Apple hiring new ad agencies to battle Samsung’s marketing campaigns

Apple may expand its marketing efforts with the addition of four new ad agencies as it tries to compete with Samsung and its marketing dollars. The groups will focus on user experience and digital strategy, reports Ad Age, citing “people familiar with the matter” s its sources. Apple may be working with ad agencies on the both coasts of the US, include West Coast powerhouses WPP’s AKQA and Interpublic Group’s Huge and smaller New York indie agencies such as Area 17 and Kettle. Apple still will work with TBWA/Media Arts Lab, which was highlighted recently in the high profile patent infringement case between Samsung and Apple. APple Marketing Executive Phil Schiller reportedly bumped heads with TBWA/Media Arts Lab after Samsung debuted its Superbowl ad in 2013. “I watched the Samsung pre-superbowl ad that launched today,” Mr. Schiller said in an early 2013 e-mail to Media Arts Lab’s James Vincent. “It’s pretty good and I can’t help but think these guys are feeling it (like an athlete that can’t miss because they are in a zone) while we struggle to nail a compelling brief on iPhone.” Apple allegedly is poaching design and creative staff from ad agencies as the company tries to bolster its internal marketing team, which could double in size says an inside source to Ad Age. Apple will be playing catch up to Samsung, which dominates it rivals in both ad spending and in media strategy with its edgy ads that promote its own products, while poking fun at competitors. The company’s latest advertisement focuses on its Galaxy Tab Pro tablets and the “Pro” features that are missing in the iPad. Apple, though, is leading in the most important metric — market share. In the US, Apple’s iPhone is used by 41.3 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers, as compared to 27 percent for Samsung. Both Apple and Samsung are gaining customers, with Samsung’s rate of adoption in early 2014 outpacing iPhone adoption among consumers. This may change with the debut of a large-screen iPhone 6 later this fall. Continue reading →

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Apple may overhaul iTunes to reverse declining music downloads

Apple’s iTunes Radio saw an uptick in adoption shortly after launch, but the service has failed to garner significant interest among consumers who listen for a short time, but don’t buy the music they hear. As a result, Apple may overhaul its iTunes music store for the first time in more than decade, claims a report in Billboard. Music downloads from iTunes have been declining as much as 15 percent claim music label executives, who report a drop in revenue from the service. iTunes Radio isn’t helping drive downloads with less than 2 percent of users actually hitting the purchase button while streaming a channel. “iTunes Radio hasn’t solved the problem of refreshing the iTunes store,” said a senior label executive. “While listeners are clicking the buy buttons, the traffic it is driving is in the low single digits of listeners.” Apple may have to take drastic measures to reverse this decline, considering options, like an iTunes Music store for Android, which were never on the table before. Other possibilities to expand the influence of iTunes includes an on-demand streaming service and negotiating sales windows that favor Apple. Apple is expected to move quickly in this area to keep pace with its customer base, which are rapidly turning away from music downloads and towards streaming alternatives like Spotify and Rdio. More than two-thirds of Apple’s lucrative customer base now subscribed to a streaming music service, which sources claim is a wake up cal for Apple executives. Apple allegedly is committed to making this change and in less than five years, iTunes may be a completely different product than it is today. Would you like to see a radical change in iTunes? Continue reading →

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Dropbox launches Carousel photo and video app

Photo management still isn’t as perfect as we’d like it to be on iOS. iCloud’s Photostream is good, but is limited in many ways. Cloud storage and syncing service Dropbox today announced a new iOS and Android photo gallery app called Carousel to fill this void. Dropbox already have a few photo management features like auto-upload baked into its main iOS app, but Carousel does a lot more. The company describes the app “as a gallery for all the photos and videos from your life”. It backs up the photos and videos you shoot to your Dropbox account, and lets you view them even if they aren’t stored on your device locally. Just like the iOS 7 Photos app, Dropbox categorises photos by events, and you can easily navigate through the timeline of events using a slider. The app also has a social aspect, where you can have private conversations with your friends and family through the photos you have clicked. Of course, your friends too would be able to share their photos with you. Here’s a promotional video Dropbox made for its new Carousel app: The Carousel app will be available for iOS and Android today, but it hasn’t gone live on the App Store yet. We’ll update this post with an App Store link as soon as it’s available. For more information about Carousel, visit this link. Continue reading →

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At Least Two Hardware Engineers Have Left Broadcom for Apple, Fueling Rumors of In-House Baseband Team

At least two hardware engineers from Broadcom have left the company to join forces with Apple, according to a new report. This fuels recent rumors that Apple plans to bring new baseband processors to its 2015 line of iOS devices, but could also be linked to other rumors stating that Apple plans to design the processor for its rumored upcoming wearable device dubbed the iWatch. Former RF hardware lead at Broadcom Paul Chang is one of the engineers now known to have left the chipmaker for Apple, as evidenced by his LinkedIn profile. While at Broadcom, Chang was a lead for RF hardware and worked on baseband transceivers, some of which eventually became part of phones from both Nokia and Samsung. Chang’s experience includes “working as the RF chip lead on complex mobile communications product development projects that generated multi-billion dollar revenue and involved hundreds of people from cross functional teams,” as well as leading product development “from the inception to delivery to customers.” Chang’s name is listed on at least 3 Broadcom patents covering topics as “integrated circuit manufacturing methods.” Another Broadcom engineer by the name of Xiping Wang, who served at the company for more than ten years as a design engineer and hardware development manager, joined Apple recently as well. Wang, like Chang, has experience in the field of RF engineering as well, as evidenced by his participation in the field at Motorola prior to joining Broadcom. These are just two of the more than 30 “mid- and senior-level” baseband engineers Apple has picked up from Broadcom over the past three years. But Apple is still advertising more than 50 job openings in RF chip design, meaning they’re still on the hunt for talent. These acquisitions have popped up in the wake of rumors from Taiwan’s DigiTimes publications, claiming that Apple plans to build a Research and Development team to head the development of baseband processors for their 2015 iPhone models. Baseband chips for handsets total to being a $16-19 billion a year industry, so it would make sense for Apple to feel compelled to continue building this part of its business. Broadcom currently has a 50% share in this segment. Secondly, this news puts fuel on iWatch rumors, with a recent report from China’s Economic Daily News claiming that Apple may plan to build the iWatch processor in-house, further evidencing reasons behind Apple’s recent mass acquisition of baseband hardware and software engineers. It will be interesting to see what kind of security and other features new baseband technology may bring to the next iPhone. What do you think? Source: AppleInsider Continue reading →

