It took iPad users took nearly a year and a half to reach the 3 billion downloads mark; iPhone users took as long as two years before being able to reach that level. In comparison, Android tablets only have around 440 million downloads thus far.

According to the report, Android still trails greatly behind the iPad mainly because Android tablets in the market are still using older versions of OS, which disadvantages users from enjoying the better effects of apps produced from more advanced software development kits.

Additionally, Apple’s iPad apps are generally considered to be of a better quality compared to Android tablet-specific apps. In Quarter 3 2011 alone, there were 120,000 apps specifically developed for the iPad.

However, ABI Research expects an impending shift in future, as more manufacturers are adopting the more advanced Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, and their concerted efforts to narrow specifications gap between their tablets and the iPad.

3 Billion iPad Apps Downloads Leave Android In The Dust originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 6, 2012.

Apple released their latest and grandest operating system for their iDevices, the iOS 5 on 12th October 2011. I’ve had it installed on my iPhone and iPad 2 for a week now so I thought I’d share my views of it so far.

My verdict: It ROCKS!

The new notification center is definitely well executed. Although it takes a leaf out of the Android playbook, its execution in iOS 5 is so much more refined. There fact that there is a good amount of configurability available for it is also a plus point.

iMessage is another tasty morsel. Is it better than 3rd party apps like WhatsApp Messenger or Kik Messenger? Not really, but it is the simplest, considered that it is built into the OS. The keyboard display has also been tweaked so that it disappears when you scroll up to look at an earlier part of a conversation.

Synching your iPhone through WiFi is not exactly walk in the park, but once you get the hang of it, it works like a charm. No more cables for me!

Tabbed browsing in Safari is a long awaited feature and well implemented. On the iPad, the split keyboard takes a little getting used to, but is a boon for browsing in landscape.

And you can now delete calls from your Call List, unlike before where you can only clear the entire list. Useful for those people who frequently make incognito calls (wink wink).

You can also designate your own custom SMS tone (previously you can only do that for ringtones). Mine is now set to the famous Wilhelm scream.

Getting to the camera from the lock screen isn’t as fast as I’d hope it would be; you have to double-press the home button before the camera button appears. But using the volume up button as the shutter key is a much welcomed addition after years of fiddling with its on screen counterpart. The photo editing features are minimal but the cropping tool is very useful.

I haven’t played around with Twitter integration yet and don’t really see myself using it very much.

Overall, iOS 5 feels faster, snappier, and more user friendly. Too bad you’d need to upgrade to the iPhone 4S in order to fully appreciate iOS 5, i.e. the Siri voice recognition feature. But those not willing to upgrade to the 4S can try Vlingo or Dragon Dictation for the voice recognition needs.

A short video on iOS 5:

Apple iOS 5: A week later originally appeared on GreyReview.com on October 19, 2011.

Anyone can download contents off Mobile9. Out of the 30 million active monthly active users, 9 million are registered members. Majority of the users are from India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines and also, Germany and the US.

Malaysia-based Mobile9 has over 1.6 million free mobile contents – apps, wallpapers, ringtones, screensavers, etc. To date, the site has registered over 11 billion free downloads. The mobile contents sharing portal also has an impressive 600 million impressions a month!

Essentially, Mobile9 aims to enable a better contents and apps discovery experience for users of today’s leading mobile operating systems. It acts as a platform agnostic intermediary between content creators and content consumers, targeting the Asian region.

Content creators can post free contents on Mobile9; only registered users can post contents. Non-registered and registered users can download for free the contents various popular handsets, namely Apple, BlackBerry, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC, and LG. The most popular platforms are Symbian and Android; Apple iOS is showing impressive growth. The company generates most of its revenue from online ads.

A Page on Mobile9 Website

Mobile9 Delivering 100 TERABYTES of Mobile Contents Per Month originally appeared on GreyReview.com on August 18, 2011.

Another update is the display of interactive ads. Among the high-profile news apps, SkyGrid is one of the first apps (another is Flipboard) to introduce ads. Quite surely, ads strategy will be adopted by most (if not all) mobile news aggregators.

SkyGrid on iPad: Interactive ads

The older version of SkyGrid app was unappealing, unexciting and didn’t make it to 10 iPad Apps to Rock your News Experience. However, the latest SkyGrid version 2.0 impresses me. The app leverages on its Information Velocity algorithm (US patent issued on August 23 2007; invented by Founder / CEO Kevin Pomplun).

