Apple Appears to Permit Google Ads Inside iPad and iPhone Apps

Apple Inc. doesn't appear to have barred Google Inc. and others from selling targeted ads inside iPhone and iPad applications, after implying several weeks ago that it might do so, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Software developers say their new and updated applications are getting approved by Apple, even though the apps are enabled to serve ads by third-party ad networks such as Google's Mobile Adsense and AdMob.

Every smaller firm that finds it has become a dominant firm, or is perceived as potentially dominant, will incure antitrust and other regulatory scrutiny. It might be that Apple and Google both must move more cautiously now that each is seen as reaching the threshold of dominance in existing markets that might be leveraged to attain dominance in new markets.

If the pattern continues, it will be good for advertisers, content owners and software developers, as they will have more freedom to pick their partners and keep more business leverage.

Apple on iPhone 4 Reception Issues

Apple says the signal strength indicator on its iPhone 4 is displaying incorrect results. "Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong," Apple says. "Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength."

In areas of weak signal, the "big drop in bars" when the device is gripped is "because their high bars were never real in the first place."

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4

Nexus One Lessons

There are perhaps some lessons Google and everybody else can learn from the mixed results of the "direct to consumer" Nexus One effort.

Though it is hard to say for sure, the experiment might have influenced the current direction of the leading Android devices, ranging from the HTC Evo to the Droid Incredible and Droid X. If that was the intention of creating the Nexus One, the experiment bore fruit.

It might also be important to note that we had a test of two retailing concepts: the idea that U.S. consumers actually hate contracts so much they will pay full retail prices for advanced devices, and the notion that such devices can be sold direct from a website, bypassing the retail distribution chain the leading mobile companies use.

One might conclude that demand for unlocked phones is not as significant as one might have thought. The other observation is that the current retail model works pretty darn well, compared to "web only."

Also, after-sales support proved to be another weakness. Customers do not appear to have been happy with "email-only" customer support, and seem to have been scarcely happier with the added "by phone" support.

There's nothing wrong with experimentation, to test such notions. But we might remember that Apple was highly criticized for opening its retail store network. It now appears those critics were wrong. The retail store experience is helpful, maybe even necessary, as a distribution channel for advanced mobile devices.

Wikipedia To Add A U.S. Data Center � Data Center Knowledge

Wikipedia plans to add a third data center, budgeting $3.27 million for the new facility, on top of the $1.87 million it expects to spend on maintaining the Tampa and Amsterdam data centers.

That might not be much by commercial standards, but Wikipedia is a non-profit organization. In part, Wikipedia will use a $2 million grant from Google to help expand its data centers.

Virginia is a likely site for the second U.S. data center. Wikipedia also has data centers in Amsterdam and Tampa, Fla.

Wikipedia To Add A U.S. Data Center � Data Center Knowledge

Google To Offer Threaded, Non-Threaded Email Formats

Google is planning to offer a standard email option in Gmail in the next few months, Henry Blodget reports. Currently, Gmail presents email in a threaded format, in which replies and follow-on emails with the same subject line are grouped together. That's helpful to people who want to follow a single conversation as it develops, or refer back to earlier messages.

Others will find it less useful since the threading feature means new replies do not automatically appear at the top of the inbox, and that's where people are trained to look for new messages.

Apparently Google will simply offer a way to select the "threaded" or non-threaded" formats.

Google To Change Gmail, Add "Normal Email" Option Instead Of Just "Conversations"

How To Watch Movies And TV Online For Free

If you watch much television online, Googling around for it quickly becomes a drag. Clicker is a great one-stop shop for finding this content. It's legal content.

How To Watch Movies And TV Online For Free

Google CEO Eric Schmidt on 3 Key Trends

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says mobile, clouds and networking are three fundamental trends.

watch the video here

Tweens Now Targeted for Mobile Phone Ownership

Mobile service providers have shifted their targets as they hunt for new customers over the years.

Business users were an early target, followed by consumers who wanted convenience, then adults who wanted "safety," then older children for "keeping in touch" and now "tweens" seem to be a demographic where new customers can be found.

Nissan's First iAd Campaign

Google Buys Leading Airline Data Company

Google is acquiring ITA, a Boston-based software company specializing in organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices.

