Android

Apple, Samsung took 103% of 2012 handset profits

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

We have often written how the handset market is essentially a duopoly of operating systems - iOS and Android - as well as brands: Apple and Samsung. Yesterday came even another way the two are dominating the mobile world - profits. Apple and Samsung accounted for 103 percent of handset profits in 2013, a figure made possible by the zero or negative growth by six of the eight leading handset makers. Apple held 69 percent of handset profits earned in all of 2012, more than double that of the South Korean Samsung, which hauled in 34 percent of phone profits last year, according to Canaccord Genuity...

Twitter refreshes its terrible iPhone app with revamped search, tweaks

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 6, 2013

The popular micro-blogging platform Twitter today announced a freshly redesigned search experience for its iOS/Android apps and the Twitter.com web interface. This helps you find relevant tweets, trends and people to follow in a single stream. Plus, the reorganized search is now available anywhere in the mobile apps via a new icon.

You can see your five most recent searches, tap them to redo the search and clear your recent search history. Twitter says the updated iOS client launches faster, especially on older iDevices. It's a nice, albeit way overdue refresh. If you're using Twitter's official client, you can update your devices now. I'm sticking with Tweetbot...

Dropbox’s new Sync API lets apps treat cloud files as if they were local

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 6, 2013

The hot cloud storage startup Dropbox today announced a new application programming interface (API) for in-app synch. It makes programmers' life much easier by letting their native iOS/Android apps treat users' cloud-based files as if they were stored locally.

"Give your app its own private Dropbox client and leave the syncing to us", Dropbox proclaims.

By way of plugging in the API, apps can easily gain rich features such as file sharing and seamless real-time syncing akin to the Documents in the Cloud feature found in some iCloud-enabled apps. Without the Sync API, Dropbox apps can only support manual downloads and uploads and devs must do all the heavy lifting themselves...

Chitika: iPad recovers from post-Christmas dip, now back to 81% share

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

Apple's iPad appears to have recovered from its post-Christmas slump. The tablet now enjoys an 81 percent share after falling from a high of 89 percent to 79 percent between December 25-27, 2012. Online advertising network Chitika Tuesday released the chart for the U.S. and Canada which proves the iPad recovered some of the ground lost to cheaper tablets.

The latest data obtained from millions of devices participating in Chitika's ad network shows Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet having the second-highest January 2013 market share. Although a distant runner-up to the iPad, the Amazon tablet scored a 7.7 percent tablet share, while Samsung's family of Galaxy tablets reached 3.9 percent...

iPhone snares global web usage crown from Nokia

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Apple yet again became the beneficiary of Nokia's seemingly never-ending swan song, becoming the most-used mobile brand on the Internet in January. This despite Apple actually losing nearly three percent of mobile online usage. That the Finnish-based Nokia collapsed by more than fifteen points, dropping it out of first place to the third spot, also helped.

According to the independent website analytics company StatCounter, Apple had a nice 25.86 percent of mobile Internet usage in January 2013. Although that was a decline of 2.81 percent compared to the same month in 2012, Nokia's share in the same period fell from 37.67 percent to 22.15 percent, a significant decline...

Gartner: more than half of mobile apps will be HTML5/native hybrids by 2016

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

A convergence of mobile trends is setting the stage for a day when more than half of the applications will support both HTML5 and native iOS/Android environments. That's the word from research giant Gartner, who predicts companies must support multiple platforms as well as native features, such as mapping, cameras and location-based services. Additionally, the researcher forecasts brand-name smartphone makers could be pushed out of the low-cost market as countries such as China and India produce home-grown alternatives priced as low as $50...

Android market share falls 13 percent amid Apple increase

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

We have long believed that many Android devices wind up in desk drawers, gathering dust, while Apple gadgets go bopping around on the web. That suspicion was confirmed Friday morning by new browser data showing Android usage is down 13 percent while iOS use is up. The figures by Net Applications once more illustrate the many ways to pick winners and losers.

According to Net Applications, an Internet measurement firm that tracks browser usage, the percent of mobile browser using Android has fallen 13 percent after peaking at 28 percent in November 2012. By contrast, browsers on iOS rose since October 2012 following Apple introducing the iPhone 5 and iPad mini...

FTC issues app privacy guidelines, proposes ‘Do Not Track’ for mobile

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated November 9, 2023

A patchwork of online privacy measures should be standardized to form a 'Do Not Track' list for mobile app users. In guidelines issued Friday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission says mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone "facilitate unprecedented amounts of data collection."

Both devices and app developers should obtain users' consent before obtaining personal information such as location, photos or contacts. The set of guidelines accompanied Path's $800,000 settlement with the FTC over grabbing iOS users' personal address books without their consent...

iPad sales up 8M units in Q4, market share down 8 percent

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

New research shows number one tablet maker Apple shipped more iPads while also losing market share during the 2012 holiday fourth quarter. The company shipped nearly 23 million tablets during the period, a dramatic increase from the same time in 2011, when 15.1 million Apple tablets shipped.

At the same time, Apple's overall share of the tablet market fell for the second quarter in a row, slipping to 43.6 percent from 46.4 percent during the third quarter of last year - and down from 51.7 percent a year ago, according to IDC.

Apple ended the year with 48.1 percent year-over-year growth while number two tablet rival Samsung saw its growth more than double. A combination of Android and Windows-based tablet sales helped push the South Korean firm's share of the tablet market to 15.1 percent, up from 7.3 percent in 2011...

App Store income 3.5x Google Play’s in December

Ed Sutherland ∙ January 31, 2013

Examples keep appearing of how Apple is able to squeeze more revenue from its iPhone and iPad than rival Android. The latest data shows Apple's App Store earned 3.5 times more than Android's Google Play in December. Did I mention this happened despite Google Play doubling its quarterly revenue? The reason, according to App Annie, is the iPhone 5 and iPad mini - both popular holiday gifts and natural driver of App Store sales...

Adoption rate: iOS (60%) vs Android Jelly Bean (10%)

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 30, 2013

I just stumbled upon a nice post by Doug Hamlin highlighting how Android fragmentation seriously derails Google's ability to deploy the latest and greatest version of its mobile operating system to as many devices as possible, especially compared to Apple's iOS software. At the time of this writing, and based on Google's own numbers, Jelly Bean (both Android version 4.1 and 4.2) powers a total of 10.2 percent of devices in the wild. By contrast, 300 million Apple devices (out of 500 million) upgraded to iOS 6 and above in just five months...

Most iPhone owners pay over $100 a month to carriers

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

The next time you visit your local carrier asking for an iPhone, don't freak-out too much if the salesperson doesn't respond right away - it could be that loud 'ca-ching!' sound.

Nearly 60 percent of iPhone owners pay more than $100 per month to carriers - 10 percent paying more than $200 each month, according to a new survey released Wednesday.

By comparison, 55 percent of Android smartphone owners, 40 percent of BlackBerry owners and 56 percent of Windows Phone users have smartphone bills more than $100 per month, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners...