50% of smartphone users in India are under 25 yrs: Nielsen

Indians are increasingly taking to smartphones and the number of such devices in the country touched 40 million last year with almost half of the users younger than 25, says a survey.

The dramatic growth in the usage of smartphones is driven by a desire among users to stay connected and have instant access to social networking sites, according to the survey by research firm Nielsen.

“Decreasing device and data costs, coupled with a wide range of features that today’s smartphones offer, readily encourage consumers to trade in their traditional cell phones for handsets with much more functionality,” the survey said.

According to the Indian smartphone user study – conducted in September and October 2012 across 46 cities – people overwhelmingly prefer mobile devices that operate on the Android operating system.

While Symbian usage is also high in India, Windows, BlackBerry and iOS devices each only have single-digit market shares, said Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights that polled more than 10,000 smartphone owners.

Moreover, tablet ownership among Indians is set to spike as consumer interest in tablets is also on the rise.

While only 3 per cent of respondents who participated in the study in the last quarter of 2012 said they owned a tablet, 11 per cent said they intended to purchase one.

Voice calls and texting accounted for only 25 per cent of smartphone usage; multimedia, games, apps and Internet browsing made up the rest.

Among apps, consumers prefer games, particularly with respect to paid apps. Games were the most popular category among paid apps, with nearly three out of five users (58 per cent) paying for games.

Other popular paid app categories among smartphone users include chat and instant messaging (53 per cent) and streaming music (45 per cent).

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/50–of-smartphone-users-in-india-are-under-25-yrs-nielsen/1073123/0

Nutrela Likely To Have New Products To Increase Biz Prospects

Kolkata: Ruchi Soya Industries is planning to have new products in the health and wellness space to increase sales under its flagship soya food brand Nutrela about five-fold in five years, a company executive said on Monday.

Currently the company under the brand sells edible oil, soya chunks and granules, and table spread. The firm has clocked Rs.1,200 crore sales turnover from the brand.

“We have a target to garner Rs.5,000 crore turnover from the Nutrela brand within the next five years,” Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd assistant vice president, marketing, consumer brands division, Sandipan Ghosh said here.

“We will be aiming for both inorganic and organic growth. We will be growing from existing categories of around 20 to 30 percent and then we will also be expanding into newer category, which will also fuel the growth,” Ghosh said.

He said the newer categories in the health and wellness space would be home-grown and the company was now carrying out a consumer research for that.

“On the basis of the consumer research we are going to decide the potential of the category and potential of our business. As we progress towards second and third quarter of this calendar year, we will see that Nutrela will be expanding into newer category or incrementally innovate into the existing category,” he explained.

The makers of the largest-selling soya food brand enjoys about 90 percent market share in organised soya chunks and granules segment.

The firm, which is currently concentrating on domestic market said it will also focus on expanding its presence in tier III and IV cities.

Source: http://www.pardaphash.com/news/nutrela-likely-to-have-new-products-to-increase-biz-prospects/705094.html#.URlHux32815

Videocon Suffers 17,000 Fine For Selling Defective Mobile

New Delhi: Videocon Mobile Phones and its outlet, Next Retail, have been directed by a consumer forum here to pay over Rs 17,000 to one of its customers for selling her a defective phone and then “dishonouring their commitment” under the warranty.

The South West District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum observed that the woman had approached Videocon’s retail outlet 15 days after buying the mobile phone as she noticed it was not charging.

The handset was within warranty period and the company was obligated to replace or repair it free of cost.

However, the service centre demanded Rs 1,200 to repair it and had said the charges could increase if any parts were to be replaced, the forum noted.

“This demand is in clear violation of the terms and conditions of the warranty. All of the opposite parties (Videocon, Next Retail and service centre) are liable under the Consumer Protection Act for selling defective handset and then dishonouring their commitment as undertaken by way of warranty.

“We allow the complaint and hold all the opposite parties guilty of deficiency in service and indulging in unfair trade practice. All of them are, therefore, directed to jointly and severally refund sum of Rs 4,890, the value of the handset, along with Rs 10,000 as compensation and Rs 3,000 as cost of litigation,” the bench presided by Narendra Kumar said.

