Briefly: iTunes Connect maintenance, Clash of Heroes, more
updated 03:25 am EST, Wed January 23, 2013
Apple notifies developers of brief iTunes Connect downtime
Apple has notified its registered developers that iTunes Connect, the service that allows app creators to monitor sales, upload new products and post revisions to existing apps will be down for a short period on Saturday. The service, says Apple, will be unavailable for approximately four hours starting at 8PM PT (5PM ET) on January 26. During that time, according to the email, neither content delivery nor the other functions of iTunes Connect will be available. It was also closed for a week over the Christmas holiday as usual, but reopened a day ahead of its scheduled return time.
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes coming to iOS
Fans of the original Heroes of Might & Magic game franchise will be glad to hear that Ubisoft will be releasing Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes ($5) for iOS on Thursday. An Android release is planned, but no date for that has yet been announced. Clash of Heroes is a combination of RPG play and match-three puzzle games, all done with anime-style graphics. Players play as a group of five heroes and fight enemy groups by rearranging characters in matching groups of three. The game was originally available only on consoles such as the Nintendo DS.
Nintendo edges out Apple in customer satisfaction survey
In a surprise win, research firm Forrester says that Nintendo took the top store in "customer experience" away from perennial winner Apple in the consumer electronics category of it annual survey. Nintendo scored an 83, the highest score in any category, with Apple right behind at 79 points. Sony rounded out the top three in the category with a score of 76. The survey also picked US Cellular as the best wireless provider with a score of 77, and Verizon's FiOS service took the top score (67) among home internet providers. None of the 150 competing companies managed an "excellent" score of 85 or higher, Forrester notes.
Among the lowest-ranking big companies in the survey were RIM (BlackBerry) in consumer electronics, T-Mobile in wireless and Comcast and Charter in the ISP category. In the wireless category, the top three US carriers -- AT&T, Verizon and Sprint -- all tied for third place (behind TracFone) with a score of 66.
