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Monday 9 May 2011

Play, AOL’s Android Music Sharing App, Hits 250,000 Downloads In Three Weeks

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When a mobile app gets more than a hundred thousand downloads in its first few weeks, that is usually a good thing. Instagram hit 100,000 in a week, and music-sharing app Soundtracking got there in two weeks. But another music-sharing app, Play by AOL, is right up there with 250,000 downloads in three weeks.

Play is very similar to Soundtracking. It lets you share snippets of songs, along with album art or photos, with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, or the in-app network. Play might even have more downloads than Soundtracking, which is getting far more buzz. But what’s interesting about Play is that it launched first on Android, and is not yet available on the iPhone. Still, it’s getting a decent amount of traction.

Winamp for Android, another AOL mobile music app, saw 500,000 downloads its first month in private beta, and is now well over 3 million. (TechCrunch is also owned by AOL). And games like Angry Birds have seen millions of Android downloads as well. This kind of traction is yet more evidence that Android has arrived as a viable alternative to the iPhone for app developers.

OnSwipe Brings Tablet Publishing To The Browser (TCTV Demo)

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OnSwipe Brings Tablet Publishing To The Browser (TCTV Demo)


As tablets become the preferred digital reading device, every publisher out there is creating their own iPad apps. And soon they will have to create Android apps and maybe RIM Playbook apps and HP WebOS apps too. Or they can keep on publishing on the Web and display their websites differently to people who visit them via tablet browsers.

OnSwipe is a new digital publishing tools company that wants to make mobile browsing as swipe-friendly as a tablet app. The startup will be showing off its software later today at TechStars NYC Demo Day. I got a preview from co-founders Jason Baptiste and Andres Barreto when I visited the TechStars New York office last week (see video above). They are setting out to prove that the browser is the only app you’ll need.

OnSwipe already works as plugin for any WordPress.com blog, and the company is working with publishers to tabletize their Websites. Using HTML5 and other technologies, they publishers customizable templates that make their sites look good on tablets. Articles become swipeable, and rotate between portrait and landscape modes. And using bit.ly data (betaworks is an investor), it can even recommend related articles. The ads also become more immersive (and guess who wants to serve them up? Yup, OnSwipe).

With Big Graphics, HD Cameras, And Triple Monitor Support, iMacs Are More Pro-Like

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With Big Graphics, HD Cameras, And Triple Monitor Support, iMacs Are More Pro-Like

For the past six years or so, my main desktop machine has been a string of iMacs. As an all-in-one machine, they’re both great to look at and simple to set up and use. But the power user side of me was always left a bit wanting. And it sounds like the iMac upgrades Apple has just unveiled this morning may fix that.

First of all, they’ve solved perhaps my single biggest complaint about the iMac: there’s finally a way to hook up two external monitors to the machine, giving you a total of three screens, Apple confirmed to me earlier today. Ever since I started using dual monitors a few years ago, I quickly realized only one thing would be better: three monitors. But the iMac could not do it — only the Mac Pro could. Again, not anymore.

To be clear, this is only a possibility with the new 27-inch models, and it will not work with the smaller 21.5-inch models. The reason is because the 27-inch models come with two Thunderbolt ports. This is the new technology created by Intel alongside Apple that is extremely fast and versatile. These ports not only handle data transfers, but can carry display signals as well. So two Thunderbolt ports means two additional monitors.

And not to worry, as Apple walked me through earlier, it’s easy enough to daisy-chain several Thunderbolt compatible devices together. In other words, taking up the two Thunderbolt ports won’t be an issue.

I’m immediately dreaming of three 27-inch Apple displays side-by-side-by-side. Now I just have to pay for them…

The other aspect of the new iMacs that the Apple spokespeople say can put it on par with a Mac Pro is in the graphics department. Again, we’re talking the high-end models here, but if you can afford it, you can upgrade to an AMD Radeon HD 6970M card with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory. This can output 1.3 teraflops of graphics performance, I’m told. Again, this is something only previously seen on Mac Pros before.

And the final Pro-like addition (though not Mac Pro, but rather MacBook Pro) is the addition of a FaceTime HD camera. This allows the iMacs to do 720p video (at the full 16×9 ratio) for the first time. It matches the cameras that were recently added to the new MacBook Pros. Obviously, those two devices can FaceTime chat in HD with each other now. Chatting with other devices (like iPhones and iPads) will downgrade the video to SD levels.

iPod, Meet Spotify; iTunes, Say Hello To Your Future Rival

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iPod, Meet Spotify; iTunes, Say Hello To Your Future Rival


Spotify, the music service Americans don’t get to enjoy, announced several very cool new features today. The European music service is rolling out new versions of its desktop and mobile apps today, which will allow all users (even those pesky ad-supported freeloaders) to sync Spotify desktop tracks with mobile devices, be they iPods, iPhones or Androids.

