Apple Releases Second iOS 9 Public Beta
Apple today seeded a second beta of iOS 9 to public beta testers, nearly two weeks after beta testers received access to the first public beta. Today’s public beta offering has a build number of 13A4305g, which means content-wise, it’s the same as the fourth iOS beta that was seeded to developers yesterday.
Beta testers who have signed up for Apple’s beta testing program and already have the first public beta installed can update over-the-air.
The beta includes the return of Home Sharing for Music, which was removed in iOS 8.4, and it’s the first beta that supports Apple’s new iPod touch. Other changes include a new look for Handoff in the app switcher and a bug fix that once again allows the volume buttons on an iOS device to serve as a shutter for the camera. A full list of changes in the beta can be found in our iOS 9 beta 4 tidbits list.
Dear Veronica: Is tech rejection our future?
This week, we kick things off with the poll results from last week’s episode. You guys had some strong feelings about kids and cursing!
Next, my friend and Sword & Laser co-host Tom Merritt (of Daily Tech News Show) weighs in on a question about the anti-technology generation. Will our future spawn reject technology fully, or embrace it even more completely?
And hey, if you feel like you’re a little too plugged-in, I share my tips for logging off. Just make sure you watch this video before you do! Send your questions to me veronica@engadget.com or on Twitter using the hashtag #DearVeronica. See you next week!
Filed under: Apple
MacRumors and Aspyr Giveaway: Get a Free Copy of ‘Civilization V: Campaign Edition’ for Mac
Most of our giveaways have focused on hardware products, but this week, we’ve partnered with Aspyr to set up a special one-of-a-kind giveaway. We’ve teamed up to offer our MacRumors readers a free copy of the ultra popular game Civilization V: Campaign Edition, which normally retails for $29.
We’ve created a dedicated page for the giveaway. Head over there to get a promotion code for Civilization V: Campaign Edition that can then be redeemed within the Mac App Store. The promotion is open to readers worldwide.
For those of you unfamiliar with Civilization V, it’s a turn-based strategy game that lets players lead a civilization to world domination through time, waging wars, discovering technologies, trading with friendly nations, and interacting with some of the world’s most powerful historical leaders. Civilization V: Campaign Edition includes the base game, the Babylon Civilization Pack with Nebuchadnezzar II, plus the Mongols Civilization and Scenario Pack.
We’re providing each of our readers with one promo code apiece, and codes will be available through July 31 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time or until all codes have been claimed. Codes will expire on August 4, so make sure to enter your promo code in the Mac App Store before then. Visit the giveaway page.
Apple Watch Captured Estimated 75% Smartwatch Market Share in Launch Quarter
The latest data from research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that the Apple Watch captured 75.5% global smartwatch market share during its launch quarter, trailed by Samsung’s estimated 7.5% market share.
Strategy Analytics estimates that Apple sold 4 million Apple Watches in the second quarter of 2015, while runner-up Samsung sold an estimated 400,000 smartwatches during the three-month period ending June 30.
Many analysts have adjusted their Apple Watch sales estimates following the company’s earnings report on Tuesday, with the consensus now ranging between 2.2 million and 3 million units sold, so Strategy Analytics’s 4 million estimate seems overly high. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Apple Watch has become the best-selling smartwatch since its release.
Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “We estimate Apple Watch shipped 4.0 million units and captured a dominant 75 percent smartwatch marketshare worldwide in Q2 2015. Apple Watch launched in sixteen major countries and saw decent take-up from iPhone loyalists in the United States and elsewhere. Apple Watch has clearly raised the bar for the global smartwatch industry. The ball is now in the court of rivals, like Samsung, to respond.”
The launch of the Apple Watch helped the overall smartwatch market grow an estimated 457% annually to reach a record 5.3 million units in the second quarter of 2015. Strategy Analytics reports that smartwatch shipments were higher in this quarter than throughout all of 2014, when Samsung led the market and an estimated 4.6 million smartwatches were shipped globally.
Samsung held a commanding 73.6% global market share in the smartwatch market in the year-ago quarter, but the South Korean electronics maker now trails the Apple Watch by a significant margin. Apple Watch is currently available in the United States and eighteen other countries, and the wrist-worn device is set to launch in New Zealand, Russia and Turkey on July 31.
