MobileCrunch |  |
- Twilio Raises $17 Million Series C From Bessemer and Union Square To Expand Abroad
- Microsoft Dangles Carrot In Front Of Developers With Windows Store Economics, But Will It Be Enough?
- Starbucks Mobile App Does Good Business, But When Will They Double Down?
- Junaio And Kreativagentur Thomas Launch AR Scavenger Hunt – Win An iPad
- Mobile Dining Apps LocalEats & BiteHunter Announce Partnership
- Grand Theft Auto 3 Coming To (High End) iOS & Android Devices Next Week
- Amazon Jabs At Brick-And-Mortar Retailers With Price Check Promotion
- How Carrier IQ Could Have Avoided Its Dumbest Move
- Boost Mobile Gives Customers A New Way To Add Credit: Facebook
- DROID XYBOARD Tablets Get Official, Hitting Verizon Stores This Month
- A New Twist On Gift Cards: Dropost.it Lets You Leave Money For Friends At Any Location
- Is HTC’s 20% Revenue Dip Last Month A Sign Of Things To Come?
- Urban Airship Says Its Push Notifications Work On Kindle Fire (Which It Found Out By Accident)
- BBC’s Global iPlayer Heads To The iPhone, iPod touch
| Twilio Raises $17 Million Series C From Bessemer and Union Square To Expand Abroad Posted: 07 Dec 2011 04:29 AM PST  Cloud communications pioneer Twilio is dominating the US with APIs that let developers add SMS, voice, and VoIP functionality to apps. Now it plans to roll out services to 20 more European countries using a $17 million Series C funding round. The investment comes from Bessemer Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures, both of which participated in its Series B a year ago, and brings Twilio to a total of $33.7 million in funding. When I asked exactly where the funding would go, CEO and co-founder Jeff Lawson answered “Build up the sales team, build up the marketing team, building out product and hiring more engineers. A major area of growth for us is international. We’re in the UK and will be rolling out to the rest of Europe in the next couple months.” Apparently, it was easy choosing to stick with Bessemer Venture Partners. Lawson tells me “The board made the decision [for Twilio to take a Series C round], and immediately Bessemer turned around and gave us a very compelling term sheet. They let me focus on building the company and not on funding.” Bessemer’s Byron Deeter and Union Square’s Albert Wenger remain on Twilio’s board of directors, and Lawson says they are “very much involved in the company in a good way, helping with recruiting and strategy.” The funding will help Twilio maintain momentum after a big year, and continue hiring aggressively. The San Francisco-based company grew from 25 employees to nearly 100 in 2011, and increased its customer base by 400% to reach 75,000 developers. It launched Twilio Client which allows developers to integrate cloud communications capabilities into any application, and Twilio Connect so developers can let Twilio directly bill their clients or end-users for functionality usage. In October it brought its services to the UK so local and US developers could attain UK phone numbers. With the funding, it will expand to cover France, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, and most other major European nations, though Germany and Ireland are noticeably absent. The push responds to the Twilio’s top customer request for the ability to reach an international audience. Lawson tells me the end goal for Twilio is to “open the block box of telecom, and move the world away from the legacy of Cisco and Microsoft’s big expensive [hardware] that you put in your closet and watch age. We’re reinventing with the cloud, and it gets better every time we deploy code.” With well-laid plans for global domination and the funding to back it up, it will be difficult for anyone to catch up to Twilio.
