Friday, January 20, 2012

Windows Phone to bump iPhone for second place in '15, IHS predicts


Computerworld - Thanks mainly to the new Lumia 900 and Nokia, Windows Phone could represent nearly 17% of the smartphones shipped in 2015, edging out Apple's iPhone for the second-place ranking behind Android smartphones.
That's the view of analysts at IHS (formerly iSuppli) who are well aware that Windows Phone made up only 1.9% of the market for all of 2011, with Apple's iOS at 18% and Android smartphones by all makers at 47.4%. (Note: Apple'siPhone share surged to 44% in the fourth quarter, according to Nielsen and others.)
IHS said Thursday that Windows Phone will reach 16.7% of market share in 2015, behind first-ranked Android at 58.1% and just slightly ahead of iOS at 16.6%.
IHS said the introduction of the Lumia 900 running Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) at CES last week showed Microsoft's and Nokia's promise in smartphones. The Lumia 900 will be the first Nokia device to run over fast 4G LTE and will be sold by AT&T in the U.S. in the coming weeks. Pricing has not been announced.
Also, Nokia plans to sell the Nokia 900 to businesses through Microsoft's business channels, taking advantage of a rich array of business software built by Microsoft, IHS said. As such, Lumia 900 will be competing against an entrenched base of BlackBerry smartphone users in North America.
The Lumia 900 is also rolling out first in North America, where Nokia has traditionally been a weak player, IHS noted. It will help in the U.S. that the smartphone has a large 4.3-in. Amoled touchscreen and a 12-megapixel camera, making it competitive with the best Android phones on the market, IHS noted.
"The introduction of the Lumia 900 shows that Nokia believes the road back to smartphone dominance runs through North America," Francis Sideco, an analyst for HIS, said in a statement. "And the way to win North America is through its operator channels."
"The Lumia 900 and its successors will help Microsoft to reclaim the number 2 ranking in smartphone operating system market share in 2015," said Wayne Lam, another IHS analyst.
IHS realizes that Nokia won't be the only seller of Windows Phone smartphones, but will still sell about half of all Microsoft OS-based handsets in 2012. That percentage will rise to 62% in 2013, before declining in 2014 as other manufacturers such as Samsung and HTC catch up.
IHS also believes that Nokia, which is a well-established manufacturer globally, will help lure app developers to the Windows Phone platform to help expand its popularity.


Windows 7 gets transformed into Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich


GOOGLE ANDROID fans will be pleased to know they can now overhaul the look of Windows 7 to match their favoured mobile phone operating system (OS).
Flickr user "9davidandreas" has posted a picture of his Android flavour desktop modification. The machine is still running Windows behind the scenes but has the look of Google's Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) user interface.
Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich Windows Desktop
The adaptation is made up of lots of different parts rather than just installing one piece of software. Thanks to Lifehacker, all of the components are easily downloadable so you can actually pick and choose the bits you do and don't want.
A good place to start is the desktop wallpaper, which can be found at Wallbase. Next you'll want a new theme for Windows 7 called Appows 2010 from Deviantart. The ICS icons are a must have from Droidpirate and can be added to the dock seen in the screenshot from Rocketdock.
Android ICS has a new font called Roboto, which you can get from Fontquirrel, another must have for the look.
The remainder of the look comes courtesy of Rainmeter, a system monitor and configuration tool. Adding the Minimal BarLexis and Simplesentencethree skins to this gets you the time, date, weather and music sections looking like Android widgets.
Last but not least is the Google search bar, which surely has to feature in a proper recreation of the Android 4.0 ICS interface. ยต


