As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
Apple profit 'biggest in history'
Apple’s first quarter profit of $18bn is the biggest ever quarterly profit for a public company, according to Standard and Poor’s.
Calendar for Windows Phone Gains Agenda View in Latest Update
The Calendar for Windows Phone app has been updated with several new features. This is the default calendar app that comes with every Windows Phone but like the Music, Video and other built-in apps, sees an update now-and-again to bring new features or stability. This update, version 1.0.15087.0 for those keeping score at home, is mainly focused on new features instead of bug fixes and includes an all new Agenda view. Calendar for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now The Agenda view in Calendar for Windows Phone is designed to allow you at a glance to see all of your
The post Calendar for Windows Phone Gains Agenda View in Latest Update appeared first on Clinton Fitch.
Electronic Arts shares up on results
Shares in Electronic Arts jump almost 5% after the video games publisher reports stronger than expected results.
GoDaddy Pulls 2015 Super Bowl Ad After Slew Of Negative Feedback From Animal Advocates
The recently released GoDaddy 2015 Super Bowl ad generated a whole lot of outrage from animal advocates and was quickly retracted Tuesday.
The ad, called “Journey Home,” features a golden retriever puppy named Buddy who bounces out of the back of a truck before traveling through a series of harrowing environments to get to a bright red barn.
“Buddy! I’m so glad you made it home!” a curly-haired blonde exclaims. “Because I just sold you on this website I made with GoDaddy.”
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The last scene shows Buddy loaded in a box in the back of a van — driven by GoDaddy spokeswoman-racecar driver Danica Patrick — being dispatched to his new owner. As the door slams shut, the woman commands, “Ship him out.”
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In a statement titled “We’re Listening, Message Received,” GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving touched on the intention of the ad but acknowledged things didn’t go quite as planned.
At the end of the day, our purpose at GoDaddy is to help small businesses around the world build a successful online presence. We hoped our ad would increase awareness of that cause. However, we underestimated the emotional response. And we heard that loud and clear.
Among those who didn’t find this ad to be quite as hilariously saucy as GoDaddy might have hoped is Steffen Baldwin, president and CEO of the Animal Cruelty Task Force of Ohio.
“Every year animal are euthanized across America, over 7 million each year because lifetime commitments are seen as disposable commodities, able to be bought, traded and sold like an X Box,” says Baldwin.
“The callous, careless and disposable way these animals are portrayed in the GoDaddy commercial shows everything that’s wrong with the puppy industry in less than 60 seconds and minus the rows and rows of stacked cages on top of stacked cages and breeding dogs that are unable to walk on grass after living a life in a crate being bred until they no longer serve a useful purpose to the owner.”
Alan Braslow, a New Jerseyan who is deeply enmeshed in the animal welfare world, also described the ad as “extremely offensive and socially irresponsible.”
“I spend my spare time rescuing dogs and fighting to eliminate puppy mills. To see GoDaddy place an ad in the Super Bowl venue that promotes puppy mills, whether it was their intention to do so or not, is inexcusable,” he says.
As of Tuesday evening, more than 35,000 people who share these concerns had signed an online petition calling for GoDaddy to pull its 2015 Super Bowl ad.
Earlier in the day, a representative for Change.org told The Huffington Post it was the site’s fastest-growing petition, gaining more than 1,000 new signatures per hour. Twitter and Facebook, too, also blew up with the hashtag #NoDaddy. And many on social media and elsewhere were saying if GoDaddy didn’t pull the ad, they’d pull their business.
“I’m almost certain that I will move my websites and services to another provider,” said Nashville-based photographer Brian Batista. “As a pet photographer and huge rescue advocate I cannot justify my business being hosted by a company that would conceive of this type of marketing. The lack of respect for Buddy in the ad is what disturbs me the most, millions of pets die every year because of that simple fact.”
On Tuesday afternoon, AdWeek reported that Irving had announced the ad wouldn’t run during the Super Bowl. Irving shared the news on Twitter.
Thank you @animalrescuers for the candid feedback. What should have been a fun and funny ad clearly missed the mark and we will not air it.
