Not just a few days ago, AT&T dropped the price of the HTC First phone from $99 to 99 cents. Now – one month after its debut – AT&T has decided to discontinue the phone.
An undisclosed source said the HTC First will soon be discontinued and the remaining inventory will be returned. According to BGR, their source said AT&T sold fewer than 15,000 units nationwide. That was even after the phone was slashed in price.
Of course its hard to sell against the iPhone5 and Samsung Galaxy S4, which are the biggest products at AT&T right now.
There is no word whether HTC First will be scrapped altogether or find another market for the phone. ALthough with Facebook Home still struggling to even get downloaded on Android devices (Home just hit 1 million according to CNet), it looks like Facebook’s domination of the smartphone market will have to wait.
Yahoo! releases the Axis browser for iOS, and add-on for browsers
It’s a bold move to Yahoo! to do, but they have come out with their own browser. Calling itself a “Search Browser“, Axis has added many features to not only go to web pages, but also search on relevant content. With the tabs browser below and a login system to personalize experience, this might just be the browser to replace Safari on the iPad.
Right now, Axis is available for iOS devices, and as a plug-in for Chrome, IE, Firefox and Safari. Axis works like Google Chrome – you enter a web page or search term into the bar, and get results.
Axis on Searching
Yahoo! Axis Logo
A pull-down menu shows you alternatives to what you are searching for. So if you were looking for “American Idol Winner”, you could flip between the American Idol homepage, Wikipedia’s entry on American Idol, or a multitude of news sources that are currently talking about American Idol. Best part is you don’t have to leave the page you are currently on to do a quick search and find out that Phillip Phillips is the 2012 American Idol Winner.
This is perfect for doing research, like looking up someone’s twitter handle, or finding a web page to refer to.
Axis Login option, Facebook, Google, but no Microsoft?
Yahoo! understands that you might not have a Yahoo! email address to login with. Therefore, they give you an option to also login to the browser using your Facebook or Google accounts. Conspicuously missing is the option for Microsoft’s Windows Live login. After all, isn’t Yahoo! using Microsoft’s search engine?
If you are accessing from the desktop, you will have to head to Yahoo!s login page. If you have a Yahoo! account, it will assume you want to sign in with that. To get the desktop add-on, go to http://axis.yahoo.com/
Move Across Multiple Machines, Keep the Same Pages Open
With Yahoo!s Connected experience, it allows you to move from mobile device to notebook or desktop without having to re-open pages. This is perfect for someone like me – I can set up my podcast show notes, then log into another computer and have the pages automatically load.
It also syncs your bookmarks, browsing history, and saved searches.
Yahoo! Axis seems to be an interesting little browser. With the ability to sync, it will probably replace Safari on my iPad.
Axis Tabs Option
Tabs on Yahoo! Axis are along the bottom on a pop-up option. You can add a tab (by pressing the “+”) or remove it (by pressing the “X”). Run multiple tabs for easy access to pages.
Axis on the Browser – The Return of the Yahoo! Homepage?
Yahoo! Axis Bar on Chrome Desktop
If you install on your browser, you will see a bar on the lower-left hand of your browser. Hover over to expand across the screen, and hit a button to expand. up. You can access your tabs and other search queries. It does take a little bit of time to understand (The ribbon on the left side will open your bookmarks, for example).
For the couple of hours that I have played with it, I am pretty impressed with Yahoo! Axis’ functionality. It does have the ability to bring up Yahoo.com – a page I haven’t really seen since 2001 when I was a lonely IT desktop specialist tasked to change the default browser homepages to the company’s website.
Dag Kittlaus has been planning this for a while, reports at AllThingsD. But today, Kittlaus has left Apple and the program he created. All just weeks after Siri debuted.
He created and led speech recognition for Siri. Kittlaus was actually CEO of Siri since 2007. In 2010, Apple bought the software for an undisclosed sum (although Business Insider estimates around $100-200 million). Along with Kittlaus was Adam Cheyer (VP of Engineering), Tom Gruber (CTO), and Gummi Hafsteinsson (VP of Product), who are not expected to leave Apple.
Dag Kittlaus stated this was a mutual departure, planned before Siri was introduced last month. He wants to spend more time with his family in Chicago. He also wants to start brainstorming new ideas.
Siri, in the meantime, still continues to be a hit on the iPhone. The latest commercials show all the things you can now do with your mobile device. It has spawned a Siri clone (called Iris) on Android within 8 hours.
