Smartphone Shipments Skyrocket as Prices Crash

Worldwide smartphone shipments are expected to exceed 1 billion units in 2013, up 39.3 percent over last year, research firm IDC predicted on Tuesday.

While a number of markets are reaching saturation, demand for low-cost smartphones in emerging markets continues to drive the market forward, IDC said. By 2017, smartphone shipments are expected to approach 1.7 billion units, growing 18.4 percent annually from 2013 to 2017.
According to IDC, the biggest driver for smartphone market growth has been a decline in average selling prices (ASP), particularly among low-cost Android devices. The firm expects ASPs to be $337 in 2013, down from $387 last year, and $265 by 2017.

"The key driver behind smartphone volumes in the years ahead is the expected decrease in prices," said Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team, said in a statement. "Particularly within emerging markets, where price sensitivity and elasticity are so important, prices will come down for smartphones to move beyond the urban elite and into the hands of mass market users. Every vendor is closely eyeing how far down they can price their devices while still realizing a profit and offering a robust smartphone experience."

Emerging markets such as Asia/Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa are poised to see the greatest smartphone growth rates through 2017, IDC said. At the same time, ASPs in these emerging markets will continue to decline, enabling many more users to afford smartphones for the first time.

Read more:  http://www.pcmag.com/

Chart shows why BlackBerry 10 has struggled to attract developers

While Windows Phone has been steadily closing its app gap, BlackBerry 10 has continued to languish far behind. Business Insider has created a chart using data from mobile analytics firm VisionMobile that illustrates why BlackBerry still can’t get Instagram, Snapchat and Vine to make native apps for its BlackBerry 10 platform. Essentially, there’s not nearly as much money to be made from making BlackBerry 10 apps as there is from making iOS, Android and even Windows Phone apps.









Overall VisionMobile found that BlackBerry 10 generates just $1,200 in revenue per month for developers while iOS generates $5,200 per month, Android generates $4,700 per month and Windows Phone generates $3,600 per month. The bad news for BlackBerry is that, unlike Microsoft, it doesn’t have vast troves of cash that it can use to pay off big-name app developers to bring their apps to its platform. Taken all together, this looks like a vicious cycle where app developers avoid the platform due to lack of customers and customers avoid the platform due to lack of apps.

Source:Business Insider

AT&T rolls out new 4G LTE coverage to several markets across the U.S.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday are both fast-approaching, which means that many folks will be using their handsets to help them travel, pass the time and find out if that doorbuster 32-inch LED TV is any cheaper on Amazon. AT&T today announced some news that can help with all three. The big blue carrier says that its 4G LTE network is now available in five new markets and that it's expanded in another portion of the U.S. The list of freshly-activated service is as follows:



New markets

• Pueblo, Colo.
• Marion, Ind. (includes Gas City, Hartford City, Shamrock Lakes, Upland and Fowlerton)
• Faribault and Northfield, Minn.
• Fernley, Nev.
• Amsterdam, N.Y. (includes Church Corners, Cranesville, Fort Johnson, Hagaman, Harrower, Kellogg Reservoir, Manny Corners, and Tribes Hill)

Expanded market

• Southern Tier region of New York (includes portions of the Village of Owego, North Avenue (Route 96), Front Street (Route 17C), the Route 17 Southern Tier Expressway, and Marvin and West Main Street Parks)

This latest AT&T LTE expansion may be a bit on the small side, but it's still good to see Ol' Blue continuing to grow is network, especially as we dive headfirst into the holiday season. Do you have AT&T LTE coverage where you live? If so, how has it been treating you lately?
Via AT&T

Hilarious Leaked Memo Reveals Only 25 Percent Of Yahoo Employees Use Redesigned Email

Thousands were outraged when Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) introduced a complete overhaul of Yahoo Mail in October, and  apparently none are quite as angry as Yahoo employees. According to a leaked internal memo, 75 percent of Yahoo employees refuse to use their own company’s email service.

The memo, leaked Monday by All Things Digital, came from Jeff Bonforte, the senior vice president of communications products at Yahoo, and Randy Roumillat, Yahoo’s chief information officer. Yahoo admits that the company failed in a mission to get employees to use Yahoo Mail as their corporate email account.
The email is filled with humorous references, sarcastic remarks and snarky jabs. The memo was even titled, “Windows 95 called and they want their mail app back.”

"First, it doesn’t feel like we are asking you to abandon some glorious place of communications nirvana. At this point in your life, Outlook may be familiar, which we can often confuse with productive or well-designed. Certainly, we can admire the application for its survival, an anachronism of the now defunct '90s PC era, a pre-web program written at a time when NT Server terrorized the data-center landscape with the confidence of a T. rex born to yuppie dinosaur parents who fully bought into the illusion of their son’s utter uniqueness because the big-mouthed, tiny-armed monster infant could mimic the gestures of The Itsy-Bitsy Pterodactyl. There was a similar outcry when we moved away from Outlook’s suite-mates in the Microsoft Office dreadnaught. But whether it’s familiarity, laziness or simple stubbornness dressed in a cloak of Ayn Randian Objectivism, the time has come to move on, commrade [sic ... go deep in this pun, it is layered]."

