Gartner’s latest global smartphone numbers are out and if your name isn’t iOS or Android, the future looks pretty bleak. While iOS continues to gain share at pace even without a new model release (up one point for the quarter and over 4 points year over year), the bigger story continues to be Android’s outright theft of marketshare from Symbian. Just in the last quarter, 10 percent of the market shifted from Symbian to Android and for the year, the number is close to 20%
Meanwhile Blackberry continued its paced slide down another 2 points quarter over quarter while Samsung’s Bada made modest gains. In the “Other” category, Windows Phone 7 somehow lost market share falling from 2% to 1% and Windows Mobile is now off the charts. HP’s webOS is somewhere in the “other” as well with Meego and the ghosts of smartphone past.
The final dimensions of the new design are calculated to be: 4.33″ x 2.36″ and .27″ thickness at the top and .21″ at the bottom In comparison, the iPhone 4 dimensions are: 4.5″ x 2.31″ x .37″. So the new design is actually shorter than the existing iPhone 4, but slightly wider and thinner.
Facebook has released Facebook Messenger which is an extension of Facebook’s Messages service and will allow you to send a text message to your phone’s contacts and a Facebook message to your Facebook contacts. Bonus: You get to send pictures as well.
The app obviously competes with Apple’s iMessage, Blackberry messenger and all of the other silo-ed messaging apps out there but with a user base of 700 million+, it is well positioned to be a contender.
Messenger is available in both the iTunes App Store and Android Market and is based off the Beluga technology which the company recently acquired. With all the Google+ noise of late we’ve forgotten about Facebook’s assault on mobile. They’re back.
More patent fun today as a small Florida company that may or may not be an LG spinoff called OSS systems sues Apple according to Patently Apple. The Patent was originally filed by LG in 1999 and describes…
“A method for fast booting a computer system, comprising the steps of: A. performing a power on self test (POST) of basic input output system (BIOS) when the system is powered on or reset is requested; B. checking whether a boot configuration information including a system booting state which was created while executing a previous normal booting process exists or not; C. storing the boot configuration information from execution of the POST operation before loading a graphic interface (GUI) program, based on the checking result; and D. loading the graphic user interface (GUI) program.”
As far as Android competitors go, LG and Apple have a pretty cordial relationship having signed a $500 million display deal a few years ago. Displays in Apple’s popular devices, from 27-inch iMacs to retina iPhones are made by LG. LG could have spun the patent off as its own company, in an attempt to avoid locking horns with Apple in the courts. Apple has been suing what seems like every other Android manufacturer over patent disputes. Expand Expanding Close
On the earnings call Q&A just now, CFO Peter Oppenheimer said that a ‘September Quater product transition’ would affect the revenues for the upcoming quarter. Obviously, that screams iPhone, which is now Apple’s biggest product.
To be clear, the September Quarter spans three months so it doesn’t necessarily mean ‘September’…but that isn’t unreasonable either.
On that note, he also mentioned in the opening statement that 220 million iOS devices have been sold all time. We’re not sure if that includes AppleTVs.
Just hours before today’s earnings call, the well-connected Yukari Kane, Joann S. Lublin and Nick Wingfield of the WSJ report:
Since Steve Jobs went on medical leave this winter, some members of Apple Inc.’s board have discussed CEO succession with executive recruiters and at least one head of a high-profile technology company, according to people familiar with the matter.
The conversations weren’t explicitly aimed at recruiting a new chief executive and were more of an informal exploration of the company’s options, said these people. The directors don’t appear to have been acting on behalf of the full board, some of these people said. Apple has seven directors, including Mr. Jobs. It is also unclear whether Mr. Jobs was aware
Interestingly, the WSJ actually got a response from Jobs. “I think it’s hogwash.” he said.
According to the report, Board members have even held talks about the company’s leadership with some search firms after those recruiters informally approached them, said three of these people. (…or at least according to voicemails left on their machines?)
It would be shocking if Apple had to look outside its own walls for a successor, at least outside of interviewing for due diligence purposes. Full article available through Google Plus. Expand Expanding Close
According to our source, Apple will indeed be launching a prepaid / lower cost iPhone this year. We are told the handset will retail for no more than $350 without contract. Ready for the really interesting part? It’s entirely possible that the low-cost iPhone will in fact be the iPhone 3GS.
