It is believed that Nuance’s technology powers Apple’s voice based personal assistant, aka Siri. While Siri serves its abilities to iPhone 4S owners, users of the new iPad have to be contended with the dictation function only. What about the ones having neither iPhone 4S nor the new iPad, but an old iPhone, iPad or iPod touch model?
Well, they can still get benefit from Nuance technology, thanks to company’s Dragon applications. Among them, Dragon Search and Dictation applications are the most important ones, especially for people living in Turkey, and speaking in Turkish. Because those apps are about to come to Turkish App Store with native Turkish language support.
Avea, Turkey’s third mobile operator, has announced its financial report for the first quarter of 2012. According to the results, revenues increased by 12% year-on-year to TRY737 million. EBITDA also showed the same increase level, and was established as TRY79 million. The average revenue per user got 4% higher year-on-year, and increased to TRY19.9.
In that period, the number of minutes per user was recorded as 320, which is 14% higher than the quarter a year before. Although it is said that the revenues from SMS decreased, Avea boasts that its SMS revenues continue to increase. On the other hand, the revenues from mobile data rose by 92%, compared to the first quarter of 2011, to TRY79 million. The mobile operator has managed to increase its data users by 51% since the first quarter of 2011, and reached 4.1 million. The sales of 3G modems rose 218%.
Apple’s third generation tablet launched in Turkey last Saturday. Mobile operators, Avea, Turkcell and Vodafone, as well as Bilkom, which is the main Apple distributor in Turkey started to sell the new iPad to their customers. Mobile operators sell the WiFi+4G version, certainly. While there are various offers from each mobile operators based on two-year contracts, it is possible to buy from them via paying in advanced. On the other hand, Bilkom is leading the Wi-Fi only model of the new iPad models, however customers can also buy the 4G models from supplier.
Customers can find new iPad models provided by Bilkom in Apple premium reseller shops, and large customer electronics shops such as Teknosa, Darty, MediaMarkt, Saturn, ElectroWorld, etc. The prices start from TRY 1,199 and change up to TRY 2,029 based on models.
Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile operator, announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2012. According to the results, Turkcell Group showed a double-digit year-on-year revenue and EBITDA growth. Group revenues increased by 12.4% to TRY2382 million, and group EBITDA rose by 12.3% to TRY703 million.
Turkcell Turkey’s revenues grew by 8% to TRY1984 million. The mobile operator saw a 3% of growth in voice revenues for the second consecutive quarter. At the same time, mobile broadband and services revenues rose 25% to TRY229 million, and the share of mobile broadband and services revenues increased to 27%. Turkcell Turkey’s EBITDA went up by 8% to TRY581 million, while EBITDA margin was flat at 29.3%. The revenues coming from subsidiaries gained %43 to TRY398 million, besides their contribution to top line rose to 17%. On the other hand, EBITDA of subsidiaries was improved by 41% to TRY121 million. All in all, due to higher EBITDA and financial income, Turkcell Group managed to get TRY515 million net income in previous quarter.
Apple’s third generation tablet has already gone on sale worldwide, however we haven’t seen it officially around here yet, although some offline and online stores started to sell the 16 GB Wi-Fi only option. We were waiting for an end of April launch, but Apple led us to disappointment by not announcing Turkey inside countries where the new iPad would go on sale at the end of last month.
We might miss the April windows, but May will be very different. All of three mobile operators in Turkey have announced that they would offer the new iPad to their customers starting from Saturday, 5 May. In addition, Apple Turkey has just updated its web site with the new iPad ads, and information in Turkish language. You can see the banners of Avea, Turkcell and Vodafone under the availability section on the new iPad information page.
HTC has started to push its One series Android smartphones which were introduced this year’s Mobile World Congress, and met with Turkish media members last month. The Taiwanese company has gone big this time, and is making a big global launch that includes Turkey. There was a launch event on Tuesday night with HTC executives from EMEA region, and some local celebrities being ready for the show. We have already seen those One devices. What is new for ourselves is the ad campaign which includes reflecting the experiences of real HTC One users in further phases.
HTC One X and One V are the first two devices that meet with Turkish customers. They are exclusive to Turkcell. The mobile operator is selling those devices with different offers. Besides that there will be prepaid options for both devices. HTC One X is on sale from TRY 1999, and One V is sold from TRY 899, with VAT included. Nevertheless, the availability of One S hasn’t been announced yet.
Last time we heard from Apple, there were more than 550,000 apps from 123 different countries in App Store. Finding valuable content in this large stack of apps is very hard, fortunately there are app review sites which suggest qualified apps and games to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users. We are happy to announce that we have launched a new app review site, called Great Apps Review, that will serve brief reviews of qualified apps. We start with iOS apps firstly, but in the future, we are planning to add Android apps to our offerings.
You will find one new app review on Great Apps Review everyday. You will get basic information, taste of experience, screenshots of every app that we will review. We will try to keep our language simple, so we hope everyone would easily benefit from the experience. Additionally, you will find iTunes download links of every app on their own review page. Hopefully, you will like this brand new app review site, and add it to your bookmarks.
Samsung Electronics is demonstrating its new products at Samsung Forum, which is a special event organized by Middle East and North Africa branch of the company, and Istanbul is the host city of the event after a year again, and it should be said that this city gets along with the philosophy of Samsung, which is “Pushing Boundaries”.
Samsung’s 2012 product line up has been guided by this philosophy, and the members are offering rich content with connectivity. You can see three important features on Korean company’s devices; Smart Interaction, Smart Content and Smart Evolution. Smart Interaction lets users control their devices, especially TVs with their gestures and voices. This years 8000 and 7000 TV series will include this Smart Interaction features, which have been demonstrated in this event inside a special room. Smart Content makes it possible for users to reach content from their TVs, smartphones or tablets. At this point, Samsung Smart TV plays a key role.
HTC launched its One series Android phones last week in Mobile World Congress. The first members, One X, One S, and One V offer improved photo, video, and audio features. Besides, users will get 25 GB of free Dropbox storage for two years. One X features 4.7 inch HD screen, NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, and polycarbon unibody chassis. One S corresponds to superphones of last year, with 4.3 inch screen, dual core Snapdragon processor. On the other hand, One V is the lower part of the series, however its features may make it the most popular one in its class.
It is just one week after MWC, and HTC Turkey is really quick to introduce these three One devices locally. There was a press event in Istanbul, which hosts One X, One S and One V. HTC Southeastern Europe Director Nikitas Glykas was on the scene. He introduced what’s new with One devices, especially detailed camera features of One devices with ImageSense. Thanks to this technology, the camera application on HTC One devices starts in 0.7 seconds, and makes autofocus in just 0.2 seconds. Besides, there is a burst mode which lets you capture moving objects and choose the best picture automatically, or manually, or save them all.
Turkish citizens are going to start to get their brand new electronic ID cards before the end of this year. The distribution of these electronic IDs started at Bolu, in 2010 as a pilot practice. Minister of Internal Affairs İdris Naim Şahin spoke about the topic and stated that 220,000 people got their new ID cards with the pilot practice at Bolu and they plan to launch the distribution of these cards in all country before the end of 2012.
Şahin stated that in the beginning, as the ministry, they planned to finalize the project in 3 years but they’ve revised their goal and after setting up the infrastructure in this year, they plan to start distributing these new electronic IDs before the year comes to an end. Şahin also underlined that botch citizens and government institutions are going to benefit from advantages of electronic IDs when the delivery of all cards are completed.
