video

IHS Screen digest has come out with their yearly report on online movie sell-though and Internet video-on-demand (iVOD) service and while Apple is stil at the top (by a lot, we might add) their dominance in the market appears to be waning.

In 2010, Apple controlled 64.5 percent of the online VOD market, but that's down from 2009's 74.4 percent--that loss of 10 percent seems to be quite a large number. Though to be put into perspective, the market itself grew by over 60%, meaning Apple still took away a nice chunk of change.

Reason for the decline in market share though? According to Arash Amel, IHS digital media research director:

Apple faced serious competition from Microsoft's Zune Video and Sony's PlayStation Store, as well as from Amazon and -- most significantly -- Walmart.

More importantly to our concerns, Zune Video platform increased to 17.9 percent from 2009's 11.6 percent--in large part due to the success of the Xbox 360/Kinect combo. That's actually an impressive gain if might say and shows that Microsoft does seem to have a plan here for getting into consumer video content. Combined with Windows Phone 7 (assuming it gains significant market share), we think Zune has a very bright future--so much so we wonder what Android could offer that is remotely analogous?

Although the conclusion by IHS is that Walmat (and Amazon) may be the biggest competitors against Apple, due to their sheer market size and brand-advantage. That may be true, but we don't see any Walmart video service on our smartphones and so far nothing from Amazon either--and the mobile market is an important one, for sure.

Soruce: IHS ScreenDigest; via: Twice; Thanks, Mark, for the tip!

While the official Twitter and Seesmic apps get all the press, this little program has snuck by a lot of people. It's free, just like the others, but offers some unique features like counters and very smooth scrolling.

The app is quite fast with an intuitive layout, making it one of our favorite Twitter apps out there.

Next week, the developer is planning to release a new version featuring a Live Tile for your start screen, as teased below.

Grab Beezz from the Marketplace here.

Although some of us were able to see that eBay app shown off in NYC last week, most of you were stuck with static images. Well, here's the app in all its glory in an official video by eBay and Microsoft.

Want to see the awesome eBay app for Windows Phone 7 in action? Just watch after the break. It's worth it once you see the effort and design that went into making it. Oh and for the record, it really is that fast over 3G--that's no trickery.

Microsoft is sharing a new promotional video for Windows Phone 7 over at the Microsoft Showcase. The video highlights Windows Phone 7's cloud capabilities.

Taking you to from the phone to the web to the PC, the video touches on several ways you can use cloud services via Windows Live and Xbox Live. It also touches on the upcoming Windows Phone Live services that can be used to secure and locate a lost phone.

via: istartedsomething

The good: Wow. What a device. If there was one phone that blew me away it would be the massive TG01.  The combination of a huge 4.1-inch screen and 1GHz Snapdragon was an experience to witness.

When Windows Mobile 6.5 hits 1GHz it becomes something different.  It is so fluid, fast and quick to the touch it changes the game.  And that screen was just this big, bold, beautiful source of visual goodness--I was like a moth staring at the spotlight.

It was a little strange surrendering all hardware buttons--even the Phone/Send and End keys are part of the screen, but all in all it works just because it is so huge.  Now I see why HTC made the HD2, they must have played with TG01. Man if this phone had a capacitive screen, it would be the Zune phone that everyone wants.

The bad: Well for one, there is no promise of this thing coming to the States, so this may have been my only chance.  Number two, the soft keyboard was awful.  Perhaps the screen sensitivity could be tweaked or there are other versions to be made, but I literally missed every other letter when typing.  Maybe they can license HTC's fantastic soft keyboard.  Finally, there is no 3.5mm headset jack.

Availability: Now, import only. Price varies.

Want to see this beast in action? Take a look after the break! Trust me, it's worth it.

Wish we could tell you that there was something new or amazing in this extensive look at Windows Phone 7 being demoed last night in New York City, but alas it's just more eye candy. InToMobile did a good job though and at least the video is top notch.

We do get to see some pink tiles (WP7--for her) and how they can be moved around as well as the general guided tour. We wonder if WP7 has a native picture editor in it, sort of like the one in Windows Mobile, you know to crop, resize and do some basic fixes--we're betting on no.

Anyways, watch the full video after the jump.