A method is provided of determining the how information from any information system changes over time. WebPages A through WebPages Z with nodes A through Z, are located, where A through Z are integers. Timestamp values for each of a node from A through Z are retrieved. Timestamp values from A are subtracted to create a denominator time value. A distance between the nodes A through Z is determined by calculating a number of edges in the digraph to create a numerator value. The numerator value is divided by the distance to provide a velocity value.

The patented technology is capable of detecting the fastest spreading news stories at a particular point in time. In addition to showing the trending topics in the real-time social web, the app retrieves latest updates on interests you’re following. It crawls over 1 million news sources – mainstream, blogs, social sites, etc. Like other news app, the app display article in excerpt and web modes.

SkyGrid on iPad: Single article view

SkyGrid Inc. was founded in 2005, with operation located in Sunnyvale, California. It launched its iPad app in April 2010 and currently available on iOS and Android platforms. Investors are RRE Ventures, BlackRock, Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, DFJ Frontier, Esther Dyson and others.

SkyGrid news app goes 2.0, unveils monetization strategy originally appeared on GreyReview.com on May 18, 2011.

News aggregation apps are the ones delivering cool innovative news consumption experience on the iPad. These apps are sleek on the outside, badass on the inside. This market space is red hot right now and expect to see more news apps releases in the coming months. Anyway, here are the ten top notch, fabulously free news app for the iPad available today:

Zite analyzes user’s reading habits to provide personalized news experiences. This ‘digital’ magazine crawls over 500,000 news sources on the web and display latest news (refresh every 30 minutes) to users in magazine-like format.

Anyone can start using the app without creating an account. You link Zite to your Twitter, Google Reader and Delicious. By analyzing these networks, Zite figures out your preferences and generates a list of recommended categories (or “sections”) for you. You can also create your own categories. WIthout linking to these accounts, Zite by default display to you some of the popular categories.

Personalized Top Stories and Sections on Zite

Zite continuously learn from your clicking habits – what types of news contents you click on (and which you didn’t click on), how long is the article, how long you spend reading the article. You can also manually tell Zite your preferred topics or ask it to grab more news from specific sources. Zite continuously personalize your news browsing experiences.

Page in Reading Mode

When the app was first released, it rendered full stories in its own reading-mode interface (see above), which altered the original layout of the pages and also, remove ads. This drew flaks from media companies. In response, Zite now serve more contents in web mode. In this mode, users can still easily share/save articles on Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper and Delicious. Users also can convert from web mode to a reading mode page.

I find Zite particularly useful for serendipitous discovery. The more I use it, the more I discover new news sources and interesting contents. Although its interface is not as visually captivating as its closest competitor Flipboard, Zite’s personalization engine is marvelously smart.

Created by Zite, Inc. (Vancouver, Canada). Launched March 08 2011. Tested version 1.1.1.

Two distinctive features of Taptu : Rubik’s Cube of news and create / curate your news mix. Each news stream comes with a Rubik’s Cube of news (with an option to hide it), which is a collage of articles to preview upcoming stories in the stream.

Another interesting feature is the ability create your own mix of news streams. Combine and curate two or more sources to create your own stream. It’s similar to the way one create folder on iPhone / iPad. A single personalized stream can be built around your interest, by aggregating news feeds related to that interest. Feeds can be from Taptu’s StreamStore, Bing RSS search and Google Reader. Users can then share the mixed streams to Twitter and Facebook. Users can also use the ready-made streams.

Taptu uses its proprietary mobile search technology and access thousands of news sources. Its built-in recommendation engine constantly monitor what you’re reading and your searches. From these signals, the app delivers related news and sources.

Two ways to manage your streams:

1. Click on Edit on top left to access StreamsStudio. This is where you customize your streams to suit your preferences. You can delete, re-arrange the order of your streams, change color of the stream’s title bar, and also Add streams. Each stream can be a single source (e.g. The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company) or a categories (e.g. Design and Tech & Gadgets – a curated list). You can edit the Taptu curated topic lists – (i) Unmerge selected websites from the topic list to create separate streams and (ii) Delete a website from the list. To add your own sources, link Taptu to your Google Reader.
2. Click Add button on top right to access StreamStore to quick add stream. Each stream can either be a single-source stream or multiple-sources steam (a category like Travel with a curated list of sources).

