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3DS to beat out original DS' first year sales, land killing blow during holiday season
First 3DS sales were great, then not so much, and now things seem to be evening out somewhere around "normal." According to numbers released by Nintendo, the fledgling handheld is poised to break the original DS' first year sales numbers -- closing out its 8th month with 1.65 million units sold, or roughly 69 percent of its predecessor's 2.37 million first year sales. Noting that half of the old DS' year one sales were made during the holiday season, Nintendo is confident the 3DS will surpass its predecessor's numbers before hitting the one year mark. We'll let you make your own predictions -- Nintendo's press release is after the break, if you want to compare notes.
GDC Online 2011: KingsIsle's Sara Jensen Schubert talks RPG math
I'm sure many of us have wondered how game developers decide upon item stats, experience amounts, damage per second, and all of the other numbers that we come across in our favorite games. Actually, it might sound more like, "Why the heck is my uber sword of uberness only doing X amount of damage?!" At GDC Online this week, Sara Jensen Schubert gave a rare glimpse into the math behind MMORPGs. She has worked on games like Shadowbane and DC Universe Online and is now a lead designer at KingsIsle Entertainment. Her background and focus is a traditional RPG viewpoint, and she builds from there to go through the process of designing and building stats, character attributes, experience rewards, the leveling curve, and itemization. While her talk is aimed at those in the industry, it offers a unique perspective into what goes into those stats behind our gear and why it takes us so long to level up. Read on for highlights from the presentation.
iWork apps updated with new features, iCloud integration
Apple's three iWork apps have been updated alongside iOS 5 going live. The updates are available now through the App Store and include the following: Keynote Automatically store presentations in iCloud and keep them synced among multiple iDevices. Download presentations to a Mac or PC at icloud.com/iwork as Keynote '09, PowerPoint, or PDF files. Drag and drop Keynote '09 or PowerPoint presentations to icloud.com from your Mac or PC to have them automatically appear on iOS devices. Airplay added New builds and transitions including Anvil, Blinds, Color Panes, Comet, Confetti, Diffuse, and Sparkle. Advanced presentation controls including looped slideshows and autoplay. Support for slide-to-slide hyperlinks. Pages Automatically store documents in iCloud and keep them synced among multiple iDevices. Download documents to a Mac or PC at icloud.com/iwork as Pages '09, PowerPoint, or PDF files. Drag and drop Pages '09 or plain text documents to icloud.com from your Mac or PC to have them automatically appear on iOS devices. Use your voice to create and edit Pages documents with dictation in iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S. Create footnotes and endnotes in documents. Numbers Automatically store documents in iCloud and keep them synced among multiple iDevices. Download spreadsheets to a Mac or PC at icloud.com/iwork as Numbers '09, PowerPoint, or PDF files. Drag and drop Numbers '09 or Excel or CSV files to icloud.com from your Mac or PC to have them automatically appear on iOS devices. Use sliders, steppers, and pop-ups to easily enter data and explore results. Use Merge Cells to format your tables. Hide and show rows and columns. These releases also include a number of other fixes and improved language support.
Digital video game distribution finds brick and mortar camping, moves in for win
Blame it on the economy, or simply chalk it up to a better way of earning revenue, but physical distributors of new video games are beginning to feel some major heat from the scrappy competition. While this mainstay segment still comprises the bulk of sales with $1.44 billion earned in the previous quarter, the combination of digital purchases, subscriptions, downloadable content, social network and mobile games -- along with help from rentals and used purchases -- now tops $1.74 billion dollars. This news comes from the NPD Group, and while we're still scratching our heads at the logic of combining second-hand purchases with electronic distribution, it provides a strong indicator of consumers' changing tastes and preferences (along with their willingness to spend). Does this industry titan simply need a new console or another Call of Duty to maintain supremacy? Perhaps a modest uptick in GDP? Or does this signal the changing of the guard for our favorite electronic pastime? There's a full PR after the break, where you're welcome to fire one off in the comments and let us know your take. [Image courtesy bradleyolin / flickr]
Apple shares huge iPhone sales and approval numbers
Tim Cook, subdued as he is today, was probably most excited this morning when talking about just how well the iPhone has done lately. The iPhone 4 specifically, says Cook, has continued to sell like crazy, and in fact now makes up half of the sales of the iPhone in total, overcoming both the original and the 3G and 3GS in units. "That momentum is far outpacing the industry," said Cook in today's event. Customer satisfaction is huge for the phone as well -- the iPhone is consistently rated number 1 in every survey Cook says he can find, and 93% of the Fortune 500 companies are currently testing or deploying the iPhone in their operations. All of that, says Cook, has given the iPhone just a 5% share in the handsets market around the world. Note that that's handsets as a whole, not just smartphones. Cook says the company is aiming to go even higher with the iPhone. "I could have shown a much larger number if I just showed smartphones, but that's not how we look at it," he said. Cook also promised more iPhone news later on today.