And just in case it wasn’t clear whether or not Spotify intends to compete directly with iTunes, Spotify is also introducing its own music store, or “download service”, in which users can buy a range of MP3 “bundles” at 10 songs for roughly 8 pounds. Or 100 songs for 50 pounds. (Roughly the equivalent of $13 and $82, respectively.)

So, not only will Spotify be offering its more than 10 million registered users a music store, it wants its music player to become the default mobile app on its listeners’ devices. To encourage this adoption, Spotify has enabled desktop-to-mobile sync-ing over WiFi. (Something iTunes, cough, doesn’t offer.)

Spotify users have been clamoring for these features now for quite some time, and it’s taken almost a year for Spotify to get all of its proverbial ducks in a row. Following the limitations the company was forced to put on its free service, Spotify is now clearly making a more concerted effort to add significant benefits for its non-premium customers.

Allowing free users to fully take advantage of integration and syncing with mobile devices is important, and the Swedish music company clearly figures that mobile will be the future onramp for new Spotify customers. Again, up until now, mobile access has only been available to premium customers.

“Accessing music on your mobile phone is the future, but today that makes up a pretty small percentage of music fans. We want to open up the Spotify experience to as many people as possible, and in a way where they can get exactly the music they want”, said Spotify Chief Product Officer Gustav Söderström.

Another cool feature announced today is the ability to manage your iPod from within the Spotify desktop app. All you need to do is connect your iPod to your computer via an USB cable, and your Pod will now appear in the “Devices” section of Spotify’s sidebar.

It will be interesting to see if Apple has anything to say about this. Obviously, iTunes will remain the only way to get music onto an non-jailbroken iPhone, and Spotify will not be reverse-engineering or anything like that, just using USB storage, for example. But I could see this potentially raising some eyebrows in Cupertino.

That being said, these new features could be absolutely huge for Spotify; it will make the service’s free users become more regular, repeat users, and will no doubt begin to open the door to new customers. Sure, Spotify is still years from becoming a real iTunes competitor, but it’s moves like this that continue to put that goal within the realm of real possibility.

Next, Spotify needs to work on filling out its sometimes thin catalog — and expand its Euro reach beyond Finland, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the U.K.

Then the overall service might be enough to make an American like me jealous. And speaking of that, there was still no mention of when Spotify might reach the U.S. “We’re still working hard on that. We’re getting closer”, a Spotify spokesman said.


Will A Thunderbolt Hit The iPhone/iPad Before A Full Ascension Into The Cloud?

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Will A Thunderbolt Hit The iPhone/iPad Before A Full Ascension Into The Cloud?

This morning’s upgrades to Apple’s iMac line of computers brought
a range of nice features. But most were just spec bumps. The big new addition is Thunderbolt. Following the initial roll-out to the MacBook Pros, the new super high-speed ports are clearly destined to be a key component across Apple’s product lines. But what about Apple’s two key newer products: the iPhone and iPad? Apple hasn’t said a word yet about what Thunderbolt means for them.

During a call with Apple this morning, I specifically asked about when we might see Thunderbolt-enabled adapters for iPhone/iPad. Apple would only say that they had nothing to share at this time. That’s usually code for “it’s coming, but just not yet.” And that makes sense. Why pour all this money into a new technology if you’re not going to use it in places where it makes the most sense? But it’s also not that simple.

When I asked what devices were coming that would take advantage of Thunderbolt, I was pointed to this site which features some pre-announced third-party devices at the bottom of the page. These include external hard drives, video capture devices, and adapters (to convert Thunderbolt pipes to carry FireWire data, etc). Apple said they expect to see the first such devices at some point this spring. In other words, soon.

But again, none of those listed are Apple devices. Why haven’t we heard anything about those yet? Could it be because Apple is planning to replace all computer-based syncing with syncing in the cloud when Castle/iCloud is unveiled later this year?

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

My hunch is that we will hear something from Apple later this year about Thunderbolt use with iPads/iPhones. Perhaps during the iPhone 5 unveiling in the fall. Now that the technology is out there on two of their most popular devices (MacBook Pros and iMacs) and probably pretty soon on another one (MacBook Airs), Apple will have to address this. And the reality is that Thunderbolt (and even still USB) seems to be a more viable and smart near-term solution for device sync rather than a full-on cloud sync.