When I first used this app, I didn’t quite like it. News streams clutter the interface. To minimize the clutter-feel, I enlarge the window size of the streams to see fewer visible stories on each streams. This seems to make Taptu quite visually attractive.

Taptu is built to provide users with more control over their streams. Taptu CEO said, “Our customers have been telling us they are craving more control over the streams and we’re delivering that today.” But I have a hunch that many would state more control when asked. In reality, what most users want is just right balance of show-me-what-you-got and I-want-control when it comes to news app.

Created by Taptu Ltd. (Cambridge, England). Launched April 14 2011. Tested version 1.4.1.

Hitpad offers multi-dimensional news reading experience on rich visual dashboard. The app positioned itself as an “instrumentation by measuring, analyzing and determining what is important to consume in order to minimize reverb and improve discovery”. Over time, the app learns and fine-tune the delivery of most relevant bite-sized information snippets based on users’ interests.

News categories are Top Stories, Entertainment, Business, Sports, Technology, Canada News, U.K. News, U.S. News, World. Each category displays 10 latest trending topics. Each topic displays five different content types – news, tweets, videos, photos and search results.

When using Hitpad, I can’t rid off the nagging Am I missing something else? feeling. Nevertheless, the Trending Topics is quite useful to gain some brushstroke perspectives of what’s the latest and hottest in the interweb. As of now, Hitpad is 100% machine-curated and it may integrate with users’ social streams soon. Overall, Hitpad is a useful app if you are scan mode, rather than read mode.

Created by Instant Discover, Inc. (Tel Aviv, Israel). Launched April 05 2011. Tested version 1.3.

Pulse News Reader app re-imagined the presentation of RSS feeds on smart mobile devices. You can organize news streams into five customizable pages (lists). Choose news sources from curated lists or you can search for your own news source using simple keywords. On each page, you can add up to 12 sources. In total, you can have up to 60 news sources on your Pulse app. Link Pulse to your Facebook account to display all links shared by your friends. For each shared link, you can Like, comment and Post to Your Wall, directly on the app.

Pulse Catalog is a collection of news sources to enable news discovery. Listed publishers in Featured Sources are refreshed every Friday. Browse categories like News & Analysis, Technology, Entertainment, Business, Sports, and Fun, to find interesting news sources.

Pulse News is one of the best news aggregator today. It is (still) superb, aesthetically and functionally. It made popular the streams stack, grid-like layout design. Even Steve Jobs heaped praises on the app during his Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 keynote. The app was originally priced at $4.99 but turned free in November 2010. So, a must have for news junkie!

Created by Alphonso Labs (San Francisco, California, USA). Launched May 31 2010. Tested version 2.2.1.

FLUD looks stylish and calls itself a personalized news ecosystem. Like Pulse, this app adopts grid-like layout. Unlike Pulse, FLUD comes with pre-defined sections such as Technology, Creative, World/Politics, and Business. Tap on the heart icon below each article, the image flip over to reveal Share options (I find this flip-over appealing). It doesn’t have any limit on sources you can add (Pulse with 60 sources limit).

Each news article can be viewed in either text or web mode. In text mode, FLUD doesn’t format the article for pleasant reading experience. Another drawback is the absence of Refresh All button and you have to tap on the Refresh button for each stream.

Other than its visual attractiveness, FLUD is void of wow features. But I’m sure this will change in the coming months, considering the company’s fresh funding of $1 million. An app to watch.

Created by Made By Rabbits, Inc. (San Diego, USA). Launched August 05 2010. Tested version 1.1.4.

News360 is damn good at what it is built for, which is news aggregation. Using proprietary linguistic analysis engine, News360 scans over 1000 news sources and aggregates over 100,000 articles each day. The articles are categorize into clusters and extract relevant articles to display them to its users. Stories are slotted under the pre-defined categories like Top Stories, Latest News, World, Food, U.S., Arts & Culture, Business, and Sports.

