iPad By Davis: “Microsoft’s former President of Windows is now using an iPhone” plus 10 more

Microsoft’s former President of Windows is now using an iPhone
Apple supposedly cuts orders for iPhone 5 components
Measure body temperature and more with Spree Biometric Headband
iMore show. Tonight. 5pm PT. 8pm ET. Be here.
Never mind iPhone 6 and iPads next, in 2013 it's all about iOS 7 and iCloud
Review — Need For Speed: Most Wanted for iPad
Weekend iPad Wallpapers: Duotone Leafage & A Couple More
Notable New iPad Apps: Portray
Editor's desk: CES 2013 wrap-up
Apple's China Factor
myCharge at CES 2013 gallery: More better power

Microsoft’s former President of Windows is now using an iPhone

Posted: 14 Jan 2013 12:32 AM PST

Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft's former President of the Windows Division is now using an iPhone. Sinofsky, who departed company with Microsoft back in November 2012 hasn't taken long to discover what we already know. The discovery was made by 9to5 Mac who received a tip about Sinofsky's use of Twitter for iPhone.

We were tipped to a tweet from Sinofsky (@stevesi) from January 11th that was sent from Twitter for iPhone. We soon discovered a second tweet from the same platform on January 4th. Sinofsky is still tweeting from his Microsoft Surface and the Web, but we don't see as many Windows Phone-based tweets as we do earlier in his Twitter timeline.

In his defense, Sinofsky did try to clarify why he was using an iOS device. He claimed via Twitter that he uses an iPhone and a Samsung device as he wants to be familiar with the work of all companies. I suppose it is a fair excuse but we are sure once he is familiar with all the other devices, that iPhone will be his first choice!

Source: Twitter via 9to5 Mac

Apple supposedly cuts orders for iPhone 5 components

Posted: 13 Jan 2013 10:14 PM PST

Apple supposedly cuttings orders for iPhone 5 components

Apple has supposedly cut orders for iPhone 5 components, including screens by roughly half. This according to two people familiar with the matter, one of whom also said other component orders had also been cut. Apple apparently notified the suppliers last month, (both?) of the people said. Juro Osawa of the Wall Street Journal claims that it's because people aren't buying enough iPhones.

The move indicates that sales of the new iPhone haven't been as strong as previously anticipated and demand may be waning. It comes as the company has been facing greater challenges from Samsung Electronics Co. and other makers of smartphones powered by Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

The rest of the article races through Apple vs. Android market share numbers, and careers around any profit share mention, before heaping more praise on Samsung, mentioning the realities of the panel market, and then slamming strait into a reminder that Apple will report earnings later this month.

Apple no-commented, of course.

The Wall Street Journal generally has a good track record when it comes to Apple rumors. However, rumors of Apple cutting orders, both true and fabricated, come along every year. Sometimes people want to manipulate stock. Sometimes companies want to leak bad news to soften its impact. Sometimes deals fall through or business realities change. Sometimes new products are coming that cause a down-shift in old ones. And sometimes good data gets interpreted wrong. What if half their orders are still more than 2012 levels? Does the context change then? Without numbers, real numbers, it's flying blind.

Wall Street (the actual financial district, not the Journal) is wacky when it comes to Apple, punishing them for among the highest profits in the world, while rewarding companies that have barely if ever turned a profit. In the meantime we have AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. pre-announcing record smartphone sales, and Verizon reporting a higher iPhone mix than ever before.

Apple will report their earnings at the end of January, and they may or may not exceed Apple's own forecasts and/or the Street's forecasts, but the guidance the guidance they give for Q2 2013 will be telling, and the conference call that follows will almost certainly have Apple's CEO and CFO, Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer, there to answer questions.

Until then we have a person and a half of unknown affiliation telling the Wall Street Journal that the iPhone 5 isn't as in demand as Apple thought it would be, and that's about it.

