The mobile platform wars are in full swing. Android and Apple dominate the landscape. Network Effects: How Google & Apple Dominate Mobile article tells that a report from VisionMobile says that there will be no clear winner in the battle for supremacy over the mobile market. Android controls the numbers, Apple controls the profits and everybody else is fighting for scraps and third place in the ecosystem. The article has good figures that describe the mobile markets.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Google: 450,000 Android Apps now available to 300 million devices
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/27/google-450-000-android-apps-now-available-to-300-million-device/
Android Marketplace has reached its latest milestone: there are now 450,000 apps available for the platform. Other pertinent stats are that over a billion apps are downloaded every month and that 850,000 Android devices are activated each day — meaning that there’s more than 300 million of them worldwide.
tomi says:
IPhone’s Crutch of Subsidies
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204653604577247471036145902.html
IPHONE
Last year, despite Apple Inc.’s high-profile launch of the new iPhone 4S, only 5% of the smartphones sold in Greece and 9% of those sold in Portugal were iPhones, according to research firm IDC
In countries like the U.S. and the U.K., carrier subsidies helped the iPhone win more than 20% of the smartphone market last year
In the U.S., carriers pay Apple an estimated $400 every time a customer buys an iPhone with a two-year contract, analysts say. Sprint has acknowledged that iPhone subsidies run 40% higher than they do for other smartphones on average. The goal is to make it easy to buy the phone then make the money back and a profit over time on service contracts.
The results point to a rare weak spot for Apple—its heavy reliance on subsidies from wireless carriers to make its iPhones affordable to a wider range of consumers. The practice has proved to be a big advantage for Apple
Apple’s Lead in Smartphones Is Not Guaranteed
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/technology/apple-riding-high-but-for-how-long.html?_
Apple, the global market leader in smartphones, is enjoying record profits and sales that have transformed it into the world’s most valuable company on any stock market. But the mobile computing industry it has conquered in just five years is changing rapidly, and not even Apple’s trend-setting image appears guaranteed.
Unlike in the United States where competitors find it difficult to price a comparable phone lower than an iPhone, in Britain, the iPhone 4S costs at least £170 more than the Samsung Galaxy S II with a two-year commitment at O2 U.K.
It is Apple’s reward for being the progenitor of the modern smartphone segment: the sum of its software DNA, intuitive user experience, cash-generating universe of applications, cultivated image of hipness and first-mover advantage.
But Apple’s main rivals — Samsung and other sellers of cellphones using the Google Android operating system, like HTC of Taiwan and Huawei and ZTE of China — are making smartphones for much less, and the iPhone is becoming ubiquitous, threatening its cachet.
“But I cannot say with certainty that five years on, Apple will still be on top,” Mr. Walkley said, noting that Apple and HTC did not even make smartphones six years ago. “I assume they will be, but it is difficult to predict anything in this dynamic market.”
“The smartphone market last year was a half billion units,” he continued. “In 2015, it is projected to be a billion units.
“The real danger is that Apple becomes so mainstream that there is a breakaway by consumers to something new.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.tietokone.fi/tietokone/uutiset/ei_iphonea_asiakkaat_jattavat_operaattorin
iPhone seems to get the telecom operators mess – whether the phone company’s selection or not. IPhone seles in the United States led the operators to one billion in losses. The operator that does not sell iPhone did has problems that customers are leaving to other operators.
iPhone tie-in sales expenses were highly significant for the AT & T and Verizon, the results flashed one billion trade below zero
Sprint operator, was the announcement of iPhone first-time, and the result was soon billion loss
T-Mobile says that it lost at the end of last year’s 706 000 customers. At the same time, other operators increased their customer base. The company’s Managing Director Philipp Humm points out frankly that the reason was the lack of the iPhone.
Sprint sells 1.8 million iPhones but posts huge loss
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/08/technology/sprint_earnings/index.htm
company announced Wednesday that it sold a better-than-expected 1.8 million iPhones over the past three months. That helped Sprint show its biggest customer base growth in six years, and its average revenue per user rose by the highest rate in the wireless industry’s history.
But selling the iPhone, for which Sprint pays a gigantic up-front subsidy, came at a heavy price: Sprint posted its biggest quarterly loss in three years.
Sprint said that its margins would have been nearly nine percentage points higher if not for two expensive investments. The iPhone subsidy was by far the biggest drain, but Sprint’s Network Vision spending also played a part.
Sprint estimated in October that it would pay $15.5 billion in up-front iPhone subsidies over the next four years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Media Tablet Shipments Outpace Fourth Quarter Targets; Strong Demand for New iPad and Other Forthcoming Products Leads to Increase in 2012 Forecast, According to IDC
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23371312
Worldwide media tablet shipments into sales channels rose by 56.1% on a sequential basis in the fourth calendar quarter of 2011 (4Q11) to 28.2 million units worldwide, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC)
As predicted, Android made some strong gains in 4Q11, thanks in large part to the Amazon Kindle Fire’s success (the Fire runs a custom version of Google’s Android OS). Android grew its market share from 32.3% in 3Q11 to 44.6% in 4Q11. As a result, iOS slipped from 61.6% market share to 54.7%
“As the sole vendor shipping iOS products, Apple will remain dominant in terms of worldwide vendor unit shipments,” Mainelli said. “However, the sheer number of vendors shipping low-priced, Android-based tablets means that Google’s OS will overtake Apple’s in terms of worldwide market share by 2015. We expect iOS to remain the revenue market share leader through the end of our 2016 forecast period and beyond.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android is lagging behind for years to come iPad
118 900 000. So many flat-screen computers sold this year, if the research institute Gartner recent estimate is true.
Apple’s market share for table computers is 61.4 per cent, meaning almost 73 million iPad.
Android share this year, flat-screen computer sales is 31.9 percent. Android-board computers are sold nearly 38 million units.
Although the tablets suitable for Windows 8 has not even come on the market, Gartner estimates that nearly 5 million Windows-board computers will be sold. That would mean about four per cent market share.
According to Gartner, flat design PC sales does not change much over the coming years. The iPad will remain a favorite, but Android is catching up the neck up.
Next year estimates: nearly one hundred million iPads, 62 million Android devices
In 2016 the corresponding figures are 169.7 million IPad, 137.7 Android tablets and 43.7 million Windows flat-screen computers.
Source:
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/android+laahaa+ipadin+perassa+viela+vuosia/a798558?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-11042012&
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Boeing phone: Aerospace giant making Android device
http://www.geekwire.com/2012/boeing-phone-aerospace-giant-making-secure-android-device/
Boeing is jumping into the smartphone business, developing a new mobile device – but we probably won’t be buying this one at our local wireless store.
