The platform wars is over: Apple and Google both won. Microsoft wanted to be the third mobile ecosystem, and it has got clear solid third position, but quite small market share of overall smart phone market. Apple now sells around 10% of all the 1.8bn (and growing) phones sold on Earth each year and Android the next 50%, split roughly between say 2/3 Google Android outside China and 1/3 non-Google Android inside China. So Apple and Google have both won, and both got what they wanted, more or less, and that’s not going to change imminently.
Wearables and phablets will be the big device stories of 2015. I think that the wearables will be the more interesting story of them, because I expect more innovation to happen there. The smart phone side seemed to already be a little bit boring during 2014 – lack of innovation from big players – and I can’t see how somewhat bigger screen size and higher resolution would change that considerably during 2015. CES 2015 debuts the future of smartphones coming from all places – maybe not very much new and exciting.
Say good-buy to to astronomical growth in smart phone sales in developed countries, as smartphone market is nearly saturated in certain regions. There will be still growth in east (China, India etc..), but most of this growth will be taken by the cheap Android phones made by companies that you might have not heard before because many of them don’t sell their products in western countries. The sales of “dumb phones” will decrease as cheap smart phone will take over. Over time this will expand such that smartphones take almost all phone sales (perhaps 400m or 500m units a quarter), with Apple taking the high-end and Android the rest.
The current biggest smart phone players (Samsung and Apple) will face challenges. Samsung’s steep Q3 profit decline shows ongoing struggles in mobile – Customers sought out lower priced older models and bought a higher percentage of mid-range smartphones, or bought from some other company making decent quality cheap phones. Samsung has long counted on its marketing and hardware prowess to attract customers seeking an alternative to Apple’s iPhone. But the company is now facing new competition from low-cost phone vendors such as China’s Xiaomi and India’s Micromax, which offer cheap devices with high-end specs in their local markets.
Apple has a very strong end of 2014 sales in USA: 51% of new devices activated during Christmas week were Apple, 18% were Samsung, 6% Nokia — Apple and Apps Dominated Christmas 2014 — Millions of people woke up and unwrapped a shiny new device under the Christmas tree. It is expected that Apple also will see slowing sales in 2015: Tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted Apple will face a grim start to 2015 with iPhone sales plummeting by up to a third.
In few years there’ll be close to 4bn smartphones on earth. Ericsson’s annual mobility report forecasts increasing mobile subscriptions and connections through 2020.(9.5B Smartphone Subs by 2020 and eight-fold traffic increase). Ericsson’s annual mobility report expects that by 2020 90% of the world’s population over six years old will have a phone. It really talks about the connected world where everyone will have a connection one way or another.
What about the phone systems in use. Now majority of the world operates on GSM and HPSA (3G). Some countries are starting to have good 4G (LTE) coverage, but on average only 20% is covered by LTE. Ericsson expects that 85% of mobile subscriptions in the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa will be 3G or 4G by 2020. 75%-80% of North America and Western Europe are expected to be using LTE by 2020. China is by far the biggest smartphone market by current users in the world, and it is rapidly moving into high-speed 4G technology.
It seems that we change our behavior when networks become better: In South Korea, one third of all people are doing this ‘place shifting’ over 4G networks. When faster networks are taken into use, the people will start to use applications that need more bandwidth, for example watch more streamed video on their smart phones.
We’re all spending more time with smartphones and tablets. So much so that the “second screen” may now be the “first screen,” depending on the data you read. Many of us use both TV and mobile simultaneously: quickly responding to email, texting with friends, or browsing Twitter and the news if I lose interest with the bigger screen. Whatever it is I’m watching, my smartphone is always close at hand. There is rapid increase of mobile device usage—especially when it comes to apps.