Update: Reuters, in a Nikkei-based article echoing the WSJ, pegs the change as down from 65 million iPhones. Apple sold 35 million in Q2 2012, and 18.65 million in Q2 2011. Given the maturity and competition in the market, it's tough to see how, absent a major new deal, Apple could expect to once again double their orders in the post-holiday quarter. Makes the kind of sense that doesn't.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Reuters

Measure body temperature and more with Spree Biometric Headband

Posted: 13 Jan 2013 03:57 PM PST

We've seen lots of fitness oriented products here at CES 2013 such as the Fitbit Flex which allows you to monitor stats such as steps walked and calories burned. But what if you want to know more on how your body is actually doing while you're working out? The Spree Biotmetric Headband can help you do just that.

Most fitness apps and accessories made for iOS and Android tend to usually focus around calories burned, steps walked, and how you're doing diet or workout wise. Another important thing to monitor is how your body is actually handling and responding to a workout.

This is what Spree Biometric Headbands should help with. Instead of just telling you how many calories you're burning, the Biometric Headband is more concerned with how your body is handling the routine it's going through. The main three things that Spree monitors are your body temperature, movement, and heart rate.

For anyone who plans on becoming serious about working out this year and integrating your iPhone or Android device into that routine, Spree's line of products is worth a look. The Biometric Headband should be available this summer for around $200. You can also hit the link below to pre-order.

More: Spree Sports

iMore show. Tonight. 5pm PT. 8pm ET. Be here.

Posted: 13 Jan 2013 02:20 PM PST

iMore show. Tonight. 5pm PT. 8pm ET. Be here.

I'm going solo tonight on the iMore show, and that means I get to talk to you about CES 2013 and what it means for us and Apple, about iPhone and iPad rumors and if there's anything to them, and about where mobile is headed over the next few months and how we can all get the most out of it.

I'll need your help, whether it's with questions in the comments below or better still, your back and forth in the chatroom when the show goes live, so bookmark this page and be here at 5pm PT, 8pm ET when we go live.

Never mind iPhone 6 and iPads next, in 2013 it's all about iOS 7 and iCloud

Posted: 13 Jan 2013 01:13 PM PST

Never mind iPhone 6 and iPads next, in 2013 it's iOS 7 and iCloud that matter most

There'll be an iPhone 5S and iPhone 6. There'll be a Retina iPad mini. There'll be a thinner, lighter iPad 5. There'll be an Apple A7 system-on-a-chip. There'll be an LTE radio that can do simultaneous voice and data, and eventually voice over LTE. There may be curved displays, biometric sensors and security, 4K AirPlay, onboard voice parsing, in-air gesture and face recognition, and much, much more. Apple's hardware will continue to tick tock its way towards the future, but for mainstream users, most of the time, the devices we hold in our hands today are more than good enough. And it's the stuff inside and around them that's become far, far more important.

iOS 6 was prep work, a way for Apple to get Google off their platform, fully outsource social, and better approach China. It prepared Apple for the future, but it didn't take them there. Likewise, iOS 5 introduced iCloud and Siri, but to this day Apple's online services are still unreliable, with the potential of tomorrow but mired in the problems of yesterday.

When BlackBerry 10 launches at the end of this month, iOS will become the oldest major operation system in mobile. Windows Phone still hasn't found feature parity or market traction, but Microsoft can throw Windows and Office money at it in perpetuity, and their phone division is perhaps the only part of the company that has shown any real, transformative forward thinking. They'll get there. Android still hasn't caught up on interface or overall experience, but their feature set has leap-frogged ahead, and Samsung is now interesting and competitive all on their own. Then there's Amazon, Facebook, Intel, NVIDIA, and who knows what else 2013 will bring.

All of them will throw more and more varied hardware, more often, at the market than Apple. But it's not Samsung's or LG's or HTC's or Nokia's or BlackBerry's hardware that Apple will face in the market. It's Google Now and BlackBerry Balance and whatever Facebook does with their social graph, and SDKs that let developers create compelling apps to leverage them.