The author theorizes that “there would be an iPhone 4S in addition to the prepaid iPhone 3GS available within the next month to two” in addition to the iPhone 4 which BGR is told Apple will continue to sell…
Shares of the Taiwanese Android phone maker HTC fell 6.5 percent this morning following the ruling by the International Trade Commission (ITC) that the company violated two patents held by Apple. The company’s shares had been pretty much in a free-fall throughout last week as well. The agency’s commissioners still have to support the ruling, but investors are already panicking over fears that the ruling will favor Apple. This, in turn, would open doors to ITC’s ban on imports of HTC’s phones into the United States. In response to the crisis, HTC announced a share buy back program worth up to $760 million in an attempt to stabilize its share price and restore investor confidence, reportsFinancial Times:
The attempt to prop up HTC’s share price appeared to have little effect as the stock fell below HTC’s minimum purchase price of T$900 to close down 3.9 per cent at T$871. The sell-off highlights investor fears that the legal battle could have wider implications for the competitive balance between Apple and Google Android-based phonemakers like HTC, Samsung and Motorola.
HTC is thought to have recently acquired S3 Graphics for $300 million in a bid to secure a stronger ground in its legal dealings with Apple, which filed its patent infringement complaint against the Taiwanese company back in March 2010. That’s not all HTC’s been doing lately in order to buy its way out of this mess…
Yesterday’s victory in the ITC courts may have seemed like good news for Apple in giving it the upper hand against its Android carrying foe. But, even if the ITC courts hold up the ruling on Apple’s two broad ranging patents from the mid-90s,
U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647 on a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data.”
..it likely won’t be able to stop HTC from selling its popular Android line in the US. HTC has a recently acquired ‘Ace in the Hole’… Expand Expanding Close
Today’s comScore report shows that a full third of all US phone users are using a Smartphone and that is heading toward a majority pretty quickly. Perhaps that is why (with a little help from Verizon) Apple was the biggest gainer in the overall phone market in the Feb-May quarter. LG was up just slightly while Apple stole marketshare from Motorla and RIM.
I think it is important to keep in mind that Apple’s original iPhone goal was to capture 1% of the total phone market in the first year of release. They’ve done that many times over and now Apple is capturing over 1% of the total US phone market per quarter. Expand Expanding Close
The Mac/PC is no longer the hub of your digital world according to Steve Jobs and while the traditional computer was demoted to just a ‘device’, iOS devices did get some promotions at WWDC this week as well.
One notable addition is that you can set up an Apple Airport or Time Capsule from an iOS 5 device, like in the screenshots above.
Everyone’s favorite iPad insurance provider Square Trade decided to waste a few perfectly good tablets (well one is) to drive home the message: Dropping glass screens on cement will break them.
Conveniently, Square Trade just happens to be in the business of insuring iPads and other tablets (Shocking, we know). Expand Expanding Close
According to Business Insider, Apple COO Tim Cook told Goldman analyst Bill Shope, “he sees no reason why the tablet market shouldn’t eclipse the PC market over the next several years.”
That is right exactly in line with Steve Jobs comments of a year ago. Shocking, we know. Expand Expanding Close
Barnes & Noble’s all-new Nook e-reader is now shipping. The company announced via a press release yesterday that the new Nooks have been shipped to those who pre-ordered them. New orders placed via their website will ship immediately, in time for Father’s Day. The device will also be in stock at Barnes & Noble locations. The e-reader features a six-inch display with the latest E-Ink Pearl display technology that responds to touch input. It also surprises with other noteworthy goodies…
Net Applications is out today with a new survey that paints iPad’s web usage share 53 times greater compared to Android slates. As always, their findings stem from tracking browser and operating system usage across their global network of more than 40,000 websites so you should take them with a pinch of salt. Of course, iPad’s web usage lead might progressively decrease as the Android camp carries out their tablet carpet bombing. For now, though, iPad is king. Now, onto the numbers, more amazing facts plus nice embedded chart from Net Applications…
More fun from the D9 event: Kara Swisher told Eric Schmidt that Steve Jobs told her “to do more privacy stories on Google” and that “Android is a probe in your pocket.” The conversation would have been off the record until now. More at 9to5Google.com Expand Expanding Close
Patently Appletoday reveals a trademark today by Apple for the word “Noteworthy” which they postulate is a new OCR app that could be released in iOS 5. One use would be taking an image and turing it into a document like Google’s recent Docs app does.
Apple has long used the proxy of iTunes to push updates to its iOS devices: when a new software update is available, users need to plug their device in via USB, click update, and the new software version is downloaded and installed.