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| Microsoft Dangles Carrot In Front Of Developers With Windows Store Economics, But Will It Be Enough? Posted: 06 Dec 2011 10:54 PM PST  Tonight Microsoft revealed that the public release of its Windows 8 Beta will be taking place sometime in late February of 2012. Along with Windows 8 Beta, Microsoft will also be launching its “Windows Store”, which was announced back in September. (You can check out the details on the Window Store’s new blog.) In previewing the new app store, Microsoft also revealed some details about what developers can expect in terms of both pricing and revenue share. For starters, as the company has previously said, users will be able to license, purchase, and download Metro-style apps from the Windows Store — meaning that it will be the sole source of Metro apps. (Metro being the name Microsoft uses for the design language it developed for its new, touch friendly Windows Phone 7 interface.) While Microsoft is already operating app stores for Xbox and Windows Phones, this is their big push to create an in-Windows app store to take on iTunes. Microsoft will begin initially with free apps, and has set the pricing of paid apps between $1.49 to $999.99. Developers will be able to offer both free and paid apps, and setting up a dev account will cost $50. In terms of revenue share, the initial split will be 70/30 for developers. However, the Store offers some unique incentives for developers, as the terms state that once an app does $25,000 in sales, Microsoft will reduce its share to 20 percent. There will also be a 70/30 split for in-app transactions, but only for those apps using Microsoft’s billing system. Why does the Windows Store set the low price for apps at $1.49, rather than the typical $0.99? Is it to compensate for offering the additional incentive and revenue share to developers whose apps push past $25K in sales? That’s what it looks like. Of course, it’s all about delivering users. And you can’t buy those, something that Microsoft learened with its ill-fated "Bing Cashback" program, which allowed users to save money when purchasing items found using Bing search before it was discontinued. It seems to me that Microsoft really needed to go further to differentiate itself from Apple, push its split to 25/75, for example. The $25K threshold will have more of an effect on bigger app publishers, not so much for the little guys. It would have been nice to see them bite the bullet and take a risk on 20/80 or 25/75 flat, but no dice. Of course, in the way of enticing developers, Microsoft does have reach. Especially internationally. At the Window Store’s preview event today, Microsoft claimed that there are now 1.25 billion Windows PCs in existence, and that 3 million copies of the Windows 8 developer preview have been downloaded since September. What’s more, the IDC has estimated that 433.5 million PCs will ship in 2013, which will represent, of course, the first full year that Windows 8 will be on the market. Obviously, Microsoft hopes that, with the reach of its operating system, its new Windows Store will become a big new revenue generator, something the company could use right about now. Giving users a place to buy and download apps in one place from all Windows desktops and tablets will undoubtedly be a huge step forward for PC users’ experience, allowing them to move past having to go to a fragmented group of sites to purchase and download. Microsoft is also providing developers with a few more carrots to get them jazzed about the new Windows Store, including the ability to offer trial versions of apps, which can then later be purchased and downloaded from within the app — as well as creating expiration dates for certain versions of apps. Publications will also be able to sell subscriptions to their users from inside their apps, something that should be appealing as an alternative to iTunes.
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| Starbucks Mobile App Does Good Business, But When Will They Double Down? Posted: 06 Dec 2011 03:32 PM PST  It may still be a feature phone world, and mobile payments are a work in progress, but the big movers in the space are happy to be the guinea pigs, knowing it will pay off down the line. Starbucks has been doing the mobile payment thing for a good two years now, and the app has grown from a simple gift card frontend for the iPhone to a more versatile product, and gone from select locations to over 9000. Their mobile app payments total 26 million now, accelerating to a current rate of around 3 million per month. It has to be pointed out that the payment count growth isn’t quite in line with the geographic and location growth, but that’s expected, since the geographic expansion is a prerequisite for customer participation. That people want to use the system is clear: but will Starbucks continue as a lone-wolf payment brand or align itself with a more universal payment system like Google Wallet? They shouldn’t feel any pressure, of course. As one of the world’s best-known brands and with a service style that lends itself to a standalone app, they’re in a good position to keep things the way they are. A smaller company, say one of the local roasteries here in Seattle, doesn’t have that option, and although their decision to go with, say, Square, won’t have much of an effect on Starbucks, a thousand local businesses doing so might cause them some thought. It should cause Starbucks thought especially, I should say, because their recent brand backpedaling following an overeager expansion saw them desperately trying to rekindle local relationships. But any large company must consider what their customers expect when they walk in the door. If every place on the street takes credit cards and only one takes cash, there’s pressure on them to add that capability. And if a company projects that in five years, customers will be expecting Google wallet, NFC, Isis, or what have you, they’ll want to board that ship early. Right now, with this mobile app, Starbucks is in a holding pattern. It’s doing all right, but the mobile app has accounted for only $110 million in card cash transfers, a microscopic portion of the $2.4 billion in gift card transactions. There’s a lot of room for growth, but it’s not going to happen in this app. Watching how the big retail companies dispose their favor among the competing payment systems will make for great spectating in the next few years. Gap versus H&M, Burger King versus McDonalds, and so on. Like it or not, the success of our favored disruptive technologies will rely very much on the blessing of billion-dollar companies. You may like Square, but if MasterCard and Visa make it easier for their hundreds of millions of customers to use Isis, it’s game over. In the meantime, it’s more natural to see small payment systems installed in small businesses, where they can build up an resistance to bullying and, hopefully, become too large a system to be shut out without concessions by the majors. Starbucks will certainly be one of the big voices in the debate to come; with sovereign sway over so very many daily transactions worldwide, they are potentially both crucible and kingmaker.