It's not about outdated concepts like widgets or settings toggles, or inconsequential interface trends like skeuomorphism. it's about software and services that don't force us to hunt for data or controls, no matter how they're painted up, but that bring data and controls to us, flat or textured. It's about actionable notifications powered by headless apps and seamless inter-app communication. It's about predictive data assistance with multi-layer natural language interfaces. It's about data moving from cloud to device, or vice versa, transparently, in the background, so we have what we need, when and where we need it, without having to manage or store it. It's about all our stuff working together directly, device to device, so using one of them is akin to using any one of them. It's about an app ecosystem that pushes rather than than waits for us to pull, with demos and refunds, and analytics that delight developers and users alike. It's about the brilliant interaction of software and services both on-device and in the clouds.

Over the coming weeks and months, we're going to be seeing a ton of rumors and leaks, real and fake, about the new iPhones and iPads and other devices Apple is thinking about for this spring and fall. None of them will be as important to Apple, to us, or to the future of Apple's mobile platforms as iOS 7 and iCloud this summer.

Review — Need For Speed: Most Wanted for iPad

Posted: 13 Jan 2013 11:22 AM PST

As I mentioned in one of my first reviews for iPad Insight, I don't care much for racing games. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, a Playstation 2 release from more than 10 years ago, was the only exception. It was a racing game with a twist; pitting players not only against each other, but [...]

CES is a strange show. Apple's never been there. Google stopped going a couple of years ago. Microsoft stopped last year. BlackBerry didn't even have a booth this year. Sure, the mega corporations that also happen to make Android and Windows Phones, Samsung and LG and Sony have massive booths, but they're filled with televisions, home appliances, and technology prototypes than new, hero-class phones and tablets.

For iOS enthusiasts like us, it's mostly endless walls of iPhone cases, and to some degree iPad cases, with a few other accessories thrown in. Some of them are gorgeous, a few exciting, a few truly innovative. Many of the big accessory makers didn't even have new stuff to show at CES, just stuff they'd announced previously but hadn't wheeled out for the buyers, press, or consumers yet.

Part of that is timing. Early January is an odd time of the year to have to schedule new product announcements around. It's why Apple stopped doing the Macworld Expo Keynote. Part of that is the scale. Given the televisions, the cars, the appliances, the gadgets -- everything that could be a show in its own right, cramped all together -- it's hard for any one thing, in any one niche, not matter how innovative, to get attention.

Given the sheer quantity of stuff, it's easy to get lost. Watching the coverage can almost be as daunting as walking the floor. It spills from blog to blog, the way CES spills from hall to hall, hotel to hotel.

But taking a step back, there are a few larger things that emerge.

Big TVs. Super HD televisions are everywhere. The branding sucks -- what happened to 2160p or 4K? -- but the sets themselves are gorgeous. Of course, an iPad 4 is 1536p, so if the set is big enough and you're close enough, Super HD isn't anywhere near the Retina quality we've gotten used to. Still, if you've wanted a set bigger than 50-inches, they're coming. They'll cost a fortune, but so did HD and plasma/LCD tech at one point. (I remember seeing a 24-inch plasma in Hong Kong for $25K in the late 90s.) Would Apple enter that market with the TV equivalent of a Thunderbolt Display? Maybe eventually, but probably not in the way expected.
Big phones. Apple went to 4-inches this year, but most Android phones seem to be going to 5 or even 6. I'm not sure where the border between phone and tablet exists, but they're blurring it. I used a Nexus 4 on T-Mobile during CES (my iPhone is locked to Rogers), and even that was a little large. 6-inches is stupid large. I think Apple could increase its share of the addressable market by doing something closer to 5-inches, but if you want anything bigger just get a tablet and carry it on your shoulder, and own your 80s beatbox vibe.
Big platforms. Originally, accessories added value to phones. Now they're starting to use mobile technology as a platform for their own value. Whether it's small companies using the iPhone as the "brain" or "interface" for their own products, or large companies using Android as an embedded operating system across their appliances, everything is becoming connected. Unlike Samsung and LG, Apple doesn't have appliances divisions. That's a bigger topic, though, so I'll save it for a separate post.
Big community. Apple, Microsoft, Google, BlackBerry, et al may not or no longer be at CES, but the people who use their technology, who cover their products, who buy and sell them at retail, who discuss them endlessly online, are very much still there. I saw a lot of fellow bloggers at CES, and PR reps and people who work for the companies we cover, many of whom I only see at CES. I got to spend time with the other writers and editors of Mobile Nations, some of whom I only get to spend time with at CES. NVIDIA was kind enough to fly in several Mobile Nations readers, people I've interacted with in the comments and forums and on Twitter, and would never have had a chance to thank, were it not for CES.
Big surprises. A couple years ago at CES, the Mobile Nations team got to share a limo with one of the main Android guys at Google and we had a great discussion about trackballs/trackpads and the evolution of their platform. This year the CEO of BlackBerry dropped by our Mobile Nations party and we had a fantastic talk about user interface, experience, and the realities of the modern mobile space. That kind of stuff, for me at least, only happens at CES.

