It doesn't feel like winter yet, does it? We don't think so, but some mobile companies are trying to get into the spirit of the season. Google is doing so by giving updates to all its apps, while Microsoft's Windows 8 OS has going the melodramatic, poetic route by slowly dying. All that and more in the weekly news recap.
We’re a full week into December and it’s yet to really feel like winter. Sure there’s holiday ads plastering every available second of screen time during commercial breaks, but states that are usually covered in snow by now still have patches of green grass. Folks that live in tropical climates haven’t had to bust out their sweaters yet – which normally occurs when it drops below 60 degrees. Even the wind doesn’t have that crisp, bitter feeling yet. Maybe it’s because Samsung is keeping everything warm by maintaining its heat from this summer. Thankfully Microsoft is trying to keep the cold, hopelessness of winter alive with its struggles, while Apple turns over a new leaf. All that and more in the weekly news recap from December 2-9, 2012.
Samsung rising
Samsung finds itself in an interesting place these days. Despite legal trouble with king of all patents, Apple, it seems that the company accused of copying has surpassed its accuser. Well, at least in Europe. But that is where global trends are set, after all. Samsung is doing pretty well around the world and appears to have plans to continue its domination. Hopefully it has more success than others who have attempted global conquest. An update to the Galaxy S3 will bring new features in the form of the Premium Suite, which sounds like it probably comes with caviar. The features will become available as soon as Android 4.1 makes its way to the handset, which should be soon for AT&T subscribers. Everyone else, you’ll have to keep waiting. The Premium Suite is like the VIP room, and Samsung has not added you to as it’s plus-one quite yet.
American as Apple pie
After making more money than we knew was in circulation, Apple has decided that maybe it can find some new and adventurous ways to spend its profits. Tim Cook spoke very candidly about some of the exploration that he hopes to accomplish, but perhaps none are quite as exciting and daring as the idea of building Apple products in America. Even though Apple will have products shipping around the world, including the iPhone 5 in over 100 countries before 2012 ends, it would like to keep the apple a little closer to the tree – or something like that.
HTC isn’t much for travelling to Europe
We mentioned earlier that Samsung seems to be a hit in Europe. That may be in part because Europe is still Droid-less. HTC’s beloved Droid DNA handset has yet to make the journey that so many American teens make before they head to college: a backpacking trip across Europe. Even HTC’s newest family member, the Butterfly, doesn’t seem to have the flight distance to make it into the continent. All hopes appear to rest on the M7 Project, which is not the a secret spy organization no matter how much it sounds like one. Europeans shouldn’t feel too bad, though. The Taiwan phone maker has canned the 8S and delayed the One XV for Americans. HTC better hurry or someone else might just catch the eye of impatient and fickle consumers that are suckers for pretty screens.
Google dusts off its apps
Google might just have had a little too much on it’s plate recently. Some things were starting to fall by the wayside. Now that it has the mobile OS war locked up until 2016, presumably because we just vote on that every 4 years or something, it can finally focus on getting down to business with some projects that were too long forgotten. To solidify its dominance in the mobile world, Google took to revamping every app it could thing of. Gmail finally functions for both iOS and Android in a way that most email clients apps work, as opposed to how the Gmail app used to work. That is to say, it allows you to read emails now instead of attempting to get you to break your phone or tablet in two. YouTube also got an upgrade that optimizes it for tablets, meaning all those cat videos and songs you haven’t got around to downloading yet will finally play in high definition.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Spring is the season of new life, but before new life begins something has to die. All signs point to Microsoft’s Windows 8, which might not be dead yet but is sure starting to smell like a corpse. Every time more information comes about about Windows 8, it’s bad. The Surface tablets still aren’t selling, and Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has all but driven the knife into chest of the operating system by calling it a failure in the game industry. If there’s one thing Microsoft can take solace in during this season of death, it’s that it isn’t alone. Brick and motar Blockbuster stores are having their innards gutted by Dish Network to make room for racks of cell phones in a new mobile push and iPad only newspaper The Daily met its demise this month thanks to plenty of competition and not enough readers. Hopefully that whole paragraph on death will really get you into the holiday spirit.