The use of digital ads on mobile devices is increasing. Digital ad spend is forecast to increase 15% in 2015, with research saying it will equal ad spending on television by 2019. Mobile and social media will drive 2015 spending on digital to $163 billion, with mobile ad spending expected to jump 45%. “Almost all the growth is from mobile”
Mobile virtual reality will be talked about. 3D goggles like Sony Morpheus and Facebook’s Optimus Rift will get some attention. We’ll see them refined for augmented reality apps. hopefully we see DIY virtual reality kits that use current handsets and don’t cost thousands.
Google glass consumer market interest was fading in the end of 2014, and I expect that fading to continue in 2015. It seems that developers already may be losing interest in the smart eyewear platform. Google glass is expected to be consumer sales sometime in 2015, some fear consumer demand for Glass isn’t there right now and may never materialize. “All of the consumer glass startups are either completely dead or have pivoted” Although Google continues to say it’s 100% committed to Glass and the development of the product, the market may not be.
The other big headliner of the wearables segment was Apple’s basic $350 Watch. Apple invest its time when it released the Apple Watch last quarter, going up against the likes of Google’s Android Wear and others in the burgeoning wearables area of design. Once Apple’s bitten into a market, it’s somewhat a given that there’s good growth ahead and that the market is, indeed, stable enough.
As we turn to 2015 and beyond wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity — one that is closely tied to both consumer and healthcare markets. It could pick up steam in the way software did during the smartphone app explosion. It seems that the hardware becomes hot again as Wearables make hardware the new software. It’s an opportunity that is still anyone’s game. Wearables will be important end-points both for cloud and for messaging. The wearable computing market is one of the biggest growth areas in tech. BI Intelligence estimates that 148 million wearable devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers will ship in 2019.
I see that wearables will be big in 2015 mainly in the form of smart watch. According to a survey by UBS, 10% of consumers said they were very likely to buy a smartwatch in 2015, even though so far, no smartwatches have resonated with consumers. I expect the Sales of fitness wearables to plunge in 2015 owing to smartwatch takeover. In the future you need to look at exercise and fashion products as being in the same space. Samsung, Motorola, LG, and Apple debuted or announced smartwatches in 2014, so it’s no surprise that smartwatches are expected to be huge in Las Vegas at CES January’s show.
The third mobile ecosystem Windows phone has some new thing coming as Microsoft ready to show off Windows 10 mobile SKU on January 21. But it does not well motivating to me. After all, the vision of a unified Microsoft world extending across all screens is great, and it’s what Microsoft has needed all along to make Windows Phone a winner. The problem that hits me: if you fail enough times at the same thing, people stop believing you. It’s not just that Microsoft keeps failing to integrate its mobile, desktop, and console products. But Microsoft keeps claiming it will, which starts to loose credibility.
Mobile will change on-line sales in 2015: Phones have already radically altered both the way Americans shop and how retail goods move about the economy, but the transformation is just beginning — and it is far from guaranteed that Amazon will emerge victorious from the transition (this will also apply to other “traditional” players in that space).
Mobile payment technology reaching maybe finally reaching critical mass this year. Long predicted but always seeming to be “just around the corner,” mobile payments may finally have arrived. While Apple’s recent Apple Pay announcement may in retrospect be seen as launching the coming mobile payment revolution, the underlying technologies – and alternative solutions – have been emerging for some time. Maybe it isn’t going to replace the credit card but it’s going to replace the wallet — the actual physical thing crammed with cards, cash, photos and receipts. When you are out shopping, it’s the wallet, not the credit card, that is the annoyance.
Mobile money is hot also in developing countries: ordinary people in Africa using an SMS text-based currency called M-Pesa. M-Pesa was invented as a virtual currency by mobile network provider Vodafone after it was discovered that its airtime minutes were being used and traded in by people in Africa in lieu of actual money. In Kenya, a critical mass was quickly reached, and today, over 70% of the 40 million Kenyans use M-Pesa.
Mobile security will be talked about. Asian mobiles the DDOS threat of 2015, security mob says article tells that Vietnam, India and Indonesia will be the distributed denial of service volcanoes of next year due to the profieration of pwned mobiles.
