In one point in time, Nokia was the top-selling smartphone vendor in the world by a wide margin. It wasn't even that long ago, in fact. But when Nokia failed to respond quickly enough to the industry's shift toward touch, the Finnish giant lost its footing and toppled spectacularly. Just how bad have things gotten for Nokia? Market share numbers paint a pretty frightening picture, but a single tweet from Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis might do an even better job of putting things in perspective.

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Today, thanks to the maturation of the web, digital tech, and smartphones now in seemingly every pocket, startups are finding it easier than ever before to build scalable solutions to finally address the many inefficiencies in our food manufacturing, production and distribution systems.

As interest in food tech balloons, one area in particular appears to already be at the tipping point: Online and mobile food delivery. Over the last few days, we’ve hearing about a merger between two of the largest companies in the space. Rumor has it that “arch rivals” GrubHub and Seamless are in talks which could see them join forces as part of a merger. While our sources tell us that the talks are serious, the terms of the merger are not yet clear and, of course, any potential deal could fall through.

Furthermore, it’s not yet clear what kind of synergies would take place, how management of the new entity would be structured or even what the new business will be called. The two companies would not confirm on the record on any of the above. But as far as the name goes, we’re hoping for Grubless. Or Hubless GrubSeam. But they have a nice ring to them, don’t they?

If these rumors are true, the merger comes at a good time for the arch rivals, who have been seeing mounting competition of late from a laundry list of new startups entering the space, including increasingly popular alternatives like Delivery.com, ChowNow, Munchery (meals from local chefs), Campus Special, eat24 or the bigs of Europe, like Food Hero and Just-Eat.

If the online food-ordering and delivery market is roughly where daily deals were three-plus years ago, then the deal essentially creates the Groupon of food delivery. Like the daily deals market, food ordering has traditionally had a fairly low barrier to entry, which helps explain why we seem to see a new startup pop up every week.

Plus, the business model isn’t particularly complicated, making it replicable. That being said, innovation and tech adoption have been slow to come to the food industry, and, at scale, this model (taking a slice of transactions) has the potential to be able to generate a lot of cash.

This is just one part of why the “food tech” business has been so hot lately. Just ask venture capitalists who collectively poured $350 million into food startups over the last year. (Compare that to 2008, when it was less than $50 million.) Plus, when you get right down to it: People need to eat. And, as it turns out, people are pretty busy. Uh, and lazy.

Of course, for those who remember the spectacular failure of online food companies like Webvan, Kozmo and HomeRuns, this whole “tech in your kitchen” and online ordering jibber-jabber probably sounds familiar — and not in a good way. But this time it’s different. Research from Cornell University recently found, for example, that over 40 percent of adults in the U.S. have ordered food online, and 10 percent of restaurant orders now originate online — and these numbers continue to head north. GrubHub and Seamless have built successful businesses on this very idea.

Both GrubHub and Seamless have been around for some time: The New York City-based Seamless was founded in 1999, while the Chicago-based GrubHub got its start in 2004. And for the most part, the two companies have catered to two different markets geographically. While both now have fairly expansive coverage, GrubHub has naturally developed a firm foothold in the Midwest, while Seamless focused its early attention on NYC, before moving into cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. From that perspective, a merger would make sense, allowing the new, consolidated entity to gain penetration into markets where they lacked a major presence.

Writ large, the companies, while having some fundamental differences, do seem to have a lot of synergies on paper — at least “nominally,” depending on who you ask — likely why they’ve increasingly become rivals over the years. Both are of fairly comparable size, as GrubHub has more than 18,000 restaurant partners across more than 500 cities, while Seamless has over 12,000 restaurants and serves nearly 5,000 businesses and more than 2 million users. As of February, Reuters reported that Seamless was on track to generate more than $100 million in revenue this year as it expands into new cities and focuses more aggressively on mobile.

The company reportedly generated $85 million in revenue last year, growing its consumer business by 60 percent year-over-year and “will soon be processing $1 billion worth of food orders a year,” Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky told Reuters at the time. For the majority of its history, the company focused primarily on New York, but launched a major expansion effort last year, bringing its service to 10 new cities. According to the report, Seamless saw its transaction volume quadruple in Los Angeles during 2012, with transactions tripling in San Francisco.

Another interesting point to note: GrubHub was reported to be considering an IPO last fall. The company denied the rumors at the time, and if this merger is true, then they’ve been given the proper perspective. Certainly, it would seem that this wouldn’t take a potential IPO off the table, instead, likely making an opening price that much higher.

The IPO rumors for GrubHub came at a time when the company was reportedly doing about $60 million in revenue (this was in 2012) — a little less than half that of Seamless. Furthermore, Crain’s reported in December that GrubHub’s revenue has been doubling every year and, as the company reported $30 million in revenue in 2011, that revenue estimate would make sense and put the company on the path to crossing $100 million well before the end of this year.