— Blake Irving (@Blakei) January 27, 2015
Buddy, himself, was adopted by the company after his two-day shoot for this commercial. Details surrounding his rescue were initially unclear, but in his statement Tuesday, Irving said the dog came “from a reputable and loving breeder in California” and has “been adopted permanently by one of our longtime employees.”
GoDaddy had previously issued a press release touting a company-wide effort to encourage employees to volunteer at animal shelters. They also released another video, again with Patrick and Buddy, this one touting the many benefits of pet adoption.
One animal advocate has a suggestion on how the company can make amends.
“Since the spirit of the commercial is to show the struggle of small business owners,” says Baldwin, “Maybe they should ante up and offer some corporate support to the many small startup animal rescue organizations that take in the animals dumped at shelters nationwide after being bought, sold and then discarded.”
UPDATE: 9:50 p.m. — GoDaddy has made its ads private on YouTube, so they’re no longer viewable.
Have an animal story to share? Know a rescue group doing great work? Get in touch at arin.greenwood@huffingtonpost.com!
VIDEO: 'Holodeck’ recreates crimes in 3D
Researchers have developed a virtual reality system that recreates crime scenes as virtual worlds.
Why can't we let go of our old tech?
Why can’t we let go of our old tech?
Teens Take To Twitter In Response To Underwhelming #Snowmageddon
After hunkering down for what became known as the “snowpocalypse” and “snowmageddon,” many cities awoke to disappointment and a few inches of snow on the ground. Underwhelming? More like snow-verated.
Naturally, teens took to Twitter to discuss the letdown. But hey, at least you probably got a snow day out of it (if you live in the Northeast, that is).
Check out the best reactions below.
I wish they named this blizzard Waldo, so we could all ask where is Waldo?
— Shannan Adele (@ShanMcCarthy_97) January 27, 2015
my grandmas telling me I can’t go out bc a blizzard…where’s the blizzard
— Lauuur (@lauren_petrozza) January 27, 2015
Canada is probably laughing at the fact that we called this a blizzard #blizzardfail
— bRi LaRicH (@BriLarich) January 27, 2015
Starting the morning with @CaseyNeistat in Time Square. There’s a mild lack of snow #snowpocalypse pic.twitter.com/TAWKZEU9gy
— Finn Harries (@FinnHarries) January 27, 2015
You all are mad over the snapchat update and I’m still upset over the “snow” we were suppose to have.
— Dennis Cruz (@VivaDeDen) January 27, 2015
Remember that time we were supposed to get a foot of snow lol
— Serena (@heyy_daisy) January 27, 2015
#blizzardfail well, at least it’s snowing lol
— Megan (@irishxgem) January 27, 2015
End of the world they said, we’d be buried they said… New York, you are such a drama queen. #blizzardof2015 #epicfail #allthismilkandbread
— Daniel H. (@irolemodel) January 27, 2015
Yeah so that blizzard where West Chester was supposed to get 10-14 inches of snow? Didn’t happen. At all.
— Elena Hoffman (@ElenaTHoffman) January 27, 2015
Soo about that blizzard in NYC. where is it? I heard it never came lol lucky yall
— kiara g. (@xLOVEMARYJANE) January 27, 2015
Meteorologists are the reason I have trust issues. #blizzardof2015 #snowmageddon #snowpocalypse
— sweet dee (@DDreynolds) January 27, 2015
The fact that New Yorkers are freaking out about a bit of snow makes me laugh, come visit colorado
— Emily Smith (@marie_emsmith) January 27, 2015
Good thing Ansel Elgort was prepared:
Ready for the snow pic.twitter.com/v277KDrZ7M
— Ansel Elgort (@AnselElgort) January 27, 2015
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The Apple Watch To Go On Sale In April
Warm up your wrists. It’s coming.
The Apple Watch will start shipping in April, Apple CEO Tim Cook said during a call with investors and analysts on Tuesday. Until now, Apple had been promising the watch for “early 2015.”