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| Junaio And Kreativagentur Thomas Launch AR Scavenger Hunt – Win An iPad Posted: 06 Dec 2011 02:31 PM PST  Another example of creative use of Augmented Reality rears its head in the form of an online scavenger hunt with a chance to win an iPad 2. The team at Metaio who created the Junaio Augmented Reality browser and German creative shop Kreativagentur Thomas have partnered to create a scavenger hunt where you can use Junaio to scan special images hidden around the web to unlock AR content and experiences. At the same time, you collect stars for each scan. Collection of these stars can get you in the running for a chance to win a free iPad 2. How do you get in on the goodness? The instructions are detailed here, but in general, you download Junaio for Android or iOS, scan an initial barcode to launch the game channel (channels in Junaio are like mini-apps inside the browser), register, then start looking for special images and markers to scan out on the net. Clues to find these scan-able images are found on Junaio's Facebook page. You must "like" Junaio to be able to see the clues. The app channel also provides a toggle for two different content views. One view is your typical “viewfinder” mode so you can aim your camera at specialized images or markers and scan them. The other is your "Christmas Room" view, which is a virtual 360 degree view of your Christmas Room, complete with a tree for the presents and stars you collect. You can also superimpose elements from this Christmas Room into pictures you take with your phone's camera. You can then share these images. This is a timed event meaning that it starts today (Dec. 6) and if you miss the clues today, you cannot access that content in following days to collect those stars. This creates a little bit of demand, I suppose. What does this hunt mean in terms of the market for Augmented Reality experiences? Certainly, scavenger hunts are nothing new. And 2-D barcodes and image scanning get a lot of flack these days, partly because they are misused a lot from a strategic standpoint (a.k.a “hey, let’s just slap a 2D barcode link on our print ad at the last minute so people can watch a video”). I think scanning codes and markers is still a viable concept especially when properly used as a tool to ease the call-to-action for mobile engagement. For example, when you scan a 2D barcode to directly launch an app download screen in the Android Market, you are achieving real utility and time savings by skipping the regular search procedure on your phone. The code effectively ties instruction in one format (print media or PC) to a function in another format (smartphone app download). Similarly, in this example, the act of scanning both traditional 2D glyphs and special photos/markers becomes a tool of this campaign to help you achieve a goal. Therefore the action of scanning images actually adds value to the customer interaction and is not just a gimmick or novelty. But it is a bit more complex than a lot of "give-away" campaigns out there so we'll have to wait to see if a lot of people catch on and get involved. Metaio's energies for this kind of creative venture are fairly well documented and expansive. But I had not heard of Kreativagentur Thomas until I got the chance to meet a few people from their team back in September. From what I have seen, they have a lot of creative energy as well and are quite adept at using Metaio's advanced AR technologies as well as the tech of other AR providers. I expect we will see more projects like this coming out of this partnership in the future.
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| Mobile Dining Apps LocalEats & BiteHunter Announce Partnership Posted: 06 Dec 2011 11:41 AM PST  Mobile dining apps for foodies on the go, LocalEats and BiteHunter, are today announcing a new content-sharing partnership. Starting now, LocalEats’ users looking for a dining deal will see information from BiteHunter’s deals database, while BiteHunter’s users will see a restaurant synopsis provided by LocalEats. Since both apps are operating in the same space, but are not direct competitors, this type of partnership makes sense. Maybe more app developers should do the same? In the updated applications, you can see a “powered by BiteHunter” banner in LocalEats deals sections and, in BiteHunter, LocalEats is listed among other dining resources, including Yelp. The partnership should help these relative newcomers to the mobile dining space, who don’t have the brand name recognition of a Zagart or Urbanspoon. But it has a secondary benefit too: it helps to introduce an app’s users to another app they may also like. You often see app cross-promotion through mobile ads and other app monetization and distribution deals, but you don’t as regularly see app promotions through content sharing deals. But such initiatives should be more common – apps aren’t a zero sum game. Users can (and do) install multiple apps that serve similar purposes. Within the over-crowded photo app community, for example, some developers recently began participating in app cross promotion through the PhotoAppLink initiative, which lets users export photo edits between apps directly, without having to save first to the camera roll. Even though, like BiteHunter and DealHunter, all the participants are after the same type user (in this case, photo editors, not foodies), the idea is that working together may have more of an advantage than independent marketing efforts alone would have had. So, more of this please, app developers! And even better, let users tap on an app’s icon from within your app to open another app directly. And then tap again to go back. It’s not like it can’t be done…remember?
