If kids went wild in your app store and racked up app purchases without your knowledge, you’re now eligible for a refund, according to a new FTC settlement. The settlement happened because Apple failed to provide users with proper notice when their children went into the app store on their devices. In other words, Apple failed to comply with an obligation to obtain users’ informed consent before charging them for goods and services. The amount agreed to, $32.5 million, is a floor for Apple, meaning that if users claim less than the agreed amount, the difference will go to the FTC. Long story short, your kids can’t unknowingly pile up a huge app store bill without your knowledge anymore.
Tag: apple
Kindle & Surface Gain Tablet Share Over Holidays
Early holiday shopping data is trickling in, and we now know that Amazon and Microsoft both gained significant tablet market share over the 2013 holiday season. According to Chitika, Amazon is now at 9.4% market share, a 0.6% increase, and Microsoft is at 2.3%, which represents a 0.5% increase. Apple’s tablets are very clearly out in front, with a 76.1% market share, but there were clear chunks taken out of that lead over the past two months. The holidays didn’t spell entirely bad news for Apple; they were the only company to see good holiday news in the smartphone market, as usage numbers increased again last month.
Apple Store iBeacon Shopping Goes Live
Apple is flipping the switch on its iBeacon Bluetooth Low Energy sensors across its 254 US stores today. It’s the largest deployment of the technology into stores, and it will only work if you have the Apple Store app and have given it permission to track you. When you walk into the store, the app will go into “In-Store mode,” and it will let you know about deals in the areas around you. Ultimately, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before; we’ll just have to wait and see how consumers react, and whether the technology actually drives sales. For now, it’s still a shiny toy.
Apple Purchases Topsy
In a move reported to be worth over $200 million, Apple purchased Topsy, the Twitter analytics engine that is one of the few services to offer unfettered access to Twitter’s proprietary data. It offers a concise way to analyze tweets, measure reach, and gather sentiment about a hashtag, message, or campaign more broadly; you can even search Twitter’s entire archive through the service. Why Apple purchased the startup, though, is a bit of a mystery. They don’t, at present, have any stake deep Twitter integration per se, but it could be looking to use Topsy to start metrics collection for iTunes Radio.
Apple Stores To Use iBeacon Customer Tracking
To mark the release of the new iPhones – and in part to demonstrate a proof-of-concept – Apple retail stores will implement iBeacon customer tracking to reportedly enhance the shopping experience for customers. iBeacon is similar to GPS, but it works indoors and it can be used to trigger certain actions on iPhones that are in proximity to iBeacon sensors. The plan is for iBeacon to work in conjunction with the Apple Store app and offer customers deals and location-based information. It’s an important development for the technology, one that marketers and consumers alike should keep a close eye on; it could determine brick-and-mortar interactive behavior for the forseable future.
Apple Acquires PrimeSense For Motion Tracking
Reports are in that Apple has acquired the 3D motion sensing tech company, PrimeSense. The Israeli pioneer developed the technology behind Microsoft’s original Kinect camera but will not be integrated in the next generation of the Kinect. We can’t help but think PrimeSense may power the much hyped iTV to enable gesture controls in the living room.
Google Play Music Comes To iOS
This development in Google Play Music’s development puts it squarely in competition with iTunes Radio, as well as other streaming applications like Pandora, Spotify, and Rdio, which all have iOS apps and are more deeply integrated into the Apple ecosystem. As well, Google is offering an “all access” option which would allow you to store your music in the cloud, stream music across multiple devices, and include the first month free. All access also adds a radio option. It will be important to see who emerges atop this growing heap of music streaming services.
Apple Patents Anticipatory Home Automation Technology
Geo-fencing is a hot technology, especially in the home, and Apple’s new patent indicates that it has no intentions of ignoring the trend. The patent describes a home automation system powered by location data fed from Apple’s mobile devices, as well as additional integrated peripherals like credit cards and RFID badges. With this many sensors contributing, it becomes possible to create extremely detailed inferences of not only where a person is at any time, but what they’re doing, or even who they’re with. With this powerful information, Apple’s system goes beyond home automation, and incorporates another hot trend: anticipatory computing. Should the system be easily implemented (which is usually a strong suit of Apple products), it could be a boon for both trend areas, and inspire further innovations for each.
iTunes Radio Updated Statistics
iTunes radio has continued to brag about its performance since its launch. In slightly overlooked news, Tim Cook said that Apple’s streaming service has over 20 million listeners, who have listened to over 1 billion songs thus far. Though the service is only available in the U.S., the numbers are indicative of the fact that listeners want to be able to access their music across multiple platforms, digitally, wherever and whenever they want. Between the success of Spotify, iTunes Radio, and Rdio, among others like GrooveShark, it’s clear that music listeners prefer this type of listening experience.
Apple’s iPad Announcement Comes Amid Meager Sales
Apple’s event tomorrow couldn’t come at a better time for its sales, according to new data released. The notion that Apple had entirely transitioned into “the iPad Company,” whose tablets would be the sole driving sales force, turned out to be strikingly incorrect. In the June quarter of this year, iPad sales figures dropped 14% year over year, to under 15 million units. In the midst of a tablet market that is becoming increasingly saturated, and is expected to grow by 50% this year alone, these numbers are cause for alarm in Apple’s camp. Part of the problem is that last June, the retina iPad debuted and triggered a large sales bump. In addition, Apple’s premium pricing, in comparison to competitors’ lower prices, is turning people away from Apple’s products. So it will be interesting to see how Apple prices the products it releases tomorrow, in addition to the usual gawking over the specs of the technology itself.