Apple and Samsung together accounted for 8 in 10 smartwatches sold, similar to the two-horse race between the rival tech companies in the smartphone market. Strategy Analytics estimates that other manufacturers shipped a combined 900,000 smartwatches during the second quarter of 2015 for 17% market share, down from 26.4% market share in the year-ago quarter despite selling 600,000 more smartwatches.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Watch sales “exceeded expectations” during the company’s third quarter earnings report on Tuesday, but stopped short of providing any specific sales figures. Cook’s only comment was that Apple Watch sales during its first nine weeks of availability were higher than sales of the original iPad and iPhone when those devices first became available for sale.
Microsoft Introduces ‘Send’ iOS App for Quick, ‘In-and-Out Email’
Microsoft today announced “Send,” a new app premiering exclusively on iOS that aims to give customers the simplicity of a text-message conversation in the guise of a professional e-mail experience. Specifically, the app will let users send quick, snappy responses to co-workers “without a subject line or formal email constructs.”
Microsoft hopes that the app acts as a bridge between the texting and e-mail culture that can become murky when needing to reach someone quickly, but are lacking the person’s phone number and wanting to avoid filtering through an e-mail app for an old thread. Send isn’t for in-depth dives into an inbox, either, the app choosing to show only the messages created and sent within the app itself, sticking to its mission statement of a more threaded, iMessage-like experience.
While tools like text messaging and IM are great for short messages, you often don’t have your co-worker’s cell phone number or an IM app on your work phone. And we’ve heard loud and clear from people at work, they want all their communications available in Outlook—even if they send them from other apps. This is where Send comes in! Send gives you the simple, quick text message-like experience while allowing you to reach all co-workers and have all of your communications in Outlook for reference later.
If a user connects the app to an Office 365 School or Business account, they’ll be able to pick up conversations anywhere thanks to cloud sync and Outlook. All emails sent and received within Send are also promised to comply with the various email compliance policies of companies around the country, with Microsoft promising that the messages “are treated like any other work email.”
The app is available today in the United States and Canada, but only for iOS. Microsoft promises the text-message-meets-email experience of Send is “coming soon” to Windows Phone and Android phones. The company also encourages people to provide feedback on the app during YamJam on Tuesday July 28 from 9 AM to 10 AM PDT, by following the instructions at the bottom of the Send blog post.
Send [Direct Link] is available to download for free in the App Store today.
AT&T Activation Fee for Contract Customers Rising to $45, New $15 Fee for ‘Next’ Customers
Beginning August 1, AT&T will raise its activation/upgrade fee for customers signing up for a one- or two-year contract, alongside introducing a specific activation fee for all AT&T Next and Bring-Your-Own-Phone customers.
According to sources speaking with Droid Life, the new contract upgrade fee will increase from $40 to $45, while the activation cost for Next and BYOP customers will be $15. If true, AT&T will have the highest activation fee amongst its competitors. Other carriers, like Verizon, sit around a $40 upgrade fee cost currently.
With the uptick in price for the carrier’s contract activation charges, AT&T is changing its installment plan option, AT&T Next, from a no-cost-to-start service to requiring a $15 activation fee. The same $15 charge will be placed for customers interested in activating a new line of service with the BYOP program, which lets customers save money on their yearly contracts by bringing in a phone purchased elsewhere to avoid paying full-price.
It appears that AT&T will grandfather in existing AT&T Next customers who have a plan with the company prior to August 1, and won’t be charged the $15 fee on their next upgrade. However, the carrier noted that this policy is “subject to change,” meaning existing Next customers may be facing the $15 charge sometime down the line of their upgrade cycle, if not immediately after the changes take effect.
Apple Disables App Store Reviews From Devices Running iOS 9 Beta Software
Apple has quietly changed its App Store policies and is no longer permitting iOS devices running pre-release software to be used to write App Store reviews. When attempting to write a review from a device that has iOS 9 installed, a popup is displayed that tells users reviews can’t be submitted while using beta software.
This is a much needed change that will prevent developers from having their App Store ratings and reviews affected by beta-related problems that are out of their control. As MacStories‘ Federico Vittici pointed out last week, negative App Store reviews left by beta testers have been an unaddressed issue for developers since Apple started providing beta software to public testers.
When beta software is released, some customers fault developers for apps that crash or do not function properly with beta features, leading them to leave negative App Store reviews even though there are months to go until apps need to be ready for the new software.
Following the release of the iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan public betas a week and a half ago, developers began seeing a huge uptick in negative reviews. Many of them took to Twitter to share 1 star reviews that included comments like “Broken with iOS 9.0,” and it appears Apple finally took notice of the issue.