The forum’s order came on the plea of Delhi resident Santosh, who had alleged in her complaint that the Videocon mobile phone she had bought from Next Retail stopped charging after 15 days of purchase.

She had said that when she took the mobile to the company’s service centre, she was asked to pay Rs 1,200 for repairs and additional charges if parts are replaced.

Source: http://www.siliconindia.com/news/technology/-Videocon-Suffers-Rs-17000-Fine-For-Selling-Defective-Mobile-nid-140581-cid-2.html

Review: iPhone Google Maps lags Android version

Every time my husband and I drive the 677 miles (1,100 kilometers) from New York to my parents\’ house in Michigan, we dread the long stretch of Interstate 80 through the hills of rural Pennsylvania. It\’s beautiful, but lonely, without a lot of places to stop.

On this trip, with a little help from Google and Apple, I was determined to stay caffeinated and maybe find somewhere else to eat besides McDonald\’s and truck stops.

We had two iPhones and two Android phones between us, allowing me to test Google Maps on both the iPhone and Android and Apple\’s own mapping app for the iPhone. (There\’s no Apple app on Android.) These apps all have turn-by-turn voice navigation and will nag you with new directions if you make a wrong turn or try to go off-course.

I tested out the Google and Apple mapping apps before, but focused on how their walking and public-transportation functions worked in New York City. I wanted to see how they performed for driving and outside of the comfort of a major metropolitan area.

But mainly, I wanted to see how Google Maps fared compared with Apple\’s Maps, which kicked Google Maps off the iPhone in September. That meant Google had no mapping app on the iPhone until it released a replacement in December. Google Maps with voice navigation has been on Android phones since 2009. I also wanted to see if the Android and iPhone versions have all the same bells and whistles. (Spoiler alert: They don\’t).

We set off from New York with our easily bored 3-year-old daughter strapped in the back seat. I fired up the phones and set courses for my parents\’ home in Haslett, Michigan (just outside Lansing, for those too lazy to Google it).

The two versions of Google Maps and the Apple software pretty much gave me the same directions and time estimate _ just over 10 hours, though we were planning on 12 with stops.

We usually take a break at a Panera Bread bakery about an hour into Pennsylvania, but our daughter was napping and we weren\’t really hungry. So we threw ourselves at the mercy of Google and Apple and hoped that they would find us something in an hour or two.

As we wound through the hills, with my husband driving, I watched the little blue arrows on my phones move across the state and checked out the different features each mapping program offered.

The Android version of Google Maps has the most toys and the most beautiful graphics. The bars and dry cleaners visible on its street maps of New York get replaced by the names of rivers and small-town roads in the distance.

By comparison, both iPhone apps seem bare bones, which isn\’t too surprising as the Android app had a head start of three years. Apple\’s fancy 3-D graphics largely melt away when you get out of the city.

The Android version allows me to select “layers\’\’ for my map showing such things as traffic and nearby businesses.

The restaurant layer proved very helpful when my daughter started getting cranky and we needed to make an unplanned stop.

The traffic layer, which lights up in red, yellow and green depending on the amount of traffic, also was particularly helpful on the way back to New York. It warned us of a monster backup on the George Washington Bridge and estimated how long that would delay us in case we wanted to take an alternate route. We took our chances with the bridge. While the delay wasn\’t quite as bad as we feared it would be, it was definitely helpful to know about it ahead of time.

The iPhone version of Google Maps doesn\’t offer layers at all. And while the Apple software does offer some traffic information, you can\’t see it in the form of a layer when you\’re in navigation mode as you can with the Android version.

The Android version also allows you to set a final destination and search for places along your route, while Google\’s iPhone app doesn\’t.

Apple lets me do this by using the Siri voice assistant on my iPhone. By hitting the home button and saying “Starbucks,\’\’ I got the closest locations.

That\’s what we did a few hours into Pennsylvania when our caffeine withdrawal headaches started to kick in and our daughter was getting antsy.

To my surprise, both Siri and the Android phones located a Starbucks in a small town just a few miles (kilometers) off the freeway. We easily got there, but found it was on the campus of Bloomsburg University, which appeared closed for the holidays.

