RIM RELEASES NEW ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE THAT ALLOWS CORPORATE CONTROL OF iOS AND ANDROID DEVICES

In an apparent attempt to solidify its standing in the corporate world, RIM has unveiled a new platform that allows IT specialists to more tightly manage company devices, including those from rival manufacturers like Apple and Android. With the BlackBerry Mobile Fusion software, announced this morning, companies will be able to set up rules governing employee passwords apps and other software across a variety of smartphones and tablets, including the iPhone, iPad and Android handsets.

The system also allows managers to remotely wipe and lock any devices that go missing or stolen, potentially bringing enhanced security to a workplace that's become increasingly fragmented. "Our customers have been saying, 'We're moving to these different adoption models, and we'd like you on board with that,'" said Alan Panezic, vice president for enterprise product management, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Slated to launch during the first quarter of next year, Mobile Fusion represents RIM's first foray into the multi-platform management market, and may expand even further to encompass Windows Phone devices, as well. No word on pricing, but Panezic says it will be "competitive" with the market.

BUG REPORTED IN iOS 5.0.1, BATTERY ISSUE ALSO NOT RESOLVED

A bug that affects the contact list on Apple's iPhone 4S has been discovered after applying the iOS 5.0.1 OTA update. According to users the contact list is fine, however when receiving a call or a text the name does not appear. This might be confined to those on the Verizon network and doing the following procedure has been shown to fix this issue.

1) Open the Phone and dial *228. This is a Verizon over-the-air programming number.
2) When the system answer press 1 for “Program or activate your phone”
3) Wait for the call to disconnect. You should get a prompt stating something like, “Settings updated.”
4) Open the Task Manager (double click the home button) and kill the Phone, Message, and Contacts Applications
5) Wait a few minutes (I waited 3 just to be extra safe)
6) Open the Message App to verify the fix.

Also, a number of users are reporting the 5.0.1 update has not fixed their battery drain issue and in some cases it has made it worse. The 5.0.1 update was specifically deployed to correct the battery issue, however for some users that does not seem to be the case.

NINTENDO CONFIRMS NO iOS GAMES

Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata recently reiterated that Nintendo will not develop games for Apple’s iPad, iPod and iPhone, despite recent pressure from investors to jump on the iOS bandwagon. “This is absolutely not under consideration,” Iwata told the Japanese news outlet Nikkei following the company’s recent 3DS press conference. “If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.” Several analysts have argued that Nintendo will continue to struggle against mobile gaming platforms that offer a larger selection of free or $0.99 games. Nintendo recently dropped the price of the 3DS to $169.99, which helped increase sales, but the system is still expected to miss sales targets for the year. According to AdriaSang, which translated the Nikkei article, Iwata believes Nintendo’s current business model works and he expects that to be reflected during the holiday shopping season.

ADOBE BRINGS FLASH TO iPHONE AND iPAD FOR ONLY $4,500

During the IBC trade show in Amsterdam on Friday, Adobe officially took the wraps off of its new Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 and Adobe Flash Access 3.0 products, which will allow iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to access Adobe Flash content. Apple, which has long rejected Adobe’s Flash technology, doesn’t need to approve the tech for it to work, either. “With Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers now have a single, simple workflow for delivering content using the same stream to Flash-enabled devices or to the Apple iPhone and iPad,” Adobe said in a statement.

Flash Media Server 4.5 allows publishers to stream Flash content to iOS devices, which means support within the iOS Safari browser is not required. Instead of relying on a device’s processor to render the stream, which often degrades battery life and slows a device down, Adobe’s Flash Media Server 4.5 does all the legwork. Adobe Flash Media Server is available immediately to publishers for $4,500.

ANDROID UP, RIM DOWN, iOS FLAT IN JULY SMARTPHONE MARKET

According to Nielsen, Google’s Android platform gained once again during the three-month period ending in July, increasing it’s share by 1% over second-quarter totals to grab 40% of the U.S. smartphone market. Apple’s iOS stayed flat at 28% and RIM’s BlackBerry OS lost one point from June-quarter figures to fall to 19%. Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined to take 8% of the market — with Windows Phone responsible for just 1% on its own — and the ghost of smartphone operating systems past is now buried somewhere in the “Other” category. Nielsen also notes that 40% of mobile phone users between May and July of this year owned smartphones, and Android topped iOS in the firm’s survey of which smartphone platform users intend to buy next. From “innovators” to “late adopters,” each consumer group Nielsen polled but one — “early adopters” — found Android to be the most appealing OS for their next purchases.