Some of the cool features of News360 app:

• Multi-sources news story: Each news story is accompanied by excerpt, web view of the story, a list of related stories from other sources, and photos compiled from various sources. This is useful, if you want to find out which other media outlets also cover the story.
• Localization: This app is location-aware and able to aggregate local news using your GPS location. Travelers too can link TripIt to news360 to get local news of all upcoming destinations.
• Personalization: Identify users’ reading behaviors to provide more personalized news contents over time.
• 360 view: A visual displays of photos from current news. Click on images to see titles and read the story.

News360 may not be the prettiest in class but its news aggregation is probably best in class. This app never disappoint every time I use it. This workhorse is a must-have app on your iPad.

Created by News360 Ltd. (Moscow, Russia). Launched February 28, 2011. Tested version 1.3.

Feedly is a barebone magazine-like news app, with a minimalist approach to its interface. I first used Feedly as a Firefox add-on and it is an amazing alternative to Google Reader. Similar to the add-on, link your Google Reader to personalize Feedly app. Its algorithms will retrieve the most engaging contents from your subscribed sources and display them prominently in your home section. Feedly is built on HTML5 framework called Streets, “which allows us to run the very same app/code on both iOS and Android and adapt dynamically to different device form factors.” Even if you don’t link to Google Reader, you can use the app to browse Feedly’s curated list of sources.

One of the features I like is its reformatter. In single article mode, you can get app to reformat a web page to make it mobile-friendly. This makes the articles display beautifully on your iPad. However, Feedly doesn’t work in landscape mode and inability to share news articles on Facebook.

If you are looking for a good alternative to Google Reader, then Feedly app is worth a look. This app beautifies your RSS feeds.

Created by DevHD Inc. (Atherton, California, USA). Launched March 11 2011. Tested version 2.0.1.

What makes Blancspot unique is the stunning, quality images (from top photojournalists) accompanying each news story. Launch the app and it gets to work immediately. Tap on any news on the Dashboard, sit back and immerse in the stream of latest news in categories like Headlines, Sports, Technology, Business, and other topics. Blancspot combines software and human editors to aggregate news and commentaries.

This app aims to provide cinematic news experience. Specifically, engaging and attracting users with visual and auditory elements. In addition to beautiful photos, each news article is coupled with Twitter stream for easy access to latest, on-going discussion about a particular topic.

Blancspot didn’t quite impress me in its news coverage, depth and width. But this is an amazing app to convert your iPad into a tabletop display for news. The beautiful images coupled with background music is quite a marvelous experience.

Created by Blancspot Media LCC (San Francisco, California, USA). Launch date: March 9 2011. Tested version 1.4.4.

Instead of presenting news in text, the Newsy app provides daily news commentary, in video format. This Airplay-enabled app calls itself multi-source video news analysis. Newsy team identifies a news story, compiles news sources and provides value-added analysis of perspectives from multiple sources. Then, the different perspectives of a news story is presented in a 2-to-3 minutes, streaming video (with an anchor). By comparing perspectives from different sources, a viewer can form a more informed opinion.

Videos are categorized into World, US, Politics, Business, Entertainment, Technology, Sci/Health, and Sports. These videos can be accessible by anyone on Newsy website.

You can download short video clips for viewing them later on your iPad. You can also browse through videos and create a playlist of video clips to personalize your news bulletin. But Newsy should have a Play All button to automatically play every clip in each category.

Newsy has a different take on news consumption on the iPad, ushering the interesting era of mobile video journalism. Sometimes multimedia contents deliver news story better compared to text format.

Created by Media Convergence Group, Inc. (Columbia, Missouri, USA). Launch date: April 22 2010. Tested version 2.5.3.

Flipboard is quite a breathtaking app and a marvel on the iPad. This social magazine generated lots of buzz when it was launched in July last year. TIME magazine named Flipboard one of the 50 Best Inventions in 2010. According to its CEO Mike McCue, the app is seeing 11.4 million flips per day, with over 2 million app downloads (so far).

Flipboard deserves all the accolades it received for its innovative, intuitive interface. Its rendering engine is something to marvel at. The app aggregates news contents shared by your friends on Twitter / Facebook, photos from Instagram / Flickr, and integrate with Google Reader, – and transform the news contents into beautiful magazine-like format. The app can also extract-and-display contents from Facebook groups, fan pages, Wall, News feed, Friends’ posts.

