1. Google Hangouts (Integrated, multi- platform video & chat product)

So, Google has this thing called Hangouts, available to Google + users, where a group of people (up to ten) can get together in an online ‘place’ and video chat, for free, with the option to share Youtube clips.

The program started online, and grew to iOS and Android usability.

Now, it’s been updated to a standalone App with integrated video, chat and multimedia sharing that many think (and Google hopes) is going to be a force in the video & chat industry- up against Skype, Facetime, iMessenger, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, etc.

According to Google:

“Today we’re launching a stand-alone version of Hangouts that combines text, photos and live video across Android, iOS and your computer.

Now that Hangouts spans modalities and devices, you can finally fuhgeddaboudit (the technology, that is), and focus on what really matters: creating lasting relationships. And that, we think, is a plus.”

I’m not sure what kind of relationships they think we should be creating, but, with most video chat products, it has the potential to be an excellent way to sustain relationships, from business meetings to family get togethers’, to taking shots with your buddies in the Australian outback.

In Hangouts, you have the ability to save your video chats in the cloud with multi-user access, (which can also be turned off). This could serve business and family video interaction well, possibly less useful for the inter-country shot takers out there amongst us.

Here at iPhone Antidote, we’re pretty partial to Skype, so we’ll be testing this app pretty thoroughly over the next few days ( shots anyone?).

We’ll let you know how Hangouts stacks up against the loyal favorite!

You will need a Google account to participate ( which you will upgrade to Google + upon setup of the App). Check it out for free from the App store, Google Play and the Chrome Web Store.

1. Google Hangouts (Integrated, multi- platform video & chat product)

2. Google Maps update and iPad App

3. Google Play Music All Access

4. Google Play Game Services

5. Updates and the future of the Google search engine.

Photo courtesy of Engadget.

4. Google Play Game Services

Another product released by Google today, with the very real intention of knocking another product out of top place, is Google Play Game Services (another annoyingly long name, get catchier Google!).

This one is designed to compete with Apple’s Game Center with the promise of integrating your gaming experience across all platforms and devices.

Available on Android, iOS and the web, the center has leaderboards, the ability to save to cloud, and real-time game playing against multiple users, ( this part- not so much available on iOS yet, sorry folks).

You can sign in using Google + the program will track your scores and saves across a range of devices.

The Google Play Game Service is available today across a smattering of games.

1. Google Hangouts (Integrated, multi- platform video & chat product)

2. Google Maps update and iPad App

3. Google Play Music All Access

4. Google Play Game Services

5. Updates and the future of the Google search engine.

Photo courtesy of Venturebeat

Bidding War for Sprint

Sprint, America’s number three wireless carrier is in the middle of a bidding war for 70% of their corporation.

In October last year Japanese company SoftBank announced that it was lodging a 20.1 billion dollar bid to buy a 70% stake in Sprint Nextel, with the intention post-sale that Sprint would remain a separate entity within SoftBank.

Sprint agreed on the sale, and the deal was expected to be finalized in the second quarter of this year. Unexpectedly jumping in on the deal and essentially starting a bidding war is Dish Network Coorporation ( America’s second biggest satellite TV provider).

On April 15th, Dish offered a counter bid of 25.5 Billion Dollars. So… more money pretty much always wins, right?

Not always. In this particular situation, the choice is made more complicated by the future intentions of both SoftBank and Dish- what can they offer Sprint apart from the original bid price?

SoftBank, a Tokyo based company, has advised investors since the opposing Dish bid that they have the intention- and the ability – to ensure Sprint $3 billion in annual operating savings by 2017.  They have also advised that once merged, the companies will be able to cut Sprint’s capital spending by 32 percent to 36 percent.

Dish’s bid is attractive because of the size of it- a few extra billion dollars does go a long way. Dish posted their first quarter revenue results recently and it showed what seems to be a slowing market- which means that Dish is super keen to use Sprint to expand into the mobile phone industry.

Dish would also want the two companies to merge their marketing and other business teams in order to save money, purportedly around 11 billion dollars, but according to sources familiar with the proposed deal there are those at Sprint who are uncomfortable with this, and unsure of Dish’s ability to guarantee financing for the 9 billion dollars it needs to secure the bid.

Both Dish and SoftBank have come out fighting, with SoftBank going so far as to try to force investment banks not to finance Dish’s bid, threatening no role in the upcoming IPO of Alibaba, a company of which they have one third ownership.

Whoever they go with, Sprint is looking to return to profitability after it’s 2005, 36 Billion dollar purchase of Nextel communications which led to billions of dollars of debt. The extra bid from Dish has excited investors with a rise in Sprint’s share prices by 1.4 percent, and there are many who are expecting the bidding war to rage on way into the second quarter.

We’ll keep you up to date with whoever has the winning bid- and what that means for you if you are a sprint customer ( We’re cautiously predicting only good things btw).

Image courtesy of Forbes.

Some Tuesday Afternoon Stats

Comcast, the people who know whatsup in measuring the tech world, recently released a report measuring ( among other things) key trends in the US smartphone industry.

The report, done by comScore MobiLens, ranked the smartphone leaders using statistics garnered from the first 3 months of this year, otherwise known as the first quarter.

Unsurprisingly for us, but perhaps for some, Apple remain strong in their grasp on the leadership of the Smartphone industry, with 39% of the device market share and with continual quarterly gains.

This means that out of the 136.7 million people in the US that own smartphones, 39% own Apple iPhones, with Samsung coming into second place with 21.7% market share, HTC were third with 9%, Motorola with 8.5% and LG had 6.8%.

