Google's Cloud Is Eating Apple's Lunch
A new front has opened in the smartphone war, and for the first time in many years, Apple is both outnumbered and outgunned. I'm not talking about the phones themselves. iOS is still better than Android, although the gap has narrowed. The next iPhone will doubtless be the best phone in the world when it's released, as ever. It won't be as customizable - no Swype, no Facebook Home - but those remain relatively minor inferiorities. The new battlefront is different. The new battlefront is the cloud: Google Maps vs. Apple Maps, Siri vs. Google voice search, iCloud vs. Dropbox et al, and Google Now vs...well, nothing at all, yet. This is a big deal. As we grow accustomed to an always-online world of ubiquitous computing, your phone becomes less a device in and of itself and more a gateway to its cloud services. And it's very hard to argue that Apple is anything but the serious underdog here.
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With New Service, Any Device Could Run Almost Any Program From Anywhere
In the near future, the only difference between a smartphone, tablet, and a laptop will be the size of the screen. Hardcore gamers could play 3D intensive games in a smartphone, and Michael Bay could render “Transformers 4? from his iPad. Otoy, an LA-based software company, has discovered a way to stream any application to any device, completely through a web browser. It’s difficult to overestimate the potential disruptiveness of Otoy, as a breakthrough streaming service could, in the near future, end the need for app stores and computer upgrades (see a demo below). Otoy has a habit of impressing the tech press with its surprising ability to stream 3D intensive graphics to devices that shouldn’t be able to run them. Since Otoy’s 2009 demo, there’s been a rush of companies in the ever more crowded “cloud” services industry, such as Onlive’s streaming video gaming. Up until now, video games were shackled to certain consoles, mobile apps to particular app stores, and software ...
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YC-Backed Kippt, An “Evernote For The Web”, Lures Developers With New API, App Gallery
Kippt, which lets you collect and share content from across the web, is looking to attract developers with a brand-new API and gallery of apps. The two-person startup has relied on outside developers to have a mobile presence on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Kippt just returned to San Francisco from Helsinki, almost a year after graduating from Y Combinator’s summer batch. “An API is not only good for us, but it’s good for our users,” said Karri Saarinen, who co-founded Kippt and leads design. “There are some companies that fear this kind of openness will somehow harm the company, but we feel it brings value.” He pointed to more than a dozen third-party apps that bring Kippt to the iPhone or turn it into an elegant mobile reading list. Popular reading app Pocket added support for Kippt recently, too. Saarinen said that some developers have already organized hack days around the API. It’s steady progress for the product, which started as a side project while Kippt’s other ...
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Camera+ Goes Big, Makes The Leap From iPhone To iPad
Camera+ is a consistently top-selling app in Apple's iOS App Store, providing users with enhanced camera features and effects. Developer tap tap tap hopes that success will translate to the larger screen, today introducing an iPad version that also introduces iCloud syncing of photos between the iPhone and iPad apps. The app is a new standalone piece of software, not a universal update to the original iPhone version, and sells for $0.99 at launch.
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TaskRabbit Expands ‘Deliver Now’ Beyond iOS, Bringing On-Demand Courier Service To The Web
This past summer, TaskRabbit, the online marketplace letting people outsource errands and odd jobs, unveiled a feature extension for its iPhone app called "Deliver Now," which lets users get on-demand delivery of anything within the city of San Francisco on weekdays between 9am and 7pm. Starting today, it won't be just iPhone users in San Francisco that can enjoy on-demand Dynamo Donuts (or Tartine croissants, or a new pair of socks, or whatever) within an hour without leaving the comfort of their apartments.
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