Got 'banned' on Android? There's an app store for that



All the CyanogenMod-supported LG Optimus devices. From left to right: 3D, Hub, Sol, One, 2X, Black, and Pro. (Found on Google Plus.)
(Credit: Ricardo Cerqueira)
As CyanogenMod skates past 1 million active users, making it by far the most popular custom flavor of Android around, one of its main developers has asked the Android community if there's interest in creating an app store for Android modders and their fans.
Koushik Datta suggested a marketplace designed for apps, ROMs, and emulators that Google refuses to host and carriers refuse to allow. Not surprisingly, the answer he got was resoundingly positive.
Dutta, also known as Koush, said in a Google Plus post earlier this month that the time was coming for an app store that specialized in rooted Androids. He's laid out a couple of goals for the project, including that it would be open to all custom ROMs, and not just the CyanogenMod ROM that he spearheads. He proposed that it host apps that have been removed or blocked from Google's Market, including one-click root apps, connection tethering apps, emulators, Visual Voicemail apps, and even other custom ROMs.
Another suggestion he made was to take a page from Apple's now-industry defining playbook and have a portion of sales go to the support of CyanogenMod.
The post was well-received, including more than 1,700 +1's, 656 shares, and 500 comments. Feedback ranged from one person's simple, "Epic Sauce," while others raised concerns about the proposal's legality, how carriers would react, and whether the focus would be the business of selling apps or creating a good user experience.
Several security concerns were raised, too, such as preventing malware from being disguised as legit apps, app vetting, and implementing a payment method securely. (I couldn't link directly to those comments because Google Plus doesn't allow comments to be anchored or permalinked, but they are under the original post.)
Dutta also revealed that before he suggested the modder's marketplace, he had approached Amazon about including their Android market in CyanogenMod, but wrote that he was "brushed off" for now.

Is Android really laggy? Video proof says yes.

Android devices have long been known for their laggy touch experience. Has this changed with the latest Android flagship? Not quite. Here's a video that uses a developer option to show the lag, as well as new technology that could minimize it in the future.



Source : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6oWDLk31EQ&noredirect=1

Wikipedia App Available for Android


The official Wikipedia app is finally available for Android users, after years of being only accessible to those with an iPhone.
The app, which is free to download in the Android Market, provides mobile access to Wikipedia's database of more than 20 million articles in 280-plus languages. It can be installed on any device running Android 2.2 Froyo and up.
The app allows users to save articles to read them offline at a later time, find entries based on location, and share articles. Users can also view specific articles in a different language, instead of having to switch the language of the entire site.
The app, which has been available since late last week, was one of the ways users accessed Wikipedia during the 24-hour blackout in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).
As of Thursday, the app had been rated more than 600 times, and had an average rating of 4.4 stars out of five. The app has mostly positive user reviews, though some have complained that it continues using the GPS function in the background after exiting the app, causing the battery to drain.
The Wikipedia app has been available for the iPhone since 2009. Wikipedia also has its own mobile site.
Wikipedia has been busy lately protesting SOPA and PIPA, two controversial anti-piracy bills making their way through Congress. Though the English version of the site was dark all day on Wednesday, it actually saw a boost in traffic, likely from gawkers who wanted to see how Wikipedia was responding to the blackout.

Google's Android Activations Worth $3.65B a Year: Oracle


Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) 700,000 daily activations of devices based on its Android operating system may be worth $10 million annually in mobile ad revenues, totaling $3.65 billion a year overall, according to Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL).
Oracle sued Google in August 2010 for patent and copyright infringement, accusing the search engine provider of infringing seven Java patents and other copyrights. Oracle is seeking monetary damages and an injunction against Google from using its IP in Android.
Oracle, which in June sought $2.6 billion, plus a revenue share of between 10 and 15 percent of Google's mobile advertising sales generated from Android phones, said it would stay or dismiss its patent infringement claims against Google in lieu of a near-term copyright trial to facilitate a resolution.
Oracle also provided a current report of its calculation for how much Android is worth to Google.
"While this case awaits trial, more than 700,000 Android-based devices are activated every day, all fundamentally built around the copyrighted Java APIs and the enhanced performance enabled by Oracle's patents," Oracle said in its filing. "Each day's worth of activations likely generates approximately $10 million in annual mobile advertising revenue for Google."
FOSS Patents blogger and IP expert Florian Mueller noted that this sum assumes annual advertising revenues of $14 per Android user, which Oracle presumably arrived at in the discovery process of the trial.
While Google has yet to confirm or deny this average revenue per user (ARPU) estimate, the total Android ad earnings of $3.5 billion may be high considering Google CEO Larry Page said the company's total mobile ad run-rate for 2011 was $2.5 billion.
However, as Mueller has pointed out repeatedly in the past, any such payment would be marginal compared to the overall value of Android to Google over its lifetime. Indeed, Android is only a few years old and will increasingly touch more Google products.
Oracle recognized as much in its filing, noting that its calculations don't include Android Market revenue, "lucrative relationships with manufacturers of myriad devices on which Android can and does run, to the inordinately valuable access Android provides to customers for its new social network service, Google+."
Of course, any damage estimate Oracle would lay claim to is a moving target at this point. Android's activations won't sit still at 700,000 a day, considering Google reported 550,000 daily activations in only November. Google could claim 1 million activations in the next 6 to 12 months. If Oracle hasn't settled with Google by then, it could be eligible for even more money.
Oracle's suit is just one of many revolving around Android, which has soared to become the  top smartphone operating system with more than 50 percent market share worldwide.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), for example, has sued Motorola (NYSE:MMI), Samsung, HTC and others for patent infringement, while Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) collects royalties from companies using Android in their consumer electronics products.