That is all to say that, although the terms of the potential deal are unclear, these are two sizable businesses that are growing relatively fast, so any potential valuation has got to be fairly high. After all: The two companies were fairly comparably capitalized and staffed, with GrubHub growing to over 250 employees and Seamless over 300, while GrubHub raised about $84 million from a mix of venture and growth equity firms (including Benchmark) and Seamless raised $51 million, $50 million of which came from private equity firm Spectrum Equity.

While both companies have made a couple of acquisitions, this would be the second big M&A deal for Seamless, as the company was acquired by food services giant, ARAMARK, in 2006. Five years later, Spectrum bought a minority stake in Seamless from ARAMARK, and about a year later, the food services company spun-off its remaining interest in Seamless to its shareholders. Free from its corporate ownership, Seamless proceeded to go out and buy MenuPages for $15 million, showing up GrubHub, which MenuPages had initially targeted as its acquirer. When GrubHub and MenuPages couldn’t agree to a deal, and it seems that GrubHub was instead in the process of buying Dotmenu/Allmenus, Seamless swooped in — according to BetaBeat.

So, as you can see, the companies have a long history of jostling. While GrubHub had been out acquiring restaurant partners fast and furiously, Seamless stagnated a bit under ARAMARK, but since becoming an independent company (again) and with a new board/investors, the company seems to have been compounding its growth. Together, that growth could be exponentially higher.

Finally, if this deal is in fact a go, it’s worth looking at this quote from GrubHub co-founder and CEO Matt Maloney from back in 2011. In it, he shares his opinion on GrubHub’s top competitor, a little company called Seamless. He told BetaBeat:

I typically don’t talk this much about Seamless because we don’t view them as incredibly strong competition for what we’re doing … Seamless fundamentally is a corporate catering business. They were founded years and years and years ago to do just that. And they’re still best in the business for corporate. They recently got into the consumer and residential pick-up and delivery. And they do it well in New York, but they really have zero business anywhere else. We don’t even consider them competition anywhere other than Manhattan specifically.

So, there you go. A match potentially made in heaven, and one that’s sure to shake up online and mobile food ordering if it happens.

Find Seamless at home here and GrubHub here.

Oh HTC. You’ve produced one of the finest Android smartphones ever (seriously, just look at all these reviews), but you’ve faced more than your share of challenges when it came to actually pumping your top-tier One smartphone. As it happens, that may all soon change.

FocusTaiwan reported earlier today that HTC is preparing to pump out more of its wonderful Ones in short order — Jack Tong, the company’s North Asia president, noted that this month’s production capacity for the flagship device is twice that of April, and that surge will only continue into June.

Sounds pretty yawn-worthy, right? Normally I would spend too much time dwelling on the finer points of production capacity, but here’s a device that was launched to widespread praise by an underdog smartphone company some people have written off, and HTC has basically been getting screwed thanks to part shortages for the One’s Ultrapixel camera and a brief injunction due to the HDR microphone it uses. It’s like a perfect storm of headaches for a company that really, really doesn’t need it — one look at its Q1 financials and it’s clear that HTC needed this launch to go as smoothly as possible. It didn’t.

For what it’s worth, HTC hasn’t disclosed how many Ones it’s shipped since it launched earlier this year. Meanwhile, rival Samsung’s Galaxy S4 has become the Korean electronics giant’s fastest moving smartphone — Samsung shipped 6 million units in just over two weeks, and it hopes to cross the 10 million unit threshold by the end of this month. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that Google’s Hugo Barra showed off a version of the S4 at the company’s I/O developer conference that runs a version of Android that’s unfettered by the software bloat that many a reviewer took umbrage at. Company representatives were careful not to call it a Nexus — even though it seems to harbor many of the advantages inherent to the Nexus line like a clean Android build and access to frequent software updates.

As I noted towards the end of my HTC One review, the wireless industry isn’t a meritocracy — the well-executed device doesn’t always wind up saving the day. Hopefully now that some of these production woes have been ironed out we’ll see HTC live to fight another day, but that’s still far from a given.

Google made a relatively quiet announcement today regarding how it’s pushing the developer ecosystem forward around Google Now, its intelligent personal assistant for Android devices. The company has begun extending mark up tools for emails from select partners, which help highlight flight schedules, hotel bookings and various types of reservations, to make sure that Gmail can spot that information and use it to auto-generate helpful reminders in Google Now.

The extension of the platform tools available to Now partners was announced by Google’s Baris Gultekin, who was one of the creators of Google Now, which sprung out of a project he came up with in his so-called “20 percent time.” He spoke with Google’s Louis Gray on the Developer Live video stream which ran throughout the I/O conference this year.

Gultekin was talking about ways in which Google is working to improve the quality and relevancy of the recommendations and data it surfaces. The project sounds like it’s fairly limited for now, but asking for help from the input sources of data seems like a smart way to supplement Google’s own data detection algorithms that are working to flag interesting data for Now’s use on their own data center side. Doing all the heavy lifting themselves might be more impressive, but if reaching out to partners can help improve user experience, then there’s no reason not to extend that hand.

