Archive for the ‘Google Android’ Category

Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak is a ‘Big Fan of Android Phones’

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak is a ‘Big Fan of Android Phones’

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had once sworn to fight Google’s Android with “his last dying breath and every penny Apple had in the bank” as the creative tech genius believed the rival has committed a “grand theft” of the iPhone’s operating system. However, another Steve in Apple, and ironically, a co-founder of the tech giant, feels Apple has a lot to learn from Android phones.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said he’s a “big fan of Android phones.”

And even though Wozniak acknowledged that his primary phone is the iPhone, he never stopped singing praises of the Android, and claimed Android has leapt ahead of Apple’s iOS in many ways. “My primary phone is the iPhone,” Wozniak said. “I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do.”

After comparing two different kinds of operating systems, Wozniak listed several features of Android smartphone, which give the Android an edge over the iPhone iOS in his eyes, including voice commands, navigation system, battery life and more.

Siri, the voice-controlled intelligent assistant, has endeared itself to Apple fans. Nevertheless, Wozniak said the virtual assistant doesn’t work very well.

“I used to ask Siri, ‘What are the five biggest lakes in California?’ and it would come back with the answer. Now it just misses. It gives me real estate listings. I used to ask, ‘What are the prime numbers greater than 87?’ and it would answer. Now instead of getting prime numbers, I get listings for prime rib, or prime real estate,” Wozniak explained.

In fact, there are even times the virtual personal assistant can’t connect to the back-end servers, which powers the application. “With the iPhone 4 I could press a button and call my wife. Now on the 4S I can only do that when Siri can connect over the Internet. But many times it can’t connect. I’ve never had Android come back and say, ‘I can’t connect over the Internet,’” he continued.

According to the Apple co-founder, the Android system works better. “I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me,” Wozniak said. “I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done.”

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Android Is No. 1, But Google Says It Still Makes Little Money

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Android Is No. 1, But Google Says It Still Makes Little Money

In just three years, Android has become the king of mobile operating systems. But it’s only now starting to make money for Google, says Larry Page, Google’s chief executive.

Mr. Page described Android as a young product with lots of potential during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday. That’s a modest way to describe a piece of software that is installed on about 50 percent of smartphones worldwide.

“We are in the early stages of monetization for a number of our new products, and Android is one of those,” said Mr. Page, in response to an analyst’s questions about making money with Android. He said that Android had a strong advertising business and that its app store had served 11 billion downloads — many of which are free — to smartphone customers.

“But we see a lot of potential for us to make money on Android, and you’ll see us increase that a lot over time,” he added. “It’s hard to give you details about that right now, but I’m very, very optimistic.”

Android is free, open-source software that any manufacturer can use. Part of the reason it is not a bigger revenue generator is that many of the 250 million Android devices that Mr. Page said had been activated are not phones or tablets, where people see ads sold by Google, but rather gadgets like low-cost GPS navigators.

“Because it’s an inexpensive, somewhat open ecosystem, Android has become the backbone of a whole host of devices that people aren’t thinking about, and most of those aren’t phones,” said Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. “At C.E.S., it became obvious that almost everything was an Android device — it was like introducing the new Android toilet, now with Pandora.”

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Google’s Android Activations Worth $3.65B a Year: Oracle

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

Google’s Android Activations Worth $3.65B a Year: Oracle

Google’s 700,000 daily Android activations could be worth $3.65 billion a year to the company, according to some calculations from Oracle.

Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) 700,000 daily activations of devices based on its Android operating system may be worth $10 million annually in mobile ad revenues, totaling $3.65 billion a year overall, according to Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL).

Oracle sued Google in August 2010 for patent and copyright infringement, accusing the search engine provider of infringing seven Java patents and other copyrights. Oracle is seeking monetary damages and an injunction against Google from using its IP in Android.

Oracle, which in June sought $2.6 billion, plus a revenue share of between 10 and 15 percent of Google’s mobile advertising sales generated from Android phones, said it would stay or dismiss its patent infringement claims against Google in lieu of a near-term copyright trial to facilitate a resolution.