"FIRST REVIEW Android 4.0 Asus Transformer Prime Tablet"

"FIRST REVIEW Android 4.0 Asus Transformer Prime Tablet"
By David Richards | Published:20/01/2012
Asus the Company that pioneered the original netbook has just delivered one of the fastest tablets I have ever seen. The new Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T which went on sale in Australia yesterday comes with the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 CPU.
During a visit to Asus offices in Sydney I was able to get a firsthand look at the new Wi Fi only tablet which comes with a keyboard dock and a new 8MP rear auto-focus camera with LED flash, back-illuminated CMOS sensor and large aperture design.
Under the bonnet Asus has loaded new camera software that opens up the capabilities of the camera to include a Photoshop Lite option and filters that allow users to deliver such features as stretched faces or eye popping eyes which due to the increased processing power of the Nvidia processor delivers very fast results.
The speed of the Tegra 3 processor along with the new software delivers enhanced 1080p HD video playback while allowing users to play 3D games.

There is no doubt that this device is way ahead of any other Android tablets we have seen to date, it is one of the fastest we have handled with the new processor delivering faster access to applications.
Transition between applications is instantaneous and the device is able to playback HD video effortlessly. The Tegra 3 processor also improves battery life, with the firm claiming 12 hours for the tablet and 18 hours when it is docked.

The device has a micro HDMI output port however I would have ideally like to have seen a full HDMI port similar to what is in theToshiba 10" Android tablet. The device also has a microSD card slot and a headphone microphone jack.
The USB ports are 2.0, there is also an SD card slot Connectivity includes 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1. Unlike the Toshiba tablet the device is devoid of an Ethernet port.
The new tablet is only 8.3mm thick and 586 grams however when the keyboard is attached the weight went up significantly which is disappointing as it will really add to the weight of a bag when being carried.
What you do notice is very easy to handle and at times felt lighter than the 586 grams.
The big benefit of the keyboard dock is that the battery life is extended to 18 hours and as a writer I found that the dock keyboard was significantly faster than many of the Bluetooth keyboards that are being sold for use with the current range of Android tablets.
The tablet has a full QWERTY keyboard with touchpad; there is also a USB port.
This tablet Wi Fi only but what I would like to see is Telstra develop an app that allows a 4G card to be attached via the USB port. This would not only keep the price of the device down but allow a user who has an external 3G or 4G Telstra Next G card for their notebook to simply attach an existing wireless card to a tablet.
When it came to the display the new Transformer Prime really delivered and the ultra-wide 178° viewing angle of the device was very noticeable on the 10.1" screen, what I really liked was the use of Gorilla Glass on top of the bright Super IPS+ panel.

Source : http://smarthouse.com.au/Reviews/Home_Office/V3F3J3U7

Google's 4Q disappoints as advertising prices sink

In this Jan. 17, 2012 photo, a sign for Google is displayed behind the Google android robot, at the National Retail Federation, in New York. Google Inc., releases quarterly financial results Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, after the market close. Photo: Mark Lennihan / AP
In this Jan. 17, 2012 photo, a sign for Google is displayed behind the Google android robot, at the National Retail Federation, in New York. Google Inc., releases quarterly financial results Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, after the market close. Photo: Mark Lennihan / AP