Gotta love 1-star reviews for iOS 9 Beta issues. https://t.co/6lrFn9cP65
— Paul Mayne (@paulmayne) July 11, 2015
While it is no longer possible to write App Store reviews while running iOS 9, it is still possible to leave star ratings. It is not clear exactly when Apple made the change, but with both iOS 9 beta 3 and beta 4, App Store reviews are disabled.
iOS 8.4.1, another pre-release iOS build, does still allow App Store reviews to be left, so it appears that this may be a change that affects only beta software that’s been seeded to the public as part of Apple’s public beta testing program.
Tim Cook says Apple is seeing the “highest switcher rate from Android that we’ve ever measured”
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Today, Apple announced their financial results for the last quarter, and despite strong overall results (not that this was helped by less than ideal performance of the Apple Watch), fell short of expectations which was punished by its investors. However, in Tim Cook‘s financial call, it wasn’t the iPhones performance, or even the Apple Watch, that was the underlying message – it was Apple’s tendency to make Android users jump the fence onto iOS platforms that Cook was sure to highlight, so much so that it was mentioned multiple times:
“The strong iPhone results were broad-based in both developed and emerging markets, and we experienced the highest switcher rate from Android that we’ve ever measured…
“We also are incredibly happy to see the highest Android switcher rate that we’ve observed. And so, from our point of view, the iPhone is doing outstanding…
“But as I back up from it and look at it from more of a macro point of view, the thing that makes me very bullish is the 27 percent number I just quoted; the fact that we are seeing the highest Android switcher rate; the customer satisfaction that we have on the iPhone versus the competition—it’s a huge margin; the loyalty rate that we have versus competition, an enormous gap there…
“In certain geographies, the way that we win is to get [Android] switchers. In other geographies, the way that we win is to get people to buy their first smartphone. In other geographies, the way that we win is to get people to upgrade from their current iPhone…”
Yes, four separate times. Now, we’d love to call bull on Cook’s statements, but it’s a pretty tough feat without his data, and the simple fact that we can kind of see how that might be true – in a market that is increasingly ruled by flagship devices, it’s arguable that the iPhones have the greatest brand pull with the general public of any flagship device. Throw in the fact that most of Android’s ecosystem includes low and mid-range devices that some people might get disillusioned with and jump the fence, and that there are now more Android devices than ever before, it seems inevitable that this statistic would be true now, if not year after year.
What we would be interested in seeing is any counter-data that shows us how many iPhone users are now switching over to Android – then we might have a fair comparison.
What do you think about Android users switching over to iPhones more than before? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: iMore via Phone Arena
The post Tim Cook says Apple is seeing the “highest switcher rate from Android that we’ve ever measured” appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Apple’s Home Sharing for music returns in latest iOS 9 beta
Well, would you look at that. Not long after it was reported that Apple had killed Home Sharing for music in iOS 8.4, the company appears to be ready to bring the feature back to life. As MacRumors points out, Home Sharing for music is now included in the fourth beta of iOS 9 for developers — sorry, public testers, this isn’t for you. Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, said earlier this month that his team was working on restoring the feature, even though there was no indication of when that would be happening. But now it’s here, so go have at it if you’re part of the iOS dev program.
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Software, HD, Mobile, Apple
Source: MacRumors
Tech companies backing Samsung in patent battle with Apple
The patent battle between Apple and Samsung has resurfaced thanks to a new amicus filing by some of the tech industries heavyweights who are lining up behind Samsung. In the friend of the court briefing, companies like Google, HP, Facebook and others, make an argument we have heard from Samsung in the past.
Although Samsung lost in the courtroom to Apple which accused Samsung of infringing several iPhone related patents, the companies have continued to fight at the appellate level over the appropriateness of decision and the amount of damages. Samsung has achieved some success in whittling the $1 billion judgment down $548 million. Samsung is trying to get that reduced even more by challenging the appropriateness of giving up all profits from the sale of devices that were found to infringe.
In the amicus filing, the tech companies argue that,
“That feature — a result of a few lines out of millions of code — may appear only during a particular use of the product, on one screen display among hundreds. But the panel’s decision could allow the owner of the design patent to receive all profits generated by the product or platform, even if the infringing element was largely insignificant to the user.”
The end result of even the smallest infringement out of a totality of ideas and concepts that go into a product would be the stifling of innovation and the likelihood that every company would infringe some patent in some manner the companies claim. The effect would be “devastating” on companies.
source: The Verge
Come comment on this article: Tech companies backing Samsung in patent battle with Apple
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