Google has already come up with new ways to organize hard-to-find information like images, newspaper archives, scholarly papers, books and geographic data, and plans on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for people to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy a ticket.

ITA's software is employed by a long list of airlines and travel sites, including Kayak and Orbitz, and is considered by many to be the dominant provider of such information.

The move is logical given the prominence Bing has been giving to flight-related search and commerce.

Official Google Blog: Taking off with ITA

Mobile Data: Not the Deluge You Might Expect

Average mobile data consumption increased from about 90 MBytes per month during the first quarter of 2009 to 298 MBytes per month during the first quarter of 2010, according to Nielsen.

This represents a year-over-year increase of approximately 230 percent. While this increase is substantial, in the first quarter of 2009 more than a third of smart phone subscribers used less than 1 MByte of data per month and usage has dropped to a quarter in the first quarter of 2010.

About 20 million current smartphone users are hardly using data.

Quantifying the Mobile Data Tsunami and its Implications | Nielsen Wire

"It's Just a Phone"

Problems with your iPhone 4? "Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it." Probably good advice. Also a reminder that civility is a virtue.

Exclusive: Conversation with Steve Jobs on the iPhone 4 antenna problems � Boy Genius Report

Just in Time for July 4

Why Intel Uses Ethnographers

Most companies ask customers what they want or need when designing the new generation of products or services. Intel has a bit of challenge in that regard since people sometimes don't know what they want, and Intel makes products are are building blocks for the products end users actually experience.

So Intel hires ethnographers to "stand in" for the market.

How Moore's Law drove Intel into the arms of anthropologists

470.6 Billion Mobile VoIP Minutes of Use by 2015

The number of mobile VoIP minutes carried annually on 3G and 4G networks will rise from 15 billion minutes in 2010 to 470.6 billion by 2015, finds a new report from Juniper Research.

Mobile VoIP traffic will see steady rises in all regions over the forecast period, but particularly in developed markets, due to the increasing ubiquity of 3G networks.

WiFi mobile VoIP is potentially the most damaging of all VoIP traffic as it bypasses the mobile networks altogether, says Anthony Cox, Juniper Research senior analyst. We forecast that mobile VoIP over WiFi will cost operators $5 billion globally by 2015, he says.

Annual Mobile VoIP Minutes to Double Each Year, Reaching 470.6bn by 2015, According to Juniper Research

Over-the-Top Video Will Generate $20 Billion in 2014

U.S. broadband households that view over-the-top video will grow from 38 million in 2009 to 81 million by 2014, according to In-State. Of course, "viewing" is not the same thing as "paying."

But revenue from OTT video will more than quadruple by 2014 to nearly $20 billion, In-Stat forecasts.

Most of that revenue likely will come from subscriptions and pay-per-view sources, as content owners so far have found difficult the challenge of creating a revenue stream based solely on advertising.

In-Stat - Press Releases:

iPad Replaces Menus

So the big problem is people stealing the menus, eh?

Intel backs off WiMAX

Intel has decided to dissolve its WiMAX Program Office, which was set up to promote the development of related WiMAX technologies, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

That is not exactly the same thing as suspending or ending its support for WiMAX, which continues. It does indicate the expected returns from such promotion efforts now are diminished to the point where it doesn't make sense to keep pouring resources into the effort.

Once the global GSM mobile community decided to back Long Term Evolution, that was a turning point for WiMAX.

Staff members of the WiMAX Program Office will be incorporated into Intel's Mobile Wireless Group (MWG), PC Client Group (PCCG), or Sales and Marketing (SMG) unit, depending on their skills.

Intel backs off WiMAX industry, dismisses WiMAX Program Office, say sources

Mobile Games Explain Much About Mobile App Disuse

You probably have seen statistics indicating that a typical mobile app gets used for perhaps a month, and then usage declines dramatically over the following two months. One reason is that so many mobile apps are either pieces of content or gaming apps, and will lose their novelty over time.

After looking at about 40,000 game titles, O'Reilly Radar estimates a popular game app, on average (median), spends about 15 days on the "Top 100" list.

Popular iPhone games stay highly-ranked only for a few weeks - O'Reilly Radar

Walt Mossberg Sorts Through HSPA+, 4G Claims