No word yet on whether Google will eventually make those mark up tools available for different types of data or open them up for public use, but it’s easy to imagine a scenario where that happens, allowing developers and startups to provide the option of delivering all kinds of relevant information to users from their apps and services on Android. Then again, that has the potential to become overwhelming for users, so we might see a more metered, gradual approach.

Consumers have begun to move away from two-year contracts and embrace the prepaid smartphone market. In response to this growing user base, Verizon Wireless this week announced that it is increasing its data allowance for prepaid customers. The carrier's new plans offer unlimited talk and text with 2GB of data, up from 500MB, for $60 a month. There is also a plan with 4GB of data, up from 2GB, for $70 per month. The increased data allowance is available now to current customers, and will be available to new customers beginning June 6th. AT&T also recently announced a new prepaid service in select markets, known as Aio Wireless, which offers unlimited talk and text with 2GB of data for $55 per month, or 7GB of data for $70 per month.

Lenovo unveiled its new Intel powered smartphone at CES earlier this year and it’s now officially available in China. The Android powered smartphone touts a 5.5-inch screen, a dual-core Atom Clover Trail+ processor running at 2.0 GHz, a 13 megapixel camera and a PowerVR SGX 544MP2 GPU. The device also has a 1080p IPS display, which is protected by Gorilla Glass 2. As far as design goes, Lenovo is promising a “slim, sleek design” and “The sleek-cut, stainless steel frame exudes power and strength.”

The K900 is only available in China at the moment, as is the case for most of Lenovo’s smartphones. The company is claiming that they will bring the device to “international markets” this summer, although which markets are still unspecified. The K900 is on sale now in China for around $536.

The official press release follows below.

Lenovo’s New K900 Smartphone Turns Heads in China

Flagship Now Available at Retail and Online

BEIJING–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Lenovo (HKSE: 0992) (PINK SHEETS: LNVGY) launched its highly-anticipated, new smartphone, the K900, at a gala event in the Chinese capitol yesterday evening. Industry and media luminaries gathered for an exclusive event at the M-Space in Haidian, eager to get a glimpse of the metal-clad flagship that stands out as much for its category-topping performance as its slim, sleek design. The Lenovo K900 goes on sale in China this week, and will roll out to additional international markets throughout the summer.

The unibody design of the K900 makes a bold statement for Lenovo. The sleek-cut, stainless steel frame exudes power and strength, while the unibody chassis maintains a low profile at 6.9mm, ensuring a smooth, elegant look and feel. The attention to detail and focus on design for Lenovo’s latest flagship smartphone makes the K900 an excellent choice for top-end smartphone buyers, while Lenovo’s expanding distribution for smartphones ensures the K900 will compete head-to-head with many of the top smartphones in the market today.

Lenovo has tapped NBA superstar, Kobe Bryant to help promote the K900 in its television and print advertisements and on social media sites in China and Southeast Asia. Bryant is known on the basketball court for a playing style which combines power and grace, similar to the combination of performance and design that makes the Lenovo K900 stand out from the crowd of high-end smartphones. Like a high-profile celebrity, the K900 is instantly recognizable and a magnet for attention.

Liu Jun, senior vice president , and president of the Lenovo Business Group, opened the event stating, “Smartphones are a critical component of Lenovo’s PC+ strategy and the Lenovo K900 is an example of this strategy in action. With its cutting-edge design and intuitive, optimized user experience, K900 offers China’s smartphone users a fresh, new option. At the same time, Lenovo’s smartphone business is growing fast in global markets. In 2013, we will add several new countries to our smartphone footprint, and by year-end we will cover most of the world’s emerging markets.”

Lenovo K900 is the first smartphone in the world to leverage the latest Intel® Atom™ Z2580 processor, a dual core chip, which runs up to 2.0 GHz and utilizes Intel® Hyper-Threading technology to boost performance efficiency. The Intel-powered device also features an Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator engine running a PowerVR SGX 544MP2 GPU, which triples graphics performance over the previous generation.1 This makes the Lenovo K900 very responsive, especially for key functions such as web-browsing, multi-tasking and application-switching.

“Intel and Lenovo have raised the bar for smartphones with the K900. Our teams got together and worked closely to innovate around a number of important features and capabilities that our customers care most about such as power consumption, application switching and camera functionality. Then the Lenovo design team took this powerful platform and wrapped it up in a very attractive package with the K900. We are proud to be teaming with Lenovo to bring these innovations to market,” said Ian Yang, president ,Intel China, at the Beijing event.

Design

As smartphones have become ubiquitous, customer demands on “top-of-the-line” devices have increased, with design and usability growing in importance. The Lenovo K900 resets the bar on these aspects. At 6.9mm, the K900 is the thinnest phone in its class by a wide margin and weighs in at a mere 162g, making it a device that unobtrusively slips into a jacket pocket or handbag. Made from a composite of stainless steel alloy and polycarbonate in a Unibody mold, the K900 manages to stay strong and look sharp while maintaining its slim profile.