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — What was supposed to be a celebration of the most prosperous quarter in Google's 13-year history instead turned into a major letdown.
The disappointment sunk in Thursday after Google's fourth-quarter earnings report showed the Internet search leader fetched less money per click on its ubiquitous online ads.
That came as an unsettling surprise because investors had assumed a surge in online holiday shopping in the U.S. would enable Google Inc. to charge more for its ads. Instead, the average price decreased by 8 percent from the same time in 2010.
Google executives traced part of the decline to technical changes aimed at delivering more ads that attract people's interest. Those tweaks apparently paid off as the total clicks on Google's ads increased 34 percent from the previous year.
Most of the trouble seemed to be rooted in Europe, where government debt woes are hurting the economy, said Benchmark Co. analyst Clayton Moran. "I think everyone underestimated how quickly the European online ad market would suffer."
The weakening euro also converted into fewer dollars during the quarter, another factor that undercut Google.
It all added up to a dramatic slowdown in Google's earnings growth that alarmed investors. Net income edged up just 6 percent from the same October-December period in 2010, coming off year-over-year increases of more than 25 percent in each of the previous two quarters.
Google shares plunged $57.67, or 9 percent, to $581.90 in extended trading after the results were announced.
The showing could renew Wall Street concerns about Google's moneymaking prowess under the direction of co-founder Larry Page, who replaced Eric Schmidt as CEO last April. Page took the job with a reputation for being more willing to invest in long-term projects at the expense of short-term profits. In the latest quarter, Google's operating expenses rose 34 percent from the previous year, outpacing a 25 percent increase in revenue.
If Google's stock falls as sharply during Friday's regular trading as it did in Thursday's extended trading, the shares will be worth slightly less than they were when Page became CEO.
Even before the deceleration in Google's fourth-quarter earnings, analysts have been fretting that the company's proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of cellphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. will crimp profits. The deal is still awaiting approval from regulators in U.S. and Europe.
Buying Motorola is part of Page's push to expand Google's empire beyond the dominant Internet search engine that generates most of the company's revenue. Much of the money is being poured into Google's Android software for smartphones, its Chrome web browser, its YouTube video site and a social networking service called Plus that is being quickly built to challenge Facebook.
Page, 38, made it clear he sees no reason to change what he has been doing so far. "I am very happy with our results overall in the quarter," he told analysts during a Thursday conference call.
More people probably would have shared in his ebullience if not for the curse of great expectations.
With more people than ever before shopping for holiday gifts and bargains on computers and mobile devices, Google was supposed to scale new financial heights in the October-December period.
Analysts had forecast Google would earn $3 billion for the first time during any three-month period since the company's 1998 inception. Instead, Google made slightly less money than it did a quarter earlier.
The company earned $2.7 billion, or $8.22 per share, in the fourth quarter. That compared to net income of $2.5 billion, or $7.81 per share, at the same time in 2010.
The most recent quarter included an $88 million charge to account for the diminished value of a $500 million investment that Google made in wireless network provider Clearwire Corp. in 2008. Google had previously absorbed a $355 million charge on its Clearwire investment.
If not for costs covering employee stock awards, Google said it would have earned $9.50 per share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected $10.51 per share.
Revenue totaled $10.6 billion, up from $8.4 billion in the previous year. It's the first time Google's quarterly revenue topped $10 billion, but even that figure fell shy of analyst projections.
After subtracting ad commissions, Google's revenue totaled $8.1 billion. That was about $300 million below the average analyst forecast. Revenue would have been about $240 million higher had exchange rates in Europe remained steady with the third quarter's rates, according to Patrick Pichette, Google's chief financial officer.
While investors fixated on Google's falling ad prices, Page hailed the inroads the company is making beyond the Internet search engine that brings in most of its revenue.
The Plus service that Google introduced seven months ago now has more than 90 million users, Page said. That's more than double the approximately 40 million users of three months ago. Facebook still has a big lead with more than 800 million users after nearly eight years in existence.
About 80 percent of Plus users visit the service at least once a week, according to Google. The company is trying to increase the frequency by including recommendations about Plus accounts in its search results, a recent change that has raised questions about whether Google is abusing its position as the Internet's leading gateway to unfairly promote its own services over its rivals.
Page is hoping Plus can be as successful as Google's Gmail service, which now has 350 million accounts, and the Android software, which is now running on 250 million smartphones and other devices, according to numbers the company released Thursday.


Source : 
http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Google-s-4Q-results-miss-analyst-targets-2637577.php



