Finally taking advantage of a rather useful technology in iOS 7, Google has released version 3.0 of its Gmail for iOS app with full support for background refresh allowing messages to download within the app as the push notification arrives.
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Earlier today we got a look at Apple’s just announced CarPlay feature for iOS when Volvo announced it would arrive in its new XC90 SUV, and now Mercedes-Benz has announced its partnership with Apple. As previously reported, the company confirmed today that it will be demoing the new Mercedes-Benz C-Class at the Geneva Motor Show. Like Volvo and many of the other vehicle manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz made it clear that Apple’s CarPlay won’t be the only in-car entertainment system with work continuing on Android and MirrorLink solutions:
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The Verge provides a first look at the animation for Cortana, Microsoft’s answer to Siri. While it’s a still photo rather than a video, it seems pretty clear how the circular animation works … can anyone think of where they’ve seen anything like that before?
Cortana – named after the AI character in the Microsoft game Halo – is set to appear in the forthcoming 8.1 update to Windows Phone. The feature looks like a relatively direct Siri clone, with some features borrowed from Google Now – such as the ability to scan your emails for things like flight numbers and plans to schedule meetings.
It’s not yet known whether Cortana will be the public name of the feature, or just an internal codename.
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After a wave of updates for its Android apps yesterday, Google has just announced an update to its Hangouts for iOS app. The update brings the app version number 2.0.0 and is the first update for the app since all the way back in November.
The update adds a plethora of features and design tweaks, most notably of which is an iOS 7 optimized interface. There are aren’t a ton of changes, but everything definitely has the iOS 7 look and feel to it.Menus and buttons are now totally “flat” and much cleaner overall. The iPad app has also gotten some major tweaks, including picture-in-picture video calling. The app also now supports the ability to send video messages up to 10 seconds long, ala Snapchat.
The full changelog is below:
The update is live on the App Store now.
Photo: Business Insider
If you based your assessment of Apple’s future prospects on analyst reports and polls, you’d be upping your medication today while reading three separate sets of numbers.
Fortune reports that Apple tops the ‘most admired companies‘ list for the seventh time in a row, with Amazon and Google the runners-up. The charts are based on polling directors, executives and analysts in the USA’s largest companies.
The same source cites a Morgan Stanley investment note showing that the 30 largest institutional investors, who between them hold at least 30 percent of the shares on the market, have been selling AAPL, with their holdings at a record low …
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Planning to watch American Idol tonight and vote on your favorite performers? Google is making voting through its Search apps possible through a partnership with FOX. As the live finalist performance shows debut, American Idol is allowing viewers to vote through Google.com and Google’s iOS and Android Search apps.
Voting through Google allows you to cast up to 50 votes for each contestant as the new voting system is piloted. Simply search american idol or idol during voting hours and cast your votes!
Google Search for iOS is available for free from the App Store.
Update: Apple issued OS X 10.9.2 the following day, which included a fix for the SSL bug.
After Apple fixed the SSL bug in iOS, it’s unclear why three days have passed without an OS X fix after it was revealed by Reuters that the vulnerability was created by an error in a single line of code.
The problem lies in the way the software recognizes the digital certificates used by banking sites, Google’s Gmail service, Facebook and others to establish encrypted connections. A single line in the program and an omitted bracket meant that those certificates were not authenticated at all, so that hackers can impersonate the website being sought and capture all the electronic traffic before passing it along to the real site.
As the bug is in Apple’s SSL authentication code, it leaves a whole range of apps vulnerable, not just Safari …
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Streaming TV is heating-up. We’re expecting a new Apple TV box to be announced in April, Amazon looks set to launch its own box in March and Google is reputed to be not far behind with a Nexus-branded box.
So-called cord-cutting – people who give up their cable TV subscriptions in favor of streaming content over the web – is growing in popularity. Mobile TV viewing on tablets is increasingly common.
All of which makes me wonder whether we’re witnessing the beginning of the end of live TV … ?
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Image: digitaltrends.com
Amazon’s TV box, which the company is believed to have been working on for around a year, is to be launched next month, according to unnamed content distribution sources cited by re/code – ahead of the new version of the Apple TV box expected to be unveiled in April.
People I’ve talked to who are partnering with Amazon believe the company is aiming for a March rollout […]
Sources tell me Amazon’s box will be powered by Google’s Android operating system, which is also not a surprise — Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets use a “forked” version of Android …
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Waze, the navigation app maker that Google picked up last year, announced today that its updating its mobile apps with calendar integration. With the updated app, iOS and Android users will now see “events with location info will automatically appear” in the navigation list within Waze. That means any events in your calendar that have location info associated with them will be viewable from within Waze.
The company notes that only two upcoming events from your Calendar will be displayed in the navigation list. Users that want to disable the Calendar integration can do so from the iOS Settings app.
The updated app isn’t yet live on the App Store but should be rolling out any minute.
