported last month, Apple is making sure the majority of touchscreens currently being produced are being earmarked for the iPad. While DisplaySearch thinks that iPad sales will mirror the iPhone, GigaOM believes that iPads will follow the iPod. Both the iPad and the iPod are category-defining devices, while the iPhone entered a market that's been around for years. [via MacStories]
EEDAR weighs in on NGP, speculates $299 to $349 price for Wi-Fi only model
Analysis firm EEDAR has issued a report on the debut of the NGP, speculating on several areas, including hardware and software cost as well as the NGP's likelihood of success. The firm expects Sony's upcoming handheld to "handsomely surpass sales of its predecessor, the PSP," though the report adds that success will depend upon long-term publisher support and a competitive price. Concerning the price, EEDAR predicts the Wi-Fi-only model to cost "between $299 to $349, but not to exceed $399 in the United States." Furthermore, the firm believes that some regions may not see the 3G version of the NGP at all. For comparison, the report notes EEDAR's estimate that 62 to 70 percent of iPads sold in North America are Wi-Fi-only models. Demand for a 3G model may be higher in Europe and Asia. EEDAR predicts that the NGP's 3G capabilities aren't designed to compete directly with mobile phone gaming -- clearly another area of interest for Sony -- as 3G is unsuitable for large game downloads. 3G functionality is more likely to be used for multiplayer and social functions. The report includes a few more notable tidbits. Games, both downloadable and retail, are predicted to be priced between $40 and $50. Publishers are advised to get on board early, as the report notes "EEDAR is certain that the initial 18 months will produce significant hardware and software sales to support profitability for third‐party publishers." Finally, EEDAR expects more NGP information at GDC, while the first hands-on opportunities will have to wait for E3 2010. Rest assured that Joystiq will be attending both events.
iOS now accounts for 2% of global web browsing traffic, Chrome rounds the 10% mark
After the desktop stalwarts of Windows 7 and Mac OS, the world's third most popular platform for web browsing turns out to be Apple's iOS. The software that makes iPhones, iPod touches and iPads tick has been identified by Net Applications as responsible for over two percent of the global traffic data analyzed in the web statistician's latest report -- the first time iOS has crossed that threshold. The UK and Australia had more than five percent each, while the USA clocked in at 3.4 percent. Leaving operating systems aside, Chrome has continued its steady growth on the browser front and now stands at a 10.7 percent share, more than doubling its slice from this time last year. Internet Explorer overall has dipped to its lowest level yet, at 56 percent, however Net Applications indicates IE8 is showing nice growth. So at least it's looking like we're finally ready to bury the zombies known as IE6 and IE7, whatever other browser we choose to migrate to.
Canalys report: iPad sales drive Apple PC growth 241 percent in Q4 2010
The iPad is an in-betweener device - it's too big to be a smartphone, and it's not quite a PC. It can be a conundrum for analysts looking to pick apart Apple's quarterly and yearly earnings as there is no established category for the device. Some analysts have chosen to separate the iPad into its own category ("media tablets"), and others prefer to take a different approach and group the iPad with PC sales. This latter category leads to some headline-grabbing reports similar to the one just released by Canalys. The market analysis firm proclaimed that Apple is now the #3 PC vendor in the world, trailing only HP and Acer. The climb to the third spot was propelled by Mac personal computing sales, which skyrocketed 241 percent in Q4 2010. Much of the growth in this category is due to sales of the iPad. This analysis is guaranteed to spark some discussion as rival firms IDG and Gartner separate out the iPad into a distinct category. Once you remove the iPad from the PC sales equation, Apple barely makes it into the #5 slot. [Via Engadget]
Apple's 'PC' shipments grow by 241 percent in iPad-inclusive Canalys stats
Canalys is a pretty well respected global stat-keeper and now it seems to be relying on that reputation to push through a pretty controversial message: tablets, such as Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab, are PCs. "Accept new market realities," urges its polemic press release, before laying out global quarterly shipments that peg Apple as the world's third most prolific PC vendor (without tablets, Apple doesn't even break the top 5 according to IDC and Gartner). The company that was laboring with a mere 3.8 percent market share in 2009 has shot up to 10.8 with the aid of its 10-inch touchscreen device. Canalys' stance will inevitably be controversial, but then it's kind of hard to deny that machines like Samsung's Sliding PC and ASUS' Eee Slate make the distinguishing lines between tablets and netbooks look like a particularly technical form of bokeh.
The significance of Apple's earnings call numbers
Jean-Louis Gassée, former Apple executive and founder of the company that created BeOS, took a detailed look at Apple's latest financial report, SEC filings and its earnings conference call. In an analysis that mixes financial figures with excellent insight, Gassée outlines three areas of Apple's financials that are worthy of a closer look. First, Gassée points out the explosive growth and influence of the iPad. Sales of the iPad grew from 3.3 million units in its first quarter of sales, 4.3 million in the next three months and 7.3 million for the latest quarter that Apple reported. In the upcoming year, Apple is expected to grab 87.5 percent of this media tablet market, a new category of devices created by the success of the iPad. Gassée also notices that the iPad revenue for Q1 2011 reached $4.6 billion and is close to the $5.4 billion generated by the Mac, which is now 27 years old. This is an impressive figure for a device that's less than one year old. Part of the tablet's success, according to Gassée, can be attributed to its low price tag. The base model of the Wi-Fi iPad starts at US$500, which is $300 less than what was predicted before the tablet was launched. Though it is far from a discount retailer, Apple has bucked the trend of high-priced devices with the iPad, the $99 Apple TV, and finally the $999 MacBook Air in 2010. Though its gross margin has dropped slightly to 38.5 percent in the last quarter, revenue and profit continued to grow, which attests to the success of these competitive prices.