However, the material alone is not the only aspect that has allowed Lenovo to achieve a design milestone with the K900. The rear camera array has been optimized for size with a new sensor and layout that does not protrude from the case, leaving a clean, smooth rear face that doesn’t snag on clothing. The design team tweaked the PCB and battery layout to reduce the space used by internal components. And the K900 is topped off by a unique “stripe” ID language that reinforces the thin body and integrates the external components.

While the K900 is certainly sleek, it does not ignore the emerging trend toward larger and clearer displays on smartphones. The K900 is one of the first smartphones in the world to combine a 5.5″ IPS display with 1080p full high-definition resolution performance at 400+ pixels-per-inch, all under the latest, touch-capacitive Gorilla Glass 2. This gives the K900 supreme clarity and crispness along with plenty of space to capture the nuances of high-definition photos and video, as well as for viewing standard-size web pages.

Performance

The Lenovo K900′s camera stands out as one of the smartphone’s most distinguished features. As with other functions on the K900, Lenovo has completely overhauled the camera, and delivered a package that is truly greater than the sum of its parts. Megapixels is the first specification that many users recognize for digital cameras, and with 13MP, the K900 ranks at the top of its class in this aspect and combines this with an industry-leading, Sony® Exmor BSI sensor for what would already be considered outstanding performance.

Recognizing that customers often need to take clear, flash-less photos in low-light, Lenovo has equipped the K900 with an F1.8 focal length lens, making it the first smartphone to offer such a wide aperture on its camera. In addition to these improvements to the rear camera, the front camera has also been widened to an 88? viewing angle, the widest available on a smartphone front camera for convenient self-photos and video calls.

Pricing and Availability2

The K900 smartphone is now available in China and will hit select international markets this summer. Retail price for the K900 in China will start at RMB 3,299.

For the latest Lenovo news, subscribe to Lenovo RSS feeds or follow Lenovo on Twitter and Facebook.

[Via: Engadget]

Intel-Powered Lenovo K900 Now Available in China originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-18T00:36:21Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Looking for a new tech toy for a great price? You’ve come to the right place!

Our Top Deal today is the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S III for only $0.99. This refurbished unit is one of the most popular Android smartphones around, so if you’re not looking to spend $200+ on the Galaxy S 4, this is a great option for you!

Top Deal

Samsung Galaxy S III Smartphone [AT&T] (refurbished) for $0.99 with free shipping direct from AT&T (Back in stock! Normally $99.99)

Mobile Phones

Pantech Caper Verizon Prepaid Mobile Phone for $59.99 with free shipping (normally $79.99).

HTC Windows Phone 8X Smartphone 16GB Unlocked for $349.99 with free shipping (normally $475).

Laptops

Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition 15.6″ 1080p Core i7 Laptop w/ Backlit Keyboard, 2GB Radeon HD 7730M, 8GB RAM & 1TB Hard Drive for $799.99 with free shipping (normally $999.99 – use coupon code M4PKP5FR5RW90S).

15.6″ Toshiba Satellite C850-BT3N11 Dual-core Laptop w/Win 8, 4GB RAM for $299.99 with $24.99 shipping (normally $499.99 – use coupon code C850B517).

15.6″ Toshiba Satellite L850-BT3N22 15.6″ Core i3 Laptop w/4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Fusion II Color Upgrade for $429.99 with $24.99 shipping (normally $699.99 – use coupon code L850B517).

Tablets

BlackBerry PlayBook 32GB WiFi Tablet for $149.99, or opt for 64GB model for just $189.99, both with free shipping

Electonics and Peripherals

3TB LaCie Minimus USB 3.0 External Hard Drive for $136.99 with free shipping (normally $179).

Refurbished Sony PlayStation 3 Slim 320GB Console for $199.99 with free shipping (normally $249.99).

Accessories and Fun Stuff

1-year Unlimited WebHosting + Free Domain Registration by DreamHost for $29.95 (normally $108).

Deals of the Day – Samsung Galaxy S III for AT&T only $0.99 originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-18T00:28:59Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Nokia is rumored to be preparing a 41-megapixel Lumia smartphone, codenamed EOS, that will be released later this year. According to WMPowerUser, the handset will look similar to Nokia's Lumia 920 smartphone and will feature a polycarbonate case with a 4.5-inch 720p display. The device will reportedly come with a new application called “Nokia Pro Camera” to compliment the 41-megapixel PureView camera, which is also said to include a protective lens cover that automatically opens when the camera application is launched. Unlike the handful of Lumias that came before it, however, the EOS will reportedly not come in different colors and will not natively support wireless charging. Earlier reports suggested that Nokia would launch its EOS smartphone in the United States this summer.

Pity the poor Wii U. Such a nice, innovative machine with such little software support. Its doom is being spelled out across the dank corridors of the interwebs. Most recently, Electronic Arts pulled support for the struggling console. Since it’s fairly disastrous E3 unveiling in 2011, the system’s tale has been a sad one. But it’s a solid piece of (admittedly current gen) console hardware with some pretty cool gimmicks features that offer totally unique gaming experiences. The main reason the Big N’s attempt at making the Wii miracle happen twice is failing, in my opinion, is the lack of GAMES.