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| Grand Theft Auto 3 Coming To (High End) iOS & Android Devices Next Week Posted: 06 Dec 2011 11:32 AM PST  You’ve wreaked havoc on Liberty City before — but have you ever done it on your phone? Just imagine it! You can hijack a (virtual) taxi… while in an (actual) taxi! It’s all of that good ol’ early 2000′s controversy, on the go! RockStar Games has just announced that Grand Theft Auto 3 10th Anniversary will be hitting a rather elite handful of handsets come December 15th, and it’ll only set you back 5 bucks. While it’s coming to both iOS and Android, you’ll need one of either platform’s beastlier offerings to be able to get this one up and running. The list of supported devices: iOS: iPad 1 and 2, iPhone 4 and 4S, iPod touch 4th Generation First person who figures out if RockStar was able to somehow get the whole soliciting-a-virtual-prostitute thing through the App Store approval process gets a high five.
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| Amazon Jabs At Brick-And-Mortar Retailers With Price Check Promotion Posted: 06 Dec 2011 10:30 AM PST  Not long after wrapping up their string of Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals, Amazon has pulled back the curtain on yet another way they’ll be snagging purchases away from physical retail outlets. Starting this Saturday, users of Amazon’s Price Check app will be able to score up to $5 off a purchase of any product if they use the app in-store. Here’s how it works: after waltzing into a brick-and-mortar retailer, whip out your iPhone or Android device (with location services enabled) and get to scanning those barcodes. After placing a desired item into the app’s virtual basket, a 5% discount will be applied to the product within 24 hours. Price Check app users can use the discount on up to three products, so they’ll need to choose those items wisely. It’s a great idea for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it could help potential buyers get over one of Amazon’s biggest stumbling blocks: experiencing the product. Reading reviews and looking at pictures online is enough in certain instances, but it can be a poor substitute for actually touching and seeing a product in person. With their Price Check promotion, Amazon can actually help people to make purchasing decisions and at the same time giving them an incentive to buy from them. On top of that, Amazon will be able to stay up to date with their competitors prices, which could help inform future pricing plans. With just weeks until the holiday of your choice kicks off, Amazon clearly wants to be your shopping source, and they’re better equipped to roll-out pricing changes and promotions than any B&M store. As IntoMobile points out, Amazon often has lower prices then their physical retail counterparts, so the additional (minor) savings just sweeten the deal. The big question now is how many users will actually take advantage of Amazon’s offer. The $5 cap means there’s probably a limit to how much play Amazon will get out of the promotion, but I imagine that it could be worth it to them if they manage build up more awareness around their Price Check app. Fortunately for your local stores, the promotion will only run from 9PM PST on December 9 to 11:59 PM PST on December 10 — I can already imagine rabid deal-hunters drooling in anticipation.