Totem Talk: Post-patch enhancement shaman still waiting for buffs
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shamans. Rich Maloy lives and breathes enhancement: his main spec is enhance, his off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance and leads the guild Big Crits (Season 2 Ep 06 now out!) as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. We're now two full weeks into patch 4.0.1 with our new and improved enhancement spec. Improved? Actually, no. Our DPS is only marginally improved over the previous incarnation, while our fellow melee brethren were buffed to the teeth. My rough analysis shows the difference between us and top melee DPS, usually warrior and death knight, has widened significantly since the patch. I'm going to preface all of this analysis by saying that I am not the top enhancement shaman, by far. I play well, I study my class, I optimize my spec, gems, forging, gear and rotations. I don't die to stupid stuff -- well, at least not often! In other words, I try to push my damage without sacrificing myself. Be forewarned that some of these numbers I'm embarrassed to post in such a public manner, and while I'm hardly the benchmark for DPS, I can at least provide a baseline of what your average progression raider's numbers look like. On average across eight of 12 hard-mode fights in ICC (excluding the gimmick fights Gunship, VDW and BQL, and excluding H-LK because we're just now working on him), the top melee DPS was doing 50 percent more damage than me pre-patch and 64 percent more post-patch. I could narrow that gap down to about 15 percent on a standstill fight such as Deathbringer Saurfang, but on high-movement fights such as Sindy, the top melee would do as much as 80 percent more damage than me overall. As much as it pains me to say this, as a raid leader I have to ask the question: Am I dead weight in raids right now? Will level 85 with Unleash Elements bring better output?
Defining Playstyles: Beyond casual vs. hardcore
In a recent Totem Talk post, I made a loot list for enhancement shamans that have access to ICC but are not progression raiders, because they are either alts or they are -- drum roll, please -- casual. That's right: I used the c-word without context. Casual. There, I said it again without context. Excuse me while I duck from the rotten vegetables being thrown in my direction. The use of that c-word in relation to an Icecrown Citadel loot list sparked a very interesting comment thread. Most comments were well thought-out, added value and furthered the discussion. Some were, to borrow Adam Savage's favorite term, vitriolic, because of my heinous misuse of the term "casual." I said it again without context. I'm just casually throwing around "casuals" here. Given the reaction that post received, I started doing some research into what exactly "casual" and "hardcore" actually mean. What I found was not surprising at all: They mean completely different things to absolutely everyone. The MMO population of players, across all games, is estimated at over 61 million people. There are as many variations on play time and playstyle as there are players in the game. Do you really think we can divide this many people simply into two groups of just casuals and hardcores? I think it's time we move beyond the polarizing definitions of casual and hardcore and come up with some definitions of our own.
iPhone 4 prices from around the world
Now that the iPhone 4 is available around most of the world, iFun designed this interesting little infographic that compares the various prices of the handset around the globe. Note that all of these prices are in Euros, and that they all reflect the out-of-contract price -- because the US iPhones are locked to the AT&T network currently, our country doesn't appear on this list. But if you want to buy an unlocked iPhone elsewhere in the world, you should probably go with Hong Kong, where an unlocked 16gb phone will set you back US $653. Italy sells the costliest iPhones, with the price reaching up over US$1000 there for an unlocked phone. This whole thing is really just more of a fun comparison rather than a really solid analysis -- most people who want an iPhone will probably buy it in the country where they live, especially if they need a certain contract. But it is interesting to see just where Apple has determined it can go higher on the price, either because of certain tariffs or shipping that must be paid, or just because the demographic calls for it. [via MacStories]
New MIT software learns an entire dead language in just a few hours
Whenever we boot up our time machines, cruise back to 1200 B.C., and try to pick up chicks at our favorite wine bar in Western Syria, our rudimentary knowledge of Ugaritic is usually more embarrassing than helpful. The good folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have us stoked on some new software we hope to have in pocket form soon. It analyzes an unknown language by comparing letter and word patterns to another known language (in Ugaritic's case, its close cousin is Hebrew) and spits out a translation quickly, using precious little computing power. To give some perspective, it took archaeologists four years to do the same thing back in 1928. It's not quite Berlitz yet, but this proof of concept is kind of like the Michael Jordan of computational linguists -- it's probably the first time that machine translations of dead scripts has been proven effective. If we plug some hopeful numbers into our TI-83, we calculate that we'll be inserting our own genes into the ancient Syrian pool in a matter of months. Thanks, MIT! [Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons]
Gartner: Symbian is 're-arranging the deck chairs,' losing buoyancy fast
We all know that Symbian is still holding the fort as the globe's most widely used mobile OS, but anyone interested in criticizing it nowadays will have to get into a queue. Nick Jones from Gartner is latest to launch a broadside against the apparently complacent market leader, opining that its user experience has been surpassed by iOS and Android, and arguing that future iterations do not promise enough innovation to make the platform stand out. He underpins these observations with his firm's latest estimates, which indicate Symbian's decline in share is accelerating, before positing the idea that the Foundation sets aside some talent for skunkworks projects in order to give itself fallback options should Symbian^4 not be blindingly marvelous. Nick might be going a little overboard with the bleakness of his outlook, but there's no questioning his "Android iceberg" analogy -- if Symbian doesn't find the right course soon, Google might well end up collecting a big chunk of its exasperated users.