And that’s why it was a bitter sweet experience watching this month’s Nintendo Direct. Along with some great content for the 3Ds, Nintendo showed us some exciting stuff for the Wii U. But it might just be too late.

The whole thing starts familiarly enough, with Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, and ends with good ol’ Reggie (Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America President). But in between they drop some pretty exciting stuff. In my book, the 2 most important things announced were the new Wii U and 3DS exclusive Sonic title, and the Pikmin release date. Here’s a not at all exhaustive list of the announcements:

 

Partnership with Sega:

Iwata announced a new partnership with Sega in his segment that will bring some exclusive games to the Wii U and 3DS. As expected, a new Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics is coming to both systems, and the Wii U footage is quite lovely. But the most exciting news was the announcement of a new, exclusive Sonic game coming to Nintendo machines. Sadly all Sonic in the Lost World got was a concept screen and a promise of more to come. But, as I confessed yesterday, any Sonic news is good news to me!

Gameplay footage and a release date for Pikman 3

 

Finally, Nintendo! Pikmin fans have been clamoring for a new outing in their favorite plant minion strategy series and Nintendo’s been mostly quiet about it until now. The new Pikmin 3 footage looked great, and showed off what the Wii U can do with beautiful water effects and bright, colorful environments. It looks like the biggest and best Pikmin to date. Most importantly, July 26th European and August 4th North American release dates were announced.

 

 

Rounding out its Wii U announcements was a HD Wii U overhaul of 3DS game, Resident Evil: Revelations, that looked great and adds tons of bonus content, a major Luigi DLC pack for New Super Mario Bros. U, a new Warioware sequel called Game and Wario, and the announcement of a new game, Wonderful 101 coming in September.

Compared to recent Nintendo Directs presentation, they spent a lot of time on the Wii U. It seems Iwata et. al are finally bringing some Nintendo magic to the Wii U. Let’s just hope it’s not too late.

The 3DS got some love too

 

• Two new Zelda games in the eShop, Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. When played together, the games unlock extra content between each other.
• Donkey Kong Country Returns out May 24th,
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf out June 9th, will have added social features for the western release.
• The aforementioned Sega games, Sonic in the Lost World, and Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics will have 3DS versions too.

Check out the whole video and gallery of screenshots below!

[Via Nintendo]

Nintendo Direct Reaction -Nintendo Brings Some Wii U Love Late to the Game originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-18T00:00:51Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Of all the problems to have when launching a new flagship smartphone, trouble keeping up with demand is hardly the worst. Of course, things change a bit when a company has to pump units into channels as quickly as possible before the top-selling smartphone vendor in the world launches the Galaxy S4. HTC undoubtedly lost some sales thanks to its production woes with the One, but a new report suggests its manufacturing issues are behind it. According to Focus Taiwan, HTC North Asia president Jack Tong said that production capacity for the HTC One will double in May and increase further in June. "Our capacity is expected to rise significantly starting from mid-May," Tong reportedly said Friday at a press conference. "We are optimistic about our high-end sales during April and June."

Google’s Vikram Aggarwal, a software engineer working on the Android platform, revealed today that Gmail and Email, the native Android client that still ships on Android devices as well, now has a combined user base of more than 100 million across the Android install base. It’s an interesting stat, because although Gmail and Email only represent two of a multitude of email clients available on Android, it’s likely that those two represent the email clients of choice for a wide swath of Android users.

This means that a 100-million-strong active user base for those two combined is probably a pretty good reflection of the total active user base of Android itself, give or take a few million users. That’s a good figure to get, since we usually see more about total activations, which is a far less accurate measure of how many people are currently using devices. Activations occur whenever there is a full device reset, for instance, and people often upgrade to new phones, meaning their previous activation is no longer an active one.

Google has passed 900 million Android activations, the company revealed at the I/O keynote earlier this week. Put in context of a 100-million-strong active user base for the core email apps operating on the platform, however, we get a picture of Android users which is much more down to earth. Estimates of active Apple devices have to take into account the 500 million sold to date, with over 300 million now on iOS 6. Updated to that version or being sold with it installed indicates there’s a good chance a lot of those are still in active use.

Divining the total number of active users on either platform is one part magic and one part science, and the 100 million is likely shy of the actual total of active Android devices out there, but it’s still another piece of the puzzle.

The Xbox 360 topped the charts again in April, marking the 28th consecutive month Microsoft's gaming console has outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii consoles. According to research from NPD Group, the Xbox 360 accounted for 42% of current-generation sales with 130,000 units sold last month. It wasn't all good news, however, as sales plummeted 50% from 261,000 units in March. As a whole, the industry continued to struggle in April with total gaming sales down 25% year-over-year from $657.5 million to $495.2 million. Microsoft and Sony's next-generation consoles are expected to help sales pick up when they launch ahead of the holidays this year.

