Showing posts with label now. Show all posts
Showing posts with label now. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2015
Improved App Store Search Engine Now Corrects For Users’ “Fat Finger” Mistakes Other Misspellings
A recent change to Apples App Store search engine now leads to improved search results for misspelled queries with small typos, weve learned.
In addition, searchers looking for an app they know by name, but are unsure if it has spaces in the title, are also seeing better results. For example, those looking for the highly ranked “QuizUp” game wouldnt have found it before if they had typed in “Quiz Up” with a space. Now it appears.
Sources familiar with the matter confirm to us that these App Store search engine changes went into effect a few weeks ago.
The improvements could lead to increased app downloads for affected developers, particularly those with hard-to-spell or lengthy titles, as many are only now beginning to realize.
“Thats great news for app publishers and yet another step in Apples efforts to improve app discoverability,” says Craig Palli, Chief Strategy Officer at mobile app marketer Fiksu, who also confirmed these changes following our inquiry.
The improvement is no small matter when it comes to pitting Apples App Store versus competitor Google Play, which has long since offered a spell checking function. For example, earlier this year, App Store SEO firm SearchMan had looked into the differences between the two platforms, and found that a simple misspelling of the word “calendar” (i.e., spelling it “calender”) led to 100 times more results in Google Play. It seems the only iOS apps returned were those who thought to include the misspelling as one of their keywords.
The company had run through a handful of misspellings to further demonstrate this problem (see slide 8 here, and above), which showed how much better Google Play was at correcting for typos and poorly spelled words.
SearchMan CEO Niren Hiro ran these same queries again for the date of November 24th, 2013 and found the results had definitely shifted, though not always for the better. (See chart below).
In the case where a misspelling returned few results, like “newz” which had 9 hits or “camara” which had 862, there was a dramatic improvement. But he spotted something else, too: there appears to be a cap of roughly 2,220 results on the misspelled words right now, which is why you see that misspelled keywords like “shoping” and “pocker” are actually seeing fewer results than before. This is likely the result of the App Store now correcting for the misspelling instead of looking for the exact keyword match.
Though the changes will lead some consumers to apps they may not have otherwise discovered, or at least get them there more quickly if they had made a “fat finger” mistake, they dont really represent a large volume of App Store queries.
In another test, George Lawrence, founder at App Store optimization firm Straply, pulled data for all the misspelled variations of the phrase “angry birds” on the iOS App Store, for example.
The correct spelling drove 98.48% of searches, but no misspelled variation even generated one percent of search volume. “Angery birds” was 0.46% of searches, “angri birds” was 0.37%, “angry blrds” was 0.32% of searches, and so on. There were only five misspelled variations that drove enough search volume to even rank, says Lawrence.
“Misspellings and mistypings are definitely happening in the App Store, but according to our volume estimates, those types of mistakes are still very much in the long tail,” he explains. “Many of the volumes are so low, they round to zero.”
Though misspellings may represent the long tail of App Store searches, correcting for these queries is an important feature for any search engine to offer, whether app search or otherwise. However, its clear that in search, as expected, Google has had the advantage here – its nearly 2014, and only now has Apple made this sort of basic feature live.
Still, the improvements should be positively received by the majority of the iOS developer community, except of course for the App Store equivalent of a domain name squatter, who may have been erroneously benefitting from users typos and mistakes until now.
Data source: via TC (By Sarah Perez)
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Android 4 4 for Galaxy Note 3 now seeding in India and Baltic region
We guess the update process will now be hitting full steam and may more countries will be joining those in a few days. Reportedly the OTA update weighs at about 360MB, so you might want to make sure you download it over Wi-Fi when the time comes.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Asus wants to sell 5 million ZenFones this year ZenFone 6 and ZenFone 5 are available now
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Announced back in January at CES 2014, Asus’ new ZenFone 6 and ZenFone 5 handsets are available starting this week - although it looks like only customers in Taiwan can buy the devices for now.
The ZenFone 6 costs around $230 (6,990 TWD) in Taiwan, while the ZenFone 5 is priced at $166 (4,990 TWD). Both were launched in Taiwan before being introduced in other markets because this is Asus’ home country. China is probably one of the markets that will get the new smartphones next. According to Focus Taiwan, Asus CFO David Chang “predicted” that 5 million ZenFone handsets would be sold around the world before the end of 2014.
The ZenFone 6 and ZenFone 5 run Android 4.3 Jelly Bean (upgradeable to KitKat), and are powered by dual-core 2GHz Intel Atom Z2580 processors. The former model sports a 6-inch 720p display, while the latter comes with a 5-inch 720p screen. You can check out our Asus ZenFone 6 hands-on here, and our Asus ZenFone 5 hands-on here.
Asus also has a ZenFone 4, which features a 4-inch WVGA display. This is obviously cheaper than the other two ZenFones, and should be available starting this month, too.