Engadget reports that Google has been testing a new iOS and Android app at its Mountain View campus recently that would allow users to automatically join public WiFi hotspots without going through the usual log-in process. Google is apparently considering using the app in connection with its recently announced deal to provide WiFi to 7000 Starbucks locations in the US:
According to our sources, the search giant has built Android and iOS versions of an app that automatically authenticate and connect to its free hotspots inside Starbucks stores or wherever they are available. Google is currently trialling the Android app at its Mountain View HQ and has plans to offer an iOS app too.
Perhaps more interesting is Engadget’s claim that Google has “specific plans” to roll out more Google WiFi hotspots in the US and Canada as part of the ongoing “Google WiFi” effort it first launched in Mountain View back in 2006.
The report adds that the app could link to a user’s Google account and “install a dedicated security certificate on their device to automatically authenticate devices when a connection is available.” Engadget says an expanded partnership with Boingo is also a possibility:
Google may also expand its partnership with Boingo, extending logins to locations where it’s footing the bill for free wireless.
Google plans to have its WiFi rolled out at all 7000 Starbucks locations by the end of the year.
Alas, we’re one step closer to an App Store not filled with iOS 6 keyboards. Google released Translate 2.1 today, bringing support for the iOS 7 keyboard released last September to the iPhone and iPad.
The update also expands support for its new handwriting input method to a number of additional languages including Arabic, Esperanto, Gujarati, Hebrew, Javanese, Maltese, Maori, Marathi, Persian, Punjabi, Telugu, and Zulu.
Google first introduced its handwriting input method last September. Google Translate 2.1 is available now on the App Store.
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Image: jobsplane.in
Apple has now been overtaken by Google in ‘Enterprise Value,’ a key measure of the value of a company, despite generating four times as much cash flow, reports Seeking Alpha.
While Apple’s market capitalisation (the total value of all its shares) remains higher, this value includes $141B in cash. Enterprise Value deducts any cash held by a company as – if you were wealthy enough to buy Apple – you effectively immediately get that back from the price you paid. EV is thus considered a better measure of the underlying value the market places on a company. By this measure, the market reckons Apple is worth $339B, while Google is now valued at $342B …
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In what would be a rather amusing twist, future iPhones could be built by Google robots as Google’s robotics division assists Foxconn to “speed up robot deployment” at its factories.
The WSJ reports that Foxconn was looking for assistance in automating its production lines, while Google is aiming to introduce robots to manufacturing processes that have so far been largely manual – electronics assembly being a key example. It takes around 600 people to make each iPhone.
Foxconn has been working with former Android executive Andy Rubin since last year to carry out the U.S. company’s vision for robotics.
To speed up robot deployment at its own factories, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou met with Rubin in Taipei recently and they discussed new robotic technologies, they said.
At the meeting, Gou expressed excitement over new automation technologies demonstrated by Rubin, they said. Rubin also asked Gou to help integrate a technology company that Google is acquiring as Foxconn’s strength lies in mechanical engineering.
Google has acquired eight robotics companies over the course of the past year, and is believed to have ambitions to create a robotic operating system that would be to manufacturing what Android is to smartphones. Foxconn is looking to reduce operating costs and boost efficiency.
“Foxconn needs Google’s help to step up automation at its factories as the company has the lowest sales per employee among the contract makers, given its large workforce,” said Wanli Wang, an analyst at CIMB Securities.
Asymco has calculated that if iTunes were a standalone business, it would be ranked 130 in the Fortune 500 list of top U.S. companies after its gross annual revenue grew 34 percent year-on-year to $23.5B. This would put it between Alcoa and Eli Lilly in the rankings, and is almost half of Google’s core search business – not bad for what was originally intended to be a break-even operation …
Growth was driven by increases in revenue from App sales reflecting continued growth in the installed base of iOS devices and the expansion in the number of third-party iOS Apps available. Net sales of digital content, including music, movies, TV shows and books, from the iTunes Store was relatively flat in the first quarter of 2014 compared to the first quarter of 2013.
Asymco also calculated the cost to Apple of making both the Mavericks update and iWork software free …
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Dong Nguyen made waves at the weekend after announcing Flappy Bird would be removed from the App Store. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Nguyen explains his — unorthodox — reasoning.
“It was just too addictive,” Mr. Dong said. He says he didn’t intend for people to play the game for hours at a time, as many gamers appear to have done.
“That was the main negative. So I decided to take it down,” he said.