Analytics site App Annie released a report today that confirmed Nintendo and Sony’s greatest fears, mobile gaming app revenue had lapped their sales twice. Android and iOS gaming revenue was 3 times that of dedicated portable consoles in 2013′s first quarter.

The in depth report can be found here but the jist of it’s pretty clear:

 

“For the Portable Gaming Report Q1 2013, there are three important takeways:

• iOS and Google Play both saw growth in game downloads and consumer spending.

• iOS is now the leader in consumer spending on games, with Google Play likely to surpass gaming-optimized handhelds in 2Q13.
• Gaming-optimized handhelds experienced significant decreases in consumer spending and packaged game shipments due to seasonality.”

[Via: App Annie] [Img: What Up Nintendo]

Android, iOS Gaming Revenue Three Times That of Handheld Consoles originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-17T22:04:57Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Tech site, The Verge reported today that an updated Xbox 360 dashboard UI is in the works. While a Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment, the Verge story reports changes to the Dashboard UI and Live Tiles to coincide with the new Xbox being unveiled on the 21st, and changes in Windows 8.1:

“Microsoft is preparing to update its Xbox 360 with another dashboard update. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Xbox plans have revealed to The Verge that the dashboard update will enter into a public beta in late June or early July, with changes and updates in preparation for the next-generation Xbox. We’re told that the user interface will be refreshed alongside smaller Live Tiles, similar to what Microsoft is preparing for Windows 8.1. Microsoft is also said to be tweaking the look of the Xbox dashboard, with the possibility of darker or lighter themes.

We understand Microsoft is aiming to ensure Xbox 360 users can transition over to the next-generation console and interact with existing Xbox 360 users using messaging, beacons, and achievements. Microsoft will also phase out the use of its Points system with this dashboard update, replacing it with currency and gift card options. We’re told that the final update will be made available, providing the public beta testing goes to plan, in August.”

Microsoft is being tight lipped for now, but we should get an official word soon. The big reveal of the next version of Microsoft’s is coming up this Tuesday, the 21st. It’s probably a safe bet they’ll be giving the twilight years of the 360 a mention, as well as Games for Windows. Count on Intomobile to give you all the details as soon as we have them!

[Via: The Verge]

Microsoft Has New Dashboard UI and Tile Updates Coming to Xbox 360 originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-17T21:56:39Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Uh oh.

Less than ten days after Bang With Friends made its mobile debut on the iOS App Store, Apple has seemingly changed its mind and given it the boot.

As I noted in the post at the time, I was actually a bit surprised to see Apple green light this one to begin with. The guys behind the app tried to chaste things up a bit for Apple, changing the name for the iOS version of their app to the slightly more inconspicuous “BWF” (The Android app, meanwhile, is still just “Bang With Friends”. Google don’t give no damns.)

Alas, it seems that wasn’t enough for an extended stay. Apple has reportedly pulled the app without notice or explanation, with requests for the app in iTunes being met with the error below:

So what happened here? Did someone higher up at Apple get word of the app and decide to drop the ban hammer? Or could it be… something else? Note, for example, that Zynga just went after dating site CupidWithFriends for using their “With Friends” trademark, requesting that the name be changed. We’re looking into what happened.

So is the Bang With Friends team, it would seem; a page put up by the team says they’re “working with Apple to get BWF back in the App Store shortly”.

Samsung announced today that it is updating TecTiles, its programmable NFC tags, to version 2. The latest version of the TecTiles will work with the Galaxy S 4, as well as older NFC-equipped Samsung phones.

TecTile stickers have a small NFC receiver that sends a signal to your smartphone. This signal then triggers an action on your phone such as opening an app, adjusting phone settings, or updating a status on Facebook or Google+.

You can buy TecTiles 2 from Samsung.com today and from retailers in June. Each pack costs $14.99 and includes five stickers. The Samsung TecTile Android app is available for free from Google Play.

[Via Samsung]

Samsung launches TecTiles 2, now compatible with the Galaxy S4 originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-17T20:54:47Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

A purported image of Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 tablet was published on Friday along with supposed specs. SamMobile obtained the image of the unannounced tablet from an unnamed source, and the device shown in the image looks very similar to Samsung's Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet, pictured above, with slight variations such as the sensor layout above the display. Not much can be gleaned from the render, though the blog also claims to have knowledge of the tablet's specs, which include an 8-inch TFT display with 1,280 x 800-pixel resolution, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a 5-megapixel rear camera, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, a 4,450 mAh battery and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. The leaked image of the tablet follows below.

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Google’s major developer conference, Google I/O, went down this week. Was it a bit of a letdown? Probably. Did cool stuff still come out of the event? Eh? Maybe? We discuss these topics and more this week on the TC Gadgets podcast. In fact, we even had Frederic Lardinois join as a guest, along with John Biggs, Matt Burns, Jordan Crook (that’s me!), Romain Dillet, and Darrell Etherington as Bob McKenzie.

