Apple taking aim at Chinese market with Mountain Lion, iOS 6

The sharp focus that Apple has brought to bear on the Chinese market was evident on Monday during a keynote presentation to kick off the Worldwide Developers Conference. While talking up new additions to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, head of Mac Software Engineering Craig Federighi presented a segment on "Features for China" in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

"One area I want to highlight especially are some features we're adding for China," he said. "The Mac has been growing fantastically in China and we have some wonderful features that we think are going to make it even more popular there."

The additions included an improved Chinese Pinyin input method, a new dictionary and eight Chinese fonts. Safari in OS X Mountain Lion will also add the popular Chinese search engine Baidu as a search option, support for micro-blogging via Sina Weibo and video sharing selections for Youku and Tudou. Federighi also mentioned the inclusion of easy setup of popular Chinese email services coming to Mountain Lion.

"It's going to be important. Get your apps ready for China," he said to the assembled crowd of developers.

Later in the presentation, Scott Forstall, Apple's president of iOS Software, talked about upcoming Siri support for Mandarin and Cantonese in iOS 6. The new language support will make good on a promise that company made last year to teach Siri Chinese in 2012. Siri's Chinese language abilities will include Mandarin, tuned for both Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, and Cantonese, tuned for Hong Kong and the mainland.

"As part of making Siri more international, we're now taking local search, which was U.S.-only in iOS, around the world. So you can now do local search even in China," Forstall said.

Responding to Monday's keynote, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty called Apple's China-specific features "significant investments" that the company is making to reach the market. She believes that focus on China will be "key to long-term growth." The investment bank expects increased sales of the iPhone in the region to contribute 33 percent of incremental revenue for Apple in calendar 2013.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in April during a quarterly earnings call that the company's revenue in China has been "mind-boggling." The region brought in $7.39 billion in revenue during the March quarter, driven largely by iPhone sales, which were up five times that of the year ago quarter. The executive said the iPhone and iPad are creating an "incredible" halo of demand for Macs, which were up more than 60 percent year over year during the quarter. Cook noted that an "enormous number of people" in China are moving into the middle class and Apple is doing everything it can to understand the market and capitalize on the opportunity.

This article comes from:http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/12/apple_taking_aim_at_chinese_market_with_mountain_lion_ios_6.html

Is Siri about to come to the iPad?

A recent round of rumours now suggests that Siri may finally be making its way to the iPad with the release of iOS 6. One of the likely reasons that Siri wasn’t initially included was the lack of constant network connectivity, so Apple will need to make sure users are aware that Siri needs to phone home to Apple’s data centres to function properly so as to avoid a confusing experience.

I was a bit surprised that Siri wasn’t included at the new tablet’s launch, but better late than never. At the All Things Digital D10 conference last week, CEO Tim Cook also said the company is planning on “doubling down” on Siri this year, subtly acknowledging that the assistant might not have lived up to user expectations thus far. There’s also renewed talk that Apple may finally include developer APIs so that third-party apps could tap into Siri’s functionality.

As the provider of the backend recognition, Nuance Communications (Nasdaq: NUAN) will make the assistant possible. On the last conference call, Nuance CEO Paul Ricci said that mobile revenue growth should continue to accelerate and that it was able to book more sales in the quarter upon “the completion of some of the milestones on existing contracts.”

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) continues to push forward with its own in-house voice-recognition offerings, and inclusion in Android tablets seems inevitable.Get ready, new iPad owners. It looks like you’re in store to get Siri sooner rather than later.

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This article comes from:http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/motley/8481896/is-siri-about-to-come-to-the-ipad

Google adds to mobile maps in dig at Apple

Google is upgrading mapping services to woo users and swipe back at Apple, which is nudging aside the location tools on its own mobile devices.

Apple plans to unveil a mapping application next week that will come pre-installed on its iPhones and iPad tablets, replacing Google Maps, said a person with knowledge of the matter who isn't authorized to speak publicly about it.

Google, whose mapping app has been on the iPhone since its unveiling in 2007, on Thursday announced a feature that gives users access to maps even when they're offline. The feature initially is only available on devices using Google's Android software.

"I'm very proud of Google Maps services, and they're available basically on all devices today," Brian McClendon, vice president of engineering for Google Maps, said at an event Thursday in San Francisco. "We'll continue to make Google Maps services as widely available as possible."

Google and Apple have increasingly clashed as the two companies compete for users of mobile devices and related services, such as music and movies.

Google's Android operating system has emerged as the most widely used smartphone software, and will command 61 percent of the market this year, while Apple's iOS will rank second, with 20.5 percent this year, according to IDC.

With the new mapping option, users can select a portion of a map when the device is online that can later be used when the device is no longer connected to the Web, Rita Chen, product manager for Google Maps for Mobile, said Thursday at the event.

