June 13th, 2012, 4:15 A.M. — After the iOS 6 unveiling at the WWDC event, navigation provider’s shares soared. Can the next iPhone give TomTom a new revenue stream?
To recap this week’s Apple event, Apple unveiled its latest iOS 6 mobile operating system at the WWDC event in California. Apple, unsurprisingly, introduces a new map application that does not support Google Maps, the search giant’s popular navigation and mapping service.
After the announcement, Dutch navigation provider TomTom experiences something positive — in the stock market. According to Fox News, TomTom’s share soared about 12 per cent (some reports 14 per cent) in Amsterdam likely due to its new deal with Apple, the maker of the popular iPhone and iPad.
How can TomTom generate revenue from its mapping and turn-by-turn navigation deal with Apple? Well, reports reveal that TomTom and Apple are not yet taking about the price tag of the deal, or how much the agreement is worth, or how the deal works, like per device licensing? Or one time payment? Or yearly charge?
TomTom confirms that it signed an agreement with Apple for maps and other related information, but adding that it will not provide further details of the deal.
What Apple and TomTom Maps 3D? Google updates its own Maps with the new "45 degree aerial imagery," aside from the seamless and intuitive turn-by-turn navigation. Photo via Google.
Aside from the current phones and tablet computers, TomTom’s technology is also expected to invade Apple’s next iPhone, the long-rumored iPhone 5. In short, TomTom might see bigger growth after the release date of the iPhone 5 next quarter.
All iPhones, except the iPhone 3G and 2G, and the two iPads plus the 4th generation iPod Touch, are all getting iOS 6 later this Fall (around October), giving TomTom millions of new viewers via Apple’s application. With the new audiences, analysts are now giving positive forecasts. Fox News revealed that Analysts at Rabobank upgraded TomTom to “buy” from “hold” or for starters, from “don’t buy yet” to “hey buy now.” The quick response from analysts is understandable, knowing that Apple’s shares, on average, is still moving to positive direction and might hit record numbers on the launch date of the iPhone 5.
The new iPhone 5, according to rumors and analysts, is hitting the market before the holiday season, is expected to ship with a larger display, new chipset, new design, possibly with a new camera, Long Term Evolution and iOS 6 with the new features including TomTom and Apple’s new Maps app out of the box.
It is worth noting that Google, Apple’s mobile operating system rival that currently owns the biggest smartphone operating system market share (more than 50 per cent worldwide) is bringing new mapping technology to many platforms too, the Google Maps now with 3D technology.
According to Google, the new mapping technology is coming to Android and iOS “in the coming weeks.” In short, TomTom and Apple’s default map app will compete with Google, still.
Rihanna’s iPhone nail test: How the pop star checks her manicure is just right - Daily Mail
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Pop sensation Rihanna is known for her extreme style from the top of her dollar embellished baseball cap to the tips of her uber-manicured talons.
But how does she know if she's gone just a smidgeon too far?
Her manicurist, LA based nail artist, Kimmie Kyees, revealed all this week in an interview with People.
She's got it nailed: If she can still use her trusty iPhone, Rihanna's manicure is the perfect length
'She loves her long nails,' Kyees explained, continuing, 'She does the iPhone test - if she can still type then [they're] OK.'
Kyees first worked with Rihanna in 2007 on the Barbados born star's Umbrella video.
She also divulged that while some stars just sit back and let her get on with it, Rihanna is 'involved with everything about her look and style — she’s a trendsetter'.
Hard to believe but Rihanna can still use the iPhone she's holding...
The style the Where Have You Been star currently favours is a 'narrow square shape acrylic' and, according to Kyees, Rihanna actually came up with this one herself.
Rihanna is designing a new clothing range for Armani and also recently revealed that she has ambitions to create her own label in the not too distant future.
So nails are as good a place as any to start!
Kyees has also worked with Jennifer Lopez and the Kardashians but her most recent job involved Katy Perry's ying yang mani.
