Search Engine Marketing Blog | Tug » Apple

Apple is plotting its universal touchscreen remote!

ben — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:26:43 +0000

Another item to add onto our growing Apple wish list could have created today when a patent application for a universal touchscreen remote was published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It revealed Apple is playing with the idea of a universal touchscreen controller capable of controlling multiple devices including your television, video tape player, video disk player, stereo or home control system.

The application highlights many of the issues with current controllers for televisions and noted that universal remotes are overly complicated to use and are not future proof. It also looks to take the age old problem of being confronted with multiple remotes previously discussed by Steve Jobs when talking about Apple TV.

Apple’s solution would allow the remote to pair with other devices over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, with full customisation of the remote’s touchscreen for each device, such as a button layout being stored in the device and sent to the Apple remote wirelessly.

I envisage the remote control to be similar in design to that of the iPad and would display a menu of applications for each device. A welcome and nice touch would be TV voice-control courtesy of Siri, similar to that on the xbox connect. As a final note is there are also reports claiming Apple is already working on its 42-inch+ HDTV so maybe this is the second drive of apple starting to push back on Google taking over our sitting room.

Either way I think the future of TV looks great!

Google Adwords Now Permits Specific Targeting to Tablets Over the past few years we have seen the rise...
Apple Education Announcement Rumours are spreading that Apple is going to digitize textbooks....
Five reasons to not buy the new iPhone 4S Because it’s not the iPhone 5 Most people expected Apple...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Series of Fun Facts: Part V

rainelda — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:37:41 +0000

It is 2012 with many promises, predictions and wishes. Naturally with the new year new features, stories and discoveries appear:

Are you a complete coffee addict? I tried to limit my love for coffee and was successful for a month, but getting back to work makes you sleepy in the mornings, so coffee is back in my life again. Anyway, when you are getting to work, you usually stop at the near by coffee shop just to grab that life saving cup, right? Do you get late to work sometimes because of that? Well, now there is a solution! If you love Starbuck’s coffee, live in the UK and you are an owner of an iPhone, from the 5th January you are able to use the unique Starbucks App on your iPhone. This app will help to locate your closest Starbucks coffee shop, choose a drink, manage your Starbucks Card balance, top-up direct from your iPhone or iPod Touch AND pay for your drink using the virtual Starbucks

Card just by swiping the barcode at the till. Isn’t that super convenient? Did I mention that the app is available for free from the Apple App Store? They say that an Android app will follow later in the year. The app is well placed to take advantage of Starbucks’ loyal customers – one in five UK customers already pays using a Starbucks Card, so if the app will save a lot of time to Starbucks customers, no doubt it may become a hit as well in the UK.

The app proved to be a success in the United States with 26m purchases made since it was launched in January 2011.

Series of Fun Facts: Part I It’s Friday, so lets tap ourselves on the shoulders for...
Series of Fun Facts: Part ll I don’t know about you, but this was a crazy...
Series of Fun Facts: Part lll It was snowing this morning! Did you see that?...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

No More Free iPad, iPhone Giveaways

turan — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:20:34 +0000

Thinking about giving away an iPad or an iPhone to promote your company or website? Think again. Apple prohibits third-parties from handing out its mobile devices in giveaways, and although this rule has been in place since January, if not earlier, according to Fortune, the company has just begun to enforce it.

Apple’s Guidelines for Third Party Promotions decree the following: “iPad, iPhone, and the iPhone Gift Card may not be used in third-party promotions; iPod touch is only allowed to be used in special circumstances and requires a minimum purchase of 250 units; you may not use the Myriad Set font on or in connection with websites, products, packaging, manuals, or promotional/advertising materials; the use of “free” as a modifier in any Apple product reference in a prominent manner (headlines, call-outs, etc.) is prohibited; you must submit all marketing materials related to the promotion of Apple products to Apple for review.”

Cult of Mac has a running list of nearly 40 sites including Mashable, Geeksugar, and Mahalo that have held such promotions, but none seem to have been squashed. Until now.

It appears the Apple fans that just can’t spend $500 plus of their hard-earned cash for an iPad 2 have lost the chance to potentially nab an Apple product. While Fortune says Apple has started to shut down promotions, it didn’t specifically cite any campaigns that have been suspended.

Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy S II vs. iPhone 4 Yes, this has become an old, but huge fight between...
Five reasons to not buy the new iPhone 4S Because it’s not the iPhone 5 Most people expected Apple...
New Google Service – “One Pass” – Comes in to Play! Google have unveiled a new service enabling publishers to sell...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy S II vs. iPhone 4

rainelda — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:39:43 +0000

Yes, this has become an old, but huge fight between Android and Apple. And the war between Samsung and iPhone is also a common thing going on at the moment. I have recently read that it takes approximately 20 – 30 minutes daily for an Android phone user to explain why he/she didn’t buy an iPhone – not sure how true or false is this hypothesis, though.