The company offered the service as an experimental feature for Android last year.
"This has been one of the most requested features, and is coming soon," Chen said.

McClendon said an Apple version of the service could be added in the future.Google also announced improvements for Street View, which features photos of roads and byways around the world.

The company, which has mainly relied on people in autos to capture the images, said Thursday it will incorporate images taken with other devices. Google photographers will begin using backpacklike machines to take pictures of more obscure places — say, castles or ancient ruins.

In another upgrade, Google said it added more detail to the satellite images that are part of its Earth for Mobile tools. The service will give more nuanced and accurate images for places as varied as highways and baseball parks.

Map services are part of Google's effort to widen its lead as the largest U.S. provider of online mapping. Google had 75.1 million map users in April, up 29 percent from a year earlier. That put it ahead of MapQuest, which had a 7 percent decline, and Microsoft's Bing, which had 8.59 million, a 10 percent gain, according to ComScore.Google generates sales of advertisements that appear on map-search results.

This article comes from:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2018381565_googlemaps08.html

Apple Said to Add Baidu as Iphone Search-Engine in China

Apple Inc. (AAPL) (AAPL) plans to add Baidu Inc. (BIDU) (BIDU)’s search engine on iPhones in China, part of a push to broaden its services and user base in the world’s most-populous nation, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.


The agreement to add Baidu, China’s largest search engine, to the lineup of Web tools on the iPhone could be announced as early as next week, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. Apple is holding its annual developers conference in San Francisco starting June 11.

A deal with Baidu, which handles about 80 percent of China’s Internet search queries, fits with a plan by Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook to gain a bigger toehold in the largest mobile-phone market. It also gives users an alternative to Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG), which competes with Apple in the market for mobile software and advertising.

China’s growing middle class has more income to spend on smartphones and is becoming a more alluring audience for advertisers. China accounted for 20 percent of Apple’s sales last quarter and Cook has said there’s “a lot more opportunity” there as the company rolls out newproducts (AAPL) and adds new distributors of the iPhone.

While customers will have the option to select Baidu as their main vehicle for searching the Web, Google Inc.’s product will probably remain the default choice, one person said. At present, users of iPhones and iPads in China can access Baidu search by downloading it separately as an application.
Google Products

Even so, adding Baidu is the latest example of Apple diminishing its dependence on Google’s products. Apple plans to unveil a mapping application next week that will come pre- installed on its iPhones and iPad tablets, replacing Google Maps, said a person with knowledge of the matter who isn’t authorized to speak publicly about it.

Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, declined to comment. Kaiser Kuo, a spokesman for Beijing- based Baidu, also declined to comment. Taj Meadows, a Google spokesman in Tokyo, couldn’t immediately comment on the future use of Google search by Apple customers in China.

Baidu, under billionaire Chief Executive Officer Robin Li, has benefited from Google’s decision in 2010 to no longer comply with Chinese regulation to self-censor Web content. Google market-share dropped after it shut its Google.cn service and began redirecting Chinese users to its site in Hong Kong.

Baidu is working to add users who access the Internet on smartphones such as the iPhone, after dominating the search- engine market among users of personal-computers in China.

Apple tripled revenue in China last quarter, making the Asian country its biggest market outside the U.S. In February, Apple added support for Baidu’s search-engine in its latest upgrade for the Mac operating system, along with other new features aimed at users in China.

This article comes from: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-07/apple-said-to-add-baidu-as-iphone-search-engine-in-china

Dell chief hits out at “shiny” iPad

 

Brian Corrigan

Dell Australia managing director Joe Kremer has refused to give up the tablet computing race, claiming “shiny” devices like Apple’s iPad are too difficult for business to support.

Apple has had great success getting its tablet computer into the hands of senior executives and board members since launching the iPad two years ago.

Personal computer makers have tried to counter this with models of their own but with very little success. The iPad still accounts for about three quarters of all tablet sales and has been the only game in town for corporate buyers.

The PC industry has now pinned its hopes on the upcoming launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 software as its final chance to hit back against the iPad. The biggest advantage that devices running this software will have is that they integrate more easily with the desktop and notebook computers that employees are already using to do their jobs.

Referring to the iPad, Mr Kremer told a media and analyst briefing in Sydney on Wednesday afternoon: “People might be attracted to some of these shiny devices but technology departments can’t afford to support them.
“If you are giving a presentation and something fails on the software side it might take four days to get it up and running again. I don’t think this race has been run yet.”

Despite resistance from some technology departments, the iPad has been a big hit with senior executives and a growing number of companies have issued them to board members so that they don’t have to carry reams of paper around with them. If the devices are lost or stolen they can be “killed” remotely to prevent sensitive business information falling into the wrong hands.

