Conspicuously timed ahead of today's massive iPhone 5 event, Android boss Andy Rubin this morning wrote on Twitter that there are now half a billion Android devices activated around the world. The stunning figure represents a material increase over the stats Google chairman Eric Schmidt shared just a week ago...
The new official YouTube app hit the App Store a few hours ago, and we've taken it for a test drive. It's obvious that this isn't an app that Google hastily threw together in a matter of weeks — it's probably been sitting on the back burner for quite some time now.
Since Apple and Google's contract terms were up with regard to the stock YouTube app developed in-house by Apple, it became appropriate for Google to unleash their own YouTube app.
How does it compare with the app it replaces? Check inside for the full scoop...
Google today pushed an update to its cloud-storage app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad that leaked last week in a prematurely published blog post.
With Google Drive 1.1, you can finally create new documents on your device, move your cloud files between the folders and edit documents on the go.
Native editing doesn't feel buttery-smooth as in Apple's Pages app and you cannot paste Camera roll images into your docs, but overall it's a far less clumsy experience than having to edit your files in the Safari browser...
If Apple's "thermonuclear war" on Android had a leader, it would be Noreen Krall, chief litigator for the Cupertino, Calif. iPhone maker. Indeed, Bloomberg's profile of Krall describes her as Apple's legal "field marshall."
"Krall has become a familiar sight in courtrooms around the world as Apple’s chief litigation counsel," Bloomberg writes. Even before Apple won a $1.05 billion patent-infringement decision (now being appealed) against Samsung, Krall thanked junior members of the legal team for all the hard work...
Gmail for iOS received a minor update today, bringing the app to version 1.3.1. The email client now runs a bit more smoothly, and more importantly, it can now open links in the Chrome browser.
This is now the third app that Google has updated with this feature, behind Google+ and Sparrow, and it could be a preview of Google's future plans for the iOS platform and its iOS applications...
Google chairman Eric Schmidt shared some headline-grabbing updates related to the Android platform during today's unveiling of the refreshed Razr family by Motorola Mobility, now a Google division. Most notably, we learned that Google now counts a whopping 480 million Android devices in the wild.
That's a cool 80 million units improvement over a total of 400 million activations announced at Google I/O on June 27-28 of this year. Yes, Android smartphones and tablets collectively outsell all iOS devices combined. Afraid? Don't be, Google actually beat Apple on that metric back in June.
Daily activations surged from a million Android devices back in June to today's number of 1.3 million daily activations. No matter how you look at it, that's a very, very impressive figure, one proving there's no shelter from the Android carpet bombing. But what about tablets?
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Motorola just wrapped up its "On Display" event in New York City, and as expected, it had some new hardware to show off. The company unveiled the Droid Razr HD, the Droid Razr Maxx HD, and the Droid Razr M.
With a subsidized price of $99, the Razr M is the cheaper of the three handsets. It has a 4.3-inch display and runs on Verizon's LTE network. Then there were the stars of the show: the Razr HD and Razr Maxx HD...
Google earlier today accidentally (or intentionally, perhaps?) published a post meant to accompany an upcoming update to its Drive cloud storage client for iOS and Android devices. The new version, which should go live in just a few days, brings with it the ability to edit documents right inside the app, making the app much more useful, especially to avid Google Docs users who keep their presentations, spreadsheets and documents in the Google cloud.
Previously, there was no way to natively edit your Google documents in-app. You can always edit your documents online via the Safari browser, but that experience is not satisfactory due to sluggishness and the clumsy interface that lacks full capabilities of its desktop counterpart.
The updated iOS client should also let you view Google presentations on the device. Full changelog, courtesy of the Google cache, is right after the break...
Android handsets started really picking up steam in late 2009 with the release of the Motorola Droid. Shortly after that, Google's mobile platform took over the smartphone industry and it has since controlled around 50% of the US market.
But Apple hasn't taken the challenge lying down. Thanks to its iPhone 3GS-4-4S lineup covering all price points, and its new partnerships with several smaller carriers, Apple's handsets now account for a healthy 30% of the same US market...
Unless you've been sleeping under a rock for months, you're aware that Android handsets have been gobbling up market share just about everywhere.
Everywhere except in the United States, that is, where Android phones declined by 4.5 percent as iOS grew by nearly nine percent year-to-year, per latest data from market research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the WPP-owned market analysts.
Android is big in Europe and has been growing its share steadily in other markets over the past three months, mostly exceeding the fifty percent share mark and in some countries even approaching total domination.
This surge in Android's popularity has been seemingly led by jumbo-sized devices with screens sizes measuring four and a half inches diagonally and up. Considering that market share appears to favor the trend toward bigger smartphones, Apple has no doubt chosen the right time to release an iPhone with a bigger screen. Or has it?
Google on June 27 entered the tablet race with a seven-inch slate named Nexus 7, but only the WiFi model was initially made available. The decision to pass on cellular connectivity was met with criticism by some reviewers who pointed out that WiFi-only capability severely cripples the tablet's usability, even if one can just as easily use their mobile phone's cellular data as a wireless hot spot for the device.
Google was likely governed by cost considerations (it sells the Nexus 7 below cost and makes up with content purchases on its Google Play digital store). Just as we expected, the Internet giant appears to be ready to offer a 3G variant of its slate. The 3G Nexus 7 is said to arrive in mid-October, just in time for the holidays and to conveniently counter Apple's rumored October unveiling of the iPad mini...
If you're getting as tired of all of the patent lawsuits as we are, then you'll happy to hear that Google and Apple have opened the lines of communications regarding intellectual property matters.
A new report is out this morning claiming that Tim Cook, and Google's CEO Larry Page, have been involved in behind-the-scene talks over a range of things, including mobile patent disputes...