Intel is heavily pushing to mobile and wearable markets. Intel is expected to expand its smartphone partnership with Lenovo: Intel will provide both its 64-bit Atom processor and LTE-Advanced modem chips for the Lenovo phones. The 4G phones follow Intel’s announcement in October of its first 4G smartphone in the US, the Asus PadFone X Mini. Now Intel remains well behind Qualcomm — which controls two-thirds of the global mobile modem market — and MediaTek as a supplier of chips for smartphones and tablets. Intel faces tough competition trying to fight its way into mobile — a market it ignored for years. Intel in early 2015 will introduce its first 4G system-on-a-chip under the new SoFIA name. Such chips include both a processor and modem together and are sought after by handset makers because they’re smaller in size than separate processor and radio chips, and use less power (matching Qualcomm’s Snapdragon).
Mobile chip leader Qualcomm will be going strong in 2015. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 is not only a killer part, it has raised the bar on what a mobile SoC has to be in 2015. It can power devices that drive 4K (3840 x 2160) TV, take 4K videos, run AAA games and connect to 5-inch HD display. There are finished, branded products just waiting to be released. I am convinced Qualcomm is on track to deliver commercial devices with Snapdragon 810 in mid-2015. I expect Qualcomm to be strong leader throughout 2015.
More material worth to check out:
New questions in mobile
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/11/20/time-for-new-questions-in-mobile
What’s Next in Wireless: My 2015 Predictions
http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/issues-insights-blog/2015-predictions.htm
1,230 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google ordered to unbundle features from Android in Russia
http://www.neowin.net/news/google-ordered-to-unbundle-features-from-android-in-russia
Google has been told by Russian authorities to change agreements with Android hardware producers so it will comply with local competition laws. The order by Russia’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) follows their ruling last month that the company had been abusing its market dominance in the country.
Google’s agreement with Android hardware partners allowed them to ship devices with the Google Play Store pre-installed. However the agreement was conditional, requiring other Google apps like Search to also be pre-installed and prominently displayed.
This irked Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Amazon Launches AWS Mobile Hub To Help Mobile Developers Build Back-End Processes — Amazon today announced the launch of its AWS Mobile Hub based on AWS Lambda at its re:Invent developer conference, a new tool that makes it easier for mobile developer to build the back-end processes for their apps.
Amazon Launches AWS Mobile Hub To Help Mobile Developers Build Back-End Processes
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/08/amazon-launches-aws-mobile-hub-to-help-mobile-developers-build-back-end-processes/
Amazon today announced the launch of its AWS Mobile Hub based on AWS Lambda at its re:Invent developer conference, a new tool that makes it easier for mobile developer to build the back-end processes for their apps.
As Amazon CTO Werner Vogels noted during today’s keynote, AWS has long offered developers all of the services to run a backend for mobile apps, but those weren’t always easy to use. “What we see often is that mobile developers are really good on the device,” he said. “They find that backend stuff really hard. So we asked ourselves: what can we do to make mobile development much simpler.”
Instead of having to set up lots of different services, the new Mobile Hub will allow Android and iOS developers to pick and configure the services they need for their apps and Amazon will then run those features on Lambda. Options here include the ability to set up user logins, user data storage, app analytics and other features.