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| How Carrier IQ Could Have Avoided Its Dumbest Move Posted: 06 Dec 2011 09:05 AM PST  Editor's Note: This guest post was written by Frank Barbieri, a serial entrepreneur and sometimes blogger. You can follow him @frankba Imagine how differently Carrier IQ's fortunes would be if instead of engaging lawyers and flaks to address alleged privacy breaches they engaged the actual discoverer of those breaches, security researcher Trevor Eckhart. For those of you not familiar with the story it is the latest example of a company that let hubris trump transparency and in the process has potentially committed suicide. When Mr. Eckhart found potential key logging and personal message logging by a supposedly harmless performance data-tracking application built by Carrier IQ and installed on over 100 million phones, the maker had a choice: attack the messenger or attack the problem. They did they the exact wrong thing. They sent a cease-and-desist letter to Eckhart, as if watching data traffic on ones personal mobile phone and fair use of public documents was a violation of some corporate right. They then issued a defensive press release that seemed in direct contradiction to data Eckhart had already publically posted. They did everything but address the problem. The results? A class action lawsuit, a US Senator asking for information from them and their carrier and handset customers, undoubtedly countless headaches with their customers and tangibly dimmer prospects for the company and their investors, some of Silicon Valley's most respected. Carrier IQ, in short, made a problem into a story. Now consider an alternative scenario. Instead of choosing hubris and stonewalling, Carrier IQ could have chosen transparency. They could have attacked the problem by enlisting Eckhart as a partner rather than casting him as an enemy. Instead of sending lawyers and PR flaks, Carrier IQ could have simply invited Eckhart, even paid Eckhart, to come to their offices and help them understand what he saw and how, if necessary, they should fix it. They could have called the EFF and asked for advice on an independent privacy audit. If they truly believed that their software does no evil as their press releases say, they could have very easily opened up the doors to prove it. If there are actual privacy violations due to poor implementations or non-malicious mistakes, they should be looking for all the help they can get, including Eckharts, in discovering and fixing those errors. Instead, because they badly flubbed the perception war, the public and lawmakers can only assume they have something to hide. If we take them at their word, they do care about privacy, but their actions indicate the contrary. It's a mistake that will cost them for years to come and radically change the direction and momentum of their business. We will all eventually know if they were doing malicious things, or they just screwed up, or if Eckhart's analysis is flawed. But even if we discover they are pristine, the fortunes of the company are probably irreparably damaged. The lesson in this mess is: openness wins. When someone points out your flaws, or your company's flaws, that someone is your best friend, not your enemy. CarrierIQ made this a story by attacking the messenger not the problem, and in doing so created countless more problems for themselves. Learn from their hubris.
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| Boost Mobile Gives Customers A New Way To Add Credit: Facebook Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:59 AM PST  In the few months I lived across the pond (where prepaid phone plans are more popular than contracts, go figure), I learned something important about adding credit to your plan, or “topping up” as the Brits would say: it’s a pain in the arse. Some carriers let you add credit by sending a text, which is pretty awesome, but the more options customers have the better. That said, Boost Mobile is launching a new Facebook app called Re-Boost which will let customers add credit straight from the social network. The ability to refill your account from Facebook is actually quite awesome, but then the app gets a little strange. Since it’s on Facebook and thus intertwined in your digital relationship playground, you can elicit the help of friends to fill up your mobile account. That’s more of a blast, shooting out a request for more credit to the entirety of your Facebook network. If that sounds as embarrassing to you as it does to me (but you still happen to need a friend’s help topping up), the Re-Boost app also lets you send a request to specific friends to help you add credit. Of course, with all the various methods of taking from your friends, Boost found it necessary to add some form of giving functionality. That way you can pay back all the friends that have been supporting your mobile lifestyle. All in all this sounds like a great idea, though all the networking throws me for a loop a bit. You can check out the app now by logging into Facebook, searching “Boost,” and choosing the Re-Boost application.
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| DROID XYBOARD Tablets Get Official, Hitting Verizon Stores This Month Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:18 AM PST  Verizon’s been teasing us with them for weeks now, but today the company has finally made things official: Motorola’s LTE-capable DROID XYBOARD tablets will be hitting Verizon stores this month. For those of you who have managed to miss all the news about Motorola’s latest tablet venture, here are a few of the salient details. Better known as the XOOM 2 in Europe, the XYBOARD comes in two flavors: one with an 8.2-inch IPS display and another with larger 10.1-inch IPS display. Don’t worry about missing out on performance if you go for one version over the other, as both XYBOARDs share the same 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM under the hood. Both tabs also sport 5-megapixel rear cameras, along with a 1.3-megapixel front-facer, and an IR transmitter for controlling your home theater. On the application side, the XYBOARDs come Motorola’s MOTOCAST media streaming software, QuickOffice HD, Citrix GoToMeeting, and the usual suite of Google appa. Handwriting input buffs may also want to take note of the 10.1-inch XYBOARD, as it ships with a stylus meant to make doodling cats on the screen even easier than before. But how much will all that cost you? The 10.1-inch XYBOARD comes in three memory variants: you can score a 16GB model for $529.99, a 32GB model for $629.99 and the king-sized 64 GB for $729.99. If you prefer the smaller 8.2-inch model, prices are a little more reasonable. There are only two models to choose from: 16GB for $429.99 and 32GB for $529.99. All of these prices are with a two-year contract, so think long and hard about whether or not the XYBOARDs are right for you. You’ll need to pony up an extra monthly charge if you want to take advantage of the XYBOARD’s speedy LTE connection, too: prices for Verizon’s data plans start at $30 for 2GB of bandwidth. Verizon also snuck in an announcement confirming the existence of a white Droid RAZR. I’m sure that news won’t be as exciting to some of you as it is to me, but fans of chromatically pure devices have one more to add to the list. Motorola has also pledged that all three of the newly-announced devices will get access to Android 4.0 (a.k.a Ice Cream Sandwich), so here’s hoping they get access to the code sooner rather than later.
