Audible launches iPhone app
While users have been able to playback Audible audiobooks on their iPhones/Touches for some time, the company has finally launched a standalone app for the devices.
The new app, available in the Apple App Store, is also available for the iPad. The app features Wi-Fi delivery of the Audible books, iOS4 multitasking, listening stats, and other smaller features.
Included is the standard audiobook features of chapter navigation, bookmarks, viewing/listening controls and the ability to control audio playback with gestures, eliminating the need for buttons.
Using iOS 4 to the fullest, the app has background audio playback and downloading.
As an incentive to get non-members to sign up, if you create an account through the app, you will get a free excerpt of David Kirkpatrick’s The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
4GB Xbox 360 Arcade seen on Amazon
Amazon’s German-language site has posted an Xbox 360 4GB Arcade bundle today for pre-order, a unit that is likely the cheaper slim hardware that Microsoft promised last month.
The 4GB means the system will include that amount of storage, likely as a USB flash drive or built-in NVRAM.
Microsoft’s current Xbox Arcade model only has 512MB of NVRAM.
Amazon’s listed system is priced at €148.99 (about $190 USD), which will make it the cheapest Xbox 360 console to date.
There is also the addition of “bundle” into the name, which means there is the possibility of a game bundled, or at least some Xbox Arcade credit.
The e-tailer has the street date listed as August 20th, 2010, which is during the Gamescom 2010 event.
WebOS update 1.4.5 hits Europe, U.S. users wait
Palm’s updated WebOS firmware, version 1.4.5, has now made it to three countries in Europe, via O2 in Germany, France and the UK.
However, there appears to be a bug in the software that causes the “media/internal drive to be marked as read-only for PDK applications,” says MobileBurn.
Despite the bug, Palm will continue a full European rollout of the update.
1.4.5 is expected to hit Bell in Canada in the upcoming weeks, also, while American fans are still waiting.
Says Palm, of the bug: “We’ve spent the last week attempting to address this issue in a way that would not require restarting the carrier certification process, but we’ve concluded that this is not possible. Restarting certification would delay 1.4.5 substantially and could result in some wireless operators not taking the update at all.”
In late April, HP announced it was purchasing the struggling smartphone maker Palm for $1.2 billion, including all patents, licenses, and the rights to WebOS.
HTC expects to sell 8.5 million phones in the Q4
According to a report in the Chinese-language Commercial Times, HTC will launch six new smartphones in the Q4 which will boost sales to 8.5 million, a record quarter.
The devices will be launched in the U.S. and Europe.
Citing sources within the industry, the report implied that HTC will be launching the HTC Vision in Europe later in the year (possibly October), an Android device that runs on dual 1.2GHz processors.
Additionally, the company will be launching its first Windows Phone 7 smartphone, codename “Mondrain.”
Mondrain is expected to have a 1.3 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Current high-end phones have 1GHz processors.
For T-Mobile in the U.S., two mid-end phones, the “Vanguard” and “Emerald” are expected in November.
Android Market sees 1 billionth download
According to AndroLib, the Android Market has reached 1 billion downloads in just under two years since the app store was launched.
For comparison’s sake, Apple’s App Store has just over 5 billion apps downloaded since the store launched in 2007.
Google says there are 160,000 Android-based devices being activated daily, and the Android Market continues to expand on its way to 100,000 apps available. Once again, for comparison’s sake, the Apple App Store has 225,000 apps available. The Android Market has added 11,000 new apps already in the first two weeks of July, for a total of 93,000.
61 percent of the apps are free compared to 39 percent paid, but a strong majority of the apps downloaded are free ones.
With the launch of the Droid X there are now over 60 Android models available globally.
Microsoft: “iPhone 4 might be their Vista”
Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s COO has compared Apple’s recently launched iPhone 4 to their own Windows Vista, which was plagued with problems from the start, eventually becoming one of the company’s worst operating systems, ever.
“It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m okay with that,” says Turner.
Vista launched in 2007, and users instantly berated how much memory the operating system used, as well as other glaring problems like software and driver compatibility issues.
Turner took a small shot at the iPhone 4 and its antenna issues when asked about the company’s upcoming Windows Phone 7: “One of the things I want to make sure you know today is that you’re going to be able to use a Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you’re holding it to make a phone call.”
Last week, Consumer Reports, the respected nonprofit organization that publishes guides on all kinds of products and makes recommendations to consumers said yesterday it could not recommend the Apple iPhone 4, due to the antenna issues.
But hey, if worst comes to worst, you can always just use duct tape.
PS3/PSP Minis reach 1 million downloads
Sony has said today that their PSP, PS3 Minis have reached one million downloads.
The Minis are low-priced games available via the PlayStation Network on either the home console or the handheld.
It is unclear whether the number includes free demos, but if it does, the number is even more insignificant than it already is.
Only 1.7 percent of all PSP owners have downloaded a Minis game, compared to 51 percent of iPhone owners and 54 percent of BlackBerry owners.
Minis were released 9 months ago, and there are over 60 million PSP owners, in all variations.
Of the 86 games available, PocketGamer says the following 10 are the best-selling:
Age of Zombies (Halfbrick)
Monopoly (EA)
Fieldrunners(Subatomic)
Zombie Tycoon (Frima)
Bloons(Hands-on)
[More]>>
Bing steals some search engine market share from Google
According to new figures from comScore, Microsoft’s Bing stole some market share in June from rivals Google after a few stagnant months.
For the U.S. search market, Bing increased from 12.1 percent in May to 12.7 percent in June, its strongest growth in a few months.
Google remained the clear leader, but saw its share dip, from 63.7 percent to 62.6 percent for the same period.
Yahoo, which has been in second place for years, remained there, seeing its share grow minimally from 18.3 percent to 18.9 percent.
Overall, Americans made 16.4 billion searches for the month, up 3 percent from May.
Hulu Plus available to some PS3 users
Earlier in the month, Hulu announced the launch of Hulu Plus, a premium version of the popular streaming site that will cost $10 per month.
Buyers of the subscription get expanded content, and the ability to play the shows on their HDTVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox 360 (with Gold subscription), PS3 and iPad and iPhone.
Hulu Plus gives users season passes for most current shows, which is a massive improvement from only being able to watch the trailing five episodes of a given show. You will also be able to watch back seasons of the shows.
Sony has announced today that the PS3 will be the only console with the ability to stream Hulu Plus in 2010, and select users will be given the ability within weeks.
If you have a PlayStation Plus subscription, you may be sent an invite to test out Hulu Plus.
All users will be given the ability within a few months.
SanDisk and Toshiba to open new factory for NAND flash memory chips
Toshiba and SanDisk have announced a new joint venture to create an advanced NAND flash memory chip factory in Japan, as a way to keep ahead of strong growth in the market for the chips.
For their part, SanDisk will “pay for part of the production equipment at the factory,” which will be overall run by Toshiba.
Both companies will share output from the factory. The companies have worked very closely together in the past in similar agreements, including NAND flash plants.
“Construction of the new fab reflects expectations for increasing demand for NAND flash memory for existing and emerging applications, such as smartphones and solid-state drives,” reads a joint statement.
The factory will be called Fab 5 and is already in construction.
It is unclear how much the companies are investing to create the factory.