The company is working on a secure communications device for the U.S. government defense and security market, a spokeswoman for the company confirmed this morning.
Boeing is jumping into the smartphone business, developing a new mobile device – but we probably won’t be buying this one at our local wireless store.
The company is working on a secure communications device for the U.S. government defense and security market, a spokeswoman for the company confirmed this morning.
Beoing was aiming to launch the device in late 2012, at a lower price than competitors who sell secure phones for as much as $20,000
Android was chosen because it will also provide users access to popular consumer apps while still knowing that their communications are secure, Krone told reporters, according to the magazine.
Tomi says:
Google’s Plans For Motorola Revealed!
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-truth-about-what-google-wants-to-do-with-motorola-attack-the-iphone-2012-4
When Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12 billion last summer, the company told press, shareholders and partners that it made the purchase for Motorola’s patents.
That’s true. Google got a great price for Motorola’s patents
But here’s the truth, according to a person briefed on Google’s plans for the merger: while Google may have originally wanted to buy Motorola for its patents only, it has come to realize that it wants to follow Apple’s lead when it comes to smartphone and tablet computer development. A second source, also briefed on Google’s plans for Motorola, confirms this is true.
Google now wants to design smartphone hardware, software, and make the sale.
To be clear: Google’s ambition is not another Nexus One, a third-party manufactured smartphone it helped design from the ground-up in an effort to show all that Android could do. Google wants to do more. It wants to have its own iPhone business.
The third-party companies that already make Android phones – Samsung and HTC lead the way – are slowly realizing Google’s intentions, and they are furious.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Cloud Print can now “print” to an Android device or local FedEx store
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/04/google-cloud-print-can-now-print-to-an-android-device-or-local-fedex-store.ars
Although modern computing devices and software offer much richer ways to consume, manipulate, and share content, there are still people who prefer to put their documents and images on slices of dead tree. Google introduced a service called Cloud Print in 2010 with the aim of helping said people print physical copies of their files from smartphones and Chromebooks.
Google Cloud Print got an update today with several new features, including improved Android integration and the ability to print a file to a local FedEx office. Google also announced that Canon has joined the lineup of hardware vendors who natively support the service.
Google Cloud Print allows users to associate their Google account with a printer, making it remotely accessible over the Internet. This feature works out of the box with “cloud-aware” printers that support Google’s protocol. It can also be used with “legacy” printers by using a software intermediary that runs on a computer. Canon, Epson, Kodak, and HP support the feature on some models.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Former Sun CEO says Google’s Android didn’t need license for Java APIs
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57420304-94/former-sun-ceo-says-googles-android-didnt-need-license-for-java-apis/
Jonathan Schwartz testifies that Java APIs were not considered proprietary or protected by Sun, as long as Google didn’t use the Java name, countering Oracle’s claims that Google infringed on its intellectual property.
Google’s lawyer, Robert van Nest, asked Schwartz whether, during his tenure at Sun, Java APIs were considered proprietary or protected by Sun.
“No,” Schwartz said in explaining the nature of open software. “These are open APIs, and we wanted to bring in more people…we wanted to build the biggest tent and invite as many people as possible.”
Oracle contends that Google’s Android platform violated some of its patents and copyrights around Java and its APIs, which it acquired from Sun in a $7.4 billion deal at the beginning of 2010.
“My understanding is that what we were doing was permissible because of the sum of my experiences and interactions I had,” Schmidt said in this testimony, adding that he was “very comfortable that what we were doing was both legally correct and consistent” with the policies of Sun and Google at that time.
Schmidt, who spent 14 years at Sun, was Schwartz’s first boss at the company, and the two became close friends.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Woz: Windows Phone is ‘beautiful,’ Android ‘no contest,’ still loves iPhone, ask again tomorrow
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/28/woz-windows-phone-is-beautiful/
When Steve Wozniak talks mobile, people love to listen. Last time we checked in, he was lauding some of Android’s finer points, and now he’s raining praise on Windows Phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Exhibits in Oracle case show Google expected Android to take 33% of iPad market in 2011
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/04/25/exhibits_in_oracle_case_show_google_expected_android_to_take_33_of_ipad_market_in_2010.html
In July 2010, Google executives expected their upcoming Android 3.0 Honeycomb release to immediately result in a takeover of a third of the iPad market, according to an internal presentation outed during Oracle’s infringement case against the search giant.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Op-Ed: Android Piracy Is Huge Problem for Game Devs
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/wired-uk-android-game-piracy/
Last week I found myself in one of those “good news, bad news” situations. The good was that more than 100,000 people were enjoying the new Android version of our game. The bad news was that only about 10 percent of them paid for it.
We thought long and hard about making the move to Android, as there were many issues which needed addressing. The biggest challenge was the variety of handsets available and the consequent variety of screen resolutions we would have to support, but also commercial considerations: the usability of the Google Play store, the lack of possibilities for us on the Amazon store (we sell most of our games in Europe where the later Kindle devices aren’t yet available) and fragmentation in the market.
Because of the fragmentation, we created a handful of “skins” for the game to cover the majority of device resolutions. Once a player has installed the game on his phone, the handset senses which resolution the phone can handle and downloads the appropriate skin.
As our sales passed the 10,000 mark, I asked to see the figure for skin downloads; it was up to 113,000. Because every installed copy of the game — legitimately bought or not — needs a skin, we were able to make a pretty direct comparison between our sales figures and our actual user base.
I like to believe the best in people, so I imagined to myself that everyone who bought our game downloaded it twice; once for their phone and once for their tablet. Even if this were true, that still means a piracy rate of 83 percent. But it’s not true — the majority of people who bought it downloaded it once, the rest downloaded it illegally.
I tweeted about this 9:1 piracy ratio
My tweet was picked up by a few news outlets, and I watched the comments sections with interest. Most comments were from people shocked at how high the ratio was, but there was also a handful of piracy apologists claiming that the game is too expensive (which is no excuse for illegal downloading … games are entertainment, not a human right), that it’s not available in some countries (for legal reasons out of our hands), that the game should be free to play (not possible with our current licensing arrangements) and the argument that we don’t lose anything from piracy, so what does it matter?
So what do we do? We can look into going “free to play,” which will lead to huge costs having to attempt to renegotiate all of our licenses, and would only take one to say “no” to make it impossible. We could badger Google into doing something with its store and the Android operating system to make it harder for the pirates but, to be frank, that would be too little too late. We could write a DRM system to make it harder, or look to license one in and integrate it.