Google Android might be taking over the smartphone world not according to Apple though, with 52% of the platform market share.

So… this means that two companies, Apple and Google, control 91% of the total smartphone market. A little scary. Let’s just try and keep those two apart shall we? With rulers. Really, really big rulers.

p.s Go Apple!

Photo courtesy of ZDnet

Apple breaks the top ten in Fortune 500 list for the first time ever

Some more good news for Apple this week, with Fortune Magazine releasing its annual Fortune 500 list. And guess what? This year for the first time ever, Apple has made it into the top ten.

The Fortune 500 is a list of companies in the US with the highest revenue and this year, Apple made it all the way from it’s former rank of seventeen to number six with a posted revenue of $156.2 Billion.

When looking specifically at profits, Apple came second only to ExxonMobil among the Fortune 500 companies with $41.7 Billion.

The top 5 Fortune 500 Companies 2013 are, in order, Walmart, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Phillips 66 and Berkshire Hathaway. Check out the whole list at cnn.com

Photo courtesy of cnn.com

Future App of the Day- Smart Food Scale

A kickstarter project that looks amazing is the Smart Food Scale with accompanying iOS App. This kitchen tool and health and nutrition tracker could be revolutionary in the industry in its ability to track what you are eating and cooking, and helping you out along the way.

The device, created by ‘Chef Sleeve’ of San Francisco, will connect via Bluetooth and when a food item is placed on it, it will be able to tell you all the information about that item.

For example, it will tell you the weight (eliminating the need for measuring spoons and cups) and it will tell you all the nutritional information about the food down to calories,  fats, sugars, protein etc.

The target for money pledged is $30,000 before May 31^st and currently they at $19,868 with  246 backers.  Go to Kickstarter to check it out.

Image Courtesy of Kickstarter

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2013

For Apple Fans,users, and developers, apart from product release days, the most important and exciting time of year usually occurs in June.

June is when product announcements are made. June is when new and future products are described in fair detail by the people who make them, June is when we get to listen to people like Tim Cook and Jonathon Ive and hear  their ideas and what they really think.

June is when the surprises and secrets of Apple… some secrets of Apple… are released into the world. June is, of course, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco ( June 10-14).

Tickets for this event went on sale on April 25^th at 1:00pm- and sold out in ninety second. NINETY SECONDS!

For those counting, or for those who think that Apple is somehow losing their place in the world to other smartphones, this is by far the fastest tickets have ever sold out.

In 2008 they sold out in 61…days.  Proof that people are still excited about Apple and their products, still loyal, and I’m glad, because, well, they should be. D’uh.

Now, what exactly will be happening at the WWDC 2013?

Only time will tell, but until then, we can countdown every day with a rumor- will they announce the iWatch? iPhone 5S? iPhone 6? Will iOS 7 be ready to be previewed? Will it have surprises? Will it be hard to use or even better? What will be the highlight? The surprises, the secrets of Apple released?

We’ll be talking about the likelihood of all of these possibilities and more in the coming weeks, so, if you’re a betting human, get ready to start placing your bets!

Have a coffee with Tim Cook

Wanna kick it with the dude who knows all about Apple? (assuming Steve didn’t take any secrets to the grave). Well, the man you’re going to want to see is Tim Cook, current CEO and man-in-the-know.

But how do I do that iPhone Antidote?

Well, right now, you can bid to have a coffee with the man himself, at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. What’s the catch you ask?

Well… at the moment the bid is $605,000. And the bidding ends 14th May, so it will more than likely go up. But, it is for charity! For the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, to be precise.

Run by the awesome Charity website https://www.charitybuzz.com, which auctions off celebrity and other once in a life time experiences for charity, the Tim Cook auction was slightly marred when the highest bidder was found out to be fraudulent, but we hope that’s the only slight hiccough in the process, and that whoever wins the auction- use your time well, buddy!

Image courtesy of Mashable

Twitter app update for iOS

As of yesterday, Twitter has updated its app for both Android and iPhone.

There were a few improvements in this latest update of the app, the most flashy being the ability to change the location of trending tweets to anywhere in the world. Now, Twitter users have the ability to view what is trending on Twitter outside their home location using the Discover tab.

Added improvements include improved playback of videos from Vine, the changing of retweet handling which shows the tags of both author and retweeter, the ability for users to send out invites from within the Twitter app, and the usual bug fixes.

The Twitter app can be downloaded for free from the App store.

Silly, iPhone loving celebrities

Ever heard of David Ferrer? He’s a Tennis Player, a very good, Spanish Tennis player to be more accurate. He’s playing in a tournament at the moment – the Mutua Madrid Open Tournament- that is being sponsored by Samsung.

Last Tuesday, David Ferrer sent out a tweet telling the world just how much he loved the Samsung and in particular, their GalaxyS4 product.

It translated thus: “I’m so happy with my new #GalaxyS4, setting up S Health on my new #GalaxyS4 to help me with training.”

Sounds pretty normal right? Yeah, except it was sent via TWITTER FOR IPHONE! Ha, suck eggs, David Ferrer.

To be fair, the tweet was deleted soon after,but not before some of his followers caught on. D’oh.

Seems he’s not alone in this faux pas though- back in february Samsung Brand Ambassador  Alicia Keys made the same mistake- by saying she was “breaking up” with her iPhone, only to tweet from it after the event.

Oprah also, is a member of this group- last year she sent out tweets endorsing the new tablet from Microsoft. From her iPad.

Silly, Apple loving celebrities.

Photo courtesy of  Apple Insider.