Add any of these media sites – The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Telegraph, ABC News, All Things Digital, Bon Appetit, Lonely Planet, SB Nation, SF Chronicle/Gate, Uncrate or The Washington Post Magazine. For selected stories from these sites which are shared on Twitter or Facebook, Flipboard will format the news article into magazine-like reading experience. Flipboard is also experimenting with in-stories ads.

Flipboard obviously assumes the wisdom of the crowd and thus, personalizes your news experience by connecting to your social networks. Your social network should know best what you like to see. But Flipboard lacks personalization technology like Zite, in terms of understanding reading behaviors and personalize news The right mixture of Flipboard’s innovative interface and Zite’s personalization capability might just be the right success formula for an iPad news app. Nevertheless, Flipboard is definitely a must-have news iPad app.

Created by Flipboard, Inc. (San Francisco, California, USA). Launch date: July 21 2010. Tested version 1.2.1.

Which one is your favorite? Is your favorite missing from this list? Share your thoughts with us.

10 iPad Apps to Rock your News Experience originally appeared on GreyReview.com on May 17, 2011.

By using the Yes Life app, users can avoid roaming charges. The app allows you to make (and receive) carrier-grade calls using any broadband networks – WiFi or 3G (not necessary Yes 4G broadband service). Someone just tested it on McDonald’s WiFi and said “No lag and the voice is quite clear too.” Users can call Malaysian numbers with RM0.09 per minute; RM0.09 for each SMS sent. IDD rate starting from RM0.09 per minute for calls to over 200 countries.

With FaceTime app, iPad and iPod Touch users can already video-chat with one another over Wi-Fi. With mobile social text-messaging tools like Kik Messenger, Mogwee and Facebook’s Beluga, users can exchange instant messages with one another. So, where are the propositions for the Yes Life app? Key differentiators possibly include a personal mobile number, send SMS to other mobile numbers, carrier-grade mobile voice calls, Quality of Service for its 4G network and maybe, app performance.

Looking forward to hear comments from Microsoft/Skype and Viber about these performance results.

Now, Yes Life for iOS app users will get RM5 free credits pre-loaded (valid until July 12 2011). Android and BlackBerry versions will be available soon.

Interfaces of Yes Life app

Some other latest details about the Yes 4G services:

• Since March 2011, data volume increased by 117% (from 104TB to 226TB), voice by 75% (from 1 Million minutes to 1.75 million minutes) and SMS messages sent by 28% (from 670,000 to 859,000).
• Yes Life for PC, downloaded 55,000 times already.
• Yes network with 1700 base stations, to date.

Yes Life video

YTL launches Yes Life app for iOS, competing with FaceTime, Skype, Kik, Beluga, etc. originally appeared on GreyReview.com on May 12, 2011.

Here are some photos of iPad 2 queues at some of the Apple reseller stores today in Kuala Lumpur / Klang Valley areas.

Machines, Suria KLCC

photo by Daniel Riveong on Twitter.

photo by Machines on Facebook.

Machines, Sunway Pyramid

photo by Ramakrishnan CN on Facebook.

photo by Andrew Lee on Twitter.

Machines, Mid-Valley

photo by Machines on Facebook.

photo by Lowyat.NET on Twitter.

photo by Sharine L. on Twitter.

Machines, Lot 10

photo by YH Lim.

Switch, The Mines

photo by Muhammad Hijazi on Twitter.

Macstudio, Berjaya Times Square

photo by YH Lim.

Mac City, 1Utama

photo by Mei Ng on Facebook.

Macstudio, Low Yat Plaza

photo by YH Lim.

iPad 2 Sold Out notices

photo by YH Lim.

iPad 2 swarms in Malaysia: Launch Day [Photos] originally appeared on GreyReview.com on April 29, 2011.

• reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
• ceases backing up this cache, and
• deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.

These upgrades are mostly invisible to end-users. Apple also released series of Q&A to address some of the concerns raised during the past 1 week, since the discovery of iPhone tracker.

Some interesting points:

• Apple said that it is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple acknowledged that confusion is mainly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.
• Apple elaborates on why iPhone is logging user’s locations:
  

  The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

• As mentioned above, Apple will cease to backup the crowd-sourced cache in the upcoming software update.
• Apple highlighted two bugs (which will be fixed in the software updates next week) – (i) storing so much location data on the iPhone and (ii) even with turn off Location Services, iPhones continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database.
• Besides the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi and hotspot and cell tower data, Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.
• Apple iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads

Apple Q&A in full

April 27 2011

Apple Q&A on Location Data

Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?
Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?
Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?
The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?
This data is not the iPhone’s location data—it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?
It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?
We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?
Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.

