tracker

Report: Apple slips in mobile market, remains in top five

Though still among the top five mobile phone vendors worldwide, Apple has conceded fourth place to China's ZTE, according to the "Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker" report released today by IDC.

Looking at the global market share of the top mobile phone vendors in the fourth quarter, Apple dipped from fourth to fifth place despite a record quarter for phone shipments, the report said.

The iPhone maker shipped 16.2 million units, a healthy boost from the 14.1 million units shipped in the third quarter and the 8.7 million shipped in 2009's final quarter. Apple's flagship phone sold especially well in developed countries, including North America and Western Europe.

Apple's global market share for the quarter slipped only slightly to 4 percent from 4.1 percent the prior quarter. But that combined with a surge in shipments for ZTE, which has sold mostly lower-cost feature phones, allowed the Chinese mobile phone maker to steal fourth place away from Apple.

Hitting the top five for the very first time, ZTE shipped 16.8 million units for the quarter, helping it win a 4.2 percent slice of the market.… Read more

2010 PC growth sees slowdown, tablet cannibalization

Following its modest growth last quarter, the PC market saw its strongest quarter of the year, while managing to miss the expectations of research firms IDC and Gartner.

According to the Quarterly PC Tracker Survey released today by IDC, overall worldwide PC shipments grew 2.7 percent year-on-year during the fourth quarter, with Gartner reporting a slightly larger 3.1 percent as part of its quarterly report. Both numbers missed the firms' expectations, which IDC had predicted at 5.5 percent and Gartner at 4.8 percent.

IDC said that one of the big reasons for the "modest" … Read more

Garmin debuts four apps for iPhone, Android

Although technically one of the first GPS manufacturers to market a mapping app for portables with its Garmin Mobile 10 software for PDAs and Palm, Garmin has been notably absent from the smartphone navigation app marketplace as of late (discounting the aging and ridiculously overpriced Garmin Mobile for Blackberry). Today, Garmin jumps back into the fray, challenging apps from TomTom, Magellan, and Navigon with not one, but four of its own GPS-centric apps, including the new StreetPilot navigation app for iPhone and three new GPS apps for Android devices.

The StreetPilot name hearkens back to the original Garmin StreetPilot GPS … Read more

The 404 695: Where basically, we hide your wife (podcast)

Jay, Josh, and Danny from BeenVerified are back in The 404 studio to show off their brand new sex offender locator app for the Android and iPhone! For some reason, it keeps going off during the show...

BeenVerified is an online service that makes it easy to do quick, thorough background checks on people, and it's a lot easier than simply Googling someone's name. The instant search not only gives public access to legal databases for criminal records and phone numbers; it's also an excellent source for monitoring sex offenders in your neighborhood.

Their latest Sex Offender Tracker App uses augmented reality to display graphical overlays on your phone that help you locate registered sex offenders in your area, and can you believe it? They got ANTOINE DODSON to be their spokesperson in the commercial!

Keep listening if you're unaware of Mr. Dodson, but with a successful single that has gotten 35,000 YouTube hits so far and his own Halloween costume, you should really know this guy already.

The Sex Offender Tracker app is available for the iPhone and Android for $1.99, and 5 percent of all proceeds will be donated to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (Rainn), an anti-sexual-assault organization.

The guys stick around after the break for the following batch of video voicemails:

DeeJay shows us how an 8-bit beat is made with a simple drum machine!

Mass from Phil the Mailguy hopes we have a wonderful day!

Episode 695 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Landing the best iPhone flight tracker apps

Whether you're leaving on a jet plane or picking up Mom at the airport, a flight tracker app is an essential tool for your iPhone. You can use it to keep tabs on your departure time, confirm when Mom is arriving, and even check her plane's position in the air. And if you're an airline geek right like me, you might even check it just for fun.

There are a handful of flight tracker apps available in the iTunes App Store, but up until now I wasn't sure which offered the best experience. So to find out, I downloaded six titles and tracked a sample flight on each one. Below you'll find what I consider to be the upsides and downsides of each app, plus my overall assessments and a screenshot. For a further peek at the maps for each title, check out this related slideshow.

Note: For this roundup, I chose only standalone Flight Tracker apps. I did not include more comprehensive trip planning titles that happen to include flight tracker functionality.

FlightTrack Developer: Mobiata Price: $4.99 Can it track international flights? Yes, even when outside the United States.

What's good: FlightTrack offers a lot of information without saddling you with an overwhelming interface. For each flight, it not only lists the scheduled departure and arrival times (when the plane leaves from and arrives at the gate), but also when it will take off and land. Delay information is clearly marked, as well, and you view the aircraft type, departure gate, and scheduled flight time.

Once a flight is in the air, FlightTrack shows the airspeed, arrival gate, baggage claim number, and present altitude. And if that isn't enough, you can jot notes on a separate page, access a shortcut to the airline's phone number, and look up the local time and temperature of the departure and arrival cities.

The maps are gorgeous, and that's not an overstatement. You get a full satellite view with weather radar data and I really like that you can zoom way in and scroll around the map using your finger.

What's not: The satellite maps can take a long time to load depending on your connection, and you can't switch to a simpler format.

The final word: FlightTrack offers a clean, data-rich interface with the best maps of the bunch. Don't let the $4.99 price tag scare you off; FlightTrack is my top choice and well worth the money.

Neat bonus: You also can shake your iPhone to see a random flight.

Other versions available? A Pro version ($9.99) adds push notifications, weather, and TripIt integration. You'll need a subscription, though. … Read more

Task master

For some professionals, keeping track of what's going on in the workplace is as simple as using the calendar and to-do list in Microsoft Outlook. For others, there are numerous employees, clients, projects, tasks, and details that need to be managed. Easy Tracker 2009 Enterprise - Time & Billing Manager is a comprehensive project management tool that gives both employees and supervisors the tools they need to keep track of what needs to be done and the time spent doing it.

Easy Tracker is actually comprised of a suite of applications, including the Pro and Lite versions and a … Read more

Personal finance reporter

Personal finance and investment management software is becoming more powerful and capable yet easier to use than ever. Case in point is Believ's flagship product, Fund Manager Personal, a comprehensive portfolio manager designed to give investors powerful reporting and graphing features that are also easy to learn, understand, and apply. Its customizable financial analysis and reporting tools make it suitable for individual investors and family finances as well as active traders and market professionals.

Fund Manager's clean, elegant, businesslike interface is anchored by a full-featured menu bar, including an excellent Help file as well as controls for the … Read more

Taking stock

Medved Quote Tracker provides tons of stock market information in one free package. While that package isn't the best looking of its kind, it more than makes up for any unattractiveness with enough raw data to satisfy the desktop day trader.

Medved Quote Tracker's interface is cramped and bland, featuring a gray-on-white color scheme that isn't very kind on the eyes. The design squeezes a large collection of commands into a tiny space. Fortunately, a brief trip to the Help file soon cleared things up. We also don't like the way its online quote feature requires … Read more

Time is on your side

Easy Tracker Lite - Time Tracking & Managing is comprehensive business software for tracking the amount of time spent on specific tasks and projects. Although parts of it aren't particularly intuitive, overall it's an effective and useful tool.

Easy Tracker Lite's interface seems well organized and is somewhat reminiscent of Microsoft Outlook, with a wizard that simplifies the process of setting up projects and tasks. However, it wasn't too long before we ran into some features that were a bit of trouble to figure out. For example, one of the most attractive things about Easy Tracker … Read more