Apple: Six million copies of OS X Lion downloaded since launch
Before we get to the real meat of things, Tim Cook's just trotted out some Lion numbers -- six million copies downloaded since launch, to be exact. According to the big Apple's new CEO, that's a growth of 80 percent over Snow Leopard. Of course, those numbers would mean nothing without a little comparison. Cook says it took Windows 7 20 weeks to meet 10 percent of Windows' install base, compared to the two weeks it took Lion to reach the same portion of OS X users.
Mobee intros Magic Numpad for your Magic Trackpad, glittery dust not included
Do you use a Magic Trackpad? Is the act of crunching numbers a daily task for you? Well, if actual keys or a calculator / mouse hybrid just aren't magical enough for you, then Mobee's Magic Numpad may just be. Despite its name, the Numpad is a $29 set of films that allows you to morph your Trackpad into one of three numeric "keypad" layouts, with software for enabling an on-screen calculator and setting macros. Adding Splenda to the strawberries, you'll also get a cleaning kit and erasable marker to customize your films even further. If the left side of your brain is pounding with excitement, the Magic Numpad is available for pre-order now and should ship come this October.
Nielsen confirms Android on top, buyers split on next smartphone
In a recent report from Nielsen, Google snagged 40 percent of the smartphone market, while Apple captured approximately 28 percent -- up just barely .01 percentage point from last year. This report coincides with findings filed earlier this week by ComScore, citing Google with 41.8 percent market share and Apple with 27 percent, up one whole percentage point from last year. Diving a bit deeper, Nielsen found that around 33 percent of people planning to buy a smartphone in the next year want an iPhone, while another 33 percent would prefer an Android. The tie between those who want an Android v. an iOS phone fluctuated when Nielsen asked the "early adopters" within the group what kind of phone they are hoping to cop. 40 percent of "innovators" said they would like a phone on Google's OS, while 32 percent want a bite of the Apple -- leaving a mere 28 percent of self-proclaimed tech junkies desiring something else, like a BlackBerry or Windows Phone. Perhaps these figures are an indication that Google will remain on top for 2012, or will there be an upset? Only time will tell.
Nokia still ahead of Apple in smartphone sales, according to Gartner
Whoa there, Apple, we know you're starting to feel pretty darn good about besting Nokia and Samsung for the title of world's largest smartphone manufacturer, but hold on for just one minute. Gartner has a different idea of how the numbers game really works, and its interpretation makes all the difference in determining who earns the title. Rather than measuring the number of units each manufacturer ships out to the distributors (as IDC, ABI Research and Strategy Analytics do), Gartner gauges its numbers by how many devices were actually sold to end users instead. Thus, Nokia still keeps its title -- for one more quarter, anyways. The firm is confident Espoo won't be the top smartphone contender for much longer, thanks to the company's grim Q3 outlook as it continues to await the transition to Windows Phone. But hey, there's always Q4, right? Right? Check out the full press release after the break.
Apple now the world's largest smartphone manufacturer, Samsung checks in at number two
We make our own truth. That's how IDC can come up with roughly the same numbers as fellow research firm Canalys and crown Apple the king, when its rival called Android top dog -- it's all about how you slice it. See, where as Canalys bundled all Android handset makers together, IDC has broken them up, which leads to a rather interesting twist -- the largest smartphone maker in the world is now Apple. Cupertino's growth of 141.7-percent in shipments year over year was enough to push it past Nokia (which slipped to number three) and Samsung (which climbed two spots to take the silver medal), while RIM and HTC rounded out the top five. That being said, no one is running away with the lead here, and Sammy's continued stratospheric rise should keep Apple on guard. Check out the full report after the break.