Although Apple has succeeded to successfully block the sales of selected Samsung devices in a couple countries around the globe, this hasn’t stopped the Samsung Galaxy series of phones from becoming an international success. The South Korean company Samsung announced yesterday that the sales of the Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Galaxy S II have got up to 30 million. That’s right, Samsung sold 30 million Galaxy S series units worldwide (between the S and S II devices). Thanks to the powerful phone and the Android platform it uses (which is also a huge hit these days) the first generation Samsung Galaxy S has reached nearly 20 million, while its sequel, the Samsung Galaxy S II recently passed the 10 million mark.

Samsung reports that the Galaxy S II is the fastest selling device to date in the company. It took the Samsung Galaxy S II only five months to break 10 million units sold. Adding to the success story of the device, the Samsung Galaxy S II received various accolades such as the “Mobile Choice” and “Consumer Award, 2011″ and the “Phone of the Year” title from the Gadget Awards 2011.

Congratulations to Samsung achieving this amazing success!

No More Free iPad, iPhone Giveaways Thinking about giving away an iPad or an iPhone to...
Five reasons to not buy the new iPhone 4S Because it’s not the iPhone 5 Most people expected Apple...
Google Adwords Now Permits Specific Targeting to Tablets Over the past few years we have seen the rise...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

TOP 3 tech CEOs to Watch – Who is going to succeed Steve Jobs?

Carlo Pandian — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:57:47 +0000

As many business analysts have underlined lately, Steve Jobs had great ideas and a unique way to communicate to his employees and customers. In particular it can be argued that he has created a philosophy around the Apple brand, with at the centre, technology that is first of all user-friendly (wasn’t this the main strengths of Mac since 80s?).
He definitely made possible the integration of different devices such as a music player, laptop, smart phone, and DVD player appealing to customers with a cool design and contemporary values.

Who is going to succeed Steve Jobs in the tech world? Which CEOs are going to inspire you with great innovations able to change people lives?
You would be wise to follow these four famous ones to get inspired and understand the future developments of digital:

- Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
Despite his bad character as the movie depicts, he is pushing the social networking further as the last Facebook F8 update demonstrated. He has built a multi-national company around the social platform and he is always developing to increase revenues and to retain customers.

– Jeff Bezos, Amazon
With him, the online bookstore has been able to expand into new markets especially electronics and computers. He introduced the Kindle with great ecommerce techniques and effective marketing strategies.

– Larry Page, Google
He replaces Schmidt as CEO of Google since April 2011. Its company has been able to develop great products that are meeting customers’ expectations while fulfilling market demands. Its great research and development department called Google Lab is able to work on new ideas and spot-and-buy new interesting start-ups. If Facebook is really trying to penetrate into the search market next year how can they think to beat Google?

5 Tech Websites that see a huge benefit from SEO From tech to fashion, from music to gossip, many websites...
Apple is plotting its universal touchscreen remote! Another item to add onto our growing Apple wish list...
How many social networks are there on the Web? At the beginning it was MySpace with a large community...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Five reasons to not buy the new iPhone 4S

Carlos Rabanillo — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:12:39 +0000

Because it’s not the iPhone 5
Most people expected Apple to present the iPhone 5 yesterday, not a simple evolution of the previous model. We expected a completely new phone with revolutionary features and a complete redesign. But we were disappointed. I guess we’ll have to wait another year.

The design
The iPhone 4S looks exactly like its predecessor. Certainly, this seems to be one the biggest issues for everybody. This time, Apple has failed in one of the premises that have made them famous (über alles design) .. same screen size .. same case . Although they say that beauty is inside …

For its price
Many analysts expected Apple to release a low cost product to compete with Android, much cheaper than the current price of the iPhone 4. Wrong. iPhone 4S will be as expensive as the iPhone 4. The only good news is that its predecessor will sell for a lower price. Duh!

Siri
Siri is a virtual assistant who can control the iPhone 4S with voice commands. For example, if you asked for the weather in London, it would answer “15 degrees and cloudy.” If you want to write a text message, you can dictate it and Siri ‘will write it’ for you, just like a good old secretary.

However, it seems that not a lot pople likes talking directly to their phone, other companies have tried to work with similar technologies and have failed. Basically, because you can probably write whatever you want a lot quicker than it would take you to dictate it (specially if you have a funny accent).