Tomi Engdahl says:
iPhone 6S battery life may vary, depending on which A9 chip is inside
Owners say that TSMC A9 SoC delivers two hours more battery life than Samsung’s A9.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2015/10/iphone-6s-battery-life-may-vary-depending-on-which-a9-chip-is-inside/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aaron Souppouris / Engadget:
SwiftKey’s new Neural keyboard mimics the way the brain processes information to give more accurate word suggestions, available in alpha on Android now
SwiftKey’s latest keyboard is powered by a neural network
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/08/swiftkey-neural-alpha/
A new SwiftKey keyboard hopes to serve you better typing suggestions by utilizing a miniaturized neural network. SwiftKey Neural does away with the company’s tried-and-tested prediction engine in favor of a method that mimics the way the brain processes information. It’s a model that’s typically deployed on a grand scale for things like spam and phishing prevention in Gmail or image recognition, but very recent advancements have seen neural networks creep into phones through Google Translate, which uses one for offline text recognition. According to SwiftKey, this is the first time it’s been used on a phone keyboard.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The World’s First Android Smartphone
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/08/the-worlds-first-android-smartphone/
For one reason or another, someone decided smartphones should have personalities. iPhones have Siri, Windows phones have Cortana, but these are just pieces of software, and not a physical representation of a personality. This may soon change with Sharp, with help from famous Japanese roboticist [Tomotaka Takahashi], releasing RoBoHoN, the first robotic smartphone.
RoBoHoN is by any measure a miniature humanoid robot; it can walk on two legs, it can wave its arms, and it can fit into excessively large pockets. This robot is also a phone, and inside its cold soulless chassis is a 2.0″ LCD, camera, pico projector to display movies and pictures on flat surfaces, and the electronics to turn this into a modern, mid-range smartphone.
Sharp Launching Robot Smartphone “RoBoHoN”
http://akihabaranews.com/2015/10/06/article-en/sharp-debut-robot-smartphone-robohon-1616977879
Sharp announced that they have developed a next-generation mobile phone. It’s a robot-style phone named “RoBoHoN.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pepsi Smartphone Launch Rumored
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2015/10/pepsi-smartphone-launch-rumored/
If a rumor out of China is believed then a company that’s known across the globe for selling soft drinks is entering the smartphone game, rumor has it that a Pepsi smartphone is going to be launched real soon. Apparently a page for “Pepsi phone” has gone live on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, it’s believed to be a verified account which possibly hints the launch of a Pepsi-branded smartphone.
The Weibo account is listed in the “IT, electronics, mobile phone manufacturers” category
Tomi Engdahl says:
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google SVP for search: More than half of Google searches worldwide now happen on mobile, more than 100B links within apps indexed
Worldwide, More Than Half Of Google’s Searches Happen On Mobile
Google also says it has indexed 100 billion links within apps.
http://searchengineland.com/half-of-google-search-is-mobile-232994
Earlier this year, Google announced that for the first time, it was seeing more search activity on mobile than desktop. The caveat was that this was for 10 countries, including the US. Today, Google has now said this is the case worldwide.
It was last May when Google said that more searches were happening on mobile devices than desktop in the US, Japan and eight other countries that weren’t named. Today, Google’s senior vice president of search, Amit Singhal, reiterated that statement when speaking at Recode’s Code Mobile event, as reported by The Verge.
More than half of all Google searches now happen on mobile devices
A win for the web
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/8/9480779/google-search-mobile-vs-desktop-2015
Google may be waging an ongoing battle against its competitors to keep smartphone owners using the web, but recent evidence suggests it’s making progress. Google’s Amit Singhal, senior vice president of search, said today Google now sees more than half of its 100 billion monthly searches occurring on mobile devices. Singhal, who’s speaking at Recode’s Code Mobile conference in Half Moon Bay, California, defined mobile as devices with screens smaller than six inches.
“For the first time, we’re getting more searches on mobile devices than on desktop,” Singhal said. The metric is significant because Google has been facing off against Facebook and Apple in a power grab for internet browsing habits. Google bakes search, which helps generate a majority of its ad revenue, into nearly every Android handset sold around the globe, making it a backbone of the mobile ecosystem. Yet Facebook has increasingly been tailoring its mobile app, which it’s built into its own ad-supported money-making machine, as a one-stop shop for all your web needs. There’s no reason to use Google search if Facebook can surface everything you’re looking for via algorithms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
The history of audio interface design, and how Microsoft is reworking Skype’s iconic sounds
Sound Decision
Inside the world of audio branding with Skype’s new pings, bounces, and pops
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/7/9455159/skype-sound-design-computer-audio-branding-longform
The year that Skype launched its calling service, the world was in the midst of a sonic crisis: the ringtone.