First announced in Sept. 2014, the Apple Watch will come in three different styles, the most expensive of which will be covered in 18-karat gold. The watch will connect to the iPhone, and start at $349. The gold version is estimated to cost $5,000, though no price has been set.
Google's Superfast Internet Might Be Coming To A City Near You
Get ready to be jealous.
Google announced on Tuesday that it’s rolling out its superfast WiFi, Google Fiber, to four more metro areas: Atlanta; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Nashville, Tennessee. Google Fiber, which is up to 100 times faster than the average broadband in the U.S., is currently available in Austin, Texas; Provo, Utah; and the Kansas City metro area.
Here’s a map from Google:
Just how fast is Fiber? Really fast. It’s up to 50 times faster than 20 Mbps broadband, as you can see below:
Fiber is up to 200 times faster than 5 Mbps broadband. Here’s a demonstration of that:
Google Fiber costs $70 a month for up to 1,000 Mbps WiFi speed with no construction fee. The company provides basic 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speed for free with a $300 construction fee. There’s also a more expensive plan that includes cable TV.
In comparison, Comcast charges $29.99 a month for 25 Mbps, $59.99 for 105 Mbps and $89.99 a month for 150 Mbps.
Apple Q1 breakdown reveals 18 percent decline in iPad shipments
Beyond its official press release, Apple has posted a detailed breakdown (PDF) of its fiscal first quarter. The document is the only one to mention iPad sales, and reveals that shipments dropped 18 percent year-over-year to 21.419 million. Revenues for the tablet fell 22 percent to $8.985 billion.
Google's Waze App Fires Back Against Police Criticism
By Michael Fleeman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Responding to the Los Angeles police chief, who complained that its popular traffic app could be misused by criminals to track officers, a spokeswoman for Waze said on Tuesday that the company worked with law officers to make them safer.
Julie Mossler, head of global communications for Waze, said company officials “think very deeply about safety and security” and work closely with police and transportation departments around the world.
“These relationships keep citizens safe, promote faster emergency response and help alleviate traffic congestion,” Mossler said. “Police partners support Waze and its features, including reports of police presence, because most users tend to drive more carefully when they believe law enforcement is nearby.”
Acquired by Google in 2013 for $966 million, Waze uses GPS and social networking to alert drivers to accidents, traffic snarls and the presence of police, signaled by a little cop icon on a map. It reportedly has 50 million users worldwide.
But in a letter sent to Google on Dec. 30, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck complained about the police locator feature, claiming it could be “misused by those with criminal intent to endanger police officers and the community.”
In the letter, released this week, Beck also said accused gunman Ismaaiyl Brinsley had used the Waze app in the days before an ambush of New York officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu on December.
“I am confident your company did not intend the Waze app to be a means to allow those who wish to commit crimes to use the unwitting Waze community as their lookouts for the location of police officers,” Beck wrote.
Brinsley had a screenshot from the app on his Instagram account along with anti-cop slurs posted just hours before the two officers were shot dead in a parked squad car in Brooklyn, according to published reports.
But New York authorities have not directly linked the use app to the ambush.
(Reporting by Michael Fleeman; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Eric Walsh)
How Apple Got Us To Spend Even More On IPhones
Apple got millions of you to buy a more expensive iPhone.
The average price of an iPhone during the three months that ended in December was $687.30, up from $602.92 last quarter, and $636.90 over the same period last year. But that didn’t stop people from rushing to get one: Apple sold a record 74.5 million iPhones during the last three months of 2014, a 46 percent increase over the same period last year.
Data for chart courtesy of Benedict Evans of Andreesen Horowitz.
There are a couple of reasons why we’re paying more for iPhones now. One is that the iPhone 6 Plus, the 5.5-inch “phablet,” really is a more expensive phone — it starts at $299 on-contract and $749 off-contract. That’s a full $100 more than Apple’s base flagship model usually sells for.
The average price includes all available models of iPhones sold, so it makes sense that as more expensive iPhone 6 Pluses, which came out in September, fill the shelves, the average price skews upward.
