AppAdvice International: Stonehenge, Strong Sales, iTunes Connect And More

by Joe White

April 29, 2014

Stonehenge

This week, Apple added 3-D flyover support for the mysterious Stonehenge site in Wiltshire, England to its Maps application for iOS and OS X. The move means folks can now zoom in and take a closer look at the ancient landmark using an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac.

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Stonehenge. [/caption]

The change comes following further significant expansions to the Maps application: as a reminder, earlier this month Apple added 3-D flyover support for a number of areas in California, and before that Cupertino added support for Perth (Australia), Saint-Tropez (France), and Cordoba (Spain). In order to take a look at any of the above locations in greater detail, simply search for the town, city, or landmark in Maps for iOS or OS X.

Strong Sales

Apple has clawed back shares of the smartphone markets in a number of international territories including Europe, Japan, and Australia, according to a recent report. The iPhone 5s handset, which first launched in Apple Retail Stores last year, has been credited with helping the Cupertino, Calif. company recover lost ground in a number of different regions. Our original article explained:

For Europe, Japan, and Australia, Apple’s share of the regions’ smartphone markets increased year-over-year by 0.1, 8.6, and 2.0 percent respectively.

Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said: “Apple regained ground in the first quarter of 2014, primarily due to the strong performance of the iPhone 5S, growing its sales share in Europe, Japan and Australia. By contrast, Windows had a tough start to the year as a result of its entry-level Nokia models facing fierce competition from low-end Motorola, LG and Samsung Android smartphones.”

[caption id="attachment_537720" align="aligncenter" width="642"]

Apple's iPhone 5s. [/caption]

However, in the United States, at least, it seems users are holding out for Apple’s anticipated iPhone 6 handset. Here, Apple’s market share was down 7.8 percent for the period: at the end of the three months, it stood at 35.9 percent (compared with a share last year of 43.7 percent).

The iPhone 6 is expected to launch in either September or October this year, and should bring a major redesign, a bigger screen, and further under-the-hood performance improvements.

iTunes Connect

Finally this week, Apple made a couple of minor changes to iTunes Connect that could have altered the App Store experience for some of our international readers. In particular, minor changes to territory-specific ratings have been implemented by Apple.

As we explained:

Apple notes that it’s implementing region-specific ratings for iOS games in the Brazilian App Store in order to adhere to local regulations in the country. These are “automatically generated” from existing app content, Apple explains, and users can check on the rating either in iTunes Connect or at their application’s page in the Brazilian App Store.

The above change appears to be confined to the Brazilian App Store (as of this writing).

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Image credit: AppleInsider. [/caption]

AppAdvice International is a weekly recap of the international news published here at AppAdvice. The column goes live every Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. GMT.