Research Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

iPhone camera being used for traffic light testing

by Mike Schramm (Aug 26th, 2011)

A group of researchers at MIT and Princeton University are testing to figure out how to best save fuel when stopping and re-starting cars at traffic lights, and they're using the iPhone to do so. The smartphone is mounted on the car's dashboard, and uses the camera and GPS information in a ...

Pew: Half of US customers use phones to get info in realtime

by Mike Schramm (Aug 15th, 2011)

Have you ever been out and about with your cell phone, needed some information, and looked it up right there on the spot? You're not alone: The Pew Internet Research Project has released a report that says more than half of US cell phone owners have used their devices to get information they ...

Research shows Apple customers buy more apps, pay more for them

by Mike Schramm (Jul 11th, 2011)

A new report by analyst Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray says that not only are Apple users buying more apps this year than in previous years, but they're also generally paying more for them. The average iPhone user will buy 83 apps in 2011, according to Munster's research, which is 61% more than ...

Apple has become Australia's top mobile brand

by Mel Martin (Jun 27th, 2011)

There are a lot of iPhones in Australia, and IDC reports today that the number has grown enough to make the iPhone the top smartphone "down under." Apple is reported to have a 40% market share of Australia's smartphone market, a rise of about 10% quarter-to-quarter. Android has a 30% share, ...

iPad brand four times stronger than competing tablets

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 20th, 2011)

A new Bernstein Research survey suggests Apple will dominate the tablet market in the same way its iPods dominate the MP3 market. According to the survey, 50% of respondents in the US and the UK prefer the iPad over competing tablets. Surprisingly, even tablets from successful smartphone ...

Study wrongly suggests iPad readers skim, show poor retention

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 20th, 2011)

Miratech conducted a study that compared the way people read a newspaper with the way they read on the iPad. The research used reading time, gaze patterns and eye movement to discern any difference between the two mediums. The study concluded that people concentrate more on the content and ...

NPD: Mobile accounts for half of digital game downloads

by Mike Schramm (May 9th, 2011)

NPD has released a report that cites mobile games as a big driver for digital downloads overall. Digital game consumption has been growing in leaps and bounds lately, and according to the latest report, nearly half of all of those digital game downloads come from mobile game platforms, of ...

Rumor: Steam looking at iOS integration

by Mike Schramm (Mar 22nd, 2011)

This is interesting -- according to a Steam user who got to Valve headquarters in Washington, the popular game network may be looking at extending itself out onto the iOS platform. That doesn't necessarily mean that there would be a straight-up Steam client for the iPhone and the iPad (although ...

Apple is the most-covered tech company

by Dave Caolo (Sep 27th, 2010)

Here's a bit of news that's no shock to us. According to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, Apple receives more coverage from the press than any other tech company. The research center recently concluded a year-long study, which found that a full 15.1 percent of all ...

Ngmoco releases We City

by Mike Schramm (Sep 23rd, 2010)

Ngmoco has introduced its third title in the "We" series. We City arrives after We Rule and We Farm as the same kind of social simulation game. This time around, players will be building and creating their own cities, but other than the setting and the graphics, not too much has changed. Just like ...

New study questions extent of iPod-induced hearing loss

by Chris Rawson (Sep 22nd, 2010)

Have you heard? Apparently iPods cause hearing loss. A Journal of the American Medical Association study published in August found that 14.9 percent of teenagers aged 12-19 suffered from hearing loss from 1988-94; 19.5 percent of the same age group had hearing loss from 2005-06. Throw in another ...

Duke University to use iPads for field research

by David Winograd (Jul 21st, 2010)

This fall, the Duke University Global Health Institute in Durham, NC will embark on a pilot project using the iPad as a field research tool. Masters students enrolled in the Research Methods in Global Health Sciences II class will be broken up into groups of three, with each group being given a ...

iPhone grew more than Android in May

by Mel Martin (Jun 1st, 2010)

At least that's the word from Net Applications, the company that measures visits to clients websites. The latest report says the iPhone not only keeps a large lead over Android, but it actually enlarged its global share last month, going from 30.4. At the same time, Android increased from 5.3. If ...

Apple market share climbs to 6.8% in Europe

by Mike Schramm (May 27th, 2010)

Hardmac is reporting that Apple's market share in Europe has risen to 6.8%. That's not quite as high as the around 10% share for computers in the US, but it is a full two percentage points higher than it was last year. Windows still dominates in the EU, with 92% of all computers running some ...

Survey: iPad customer satisfaction is at 91%

by Dave Caolo (May 20th, 2010)

A pair of surveys from ChangeWave reinforce what we've suspected for the last month: People like the iPad a lot, and that's not about to change. The first survey of a whopping 153 people (I saw more in the supermarket this morning) found that 74% said they are "very satisfied" with their iPads, and ...