Mobile phones — to which Skype was an indirect competitor — were becoming ubiquitous, and so were the personalized sounds that went with them. Shortly before the company put out the first of several betas in August of 2003, an analyst report predicted that ringtone sales would soon bring in more money than CD singles.
“In 2003, it seems that a person’s most valued and public expression of self seems to be embodied in the customized features of his cell phone,” wrote one woman in a BBC opinion poll. “With priorities like these, it’s no wonder we have so many problems in the world today.”
For the overwhelming majority of humanity’s existence, the tools we’ve used have come with their own set of audio signals, often unintentional ones.
As our tools and machines have become increasingly digital, they’ve also become increasingly silent — and many of those natural cues and signals have disappeared. Instead, we rely on noises that have been selected or created to give a specific effect. Electric cars with silent motors mimic noisy gas-powered vehicles, for example, because a motor gives bystanders surprisingly complex warnings — how near a car is, how powerful it might be, and how fast it’s going. While physical keyboards opt for silent rubber buttons instead of clicky mechanical springs , we put time and energy into creating sounds for the digital keyboards on our touchscreen devices.
There’s no such thing as a “natural” computer-interface sound. But for decades, an entire industry of musicians, engineers, and advertisers has devoted itself to creating these acoustic signifiers, from the moment we boot up a machine to the moment we shut it down.
“Everything, more and more, will need sound.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Subrat Patnaik / Reuters:
Pepsi has licensed its brand to market a line of mobile phones and accessories in China — PepsiCo says to launch mobile phones in China — PepsiCo Inc said it is working with a licensing partner to market a line of mobile phones and accessories in China in the next few months.
PepsiCo says to market mobile phones, accessories in China
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/12/us-pepsico-phone-idUSKCN0S61WE20151012
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fixed, The App That Fixes Your Parking Tickets, Gets Blocked In San Francisco, Oakland & L.A.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/12/fixed-the-app-that-fixes-your-parking-tickets-gets-blocked-in-san-francisco-oakland-l-a/#.ojwuxm:yanN
Fixed, a mobile app that fights parking tickets and other traffic citations on users’ behalf, has had its parking ticket operations blocked in three of its top cities, San Francisco, Oakland and L.A. after the cities increased the measures they were taking to block Fixed from accessing their parking ticket websites.
The company confirms it has suspended parking ticket operations in all three cities as of three weeks ago – a move impacting around 100,000 users. Going forward, Fixed will focus on its Traffic Ticket business instead, we’re told.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emergency call “crazy” operator replied: “Download the application”
In this case, however, a strange admonition proved to be functional, the software company Digia says.
112 developed by Digia Finland app has been downloaded 250 000 times during the first three months. The release says the company making the emergency call application used 3500 times.
One of the aid received was lost in the woods – she was instructed him to download the 112 Finnish application – “the proposal sounded crazy.” When the app was installed, she was located accurately.
112 Suomi also shook their traditional conceptions of emergency voice calls. Digia made it clear that the application must be started before the emergency call, in order to be useful. In some situations, these may be critical extra seconds.
Source: http://www.digitoday.fi/data/2015/10/09/hatapuheluun-hullu-vastaus-lataa-sovellus/201513201/66?rss=6
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Tag Heuer teases its Intel-powered Android Wear smartwatch launching 11/9 — The Android and Tag Heuer Twitter accounts are tweeting up a storm about the upcoming Tag Heuer Android Wear watch. The “Tag Heuer Connected” teaser site confirms that luxury watchmaker is diving into the smartwatch market with an Android Wear device.
