Android

A $40 Android tablet wants to conquer schools in India

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2018

Yesterday, I wrote about Apple's laughable iPhone market share in India that, according to IDC, was only 1.2 percent of all handset sales during the second quarter of this year, half the level a year earlier. It's hard to justify a $800+ phone in a country where folks make an average of $200 a month, if they're lucky. Meanwhile, cheap Android handsets have taken India by storm and now enjoy a commanding 50+ percent market share.

Though it remains to be seen if Apple's inexpensive smaller iPad fits the big picture in the 1.24 billion people country, a new report out today by The New York Times makes the case for a sub-$50 Android tablet specifically made for students in India...

Verizon activates 3.1M iPhones in Q3, nearly 1 out of 5 was iPhone 5

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Verizon reported today it activated 3.1 million iPhones during the three-month period ending September 30. About 650,000 were iPhone 5 units that had been purchased in just one week, the largest US carrier reported. The iPhone represented 46 percent of smartphones Verizon sold during the period. Overall, smartphones now account for 53 percent of the handsets Verizon sells.

The 650,000 iPhone 5 sales figure is impressive, given Apple's latest handset was released in late September, permitting only one week of sales during the third quarter. The Cupertino, California-based Apple confirmed it sold 5 million of the new handsets during its opening weekend last month...

iPhone accounts for nearly half of smartphone web traffic

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

The number of models in the iPhone family is extremely small compared to the amount produced by other manufacturers. But according to a new report, which is an update to Chitika's recent iPhone 5 study, Apple's handsets still account for nearly half of all smartphone-generated internet traffic...

Google invites press to October 29 Android event

Cody Lee ∙ October 17, 2012

Google has sent out press invitations this afternoon for an Android event to take place on October 29th. The shindig will kick off at 10 a.m. EST at Basketball City in New York.

The invitation itself doesn't give many clues as to what could be announced. But given the fact that the holidays are just around the corner, we're guessing it's new hardware...

FBI warns smartphone users of Android malware

Cody Lee ∙ Updated June 13, 2016

Though Apple takes quite a bit of criticism, from both users and developers, over its rigorous App Store approval process, there is one significant benefit to the approach: security. iOS sees just a fraction of the viruses and malware as other, more open platforms.

Case in point: the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which does work for the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the FBI, issued a warning late last week to smartphone users regarding malware for mobile phones. And unsurprisingly, there was a focus on Android...

Microsoft to launch new Xbox Music service, iOS app in the works

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Microsoft announced Sunday evening that it was going to be launching its new streaming music service, Xbox Music, in the coming weeks. The move will pit Microsoft directly against Spotify, RDIO, and even iTunes.

Xbox Music will debut on — what else — the Xbox, and then roll out to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices as they become available later this month. Microsoft says it's also working on iOS and Android clients...

Microsoft targets Android’s Google Maps app in German patent lawsuit

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 11, 2012

Google's pricey $12.5 acquisition of handset maker Motorola Mobility didn't change the dynamics of patent wars as Google hoped it would. Recently, Microsoft and Apple scored a major win in a patent dispute in Germany, forcing Google's Motorola subsidiary to pull all of its Android-based smartphones and tablets from store shelves in the country.

Luck continues to be in short supply at Mountain View, California. Today, the Windows maker has expanded the Motorola patent case to include Google Maps for Android, specifically naming Google as a defendant.

As the public fight between Google and Microsoft gets uglier, Google faces a real possibility of Google Maps becoming unavailable in Germany as early as next spring. Ouch!

Apple, Samsung, Google and others meet with UN for patent licensing pow-wow

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Apple, Google, Samsung and others meet today - not in a courtroom but in neutral Switzerland. The discussion, moderated by the UN's International Telecommunications Union, focuses on whether the key principal of patent licensing is preventing products from coming to market.

The talks follow Apple and Samsung high-profile patent dispute and the EU investigating whether a number of companies are abusing the patent guidelines...

Motorola pulls all Android phones and tablets from Germany following patent rulings

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Handset maker Motorola Mobility, a Google subsidiary, has pulled all of its phones and tablets from the German market, following unfavorable rulings over patents. This has got to be a huge blow as the search Goliath has been struggling to return Motorola to profitability after it had acquired the ailing cell phone company for $12.5 billion, gaining a treasure trove of 17,000 mobile technology patents. Motorola reported an operating loss of $233 million during the second quarter so you could imagine that any disruption in sales is not going to look good in its next earnings report...

NYT looks at Apple and patent wars from both sides

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 4, 2018

As part of its ongoing iEconomy series, The New York Times on Sunday evening published a fascinating piece covering patent wars in excruciating detail, touching upon Apple's decision to go thermonuclear on Android, how the company changed its strategy after it had been forced to pay $100 million for the iPod user interface, why Apple is allowed to own patents covering basic software concepts and more...

iPhone share rising, everyone else looks flat or down

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 2, 2012

Analytics firm comScore is out with new research data concerning the mobile landscape in the United States during August. Good news for Apple: the iOS is on the rise among smartphones, going from 31.9 percent during the three-month period ending in May 2012 to 34.3 percent in June, July and August.

During the same timeframe, Google's Android went from 50.9 percent to 52.6 percent smartphone market share. Better still, Apple grew at a faster clip than Google. Microsoft's Windows Phone, Research In Motion's BlackBerry and Symbian? All losing ground...

Consumer Reports says nice things of Apple Maps

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 13, 2018

Consumer Reports, an influential U.S. magazine published monthly since 1936 by Consumers Union, gave Apple's iPhone 5 a thumbs-up recently but initially slammed iOS 6 Maps navigation ("we were disappointed"). Melted bridges aside, the publication known for its reviews and comparisons of popular products took both Apple Maps and Google Maps for a spin, concluding that Apple's offering is "certainly more favorable than comments and articles that we've been reading online"...