Oracle also provided a current report of its calculation for how much Android is worth to Google.

“While this case awaits trial, more than 700,000 Android-based devices are activated every day, all fundamentally built around the copyrighted Java APIs and the enhanced performance enabled by Oracle’s patents,” Oracle said in its filing. “Each day’s worth of activations likely generates approximately $10 million in annual mobile advertising revenue for Google.”

FOSS Patents blogger and IP expert Florian Mueller noted that this sum assumes annual advertising revenues of $14 per Android user, which Oracle presumably arrived at in the discovery process of the trial.

While Google has yet to confirm or deny this average revenue per user (ARPU) estimate, the total Android ad earnings of $3.5 billion may be high considering Google CEO Larry Page said the company’s total mobile ad run-rate for 2011 was $2.5 billion.

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Will Windows 8 Win? Microsoft’s Uphill Battle Against Apple, Android

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

Will Windows 8 Win? Microsoft’s Uphill Battle Against Apple, Android

2012 is shaping up to be a make-or-break year in the crucial mobile operating system market and, for perhaps the first time in its distinguished history, Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) will be looking up at incumbent market leaders.

Windows 8, Microsoft’s next-generation operating system, is scheduled to launch this year, with a beta release slated for February. Unlike its many predecessors, the new OS is slated to deliver an entirely new user interface optimized for both desktop and touch-screen-enabled mobile devices. As more details emerge about the new release, reactions are being stirred up among OEMs, developers and solution providers — many of which view Windows 8 as a pivotal, do-or-die move for the software giant.

While Microsoft made a sizable splash at CES 2012 with Windows 8 (the OS was featured on numerous Ultrabook and tablet demos), the spotlight shifted when Intel unveiled a major mobile alliance with Motorola Mobility around the chip maker’s new Atom chip, code-named Medfield, for tablets and smartphones. The move displayed Intel (NSDQ:INTC)’s support for Android (Motorola (NYSE:MOT) Mobility is in the process of being acquired by Google (NSDQ:GOOG)) and left questions looming about how Microsoft and its operating systems will fit into Intel’s plan for mobile dominance.

A lot of the uncertainty surrounding Windows 8 stems from the fact that, historically, Microsoft hasn’t had much of a foothold in the mobile space. While Apple and Google have managed to capture a significant chunk of mobile market share, Microsoft has stuck, more or less, to its PC-centric roots. According to recent statistics published by Web analytics firm Net Applications, 43.1 percent of U.S. mobile devices run on Google’s Android OS, while 16.7 run on Apple’s iOS. Microsoft, however, wasn’t among the top five, as Windows Phone 7 has lagged behind.

It’s with these statistics in mind that many are questioning whether Microsoft is joining the mobility game too late — and whether Windows 8 will ever gain the traction it needs to compete. Developers and solution providers told CRN that, while a new touch interface and an app store may pique the industry’s interest, they won’t necessarily mean a quick win for Microsoft’s new OS.

Bill Lucchini, COO of OnForce, an on-site services marketplace that matches service buyers with service providers, believes only a game-changing device or OS could successfully enter today’s already saturated mobile market.

Take Apple (NSDQ:AAPL), for instance. It was able to enter the mobility space four years ago and succeed — even among mobile giants Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Samsung, which already had staked their claims — simply because the iPhone was different. That same innovation is required to compete (at least seriously) in the marketplace today, Lucchini explained. “Apple changed what it meant to be a phone, and therefore took such a strong position, as Android did afterward,” he said. “So I think there is still room for that, but somebody needs to come up with that market-changing idea in order to get in at this point.”

While it’s too early to tell whether that “somebody” is Microsoft, Windows 8 does tout several new features that distinguish it from both competitors and previous Windows releases. The new Metro user interface, for instance, is fully touch-capable and replaces the traditional desktop Start menu with a tile layout similar to that of the Windows Phone 7.

