Hasta La Gadget!

Australian carrier, Qantas will provide its passengers with individual iPads that can stream more than 200 hours of movies, TV shows and music. This is available in all classes for flights from Sydney to Honolulu. In contrast, American Airlines passengers are provided with Galaxy Tab 10.1 instead on selected routes such as New York’s JFK airport and Los Angeles and international flights to Europe and South America. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Future Ferrari Models Could See iPads Integrated Into Them, 2013 Honda Accord, Acura RDX And Acura ILX To Get Siri Eyes Free Option,

This week we’ve had a look at the epic beast of a game in Alien VS Predator: Evolution for mobile devices running iOS and Android. If you’re a fan of 3rd-person controls rolling out some of the most impressively smooth graphics you’ve ever seen on your Android smartphone, tablet, iPad, or iPhone, you’re in luck – Angry Mob Games and Fox Digital Entertainment have made a masterpiece. This game takes all the excellence delivered in past gameplay for games having these two monsters attempt to best each-other and delivers it in a mobile container – your first surprise is certain to be how your smartphone can run such gameplay.

First you’ll be choosing either Predators or Aliens to control, right out of the gate. It won’t really matter in the end, as you’re controlling both throughout the game, but it’s nice to have the illusion of control. Once you’ve completed one chapter with your Predator, you’ll be switched back to your Alien, and you’ll be evolving step-by-step with both races whether you like it or not. And you’ll like it – you’ll play it all night long, and you’ll like it.

The storyline is almost irrelevant as you take on each of the two races of beings you’re not whenever you’re out in the field. Fighting scientists and colonial marines when you’re either a Predator or an Alien whenever you’re no fighting one or the other bloodthirsty other-worldly race, that’s the joy you get to experience in this app.

You’ll be running through environments both diverse and deadly: it’s not only the other organic creatures that are after you, it’s the fire and the explosions and the bullets, too. And just when you think you’re about to reach the end of your ability to massacre the enemy, you gain enough experience to add a new terrifying weapon to your arsenal. Or if you’re an Alien, a new level of evolution to your body.

The Predator begins as a nearly nude blade-wielding ruffian, while the Alien begins, appropriately enough, as a facehugger. You’ll find some strange tingling feeling in your fingertips as you leap at the face of the helpless lab worker in your wake, implanting Alien spawn into his gullet. Once you’re out of his chest and full grown, you’ll also be working with facehugger back-ups to help grow your friendly family.

At the moment this game is entirely offline and you’ll be going through a fairly strict storyline, and if that’s all this game is – it’s still well worth the cash you’ll drop on it. This is a game that makes us understand what our newly quad-core processors are doing, what they’re being used on. Without games like this, all that power could be going to waste – don’t let it!

Have a peek at Alien VS Predator: Evolution on your iOS or Android device this week and let us know how it goes. Also have a peek at the Fox Digital Entertainment game DIE HARD (2013) for a whole new class in mobile gaming – the Endless Shooter!

Alien VS Predator: Evolution Review is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The IDC recently had to adjust its numbers for its 2013 forecasted market share. It didn’t expect there to be so many low-cost budget Android tablets to be announced this year, like the HP Slate that goes for $169. The IDC has increased its 2013 forecast for the tablet market from 172.4 million units shipped worldwide to 190.9 million. It also believes that tablet shipments will see an 11% increase annually between 2013 and 2016.

The IDC believes that Android tablets will claim the top spot in the tablet market with a 48.8% market share. iPads will drop down to second place with a 46% market share, and Windows-based tablets will have a combined total of a 4.7% market share. In the future, the market share for both Android tablets and iPads will decrease as Windows-based tablets gain more momentum in the market. All in all, there should be a combined total of 350 million tablets shipped by the end of 2017.

Jitesh Ubrani, an analyst for IDC’s Tablet Tracker, states that “One in every two tablets shipped this quarter was below 8 inches in screen size. And in terms of shipments, we expect smaller tablets to continue growing in 2013 and beyond.” Manufacturers are seeing a trend in smaller tablets outselling the more larger 10-inch tablets. The smaller tablets are much easier to carry around and to use when performing daily tasks.

The IDC believes that the low-budget Android tablets are the main reason for Android’s success in the tablet market. Consumers don’t want to spend $500 on a high-end premium Android tablet or iPad when there is a $150-$200 tablet, like the Kindle Fire, that can give them everything they need. Low-cost Android tablets are also hurting the sales of eReaders, which have seen a decline year-over-year due to the more efficient, tablets. The IDC has reduced its forecasted shipments of eReaders by 14% from the years 2013 to 2016.

[via IDC]

IDC: Low cost Android tablets take lead in tablet market is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Mozilla stated at SXSW that it is not currently developing a version of its Firefox browser for iOS and it does not intend to do so in the future. Mozilla feels that it can better focus its time and development elsewhere because it won’t be able to build the browser it wants on the iOS platform. As CNET says, it won’t be able to “carry over its sophisticated rendering and javascript engines to iOS.”

The iOS platform isn’t exactly friendly with 3rd party browsers. Users are forced to stick with Safari as their main browser. Other browser companies are still releasing their product to iOS, despite their product not being able to be used as a default choice, because they just want to be part of iOS’s ecosystem. Right now, Safari dominates 55% of the mobile browser market, while Firefox only holds a measly 1%.

Jay Sullivan, Senior VP of products for Mozilla, and Mike Taylor, a Web Opener for Opera, believe that the consumers’ choice in what browser they use is an important part of what makes “browsers, and the Web in general, great.” Many companies see the importance of giving consumers a choice in what web browser they can use. Microsoft especially took notice when the EU demanded them to give consumers more web browsers to choose from instead of its Internet Explorer.

Firefox will continue to work to improve its browser on the Android OS, because it allows them to create the browser it wants. However, despite offering its browser on Android OS, many users will still opt for better alternatives like Chrome. If it hopes to grab more of the mobile browser market, it’s probably going to have to place all of its bets on its upcoming Firefox OS.

[via CNET]

Mozilla will not bring Firefox to iOS is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple has been working on the iPhone since long before it hit the market in 2007, and today a new developer prototype has come to light that shows how it might have looked if they’d rushed it to market earlier. The 2005 internal prototype is pictured in photos obtained by Ars Technica, from an unnamed former Apple employee.

The prototype iPhone doesn’t look like an iPhone as we know it at all, aside from the fact that it boasts a rectangular screen. The device is 5″ x 7″, closer to the current iPad mini than anything else, which is 5.3″ by 7.87″. It’s also two inches thick, which is around the depth of six iPad minis stacked, but that was necessary for including all the ports the iPhone prototype had on board.

Yes, ports. The early iPhone design had a USB port, Ethernet and serial. They weren’t included so that you could hook up to your dot matrix printer – Ars’ source says the development team was simply making the gadget as easy to work internally with as possible in its early, pre-release form. The unit itself was designed completely around helping the internal team refine the product; a large display also makes it easier to work with. But back then everything was up in the air, meaning it was still arguably a real possibility that the iPhone could have shipped with wired Internet on board.

Ars notes that the chip used in the prototype is the older, slower antecedent of the Samsung-made ARM design used in the actual first iPhone, so the partnership was in place long before Apple went into full-scale production.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in 2010 that Apple actually worked on the iPad before it ever began work on the iPhone, so it makes sense that an early prototype for an Apple phone would largely resemble the Apple slate that would later follow. And in basic engineering terms, it’s easier to work big before working small. And even though they never would’ve shipped it, it’s funny to imagine that Apple was making phablets long before Android OEMs were stretching the limits of what sized device can comfortably be termed a “phone.”