Enjoy!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3pm Eastern and noon Pacific.

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Intro Music by Rick Barr.

It's pretty fascinating that Facebook and Google debuted new messaging paradigms within six weeks of each other. Facebook Home's one key feature is the prominent placement of its "chat heads" messaging alerts on the home screen. Google is launching a new messaging app particularly focused on group messaging. The debuts of these two initiatives fit within the same timeline: a sudden realization in 2012 that smartphone messaging had started evolving, followed by the feverish development of a new product that would finally launch in the spring of 2013. Facebook and Google are very much on the defense here. So what happened in 2012 that suddenly awakened these slumbering giants?

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Yahoo has been on an acquisition tear of late, snapping up apps and mobile startups like they’re going out of style. Summly, Astrid, GoPollGo, MileWise, Loki Studios have all been acquired in the last month-and-a-half, while Yahoo simultaneously made a play for a significant stake in French video giant, DailyMotion. With that falling through, rumors have begun to swirl that Yahoo is making a bid for Tumblr, AllThingsD reported yesterday. Is this desperation or genius? Everyone has an opinion, which to Mayer’s credit is not something one has been able to say about Yahoo for a long time.

On Monday, it seems that we may get a better sense of what Yahoo plans to do with all these new acquisitions, as CNBC is reporting that Yahoo will be holding a “product-related” news event on Monday in New York City. Marissa Mayer will reportedly be speaking at the press conference, but that’s all we know about the contents of the event at this point.

Yet again, Yahoo’s CEO shows that she understands how to leverage the press to get the company back into the conversation. This has already led to speculation over what Yahoo will announce, if anything, at the event. Amidst the rumors of its potential billion-dollar bid for Tumblr, some are saying that Yahoo might use the stage to announce yet another acquisition.

Even if a blockbuster acquisition isn’t the focus of the press conference, people will still be talking about Yahoo. At the very least, let’s hope Yahoo begins to explain the strategy behind its acquire-and-shut-down approach and what its “big” plans are for mobile — “touching people’s lives ‘every day’” doesn’t quite do it.

Yahoo to hold a product-related news event in New York City on Monday; CEO Marissa Mayer to speak at event. $YHOO

—
  (@CNBC) May 17, 2013

It has been widely reported that Apple will debut a new streaming radio service at its Worldwide Developers Conference next month. The company was said to be close to striking a deal with Warner Music and Sony Music to launch its iRadio service, however recent reports suggest negotiations may have hit a roadblock that could prevent Apple from debuting the service at next month's event.

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Google CEO Larry Page spoke about peace in the industry during the Google I/O 2013 keynote, but that doesn't mean Google has plans to slow its various attacks on rivals' turf. Forbes contributor Peter Cohan laid out the five areas where Google is launching its "assault" on chief competitor Apple, and he discussed exactly how Google is hurting the world's most valuable company in each area. Among Cohan's five fronts are smartphones, where Google's Android platform has overtaken the iPhone as the most popular handset operating system in the world; tablets, where strength in numbers will soon help Google top Apple's market share once again; and innovation, the "most important front where Google is trouncing Apple." Because the company is assaulting Apple on these five fronts and seemingly winning, Cohan says it looks like "Google is winning the war for the future." Of course, whether or not this win will help Google top Apple's record profits remains to be seen.

At the end of April, Samsung announced a new Galaxy tablet, the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0.  A new leaked press photo from SamMobile shows that Samsung is also planning an 8-inch version of the device, dubbed the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0. The device is expected to be launched at the end of June, and to tout specs that are similar to the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3, but with a little more power.

The Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 is rumored to be touting a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage (expandable to 64GB via a microSD card) and a 4,450 mAh battery. The device will be running on Android 4.2.2, and will have a 5MP rear facing camera and a 1.3MP front-facing camera.

Supposedly, Samsung will also be rolling out a Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 later in the year, as well as a Galaxy Tab 3 Plus. The Galaxy Tab 3 Plus will more than likely be Samsung’s next flagship tablet, and will pack a 2560 x 1600 pixel display and a Exynos Octa-Core processor.

None of these specs are official, so we will more than likely see some changes before the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 is officially launched.

[Via: Unwired View , SamMobile]

Leaked Photo Shows Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-17T18:20:31Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Good news for Apple as the company’s iOS 6 software just received clearance from the United States Defense Department. This undoubtedly sets the stage for the iPhone and iPad to become standard commonplace in the hands of workers in the Pentagon.  This comes to no ones surprise, considering how the approval of the DoD has been rumored for some time now. Apple’s iOS 6 joins Samsung running the Knox security suite and BlackBerry 10 devices.

The government looks to be just about done with those obsolete BlackBerry 7 handsets that’s grown synonymous with the image of public figures. Now if only stock Android could join the party.

[Bloomberg; via engadget]

 

iOS 6 gets green light from the US Defense Department originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-17T18:02:07Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Earlier this week, BlackBerry announced the arrival of BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS. A new report suggests that the messaging service will have some limitations, however. According to TrustedReviews, BBM will not be available for the iPad or for Android tablets at launch. Vivek Bhardwaj, head of the BlackBerry software portfolio, reportedly told the website that BBM will be limited to iPhones running iOS 6 or higher and Android smartphones.