Apple iCloud and iWork beta for iOS hands-on
We've had a few weeks to get accustomed to iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion, but one headlining feature has been notably inaccessible since it was unveiled earlier this summer. During his WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs touted iCloud as a service that will sync many of your Apple devices, for free. Macs, iPhones, iPads, and even Windows computers can synchronize documents, contacts, calendar appointments, and other data. You'll also be able to back up your iOS devices remotely, use an Apple-hosted email account, and store your music in the cloud. Well, this week Apple finally lit up its cloud-based service for developers, letting some of us take a sneak peek at the new service. Apple also announced pricing, confirming that you'll be able to add annual subscriptions with 10GB ($20), 20GB ($40), or 50GB ($100) of storage 'atop your free 5GB account. We took our five gig account for a spin, creating documents in Pages, spreadsheets in Numbers, and presentations in Keynote, then accessing them from the iCloud web interface to download Microsoft Office and PDF versions. We also tried our luck at iOS data syncing and the soon-to-be-controversial Photo Stream, so jump past the break for our full iCloud hands-on.%Gallery-129793%
IDC: Nokia, LG see significant Q2 shipping decline, Apple continues to grow
Well, the numbers are in and Q2's proved to be a mixed bag for the mobile market. According to IDC, cellphone makers shipped a total of 365.4 million units last quarter, a year-over-year increase of 11.3 percent. Nokia, while still the world's largest handset maker, suffered a significant blow, with shipments dropping from 111.1 million in Q2 2010 to 88.5 million; the company's market share was similarly down, hitting 24.2 percent, compared to last year's 33.8 percent. LG Electronics was the only other manufacturer to see a loss, with shipments dropping to 24.8 million from 30.6 million in 2010. Apple managed to maintain its recently acquired number four spot, with iPhone shipments hitting 20.3 million, up year-over-year from 8.4 million. RIM was conspicuously missing from the top five lineup, while ZTE landed the number five position. In news that shouldn't surprise anyone with a pulse, the feature phone market saw a decline this year, surprisingly its first since Q3 2009. If you're jonesing for more market share and shipping stats, hop on past the break for the full PR.
League of Legends boasts 15 million registered players
League of Legends has officially surpassed the 15 million player plateau. That means it's time for a smattering of silly stats from the marketing department to help illustrate just how large that number really is. In a new press release published this morning, Riot Games touts everything from its peak concurrency numbers (500,000), to its daily player totals (1.4 million), to the headline-grabbing registered players figure. While those numbers are quite impressive, Riot doesn't stop there. "An average of ten games of LoL start every second of every day," the company says, before adding that "gamers spend 3.7 million hours in-game [...] every day." The title's first season of competitive play is coming to a close, and Riot CEO Brandon Beck has a hearty thank you in store for the title's faithful. "We're committed to continuing to match their dedication with our relentless focus on ongoing enhancements to the player experience with great new features, content, and polish – and we have some very exciting surprises in store just around the corner," he says.
OS X Lion hits one million downloads on launch day
We were pretty sure OS X Lion would be a success, but this is kind of ridiculous. According to Apple, OS X Lion was downloaded over one million times on launch day. Apple says this is the fastest adoption rate of any OS in its history. How about some other crazy numbers to go along with that stat? If you assume that most of those first-day downloads were paid downloads for the first machine (remember, Lion can be installed on any Mac associated with your iTunes account), that's US$30 million in revenue in one day. The actual number is likely to be a few million lower than that due to users installing Lion on multiple Macs, but it's still a gigantic amount of dollars flowing directly into Apple's coffers (and as Gus Mueller points out, Apple doesn't even have to give up 30 percent of its cut!). Even more incredible than the financial implications is what happened on the data side of things. OS X Lion is a 3.49 GB download from the Mac App Store. With one million downloads, that's over 3400 terabytes of data pushed out in a 24-hour period. I guess that server farm in North Carolina is paying for itself already. Show full PR text Lion Downloads Top One Million in First Day CUPERTINO, California-July 21, 2011-Apple® today announced that in just one day, over one million users bought and downloaded Mac OS® X Lion, the eighth major release of the world's most advanced operating system. Available through the Mac® App Store™ for $29.99 (US), users are buying Lion faster than any other OS release in Apple's history. "Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Lion is a huge step forward, it's not only packed with innovative features but it's incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we've ever made." Lion introduces more than 250 new features to the Mac, including Multi-Touch® gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app. Available in 123 countries, the Mac App Store brings the revolutionary App Store experience to the Mac so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes® account, download and install them in just one step. The Mac App Store offers apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what's hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews. The Mac App Store is built right into Lion and available for Snow Leopard® users through Software Update as part of Mac OS X version 10.6.8. Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
Speculation: Apple website hints at iWork update for Lion
While working on a post about OS X Lion's full-screen apps, I stumbled upon something interesting. If you look at the image above, it shows Pages as a full-screen app. There's even a tag line -- "Never miss the fine print with full-screen for Pages." I'm running Pages version 4.0.5 (852) right now, and there hasn't been an update for a while. This version doesn't run in full-screen mode under the Lion GM. It makes sense that Apple would update Pages, Keynote, and Numbers to take advantage of as many OS X Lion features as possible, and it would be smart for those apps to be updated at the same time or shortly after Lion hits the Mac App Store. So, as much as we hate rumors and speculation, this is something to think about. It's either a marketing faux pas from Apple, or we're going to see Lion-compatible versions of the iWork apps soon. You can check out the specific page here, and be sure to let us know if you find any other hints (or mistakes) about Lion-happy apps.