Smartphone competitors have long offered a different, more direct method for software updates that happens over-the-air. Specifically, when an update to Google’s Android operating system or HP/Palm’s webOS is released, users are provided an update notification and can update the software right on their phone. No computer required.
Now, Apple wants to provide the same convenience to their iPhone users and is preparing to provide over-the-air iOS updates, starting this fall.
Multiple sources (one as far back as March) say the new feature will debut in iOS 5, meaning iOS 5 will not come over-the-air but following point updates to it will. Just like tethering in iOS 3, Apple has the technology but cannot just unleash it everywhere. Apple and Verizon Wireless are said to have been in talks over these wireless software updates since early this year. Sources could not comment on whether or not Apple is negotiating similar deals with AT&T or international iPhone carriers.
The iOS-based AppleTV has been able to update itself without iTunes intervention so the hooks are obviously in iOS. Two things to note:
Updates are now over 600MB. Apple would have to make these smaller to get the carriers to agree to push these things as they are. We believe that Apple will make the updates much smaller by using incremental patches rather than full OS downloads
iTunes provides the backup to the iOS device so a failed update would need some sort of backup. We think there will be a Cloud-based backup system.
Obviously, if this is a feature in iOS 5, it should conceivably make its way to iPad and iPod touches as well. That means iTunes may no longer be a needed conduit for updating iOS devices in the future. It would also mean that the iPad could finally be a stand alone device.
The soon to be biggest phone maker in the world, who has been making phones and patenting its technology since before Apple was making iPods, is suing Apple in the US after suing Apple abroad last week. The move is in obvious response to Apple suing its biggest parts contractor for allegedly copying its iPhone and iPad designs with its Android phones and tablets. Samsung received the second-highest number of U.S. patents last year after International Business Machines Corp.
The lawsuit intensifies a legal dispute that began when Cupertino, California-based Apple sued Samsung earlier this month, claiming the Galaxy products “slavishly” copied iPad and iPhone technology and design. Samsung, which is also a supplier of some Apple chips, retaliated last week with lawsuits in Seoul, Tokyo and Mannheim, Germany.
In the U.S. complaint, Samsung accuses Apple of violating patents that “relate to fundamental innovations that increase mobile device reliability, efficiency, and quality, and improve user interface in mobile handsets and other products.”
The patented technology includes ways that a phone allows calls and Internet surfing at the same time; improvements in how text messages and attachments are sent; reductions in interference among mobile devices; and increases in the capacity of mobile networks, according to the complaint
According to a Blaze study stemming from 45,000 Android and iOS tests, the Android browser on average loads web pages 52 percent faster than mobile Safari. The results are inconclusive, however, because it’s unclear whether Blaze’s measurements take into account the new Nitro JavaScript engine that comes with iOS 4.3. The report was completed before this complaint was made public and Blaze is arguing that the lack of Nitro boost can “slightly” skew the results given that “JavaScript only accounts for a small percentage of the total load time.”
Just like the previous iOS device launch days, today’s iPad 2 launch is spawning reports of some minor issues. We’re getting some images of the yellow tint we saw last year.
Reader N. Peach sent this in. In all likelyiehood they yellow will dissipate just like last year’s issues as the glue from the factory dries. Another reader’s is below: Expand Expanding Close
The debate about Flash on iOS devices rarely makes headlines these days, but it’s far from being over. You can see it in an increasing number of apps from third-parties that aim to solve this nasty issue once and for all. While the vast majority of solutions only tackle Flash videos, only a few iOS apps are capable of rendering other content types delivered through Flash, like games and interactive apps.
Enter iSwifter, a new iPad app that claims to stream any Flash content. Expand Expanding Close
Instant Previews provides a fast and interactive way to evaluate search results. Starting today, Google Instant Previews is available on mobile for Android (2.2+) and iOS (4.0+) devices across 38 languages. Similar to the desktop version of Instant Previews, you can visually compare search results from webpage snapshots, making it easier to choose the right result faster, especially when you have an idea of the content you’d like to see.
Meanwhile Blackberry continued its paced slide down another 2 points quarter over quarter while Samsung’s Bada made modest gains. In the “Other” category, Windows Phone 7 somehow lost market share falling from 2% to 1% and Windows Mobile is now off the charts. HP’s webOS is somewhere in the “other” as well with Meego and the ghosts of smartphone past.
