The Sony Walkman outsold Apple's iPod in Japan last week, the first time in more than four years, according to a study by Japanese electronics research company BCN.
Sony's slice of the market for digital music players in Japan rose to 43 percent for the week ending August 30, narrowly beating Apple's 42.1 share. The survey didn't include sales results for the iPhone because that device also serves as a cell phone.
While Apple's 8GB iPod Nano took the top sales spot, Sony's Walkman devices outsold all iPods for the week.
(Credit: BCN)Sony achieved its victory through pure sales volume and number of players, said BCN. Apple's 8GB iPod Nano hit the top of the sales charts with a 21.7 percent share of the market, while Sony's mini NW-E042 Walkman came in second with just a 6.2 market share.
But Sony captured six of the top 10 sales spots with different models of its Walkman. In addition to its top 8GB Nano, Apple took the remaining three slots with its 16GB iPod Nano, iPod Classic, and iPod Shuffle.
Sony's win be may due to a variety of factors, according to BCN. The company focuses on lower-cost music players, with the average price of a Walkman dropping in recent weeks while Apple's prices have stayed firm. BCN also said it thinks Apple may be competing with itself, as more Japanese consumers have opted for iPhones rather than buying both an iPod and cell phone.
BCN said it believes the battle for market share will heat up again following Apple's September 9 event, in which the company is expected to announce new iPod models.
Sony's varied line of Walkman players have picked up generally favorable reviews.
Faced with heat from iTunes and other digital downloads, the nearly-three-decade-old music CD is slowly melting away.
iTunes-purchased songs now account for 25 percent of the overall music market--both physical and digital--in the U.S., says an NPD Group report released Tuesday. However, CDs are still the most popular format for music lovers, winning a 65 percent slice of the market for the first half of 2009.
An iTunes playlist
(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney)Digital music downloads have jumped in recent years, said NPD, hitting 35 percent of the overall market for the first half of this year, compared with 30 percent last year and 20 percent in 2007.
For the first half of 2009, iTunes itself snagged a 69 percent share of the overall digital music arena, trailed far behind by Amazon.com with 8 percent.
"The growth of legal digital music downloads, and Apple's success in holding that market, has increased iTunes's overall strength in the retail music category," said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD Group.
The CD, though, marches on. Among CD retailers, Wal-Mart leads with a 20 percent chunk of the physical music market, said NPD. Best Buy took a 16 percent share, followed by Target and Amazon at 10 percent each.
Still, the days of the CD seem numbered.
"Many people are surprised that the CD is still the dominant music delivery format, given the attention to digital music and the shrinking retail footprint for physical products," said Crupnick. "But with digital music sales growing at 15 to 20 percent, and CDs falling by an equal proportion, digital music sales will nearly equal CD sales by the end of 2010."
Correction at 3:30 p.m.: The venerable audio CD is actually 27 years old.
A screenshot from the iPhone version of The Sims 3, one of thousands of games available for the Apple smartphone.
(Credit: Electronic Arts)Most iPhone games are clearly appropriate for all audiences: puzzles, brain-teasers, mazes, and the like. But others, including some of the most fierce shooter games, may not be kid-friendly, at least from parents' perspectives.
But at least right now, there are no ratings for iPhone games, unlike for console or PC titles, and the president of the Electronic Software Ratings Board thinks that needs to change.
The ESRB--which is controlled by the video game industry's leading companies--rates games according to their content. The ratings include "C," for young children; "E," for everyone; "E 10+," for ages 10 and up; "T," for those 13 and up; "M," for ages 17 and older; and "AO," for adults only.
According to Kotaku, ESRB President Patricia Vance thinks it's a no-brainer that iPhone games should be rated, so that parents can have a sense of whether games on the hit mobile device are right for their kids.
"ESRB ratings empower parents to do their job," Vance told Kotaku. "Considering the fact that the vast majority of parents are already aware of and regularly using ESRB ratings, Apple's adoption of them for iPhone games seems like a no-brainer."
That's particularly true, Vance added, because Apple, in its announcements on Monday about the newest iPhone firmware upgrade, said it would offer the ability to block movies and TV shows on the iPhone based on content. But the company said nothing about games.
"Adding ESRB ratings to the controls (Apple) already plans to offer," Vance told Kotaku, "would give parents the ability to exert control over the games their children play as well."
The Entertainment Software Ratings Board rates games, but its president is asking why Apple has not offered such ratings for iPhone games.
