Samsung's latest smartphone, the Galaxy S4, won top honors in a series of tests conducted by a UK-based consumer research organization called Which?. The organization found that Samsung's Galaxy S4 topped Apple's iPhone 5 and other competitors when it comes to speed, call time and Internet use.
Apple's nine-month-old handset led in just one test: time required to recharge...
Apple's new mission-statement ad campaign is epitomized in a television commercial which highlights Apple's California roots and celebrates the firm's famous 'Designed by Apple in California' tagline etched on the back of its products. It's unfortunately not testing very well with viewers.
Ad effectiveness firm Ace Metrix polled at least 500 television viewers who gave the latest commercial a score of 489 on its scale. That's below an industry average of 542 and the lowest score of more than two dozen Apple TV ads in the past year.
By comparison, Apple's past ads often topped 700, so the new campaign isn't as effective as Apple's ad shop TBWA/Worldwide thought it would be...
It's not the sort of recognition any smartphone maker wants, but Android appears to be the platform of choice for nine out of ten mobile malware authors. The growth of malware apps targeting users of Google's mobile operating system rose an unbeliavable 614 percent in just the last year, author's of a new study found.
Perhaps even more discouraging is three-quarters of the mobile malware could easily be eliminated through software updates, yet ignored by 96 percent of Android owners. As for Apple's iOS, it's nowhere to be found on the malware hit-list, an area in which Apple is happy to hand to rivals...
A new report on how tablet users view their devices and at what times reveals several interesting preferences. Among the most notable discovered by one web application: iPads remain the most-used tablets, particularly in landscape mode at around 10pm during the weekdays. The findings also show tablets other than Apple's device attracting usage in the single-digits...
For years, the big three smartphone markets have been China, the U.S. and Japan. India now has knocked Japan out of the third spot due in part to better distribution and increased attention from Apple and Samsung, a research firm said Wednesday.
India has recently been in the spotlight as the two smartphone giants battle over the nation's growing interest in adopting the more powerful mobile phones. As a result, consumers are bombarded with an array of buying options, perhaps explaining why Strategy Analytics is reporting 163 percent smartphone growth in India, four times the global average...
Research giant Gartner Monday released new figures confirming the growth of tablets and the decline of PCs are set to continue through 2013 and into 2014. However, the numbers point to a changing market for tablets and a potential rescue for ailing PC and laptop demand.
While the overall shipment of PCs, mobile phones and tablets is expected to rise by just 5.9 percent this year, PC shipments of both desktops and notebooks will slide lower by more than ten percent. Worldwide mobile phone shipments should increase a modest 4.3 percent while tablets lead consumer demand for mobility, shipments jumping by 67.9 percent this year, according to the research firm...
Apple's iTunes is one of those happy ironies. Begun as a way to boost sales of Macs and other hardware and content with breaking even, the service now rakes in $20 billion per year selling digital warez such as video, books, apps and music - a whole lot of music. In fact, Apple now sells 75 percent of all digital music, according to a new analysis.
In a series of peeks into how iTunes earns all that revenue, independent analyst Horace Dediu paints a picture where more than a half-billion users are pointing to a future where apps surpass digital music sales...
More indications Apple's efforts offering flexible pricing are paying off. Sales of the iPhone 4 in China grew at a faster pace than the overall market during the first quarter, research firm IDC announced Thursday. Per data, the iPhone has a cool nine percent of the Chinese smartphone market, putting Apple in fifth place.
Demand for the iPhone 4 grew by 211 percent, outpacing the market's overall 117 percent growth rate. By comparison, Korean smartphone rival Samsung has nineteen percent of the smartphone market in China. However, the company has shifted from growing its share of the high-end market to simply hanging on to what it now has...
Owners of mobile gadgets running on Apple's iOS operating system are more likely to make purchases from their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and use their iDevices for product research. According to research firm Forrester, iOS owners are nearly one-third, or thirty percent, more likely to make purchases using their smartphone or tablet and fifteen percent more likely to research products, compared to Android users.
Although Apple's software is overwhelmingly chosen by shoppers, 96 percent of e-businesses planned to develop mobile applications for both Android and iOS. However, while companies such as Microsoft and others encourage developers to create apps for their platform, only very large companies intend to stray from the iOS-Android duopoly...
Under questioning by U.S. government lawyers, an Apple executive testified that the company owns about 20 percent of the U.S. e-book market - double the figure many observers had assumed.
The surprising percentage was revealed as the head of the company's iBookstore service refuted government charges of conspiracy to set e-book prices.
During the sixth day of testimony in the Department of Justice's lawsuit against Apple, company director Keith Moerer said iBookstore grabbed twenty percent of e-book sales soon after opening, a figure it continues to hold. Additionally, he said iBookstore sales increased 100 percent in 2012 with more than a hundred million customers...
Next to email, a mobile browser is often the most-used app on a smartphone or tablet. Although Safari still rules the iPhone and iPad crowd, there is a bit of internecine warfare within the Android camp. Google's Chrome is increasingly the default browser on Android mobile devices as usage declines for the stock Android browser.
The gains in May by Chrome against the stock Android mobile browser coincide with Google's decision last year to replace the stock Android browser with Chrome on all Android devices...
A mixed-message on the state of mobile advertising is out today. In an announcement expected to hearten both the iOS and Android camps, a UK ad firm reports Apple retains its lead in mobile ad share, while mobile ads rendered on devices by rival Samsung are increasingly being clicked.
Combined, Apple's iPhone and iPod touch account for more than a third of all ad requests handled by the UK-based Adfonic. However, Samsung - with just twelve percent of the mobile ad share - finds the first quarter 2013 click-through-rate on ads served by its Android devices increasingly stronger than Apple...