All of which costs time that we’d rather be spending improving the game.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PC brand vendors moving R&D resources from Android to Windows 8
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120502PD213.html
PC brand vendors have already started moving their resources from R&D for Android to Windows 8 and are focusing more on developing Windows 8-based products, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Due to the weak demand for Android-based tablet PCs, PC brand vendors such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Acer and Dell have already turned their focuses from Android to Windows 8 for their tablet PC products with their software development teams turning from developing Android to Windows 8 applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Judge says Google’s Android lost money in 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/03/oracle-google-trial-idUSL1E8G3LHJ20120503
May 3 (Reuters) – Google Inc’s Android mobile platform resulted in a net loss for the company in every quarter of 2010, despite generating roughly $97.7 million in revenue for the first quarter of that year, a U.S. judge said in court.
A jury is deliberating on Oracle’s allegation that Google, the top Internet search engine, violated its copyright to parts of the Java programming language.
Oracle sued Google in August 2010, saying Android infringes on its intellectual property rights to the Java programming language. Google says it does not violate Oracle’s patents and that Oracle cannot copyright certain parts of Java, an “open-source,” or publicly available, software language.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Two brilliant moves that helped create the Apple iOS powerhouse
http://daltoncaldwell.com/2-brilliant-moves-created-apple-ios
Most new announcements by Apple are digested and understood by the tech press instantaneously.
So, I now bring you, my two favorite tactical moves by Apple, which I have only recently come to fully appreciate.
Move #1: Windows Compatible iPods
The summer of 2002. The announcement that Apple was going to sell Windows-compatible iPods was surprising to me, and even now it seems like a non-obvious move. Taking their beautiful hardware and subjecting it to Windows users must have been controversial inside of the company. It just didn’t seem like something Jobs would do.
Suddenly, everyone had an iPod… and whether or not you used Windows or Mac was completely irrelevant. This trend has continues: what OS do you think runs on the legacy desktops of folks buying iPads?
Move #2: Market segmentation by Moore’s law
If you are in the business of selling gizmos and gadgets, you live and die by the product cycle. Part of a product rollout is the quiet dumping of the previous model. This isn’t just electronics, ie car dealers have closeout sales to clear out last years model. New product rollouts are part of a constant replacement cycle, and that’s what keeps everyone in business.
when a new iPhone model is released Apple doesn’t shut down the line and liquidate inventory. Rather, Apple keeps some percentage of manufacturing capacity devoted to this legacy model. Manufacturing the old device is easy by this point; it’s a fully debugged process with increasingly cheaper components. I remember when the implications of this completely sunk in: Apple is doing market segmentation off of a single product line!
Why hasn’t Dell or Samsung or HP implemented their own version of the “Moore’s law market segmentation” strategy?
However, if I had to take a single guess, I would guess corporate inertia. If [manufacturer redacted] wanted to take this approach, the sheer number of executives, mid-managers, and regular employees that would need to be moved/demoted/fired out of their respective fiefdoms is mind-boggling. If there was only one flagship phone, there could only be one person in charge, and one head marketing person to report to that person, and one head of engineering etc etc etc. And it would require killing massive, existing (profitable) revenue lines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nielsen: Smartphones Used By 50.4% Of U.S. Consumers, Android 48.5% Of Them
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/07/nielsen-smartphones-used-by-50-4-of-u-s-consumers-android-48-5-of-them/
Android continuing its domination in the space, accounting for 48.5 percent of all smartphone handsets.
Apple is not a very close second, at 32 percent, but through that percentage it has remained the single-biggest smartphone handset brand.
The 50.4 percentage of smartphones represents growth of about three percent since December 2011, when 47.8 percent of mobile consumers were using smartphones.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s HTML5 bet against Android extermination
To be closed, one must support ‘open’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/09/can_apple_keep_the_pressure_on/
Open … and Shut Harvard professor Clayton Christensen has more than 500 billion reasons to think he’s wrong to suggest Apple is in for rough sailing, but he’s not backing down. The father of disruption theory – a theory that Apple’s former chief executive Steve Jobs claimed had a huge impact on his thinking – believes that Apple’s end-to-end, integrated approach to innovation is susceptible to disruption from a more modular, open approach like that of Google’s Android.
It takes a bold person to predict Apple’s downfall even as it continues to grow from strength to strength, but Christensen is comforted by having the weight of history on his side:
The transition from proprietary architecture to open, modular architecture just happens over and over again. It happened in the personal computer, and although it didn’t kill Apple’s computer business, it relegated them to a minor player.
As much as Apple looks indomitable right now, there are signs that Christensen’s theory will prove correct again. While Apple is crushing competitors in the relatively new tablet market, it has already lost its pole position to Android in smartphones.
It’s possible that part of the delay in Apple’s “inevitable” decline has come from the two sides – Apple (closed) and Google (open) – stealing ideas from each other’s playbooks
Apple, for its part, has married these price cuts with significant investments in open technologies like HTML5 support in its devices. Contrarily, Google’s Android hasn’t been a truly open alternative to Apple’s integrated approach, dulling its effect as the knight in open armor.
Apple has actually surpassed Google’s Android in terms of HTML5 support. Apple not only has the best closed app model, but it also has the best open HTML5-based web app model.
Still, one thing is a pretty safe bet: over the long haul, openness generally wins.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twin-track development plan for Intel’s expansion into smartphones
Android-optimization is key to beating Apple
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/11/intel_smartphone_android/
Intel is planning a two-pronged attack on the smartphone and tablet markets, with dual Atom lines going down to 14 nanometers and Android providing the special sauce to spur sales.
Intel has speeded up the process technology shift for this sector and its Atom chips will shift from 32nm today, then 22nm next year. 14nm hardware is scheduled for 2014.
Later this year Intel will release the Atom Z2580 chip, which promises 2x processing and graphics performance within a good power envelope for smartphones and tablets. The next stage will be the 22nm Merrifield chip, which Bell predicted would change the game for Intel in the smartphone market.
“This is a really big deal for us,” he said. “It’s not just a technology shrink to 22nm, it’s a fundamental change. There’s a brand new processor core, it has state of the art imaging and graphics and is a new part from the ground up.”
Merrifield will ship next year in high-end smartphones and tablets
To address the more basic market the Z2000 series of Atom processors, which operate at around 1GHz, will ship later this year and be aimed at the low-end handset market, along with 2G and 3G chipsets and HSPA+ connectivity.