(Credit: ESRB)And Vance has a point. Games are clearly one of the killer apps for the iPhone, what with thousands of them already available on Apple's App Store, and many of them among the most popular apps. And while Apple attempts to filter submitted apps for some level of appropriateness, there have been many documented cases of apps of questionable taste making it through.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request by CNET News for comment.
One has to wonder if this is something Apple has thought about, or how much extra work it would take them to add ESRB-style ratings. On the other hand, adding the ratings would also create a situation where Apple might find itself embroiled in controversy if a game ended up having hidden--or difficult to find--content outside the applied rating. That, of course, is what happened with Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2005, a scandal that reverberated across the games industry and into politics.
Perhaps Apple has decided it wants none of that.
The NFL.com's war room feature will let users see a graphical representation of aggregated comments by fans of each of the NFL's 32 teams.
(Credit: NFL.com)Update (9:12 a.m.): This story has been edited to reflect the fact that NFL Mobile Live is available only to Sprint users, as well as the league's plans for Twittering the draft.
For serious football fans, there is likely no bigger single event--except the Super Bowl--than the annual amateur draft. And as the NFL gets ready for two days of hysteria over where dozens of pro prospects end up, the league has deployed its deepest roster ever of social media tools to ensure that fans' thirst for even the most minute news is quenched.
There's no shortage on TV and on the Internet of expert sources weighing in on the draft-day needs of various NFL teams and their likely moves before, during and after the April 25 and 26 event. But many people are just as, or more, interested in what their fellow fans think about their favorite teams' decisions.
That's why, for the first time, the league has rolled out what it's calling fan "war rooms," essentially team-specific comment forums that are available via a map of the United States that shows each team's logo and the number of comments posted there.
And one thing is clear from the map: the teams with the biggest draft-day needs, in other words, the league's weaker franchises, have the most active forums. That helps explain why, in the wake of the Denver Broncos' much-publicized and highly-controversial recent trade of star quarterback Jay Cutler, its "war room" has far and away the most fan comments.
The aggregated comments feature is the newest NFL.com is employing for draft day, but by no means the only social media tool fans will have at their fingertips as they try to keep up with the flood of news that will peak during the draft itself but that NFL Online general manager Laura Goldberg expects will be heavy both before and after the league's 32 teams make their best stabs at improving their rosters by picking from the pool of eligible amateurs.
Another significant tool is NFL.com's Draft Tracker, an online system that allows fans to look for the latest information and analysis about prospects, positions, colleges, teams, and even draft rounds. So, Goldberg said, fans could see what is being said about all potential draftees from the University of Miami, or all quarterback prospects, or what specific teams are doing.
Once the draft is over, fans will also be able to issue grades for how they feel teams did. Experts' opinions on each team's performance are always hot topics, but now fans will be able to weigh in, and their collective votes will be averaged, Goldberg said, meaning it will be possible to see, in real time, what fans thought of any individual team's draft-day moves.
Goldberg explained that the NFL is also well aware of the popularity of social-networking sites, and as such, it has a new Facebook widget--already downloaded more than 100,000 times--that will update users with the latest draft-related news and video.
And the league is also promoting NFL Mobile Live, a WAP site that will allow any Web-enabled mobile phone on Sprint's network to follow the Draft Tracker. However, despite Goldberg's acknowledgment that the service would probably look best on an iPhone, she said that NFL.com has yet to release an iPhone app for the draft. That's because, she said, the league and partner Sprint are interested in reaching the broad cross-section of mobile device users, including those on BlackBerries, Android phones, and others.
For now, there is also no official NFL draft-related Twitter account, but Goldberg said that the league would be tweeting from the site of the draft.
Update 4:19 pm: This story has been modified to include reaction from the creator of the card-counting iPhone app.
Since the July 2008 launch of the App Store, Apple has maintained a sort of moral code--a PG-13-type standard, if you will--surrounding the thousands of iPhone and iPod Touch applications available via the service.
That's why, for example, there are no iPhone porn apps, though it is certainly possible to access adult content optimized for the device.
Given that, one would think that Apple wouldn't have given the thumbs-up to an app that, if used in the most logical manner, could get someone arrested, or worse. But with an app called "A Blackjack Card Counter," that's not, in fact, the case.
'A Blackjack Card Counter,' an iPhone application that helps people count cards in blackjack, was the subject of an alert to Nevada casinos by that state's Gaming Control Board.