A few weeks ago, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber made the case for why Apple is taking their time with regard to cloud-based syncing in the “post-PC” world. While Apple does already sync small amounts of data like calendars and email (via MobileMe) and e-books (via iBooks) in the cloud, the big chunks of data (music, movies, etc) still require a computer for syncing. The main issue is simply speed. Wireless networks are not nearly fast enough to transfer gigabytes of data up and downstream in a reasonable amount of time. And this will not change anytime soon. Not even with 4G/LTE network speeds.

Media streaming (either over the cloud or via WiFi) is one potential solution. But it’s not a full solution. Apple is also going to want to have a solution for people who want to have this media actually present on their devices (for trips and such). That means sync. And the cloud is just not ready for that yet.

Enter Thunderbolt.

One big problem that users have with the iTunes-based syncing mechanism for iPhones/iPads today is that it’s slow. Apple has done a lot of work to speed this up over the years (remember when backups would take something like 30 minutes to an hour!?), but it’s still not ideal. Thunderbolt could help alleviate this pain point.

Right now, iPhone/iPad syncing is done via USB 2.0. These ports theoretically transfer data at 480 Mbps (but it’s usually less in practice). Thunderbolt will up that speed to 10 Gbps spread over two channels. In other words, a 10-minute sync could be cut to a matter of seconds (well, on paper — mobile memory read/write speeds are much slower, though also rumored to be improving quickly).

I suspect we may hear Apple talking about syncing in seconds versus syncing in hours at future product unveilings to explain why they’re going with a wired approach instead of the cloud.

But not so fast. The reason we’re not seeing this Thunderbolt utilization already is because the existing hardware isn’t ready for it yet. Apple is getting the computers (the syncing hubs) up to speed as we speak. But the iPhones/iPads are still stuck in the slow lane. Unless Apple has a conversion trick up their sleeve, we might have to wait for the iPhone 5/iPad 3 until we can truly see the upside of Thunderbolt. Apple has already been awarded the patent they need to turn the 30-pin connectors found on iOS devices into Thunderbolt-ready ports, but unless they slipped it past the goalie with the iPad 2, they’re not out there yet.

This also means there’s going to be a transition. Early adopters of the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 (assuming they have Thunderbolt-compatible ports) will be ready, but older devices won’t be. But hey, that will be another reason for Apple to get you to upgrade. New feature: insanely great syncing speed.

Long story short, I’d bet on a big Thunderbolt strike before a full-on ascension by Apple into the cloud for syncing. Google, I suspect, may continue to go the other way. And the two sides will have a new talking point for their war: sync speed versus sync anywhere.



iPhone Location Update: All Users In 1 Week; Android 2.3 Update: 4% Of Users In 5 Months

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iPhone Location Update: All Users In 1 Week; Android 2.3 Update: 4% Of Users In 5 Months

Earlier today, Apple released
the iOS update that resolves the location tracking issues that had the press in a tizzy over for the past couple of weeks. For those keeping score at home, it took Apple exactly one week from when they first addressed the problem to ship a solution to every affected iOS user. Yes, just one week later, the situation is resolved (well, aside from a smaller encryption issue which will be fixed in the next major iOS update). Regardless of your stance on the issue at hand, that turnaround time is impressive anyway you slice it. And it’s especially impressive when you consider the alternative.

The Android alternative.

This Is My Next’s Nilay Patel (formerly of Engadget) drove this point home with a tweet today. “It took Apple just a week to deploy this update to all iPhone users, while Android makers are still shipping 2.2, and WP7 is a mess,” he wrote.

The Windows Phone 7 update situation has been a nightmare from the start. And Microsoft knows it and claims to be working on the process — though it still doesn’t appear to be going smoothly. But they’re also a new OS and a relatively small one. So let’s focus on the mature massive one.

Let’s say there was some big OS issue with Android that Google wanted to resolve and get to users as quickly as possible. How long would it take? As Patel alludes to, looking at the Android OS distribution numbers, it doesn’t look good.

The most recent major version of Android, 2.3 (if we don’t include the tablet-only 3.0), has been out for about 5 months now. On what percentage of Android devices is it installed on? 4 percent, according to Google’s numbers.

Four percent. After five months.