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| A New Twist On Gift Cards: Dropost.it Lets You Leave Money For Friends At Any Location Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:00 AM PST  Dropost.it is a clever little service that allows you to drop gifts for friends which are geo-tagged to specific locations. These gifts, which you can think of as virtual gift cards purchased via the Dropost.it service, can only be accessed when the recipient visits a specific location. Initially, the service works over PayPal, but the company is working towards deeper integration with mobile wallets, including NFC-based wallet systems, like Google Wallet. Beyond facilitating the gift-giving process, Dropost.it is also working on a feature that will help you figure out what gifts to buy your friends (this piece hasn’t yet launched). To do so, Dropost.it will pull in data from Facebook, including friends’ likes and interests, but it will also work with social data from Foursquare and Twitter in the future. (And yes, haters, you will need a Facebook account to log in today). The idea is that you’ll be able to use the service to figure out what places your friends typically visit – that is, the restaurants, bars, coffee shops, retail stores, etc. that they favorite. This is especially helpful when you’re buying for acquaintances whose personal interests you may not know too well, or when you’re buying for friends who live out of town. After the gift is purchased (with a small fee), the recipient is emailed a message that includes an optional video greeting from the gift-giver, for a more personalized experience. The email also includes a link to download the accompanying Dropost.it mobile application (HTML5 first, then iOS and Android). To claim the gifted funds, the recipient just launches the app upon arrival at the given venue. As a service that works over PayPal, of course, this isn’t ideal, since the money isn’t instantly available in the recipient’s bank account unless they use the PayPal Debit Card. But further down the road, when mobile wallet usage is more prevalent, something like Dropost.it could be a useful way to surprise friends with instant gifts that are available immediately. In addition to the consumer-facing angle, merchants can also participate in Dropost.it to set up their own promotions (aka “drops”) wherever they choose. They could allocate $1,000 in $5 increments to encourage foot traffic, for example, or they could use a series of drops to create a scavenger hunt-style game. While the idea of a geo-tagged gifting platform may be a bit ahead of its time, the idea of parsing friends’ social networking profiles for recommendations is right on schedule. Even the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, is just now figuring out how to use Facebook profile data to personalize offers to individual consumers. With Dropost.it’s insights into your friends real-world behavior, you have a better shot at something they’d actually like than you do when standing at the large, impersonal gift card aisle at the drug store. Even though geo-tagged gifts are a neat trick, it’s these social recommendations (when launched) that may end up being the service’s killer feature. Dropost.it, however, doesn’t have the resources of a Walmart behind it, just a bit of seed funding from Tampa’s TechStars Network member, Gazelle Lab, and two high-energy founders Orrett Davis and Ty Mathen. Prior to today’s launch, Dropost.it lined up Bob Schwartz, President of Magento and Jim Bennette, CEO of VisiStat, as advisors along with a local business leader, Tampa Bay’s John Walsh, President of Walsh Solutions. The Dropost.it site went live this morning. Considering the startup’s early stage, here’s hoping it stay up-and-running.
