TweakTown News Feed

The 'pebble blue' version of Samsung's GALAXY S III delayed due to manufacturing problems

Anthony Garreffa — Sun, 27 May 2012 21:26:01 PDT

There are multiple sources saying that the 'pebble blue' version of the Samsung GALAXY S III will be delayed due to a manufacturing issue with the back case, but no more specifics have been made available.

XDA Developers is reporting that Samsung have ditched approximately 600,000 rear casings for the phone and that they are retooling the production process. The white version is reportedly OK, and will still be hitting shelves and hands across the world.

Just when I thought I'd be able to buy one of each color when I'm in Taipei for Computex. Samsung, you disappoint. Looks like it's two of the white-colored versions now!

RumorTT: Facebook still working on a phone, could we see them acquire a hardware maker?

Anthony Garreffa — Sun, 27 May 2012 20:19:01 PDT

We've heard the rumors before, and with the power that social networking giant Facebook has, it would not surprise me to see them release a smartphone. But, can a smartphone really succeed in this world of super-powered smartphones, built around Facebook?

Well, according to employees of Facebook, some engineers have been sought out by engineers there, as well as others who have been briefed on Facebook's plans, reckon that the company wants to release its own smartphone by 2013. These people spoke out in anonymity, fearing their jobs or relationship with Facebook.

Facebook have reportedly hired ex-Apple software and hardware engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one who worked on the iPad, these same employees said. One thing that would boost the 'is Facebook building a phone' argument, is CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has said he's worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms.

It also doesn't really matter if Facebook still can't make a phone, they raked in $16 billion from its IPO, so they could acquire a company such as Research in Motion who is worth less than $6 billion at the moment. Even HTC is only worth around $11.8 billion, and sour that Google acquired Motorola, so that could be an option for Facebook.

Instagram has instagrown, has enjoyed 78% more uniques in April, thanks to Facebook

Anthony Garreffa — Sun, 27 May 2012 19:20:01 PDT

Instagram have been doing more than just rolling around in pools of money since their acquisition from Facebook, the exposure to millions upon millions of socially-connected users has its benefits. Last month, the photo sharing website saw a 78-percent surge in unique visitors in the United States.

This surge made Instagram the highest gaining site on the Internet for the month, according to analytics firm comScore. From comScore's reports, Instagram.com had close to 14.6 million unique U.S. visitors in April, which is up from the 8.2 million the month before. Considering that Instagram's bread and butter is from mobile applications for the iPhone and Android, this is a pretty big feat for the photo sharing service.

But, April was a huge month for Instagram: on April 3 they released their long-awaited Android app, and just a few days later Facebook announced they were acquiring the company for close to $1 billion in cash and shares. Both of these events would've triggered a surge in Instagram activity, as seen from the comScore report.

After a week, Facebook is the biggest IPO flop of the decade

Anthony Garreffa — Sun, 27 May 2012 18:18:01 PDT

We've surely all read or heard about the IPO from social networking giant Facebook, and how it has been a disaster since day one, but ranked as one of the worst of the decade? Well, according to Bloomberg, it is. Bloomberg have declared it as the worst large IPO of the past decade, based on the first five days of trading.

During an interview on Bloomberg TV, markets reporter Sheila Dharmarajan compared Facebook to four other poorly performing IPOs: Blackstone Group, General Motors, Mastercard and MF Global. Given that these companies aren't just run of the mill small businesses, it's a good comparison to the social networking giant. As the picture shows above, Facebook are in quite the pickle, compared to say VISA who were trading very well after a week.

We've been reporting on the IPO for quite a while now, and we kept you updated as the shares tanked virtually every single day. Will it get worse from here on out? Or will Facebook pull out a hoodie-sporting rabbit from their social networking hat?

Foxconn produces 70% of iPhones, wants to produce even more

Trace Hagan — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:20:38 PDT

Foxconn recently inked an agreement with Sony to learn how to make the new touch screen for the Apple iPhone. New reports have surfaced that show that Foxconn wants to completely take over the iPhone manufacturing business. Currently Foxconn's Zhengzhou produces about 200,000 iPhones per day which accounts for 70% of production.

If Foxconn has their way, they would like to double that plant's output to 400,000 a day. With this increase comes the risk of damaging workers' health or having to hire additional workers. It remains to be seen just how Foxconn intends to increase the production of this plant. It's current productions account for 52.7 percent of the total exports of the Henan province.

This is great for Foxconn if they are able to. But it's not the best strategy for Apple. Think about what would happen if there were a fire at the plant and all of a sudden there was no iPhone being manufactured. It's unlikely that this would happen as I'm sure there are plans in place to prevent it, but it shows that Apple shouldn't put 100% of production into one company or factory.