While the holdup isn’t entirely Google’s fault, it is their fault by proxy. By allowing the OEMs and carriers to set their own schedules for OS releases, they ensure these insanely slow roll-outs (and sometimes the carriers choose not to roll out the updates at all). “I don’t blame Google for Android update problems — the blame there is squarely on the OEMs and carriers. They have to match Apple,” Patel writes in a follow-up Tweet. Okay, but they never will unless Google applies that pressure.

But isn’t that type of pressure against Android’s core principle of open? Oh, you mean “open”? “Open” as in, Google is complying with carrier requests to remove tethering apps from the Market? Don’t be fooled by the marketing bullshit. Google could apply more pressure if they wanted to to get the carriers in line. And they should have no problem doing that if the carriers are forcing their hand on things. It should work both ways. And the same goes for the OEMs. We’ve been hearing for years now that Google would do more in this regard. So far, nada.

Currently, this issue has only led to annoyed customers who buy new Android phones and expect updates, only to have to sit on the sidelines for months. But this could become a major problem if Google ever has to push an update quickly.

Instead, Google’s only option now is to release backdoor fixes through their own Market — which is hilarious. They had to utilize this method this past March when a bunch of malicious apps were published into the Market and were affecting users’ devices.

But what if the problem was more of a core OS problem? Or what if the malicious app disabled or removed the Market? Google would have to push an update through the carriers. For Apple, this process is instantaneous because they’re in control. For Google… well…



Google Calls Out Rivals’ Web Benchmark Tools, Rebuilds Them To Better Gauge Chrome

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Google Calls Out Rivals’ Web Benchmark Tools, Rebuilds Them To Better Gauge Chrome

When it comes to Chrome, Google has long been addicted to speed. And for many tasks on the web today, that speed is related to how fast your JavaScript engine is. Google has long held that their’s is the fastest. But it’s hard to know for sure because there are a few different benchmark suites to test such speeds — and the most popular ones are made by companies with stakes in the game: Apple, Mozilla, and yes, Google.

In a post yesterday on their Chromium, it’s pretty clear that Google feels their V8 benchmark suite is the best. In fact, they directly call our their rivals’ suites, noting bugs and saying that they must evolve. And then they go one step further: providing links to versions of the rivals’ suites supposedly perfected by Google!

Wow. In the extremely nerdy (and fairly incestuous) browser world, this is hardcore.

Specifically, Google says that SunSpider, first developed by Apple in 2007, contains tests that are “less relevant to the web in 2011″. Here’s the best part:

Even for the more relevant tests, JavaScript has gotten so fast that many finish in only a few milliseconds. This just isn’t long enough to figure out which engine is faster–a golf cart and a Tesla will finish a 10-foot race in nearly the same time.

Ouch.

To fix this issue, Google made its own modified version of SunSpider which essentially runs tests 50 times consecutively to better gauge speed. When the tests are run this way, Google says that “the results begin to reflect Chrome’s true performance.” Naturally. According to Google, Chrome is more than 30 percent faster (in the test results) when measured this way.

Meanwhile, they say that Kraken, the new benchmark suite Mozilla just created, is “in better shape” — but buggy. “As a result, the benchmark is less useful and has even (mis)led us to spend time making some irrelevant optimizations in Chrome,” they note.

Again, ouch!

To get around this, Google is now hosting a new version of Kraken “built directly from Mozilla’s source code repository”.

Are these claims about rivals’ suites legit? It’s hard to say for sure, but I have a feeling that the rivals themselves would dispute that. It is a bit odd that Google is reworking the suites, and that the end result is Chrome performing much better in the tests.

Of course, my eyes don’t lie. I’m a Chrome guy all the way because in daily usage I find it to be much faster than either Safari or Firefox (on a Mac, at least). Until that changes, I’m trusting Google on this one.

Android To Surpass Apple’s App Store In Size By August 2011: Report (Exclusive)

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Android To Surpass Apple’s App Store In Size By August 2011: Report (Exclusive)


There’s no doubt Android Market will at some point offer more applications for download and/or purchase than Apple’s App Store, as the latter’s growth has been slowing down of late, while the Android application store’s growth rate has been accelerating.

In a recent report, app store analytics company Distimo forecasted that Android would surpass the App Store in size before the end of July 2011.

Another research firm, Germany-based research2guidance, corroborates Distimo’s findings; the firm forecasts Android to blow past Apple’s App Store by August 2011.

Provided current growth rates for new app uploads are maintained, research2guidance expects Android Market to reach 425,000 apps next August, effectively overtaking App Store in size.