APPLE RELEASES iTUNES MATCH BETA FOR DEVELOPERS

Apple released a developer beta of the iTunes Match system this evening. The system is described by Apple as follows:

iTunes Match stores your complete music library in iCloud, allowing you to enjoy your collection anywhere, anytime, on any iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or computer.

For the $25 yearly fee, iTunes Match will scan your existing iTunes music library and allow you to access it from any of your iTunes-linked Macs or iOS devices. Songs that already exist in Apple's iTunes music store will be streamed straight from Apple's master copy (at 256kbps bitrate) without a need to upload the songs yourself. Songs that don't exist in iTunes will be uploaded to iCloud. Either way, all your music (up to 25,000 songs) will be accessible from your various computers and iOS devices.

What wasn't clear before is the fact that music can be either streamed or downloaded locally to any of your computers or devices. While the video only shows the service on a Mac, we've confirmed it works the same way on iOS devices. So, essentially, you will have instant access to your entire music library from all of your Macs, iPhones, iPads, or iPod touches for only $25/year. This ability on your iOS devices means your music library won't need to take up valuable space on the device itself, as long as you have some sort of internet connection.

iTunes Match is expected to launch alongside iOS 5 this fall

SAMSUNG TO RELEASE CHATON APP FOR iOS, ANDROID, BB AND BADA

Samsung has promised ChatOn for “all major smartphone platforms,” which appears to mean Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Bada right now. With Samsung also developing Windows phones, it wouldn’t be surprising to see ChatOn appear there, too. Users will be able to send messages and photos, as well as share calendar items. Samsung’s also going to release a web client for carrying on conversations from any device with a modern browser.

ANDROID OS GETS BOOST AT THE EXPENSE OF iOS

Millennial Media reports a sizable swing in smartphone usage for the first time in several months, with Android usage on the firm’s network increasing from 54% in June to 61% in July. Android’s lead as reported by Millennial’s Mobile Mix report now extends through its eight consecutive month, and Apple’s iOS again finds itself a distant No. 2. While iOS has declined slowly but steadily over the past few months on the Millennial ad network, July saw Apple’s OS drop six points to 21%. IOS lost just one point in each of the previous two months. RIM’s BlackBerry platform dropped one point to 14% in July, Symbian slid one point to 2% and Windows Phone stayed flat at 2%.

STUDY SHOWS ANDROID MORE LIKELY TO DOMINATE MORE STATES THAN iOS AND BLACKBERRY

Jumptap recently released a report that separated the 50 states by mobile operating system. It mapped out which states are prominently iOS users, which use Android the most, and which states use BlackBerry smartphones based on 83 million users on its ad network.

New England and the Midwest represented the largest pockets of iOS users while Texas, California and much of the West were Android users. New York is primarily a BlackBerry state, perhaps due to the number of corporate users in New York City. Alaska was neutral and Hawaii had more iOS users than Android or BlackBerry.

Jumptap collected its data from its mobile advertising network, so the data doesn’t represent sales or market share of course.

GOOGLE+ APP NOW AVAILABLE FOR iPHONE

Apple finally approved the official Google+ application for iOS on Tuesday. Google took the wraps off of Google+, its new social network, on June 28th and immediately made an Android application available to its users. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Apple to approve the iPhone version. Google+ for iOS is supported on the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4, provided that the device is running iOS 3.1 or later. There’s no word if a dedicated iPad version is in the works.

APPLE RELEASES iOS 4.3.4 TO FIX PDF VULNERABILITIES

Apple has just released iOS 4.3.4 for its iOS devices including the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad and third and fourth-generation iPod touch devices. Apple also released a comparable update for Verizon Wireless’ CDMA iPhone 4, iOS 4.2.9. The new build includes a security update that addresses a vulnerability with PDF files. It also patches the extremely popular jailbreak.me jailbreak solution, so it will no longer function on devices that update. IOS 4.3.4 is available immediately via iTunes.

