Posts Tagged ‘Google Android’

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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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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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Top 10 android apps for smart phones and tablets

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Top 10 android apps for smart phones and tablets

There is a huge market for it and it will increase very fast in the coming days. Here is a list of 10 top android apps for smart phones and tablet

Android’s popularity is exploding. The tablet and smart phone Operating system from Google has become the top OS for smart phone and the second highest used operating system for tablets following Apple’s iOS that is used by Apple’s iPad tablet.

Experts have been amazed over the fast paced growth of Android. Google’s OS has shown a dramatic increase in market share over the past year, surpassing iOS, Nokia’s Symbian, RIM’s BlackBerry, and other mobile platforms. It commands the biggest smart phone share with one report suggest that 52 percent smart phone users use Android OS. This is followed by Nokia’s Symbian that attracts close to 17 percent. Apple’s iOS is the third highest used OS with just 15 percent market share.

With the explosion in Android users, the demand for Android Apps has increased manifold. The best thing about Android apps is the fact that most of the good stuff on Android is free, thanks to the work of developers who do it for love alone. So here’s our pick of the top free Android apps you should install.

There is one app that allows you to manage your files in a lot better way. Astro File Manager helps you manage your files in more organized way. It makes your phone act as a miniature PC. You can copy/move/rename files, back up apps, send files as attachments, and create compressed files. Ad-supported free version, $4 premium version

Then there is another great app called The GTasks task manager. The GTasks task manager syncs with the desktop Google Tasks, which you can also access in the Web version of Gmail and Google Calendar. It’s so useful, it should be in­­cluded on every Android phone. Free

Search engine giant Google’s Google Music is one app that could enthuse music butts. Google Music is yet another new service from the internet giant. The new video streaming service can store 20,000 tracks in the cloud, which you can stream to your Android devices once needed. The new feature from Google helps you save enough memory space in your handsets without having to store music in it. Once you want to listen to a track, just stream it from Google Music.

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