So, we got back on the highway and headed to the next location, in Williamsport. Unfortunately, we never made it to that Starbucks either. Apple and Google both took us to a residential section of a small town, with no Starbucks in sight.

I still don\’t know if I did something wrong or if there was an error in the mapping software. Considering that both sent me to a store whose existence I later verified, I\’m more inclined to blame my caffeine-deprived brain than the phones.

We never did find a Starbucks before leaving Pennsylvania or a cute mom-and-pop restaurant to eat at. But when we finally caved to our daughter\’s demands and decided to stop at the next exit, I did use the restaurants layer on one of the Android phones to locate an Arby\’s. Not exactly haute cuisine, but it\’s a guilty pleasure from childhood of mine, and all three of us got the break we needed.

I also used the feature on the trip back to New York to find a Mexican restaurant that we had eaten at a few years ago outside of Youngstown, Ohio. Unfortunately, it had yet to open for the day, so I used the software to locate and read online reviews about another Mexican place down the road. We ended up having a nice meal there.

It\’s worth mentioning that this is one of those times smartphones with larger screens help. The Samsung Galaxy Note II I was using let me easily look at what businesses are available off exits far down the road. Even if my iPhone had been able to show me these things, it would have been tough to view them on its comparatively tiny screen (3.5 inches, or 9 centimeters, diagonally on my older Apple 4S, compared with the Note\’s 5.5 inches, or 14 centimeters).

Another nice feature available on the Android, but not Google\’s iPhone app or Apple\’s software, is that the phone\’s screen enters a night mode when you\’re driving at night. The background turns dark, so it\’s not as distracting.

One drawback with Android phones: They have a hard time finding enough juice, even when plugged into the car\’s charger. In fact, the HTC Droid DNA I was using gave me two warnings that my energy usage was outpacing the power going into my phone. A colleague had a similar problem using two other Android phones. By contrast, the iPhone seems to stay fully charged if you plug it in.

Of course, I could shut one Android phone down while I use another, but this probably isn\’t an option for most people.

After we got to Michigan, the phones also proved useful for quick little trips in town. That included a last-minute trip to a Toys `R Us that I couldn\’t quite remember the location of. I also got to a restaurant that was slightly off the beaten path.

Bottom line is that when you\’re on the road, all three programs will probably get you where you\’re going. They offer clear maps and audible instructions that are easy to understand. They give you the directions you need with plenty of time to make turns and get in the appropriate lane of traffic. And when you inevitably do miss a turn or highway exit, they are quick to recalculate your route.

But for those who want an experience and information that rivals those provided by a vehicle GPS system, Google Maps for Android is the way to go. Just don\’t forget your car charger.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/review-iphone-google-maps-lags-android-version/1070740/0

Apple store gives ‘porn-laced’ Twitter Vine app ‘adult rating’

Twitter’s new video sharing app Vine has been given adult rating on Apple’s store.

Vine has had its age rating increased to 17+ on Apple”s store, the highest option.

The software had previously been rated suitable for 12-year-olds.

The move comes in the wake of complaints that some of its six-second segments were pornographic.

According to the BBC, Vine is not yet available for Android, but Google Play rates its 500px app as having a “high maturity” content rating, while Tumblr is marked as “low maturity”.

The app had previously made headlines after one of its Editor”s Pick showed a couple engaged in a sexual act.

Shortly after the clip”s selection it entered the app”s “popular now” list, signalling it was one of the product”s most viewed videos.

Twitter later apologised, blaming “human error”.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/apple-store-gives-pornlaced-twitter-vine-app-adult-rating/1070742/

Leaked: Rumoured photos of components from future iPhones

Site that leaked images claims new iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 under development by Apple.

Photos of what are claimed to be speaker components for upcoming iPhones have leaked on the Web. No Where Else, a French website, posted the images stating that they belonged to the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 6. The site claims that the iPhone 5S will feature new hardware while using the same chassis as that of the iPhone 5, while the iPhone 6 will be a completely redesigned handset. The site further says that the iPhone 5S will be launched this summer while the iPhone 6 will be revealed next year.