MICROSOFT'S SMARTPHONE SHARE DOWN 35% AFTER WINDOWS PHONE 7 RELEASE

ComScore issued its May report on mobile subscriber market share in the U.S. last week, as usual, Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iOS grew more popular in the month, mostly at RIM’s expense. Perhaps equally as troubling as RIM’s continued slide, however, is Microsoft’s position with Windows Phone. As noted by Winrumors, Microsoft’s share of the U.S. smartphone market has dropped a whopping 35% since it released its next-generation smartphone platform in November of last year. At that time, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile accounted for an estimated 9% of smartphones sold in the U.S. In May, Microsoft’s combined share was just 5.8%.

The lack of carrier attention has left the OS as something of an afterthought thus far. With Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” devices due later this year and Nokia set to launch its first Windows Phone before 2012, Microsoft is well-positioned globally. Here in the U.S. however, the Redmond-based tech giant needs far more carrier support if it hopes to make a dent in an already crowded smartphone market.

LEAK: FACEBOOK PHOTO SHARING APP

A new Facebook iPhone app built around photo sharing has leaked. Some images make it seem as if the service will eventually reside within the existing Facebook iPhone app, while others seem to showcase an entirely new app (or a completely redesigned Facebook app). It’s entirely possible that both will be correct. It would make a lot of sense for Facebook, which is by far the largest photo service on the Internet with close to 100 billion photos, to make their own dedicated photo app. The space is exploding with popularity right now as Instagram and others are gaining millions of users quickly. Regardless, Facebook’s focus on mobile photos going forward is very clear.

It also looks as if at least a part of these apps are using the some HTML similar to what has been recently rolled out to m.facebook.com. This is not surprising. Given their talk of commitment to HTML5, Facebook likely wants to make an app that is as portable as possible. That is, while it may be built first for iOS, it can easily be ported to Android and other platforms with the HTML5 elements in place.

ANDROID AND iOS CONTINUE TO GROW; RIM FALLS AGAIN

On Friday comScore released its latest mobile subscriber market share report, which suggests that both Android and iOS are increasing their U.S. market shares at the cost of RIM’s BlackBerry OS. ComScore surveyed 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers during a three month period ending in April 2011 and found that Android’s U.S. market share jumped 5.2 percentage points to a 34.6% grip of the industry. Meanwhile, Apple’s iOS market share grew a marginal 1.3 percentage points to a 26% share. RIM’s BlackBerry OS share fell from 30.4% in January to 25.7%.

Things don't look good for RIM, the once mighty titan. While RIM continues to rely on enterprise integration, most enterprise are making way for the more nimble and cheaper iOS and Android devices.

LODSYS STILL GOING AFTER DEVELOPERS AFTER APPLE DEFENSE

A firm called Lodsys has been targeting Apple and Android developers that it believes are using its in-app purchase technology illegally. Despite Apple’s efforts to argue that its developers are covered under the same license, Lodsys doesn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon — it’s giving developers 21 days to cough up licensing fees before it files lawsuits. In a few recent blog posts, Lodsys explained its position on the matter:

[Apple's] letter was very surprising as Apple and Lodsys were in confidential discussions and there was clearly disagreement on the interpretation of the license terms of Apple’s agreement. Before, during and after these interactions, Lodsys has carefully considered this issue and consulted several legal experts to consider Apple’s claims. We stand firm and restate our previous position that it is the 3rd party Developers that are responsible for the infringement of Lodsys’ patents and they are responsible for securing the rights for their applications. Developers relying on Apple’s letter do so to their own detriment and are strongly urged to review Apple’s own developer agreements to determine the true extent of Apple’s responsibilities to them.

Lodsys is so confident that it has the upper hand in this legal battle that it’s offering developers $1,000 if courts rule that Apple’s license does, in fact, cover them. According to MacRumors, the developers currently being targeted include Combay, Iconfactory, Illusion Labs, Machael G. Karr, Quickoffice, Richard Shinderman, and Wulven Games.

