Italian news agency “Ansa” fails at reporting a complaint from the “Osservatorio Antiplagio” against an iPhone app called “What Country” (link) which associates “mafia” to Italy. In a brief paragraph, Ansa doesn’t provide details about the OA complaint and instead states that Apple itself released the app “for iphone, ipod and ipad”. Google translation here.
This is journalism. [via Mauro Marchesi]
First let me take a minute to point something out. A few weeks ago Carol Bartz, Yahoo! CEO, told Reuters the iAd system will “fall apart for them.” Boo hoo Yahoo. Okay, let’s move on, but nice try Carol!
By the end of 2010, Apple is predicted to have matched Google in the percent of ads in the mobile market at 21%. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, “Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have swiftly lost share in the U.S. mobile advertising market to Apple’s new iAd(s).” Google’s share will drop to 21 percent, from 27 percent last year. Yahoo will drop to 9 percent, from 12 percent last year. Microsoft will drop to 7 percent, from 10 percent. (numbers by researcher IDC) Read more
This is for all you old school Sega Dreamcast users - a hardware mod to use your old Virtual Memory Unit (VMU) as a handy-dandy sixth generation iPod Nano case. Just open the VMU unit, place the Nano inside the case, fit the headphone wire (with some work) and put it back together. Not only does this destroy Apple’s minimal design principles but it gives your Nano a protective beige case - but isn’t it cool? Pictures and video goodness below. Read more
It seems like Apple sells more newspapers.
This is a neat little feature, a small improvement, but we like it: Apple has added an indicator in the App Store page of Game Center-compatible apps. You can check it out in the top-right corner of a page like this one.
It’s easier now to know whether a game supports Game Center or not, but an indicator is not enough: what does the app allow you to do on GC? How many achievements does it come with? I don’t think that developers should put all this information in the product description, a dedicated one is needed. Also, what about already-purchased apps? You still have to try and click Buy to find out, as there’s no indicator for that. (Update: not to mention a “Retina Display-ready badge)
Apple is working on making the App Store a better marketplace (remember, it’s not a simple showcase of 10.00o apps anymore), but it still lacks basic features like a complete and detailed history, or a better wishlist. We’ll just have to wait, I guess. Read more
Apple released a minor update to iTunes last night, which reaches version 10.0.1 and introduces a new feature for Ping users: the Ping sidebar. The Ping sidebar allows you to always have the updates from the people you follow under control: the “Recent Activity” is a smaller version of the Ping dashboard you’re used to and it displays new purchases, preorders and likes. You can like, comment, preorder and buy from the sidebar itself. Read more
Also, delays.
In an interview for the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt talks about competitors and heaps praise on Apple and Steve Jobs. Read more
Asymco has posted an interesting story/graph on the analysis of mobile phone profits. Horace Dediu writes, “if the available profit (i.e. excluding losses) were summed and each vendor’s profit were measured as a percent of this total, this chart would tell the story of the last three years.” Read more