Software Update
Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

* reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
* ceases backing up this cache, and
* deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.

In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.

Apple offers Software Updates and Answers to remedy the fiasco of iPhone Tracking originally appeared on GreyReview.com on April 27, 2011.

LATEST: IT’S OFFICIAL. Apple just announced iPad 2 launch dates – Japan (Thursday April 28) ; Hong Kong, India, Israel, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and UAE (Friday April 29).

Back in March 2011, Apple Inc. announced that iPad 2  will be available in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and additional countries in April. April is now coming to the end and the anticipation for the iPad 2 here in Malaysia is reaching fever pitch. (The original iPad was launched in Malaysia in November 2010).

Grace Chng, the Digital Life editor for Singapore’s The Straits Time speculated in her blog that the iPad 2 will be released in Singapore on April 29th, taking into account Apple’s penchant for choosing Fridays to kick off sales of new iPhone models and the original iPad.  Meanwhile, Techtree reported that Apple will launch the iPad 2 in India later this week, with rumor that the device will be available in Japan on the 28th.

Will Malaysia be in the list of additional countries which will be getting the iPad 2 this week? Indications from a discussion on the popular Lowyat forum seem positive.

At around 7pm this evening, Apple Premium Reseller Machines this image on its Facebook Page with a caption: work in progress. The image showing workers getting ready queue rope. Earlier, it tweeted: Stay tuned for an IMPORTANT announcement tonight.

Can it really be for iPad 2 OR it is for the launch of white iPhone 4? According to this article, white iPhone 4 will launch today, with sources informed that numerous stores and even Best Buy have announced that they will start selling the White iPhone 4 from April 27. PC Magazine also reported the impending launch of white iPhone 4 on April 27 2011.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE 1: It’s confirmed, iPad 2 is coming to Malaysia.

CUPERTINO, California—April 27, 2011—Apple® today announced that iPad® 2, the second-generation of its breakthrough post-PC device, will arrive in Japan on Thursday, April 28 and Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and eight additional countries on Friday, April 29. iPad 2 will be available at Apple retail stores at 9 a.m. local time, select Apple Authorized Resellers, and online through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com) beginning at 1 a.m. Additionally, iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available in China beginning Friday, May 6.

iPad 2 features an entirely new design that is 33 percent thinner and up to 15 percent lighter than the original iPad, while maintaining the same stunning 9.7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen. iPad 2 features Apple’s new dual-core A5 processor for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics and now includes two cameras, a front-facing VGA camera for FaceTime® and Photo Booth®, and a rear-facing camera that captures 720p HD video, bringing the innovative FaceTime feature to iPad users for the first time. Though it is thinner, lighter, faster and packed with new features, iPad 2 still delivers up to 10 hours of battery life* that users have come to expect.

Pricing & Availability
iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available in Japan on April 28 and Hong Kong, India, Israel, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and UAE on April 29 for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model and $699 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available in China on May 6, and further international availability will be announced at a later date.

UPDATE 2: Apple said white iPhone 4 will be available beginning tomorrow in 28 countries.

CUPERTINO, California—April 27, 2011—Apple® today announced that the white iPhone® 4 will be available beginning tomorrow. White iPhone 4 models will be available from Apple’s online store (www.apple.com), at Apple’s retail stores, AT&T and Verizon Wireless stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

“The white iPhone 4 has finally arrived and it’s beautiful,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We appreciate everyone who has waited patiently while we’ve worked to get every detail right.”

iPhone 4 is the most innovative phone in the world, featuring Apple’s stunning Retina™ display, the highest resolution display ever built into a phone resulting in super crisp text, images and video, and FaceTime®, which makes video calling a reality.

Pricing & Availability
White models of iPhone 4 will be available in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Macau, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, UK and the US, beginning Thursday, April 28 and in many more countries around the world soon. White iPhone 4 will be available for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model with a new two year agreement through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), at Apple’s retail stores, AT&T and Verizon Wireless stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

iPad 2 or white iPhone 4, which one is launching in Malaysia? originally appeared on GreyReview.com on April 27, 2011.