Why iOS will never beat Android - Diversity


More recent smartphone acquirers might be choosing Apple’s iOS platform over Google’s Android, but in the grand scheme of things, Android will always outpace iOS.
I know that pundits (myself included) love to slice and dice the sales and market share numbers, and put the two platforms up against each other, but the truth is that such comparisons really are pretty worthless. Even though that Android and iOS are both mobile platforms, trying to compare the two is like comparing chalk and cheese … or apples to oranges. There too many differences between the platforms to make comparisons valid. For example:
  • iOS is only offered on two sets of devices (iPhone and iPad) by one company, and it’s a tightly controlled platform. Android on the other hand is open and far more diverse.
  • If you’re going to buy into the iOS platform, you have to buy into Apple. There’s no escaping that fact. With Android people tend to consider the handset maker more than the fact that Google is behind the operating system.
  • There’s a lot more perceived choice in the Android market (I say perceived because a lot of it is illusionary and mostly based on branding). With the iPhone or iPad, you either like it, or you don’t.
  • Android handsets are available at a greater selection of price points.
This is why trying to compare the two platforms is pointless. While you can put Android and iOS data on the same chart, there are just too many differences to make any comparisons or conclusions worthwhile.
So, why do I think that iOS will never beat Android in the long game? It’s for the same reason that Mac OS never beat Windows - diversity. Sure, Apple will continue to sell millions of devices and make stacks of cash from iPhones and iPads, diversity will always be on the side of Android.
And there’s a lot of diversity. There’s diversity in terms of handset maker, diversity of models, diversity of price, and broad diversity when it comes to OS branding and features (bloat to many of us, but consumers love it). The power of Android is that this diversity allows it to appeal across the board. It’s the one feature that iOS cannot emulate. And it’s this diversity that will keep Android ahead of the competition.
Bottom line, While iOS may be stealing column inches on headlines, always bet on Android!

Sony Ericsson Latest Android Backer to Feel Pinch of Competition


ony Ericsson's fourth-quarter phone sales fell 20 percent in a year. Android backers HTC and Motorola are also suffering, pointing to problems in the Android device market.




Sony Ericsson lost about $319 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, during which it shipped 9 million phones—a 20 percent drop from sales just a year ago. Like its Android-focused competitors Motorola and HTC, which likewise posted worrisome fourth-quarter results, Sony Ericsson officialspointed to the effects of the recent flooding in Thailand—an area responsible for critical components—price erosion and "intense competition" in the Android phone market.

That competition has fueled questions among analysts about the sustainability of Google’s Android model and the need for a third mobile platform—such as Microsoft’s Windows Phone—to stand alongside Android and Apple’s iOS. Samsung, with its Android-based Galaxy smartphones, is an exception to what is happening in the space.

Sony Ericsson's Android-based Xperia smartphone line accounted for about 80 percent of its fourth-quarter sales, though in the process of restructuring to reduce costs and increase competitiveness, the company introduced no new smartphones during the quarter.

Still, the issue plaguing Android device manufacturers, Sony Ericsson officials said, is competition, which is heightened as never before, with phone sales continuing to pitch upward and more consumers making the switch from feature phones to smartphones. According to Nielsen, of the consumers who purchased devices during the last three months of 2011, 60 percent bought a smartphone, bringing the nation's smartphone users to 46 percent.

While fourth quarters tend to be holiday-fortified, HTC's revenue fell 2.5 percent year over year, it announced Jan. 6. Bloomberg, in a Jan. 9 report on the HTC results, noted that "shipments and sales may fall further this quarter as competition from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. dent demand for its handsets."

Motorola shipped 10.6 million mobile devices during its fourth quarter, which was down from 11.6 million the quarter before. CEO Sanjay Jha, speaking toThe Verge earlier this month, said that in an effort to make better use of marketing dollars, the company "wants to make fewer phones."

He added that "Verizon and AT&T don't want seven stock [Android Ice Cream Sandwich] devices on their shelves," suggesting some motivation behind the numbers of Android devices released each quarter, compared to the single new smartphone that Apple issues each year.

CCS Insight analyst Geoff Blaber, in a Jan. 12 blog post from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), described Android in its current form as "unsustainable," in part because of the control Google leverages.

"Scope for differentiation is limited and essentially disappearing as a combination of the pressure to get products on the market and Google's need for control restricts manufacturers' ability to set their products apart from other Android-powered devices," wrote Blaber. "The economics don't add up for the majority of companies using Android. Few are competing profitably. … Add to this Android's accessibility and the burgeoning number of licensees, and falling prices become inevitable. Good for Google, but bad for manufacturers."

It was little surprise then, he added, to see HTC CEO Peter Chou standing alongside Microsoft's Steve Ballmer at CES, during the introduction of the Titan 2.

One could also point to Samsung's recent announcement that it's teaming its Bada mobile platform with Intel's Tizen, in a move said to help reduce its reliance on Android.

Blaber doesn't expect Android to see a dramatic shift in market share anytime soon, but he added, "It's hard to see how it can continue to accommodate such a vast number of manufacturers when the economics favor a precious few. There are of course few alternatives, but the scenario certainly validates [Nokia CEO] Stephen Elop's case for a 'third ecosystem.'" 


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