It's the holidays, so you know what that means: time for feuding, fighting, and battling for customers. Twitter and Instagram duke it out to be the service you send your holiday photos through, Apple and Samsung battle to be the most gifted, and more in this week's mobile news wrap.
The holiday season is one that brings thoughts of joy and giving shared among friends and family. That is, until you finally gather with your relatives and feuds get re-sparked and arguments break out between the opening of gifts. It’s out of love, of course, but there’s significantly less love when major companies get to feuding. Competing for customers, users, and sales, the holidays are the perfect time for mobile’s biggest makers to make a move for more loyal consumers. More on the fighting later, along with other stories like rumors for next year, Google Maps’ return to iOS, and more from the week of December 10-15, 2012.
Holiday shopping is in full swing
We’re under two weeks away from the biggest gift-giving holiday of the season, which means you probably still have the majority of shopping to do. If you’d like to contribute to the companies that seem to be topping the sales chart this year, make sure you give your money to Apple or Samsung. Interestingly, if you want to give the gift your loved one probably wants, you’ll go with an iPhone. If you give what most people are giving, though, you’ll go with an Android device. Apple will probably spin that in to an argument that patent infringement is clearly costing them, rather than focus on the imposing price tag of their device. Let’s just hope it makes its finger pointing seasonal by doing it with holly and mistletoe.
Google Maps finds quickest route back to iOS
Doing some traveling this holiday season? Rejoice at the return of Google Maps on iOS to get you to your destination. Apple has made an effort to fix the problems of its often criticized Maps app, but it’s hard to update your app with a feature like, “Now no longer strands you in remote locations!” Taking a look at Google Maps on its own shows just how much work Google has put into improving the traveling tool. Putting it side-by-side with Apple’s homemade cartography project will create a stark comparison for you. We’re waiting for the first horror film that starts with a group of teens led astray by Apple Maps to a remote location where they are eventually greeted by a masked murderer.
Rumors all around
What good do rumors do aside from giving us something to talk about? Well it fills up this paragraph, for whatever that may be worth. There are always new devices coming out and others in development, but three of the current prospective portables being discussed already have current models on the market. One can never discount the idea that Apple has something shaping up at all times, and that appears to be the case now. An iPhone 5S could be on its way as soon as June of 2013, because why let people enjoy the iPhone 5 for too long? Keep it fresh! Same goes for the iPad, which will have its 5th version in under three years according to reports. Not to be left out, the iPad Mini will get a refresh as well. Samsung is Apple’s biggest competitor at the moment, so they’ve gotta keep up with the updates. First among them may be the huge Galaxy Note, will have its third installment in two years and will have a 6.3-inch screen. Samsung is apparently attempting to capture the NBA centers and power forwards market with this move.
Texting turns 20, goes through reckless years
Texting turned 20 last week, which means a couple things. First, it means that this time next year, all of our texts are going to be completely nonsensical because texting will be like bar-hopping. Secondly, it means we’ve seen a technology that has been around for two decades, which is well beyond the lifespan of many other things that have come and gone in that time. We don’t think texting is going anywhere any time soon, either. Studies are showing that people who walk while texting aren’t going anywhere good. You’re just as likely to connect with a street sign as you are with the person you’re texting if you walk and type. Keep your head up so we’ve still got people texting for the next decades to come.
Feuding over Filters
Apple and Samsung are fighting for sales and to push out updates, but the biggest feud of this past week came when Instagram discontinued its friendly relationship with Twitter. Photos from the filtered picture service will no longer show up when used on Twitter, the platform that helped make Instagram so popular in the first place. Twitter got its hands on its own set of filters and will be instituting its answer to Instagram since the two will no longer play nicely. Who would have thought that pictures with a slight tint on them would become such a battleground?
Source : digitaltrends[dot]com
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