It looks like Microsoft is about to make another very welcome change to the Xbox One. Unnamed sources tell Ars Technica that Microsoft is planning to drop its requirement that Xbox users have a paid Live Gold subscription to access Netflix and Hulu on their consoles.
That said, Ars’s sources say that Microsoft is considering putting other services behind its paywall to make up for the loss of Netflix and Hulu as major incentives for users to sign up for Live Gold.
Microsoft has come under pressure to lift the paywall for popular video streaming apps since rival Sony doesn’t require any subscriptions for users to watch them on the PS4 and other set-top boxes such as Roku and Apple TV similarly offer access to Netflix and Hulu without any additional fees.
In addition to unveiling its most affordable Android smartphone yet, Motorola on Tuesday also announced a new Moto G model, the Moto G 4G LTE, which will offer users faster data speeds. The LTE version of the Moto G does not have any other new features, except for 4G and microSD support. As expected, the Moto G 4G LTE model is more expensive than the 3G-only version, and will cost $219 without a contract.
Unfortunately for users who want more built-in storage, the Moto G 4G LTE will only be available with 8GB of memory, although unlike the 3G model, the 4G model does have microSD support. Motorola will also continue to sell the 3G version of the Moto G for $179 (the 8GB version) or $199 (the 16GB model).
Motorola on Tuesday took the wraps of its newest addition to the Moto family of Android smartphones, the Moto E, which was already seen in various reports preceding the event. The Moto E is also the first handset announced after Google sold Motorola to Lenovo.
The phone isn’t a flagship device, and it’s not a mid-range device either. But it’s a handset that’s meant to make it even easier for first-time smartphone buyers to buy one such device and get accustomed to what it can do.
The Moto E packs a 4.3-inch qHD Gorilla Glass 3 display (960 x 540 resolution and 256 pixel per inch ratio), 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor, Adreno 302 GPU, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of storage, microSD support, 5-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, FM radio, dual-SIM option 1980mAh battery and Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
Interestingly, Motorola notes that the phone will receive at least one software update to the current KitKat version in the future.
The Moto E measures 124.38 x 64.8 x 12.3 mm, weighs 142g, and will offer users the ability of personalizing the look of the handset with different Motorola Shells, or interchangeable backs. More than 20 colors will be available, with each one priced at $14.99.
As for price, the Moto E is priced at $129 without a contract, and will be available in more than 40 countries, through more than 80 carrier partners in the following weeks. As Motorola puts it, the Moto E is supposed “made to last,” and “priced for all.”
The phone can already be ordered in the U.S., complete with extra Shells.
A video and an image gallery showing the Moto E follow below.
Although “Apple is doomed” stories are overblown and ridiculous, that doesn’t mean there aren’t areas where Apple has significantly fallen behind the competition. One of these areas is in the realm of online services, where Apple has failed to develop anything close in scope or quality to Microsoft’s Office 365 or Google’s Google Maps.
ZDNet’s Ed Bott shows us that it didn’t have to be this way — in 2010, then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent out an email explaining how significant cloud computing would become in the coming years and urged Apple to get out in front of this trend to “further lock customers into our ecosystem.” More than three years later, however, Apple’s cloud-based offerings are still trailing far behind those of its rivals.
For instance, Bott says that even though iCloud is perfectly fine for backing up iOS devices’ files, it isn’t a comprehensive online storage service along the lines of Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. Apple still doesn’t have anything remotely close to the email clout that Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have, and its online chat services such as FaceTime are still only available to iOS users. In other words, Apple has developed an ecosystem of services that are fine for iOS users but that don’t branch out to other platforms in the way that Google’s and Microsoft’s do.
On top of all this, Apple’s one major cross-platform success when it comes to online services — the iTunes Store — is now being undercut by music streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify. This is one reason that Apple decided to buy up Beats so that it could finally offer its own music streaming service that will let users listen to whatever they want on demand.
So what does all this mean? Bott speculates that we might see closer ties between Microsoft and Apple, which are both interested in making sure Google doesn’t completely rule the tech world. In this scenario, Apple would use more of Microsoft’s cloud services as defaults on its own devices to make sure its users don’t download Google applications while Microsoft would get its cloud services onto more mobile devices.
“Google, largely on the strength of its Android OS, remains public enemy #1 for Apple,” Bott concludes. “Under those circumstances, especially with the Mac-PC wars mostly in the rearview mirror, it’s easy to see Apple developing tighter ties with Microsoft’s cloud.”
Bott’s full analysis is worth reading and can be found by clicking the source link below.
Let’s say that you want to buy an HTC One (M8) but you aren’t too keen on the device’s standard silver or grey — well, it looks like you’re going to get another option. @evleaks has just posted a press render of a blue version of HTC’s latest flagship smartphone and as you can see, the device looks pretty sweet with an aqua blue tint.We have no idea when the blue version of the HTC One (M8) will release but @evleaks doesn’t typically acquire press renders unless a device’s launch is imminent, which suggests HTC will release it sooner rather than later.
Marissa Mayer has been Yahoo’s CEO for nearly two years and in that time she has revamped many of Yahoo’s websites and apps, and has made some major purchases. Most notably, Yahoo bought Tumblr a little over a year ago for $1.1 billion. Now, however, this purchase isn’t looking so good. According to a ComScore report in the Wall Street Journal, traffic to Tumblr has dropped from a peak of 49 million visitors in December to only 42 million in March. If these numbers are accurate, this loss of 7 million visitors would represent a 15% drop. There’s no obvious reason for this big decline, either: Since the acquisition, Yahoo hasn’t done much to change Tumblr, staying true to its promise to not ruin Tumblr. Yahoo has tried to monetize Tumblr and has been struggling to attract advertisers, and this decrease in traffic will not help their efforts.