According to the firm, Android Market added 28,000 new apps in April 2011, whereas Apple lagged behind with only 11,000 new apps.

Evidently, there’s always the question whether this matters at all. After all, the bulk of applications that are available for both platforms don’t see much traction anyway, so how relevant it is whether there are 100,000 apps or 200,000 apps that are rarely, if ever, downloaded by anyone? (note that this goes for most if not all mobile application stores)

In fact, notes research2guidance, Android Market’s high growth rate does not necessarily mean that the average mobile app developer will have a better shot at generating revenues from the store. In fact, the firm posits, the opposite may be true:

On the contrary, the success of an app store is negatively correlated to the success of an average developer. All analysis on the early months of an app store including the Android Market shows that average download numbers decrease dramatically after the first months or even weeks after the launch of the store. The long tail gets longer and longer while the top 5% gets richer and richer.

Be that as it may, Android Market’s stunning growth is worth noting, especially because it came out the gates fairly slowly.

Also read:

Smartphone App Market Reached More Than $2.2 Billion In The First Half Of 2010
Nielsen: Consumer Desire For Android Grows, Unlike iOS And Blackberry
Despite 861.5 Percent Growth, Android Market Revenues Remain Puny
Facebook, Android Increasingly Under Attack: AVG Q1 Security Threat Report


Apple May Not Have Bought Nuance But…

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Apple May Not Have Bought Nuance But…


This past November, the blogosphere was briefly set on fire when a comment Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak made in passing stated that Apple had acquired the voice recognition company Nuance. Wozniak quickly came out and corrected that comment, and most believed that he had simply confused Nuance with the company he mentioned right afterwards, Siri — a company that Apple actually did acquire in April 2010. But as it turns out, Wozniak’s comment, whether he knew it or not at the time, may not have been as off as it seemed.

Apple has been negotiating a deal with Nuance in recent months, we’ve heard from multiple sources. What does that mean? Well, it could mean an acquisition, but that is looking fairly unlikely at this point, we hear. More likely, it means a partnership that will be vital to both companies and could shape the future of iOS.

For those in the know, this shouldn’t be too surprising. Buried under all the original bluster about Apple/Nuance was a very important fact: Siri relies on Nuance technology for its services. While they initial used Vlingo after launch, Siri quickly switched to Nuance for a number of reasons — one being that both came out of Stanford Research Institute, the other being that Nuance is just considered to be better. They used Nuance up until the Apple acquisition, and in fact, they’re still using Nuance right now.

This matters because as we first reported in March, Siri technology is expected to be a big part of iOS 5. By extension, that means that Nuance technology will be a big part of iOS 5. Well, unless Apple ditches them and goes with another option — but again, Nuance is considered the best. The other big player here getting praise is Google. But well… Yeah.

The other option is for Apple to build the technology themselves. And some recent job postings suggest they may be thinking about that. But to get to where Nuance is today it would take a long, long time. Perhaps more importantly, it’s well known in the industry that Nuance holds key patents for their technology and is very aggressive in protecting them. Even Apple would have a hard time dancing around this if they did go it alone.

(As an interesting sidenote, you may wonder how Google has been able to develop their technology while dancing around Nuance’s patents?Well, it certainly helps that Mike Cohen, an original co-founder of Nuance who worked there for 10 years, went on to create the voice-recognition technology for Google. If anyone knows how to navigate those waters, he’s the guy. And it has worked.)

So why doesn’t Apple just bite the bullet and buy Nuance? Well, for one thing, the company is very expensive. Nuance is a public company whose stock just so happens to be near its all-time highs. At the time of the original Apple/Nuance talk, their market cap was around $5 billion. Now it’s $6 billion. And it would take considerably more than that for Apple to buy them.

Of course, as we’re all well aware, Apple has the cash to do that. With $60 billion or so lying around, a Nuance deal would make a dent, but Apple would still have more cash than just about every other company after such a deal. The bigger issue, it seems, is that Nuance are very hard bargainers.

After Apple acquired Siri, they had to renegotiate deals with all of Siri’s partners to ensure the service remained alive and vital. That was easy to do with most of them (companies like OpenTable, for example). But one held out. And from what we hear, they’re still holding out. Guess who?

Nuance CEO Paul Ricci can be as hard of a negotiator as Apple’s own Steve Jobs, we hear. And so there has been a standoff, and negotiations have been ongoing for months.