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Get Huge Savings on the Award-Winning Apps You Want [Deals Hub]

Apps are the lifeblood of mobile devices. They give us reason to pull out our iPhone or iPad. We can rely on the best apps to provide us with a service that simplifies our life and offer us convenience. You can add to your collection of apps by grabbing your choice of apps from our iOS App Bundle. Choose the apps you want and save with the iPhone Hacks Deals Hub. We’ve taken twelve of the top-selling and best reviewed apps around and bundled them together, providing a great bit of savings for you. Grab productivity boosters like Parallels Access, Printer Pro, Scanner Pro, TextExpander Touch, and iDownloader Pro. Take control of your day-to-day plans with Boxer, Calendar 5, Day One, and Milage Log+. Manage multimedia with Recordium Pro, Vintagio, and FX Photo Studio. There’s sure to be an app you can put to use in this bundle. You can get any of the 12 apps of the iOS Bundle on sale now from the iPhone Hacks Deals Hub. You choose the ones you want and pay the discounted price, saving up to 83% off the retail price. Install each separately so you only pay for the ones you want. It’s a great way to save and get the apps you love, so grab this offer today. Continue reading →

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New Jailbreak Tweak ‘OS Experience’ is a Quasar-Like Multitasking Experience for iOS 7

A windowed app experience on iOS has long been the dream of many, and there have definitely been tweaks in the past that accomplish it. But a new tweak by the name of OS Experience is in development by Evan Swick, and it looks like it might be the best attempt yet at bringing the resizable window desktop operating system experience to iOS. The tweak has been demoed by Swick on his YouTube channel, and the quick demo shows a lot of interesting features that will surely ship come the time this tweak is released. First, you’ll notice that the mutlitasking app switcher features many desktops which can hold windowed apps. Using a variety of multi-finger gestures on screen, Swick is shown grabbing windows, opening the multitasking switcher, and placing those windows down in other desktop environments. When an app is open full-screen, all you have to do is grab the app screen with four fingers. Drag down, and you’re presented with a new bar at the top of the window for closing the app and scaling it down to fit on a desktop screen. The windows themselves are resizable within the desktop; tapping and grabbing the resize icon will let you choose how much of the screen you want any of the apps to take up. Also, tapping and dragging the top menu bar of an app lets you move the window around within the desktop–akin to the desktop experience we’re all used to on Windows and Mac OS X. The desktop chooser is visually very similar to the Mission Control feature within the most recent versions of Mac OS X. When on this screen, there’s a small button that the user can tap to create a new desktop, and each one is numbered appropriately. You can easily swipe between desktops very similar to how you swipe between apps in the standard multitasking app switcher. Check out the video above to get an idea of how the tweak works. Note that the visual glitches aren’t due to the tweak; they’re there because of Display Recorder. The tweak will likely only be compatible with iPad, as creating a multi-screen desktop environment on a small screen like that of an iPhone wouldn’t make much sense. Introducing OS Experience. http://ift.tt/1ju9nRT — Evan Swick (@e_swick) April 9, 2014 What do you think of OS Experience? Are you excited to have this desktop experience on your iPad? Continue reading →

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Comcast/Time Warner FCC filing hints at new Apple set-top box

Rumors suggest Apple is working on a new Apple TV, with new hardware and software that’ll add support for Apps, games and more. Sources for these rumors include the WSJ, 9to5Mac and even iOS 7 itself. Adding more fuel to the fire is the latest tidbit about the Apple TV, which comes from none other than Comcast and Time Warner. As spotted by 9to5Mac, the FCC filing for the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner contains references to a new set-top box from Apple. Today, Google competes as a network, video, and technology provider, and 8 out 9 of the next Google Fiber markets the company announced are in Comcast or TWC areas. Apple tablets are viewing platforms for cable services even while Apple offers an online video service, Apple TV, and explores development of an Apple set-top box. Microsoft just announced that it will feature ads on the Xbox One, creating a new video advertising platform. And just last week, Amazon announced its own set-top box while it continues to leverage its unequaled sales platform and family of competitive tablets to promote its burgeoning Prime Instant Video business. While it is possible that Comcast may be speculating based on recent rumors, the statement may contain more fact than fiction as the two cable companies are rumored to be in talks with Apple about a new set-top box. A recent Wall Street Journal report claims Apple was meeting with Comcast about a streaming TV service that would provide content for an Apple TV-like set-top box. Subscribers would be able to stream live TV shows as well as on-demand content directly from the cable provider. Earlier rumors hinted that Apple was in talks with other cable providers like Time Warner about a similar media streaming service. Would you be interested in a new Apple TV with games, apps and a possible cable TV tie-in? Continue reading →

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