“Our phone efforts right now are concentrated on Android and we have thousands of engineers right now optimizing Android to be the best version on Intel architecture,” Bell said. “This is a fundamental advantage that not many other people have.” Eul said the same for Intel’s tablet range.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3,997 Models: Android Fragmentation As Seen By The Developers Of OpenSignalMaps
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/15/3997-models-android-fragmentation-as-seen-by-the-developers-of-opensignalmaps/
Over the past six months, the folks at OpenSignalMaps have been keeping tabs on the devices that have been downloading their network monitoring app, and so far they’ve recorded downloads onto 681,900 separate Android devices in 195 countries. Now they’ve taken all that data and splayed it out for all to see, and it highlights rather nicely how big a headache fragmentation can be for developers.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt famously downplayed the term “fragmentation” at this year’s CES, suggesting instead that people call it “differentiation.” It’s hard not to agree with sentiment on some level — after all, one of Android’s key strengths is how easily it fits into different niches and price points. But according to him, as long as every Android user is able to use the same apps, there’s no problem here.
Downloading and installing apps is one thing, but what I think really counts — the user experience — can still vary from hardware configuration to hardware configuration.
That’s why developers like Animoca have invested what I can only imagine is a sizable amount of money and effort testing their apps with something like 400 Android devices before pushing them out into the world. And of course, fragmentation isn’t just a hardware issue — the OSM post points out that the two most used versions of Android now only account for 75% of the devices they surveyed, down from 90% last year, yet another issue for developers to grapple with.
Does every developer need to go through a process that outlandish? Certainly not — OpenSignalMaps seems to test on a tiny fraction of that, and smaller developers can cover most of their bases with a handful of carefully chosen devices.
At the end of the day though, despite the sheer amount of choice and flexibility that Android has provided users, those developers still have a choice to make — do they want to strive for perfection, or do they want to keep their sanity?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intellectual property issues will make it hard for Google to keep its Chinese ‘open Android’ promise
http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/intellectual-property-issues-will-make.html
It appears that Google has had to make a general commitment to keep Android “free and open” for at least five years to come, though it will be allowed to provide add-ons and cloud-based services against fees, which is consistent with Google’s practice: Android was never truly open, and it won’t be after this deal. It will continue to be a potpourri of software that is available under structurally different licenses.
What’s unclear is how the MOFCOM ruling affects Google’s practice of giving preferential treatment to lead device manufacturers. It appears that Google will in the future have multiple lead devices, from different manufacturers, for each new generation of Android.
The details of Google’s commitments to MOFCOM aren’t known. For example, one could define the part of Android that has to be published on “free” and “open” terms broadly or narrowly. Still, the overall structure of Google having committed to continue to make all new Android versions, for the next five years, available on “free” and “open” terms is interesting in at least two respects
Tomi Engdahl says:
Click here to find out more!
Galaxy S III S-Voice app now available for all Androids
http://www.slashgear.com/galaxy-s-iii-s-voice-app-now-available-for-all-androids-28230566/
The personal assistant for Android known as Samsung S-Voice has been released on the Galaxy S III smartphone and has been hacked and distributed to the public at the same time. This application works much in the same way as the Galaxy S II voice assistant did when it was released last year and is now being called an Apple Siri-rival due to the relative popularity of that system.
This application has been ripped from the Galaxy S III and is not currently made by Samsung to be working on devices outside of that smartphone.
If you have never installed a non-market application, nows as good a time to start as any, but again we make not guarantees that it will work or that the download is safe in the end. This application also goes by the name Voice Talk
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s Crystal Prison and the Future of Open Platforms
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/apples-crystal-prison-and-future-open-platforms
Two weeks ago, Steve Wozniak made a public call for Apple to open its platforms for those who wish to tinker, tweak and innovate with their internals.
EFF supports Wozniak’s position: while Apple’s products have many virtues, they are marred by an ugly set of restrictions on what users and programmers can do with them. This is most especially true of iOS, though other Apple products sometimes suffer in the same way. In this article we will delve into the kinds of restrictions that Apple, phone companies, and Microsoft have been imposing on mobile computers; the excuses these companies make when they impose these restrictions; the dangers this is creating for open innovation; why Apple in particular should lead the way in fixing this mess. We also propose a bill of rights that need to be secured for people who are purchasing smartphones and other pocket computers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Judge: Oracle Java API elements not copyrightable, related claims against Google dismissed
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/31/3055620/oracle-java-api-not-covered-copyright-law
Things weren’t looking good for Oracle after the jury found that Google hadn’t infringed upon the company’s patents in the second phase of the trial between the two behemoths, but the issue of infringement of the structure, sequence, and organization of 37 Java APIs was still up in the air. Judge William Alsup ended the discussion today, ruling that the SSO of the APIs is not covered under current copyright law — and dismissing Oracle’s related infringement claims outright.
While Alsup’s ruling had been anticipated as one that might set sweeping precedents for the copyrightability of software in general, Alsup instead focused very narrowly on the specific factors involved in this case. Noting that 97 percent of the lines of code used in the 37 APIs came from Google, rather than Sun or Oracle, Alsup writes that Oracle’s only recourse to claim infringement had been to cite the structure of the APIs. Accepting such an argument, however, would be tantamount to letting a single company or programmer prevent others from creating any other software that replicated similar functionality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Do Top Android Developers QA Test Their Apps?
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/02/android-qa-testing-quality-assurance/
Red Robot uses about 12 devices in-house and has a quality assurance team of two people. They then use a U.K.-based company called Testology to get further coverage with 35 handsets.
So Pocket Gems’ QA testing is actually run by a former Air Force colonel(!) named Ray Vizzone. They use a little more than 40 devices evaluated in a matrix
They make sure they include both tablets and phones and then high-resolution and low-resolution devices. They also make sure to include all five major graphic processing units (GPUs) including Adreno, PowerVR, Tegra, Mali and Vivante.
Pocket Gems tests all features in three phases. They have 1) new features testing 2) integration testing and 3) release candidate testing.
Storm8 uses between 30 and 50 devices, which they divide into groups of high-end, mid-range and low-end devices. They intentionally buy devices for each category. After they launch games, they have the apps send back different KPIs (key performance indicators) back to the company’s servers
Rovio says compared to the J2ME/Brew era, Android is actually easy!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows Phone To Top iOS Market Share By 2016, IDC Says
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/06/06/windows-phone-to-top-ios-market-share-by-2016-idc-says/
Now here’s a bold prediction.
