IDC: iOS and Android accounted for 92.3% of smartphone shipments in Q1, iPhone fell to just 17%

Jordan Kahn

Research firm IDC is out with its latest numbers for Q1 2013 today tracking worldwide smartphone shipments by OS and OEM noting Android and iOS combined accounted for 92.3% of all shipments during the quarter.

IDC noted that Apple and Android  shipments combined increased year over year approximately 59.1% with a total of 199.5 million units shipped worldwide during Q1. That’s up from just 125.4 million a year ago. Apple is clearly a large driver of the growth with the report pointing out that iPhone had its “largest ever first quarter volume.” However, despite that, Apple also saw a decline among usage of iOS compared to growth of the industry as a whole, allowing Android to keep its top spot by OS and Samsung to remain number 1 by OEM.

How far is iOS behind Android? According to IDC it accounted for 17.3% of the market in Q1 compared to 75% for Android. Of course this is likely taking shipments (not sales) into account and also doesn’t represent tablet usage that we know iOS continues to dominate.  Read more

Apple releases iOS 6.1.4 for iPhone 5 with updated speakerphone profile

Mike Beasley

Photo 336.

Apple has just released a new iOS .1.4 software update for the iPhone 5 that includes an updated speakerphone profile. That’s really it as far as public updates but Apple often updates some stuff behind the scenes including some bug fixes and security updates. The 11.5MB update (kinda big for just a profile, no?) is for iPhone 5 only and can be downloaded directly at the following links:

iPhone5,1 (iPhone5,1) 6.1.4 (10B350) 05/02/2013 13:07:01
iPhone5,2 (iPhone5,2) 6.1.4 (10B350) 05/02/2013 13:07:01

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Report claims Microsoft roadmap has iOS/Android support scheduled for fall 2014

Jordan Kahn

office-for-ipad-the-daily-exclusive

Since we first heard rumors that Microsoft was working on Office for iOS as far back as 2011 and got a look at alleged leaked images of an iPad app that Microsoft later denied were real, every couple of months we’ve seen reports that say the app is coming soon. First it was November 2012, then early 2013, and others claimed “sometime after” March 2013. The latest rumor: Microsoft has Office for iPhone and Android is scheduled for fall 2014.

ZDNet claims to have got its hands on Microsoft roadmap for next year and says on it is “iOS/Android support for Office”: Read more

More Apple patents detail completely flexible devices that change as they bend

Jordan Kahn

iPhone-Flexible display

These are certainly not the first flexible display related patent applications that we’ve seen from Apple. A few different Apple patent applications have received attention in recent months, including one for a slap wrist-style bracelet with a flexible display, and others for curved and flexible displays in various iOS device-like form factors. Today we’ve come across a couple of recently published Apple patent applications filed as early as September of last year that further show Apple’s work with flexible displays (via UnwiredView).

The first patent application, titled “Flexible Electronic Devices” is pretty straight forward: Apple is interested in methods of providing not only flexible displays but also flexible components like batteries, circuit boards, and the housing of the device itself. Apple describes a device that could respond accordingly depending on how a user was manipulating the flexible display. The patent applications provides examples such as the device shutting off and entering standby mode when folded, or a user answering a call or changing volume: Read more

comScore: Apple increases lead as top smartphone vendor in US, iOS steals market share from Android

Jordan Kahn

comScore-Feb-2013-Apple-OEMs

Research firm comScore is out with its usual monthly report that ranks the top smartphone OEMs and platforms for the three-month period ending in February. Apple continues to grow its lead this month as top OEM in the U.S., jumping 3.9-percent from November to 38.9-percent of the market and increasing its lead on the second biggest OEM by subscribers, Samsung:

Samsung ranked second with 21.3 percent market share (up 1 percentage point), followed by HTC with 9.3 percent share, Motorola with 8.4 percent and LG with 6.8 percent.

Feb-Comscore-Apple-PlatformsIt’s important to point out that the shipped vs. sold argument doesn’t apply to comScore’s results, as its data comes from surveys tracking smartphone subscribers and usage and not sales or units shipped. Google grabs the spot as top smartphone platform at the end of February, but Apple continues to close the gap capturing 38.9-percent of the market (up from 35 percent) compared to Google’s 51.7-percent (down from 53.7-percent): Read more