In this issue of Recap in Tech News – Apple Announces OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, Google’s Ad Market Share in Danger, E3 2014 Begins this Week, Who’s to Blame for Slow Buffering, Flickr Users Required to Use Yahoo to Sign-In and Chrome Leads Browser Wars.
Apple Announces OS X Yosemite and iOS 8
At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) this week, two new operating systems were announced – iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. Both operating systems will be available for the public this fall, but are available for developers to test now. With iOS 8, developers are also receiving an all new developers’ toolkit. Both operating systems have many new features for users and most analysts are considering these announcements to be the biggest evolutions within Apple’s developer community within the past 5 years. For more information, visit our full recap at macsources.com/wwdc14-keynote-recap.
Google’s Ad Market Share in Danger
Recent studies are showing that mobile apps are threatening Google’s dominance in the mobile search advertising market. eMarketer studies show that Google’s market share has dropped by 14.3 percent between 2012 and 2013. The ‘other’ category that has caused the drop is made up from app-based search engines. Some of these apps are preloaded into mobile devices by service providers while others are downloaded by the owners.
E3 2014 Begins this Week
Right on the heels of WWDC, E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is slated to begin this Tuesday, June 10 in the Los Angeles Convention Center. E3 is an annual convention presented by the Entertainment Software Association where video game developers and manufacturers show off their newest products. Unlike other conventions, E3 is ‘industry-only’ and not open to the public. E3 will run through Thursday, June 12.
Who’s to Blame for Slow Buffering?
Verizon and Netflix are currently bickering over who is to blame for slow viewing times. Netflix recently started displaying a message – “The Verizon Network is crowded right now.” – when their members experience slow buffering times. Verizon replied with a public statement stating that “The source of the problem is almost certainly NOT congestion in Verizon’s network. Instead, the problem is most likely congestion on the connection that Netflix has chosen to use to reach the Verizon Network.” Netflix recently struck an agreement with Verizon which was similar to a deal they completed with Comcast where customers would receive direct access to the broadband network.
Flickr Users Required to Use Yahoo! to Sign-In
Beginning July 1, users of the photo and video sharing service, Flickr, will be required to use Yahoo! credentials to sign in to their account rather than using Google or Facebook accounts to access their Flickr account. Under the leadership of Marissa Mayer, Flickr is using this as a way to boost Yahoo’s user base rather than them being able to use a third-party. Flickr users are strongly encouraged to connect to a Yahoo ID before July 1.
Chrome Leads Browser Wars
According to research from the Adobe Digital Index, Google’s Internet browser, Chrome, is the most popular Internet browser. Commanding the U.S. market share (desktop and mobile), Chrome controls 31.8 percent while IE sits at 30.9 percent. Apple’s Safari ranks third with 25 percent of the browser market.