But there’s another reason iPhones have gotten more expensive: storage. The storage configuration in Apple’s latest models has been called “the single-most disappointing aspect of the new phones.”
Apple traditionally releases three versions of iPhones with varying storage capabilities. The phones start at $199 on contract, and each incremental increase in storage is $100 more. For example, the configurations for the iPhone 5 and 5S, released in 2012 and 2013, respectively, were 16 gigabyte, 32 GB and 64 GB.
But for the iPhone 6, Apple changed it up. The company kept three storage levels, but eliminated the 32-GB option, replacing it with a 64-GB version. So you can get both the iPhone 6 and 6 plus in 16 GB, 64 GB or 128 GB.
But the problem is that 16 GB is way too small for many people. Prominent Apple observer John Gruber wrote that it “seems downright punitive given how big panoramic photos and slo-mo HD videos are.” Thus, many end up paying $100 more for the 64-GB mid-level version.
And that not only brings Apple more revenue, but more profit, too.
As my colleague Damon Beres reported in December, the 64 GB iPhone 6 costs Apple about $15 more to produce than the 16 GB version. So that extra $85 goes right from your pocket to Apple’s bottom line.
Neil Cybert, an Apple analyst who blogs at Above Avalon, recently wrote that Apple will save save $3 billion this year by keeping the base iPhone model at 16 GB, rather than increasing it to 32 GB.
That decision wasn’t the best for consumers, but it sure is good for Apple and investors.
The iPhone Just Obliterated Sales Records
The iPhone 6 is Apple’s biggest phone ever in terms of screen size — and likely in terms of sales, too.
Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones during the last three months of 2014, the company reported on Tuesday, the most in any quarter. That’s 9 million more than the 65 million iPhones analysts predicted, and an increase of 23.5 million from the same period last year — a jump of 46 percent.
The surge in iPhone sales lifted Apple profits to $18 billion in the quarter, up 38 percent from a year earlier. That was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, quarterly corporate profits on record.
The last three months of the year is Apple’s sweet spot. Since 2011, the company has reported record-breaking quarterly sales during that stretch. Apple sold 51 million iPhones at the end of 2013, 48 million at the end of 2012 and 37 million at the close of 2011.
Though Apple doesn’t break out sales by device, the record quarter was largely due to the new iPhone 6. And the iPhone 6′s runaway success is due partly to the appeal of its larger size — its screen is 0.7 inches larger than the screen on the iPhone 5S. The iPhone 6 Plus screen is 1.5 inches bigger than the 5S screen.
The iPhone 6 is apparently so appealing that it lured customers away from rival smartphones, including Google’s Android devices, according to Bloomberg.
It also helped that the sheer size of Apple’s market increased at the end of the year. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were the first Apple phones released after Apple signed a deal with China Mobile, opening the door to 700 million subscribers.
That said, the release has not been without hiccups: Some critics have decried the 16GB model, saying it didn’t provide nearly enough storage.
Of course, in Apple’s eyes, those are potential customers for the inevitable iPhone 7.
Why Snapchat Is Going to Beat Facebook at News
Today Snapchat announced Discover, a new feature that allows users to find “stories” from big time media outlets like National Geographic, Comedy Central, ESPN, and CNN. For the first time, users can get high-quality, editorially-curated content from publishers the way they would from their Snapchat friends.
The content itself isn’t game-changing. Tap and swipe around on the new Discover page and you’ll see short video clips from The Daily Show, or an update on the blizzard in the northeast, or “5 Genius Eyeliner Hacks.” It even has ads. It’s much like the content you might stumble across on Facebook.
But what does seem like a game-changer (as far as social media and news is concerned) is that with Discover, news orgs like CNN get to retain some semblance of a Front Page again. Instead of users seeing news that is filtered by “friends,” likes, comments, and shares, users see a series of videos and cards curated by an editor. An editor who is trained and skilled at knowing what news matters and what news doesn’t.
