Hasta La Gadget!

It is rather comforting to hear that the kind of engineers that Apple is looking for would not release a biological weapon on the rest of humanity for no apparent reason as seen in Prometheus, but rather, it will be for a far more humane and holistic purpose – to fix all that is wrong on the iOS Maps service. In fact, Apple has placed up new job postings on their website, looking for a group of 10 software engineers who will work alongside its Maps team.

The report also states that nine of the engineers “will handle various programming duties, while one will be assigned to tackle navigation.” In the job posting, the iOS Maps app was described to be the “best mapping program on any mobile platform,” but I am quite sure that many people do beg to differ. Will there be a special 10 engineers who are daring enough to step up to the plate and let iOS Maps run as it has been intended to? Only time will tell, but at the moment, you would be far safer relying on Google Maps on the iOS platform.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: FullForce Jailbreak Tweak Stretches Out iPhone 4/4S Apps For The iPhone 5, The Vyne iPhone Stand Is Pretty Unique,

This week the folks at comScore have revealed their Top Smartphone OEM list for the 3 month period average ending in December 2012, showing HTC to be in third place behind Apple and Samsung. Apple remains the dominant force in this three month average at 36.3% of the market for smartphone manufacturers while Samsung sits strong in second with 21% of the market. Third place belongs to HTC with a bit more than one out of every 10 smartphone subscriber in the market in this study period in the USA.

With this study comScore is comparing a three month period average ending in December with a three month average ending in September, both inside 2012. These quarters of the year show that the percentage of the market that each of the top 5 manufacturers control really hasn’t changed a significant amount through the last half of 2012. Apple went up 2 points, Samsung went up 2.3 points, HTC went down 1.8 points, and Motorola went down 0.7 points – then there’s LG in fifth place having went up 0.5 points to earn 7.1% of the market in the final quarter of the year.

These numbers should have HTC hopeful for the future as their most recent earnings report had them less than pumped up about their year-over-year results. HTC also holds a mighty fourth place in the world market according to the 2012 overall year statistics for smartphone manufacturers as reported by IDC – well played! Now they’ve just got to retain their spots or grow with their “new sound and camera experience” in early 2013 to keep this show on the road.

This same comScore report out Google in the lead for the 3 month average for Top Smartphone Platforms in the USA with Apple in second and the two taking a massive 89.7% of the market overall. After that it’s BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Symbian holding on tough with nearly 9% of the market between the lot of them – harsh!

Have a peek at the timeline below to see additional recent results from IDC to see how they track the many worlds of electronics!

[via Apple Insider]

comScore: HTC still fighting strong in the USA is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple released iOS 6.1 just early last week, and now the company has already seeded the first beta for iOS 6.1.1 to developers. It doesn’t seem like a huge update at first glance, but there are some key improvements that are worth noting. Most importantly, Apple has worked on some major enhancements to its Maps app for Japanese users.

Included with the list of improvements to Maps in Japan include improved pronunciation of roads, optimized directions, added labels for intersections, interchanges, etc., updated icons for public buildings like fire stations and hospitals, more 3D buildings around Tokyo, and a few color tweaks within the app.

So, it looks like most the major improvements in the update are only applicable to Japanese users, with possibly some very minor bugfixes that could benefit all iOS users. Plus, the update could include a security block for the recent Evasi0n jailbreak, but that is yet to be discovered in this first beta.

Of course, Evad3rs team member MuscleNerd urges users who used the iOS 6.1 jailbreak to stay away from iOS 6.1.1 for the time being, even though it’s not known whether or not the update patches the Evasi0n exploit. It’s better to be safe than sorry at this point. Other than, it doesn’t seem like a big update, and it’s probably one that many iOS users won’t notice in the long run.

[via 9to5Mac]

iOS 6.1.1 beta released to developers is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Both iOS and Android will be seeing an update to Twitter today with several feature boosts for connectivity of all kinds. The first of these changes comes in the way you Discover content with your Discover tab. That’s one of four major tabs in the official Twitter app at the moment, here coming with a stream that now incorporates Trends, Activity, and Tweets galore – after a few of one, there’s a few of another, and so on and so forth.

The Discover tab also now pushes you to explore Activity and Trends from a set of previews that appear right up near the top of the stream. With this new version of Twitter – again, for both iPhone/iPad and Android devices of all kinds – you’ll be seeing a brand new mix of results. Each time you search now you’ll be seeing a set of Tweets, Photos, and Twitter accounts that relate to your query. Also if you’re using the iOS version of this update to Twitter you’ll now be seeing a search button right from your home screen – right up in the upper right-hand corner near the tweet button (it’s the magnifying glass.)

With this update to Twitter you’ll be working with improved links. In this case it means that clicking a URL inside a Tweet will bring you directly to that website. In the past if you were using the official Twitter app you’d have had to see the full tweet first, then you’d be able to link out to the webpage you’d wanted to get to in the first place.

Your ability to Connect has been improved in this version of Twitter with the “Interactions” view turned on automatically. This view allows you to see all retweets of your tweets, mentions people have made of you, and new followers you’ve attained since you last checked. This change can be reverted back to the original “mentions only” view by heading to your Connect Tab in Settings – from there you’ll be able to easily tap on “mentions only” to switch back.

This version of Twitter will be available immediately if not soon from your respective app store, be it the iTunes App Store or Google Play – have at it!

[via Twitter]

Twitter update brings big Search and Discover boost is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The analysis group Canalys has released a report detailing how they’ve run the numbers on the PC market for the fourth quarter of 2012, discovering that when the iPad is included in those numbers, they take 1 out of every 6 units sold. This report details PC shipments across the whole world for the fourth quarter of 2012 and makes it clear that while worldwide shipments of PCs did go up 12% year-over-year, it’s Apple’s iPad that seems to be making the most significant dent. Apple also leads the PC market in general.

With a fourth quarter worldwide sales mark of 134 million units for PCs, it was Apple who came out on top in several ways. Apple keeps the number 1 spot in this market analysis with 27 million units and kicking back a 20% share overall – that’s the most it’s ever had, mind you. In second place was HP with 15 million PC units shipped and Lenovo with just 200k unit sales difference – both vendors work now with an 11% share of the total worldwide PC sales market.

For the first time in the top five in the history of the time Canalys has been analyzing such things, Samsung has broken into the top 5 for PC sales worldwide, edging out Dell with a 9% share – that’s 11.7 million PCs. It’s worth noting that Canalys has seen neither the launch of Windows 8 or holiday sales (in Europe and/or the USA) have a real effect on worldwide shipments of PCs.

On the other hand, Canalys notes that the “pad” segment (tablets, that is), grew 75% this Q4 2012 up to 46.2 million units. This jump combined with the rest of the year sales put the pad segment at 114.6 million units over the past four quarters. Apple specifically saw continued growth driven here in the pad category with their new iPad mini. Canalys notes that in addition to appearing to swallow up a bit of their own potential full-sized iPad sales, Apple has been cannibalizing PC sales on the whole with the iPad mini. That’s one beastly little “pad”.

[via Canalys]

Canalys: iPad was 1 of ever 6 PCs sold in Q4 2012 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.