Tag Archives | Smartphones

Uber, The Luxury Transportation Service, Now in NYC

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 7, 2011 at 4:34 pm

Want to feel like a rockstar, with your own private car to whisk you from destination to destination across the Big Apple? San Francisco-based Uber is making a push into New York City following a successful launch in its home city last fall. The concept is simple: all reservations are done through the company’s mobile applications or via text message, and professional drivers will pick you up in a luxury sedan in “about 5-10 minutes.”

Obviously, this service costs more than your average taxi. The base fare is $8.00, with a $4.90 charge per mile, and $1.25 per minute idle charge. The minimum fare is $15.00, but no tip is necessary as Uber has included it in the fare. For a private service that seems all but one step below a limo, I guess that’s not too bad.

Continue Reading →

2 comments

WebOS Sans Tiny Plastic Keys?

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 6, 2011 at 10:39 am

You just know that HP will release a WebOS phone without a physical keyboard sooner or later. (In fact, I’m astonished it didn’t happen…well, about two years ago.) Is this it?

No comments

Motorola Xoom Sales “Slow,” “Disappointing,” Say Analysts

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 5, 2011 at 7:44 pm

Motorola’s Xoom tablet doesn’t lack for hype. Actual sales, however, may be another matter. At least two analysts have come out in the past two days and cited “poor” Xoom sales in adjusting their forecasts for Motorola revenue in the current quarter.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue was the first on Friday, and said higher competition would put a strain on the company. He cut his Xoom shipments forecast by 25% to 300,000 units in the current quarter and called sales “slow.” This was followed by Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette who called Xoom sales (and of Motorola’s Atrix 4G smartphone) “disappointing.”

What’s the issue here? I’m going to take an educated guess and say its pricing pressures. In the case of the Xoom, it is still priced well above the market-leading iPad. For such a premium, Motorola needs to prove its worth to the consumer and I don’t think it has done that.

As Faucette notes, the Atrix’s issues may actually result from other smartphones on AT&T being priced well below the device, such as the $49 iPhone 3GS. The Atrix on the other hand retails for $199.99. While it’s the same price as the iPhone 4, if people are looking for a cheaper solution on the carrier with a decent feature set, it’s certainly there.

If anything’s obvious from this, it’s that price is king. Will this lead Motorola to reconsider its strategy? I guess we’ll find out.

20 comments

Facebook For iPhone Gets “Unfriend” Feature

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 5, 2011 at 2:11 pm

Has somebody made you so angry that you couldn’t wait until you got home so you could unfriend them on Facebook? If you have an iPhone, you won’t have to wait. As part of the new update to the Facebook app, an “Unfriend” button has been added to the application, allowing users to dump their pals on the go.

The functionality is not yet in the Android version, and the company has not said when it expects it to be. In addition, we’re all still waiting for an official iPad app–something that I’m beginning to think may never materalize!

All kidding aside on the unfriending front, there were also some other really nice additions to the app. You may remember my post on event check-ins from last month: the feature is now available within the app.

Users will also now be able to use a map to view the locations of friends rather than the standard list that the app has been using since Places was introduced last August. This makes the feature a lot more like Loopt, which has always displayed the locations of friends on a map — which just seems a logical move to me.

5 comments

Consumers Say Verizon iPhone Drops Fewer Calls

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 5, 2011 at 1:09 pm

If the latest survey from ChangeWave Research is any indication, the theory that the Verizon iPhone would be more reliable than AT&T’s iPhone is more than just a theory. That said, consumers still seem to be as satisfied with the iPhone 4 on AT&T as they do on Verizon.

82 percent of iPhone 4 owners on Verizon are satisfied with the device versus 80 percent on AT&T. Conversely, 18 percent are dissatisfied with the iPhone 4 on AT&T, and 16 percent on Verizon. Not much of a difference, and within the margin of error.

There are definitely areas where the two carriers diverge, though, most notably in dropped calls.

Continue Reading →

7 comments

HTC Thunderbolt: iPhone Killer?

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 1, 2011 at 10:58 am

HTC’s Thunderbolt has gotten a good deal of positive coverage from the tech press, and now we may have some anecdotal evidence that those good words could be translating into success for the device. According to data from research firm BITG, checks at 150 Verizon Wireless stores indicate that in some cases the Thunderbolt is outselling the iPhone 4.

According to the comany’s data, 61 percent of the stores said they were selling equal numbers of both devices, and 11 percent more iPhones than Thunderbolts, apparently mainly in the southeastern US. But 28 percent were selling more Thunderbolts, seemingly indicating that at least on Verizon, the iPhone may have met its match.

Continue Reading →

16 comments

Twitter for iPhone Dumps the QuickBar

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 31, 2011 at 12:04 pm

Twitter has come to its senses and removed the dreadful QuickBar that defaced the otherwise wonderful Twitter app for iPhone. Good! (I would have been equally happy with an option to disable it, though…)

No comments

Ping May Be Pinging Away At Your Battery Life

Posted by Ed Oswald on March 29, 2011 at 4:14 pm

Along with a host of other features that came with the release of iOS 4.3 earlier this month was the addition of Apple’s music-based social network to iTunes on iOS devices. Now it appears as if the service may be placing an additional strain on battery life, and users are seemingly not too happy about it.

The issues seem to come from the fact that while listening to music through the iPod application, information is being transmitted to and from the device in order to make the social networking functionality work as intended. Data usage is one of the fastest drains on your smartphone’s battery, so your iPhone or iPad could die a lot quicker than you’re used to.

The problem can be easily fixed though, and anecdotal reports indicate battery life returns to normal after Ping has been turned off. To do so, open up the Settings app, then tap General and then Restrictions. After this tap Enable Restrictions, and tap the slider by the Ping option to set it to off. Ping will then be disabled.

I’m curious to hear if you have seen a decrease in battery life. I’m a heavy data user, so frankly I’ve noticed nothing out of the ordinary — but maybe you’reusing the iPod functionality more than I am. Let us and everyone else know if changing this setting fixes any battery issues you may have had.

4 comments