Nielsen also surveyed those who have purchased a smartphone in the past 6 months. Half of them said they have purchased an Android device. Only 25% have purchased Apple iOS devices, followed by BlackBerry 15% and Windows 7 7%.

Another latest report – Mobile Developer Report found that mobile developers remain bullish about the iOS platform. Appcelerator and IDC surveyed a total of 2,760 Appcelerator Titanium developers in early April 2011. 91% of the developers surveyed are “very interested” in iPhone development and 86% for iPad. For Android, 85% saying they are “very interested” for Android phones and 71% for tablets. Microsoft’s Windows 7 in distant third with 29%.

Mobile Developer Report by Appcelerator / IDC (Full Report)

Google Android desired by consumers; Apple iOS attracted more mobile developers originally appeared on GreyReview.com on April 27, 2011.

Imagine a room, a command center of sorts, illuminated by dozens of monitors in front of which nameless observers sit scrutinizing the data displayed before them. On the room walls are bigger displays; one showing the map of the country, some showing overhead views of several cities while others track the movements of selected individuals, identified only as numerics. On the door we see an emblem; not the crest of the Central Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency… but an Apple.

This imagery is not from Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State, but rather it was what came to my mind when I read about the discovery made by two security researchers – Pete Warden, Founder of Data Science Toolkit and Alasdair Allan, Senior Research Fellow, University of Exeter, that the Apple’s iOS 4.x mobile operating system records the user’s location for iPhone and iPad into a hidden file on the devices, named “consolidated.db”.

Warden also created an open source program “iPhone Tracker” for iPhone and iPad users to output their location file into an interactive map, so they can see for themselves.  The software requires OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

It was also further revealed by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that Apple isn’t the only one; Google’s Android smartphones also regularly transmit their locations back to Google. According to WSJ, Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people’s locations via their cellphones and these databases “could help them tap the US$2.9 billion market for location-based services—expected to rise to US$8.3 billion in 2014”.

Location-based services have been a feature included in most recent smartphones, supposedly as an accompaniment of the phones’ global positioning satellite (GPS) function and to help users look up local businesses nearby their location as well as to enhance social networking. But this new revelation about the hidden tracking abilities embedded in Apple’s and Google’s software raises significant privacy issues.

Following Warden’s and Allan’s findings above, US Congressman Ed Markey has taken Apple to task. The congressman wrote a letter to Apple CEO requesting more details about Apple tracking mechanisms. In a statement issued by him on Thursday:

Apple needs to safeguard the personal location information of its users to ensure that an iPhone doesn’t become an iTrack. Collecting, storing and disclosing a consumer’s location for commercial purposes without their express permission is unacceptable and would violate current law. That’s why I am requesting responses to these questions to better understand Apple’s data collection and storage policies to make certain sensitive information can’t be left behind for others to follow.

Much of the concern about these hidden tracking abilities stem from the devices logging the users’ physical location without users knowing it, and the susceptibility of such unencrypted information to abuse by unscrupulous individuals like malicious hackers.

Earlier, Google has responded to Mobilized, All Things Digital:

All location sharing on Android is opt-in by the user. We provide users with notice and control over the collection, sharing and use of location in order to provide a better mobile experience on Android devices. Any location data that is sent back to Google location servers is anonymized and is not tied or traceable to a specific user.

So far, Apple has not responded. Hopefully, the most valuable company on Earth can comment on the tracker findings, as well as explain the measures they are taking to ensure that the information mined by these devices will stay secure and only be used for their originally intended purposes. This iPhone tracking fiasco, yet another side-defect of location-based social networking?

Watch Warden and Allan discussing their findings:

Addendum: It is ironically interesting to note that when Apple released the Macintosh in 1984, they created an advert in which an unnamed heroine (representing Apple Macintosh as indicated by her white tank top with a cubist picture of Apple’s Macintosh computer on it) saves humanity from “conformity” to Big Brother (representing IBM), an allusion to George Orwell’s famous novel 1984.

Credits for Images: The Guardian and Desktop Nexus

Location-Based Services and Privacy Violations by Apple iPhones and Google Androids originally appeared on GreyReview.com on April 23, 2011.