NEXT: Breaking Down Windows 8

What’s more, the new OS features a log-in method called Picture Password, allowing users to define and enter a password by making select movements over a photo rather than typing one. Windows 8 also will deliver the most recent installment of Internet Explorer, version 10, and is expected to spark a more robust app selection in the Windows Store.

Perhaps one of the most innovative features seen with the new OS, however, is Windows to Go. The new feature allows IT administrators to create USB drives containing fully managed Windows 8 systems for users to take with them outside the office. As the name suggests, it’s essentially a portable and secured version of the new OS, apps and all (for more, check out the CRN Test Center review of the Windows 8 developer preview ).

Shahin Pirooz, executive vice president, engineering operations, and CTO of CenterBeam, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based solution provider, views Windows to Go as one of the most exciting new features to be delivered with Windows 8. Its appeal, however, is enterprise-focused, meaning that it may not necessarily draw a wider consumer audience. “In typical Microsoft fashion, they are speaking to the IT industry rather than the consumer,” Shahin explained. “Even though that’s who they are trying to get to.”

In addition to positioning itself as a true mobile innovator, Microsoft faces another challenge when it comes to Windows 8: the consumerization of IT. The phrase, referring to the increasingly blurry line between what is considered a “corporate” vs. a “consumer” device, could suggest that as more and more Apple and Android devices make their way into the corporate world, Microsoft’s grip on the enterprise market will start to slip.

Chad Osgood, CEO and managing partner at Premier Logic, an Alpharetta, Ga.-based software developer and solution provider, has seen declining interest in the Windows OS ever since the iPhone and other consumer-centric devices landed in enterprise users’ hands.

“I think what we started to see with the release of the iPhone was a lot more consumer-oriented mobile devices,” Osgood told CRN. “And what that did … we started to see a lack of demand from a consumer and an enterprise standpoint for Windows mobile.”

The decline of Research In Motion proves just how hefty a blow the consumerization of IT can deal enterprise-focused vendors. The BlackBerry maker lost a hefty chunk of its enterprise customer base to the iPhone and Android-run devices this year and saw a major blow to its third-quarter revenue, reporting $265 million compared to the $911 million the company reported in the same quarter the year before. If Windows 8 isn’t a game-changer, Microsoft also may find itself living in Apple’s ever-expanding shadow.

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The iPhone could be just one killer app away from beating Android

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

The iPhone could be just one killer app away from beating Android

Through the course of writing about mobile apps and their platforms, a lot of numbers get published that suggest who is beating whom in terms of market share between Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s Android operating system. The back and forth is important because things like market leadership and penetration are the macro view of the app story. The more people using iOS or Android, the more apps get made for them, and the more money invested in making those platforms better in order to keep business working. But the constant back-and-forth can get a little tedious.

Recent numbers released by research firm Nielsen, however, suggest that while Android is the dominant platform on the planet, Apple’s iOS always has a little juice left in the tank that could help it do something no one expects. By all accounts, Android should only grow larger as it spreads out across the world, fine-tunes its operating system and experience and gathers more partners in carriers and device makers. But then, every so often, Apple kicks on the afterburners and reminds everyone that it’s too early to call the race.

The most recent afterburner’s name is Siri.

Driven by the new iPhone

As PC World reports, Nielsen’s latest survey focused on new smartphone owners in the fourth quarter of 2011 in the U.S. Among people who bought new smartphones in December, 44.5 percent opted for an iPhone – double the number who did so in October. Meanwhile, only 46.9 percent of those who bought new phones went with Android devices, down significantly from the 61.6 percent who bought Android phones in October. The difference between those two periods: the iPhone 4S.

While Android still accounts for the biggest share of the U.S. smartphone market, appearing on 46 percent of all devices in use in the U.S., many consumers in December opted for Apple’s platform instead. Among those buying iPhones, the big majority – 57 percent – went with the iPhone 4S. Previously, we heard that customers were even breaking contracts to get the latest iPhone, and Nielsen reported that Apple’s market share rose to 43 percent in October and November, from 26 percent in Q3 2011. Meanwhile, Android’s share dropped from 60 percent to 46 percent in the same period.

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