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Posted by Ellie Powers, Google Play team

This week at I/O, we were excited to announce some updates to Google Play to help you optimize your business on Google Play: to help you take control of your app publishing, gain insight into your users, and expand your app’s success globally.

Play Store’s new view: apps designed for tablets

Many of you have invested in making great tablet experiences for your users, and we want to ensure that that work pays off and that users are able to discover great apps for their tablets. This week, the Google Play store began providing a view of our top charts highlighting apps which have been designed for tablets according to our tablet app quality checklist.

Be sure you don’t miss out! Check that your app’s optimization tips say that your app is designed for tablets, and upload tablet screenshots for 7” and 10” tablets.

Beta testing and staged rollouts

We have introduced support for beta testing and staged rollouts so that you can get feedback on your new app or app update early in its development and make sure your users are happy with the results. You can test two different versions on two different groups at the same time, such as testing a newer version with your employees first, and a more mature version with a group of external testers.

The beta testing is private on Google Play, and you can specify who gets these versions by adding Google Groups and Google+ Communities. Users give you feedback privately rather than through public reviews. When you’re satisfied that your new version is ready, you can now do a staged rollout to a percentage of your userbase. To give you more flexibility in light of beta testing and help get your whole team involved in the Developer Console, we will soon launch additional access controls.

Localization improvements

We’re collaborating with Google's internationalization team to make translating your app into new languages easier than ever. You can purchase professional translations of your apps from independent providers through the Google Play Developer Console. You can upload the strings you want translated, select the languages you want to translate into, and select your translation vendor based on time and price. If you’re interested in translating your apps with this feature, sign up to be a part of the preview in the Developer Console today on the APK page.

The new optimization tips for localization will help you identify new potential opportunities for global expansion based on popular languages for your app’s users and category. To fully localize your app into a language, you need to translate the strings in an APK, translate your Google Play store listing, and upload localized graphics. The optimization tips will also let you know if you’re missing any of these pieces.

New Analytics and monetization features

Getting better revenue and engagement data has been another key developer request, as developers told us that they check their revenue and stats constantly. New revenue charts in the Developer Console allow you to see your app’s daily revenue and summary figures, and you can filter the data by country. Coming soon, Google Play and Google Analytics are teaming up to bring you better insight into your users. Google Analytics will start showing Google Play views and installs for each campaign, while Google Play will show Google Analytics engagement metrics.

For those of you using in-app billing, we’ve heard your feedback and made some improvements to reduce your development time and costs. Your test accounts will now able to make in-app test purchases without those transactions actually being charged, but everything else works the same as it would for a real user.

In a few weeks, we will launch a new Order Status API, which allows you to verify the status of an in-app order from your servers. We will also be launching a tool for automating downloads of financial reports. Finally, the new Google Wallet Merchant Center is continuing to roll out with enhanced reporting, additional analytics and many other enhancements.

Google Play for Education coming soon

You'll soon be able to offer apps to schools through Google Play for Education, which launches later this year to K-12 schools in the United States. This online destination will allow schools to discover, purchase, and distribute apps to their students. Visit developer.android.com/edu to get started creating or optimizing your apps for schools today.

Something we’ve always admired about Sony is that it’s embraced AOSP for its devices more than many manufacturers around, and it’s adding another device to that list. Today on the Sony Blog, the company announced that the Xperia Tablet Z would be getting the AOSP treatment.

The Sony Xperia Tablet Z, alongside the Xperia Z, now has access to a fully stock Android experience that should surely be enticing for those who love the hardware of the Tablet Z but favor vanilla Android. The build for the tablet is now available in GitHub, but the experience may not be as fluid as you’d want it to be right now. The build isn’t intended for daily use, and Sony is encouraging developers to join in.

Even if the Sony Xperia Tablet Z never gets a fully functional and stable build of vanilla Android 4.2.2, it’s the thought that counts. We only wish other handset makers would offer up such an option for developers.

Be sure to check out the video below and see AOSP on the Xperia Tablet Z in action!

[Via: AndroidCentral]

Sony Unleashes AOSP to Xperia Tablet Z originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-17T17:18:07Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

The Galaxy S4 launched in late April and has become the fastest selling smartphone in Samsung’s history. Samsung co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun told the Korea Times that the manufacturer is close to selling over 10M Galaxy S4 units in less than a month. This outpaces the Galaxy S3, which hit the 10 million mark in 50 days.

Samsung is the leader in the Android world, scooping up an estimated 95 percent of Android handset profit in the open quarter this year, says market research company Strategy Analytics. With handsets like the S4 selling like hotcakes, Samsung will likely hold onto this number one position for the foreseeable future.

[Via Korea Times]

Samsung Galaxy S4 sales top 10 million originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2013-05-17T16:57:40Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j