However, the 9 to 5 Mac blog says that instead of a revamped iPhone 6, Apple will most probably launch the 5S and a cheaper iPhone. The blog also points out that developers have found clues pointing to a 128GB iOS device in the code of the iOS 6.1 beta that was recently released by Apple.

A number of rumours regarding new iPhones have surfaced recently. Some rumours point towards a high-end iPhone continuing with the same 4-inch display as the iPhone 5 along with a cheaper iPhone with the same dimensions. Other rumours talk about Apple developing a 5-inch iPhone along with a cheaper iPhone with a 4.8-in screen.

Looking at all these rumours, it seems highly likely that Apple will show at least one variant of the iPhone at WWDC 2013, that will be held in the summer.

Source: http://www.thinkdigit.com/Mobiles-PDAs/Leaked-Rumoured-photos-of-components-from-future_13229.html

Apple steps up labor audits, finds underage workers

Apple Inc(AAPL.O) stepped up audits of working conditions at major suppliers last year, discovering multiple cases of underage workers, discrimination and wage problems.

The iPhone and iPad maker, which relies heavily on Asian-based partners like Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group to assemble the vast majority of its iPhones and iPads, said on Thursday it conducted 393 audits, up 72 percent from 2011, reviewing sites where over 1.5 million workers make its gadgets.

Apple in recent years has faced accusations of building its profits on the backs of poorly treated and severely underpaid workers in China.

That criticism came to the fore around 2010, after reports of suicides at Foxconn drew attention to the long hours that migrant laborers frequently endure, often for a pittance in wages and in severely cramped living conditions.

Foxconn is the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry (2317.TW) and employs 1.2 million workers across China.

Under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in 2011, Apple has taken new steps to improve its record and boost transparency, including the extensive audits of its sprawling supply chain. Last year, it agreed to separate audits by the independent Fair Labor Association.

In an interview on Thursday, Apple senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams said the company has increased its efforts to solve two of the most challenging issues – ensuring there are no under aged workers in its supply chain and limiting working hours to 60 hours a week.

While child labor reflected a small percentage of the workforce, Apple is now investigating its smaller suppliers – which typically supply parts to larger suppliers and hence face less oversight on such issues – to bring them into compliance, sometimes even firing them.

“We go deep in the supply chain to find it,” Williams said. “And when we do find it, we ensure that the underage workers are taken care of, the suppliers are dealt with.”

In one case, Apple said it terminated its relationship with a component maker Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co Ltd after discovering 74 cases of underage workers.

Officials at Pingzhou Electronics could not be reached despite three telephone calls from Reuters.

Apple also discovered an employment agency that was forging documents to allow children to illegally work at the supplier.

Apple reported both the supplier and the employment agency to local authorities, the company said in its latest annual report on the conditions in its supply chain.

Apple has audited both small and ancillary suppliers, as well as large ones such as Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, (005930.KS) for working conditions. It found 95 percent of sites audited complied with avoiding underage labor.

Child labor is an issue that is part of the larger supply industry as the component maker that Apple found violated child labor laws supplied parts to more than a hundred different companies, including automotive companies, Williams said, vowing to eradicate under aged labor from the industry.

“I don’t know how long it will take to get there but that’s our goal,” said Williams, who has spent a significant amount of his 14 years at Apple in Asia managing the supply chain.

FOCUS ON STUDENT INTERNS

For 2013, Williams said a key focus for Apple will be student interns and ensuring that suppliers do not abuse the internship system, especially in China where many colleges require students to complete internships as part of their curriculum.

Some companies in China are solving labor shortages by employing students. Last September, city officials of the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Yantai ordered vocational high schools to send students to a large plant run by Foxconn – a key contract manufacture for Apple and other large electronics companies like Hewlett Packard (HPQ.N) – to overcome a shortage of workers.

Another focus areas has been “bonded labor”, where agencies who help immigrant workers find jobs take a substantial portion of the worker’s pay.

Apple said in the report that it asked suppliers to reimburse $6.4 million in excess foreign contract worker fees in 2012, according to the report.