Leaf sales outpacing the Volt, winning the fight for American garage space
According to Automobile, Nissan is winning the race to put the most electric cars in American driveways, selling 3,875 Leafs in the first six months of 2011, while Chevy only managed to put 2,754 Volt keys in the hands of consumers. This is despite Nissan suffering a month long manufacturing setback following the tsunami that struck in March. Chevy has had its own delays, having closed the Volt plant five weeks ago for upgrades that will allow it to pump out more vehicles. Lets not forget though, the Leaf starts at about $8,000 less than its American made competitor and, when it comes to weaning us off gas and putting us behind the wheel of tech-packed cars -- there's no shame in being number two. Perhaps GM will have better luck with that cheaper, shorter range version it's been contemplating.
Nielsen: smartphones dominate among new subscribers; Android leads, iOS surges, RIM falters
Visit any mobile retailer and you're likely to notice that smartphones are becoming mighty popular. In fact, Nielsen now reports that these wondrous creations now account for more than half of all mobile phone sales -- 55 percent, to be exact -- compared to 34 percent one year ago. The study, which consists of data from March through May of 2011, suggests that while smartphones continue to be outnumbered by feature phones, penetration has risen from 29.7 to 38 percent in a matter of months. Nielsen further states that while Android remains the dominant platform (with 38 percent market share), its growth appears only steady, despite Andy Rubin's recent assertion. Meanwhile, iOS (with a 27 percent stake) is experiencing quite the growth and now accounts for 17 percent of all new activations. Unlike the folks in Mountain View and Cupertino, the crew in Waterloo have reason to worry: RIM's market share has fallen from 27.4 to 21 percent in a few short months, and the platform now accounts for only six percent of new activations. If you're interested in finding out more, just follow the break for another snapshot of the mobile world. And if you're feeling generous, you might consider sending Sirs Lazaridis and Balsillie a get well soon card.
Windows Phone Marketplace now populated by 25,000 apps, speeding up rate of growth
It's not just Apple's App Store striding past milestones today, Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace has also rounded a notable marker in its development. Specifically, it's now reported to have passed 25,000 apps by one site tracking comings and goings within it, though that figure's up for debate as the other WP7 apps tracker still lists the total at just under 25k. The main point is that the WP7 ecosystem is growing, and faster than previously at that -- it took until the end of March to accrue 11,500 apps, a span of five months from its launch, whereas the last 13.5k have come in the brisker period of three months. Provided this acceleration continues, and there's no reason to expect it'll slow down with Mango on the horizon, Microsoft's mobile OS reboot promises to be in pretty competitive shape in time for its first anniversary -- a notable feat considering how far behind WinMo had fallen. Perhaps RIM can use this as an instructive example? [Steve Ballmer image courtesy of Reuters]
OfficeTime for Mac update, new iOS version coming soon
OfficeTime for Mac has updated to version 1.6, adding over 100 new features and improvements. As we've posted before, this app is an excellent way to track time and billing for a freelance worker or a small business, and now it's even better. The biggest new feature is probably the addition of automatic backups, but there's a lot of new stuff, including decimal time entry (typing "1.5" automatically converts to "1 hour 30 minutes"), better support for exporting data out to Excel and Numbers, and plenty of other updates. This new version also includes support for sync to the iPhone and iPad versions, and developers OfficeTime.net say that those versions are due out very soon. OfficeTime for Mac is available as a free trial download, and the full version of the app is available for both Mac and Windows for US$47.
Nintendo finally sells millionth 3DS unit in Japan, lives in the shadow of older brother
A million in (Japanese) sales is a far cry from failure, but even big daddy Satoru Iwata admits the 3DS isn't quite living up to expectations. Nintendo's tenderfoot handheld finally hit the mark after 13 weeks, a snail's pace when compared to the original dual-screen wunderkind, which reportedly made the grade in a mere four. The 3DS' predecessors will undoubtedly forgive it for being a late bloomer, it's the competition it ought to worry about; the PSP sold its first million in about seven weeks. The 3DS could still plow its way to the top -- but with the PlayStation Vita looming large on the horizon, and the fledgling handheld having already lost a round the PSV's predecessor, Nintendo could be in for a rough ride.