Again, from what we’re hearing, all types of possibilities are still on the table, including an acquisition. But again, that’s not as likely as an expansive licensing agreement at this point. In buying Nuance, Apple would immediately screw over several other competitors that use the technology and it would bolster their position. And given what Google has been building, it seems unlikely that the government would have a big problem with the buy.

It would also give Apple something they always desire when possible: complete control over the technology on their devices.

But those who know Apple, and Jobs in particular, will know that they’ll be damned if they’re going to overpay for something. And they’d have to for Nuance. Much of Nuance’s value is derived from the licensing deals they have in place, and if Apple bought them, those deals would dry up. Apple would have to think of it as a strategic investment rather than a value play.

So maybe instead they do an expansive licensing deal now and perhaps quietly work on their own stuff in the background — sort of like what they did with Skyhook/Google for location services. (And what they’re now believed to be on the verge of doing to Google for maps.) But that’s pure speculation on my part.

Regardless, the fact remains that Apple needs Nuance for what they’re believed to be working on for iOS 5. And while the OS isn’t likely to appear until the fall, as we first reported last month, it is likely to be unveiled or talked about with developers at WWDC next month. You’d think Apple would want to have any deal with Nuance to be done by then.

And the truth is that Nuance needs Apple too. Not only are they also threatened by Google, but Nuance technology is simply not very meaningful without apps that utilize it like Siri. And many of those apps are appearing guess where: iOS.

While Siri has been categorized by many as a voice recognition service, that’s not actually the case. Technically, that element is on Nuance’s end. Siri are the ones that do the cool stuff with the transcriptions Nuance creates. Nuance, of course, knows this and has been trying to expand their offerings into the “brain” end of things. And it should surprise absolutely no one that they had tried multiple times to acquire Siri before Apple eventually did.

That’s not to downplay Nuance though. As one source puts it, “voice recognition done well is actually non-trivial, and although it is just ‘input’, you win or lose on it.”

In other words, both sides need each other. Nuance needs Apple. And Apple needs Nuance.

“I think voice recognition is going to become more and more a big part of these machines. Apple’s probably thinking the same way,” Wozniak said immediately before he dropped the Nuance bomb last November. From what we’ve heard, Apple is indeed thinking that way. And so are many others, including main rival Google. Nailing this on the technology side of things is going to be very, very important.

So while Wozniak may have misspoke, he may have done so with slightly more knowledge than he let on. Expect to hear a lot more about Apple and Nuance soon.

Update: Apple’s Massive New Data Center Set To Host Nuance Tech; Partnership Announcement Due At WWDC



Amazon Cloud Player Quietly Begins Working On iOS Devices!

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Amazon Cloud Player Quietly Begins Working On iOS Devices!

Back in March, alongside the roll out of
Amazon’s new cloud-based music upload/player service, we noted one glaring problem: it didn’t work on iOS devices. You might think this had to due with Flash or another technology that iOS wasn’t compatible with, but it wasn’t. It looked like something else was simply blocking it from working. Well, good news. That’s no longer the case.

If you visit Amazon’s Cloud Player through the Safari web browser on an iOS device, you’ll see that it does in fact now work. You’ll first hit a warning page telling you that your browser is not supported, but just ignore that. Click into the music in your drive and it will begin playing. It works flawlessly — even to the point where if you get a Push Notification or incoming call, the music will be paused.

Of course, this implementation is still not as good as it is on Android, where Cloud Player is part of a native app. But if Amazon just did a little web work and made the web-based player optimized for the iPhone and iPad, it would certainly be very useable on a regular basis. Uploading, however, still requires Flash. But I assume most people are doing that from their computers anyway.

While this is great news, Apple is expected to announce their own similar service sooner rather than later. And that will be fully baked into iOS (and is expected to have full music label backing, unlike Amazon’s service — which is both ballsy and awesome).

So you Amazon cloud lovers, take the skies and get your music working on iOS now.



Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on

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Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on
Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on
Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on
Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on
Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on
Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on
Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on
Solar powered lounge chair?? Go on

Hot Ali Larter – Show Some Candids in Hollywood

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Hot Ali Larter
Hot Ali Larter
Hot Ali Larter
Hot Ali Larter

Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland

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Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland
Hot Katy Perry Performs Live at Vector Arena in Auckland

Hot Tamil Movie Pictures

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Hot Tamil Movie Pictures
Hot Tamil Movie Pictures
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Hot Tamil Movie Pictures
Hot Tamil Movie Pictures
Hot Tamil Movie Pictures

Hot Pictures

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