Tag Heuer teases its Intel-powered Android Wear smartwatch launching 11/9
Tag shares a tiny glimpse of its $1,800 smartwatch.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/tag-heuer-teases-its-intel-powered-android-wear-smartwatch-launches-119/
The Android and Tag Heuer Twitter accounts are tweeting up a storm about the upcoming Tag Heuer Android Wear watch. The “Tag Heuer Connected” teaser site confirms that luxury watchmaker is diving into the smartwatch market with an Android Wear device. The most interesting thing is the statement at the bottom of the page that reads “Developed in partnership with Google and Intel.”
Tag, Intel, and Google have all been talking about the watch since the beginning of the year, but the tweet gives us our first glimpse at the watch’s design. The description on the teaser site says, “TAG Heuer is pushing the Swiss avant-garde limits even further with the TAG Heuer Connected
Traditional watchmakers no doubt feel pressured to respond to the smartwatch market, especially with another luxury brand, Apple, trying to muscle in on their turf. With Android Wear being the only turn-key smartwatch operating system out there, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before we saw the old school watch companies jump in with Google’s OS.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analyst: Biometrics market will rely on smartphone fingerprint sensor, ATM vein, healthcare iris recognition technologies
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/10/abi-biometrics-market.html?cmpid=EnlCIMCablingNewsOctober122015&eid=289644432&bid=1199804
According to a new report from ABI Research, biometrics on smartphone devices have moved past the simple authentication option and are headed towards establishing a more robust mobile payment solution.
ABI notes that an increasing amount of Chinese smartphone vendors are investing in equipping their devices with fingerprint sensors. Fingerprint sensors for smartphones are expected to reach 1 billion shipments by 2020
However, ABI adds that other biometric modalities like face, voice and eye-based recognition are currently moving out of the fledgling phase and are to be integrated as highly-secure – albeit more expensive – biometric capabilities in smartphone devices with a 5-year CAGR revenue growth of 144%.
In the banking and finance sector, ATMs are expected to receive a long overdue and much needed boost from biometrics technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
steve cheney:
In-house chip design, integration are Apple’s key platform advantages that auto makers won’t be able to match, just as iPhone’s smartphone competitors couldn’t
On Apple’s Insurmountable Platform Advantage
http://stevecheney.com/on-apples-incredible-platform-advantage/
In 2007, when Steve Ballmer famously declared “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance”, Jobs was off creating a chip design team.
It is – in fact – these chip making capabilities, which Jobs brought in-house shortly after the launch of the original iPhone, that have helped Apple create a massive moat between itself and an entire industry.
Ultimately this chip advantage is one of the little spoken, but critical elements in Apple’s vertically integrated approach. Android OEMs can copy the fingerprint sensor or the 3D Touch mechanism. They just go to the supplier that Apple buys it from. But they can’t copy the underlying software powering these ‘commodity’ chips.
Because of Apple’s scale in smartphones, and re-use of chips in other device categories like the watch and TV, Apple has massive influence with suppliers. They can plan 3-5 years out and decide what to license, build, invest in, or buy.
So… making chips serves as the moat around untold strategic advantages: development secrecy, hyper optimization, supplier negotiating power, etc. And all the while smartphone market volume serves as ‘R&D lead gen’ for new products in entirely new industries (tablet, watch, TV, car). By owning its own silicon design team, Apple is able to leap into other markets which will be eaten by software running on cheap silicon.
Building competent semiconductor design capabilities is an absolutely massive endeavor. Especially as there isn’t much VC investment going in to chip startups anymore.
The truth is the best people in chip design no longer want to work at Intel or Qualcomm. They want to work at Apple.
If you believe the leaks, Apple wants to have a car ready in 2019.
But when you look through the lens of the car as a mobile device, the software and silicon look markedly similar. It’s clear electric cars will rely on 100% of the supply chain of the smartphone industry and will use the same operating systems that phones use. They will use the same CPUs, the same wireless chipsets, and run on the same advanced mobile networks.
One posit you can derive from this is that no other car manufacturer in the world can support an internal chip team unless they also sell phones. The gravitational pull of the smartphone feels much more pronounced when you rationalize this.
