Plus the US's lack of phablets, FitBit recalls Force, Chrome's web presence (or not), and more
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| WeChat app: it’s the new way to connect. Photograph: /WeChat |
The smartphone app wars are over, and Apple won >> TIME.com
Harry McCracken being uncontroversial, points to the order in which new apps tend to appear in the west: iPhone, Android phones, iPads. (Sometimes the last two are reversed.)The current situation seems to me to be a largely happy one for both iOS and Android users. They're two great platforms, each with some unique strengths and access to vast quantities of apps. But it's not the scenario long predicted by the market share ūber alles crowd. And there aren't even any isolated incidents that should set off little alarms in Apple's head — a hot app or a big company announcing that it's decided to go Android-first.
So it isn't rash to declare that we've reached the point where the reasonable conclusion is that market share alone is not the overriding factor.
Asustek to suspend dual-OS notebook project, says paper >> Digitimes
Asustek Computer is likely to be forced to give up plans to launch its dual-OS notebook, the Transformer Book Duet TD300, due to resistance from Google, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report.It was going to be a Windows/Android dual boot. It was shown off at CES. Now it's nixed.
Asustek originally planned to start marketing the TD300 in Asia and Europe in the first quarter of 2014, and in the US in the second quarter, the paper said.
Five-month usage study: Chrome OS drives 0.2% of north American desktop web traffic >> Chitika Online Advertising Network
To quantify Chrome OS' North American usage growth over time, Chitika Insights analyzed billions of U.S. and Canadian desktop-based online ad impressions within the Chitika ad network. The data set analyzed consisted of impressions catalogued from 1 September 2013 to 31 January 2014. For some comparison, continental Web usage shares of both Chrome OS and Linux are graphed over the five-month timespan.The Chrome OS share doubled (from 0.1% to 0.2%). The Linux share ramped from 1.1% to 1.9%.
Five ways China's WeChat is more innovative than you think >> Tech In Asia
Josh Horwitz:As others have correctly pointed out, it's not appropriate to lump China's WeChat alongside these other chat apps. This is in large part because it's simply far ahead of its like-minded competitors with respect to the "platform" side of things.
When a user opens up WeChat in any language other than Chinese, they'll likely see a messaging app that, for the most part, looks and works just like Line or Viber. But for Chinese speaking users, WeChat is a rabbit hole – full of all sorts of features that apps like Line haven't even come close to adding. Indeed, Tencent internally continues to refer to "WeChat in China" only as Weixin (its Mandarin name), while its international counterpart is referred to as WeChat.
Microsoft said to cut Windows price 70% to counter rivals >> Bloomberg
Microsoft is cutting the price of Windows 8.1 by 70% for makers of low-cost computers and tablets as they try to fend off cheaper rivals like Google's Chromebooks, people familiar with the program said.Is it really Chromebooks that are driving this (given their tiny sales), or just a lack of low-end sales?
Manufacturers will be charged $15 to license Windows 8.1 and preinstall it on devices that retail for less than $250, instead of the usual fee of $50, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details aren't public. The discount will apply to any products that meet the price limit, with no restrictions on the size or type of device, the people said.
Stronger competition from Apple and Google cut revenue last quarter at Microsoft's devices and consumer licensing division, which includes Windows software, as the computer industry posted its biggest annual decline on record.
What's the origin of Apple's SSL/TLS bug? >> Hacker News
Discussion on Hacker News of Apple's SSL/TLS bug (if you have an iOS device, update it) and how it might have occured. It's either a very spooky piece of sabotage, or a bad commit. See the diff on line 631 of https://gist.github.com/alexyakoubian/9151610/revisions. Surprisingly, neither the GCC or Clang compiler will throw a warning.Bigger is not always better >> NPD Blog
NPD's Mobile Phone Track reported 121m units sold [in the US] in 2013, in comparison to the 47m tablets and 31m notebooks we counted in our Consumer Tracking Service. In 2013 just 3.3m of all smartphones sold were phablets (a smartphone above 5.3" in size). In the fourth quarter phablets represented 4% of all smartphone sales. A far cry from what has been reported in other geographies and at current volumes (and growth rates) a segment that is clearly not threatening smaller size tablets or any other mobile device segment.Why? 1) Apple doesn't (yet?) sell a phablet, and has about 40% of US smartphone sales; 2) you can get a cheap 7in tablet. Also: 121m smartphones sold, but the installed base rose by just 30m according to ComScore. So about 91m were replacements.
Fitbit says it will stop selling and recall its Force wristband >> WSJ.com
Fitbit reiterated an offer to refund consumers who purchased the $129 Force.
In [a] blog post, [Fitbit chief executive James] Park wrote that 1.7% of Force users had reported any irritation. In the company statement, Fitbit said "affected users are likely experiencing an allergic reaction" to materials in the bracelet.
Mr. Park wrote that "some users may be reacting to the nickel," a component of the stainless steel used in the device. Others, he wrote, "are likely experiencing an allergic reaction to the materials used in the strap or the adhesives used to assemble the product."
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