The company said it achieved 92 percent compliance with a maximum 60-hour work week in its supply chain. Where violations were discovered, Apple took action, it said in its report.

Apple also found and stopped discriminatory practices against women workers in 34 supplier facilities that required pregnancy testing and 25 facilities that tested employees for certain medical conditions, the report said.

Source: http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/01/25/apple-audit-iphone-ipad-idINDEE90O03N20130125

Renderings tease what a 4.8-inch iPhone would look like

Apple took lots of flack for the design of the iPhone 5. The company’s decision to go taller instead of wider even spawned a meme or two. Would the company — quite literally — take that design to the next level?

The latest rumor says Apple is, in fact, eyeing an even larger screen for the iPhone, one that’s close to 5-inches in size, up big from the current 4-inch model.

Despite an earlier report today saying such a device wouldn’t see the light of day until 2014, Russian Apple news site Apple Digger has lovingly put together some renderings of one.

Chief among the changes is a sixth row for apps, one more than iPhone 5 users get, and two more than those on older devices. The mockups also show a device in different colors, a rumor that picked up earlier this month from an analyst note, along with an upgraded 12 megapixel camera on the back:

Given the all around thinness of this rumor, you’d be smart to not get too excited about seeing this thing in real life anytime soon, but boy are these renderings getting good.

source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57565297-37/renderings-tease-what-a-4.8-inch-iphone-would-look-like/

Samsung Galaxy S4 reportedly set to launch in April

The successor to Samsung Electronics’ blockbuster Galaxy S3 could launch in April.

That’s according to Samsung news Web site SamMobile, which pegs the phone’s launch on April 15.

The Galaxy S franchise has emerged as a true competitor to the iPhone, and garners as much hype and anticipation as Apple’s marquee smartphone. While early iterations of the Galaxy S phone faced a slow start, the Galaxy S3 catapulted out of the gate as a smash hit, and has held up remarkably well even as other competitive phones have faded. The phone has helped propel Samsung into the top spot among handset vendors.

The Galaxy S4 — which ultimately might be branded Galaxy S IV — will feature wireless charging as a key feature. But unlike other smartphones such as the Nokia Lumia 920 or Droid DNA, the service won’t be built-in. Users will have to buy a kit with a wireless charging station and replacement cover, according to the report.

The next Galaxy S phone will also reportedly feature a larger 2,600 mAh battery, compared with the Galaxy S3’s 2,100 mAh battery.

With a launch date in April, SamMobile said Samsung could hold its own event in March, or possibly unveil the smartphone at Mobile World Congress, which begins in late February. The Galaxy S3 was unveiled at a Samsung event in May last year.

Even if the April 15 launch date holds true, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Galaxy S4 will make its way to the U.S. at that time. As with the Galaxy S III, the phone may launch at different times depending on when the U.S. carriers want to release the phone, which could vary from days to weeks.
Samsung declined to comment on the report, noting that it wouldn’t comment on rumors.

Apple’s iPhone disappointment fans doubt on growth

 

Apple Inc missed Wall Street’s revenue forecast for the third straight quarter after iPhone sales came in below expectations, fanning fears that its dominance of consumer electronics is slipping.
Shares of the world’s largest tech company fell 10 percent to $463 in after-hours trade,

wiping out some $50 billion of its market value – nearly equivalent to that of Hewlett-Packard and Dell combined.
On Wednesday, Apple said it shipped a record 47.8 million iPhones in the December quarter, up 29 percent from a year earlier. But that lagged the 50 million that analysts on average had projected.

Expectations heading into the results had been subdued by news of possible production cutbacks by some component suppliers in Asia, triggering fears that demand for the iPhone, which accounts for half of Apple’s revenue, and the iPad could be slowing.

But some investors clung to hopes for a repeat of years of historical outperformance, analysts said.

“It’s going to call into question Apple’s dominance in the space. It’s still one of the strong players, the others being Samsung and Google. It’s still a two-horse race, but Android continues to grow rapidly,” said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu.

“If you step back a bit, it’s clear they shipped a lot of phones. But the problem is the high expectations that investors have. Apple’s conservative guidance highlights the concerns over production cuts coming out of Asia recently.”