Facebook’s success in the news space thus far stems from the fact that users, motivated by checking in on what their friends are up to, also happen to see news links shared by friends or by publishers they follow. Snapchat, as it grows and as Discover evolves, will have essentially the same power. Users check in on Snapchat to see what their friends are up to, and see a breaking news story from CNN sitting next to a story from their friend.
But where Facebook is failing at news right now is that they still let an algorithm of likes and shares determine what news users see. Publishers can post important hard-news stories to Facebook all they want, but if it’s not getting crowd-boosted by user engagement, it will lose out to that cute puppy video in your newsfeed.
And Snapchat is clear about their anti-algorithm stance on content in their Introduction to Discover on the app:
This is not social media. Discover isn’t about what’s most popular. We count on editors and artists, not clicks and shares, to determine what’s important.
With a resurfacing of the Front Page, perhaps news orgs will feel less of a need to pander their content to the traffic-hose monster that is Facebook. That means less click-baity headlines, less fluffy viral videos, and a reason for publishers to focus on the quality of the content and the experience. And then just maybe news brands can begin to restore some fidelity with their readers.
Apple posts $74.6B in Q1 revenues based on iPhone, Mac sales
Apple has posted the results of its first fiscal quarter for 2015, which actually ended on December 27th. The company says it achieved record quarterly revenue of $74.6 billion, and similarly record-setting net profits of $18 billion, or $3.06 per share. The figures compare against $57.6 billion, $13.1 billion, and $2.07 in Q1 2014; gross margins increased from 37.9 percent to 39.9 percent. Apple notes that international sales made up 65 percent of the recent quarter’s revenues.
Yahoo to spin-off Alibaba stake
Yahoo has announced a plan to spin-off its 15% stake in China’s Alibaba Group and hand the business to its shareholders.
Yahoo To Avoid Billions In Taxes By Spinning Off Alibaba Stake
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is spinning off the company’s $39 billion stake in China’s Alibaba Group Holding in a move that wards off a potential shareholder rebellion.
The highly anticipated decision announced Tuesday will enable Yahoo to avoid paying billions of dollars in future taxes while intensifying the pressure on Mayer to prove she can rejuvenate one of the Internet’s oldest and best-known companies.
A newly formed entity called SpinCo will inherit ownership of Yahoo’s 384 million Alibaba shares when the tax-free spinoff is completed toward the end of this year.
Existing Yahoo shareholders will receive stock in SpinCo, which will be designated as a registered investment company. The breakup is an attempt to ensure most Spinco shareholders profiting from future sales of Alibaba stock will be taxed at a lower rate than Yahoo Inc. would have paid had it held on to the stake, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst for Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting.
Yahoo stockholders cheered Mayer’s plan as the company’s shares gained $3.44, or more than 7 percent, to $51.43 in extended trading.
The spinoff overshadowed Yahoo’s results for the final three months of last year. The fourth-quarter numbers showed Yahoo is still struggling to grow, even as more advertising shifts to the Internet and mobile devices.
Yahoo earned $166 million, or 17 cents per share, a 52 percent drop from the same period in the previous year. If not for certain charges, Yahoo said it would have earned 30 cents per share — a penny above the average estimate of analysts surveyed by FactSet.
The company’s revenue dipped 1 percent to $1.25 billion. After subtracting ad commissions, Yahoo’s revenue totaled $1.18 billion, another small decline from the previous year and slightly below analysts’ projections.
It marks the eighth time in Mayer’s 10 quarters as Yahoo’s CEO that the company’s revenue has declined from the previous year.
Yahoo Inc. invested just $1 billion in Alibaba nearly a decade ago, a bargain that slapped the company with massive tax bills as it whittled its stake during the past three years. Without the spinoff, Mayer estimated that Yahoo’s tax bills on its Alibaba stake would have been about $16 billion, based on Alibaba’s current market value.
Investments in Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, and Yahoo Japan are the main reason Yahoo’s stock has more than tripled since Mayer defected from Google to become Yahoo’s CEO two-and-half years ago.
Yahoo, which is based in Sunnyvale, California, is retaining its nearly 36 percent stake in Yahoo Japan. The stake is currently worth nearly $7 billion, BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis estimated.