(Credit: Webtopia)We've all seen the movies where the hot-shot gambler slips up and finds himself hustled off to a back room where a genial but brutal casino manager calmly breaks a few fingers while issuing a stern warning never to come back. Films like The Cooler, 21, Rounders, Casino and many others have made this kind of scene, even if it's not always about card counting, a staple of our imagination.
Yet card counting--a complex practice that gives practitioners a way to determine the optimal times to bet in blackjack--prevails to this day. And it's not even illegal, though being caught at it is sure to lead to a hasty expulsion from a casino, at best, or even the kind of back-room visit discussed above. What is definitely illegal, however, is the employment of any kind of electronic device that aids players in counting cards.
And that's where "A Blackjack Card Counter," and perhaps a few other iPhone apps come into play.
Earlier this month, the Nevada Gaming Control Board, itself tipped off by the California Bureau of Gambling Control, issued an alert to "all non-restricted licensees and interested parties"--the state's casinos--warning of the emergence of iPhone card counting apps.
"This blackjack card-counting program can be utilized on either the Apple iPhone or the Apple iPod Touch...Once this program is installed on the phone through the iTunes Web site it can make counting cards easy," Nevada Gaming Control Board member Randall Sayre wrote in the alert. "This program can be used in the 'stealth mode.' When the program is used in the 'stealth mode' the screen of the phone will remain shut off, and as long as the user knows where the keys are located, the program can be run effortlessly without detection."
And, as Sayre pointed out, "use of this type of program or possession of a device with this type of program on it--with the intent to use it--in a licensed gaming establishment, is a violation" of the law.
For its part, the makers of "A Blackjack Card Counter," an Australian outfit called Webtopia, couldn't be happier about the attention being paid to its app as a result of its potentially illegal nature.
"Since the Nevada Gaming Control Board warned casinos about 'A Blackjack Card Counter' there's been an unprecedented demand for this app," Webtopia wrote in the tool's official App Store description. "Now you can see what all the fuss (is) about at a very reasonable price."
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Steve Wozniak is apparently polishing his dancing shoes.
The Apple co-founder is among the 13 new competitors in the eighth season of Dancing With The Stars, ABC TV announced on the popular show's site Sunday evening.
Wozniak's bio on the site notes his work with Apple and his philanthropy in education,
Is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak ready to get footloose?
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)The reality-based program pairs celebrities with professional ballroom dancers, and viewers cast their votes for their favorites.
The new season will begin on March 9.
Wozniak competitors include The Go-Gos' Belinda Carlisle, rapper Lil' Kim, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson, actress Denise Richards, and NFL Hall-of-Famer Lawrence Taylor.
The number of iPhone users downloading mobile games to their devices jumped 14 percent in November, putting them in the lead of all mobile-phone game downloaders in the U.S. that month, according to a ComScore report released Friday.
The figures, based on a year-over-year comparison of three-month averages, showed that game downloads in November rose 17 percent overall to 8.5 million.
(Credit:
ComScore)
Although mobile subscribers users are increasingly putting their phones to work to download games, only 3.8 percent of all U.S. mobile phone users took the time to download a game in November, according to ComScore.
However, a significantly higher percentage of all iPhone users, 32.4 percent, downloaded a game that month, according to the report.
Mark Donovan, a ComScore senior analyst, said in a statement:
The rapid growth in smartphone adoption in the United States has provided a boost for mobile gaming, as 34 percent of those downloading a game in November did so using a smartphone.
Last year, not one smartphone appeared in the top 10 devices used for mobile downloads. This year, six out of 10 are smartphones, excluding devices with smartphone-like functionality, such as the Instinct and Voyager, which also make appearances.
Bandai's iPhone version of I Love Katamari is one of the most popular games on the mobile platform. This March, iPhone game developers will gather in San Francisco to promote the platform.
(Credit: Bandai)While there are more than 10,000 applications for the iPhone, many of the most popular ones are games. A quick glance at the top 25 paid applications reveals that 18 are games; games comprise 14 of the top 25 free iPhone apps as well. And those ratios are likely to hold for the foreseeable future.
That's most likely what led the organizer of the Virtual Goods summit to announce on Tuesday the first iPhone game conference, dubbed the iGames Summit, slated for March 19 in San Francisco.
"The market for iPhone games is exploding, and we're organizing our first event focused on this vibrant market," organizer Charles Hudson wrote in an e-mail announcing the event. "Our half-day event will bring together leading iPhone game developers, investors, and industry executives to share their collective wisdom on what's working today and where this exciting industry is heading."