Icloud
Apple’s cloud storage system, called Icloud: You can save up to 5 Gb of data for free, which can then be accessed from any device. For example, we take a picture, upload it to the cloud and view it from a computer that is on the other side of the planet, as if it was on your hard drive. The problem is that the iPhone 4S cloud is not what everybody expected: a device that was permanently connected to the storage system and could use this technology on an ongoing basis. In the end, it’s just a phone that comes with a similar service to Dropbox.

Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy S II vs. iPhone 4 Yes, this has become an old, but huge fight between...
Apple is plotting its universal touchscreen remote! Another item to add onto our growing Apple wish list...
No More Free iPad, iPhone Giveaways Thinking about giving away an iPad or an iPhone to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

IPad vs Motorola Xoom

Carlos Rabanillo — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:51:08 +0000

If 2010 was the year of the iPad, which shone in the market thanks to their exclusivity, we now many competitors and the Apple tablet will face some devices way more powerful. The Motorola Xoom is one of them with Android 3.0.

The Motorola Xoom perhaps is Android 3.0 main bet, while the Galaxy Tab Samsung has emerged as the most representative device for Android 2.3.

So far the iPad 2 has no release date in the market, although some rumors pointed to a launch in February … so in theory Apple would only have to compete with Motorola Xoom. If we compare the hardware for both tablets, there is a clear winner.

In the U.S. the price of Motorola Xoom is 700 dollars, the iPad’s price for thee 32 GB and 3G connectivity is $729. The first processor is a 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 and Apple’s is a A4 1GHz. The screens are 10.1 and 9.7 inches respectively.

The new tablet has a dual camera – which the iPad 2 will also have, it has a microSD card slot, HDMI and USB 2.0 ports. Plus the possibility of using Flash applications.

No More Free iPad, iPhone Giveaways Thinking about giving away an iPad or an iPhone to...
Kindle goes Social with Android Either it’s on the tube while getting to work or...
HP Announce Pre 3, Veer & TouchPad Last night HP released their highly anticipated new phones and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

iPhone 5 will have a dual-core processor

Carlos Rabanillo — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:18:27 +0000

Apple will launch the iPhone 5 and the iPad 2 with a new version of its A4 processor, A4 was the processor used in the previous two versions of the Iphone. The graphics will also be increased, as well as the ability to process video. The new 4.3 IOS was designed for these new hardware upgrades.

The iPhone 5 processor will come with an upgrade from the original A4, used in versions 4 and 3G. Apple will give a push to its smartphone processor power, but perhaps most importantly, the new graphics with a SGX543MP2 core (combines two SGX543 cores), which will enable high-quality videoconferencing.

No More Free iPad, iPhone Giveaways Thinking about giving away an iPad or an iPhone to...
Five reasons to not buy the new iPhone 4S Because it’s not the iPhone 5 Most people expected Apple...
Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy S II vs. iPhone 4 Yes, this has become an old, but huge fight between...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

New fight between Microsoft and Apple for the term ‘App Store’

Carlos Rabanillo — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 17:19:24 +0000

Microsoft has asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to refuse Apple the right of ownership for the term ‘app store’, arguing that it is a generic term of common use. Other mobile platforms also have online stores but the name ‘App Store’ belongs to Apple.

With rumors indicating the release of the iPad 2 and the deal with Verizon for the iPhone 4 almost done, Apple now has to face the setback that comes from a new dispute with Microsoft. Microsoft has placed a complaint in the U.S. Patent and Trademark office for Apple to lose ownership of the term ‘app store’.

Apple registered the term ‘app store’ back in 2008, when it launched its first 3G iPhone. It was a website where users could buy applications for their iPhones.

No More Free iPad, iPhone Giveaways Thinking about giving away an iPad or an iPhone to...
The Church approves confessions through iPhones A Catholic bishop has given his approval to an iPhone...
Series of Fun Facts: Part V It is 2012 with many promises, predictions and wishes....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Mac’s new store hacked on its first day live

Carlos Rabanillo — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:54:42 +0000

Apple launched the new Mac App Store with over 1000 applications with the idea of adapting the iTunes sales model to Mac apps. Purchase and installation is as easy as with any Apple mobile device. However, within hours of its launch the store has already been hacked.

The new store is available to Snow Leopard users through a software update (Mac OS 10.6.6 xv).

Just a few hours after the service was activated hackers got to work to find a way to crack the store, supposedly they now have a software and a guide for anyone to use and download applications for free. However, its developers said that is not yet time to go public and they are going to wait until February 2011.

New Google Service – “One Pass” – Comes in to Play! Google have unveiled a new service enabling publishers to sell...
Firefox 4 destroys Internet Explorer 9 on its first day The long-awaited Mozilla browser has recived on its first day...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.