Yahoo encourages its employees to make the switch to Yahoo Mail not just on principle but also to help test the product and provide the Mail team with feedback. Certainly the Yahoo Mail team has received more than enough feedback online, but perhaps a lack of internal testing explains why the product was released with so many bugs and glitches.
Yahoo gives a list of reasons why Yahoo employees should use Yahoo Mail instead of Microsoft Outlook and even reveals a new feature coming soon to Yahoo Mail that they want the team to test: “smart auto-suggest” powered by Xobni, which Yahoo acquired in July.

We have been testing this feature with select users in and out of the company, and the response has been fantastic: “Whoa!”, “Amazing”, “Already in love with it. Woot!” and, my favorite, “So nicely integrated that it appears as if it’s always been there. I already can’t imagine it not being there again.'”
Feeling that little tingle? Take a deep breath, you can do this. We want you on board, sailor!

The memo repeated that using Yahoo Mail will be good for the company as a whole, and frequently compared it to eating “dogfood.”
What kind of makes the whole thing sad is that the memo concludes by stating that corporate mail is not supported with the Yahoo Mail app for Android or iOS. Employees will probably be much more likely to use Yahoo Mail if they could actually check their messages from their mobile device. Could this be why Yahoo stopped allowing employees to work from home?

You can read the memo in its entirety here.

Google Offering Free Shipping And $25 Play Store Credit To New Nexus 7 Buyers

The worlds best 7 inch tablet just got even better. Just like they did with the original Nexus 7(2012) edition back when it was released last year, Google is at it again for the holidays with this years Nexus 7 (2013) edition giving buyers $25 in play store credit if they order a tablet during this limited time offer. Google has not specified a date for the end of this promotion, but it’s most likely not going last past the end of December.

Not only is Google Providing you with free play store money, but they are also completely waiving shipping costs for everyone that purchases the Nexus 7 during this promotion. Hows that for a holiday deal? This deal is not limited to either size, so you can pick up both the nexus 7 16GB and 32GB models for this promotion and still get the $25 and free shipping. This deal is limited however to US and Canada residents as it stands currently, and there’s no mention of whether or not they’ll update this holiday deal for other countries. Hopefully those of you outside the US or Canada will get some sort of a deal like this. Until than, no free play store credit for you. Sorry Tom Dawson!!!

As for the details on the Google Play Store gift card, you have to apply the gift card to your Google Wallet account by or on March 31st of 2014 to get the $25 credit applied. So don’t go mucking about and waste time. Once you have the money in your Google Wallet account you have all the way until March 31st the following year to use it, and if you don’t you lose it. As always, the credit can only be used for apps, games, books, movies, music, and the like. You can’t use the credit towards devices or accessories, or use it for subscriptions. So yes, you still have to pay out of pocket for your monthly subscription to home and garden(Alex) and no free months of Google Play Music All Access. While Google is probably well equipped for the mass amount of orders they’re are about to receive, you might want to hurry and place yours if you want to ensure getting one as part of the promo.

YouTube admits Google+ comments are riddled with spam

Google+ comments on YouTube have a bit of a spam problem at the moment, or at last that's what YouTube has admitted.
As with any major change on a website or online service, users love to complain. And many certainly did when YouTube adopted Google+'s comment system, but now it appears their worries were not without foundation.

YouTube has acknowledged that its new comments experience, which launched just two weeks ago, has garnered much feedback from creators. But it's not good feedback, with creators noticing an unfavourable increase in comment spam.

YouTube wrote in a blog post on Tuesday: "While the new system dealt with many spam issues that had plagued YouTube comments in the past, it also introduced new opportunities for abuse and shortly after the launch we saw some users taking advantage of them."
YouTube did more than admit to the issue in its blog post, it also outlined a plan of attack. To decrease spam comments in future, YouTube has issued a service-wide update that will recognise bad links and impersonation attempts, improv ASCII art detection and change how long comments are displayed.

READ: Google+ to fix YouTube's messy comment system

YouTube also promised to issue more updates in the future for managing comments and videos better, as well as improving comment ranking and moderation of old-style comments. In fact, bulk moderation tools are a "longstanding creator request", and YouTube will apparently deliver those tools soon.
"We know the spam issues made it hard to use the new system at first, and we’re excited to see more of you getting involved as we’ve fixed issues," YouTube added. "Thanks for sticking with us."

• Source: YouTube