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| Is HTC’s 20% Revenue Dip Last Month A Sign Of Things To Come? Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:33 AM PST  Even though HTC has just come off of a record-breaking third quarter, it seems like some of the company’s mobile momentum is evaporating. The Taiwanese company recently cut their Q4 sales forecasts by more than 20%, and thanks to HTC’s unaudited November financials, it’s clear that the move was a wise one. The financial report reveals a considerable drop in revenue when compared to HTC’s performance this time in 2010. Last month HTC had revenues of NT$30.9 billion (or $1.02 billion), while last year they managed to pull in nearly NT$38.5 billion ($1.27 billion). That’s almost a 20% dip in revenues year-over-year, which could put an end to HTC’s continuous growth streak. Before this rough patch, HTC enjoyed six consecutive quarters of growth. It’s an impressive feat, considering competitors like LG’s mobile division has spent that same amount of time in a free fall. So what gives? Was it just a bad month, or is it a sign of bigger, more dire days to come? It’s tough to say: when HTC slashed their sales forecast, they pegged it partially on the “global macroeconomic downturn,” but they also admitted that increased market competition made their forecast inaccurate. I sincerely doubt that increasing market competition is going to diminish any time soon, and that leaves HTC in something of a tough spot. Apple has tremendous brand power and Samsung has design and production expertise. What does HTC have to lean on? Sense? Beats Audio? These are potentially great additions to a device, but it’s been a while since HTC has designed an entire package that took someone’s breath away. Though I went through a phase of spec-geek lust for the HTC Rezound, nothing that HTC has put out in recent months seems terribly new or groundbreaking. That in and of itself isn’t a bad thing — they’ve found a formula for touchscreen smartphones that has clearly been working for them — but maybe it’s time for HTC to mix things up a bit. Giving Sense the boot would be a welcome change, if I may be be so bold. I’m sure it has its fans, but all of Sense’s eye-candy always made whatever HTC device I was using feel just slow enough to be unsettling. Really, what I think HTC needs is a flagship device a la the Galaxy S II: something the represents the pinnacle of HTC’s design and technical abilities. If they could design, produce, and throw their weight behind a device like that, HTC could potentially get back on the growth track. Depressing though the November results may be, HTC can still take solace in the fact that they took the mantle of number one smartphone vendor in the United States, just barely pulling ahead of Apple in Q3. Still, it’s going to take some bold moves from HTC in coming months if they want to keep their mobile mojo intact. With any luck, their 2012 portfolio will further cement HTC’s position in the major leagues.
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| Urban Airship Says Its Push Notifications Work On Kindle Fire (Which It Found Out By Accident) Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:04 AM PST  Here’s a funny story: Urban Airship, a backend service provider for mobile developers, recently discovered that its push notifications offering works on Amazon’s new Kindle Fire…by accident. Although the company makes an Android push client called Helium, it had no clue that those notifications would also work on Amazon’s Kindle Fire out of the box. The company only found out after some developers started integrating the push mechanism into their own apps. Surprise! Well, maybe that’s not entirely unexpected news. After all, the Kindle Fire is an Android-based device. However, the version of Android it runs has been extensively customized. Amazon removed Google’s services, including the Android Market, C2DM (Android Cloud to Device Messaging framework), Google in-app payments support and more. The Fire also doesn’t support any apps that require the camera, gyroscope, GPS, Bluetooth, a microphone or a micro-SD card. So yes, it was kind of a surprise for the folks at Urban Airship to discover that their code worked just fine on the Fire without any further customizations. One of the first developers to use UA’s push notifications feature is Glu, the Android games publisher behind dozens of titles, including Bug Village, Eternity Warriors and Contract Killer. Says Glu VP of Sales & Marketing Mike DeLaet, their team just integrated the Urban Airship SDK into all their apps on day one of the Fire’s release and notifications began working immediately. It seems like Urban Airship is riding a wave of good news these days, with last month’s acquisition of SimpleGeo and its $15M Series C. Now it finds out that Kindle push works, too, without any code changes, opening up the service to what’s shaping up to be the number two tablet computer behind the iPad. Nice. To support developers trying to add push to their Kindle apps, Urban Airship has added this section to its developer FAQ. The company will make an official announcement later today.
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| BBC’s Global iPlayer Heads To The iPhone, iPod touch Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:52 AM PST  While not everyone would agree, I’m firmly of the belief that news (and most everything) sounds much better delivered in a British accent. The BBC’s new global iPlayer app, which has launched in more than 11 western European countries, offers up much more than just your daily news, but is chock-full of fun words like “arse,” “blimey,” and one of my personal favorites, “daft.” If you’re into that kinda thing (like myself), you likely want to know that the BBC will launch its iPlayer app on the iPhone and iPod touch on Thursday. The service works a bit differently for the Brits than it does for us international users, reports TNW. In the UK, the iPlayer is more of a back-up type service, allowing you to watch broadcasted content for up to 30 days after it airs. In Europe and now Canada, the app is a much broader subscription service, letting users choose from a wide library of current and former British programming. But according to the BBC, the growth and expansion of its iPlayer app is about much more than having a mobile presence. It’s about the migration of TV to mobile devices in general, and the BBC sees this platform as a way to further British culture as a whole. Jana Bennett, president of worldwide networks and Global BBC iPlayer, had this to say:
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