Apple is forecasting revenue of $41 billion to $43 billion in the current, second fiscal quarter, lagging the average Wall Street forecast of more than $45 billion.

Fiscal first-quarter revenue rose 18 percent to $54.5 billion, below the average analyst estimate of $54.73 billion, though earnings per share of $13.81 beat the Street forecast of $13.47, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Apple also undershot revenue targets in the previous two quarters, and these results will prompt more questions on what Apple has in its product pipeline, and what it can do to attract new sales and maintain its growth trajectory, analysts said.

Net income of $13.07 billion was virtually flat with $13.06 billion a year earlier on higher manufacturing costs. The year-ago quarter also had an extra week compared to this year.

Gross margins consequently slid to 38.6 percent, from 44.7 percent previously.

“You can’t just keep rolling out iPhones and iPads and think that everybody needs a new one,” said Jeffrey Gundlach, who runs DoubleLine Capital LP, the $53 billion bond firm. “The mini? What is that all about? It is a slightly smaller iPad — so what? So that is our new definition of innovation?”

“There are plenty of competitors like Samsung and other legitimate competitors like them,” added Gundlach, one of the highest-profile Apple bears. He maintains a $425 price target.

Taking into account the drop in shares in Wednesday’s after-hours trading, Apple’s stock is now down 34 percent from its September record high and the company has lost about $227 billion in market value.

Shares of several of Apple’s suppliers crumbled. Chip suppliers Skyworks and Cirrus Logic both fell more than 6 percent. Qualcomm Inc slipped 1.8 percent.

China is next big growth driver

Intense competition from Samsung’s cheaper phones – powered by Google’s Android software – and signs that the premium smartphone market may be close to saturation in developed markets have also caused a lot of investor anxiety.

Meanwhile, sales of the iPad came in at 22.9 million in the fiscal first quarter, roughly in line with forecasts.

On the brighter side, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer told Reuters that iPhone sales more than doubled in greater China – a region that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has vowed to focus on as its next big growth driver.

The company will begin detailing results from that country going forward. Revenue from the region totaled $7.3 billion, up 60 percent from the year-ago December quarter.

“These results were OK, but they definitely raised a few questions,” said Shannon Cross, analyst with Cross Research. “Gross margin trajectory looks fine so that’s a positive and cash continues to grow. But I think investors are going to want to know what Apple plans to do with growing cash balance.”

“And other questions are going to be around innovation and where the next products are coming from and what does Tim Cook see in the next 12 to 18 months.”

Addressing production rumors

In an unusual move for Apple, which typically does not respond to speculation, Cook addressed the production cutback rumors at length on the conference call and questioned the accuracy of rumors about its plans.

Media reports earlier this month said the company is slashing orders for iPhone 5 and iPad screens and other components from its Asian suppliers.

“Even if a particular data point were factual, it would be impossible to accurately interpret the data point as to what it meant for our overall business, because the supply chain is very complex,” he said, adding that Apple has multiple sources for components.

“Yields might vary. Supplier performance can vary. The beginning inventory positions can vary. There’s just an inordinately long list of things that would make any single data point not a great proxy for what’s going on,” he said.

Apple’s initial iPhone and iPad mini sales were hurt by supply constraints, but Cook expects supply to balance demand for the iPad mini this quarter. He also acknowledged that iPad was cannibalizing its high-margin Macintosh computers, but said it was a huge opportunity for the company.

“On iPad in particular, we have the mother of all opportunities here, because the Windows market is much, much larger than the Mac market is,” he said. “And I think it is clear that it’s already cannibalizing some.”

In another departure from tradition, Apple intends to tweak the way it both reports results and publishes forecasts.

Apart from breaking out results from China, the company also will no longer provide a single revenue or gross margin outlook. From Wednesday, it began providing the range it expects to hit, rather than the often-ludicrously conservative estimates that Apple was once notorious for.

The new policy took many by surprise.

“Before people could always ignore the guidance,” said Dan Niles, Chief Investment Officer of AlphaOne Capital Partners, LLC. “Apple is telling investors that they need to pay attention to the guidance and you can’t ignore it, which is basically what we all did in the past.”