By the end of 2016, according to International Data Corp., Microsoft‘s Windows Phone 7 will inch ahead of Apple‘s iOS to become the world’s #2 mobile operating system. Google‘s Android is expected to remain the world’s best-selling mobile OS, but with share shrinking steadily between then and now.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 ways to make Android better than the iPhone
http://podcasts.infoworld.com/slideshow/47786/10-ways-make-android-better-the-iphone-193447?_kip_ipx=242678131-1339143323
These tweaks and apps will let your Android smartphone outshine your friends’ iPhones
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android activations near a million a day
http://www.reghardware.com/2012/06/11/android_activation_nears_one_million_daily/
Almost a million Android devices are activated every 24 hours, according to Google’s Andy Rubin.
The company’s senior VP of mobile stuff revealed the statistics through Twitter where, after insisting he had no plans to leave Google, claimed “there are over 900,000 Android devices activated each day”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lamborghini drives Androids towards wealthy pockets
http://www.reghardware.com/2012/06/11/lamborghini_drives_androids_towards_wealthy_pockets/
Lamborghini has upped the gears with its own range of mobile products, including a tablet and a gold-plated Android handset, both set to drive into the hands of oligarchs this summer.
Both come with Google’s ageing Android 2.3 Gingerbread platform.
Both will launch in Russia sometime this August.
Tomi Engdahl says:
44 per cent of the business and the IT industry-first Tablet PC buyers will buy an Android device next 12 months compared to only 27 percent who intend to buy an iPad, Idgns news service, the owner of IDG Connect in a new study says.
“The tablet and your use of the device in the working environment has a significant impact on the future of business and the IT sector in the coming years,” says IDG Connect journalist Kathryn Cave press release. Cave of the results of the study indicate that a flat PC market leadership will change in the future.
71 per cent of respondents said they already own the Tablet PC, and of these 51 per cent said it was the iPad.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/androidtaulutietokoneet+halutumpia+tyokaytossa+kuin+ipadit/a816983?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-15062012&
Tomi Engdahl says:
IDC says Apple’s Ipad to regain market share from Android in 2012
Overall tablet sales will surpass original expectations
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2184698/idc-apple-s-ipad-regain-market-share-android-2012
RESEARCH OUTFIT IDC is predicting that the Apple Ipad will continue to dominate the tablet market throughout 2012, snatching back market share from its Android powered rivals.
In its latest report IDC has updated its forecast to shift a larger percentage of future tablet sales toward IOS and away from Google’s Android operating system. The firm now expects the Ipad to grab 62.5 per cent of the market in 2012, up from 58.2 per cent in 2011, while Android’s hold will slip from 38.7 per cent to 36.5 per cent.
Overall, IDC expects the entire tablet market to surpass its original expectations. Worldwide sales are now expected to hit 107.4 million units
“Demand for media tablets remains robust, and we see an increasing interest in the category from the commercial side,” said Mainelli.
“We expect pending new products from major players”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google, Apple Tighten Grip on Smartphone Market
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702303379204577474794114369320-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwODExNDgyWj.html
Apple Inc. and Google Inc. have brought mobile giants Nokia Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. to their knees and captured more than 80% of the world’s smartphone market. Now they are going after the rest.
Apple is marching into new markets—most recently U.S. prepaid mobile phones—to continue the growth of its iPhone and iPad devices and iOS software.
Google is shifting gears with its Android software to exert greater control over its destiny. In the past, Google relied on hardware manufacturers to build Android devices and on carriers and other retailers to sell them to consumers.
Today, Google is partly adopting Apple’s integrated model by manufacturing some devices on its own and it plans to sell several devices directly with big marketing campaigns.
What’s behind these moves? Apple and Google see bigger gains ahead. Of the about 1.4 billion phones sold this year, only about 35% will be smartphones, a percentage projected to climb to 75% in the next five years, according to research and trading firm Wedge Partners. That potential bounty is intensifying the fight to sell more devices and accompanying services.
Nokia, RIM and others “really underestimated what Apple and Google could do,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc.
Overall, Google’s Android held 59% of global smartphone shipments in this year’s first quarter, up from 36.1% a year earlier, while Apple had 23%, up from 18.3%, according to IDC.
Smartphones powered by Nokia’s Symbian OS, which it is phasing out in favor of software from Microsoft, dropped to 6.8% from 26% over the same period, and RIM’s share fell to 6.4% from 13.6%.
Many Android devices are powered by older versions of the software, making it a challenge for apps to work well across them.
As Google and Apple’s share has grown, the fighting between them has intensified. Last week, Apple unveiled the next version of its software for iPhones and iPads with a slate of features aimed at distancing itself from Google. They include a mapping service and enhanced Siri “virtual assistant” that provides an alternative way to search for information besides the traditional Google search box.
Google, meanwhile, has accelerated plans to launch its own Siri competitor that would work on Android-powered devices, people familiar with the matter have said.
Both companies also are trying to make their software more ubiquitous by pushing versions for tablets and TV software, believing consumers are going to want their phones to connect to a range of other wireless devices and services. Analysts said that other tech companies without similar reach will struggle to stay relevant to consumers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hands-On With the Latest Siri Competitor For Android
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/06/hands-on-robin/
We’ve seen a spate of Android apps that aim to compete with Siri, and like their Apple counterpart, they often fail to deliver on the promise of being an always-connected virtual assistant. The latest entrant into the Android market is Robin, which takes a similar tact to Siri, but puts the focus on searching points of interest while you’re behind the wheel.
Robin, available for free from Google Play, comes to the party with a novel approach to inputting voice commands – you simply wave your hand above the phone, slightly brushing up against the light sensor, and the familiar voice control dialog appears awaiting your instructions.
Magnifis, the developers behind Robin, make it a point to say that the app is still very much in beta, as evidenced by a few errant searches and the occasional missed swipe over our Android device. But as more users come on board and more information is inputted into their database, accuracy, speed and service listings will grow. And for the bargain price of $0.00, Robin is an elegant addition to other Android-based navigation and POI apps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android continues to dominate China’s growing smartphone market, as devices built on the Google-owned platform rocketed up to account for 55.4 percent of all active smartphones during the first quarter of 2012, up from 47.3 percent in the final quarter of 2011.
The Apple platform is actually behind Nokia’s Symbian system, but the ageing platform continues its downward spiral in China, where its industry-wide representation dropped from 32.3 percent in Q4 2011 to 25.6 percent over the two quarters.
Indeed, the report estimates that Android’s diversity in China means there are more than 2,000 different devices running the operating system. An increasing number of these variants come from third-parties, like Baidu and Alibaba which have developed their own forked Android platforms specifically for building affordable smartphones in China.
As a report from Canalys speculated today, mid- and low-range devices are becoming increasingly important in China. The analyst firm predicts that 40 percent of all smartphones in the country will be priced below $200 by 2015.