This is the one the Part Of Me star sported at Capital FM's Summertime Ball last week, as she filmed with Cheryl Cole for the Graham Norton Show and even falling out of Soho's Cirque de Soir night club.
According to Kyees, 'She said they’re her favourite ones that I’ve ever done for her!'
And they've certainly stayed the distance! Kyees used gel: 'super easy to get up and go because there’s no dry time and you have versatility'.
'You can put a pair of press-ons over the gels, and when you take them off you still have a perfect manicure.' So that's how Katy's manicure lasted so long. Shame Kyees couldn't work similar magic on her marriage to Russell Brand...
Ying Yang: Katy Perry (right) loves her Kimmie Kyees manicure so much she even tweeted this picture of it (left)
She may be a little unsteady on her feet but at least the mani's going strong
iPhone 5 will have a tactile touchscreen - PC Advisor
This iPhone 5 rumor, as with so many, is based on the deep belief that every Cool Technology flows toward Apple as water flows downhill. It's a variant of the belief that every patent awarded to Apple reveals something that will appear in the very next iDevice, even if it's just weeks away from an expected launch. See also iPhone 5 release date, specs and rumour round up.
Feeling buttons or controls on a iPhone would be extremely useful for completing tasks
A variety of news outlets picked up on a new tactile touch-screen technology unveiled this week at the SID Display Week trade show by a Fremont, Calif.-based startup, Tactus Technology. Using something called "microfluidics," Tactus replaces the conventional top layer of a touch screen with a flexible membrane. Tiny amounts of special oil are pumped through tiny channels in the membrane, "inflating" the keys and buttons of, for example, a qwerty keyboard. You actually have "real" keys to press. When you're done, the oil drains away and the membrane, in theory, flattens out and disappears, to become a flat touch screen again. Visit New iPhone 5 to have flexible display.
The Tactus website has very few details but the all-important marketing video. See also Apple fails to ban Samsung Galaxy S3 in US
It all sounds impossibly complex, but The Verge's Nathan Ingraham was favorably impressed, talking with Tactus CEO and co-founder Craig Ciesla and actually handling a prototype, single image based on an Android smartphone. Go to iPhone 5 will "launch" in September.
In his post, Ingram says the channels are "invisible, for the most part." He also writes about the actual experience of touching the screen: "The key outlines did provide some feedback as to where individual keys start and end, but the physical act of 'pressing' a key didn't provide much feedback yet. Much of the time, it felt as though the capacitive touchscreen was triggered before you had a chance to feel the travel of the fluid-filled area. ... Still, once you notice the outlines of where the keys appear and disappear, they're hard to un-see (though we expect future versions will more naturally integrate the microfluid channels)."
Those qualifications alone, given Apple's obsession with industrial design and UI details, never mind Tactus' clear statement that first products won't be available until mid-2013, make it clear you can forget about this innovation appearing this year on the iPhone 5.
But this is the iOSphere, which rarely lets facts get in the way of enthusiasm.
Dave Smith, writing for International Business Times, covered the Tactus news, and then linked it to another recent patent disclosure covered in early May by Patently Apple, for a "flexible OLED display." Without going into the almost numbingly detailed speculation by Patently Apple, the patent seems to have some type of flexible surface, but uses stacked layers of "piezoelectric elements" to create the physical buttons or keys.
Smith says the patent reveals a "similar technology" to that of Tactus and makes the intuitive leap of faith that lies at the heart of iOSphere rumors: "A similar technology dealing with advanced haptics and feedback is reportedly being built for Apple's sixth-generation smartphone, presumably called the 'iPhone 5.'"
But if even it isn't in iPhone 5, "it's likely that a future iPhone will feature Tactus Technology's dynamic touchscreens," Smith declares. "Feeling buttons or controls on a smartphone would be extremely useful for completing tasks that typically require a keyboard. ... It's an incredible and exciting technology. ... But if this really is a hot technology, there's a great chance Apple will rush to get its recently-granted patent into its next iPhone, which is expected to arrive in September or October."
The conclusion: this incredibly exciting and hot technology may or may not be in this year's iPhone 5.
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