Google has yet to respond to Lodsys’ complaints against Android developers.

ROLLS ROYCE iOS APP ALLOWS YOU TO DESIGN YOUR OWN CUSTOM VEHICLE

One of the most impressive uses for a device like an iPhone or iPad is that it can give potential customers access and capabilities that were previously impossible. In the case of the Rolls-Royce iOS app for iOS, car lovers can now build their own Rolls-Royce Phantom, Ghost, or any other vehicle in the lineup right from their home; And they can do so in a way that we haven’t seen before in an iOS app.

For starters, the 3D modeling and views are beautiful — so good that if you connect your iPad to your TV over HDMI, it still looks smooth and crisp — and besides having the ability to build your car from the ground up, you can even pick a custom paint job by taking or using a photo of something on your device and matching the paint swatch to any color in that photograph.

While the percentage of iOS users that can afford a Rolls-Royce is another story, it’s a smart move from a company that will do whatever the customer wants, and it lets potential customers explore Rolls-Royce in any setting they choose.

WEB-BASED GOOGLE MAPS UPDATED FOR BOTH iOS AND ANDROID

Google, noting that 40% of its Google Maps users are on mobile devices, updated its Google Maps Web app for iOS and Android today. We’ve been pretty satisfied with the native applications on Android and iOS, but the website allows you to access many of the options that are available from a desktop browser, too. That includes the ability to view your location, search nearby areas with suggestions and auto-complete, get directions for driving, transit, biking, or walking, view different lays, view Place pages, and access your starred locations.

You can access the revamped interface by visiting maps.google.com from your iOS or Android device.

LODSYS SUING iOS DEVS FOR IN-APP PURCHASING

A handful of iOS developers received letters this week from a patent holding firm claiming that their applications that offer in-app purchases infringe on the firm's intellectual property (IP).

The letter threatens legal action if developers don't license the patent within 21 days. Lodsys, the firm in question, has apparently patented a system that collects usage data and facilitates feedback between a customer and vendor, though it doesn't address financial transactions specifically. The allegedly infringing applications use Apple's in-app purchase tool to encourage users to upgrade to a paid version after downloading a free app.

Though it's possible that Lodsys has sent a similar warning to Apple, only individual developers confirmed receiving the document.

The developers are understandably unwilling to share too many details at this point -- even though Apple developed the framework, developers could still be liable. Lodsys appears to be in the business of launching suits referencing U.S. patent 7,222,078, having gone after Canon, HP, Samsung, and other giants earlier this year. As the developers that have come to light so far are independent, with limited budgets, some have reached out to Apple legal for assistance, and are awaiting response.

AMAZON CLOUD PLAYER STREAMS TO iOS DEVICES AFTER UPDATE

Amazon Cloud Player has been laying low following its scuffle with Sony Music, but that hasn't kept the company's developers from rolling a crucial new feature out -- support for Apple's iOS devices, which it didn't have on day one. Despite running in the Safari browser window, we've confirmed that songs will indeed play. The interface of the Cloud Player is almost the same as, if not identical to, the page that loads up on your computer browser.

The Cloud Player works flawlessly with the multitasking controls in iOS; the usual forward/pause/volume options are all usable as you play Angry Birds. Sadly, there is just one bump in the road that keeps the process from being perfectly smooth: mobile Safari prohibits you from doing drag-and-drops, which adds a couple extra steps to the process of adding songs to your playlists.

APPLE RELEASES iOS 4.3.3, ADDRESSES LOCATION TRACKING "BUG"

Apple has released iOS version 4.3.3 for the iPhone 4 (GSM), iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad and iPod touch (third and fourth generation), just as we reported. The only changes noted by Apple with this release pertain to the location tracking bug discovered recently. Apple states that this release “contains changes to the iOS crowd-sourced location database cache.” More specifically, the update “reduces the size of the cache,” “no longer backs the cache up to iTunes,” and “deletes the cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.” An update carrying similar changes — iOS 4.2.8 — is available for the Verizon Wireless iPhone 4 as well.