“This is ideal for shareholders and shows that (Mayer) is aligning herself with shareholder interests, at least for now,” Gillis said.
The spinoff is subject to approvals from the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yahoo plans to jettison the Alibaba stake after the September expiration of a one-year lock-up agreement requiring Yahoo to hold on to the shares.
The Alibaba investment is worth far more than Yahoo’s own online services, which have been struggling to generate more revenue for the past six years while rivals Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. grabbed a bigger piece of digital marketing budgets.
Yahoo sold nearly $9.5 billion worth of stock in Alibaba’s initial public offering, triggering more than $3 billion in taxes.
The handling of Yahoo’s Alibaba stake is so important to shareholders that one activist investor, hedge fudge manager Jeffrey Smith of Starboard Value, had threatened to spearhead an attempt to oust Mayer if she didn’t adopt a strategy that minimizes taxes.
Smith also has been pressuring Mayer to commit to returning most of any future Alibaba windfalls to shareholders instead of spending the money to buy other companies — unless she embraces his call for Yahoo to merge with rival AOL Inc.
Starboard Value did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mayer assured analysts in a Tuesday presentation that she will take a “very disciplined” approach to any potential acquisitions. Yahoo still has about $10 billion in cash, providing plenty of firepower to finance more deals. Mayer already has spent about $1.7 billion on more than three dozen acquisitions during her reign.
Yahoo’s own stock gained $3.51, or more than 7 percent, to $51.50 in extended trading after Mayer disclosed her plans for Yahoo’s 15 percent stake in Alibaba.
Tuesday’s much-anticipated announcement overshadowed Yahoo’s results for the final three months of last year.
Yahoo Inc. invested just $1 billion in Alibaba nearly a decade ago, a bargain that subjected the company to massive tax bills as it has whittled its stake during the past three years.
The Alibaba stake is currently worth $39 billion, intensifying the shareholder pressure on Mayer to come up with a plan to minimize future taxes. The Alibaba investment is also worth far more than Yahoo’s. Yahoo has been struggling to generate more revenue for the past six years while rivals Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. grabbed a bigger piece of digital marketing budgets.
Alibaba had its initial public offering of stock in September. The Chinese company is attractive to investors in part because most of its users visit on smartphones and other mobile devices at least once a month — important as computing shifts away from traditional laptops and desktops.
Investments in Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, and Yahoo Japan are the main reason Yahoo’s stock has more than tripled since Mayer defected from Google to become Yahoo’s CEO two-and-half years ago. Yahoo is retaining its nearly 36 percent stake in Yahoo Japan, currently worth nearly $7 billion, BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis estimated.
“This is ideal for shareholders and shows that (Mayer) is aligning herself with shareholder interests, at least for now,” Gillis said.
The handling of Yahoo’s Alibaba stake is so important to shareholders that one activist investor, hedge fudge manager Jeffrey Smith of Starboard Value, has threatened to spearhead an attempt to oust Mayer if she didn’t adopt a strategy that minimizes taxes. Smith also has been pressuring Mayer to commit to returning most of any future Alibaba windfalls to shareholders instead of spending the money to buy other companies — unless she embraces his call for Yahoo to merge with rival AOL Inc.
A tax-free spin-off of the Alibaba stake ranked high on Smith’s agenda.
Starboard Value did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Connecting patients with human coaches and biopsychosocial data
How psychosocial, personality, and cultural factors shaped this health management platform.
The post Connecting patients with human coaches and biopsychosocial data appeared first on iMedicalApps.
Apple Maps gets 12 new Flyover cities
Apple has added 12 new towns and cities to the list of Apple Maps locations with Flyover coverage. Of these only one is in the US, that being Amarillo, Texas. The others include three places in France — Beziers, Clermont, and Saint-Tropez — along with Aguadilla and Arecibo in Puerto Rico, Brno in the Czech Republic, Cittadella in Italy, Hamburg in Germany, Helsingborg in Sweden, Liverpool in England, and Odense in Denmark.
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