Source: http://thenextweb.com/asia/2012/06/19/android-marches-on-in-china-now-accounts-for-55-4-of-smartphones-ios-at-12-4/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s Worst Nightmare Comes From an Unlikely Source
http://www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/long-ideas/12/01/2242580/apples-worst-nightmare-comes-from-an-unlikely-source
Forget about everything you know regarding iPhone competitors because the biggest threat may come from the very place Apple relies on to manufacture all of its products: China.
Rather, this story is about the Meizu MX, an iPhone knock-off developed and manufactured in China for Chinese consumers. Reuters has an intriguing video that showcases the launch of the phone, which was released on January 1.
Hundreds of consumers lined up, waiting to get inside the brightly-lit stores, which were covered in white walls and a hint of blue, Meizu’s apparent color of choice.
the Meizu stores were clearly inspired by the work of Apple
But don’t think the cloning stops there.
Granted, Meizu isn’t the first company to copy Apple’s work, nor is Apple the first company fighting the danger of copycats. But Meizu is being more blatant about its actions, and it is doing so in a nation with different laws and regulations. While Apple could easily add Meizu to its list of patent infringement cases here in America, the company may not be able to do the same in China. That could be why Apple chose this week to make a formal announcement regarding the iPhone 4S’ availability in China.
Meizu, however, has two (potential) advantages. In addition to being the first one to arrive on store shelves, Reuters said that the MX is a couple hundred dollars cheaper than the iPhone. This is appealing to Chinese consumers, who don’t have as much money to blow as their American and European counterparts.
Sanford Bernstein analyst Mark Newman said that he didn’t think the Chinese phones could compete in the high-end market in China, but would most likely compete in the mid- to low-end markets instead.
However, in looking at the MX’s design, its features, and the company’s website, it is safe to say that Meizu cares more about competing with Apple – who is still a relatively new player in China – than any other corporation.
Going forward, China is expected to experience massive growth in smartphone sales, among other emerging areas. That is why so many American companies are eager to sell their products in China. Like it or not, Meizu is here to stay. If Apple plans to win, it is going to have to one-up the company at every turn.
Even worse, what if Meizu decides to release a product in the United States? At a price of roughly $400, few Americans would choose a Meizu MX over an Apple iPhone 4S. That said, Meizu could ink a deal with AT&T (NYSE: T), Sprint (NYSE: S), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), or some other carrier to offer the phone for $50 with a two-year contract.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Samsung Galaxy S3 Teardown
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=245906&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
It should come as no surprise, then, that Samsung’s latest high-end Galaxy phone, the Galaxy S3, has drawn the interest of consumers, designers, engineers, and market analysts.
What would Samsung have up its sleeve for its newest smartphone?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s Surface plan means the world belongs to Android now
Not everybody’s a fanboi or a Microtard
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/26/brics_love_android/
Open … and Shut Microsoft roared onto the mobile scene last week with the unveiling of its Surface tablet, but Acer is probably right to question why Microsoft would fight premium iPads with a premium Surface.
After all, the next 10 million apps, and the next billion users, are not going to come from the developed, saturated markets of North America and Western Europe, as Vision Mobile’s new research report (Developer Economics 2012: The New Mobile App Economy) points out. Rather, the next phase of mobile market development is projected to come from emerging Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) economies.
Developers in these markets? They’re betting big on Android.
Even in the developed world, demand for Android is outpacing iOS, at least by some measures
And so will Microsoft, as Asymco founder and analyst Horace Dediu posits:
Microsoft faces a dilemma. Their business model of expensive software on cheap hardware is not sustainable. The future is nearly free software integrated into moderately priced hardware.
For Microsoft to maintain their profitability, they have to find a way of obtaining $80 of profit per device. Under the current structure, device makers will not pay $55 per Windows license per device and users will not spend $68 per Office bundle per tablet. Price competition with Android tablets which have no software licensing costs and with iPad which has very cheap software means that a $300 tablet with a $68 software bill will not be competitive or profitable.
Of course, the big question for Android will be how to manage device (and OS) fragmentation, something that is exacerbated by these low-cost manufacturers.
It’s hard to imagine that Google will be able to ensure Android will function smoothly across such a dizzying array of devices. Having said that, a number of cross-platform tools like Appcelerator and Adobe’s PhoneGap have arisen to make apps more portable between different device and OS profiles.
Still, developers will go where the users are, and Android developers are primarily driven by the open-source operating system’s user reach and low-cost development.
Hence, for device manufacturers that can’t distribute Apple and can’t afford Microsoft, there’s just one game in town, and it’s Android. This has made it a big game, indeed.
Still, Android scores far worse than iOS in Vision Mobile’s developer survey for its ability to generate revenues, largely due to the comparative few Android users with credit cards on file. In many emerging economies, this is a semi-permanent deficiency, because credit cards aren’t widely used. Even in developed markets, apps only have a 35 per cent chance of generating $1 to $500, which means that many developers can’t count on app development as a primary source of revenue.
None of which will halt Android’s growth in the developing world, but it will almost certainly require developers and device manufacturers there to figure out innovative ways to make money. They’re not making it on the hardware or the software or on the apps at present. And the more Android fragments, the problem will just get worse.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android Reaches 400 Million Device Activations, Adds 1 Million Per Day
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/27/android-reaches-400-million-devices-activations-1-million-per-day/
Here are some big numbers for Google’s Android platform out of the company’s developer conference today in San Francisco: Android has seen 400 million device activations and is adding 1 million per day. That’s up from the 100 million number the company announced last year around the same time.
How does that compare to Apple’s iOS platform? Well, earlier this month, Apple said it had cumulatively sold 365 million devices.
Although we don’t know the active installed base of both platforms, this presumably makes Android’s footprint larger — especially since its growth spurt has been more recent.
tomi says:
And So It’s Come To This: Samsung/Google Forced To Degrade Features In Patent Dispute
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120705/03281819586/so-its-come-to-this-samsunggoogle-forced-to-degrade-features-patent-dispute.shtml
The latest in the ridiculous saga of the patent dispute between Apple and Samsung, which has resulted in Samsung phones and tablets being banned from sale in the US, is that Samsung, with the help of Google, has been pushing out an over-the-air software update to make its phones worse. Yes, the OTA update is designed to take away a feature, in an effort to convince the judge that the phones no longer violate Apple’s patents.