The ZenFone 6 costs around $230 (6,990 TWD) in Taiwan, while the ZenFone 5 is priced at $166 (4,990 TWD). Both were launched in Taiwan before being introduced in other markets because this is Asus’ home country. China is probably one of the markets that will get the new smartphones next. According to Focus Taiwan, Asus CFO David Chang “predicted” that 5 million ZenFone handsets would be sold around the world before the end of 2014.
The ZenFone 6 and ZenFone 5 run Android 4.3 Jelly Bean (upgradeable to KitKat), and are powered by dual-core 2GHz Intel Atom Z2580 processors. The former model sports a 6-inch 720p display, while the latter comes with a 5-inch 720p screen. You can check out our Asus ZenFone 6 hands-on here, and our Asus ZenFone 5 hands-on here.
Asus also has a ZenFone 4, which features a 4-inch WVGA display. This is obviously cheaper than the other two ZenFones, and should be available starting this month, too.
Friday, March 27, 2015
XiaoMi is now 10 billions worth said CEO Lei Jun
After a new successful funding round, the XiaoMi CEO, Lei Jun confirms through his Sina Weibo account a valuation of XiaoMi of $10 billions. A year ago, his company was "only" worth $4 billions.
As we mentioned in many of our reports, the growth rate is accelerating and it wont slow down with the XiaoMi Mi 3, a Zi Mi (Purple Rice) Tablet or/and Smart TVs.
Lei Jun was a lot compared to Steve Jobs but the man recused that statement a few weeks ago. The CEO says that his company is a lot like Amazon and it is e-commerce first and not a phone maker. Seeing how the Mi Store is growing, Lei Jun might be right since its online store is offering more and more products and most of them are not XiaoMi made.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Wi Fi is now free when you visit the UK if you have a MasterCard
Using your phone or tablet when youre overseas can be pretty pricey. Luckily, for everything else theres MasterCard, as you can now enjoy free Wi-Fi in the UK thanks to the card in your wallet.
Credit card and payment services company MasterCard has signed up with British Wi-Fi provider The Cloud for free Internet connection in thousands of public places when you come to visit. Download the MasterCard Priceless London WiFi mobile app, available today from Google Play or the Apple App Store, and youll be wirelessly connected to the Web faster than a politician spotting 20p on the floor (thats British for "very quickly") without having to pay out a single pound, shilling or queenpence (thats British for "money").
So when youre on your holiday or travelling for business, you can check email, catch up with your social media friends or even just find your way about without racking up huge data roaming charges or burning through your phone plans data allowance.
The ability to enjoy music and video streaming services over Wi-Fi also saves you from having to pre-load your tablet with films, ebooks or other entertainment for the trip. And it could help you sidestep extortionate Wi-Fi fees from your hotel too.
The Cloud is a company providing Wi-Fi hotspots around the UK in public places including shops, bars, food places and train stations. For the benefit of international readers who may not be familiar with UK institutions, those venues include WHSmith (books, magazines, dirty carpets); Greggs (two sausage rolls for a pound); Pret, Caffé Nero and Eat (skinny lattes, skinnier sandwiches); Marks & Spencer (posh food, nice clothes, sturdy underwear); JD Wetherspoons (cheap beer, cheap meals, broken dreams); and PizzaExpress (students on dates).
The app also offers deals and promotions based on where you are with MasterCards Priceless Cities programme. If you are planning on using the app, its important to note that MasterCard says you have to download it and register for the service while youre still at home, before you travel -- so plan ahead and contact MasterCard for more details.
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Credit card and payment services company MasterCard has signed up with British Wi-Fi provider The Cloud for free Internet connection in thousands of public places when you come to visit. Download the MasterCard Priceless London WiFi mobile app, available today from Google Play or the Apple App Store, and youll be wirelessly connected to the Web faster than a politician spotting 20p on the floor (thats British for "very quickly") without having to pay out a single pound, shilling or queenpence (thats British for "money").
So when youre on your holiday or travelling for business, you can check email, catch up with your social media friends or even just find your way about without racking up huge data roaming charges or burning through your phone plans data allowance.
The ability to enjoy music and video streaming services over Wi-Fi also saves you from having to pre-load your tablet with films, ebooks or other entertainment for the trip. And it could help you sidestep extortionate Wi-Fi fees from your hotel too.
The Cloud is a company providing Wi-Fi hotspots around the UK in public places including shops, bars, food places and train stations. For the benefit of international readers who may not be familiar with UK institutions, those venues include WHSmith (books, magazines, dirty carpets); Greggs (two sausage rolls for a pound); Pret, Caffé Nero and Eat (skinny lattes, skinnier sandwiches); Marks & Spencer (posh food, nice clothes, sturdy underwear); JD Wetherspoons (cheap beer, cheap meals, broken dreams); and PizzaExpress (students on dates).
The app also offers deals and promotions based on where you are with MasterCards Priceless Cities programme. If you are planning on using the app, its important to note that MasterCard says you have to download it and register for the service while youre still at home, before you travel -- so plan ahead and contact MasterCard for more details.
Read more news from mobile world
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