On the event's still-rudimentary Web site, several leading iPhone developers are listed as having already committed to participating in the summit. Among them are Tapulous, which published the mega-hit Tap Tap Revenge, a sort of Guitar Hero for the iPhone; Zynga, a leading developer of games for sites like Facebook and MySpace; and SGN, another leading iPhone game developer.
What, exactly, will take place at the summit remains unclear, but the announcement of such an event makes sense, given the success of the platform, the number of people making games for it, and the adaptability of the iPhone--with its accelerometer, touch screen and rabid user base--for games.
Amazon.com has acquired Reflexive Entertainment, adding to its PC, Mac, and online casual game offerings.
Reflexive, which announced the acquisition earlier this week in a blog post by Chief Executive Lars Brubaker, said the deal will provide a larger distribution channel than it previously had.
Reflexive also noted that game developers can still submit their work to the site and will continue to have access to its GameCenterSolution.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
With more powerful Nvidia graphics processors, the new MacBook Pro could finally be a machine hard-core gamers can use.
(Credit: Apple Inc.)While Macs have long been the preferred computer of the creative class, gamers have generally looked at the machines and said, essentially, thanks but no thanks.
That tech truism could be on the verge of disappearing forever in the wake of Apple's announcement Tuesday that the newest high-end MacBook Pro model will have the graphics processing firepower--thanks to the inclusion of the Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT chip--to finally give hard-core video game players what they want.
"It's more of a gaming machine than the old MacBook Pro," said Mike Schramm, a blogger who writes for both the video game site Joystiq and The Unofficial Apple Weblog. "The weak point in Apple's hardware has always been the integrated graphics chip. The computers have always been blazing fast, but the 3D graphics have been chugging away on an old Intel chip. And the new Nvidia chips will fix that problem."
Schramm himself said that he plans to eventually buy one of the new MacBook Pros to indulge his passion for World of Warcraft, and he said he expects that many games that have traditionally run only on PCs will now be Mac friendly.
In its announcement Tuesday, Apple said that the new MacBook Pros will come with both the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor and the more powerful GeForce 9600M GT. The new machines are designed, Apple said, to offer "up to five times" the 3D graphics power of the previous generation of MacBook Pros.
The upshot, then, seems to be that for the first time, Macs will be able to hold their own as gaming machines, even if they are not quite at the elite level.
"I think that outside of the guys like Alienware...you'll get a pretty good gaming experience out of this," said Patrick Wang, a senior research analyst at Wedbush Morgan. "For guys who want to have gaming, but don't want to spend all that much, those guys will be more than happy with the MacBook Pro."
Wang added that the 9600M GT is not Nvidia's highest-end processor and that going much beyond that level would likely have proved to be too expensive for Apple.
But he said that with most games, MacBook Pro users would not notice the difference. In some cases, as with the most graphics-intensive games, Wang predicted that the frame rates of the new Macs would be slightly lower than on the best gaming machines.
"I don't think it's going to be enough for the highest-end gamer," Wang said. "For bleeding edge graphics, those guys will probably stick with Falcon Northwest or Alienware" computers.
But because the new MacBook Pros will feature DirectX 10.1, an important gaming software standard, the computers should be able to run most PC games and should allow developers to reach out to the Mac market, said Wang.
For Joe Stanziano, a longtime Mac user and a technology support specialist from Harleysville, Pa., the promise of new MacBook Pros with advanced video cards is nothing short of exciting.
"I've always been a Mac fan," said Stanziano. "I currently have one of the older-generation MacBook Pros...(and) coming out with those new video cards and the new display, I think it'll be great for gaming."
Stanziano added that he thinks the MacBook Pros have suffered as a result of the "crappy" integrated video cards they've had, but with the addition of the two new Nvidia cards, the computers should now be on par with many high-end PC gaming machines.
For Schramm, the coming week should reveal just how suitable the new Macs are for gamers.
That's because Far Cry 2, the new first-person shooter from Ubisoft, comes out this week.
"If that can run in Boot Camp on these (new) machines," Schramm said, "anything can."
Schramm also pointed out that, in his opinion, Apple has been indicating for a while that it wants to be seen as a maker of gamer-friendly computers.
"I think Apple is dipping their toe in finally," Schramm said. "They're not going to own the market, but they're realizing that people who buy computers buy games. They're still not aiming at the folks who play Far Cry 2, but they are aiming at the folks who play World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero.