Tomi says:
An Android Tablet Victory May Be Problematic For Free Software
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/12/07/11/0526233/an-android-tablet-victory-may-be-problematic-for-free-software
“Glyn Moody writes at The H that Google’s Nexus 7 tablet seems to be in a good position to shake up the market and pave the way for serious Android competition to the iPad. That said, he’s worried about the potential downsides to a market full of mostly ‘open’ devices: ‘Such customised systems are likely to be as locked down as they can be – the last thing either manufacturers or companies want is for users to start fiddling with the settings or installing their own software.”
Why a tablet victory for Android is problematic for Free Software
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Why-a-tablet-victory-for-Android-is-problematic-for-Free-Software-1635219.html
It is also not unreasonable to expect that Google will come out with a full-on iPad competitor if the Nexus 7 goes down well.
At that point, we will have an interesting battle between the open and closed worlds of Android and iOS.
The open source nature of Android means that it can be modified for very specific uses. That makes it ideal to serve vertical markets. In fact, we’ve already seen this with Linux, which has become the embedded system of choice powering many highly-specialised digital devices. Cheap tablet hardware is the next stage of this evolution.
Just as customised versions of Linux have become ubiquitous in small household devices, so customised Android solutions could become standard on dedicated tablets that replace one of the commonest tools in business: forms and clipboards.
This is not to say that we will be entering that fabled land of the paperless office: paper will still exist as an object, it’s just that we won’t carry it around on a clipboard.
Android tablets with specs like the £50 model mentioned above are perfect for this task. They can be customised physically – ruggedised versions, waterproof systems etc. – and in terms of the simplified interface they adopt. That allows designs to be low-cost and easy to use. Because there are so many vertical markets – as many as there are business sectors – this will be good news for programmers and designers working in the Android world, who will find themselves in great demand.
But there’s a big downside to all this. Such customised systems are likely to be as locked down as they can be – the last thing either manufacturers or companies want is for users to start fiddling with the settings or installing their own software. As a result, the apps that run on such systems are likely to be closed source, since that’s the way vertical markets tend to work.
Such systems will also expose a persistent problem with the open source development methodology. While big and general projects find it relatively easy to attract interested developers, smaller, more targeted solutions tend not to thrive as free software.
The way around this is to create a common framework for such vertical tablet applications.
It’s still early days for the tablet market, which is why we see only generic systems. The falling price of hardware, coupled with the customisability of Android will soon change that.
Tomi says:
Nexus 7 vs. Kindle Fire: What a Difference $19 Makes
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/nexus-7-will-turn-a-profit-for-google-and-asus/
The Google-designed, Asus-built Nexus 7 is currently the best 7-inch tablet money can buy, but it isn’t the most profitable. Its biggest rival, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, is about $19 cheaper to produce.
The 8GB versions of both tablets sell for $200. But while the 8GB Nexus 7 has a manufacturing cost of $159.25 to build, the 8GB Kindle’s is just $139.80, according to a production cost estimate of the two slates based on product teardowns by the research firm IHS iSuppli. (The 16GB version of the Nexus 7 is far more profitable — it sells for $250 but costs just $166.75 to manufacture.)
But for less than $20, you get a lot more tablet in the Nexus 7. The major cost differences between the two devices are tied to the Nexus 7′s most distinctive hardware advantages over the Fire — its display, its CPU, a front-facing camera and a near field communications chip, said Andrew Rassweiler, a senior principal analyst at iSuppli.
The Nexus 7 has a brilliant 1280×800 7-inch display, using high-end IPS touchscreen technology, that costs Asus about $62 per unit. The Fire’s 1240×600 display isn’t nearly as pretty.
Before the Nexus 7, Nvidia’s Tegra 3 quad-core CPU was only found in iPad-fighting high-end tablets such as Asus’ Transformer Pad series that boast $500 price points and 10-inch screens.
Rassweiler said the Fire and the Nexus 7 owe much to the first hot-selling low-priced tablet, the HP TouchPad, for supply costs falling so sharply.
The TouchPad went on sale about a year ago at the same price as the iPad and it was a failure. In response, HP cut the price down to $100 for a 16GB TouchPad and $150 for a 32GB slate last August. Consumers went nuts, and TouchPads sold out all across the U.S. and Canada.
“It was really the TouchPad that clued everyone into the fact that a cheap tablet can really sell,” Rassweiler said. “Before that, the only $200 tablets available were really from no-name companies and nothing anyone would want to buy. But then came the Kindle Fire late last year, and Amazon catapults itself into the second-best-selling tablet spot behind the iPad. And of course, Google was paying attention to that.”
Tomi says:
Apple’s patent infringement is believed to have been one of the ways the iPhone mobile phone to success.
The war is not the same man needs, but one of the company can already do a lot. News agency Bloomberg figures show that Apple has included more than 60 percent of all mobile phone industry patent disputes. Bank of Finland’s research advisor, Tuomas Takalo that it has been the success of Apple’s iPhone one way to go.
- Apple has willfully violated such as Nokia’s patents, and paid them a half a billion for compensation and then made the discoveries more interesting than the Nokia
- Apple has been a champion of absorbing influences from others and branding them attractive to consumers
Takalo’s calculations, the value of Nokia’s composed almost entirely of the company’s patent portfolio and intellectual property rights.
- It may well been that Nokia and it’s competitors have thought that for Apple is not possible to enter the market due patents. It was thought that the patent portfolio to protect, and this might have caused a certain arrogance, Takalo believes.
Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/patenttirikkomukset_iphonen_menestyksen_taustalla/6233754?origin=rss
Tomi says:
Apple Offered to License its Patents to Samsung for $30 Per Smartphone, $40 Per Tablet
http://allthingsd.com/20120810/breaking-apple-offered-to-license-its-patents-to-samsung-for-30-per-smartphone-40-per-tablet/
Apple executives have testified the company was “shocked” when Samsung debuted its first Galaxy phones. But, considering the Korean company was a major supplier, Apple apparently was also willing to make a deal with its rival.
In October 2010, Apple offered to license its portfolio of patents to Samsung provided the Korean company was willing to pay on the order of $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet.
Apple also offered to give Samsung a 20 percent discount if the Korean company cross-license its portfolio back to Apple. Apple also sought royalties on Samsung’s non-Android smartphones, including those running the Symbian and Bada operating systems.
“Apple has identified dozens of examples where Android is using or encouraging others to use Apple patented technology,” Apple said in the August 2010 presentation, which contained the headline “Samsung copying iPhone.”