First launched for Android back in May, Google today started rolling out the Google Admin app for iOS to let Google Apps & enterprise Chromebook customers manage accounts. That includes the ability to “Add users, reset passwords, manage groups, contact support, view domain setting changes” and more:
It provides the following features:
* User Management Features – Add/Edit user, Suspend user, Restore user, Delete user, Reset password
* Group Management Features – Add/Edit Group, Add members, Email all members, Delete group, View group members
* Audit Logs – Review Audit logs, Filter logs by admin, date ranges and event types
Google hasn’t made an official announcement, but the app is already rolling out to App Stores around the world for iPhone and iPad. Screenshots of the iPad app below:
Photo: edudemic.com
arsTechnica drew our attention to some unusually forthright comments from Apple’s lawyers on the subject of patent trolls, in a public FTC filing. Apple revealed that it had been the subject of 92 lawsuits by patent assertion entities over the course of the past three years, more than any other company.
Apple has rarely lost on the merits. But victory figures are small consolation, because in every one of these cases, Apple has been forced to bear its legal fees. This reality is the lifeblood of the patent assertion industry… Indeed, the opening line of many negotiations is some form of, “What we’re asking for is less than it will cost you to litigate this case to judgment.” It should come as no surprise, then, that despite its success in litigating the merits, for business purposes Apple has agreed to a settlement in 51 of the 57 closed cases.
Apple’s legal team used particularly direct language when referring to Lodsys, a company which claims to hold a patent on in-app purchases and which litigates against small developers who cannot afford the legal costs of fighting the case …
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After posting excerpts last night, in which Tim Cook announced Apple’s share buyback of $14 billion in the last two weeks, The Wall Street Journal has now published the full interview with Apple’s CEO.
The interview repeats many of the comments Cook has made to investors in the past, reaffirming that new product categories under development, but does contain some new, interesting tidbits. For instance, Wakabayashi asked Cook about Google’s disposal of Motorola. Cook says he “wasn’t surprised” that Google sold it off, saying that software and hardware integration is what makes Apple unique as a company.
Demands from patent trolls – companies that invent nothing, but simply buy up patents in order to demand cash – are just a fact of life for any large company, and Apple doubtless receives hundreds of them each year. Some are, however, audacious than others.
The WSJ reports that German patent troll IPCom is demanding €1.57B ($2.12B) for use technology that is not only used in every mobile phone on the market, its use is required by law.
The chip is used to identify mobile phones used by the emergency services in order to give them priority access to networks when they are heavily congested, such as during a major disaster. Carriers can set their networks to block access to all phones in the vicinity of a major emergency other than those identifying themselves as belonging to police and rescue workers. The chip can be included in the circuitry of either a phone or a SIM.
Apple, Google, HTC, Ericsson and Vodafone had all asked the European Patent Office to declare the patent invalid, as it was part of a required standard. The EPO turned down this request after IPCom said that it had successfully sued other companies, including Nokia.
The case is now going to court, and will be heard on 11th February.
Google continues to push its Maps product on iOS in the latest update, version 2.6. The app now alerts the driver when faster routes become available when navigating. This reflects functionality found in dedicated sat navs. Rather than simply offering several routing options at the beginning of your journey, Google will keep aware of traffic and road conditions in case a faster route appears later.
Theoretically, this means you are always on the fastest route possible when navigating. As always, the app is free.
Cross posted from 9to5Google.com
Google announced today a public SDK for Chromecast allowing developers to build support for casting into Android, Chrome, and iOS apps and websites.
If you’re a developer looking to bring your content to the big screen, head on over to the Google Developers Blog for a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of it all. Meanwhile, for everyone else, a current list of apps that work with Chromecast can be found at chromecast.com/apps.
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A couple of weeks after describing Google as more innovative than Apple, and suggesting that Tim Cook was vulnerable to a shareholder revolt if he didn’t quickly release disruptive new products, Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson has downplayed his remarks in a round-table discussion on Bloomberg TV.
I think [Google is] very innovative. I was not trying to contrast it to Apple or something. I know, all the Apple fans got mad […]
The one thing I will say is innovation is great, but it ain’t everything. It’s not the holy grail. Execution is what really matters, and Apple is the best at execution …
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Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang spoke to CNNMoney about his company’s recent acquisition of Motorola from Google today. In the interview, Yang was asked if his goal for Lenovo was to eventually catch up with more established competitors in the mobile space, such as Apple and Samsung.
With Motorola, Lenovo will be the No. 3 smartphone maker worldwide. Do you think your company can catch up with Apple or Samsung, who are still far ahead of you? And how long will it take?
Definitely, over time. Our mission is to surpass them.
Yang says that Lenovo’s smartphones will probably be released under the Motorola banner, a smart branding decision given Motorola’s existing name recognition and popularity in the U.S. and other countries.
The branding choice combined with the infrastructure and personnel from the Moto buyout could help propel the company to the top of the market, but it will be a hard road to the level of success that Yang is after—especially with Apple and Samsung already locked in a fierce, years-long battle for the top spot.
Throughout the interview, Yang continued to note that several decisions still need to be made with regards to how phones will be branded in certain countries and whether the Lenovo name will be associated with Motorola at all. It will certainly be interesting to see how Yang uses the Motorola brand to push Lenovo forward.