CES was never a big show for iMore, and its increasingly not a big show for others as well, but it's still CES, the biggest chow, the one where everything and everyone comes together.

I'm glad I went, and I'm glad we could bring all of you with us.

Apple's China Factor

Posted: 13 Jan 2013 08:31 AM PST

Apple's China Factor

Earlier this week, Asymco's Horrace Dediu wrote a wonderful post about the huge differences between Microsoft and Apple in China. He makes a very strong case for how difficult of a position Microsoft is in. I encourage you to the Asymco post in detail to understand his arguments. Pretty compelling stuff.

Tim Cook was recently quoted in the media as saying he believes China will inevitably become Apple's largest market. Currently China is their #2 market behind the USA. Asymco predicts that the crossover could happen in 2016 given the incredible strength of Chinese growth for Apple. Seems reasonable to me.

The interesting thing about China is the number of mobile users. Asymco points out that China has 3x as many mobile users as the US. Reports from China's CNIC show that China had 538 million netizens at the end of June 2012, with 388 million of these being mobile users. That leaves only 150 million PC users. Obviously mobile use is growing tremendously, while PC growth is not.

So that's where things stand right now. But will Microsoft be able to make a dent in the market with Windows Phone? Often, I find a good indicator of success comes from Google Trends. This is Google's tool to measure search queries on certain phrases. So I compared the term "iPhone" to various Microsoft-centric keywords like "Windows Phone", "Windows 8" and "Windows8". It's pretty obvious that either nobody in China wants Microsoft powered phones, or they just aren't searching for information about them using Google.

We've all heard the claims that the world is moving towards mobile computing. I think it's true, but I certainly have no plans to throw away my Macbook Pro. I wouldn't be happy with just iOS (or Android, or BlackBerry 10, or whatever). But in developing markets I think the transition is happening much faster. Mobile devices are cheaper, always connected, and (obviously) portable. The majority of Internet connections in China are already mobile. This means app development will concentrate towards this larger user base. In emerging markets, I think it's fair to say that the traditional PC market is dead.

This is what leads me to believe Apple will build a less expensive iPhone. I have no idea if the rumours of a this-year launch are right or wrong. But I do believe it makes great sense for Apple to capitalize on its strong position by taking its price point down somewhat. We'll just have to wait and see when and if it happens.

If Apple can launch lower-cost (and presumably lower spec) devices specifically in emerging markets, meaning they are not available in the USA or other developed markets, I think it will really help overall sales and profitability. I'm not saying they need to be sub-$200, but I do think Apple can't maximize profitability at $600+ in China and other markets.

myCharge at CES 2013 gallery: More better power

Posted: 13 Jan 2013 07:33 AM PST

myCharge at CES 2013 gallery: More better power

myCharge has always made a good range of affordable backup batteries for iPhones, iPads, and other gadgets. At CES 2013 they've really taken it to another level, however, with more models, far more designs, and Lightning adapter support built in. They've even got a spiffy new iPhone 5 case in the pipeline.

Check our Derek Kessler's photos below and let us know, what kind of charger do you like best for your iPhone or iPad?