“Many more Apple patents are relevant to the Android platform,” Apple said, outlining dozens of patents it believed were being infringed. “Apple has not authorized the use of any of these patents.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Google’s Nexus 7 Tablet Teardown
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=247017&cid=Newsletter+-+Gadget+Freak
Google finally introduced its first branded tablet, the Nexus 7, at its I/O conference June 27 with a price tag of $199, meaning it will compete directly with the Kindle Fire. The Android OS, particularly Honeycomb, had long been used by iPad competitors. The Nexus 7 tablet also included the latest version of Android, 4.1, or Jelly Bean.
Like the Kindle Fire, the Nexus 7 offers specifications comparable to other tablets while also taking advantage of the rich library of applications that were available through Google’s Android Market. Featuring a seven-inch display, the Nexus 7 also uses Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor while also sporting 1GB of internal RAM and the option of up to 16GB of storage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Samsung Galaxy S3 Teardown
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=245906&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
Samsung reinvested heavily into creating a new line of handsets that were not only aesthetically pleasing, but would feature higher-end technology and features not found in its competition.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Samsung’s latest high-end Galaxy phone, the Galaxy S3, has drawn the interest of consumers, designers, engineers, and market analysts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The bill-of-materials tab: Spend wisely, not just cheaply
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/other/4390510/The-bill-of-materials-tab–Spend-wisely–not-just-cheaply?cid=EDNToday
The article, “Google Nexus 7 Parts Cost $18 More Than Kindle Fire,” discusses a recently published report from iSuppli that estimates the comparative bill-of-materials costs of the ASUS-developed, Google-branded Nexus 7 tablet introduced late last month and now available for purchase, versus the Amazon-branded Kindle Fire tablet
But of course Google will do more than break even at the end of the day, considering the incremental advertising revenue incurred by the existing-and-new Google service subscribers that purchase and use the Nexus 7, along with the entertainment content consumption.
Scan through the list and I’m confident that you can figure out for yourself, without my having to explicitly detail for you, that the Nexus 7 has far more formidable hardware potential.
Still, if you scan through the Kindle Fire reviews published last fall, you may still get the sense that I do… that Amazon had over-economized to the system’s detriment, and that a bit more money spent on the BOM (even if it would have pushed the sales price beyond the all-important $199.99 mark… although remember that Amazon has subsidization opportunities, too, as a retailer of both physical and digital content) might have been a wise decision. The Nexus 7, on the other hand, is far more favorably reviewed.
The marketers and accountants at your company invariably “beat you up” on a regular basis regarding the bill-of-materials costs of your under-development designs, in striving to respectively be able to under-price your competitors and eke out an acceptable profit margin at that price.
That’s ok; such actions are at the core of their job responsibilities. Your job, in response, is to selectively and intelligently push back, pointing out situations where making a bit more resource investment can deliver a disproportionately large return on that investment, both in the initial out-of-box experience and over time in terms of platform longevity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple ‘offered Samsung $30-per-mobe’ patent licence truce
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/13/apple_licensing_deal_samsung_2010/
Apple offered Samsung a patent licensing deal at $30 per smartphone after warning the South Koreans they were infringing its fruity designs, a court heard.
Samsung was warned in August 2010 that its Android-powered gadgets infringed Apple’s patents and copied the iPhone, the jury was told. The Cupertino company added: “Many more Apple patents are relevant to the Android platform [and] Apple has not authorised the use of any of these patents.”
“Samsung chose to embrace and imitate Apple’s iPhone archetype,” the company told the court. “Apple would have preferred that Samsung request a licence to do this in advance. Because Samsung is a strategic supplier to Apple, we are prepared to offer a royalty-bearing licence for this category of device.”
In 2010, Apple reckoned Samsung had already clocked up $250m with its allegedly infringing phones.
Samsung refused the licensing deal. The trial continues and is expected to conclude at the end of the month.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple expert shines light on Samsung sales in U.S.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/us-apple-samsung-idUSBRE87C0SC20120813
Apple Inc is claiming that more than a quarter of Samsung Electronics’ $30.4 billion in U.S. smartphone and tablet sales result from copying of the iPhone and iPad or infringe on other patents, a damages expert for the U.S. company said on Monday.
On Monday, an Apple executive testified that the company had licensed prized design patents to Microsoft Corp but with an “anti-cloning agreement” to prevent copying of its iPhone and iPad.
Apple had reached out to Samsung in 2010, hoping to strike an agreement with its rival on patent licensing before their dispute hit the courts, patent licensing director Boris Teksler said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android operating system is dominated by far, the slice has grown by as much as 64 percent. The second iPhone will share 19 per cent and 6 per cent on the third Symbian.
Microsoft operating system’s market share is only 2.7 percent.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/nokian+lumiaongelmat+jatkuivat+peruspuhelimissa+torjuntavoitto/a828545?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-14082012&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile Phone Sales Decline 2.3% in Q2; Are Apple and Samsung Doomed?
http://www.benzinga.com/news/12/08/2830682/mobile-phone-sales-decline-2-3-in-q2-are-apple-and-samsung-doomed
Gartner has released a new report announcing that worldwide mobile phone sales declined 2.3 percent in the second quarter of the year, presenting a new challenge to device manufacturers as they prepare for the fall shopping season.
Despite the decline, the tech industry still sold 419 million units during the period. According to Gartner, smartphone sales grew 42.7 percent and accounted for 36.7 percent of total mobile phone sales.
Gartner blames the decline on user anticipation for these new smartphones. With so much promise behind every product Apple plans to release, consumers lose interest in last year’s models — including the iPhone 4S or the original Galaxy Note. Why spend $200 on a new smartphone today if a newer and more exciting iteration is going on sale tomorrow?
This very logic helps and hurts the smartphone industry.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple licensed its designs to Microsoft, but barred ‘cloning’
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57492205-37/apple-licensed-its-designs-to-microsoft-but-barred-cloning/
The disclosure by the head of Apple’s patent licensing group came in testimony today at the Apple-Samsung patent trial. It’s not clear when this particular deal was struck.
“All these patents are in Apple’s unique user experience, and not ones we would license,” Teksler said during the redirect portion of his testimony. He said the Apple-Microsoft cross-license covers design patents, but added that Apple added “special prohibitions” with an anti-cloning provision.
“There’s peace to each other’s products; there’s a clear acknowledgement that there’s no cloning,” he said. Teksler added that Microsoft did not receive special rights.
Neither Apple nor Microsoft have disclosed the details of their cross-licensing agreement in public, which is common enough in such deals. But some fine print could spill out as a result of this case, given that Apple and Samsung have had to open up their books to the each other.
“We were clear we weren’t offering a license to everything,” Teksler said. “We had yet to discuss some what we termed ‘untouchables,’ if you will.”