High-profile failures to compete with the iPad have included Hewlett-Packard’s TouchPad, which was killed just six weeks after it launched, Research In Motion’s PlayBook, which has contributed to massive writedowns at the BlackBerry maker because of slow sales, and Cisco’s Cius, which the networking giant announced two weeks ago would be discontinued.

Samsung has had limited success among consumers with its Galaxy Tab line without putting a huge dent in iPad sales, while it was reported this week that sales of Amazon’s low-cost Kindle Fire had fallen 80 per cent during the first three months of 2012 after making a fast start with US consumers in the Christmas quarter.

While he would not be drawn on the likely uptake of Windows 8 among the business community when it is launched later this year, Mr Kremer said there was significant pent-up demand among customers that had skipped the previous two releases of the software and were still running their computers on Windows XP.
Mr Kremer was not confident about technology spending during the next six months, saying businesses were still keeping a careful eye on events in Europe and interest rate movements.

This article comes from:http://afr.com/p/technology/dell_chief_hits_out_at_shiny_ipad_6GzUNJbQwXvNd2XGGFYBuN

Could Microsoft make Office for iPad work?

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Does it even exist? We really don’t know. Microsoft Office for iPad.Microsoft says it doesn’t, while two sources — BGR, and News Corp.’s The Daily — both claim it does exist. All we know is that it should. But the brouhaha and speculation rides on and Microsoft remains staunchly quiet on the matter.

Further sources speaking to Business Insider — someone close to the Office sales team no less — claims the long-awaited software will arrive in November in time for Microsoft’s SharePoint conference. It shocks back into life more rumours an iPad version could be on the way.

While it makes sense on the face of it to bring Office to iOS — and perhaps even to the iPhone and Android — Microsoft has a few hurdles to overcome.

Microsoft will roll out Windows 8 in or around October. Most analysts and insiders suggest a fall launch. Timing is everything as the Redmond-based company has typically a small window to get the next-generation operating system out in time for the competitive and highly-charged Christmas holiday season

A Windows 8 edition will for the first time run solely on ARM-powered tablets. Windows RT will be Microsoft’s first true venture into tablet computing. It’s a make or break situation considering Apple not only rules the tablet space, but defined the tablet market with the iPad.

It may seem counter-intuitive to bring Office to the iPad because it would in effect make the iPad even stronger. It could even harm tablet sales if users prefer to buy iPads knowing full-well they can get the Office experience on a device they prefer.

Office for iPad out would guarantee a revenue stream irrespective of Windows 8’s performance. At the same time, the consequence could be that it could leave Windows RT dead in the water, meeting analysts’ initial expectations.

There are two key problems:

Rolling out Office for iPad on the App Store means Apple would receive a 30 percent cut of all Office for iPad sales goes directly into Apple kitty. It would certainly be ironic that Office sales would actually help Apple.

Also, Microsoft is keen on integrating cloud services with the next-generation Office. The iCloud barrier would be a difficult obstacle to avoid. Microsoft wants to synchronise desktop files with cloud-based SkyDrive. SkyDrive already exists as an application for the iPad, but integrating SkyDrive into Office for iPad — and circumventing iCloud altogether — may not be allowed, leaving Microsoft stuck using a rival cloud platform or none at all.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter which platform is used. Microsoft could undercut Apple and bring Office to rival tablet platform. Apple couldn’t viably do anything about it. if Apple vetoed the Office listing in its App Store, it could be argued the move would be anti-competitive. Apple certainly doesn’t need any more antitrust suits following the ongoing e-book price fixing case.

This article comes from:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/technologybrierdudleysblog/2018350652_apples_cook_on_ipad_versus_pc.html

The Best Gets Better

 
The new iPhone is no doubt one of the most anticipated products of this year. Before the launch, it was shrouded by hearsay and speculation in just about every aspect, even it's name. A lot of us were expecting the iPhone 5, a re-designed, thinner phone with a larger screen running on a 4G network. A lot of questions were answered but a lot of people were disappointed when Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S at WWDC 2011. Same design, same screen size, same resolution, looks identical to 2010's iPhone 4 and it still only runs on 3G networks.

But keep in mind, just about everything that matters on the INSIDE of the new iPhone has been newly refreshed with a faster dual core A5 processor, upgraded camera, new version of iOS loaded with 200 new features (which we will go over) and a digital assistant called "Siri" that exclusively runs on this new model. Apple has also expanded to a new U.S. provider this year by adding Sprint, who joined Verizon and AT&T.

The iPhone 4S sold over a million units on the weekend of its release and Sprint has announced that it is its best selling phone of all time. Now that the weekend fun is over and the excitement has somewhat died down, it's time to take a serious look at whether it was worth all the hype, how it holds up to the standards of 2011, and if it's worth the upgrade from the iPhone 4.

This article comes from:http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=18301&news=Apple+iPhone+4S+Review+ATT+Verizon+Sprint