Apple is about to expand the availability of the new 8GB version of its iPhone 5c to India, according to a report from BGR sister site BGR India. Apple’s 8GB iPhone 5c debuted less than two months ago and it is currently available only in in Germany, France, the UK, Australia and China. The move has two pretty obvious purposes: To increase sales of the iPhone 5c, whose sales appear to be slow compared to other iPhone models, and to improve iPhone sales in India. Apple CEO Tim Cook has put a lot of focus on India in the past couple of years, and in Apple’s most recent earnings call, he said the efforts are paying off.
“The iPhone also continued to perform exceptionally well in many developing markets,” he said. “In Greater China, Brazil, Indonesia, Poland, and Turkey, iPhone sales grew by strong double-digits year-over-year, and in India and Vietnam, sales more than doubled.”
The 8GB iPhone 5c is expected to cost between Rs 35,000 and Rs 37,000, with a buyback program that would push the price down to about Rs 30,000. That price would be about Rs 2,000, or $33, cheaper than the 16GB iPhone 5c.
Even though the jury is still out on whether Samsung’s extra-large tablets are popular with consumers – the 12.2-inch Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 and Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 models were unveiled only a few months ago, at CES 2014– the company is working on an even bigger model, GSM Arena reports.
Dubbed “Warhol” internally, the T910/T911 is supposed to be a 13.3-inch Android tablet that packs a 2560 x 1600 (WQHD) LCD display with 227 pixel per inch (PPI) pixel density. Other hardware details for the device aren’t available yet, and it’s not clear when the tablet will be released.
However, it looks like the 13.3-inch Samsung device will come both in Wi-Fi-only and 3G/4G options, considering the two different model numbers. It’s not clear when Samsung actually plans to launch such a bigger tablet version, or what other productivity-related features the device might offer buyers.
An image of this rumored 13.3-inch tablet isn’t available yet.
The publication also mentions two other Samsung tablets, the T701/T700 and the T801/T800, which are the 8.4-inch and 10.5-inch Galaxy Tab S models, respectively, or tablets that will each feature Super AMOLED WQHD displays.
A recent leak showed leaked images of these two tablets with OLED displays, a first for Samsung since 2011, revealing that the Galaxy Tab S models would still come with the same Magazine UX interface on top of Android, which Google doesn’t like, and with a Galaxy S5-like plastic back, which many users don’t appreciate.
People buy smartphones for all different reasons but it seems that having a strong battery has become the top reason for many buyers. IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo has posted a chart from a recent IDC survey showing that 56% of Android buyers, 49% of iPhone buyers and 53% of Windows Phone buyers said that battery life was a key reason they bought their particular device. In this way, battery life trumped even ease of use, which 33% of Android users, 39% of iPhone users and 38% of Windows Phone users said was a key factor in choosing their smartphone. Interestingly, just 25% of Android users, 19% of iPhone users and 23% of Windows Phone users said that their device’s camera resolution was a major factor in their decision to buy their smartphone, which means that Nokia probably didn’t win over too many converts by heavily hyping the 41-megapixel camera on its Lumia 1020 last year. You can see IDC’s full chart below.
We’ve known for a while that tablet market growth has not been what people expected. Apple’s double digit sales decline of iPad units in the March quarter was one ill omen. Nevertheless, the new Morgan Stanley report is grim reading: Widely followed analyst Katy Huberty is slashing her 2014 tablet growth projection, all the way from 26% to 12%.
It is extremely rare for an important product category to see such a drastic projection cut without an onset of a recession. Back in 2008, handset sales projections were cut steeply as consumer moods from the United States to Asia blackened abruptly.
But tablet growth estimates are now coming down without a macroeconomic shock. The most likely reasons for this sudden decline include a lack of compelling new tablet innovation and competition from cheap phablets, or smartphones with large displays.
But if tablet sales growth is already stalling, what will happen when the iPhone 6 arrives in the autumn? As Canalys notes, phablet sales are exploding — shipment growth of smartphones with displays of 5 inches or larger is expected to top 360% in 2014. That means jumbo-screen smartphones will make up an incredible 34% of total smartphone sales this year.
And this is the bandwagon Apple is finally jumping on this autumn. The iPad’s design innovation may have stalled, but the iPhone 6 is widely expected to feature a totally new display size (likely 4.7 inches), a cool wraparound screen design and a new, rounded chassis. If the rise of phablets has already undermined the tablet market, then the iPhone 6′s arrival could spell big trouble for iPad sales next winter.
The biggest negative item of Apple’s March quarter was that iPad sales missed badly relative to expectations. Apple moved 16.4 million units, which was way below the notably cautious (and recently lowered) 19.2 million unit consensus expectation.
Apple’s belated entry in the phablet revolution may well deepen its tablet problems markedly. This category, which was expected to be Apple’s growth engine for years to come, is now likely to become the biggest headache Apple has in Christmas 2014. Then again, if iPhone 6 sales are massive enough, they could well offset the tablet sales decline.
It is odd to think that the tablet market could in fact become a low-margin, low-growth business faster than the far older smartphone market. But the new, 12% tablet growth estimate of Morgan Stanley will likely be lower than smartphones’ growth rate in 2014.