It’s also known in inner circles that Apple has embarked on design of radio interface (RF) chips that traditionally were off limits to all but the most advanced chip makers like Qualcomm. These chips rival CPUs in complexity. Apple is now designing these to spec and will be putting its own radios into future mobile devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Benedict Evans:
The implications of mobile operating systems controlled by Apple and Google succeeding the neutral web browser as the primary platform for Internet services
Mobile is not a neutral platform
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/9/26/mobile-is-not-a-neutral-platform
For a decade or two, for most people ‘the internet’ meant a web browser, a mouse and a keyboard. There were a few things around the edges, like IM, Spotify, Skype or Steam (or, for some people, email), but for most people and for almost all activities, the web was the internet. The web was the platform, not the PC operating system – people created services for the web, far more than for Windows or MacOS.
And once the browser wars died down, the browser was pretty much a neutral platform. Browser technology changed and that made new things possible (Google Maps, say), but the browser makers were not king-makers and were not creating or enabling entirely new interaction models. The building blocks of the desktop internet in 1995 were pages and links and that was still the case in 2005 or indeed today. You might never actually see a URL and the pages might start blending into each other, but everything still happens in that framework.
On mobile this is different – it’s the operating system itself that’s the internet services platform, far more than the browser, and the platform is not neutral.
The first manifestation of this (but only the first) has been messaging.
It’s not just that you’re running an app instead of a web page, but that the app can leverage specific APIs on the platform that never existed on the web. So the smartphone is itself a social messaging platform. Social apps plug into that platform rather like Facebook apps used to plug into the Facebook platform, or the way Facebook wants apps now to plug into Messenger.
All of those enabling layers and APIs are consciously controlled by the platform provider, and they keep changing things.
The crucial change is that Netscape or Internet Explorer did not shape which websites you visited (though toolbars tried to) and they didn’t do things that changed how user acquisition or retention worked online. Apple and Google do that all the time, both consciously and unconsciously – it’s inherent in what an actual operation system means. Some of this is simple evolution, and often collaborative – the emergence of deep links is a good example of this. But some of it isn’t.
Hence, at both IO and WWDC this summer we saw moves from Apple and Google to create their own real-estate around the home screen. The ‘swipe left from home’ screen gains more and more capabilities, all totally under the platform owner’s control.
Next, Apple and Google are exploring new ways to unbundle the content within apps into new usage models.
Of course, all this sort of stuff is a big reason why Google bought Android in the first place – Google was afraid that Microsoft (it was that long ago) would dominate mobile operating systems and shut it out.
This, obviously, is why Facebook keeps trying to insert its own layers into the OS (and why Amazon made a phone). I sometimes feel that every spring Facebook holds F8 and says “this is what interaction on smartphones will look like”!”, and a few weeks later Apple and Google say “look, sorry kid, but…”. It’s not Facebook’s platform to change. But if Facebook is successful in using Messenger to close the loop between its online identity platform (which both Apple and Google lack) and notification and engagement on the phone, then it it’ll have managed to create its own layer at last.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Blocks modular smartwatch quickly exceeds Kickstarter goal of $250K, plans to ship May 2016, core module is $195, core plus four modules $250 and up
Blocks Modular Smartwatch Now On Kickstarter
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/13/blocks-kickstarter/
Blocks has been a very long time in getting off the drawing board — and still remains a prototype at this stage, some two years into development — but the modular smartwatch concept has finally landed on Kickstarter, in what the U.K.-based startup is hoping will be the last push to get their idea to market.
Backers putting money down to pre-order the smartwatch are being offered an estimated shipping schedule of May 2016 — assuming the team can raise the $250,000, via Kickstarter, to fund the first round of manufacturing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
LG rumored to be working on a versatile ‘G Pay’ service
http://www.androidauthority.com/lg-g-pay-rumor-648764/
Mobile payment ecosystems have hit the mainstream this year, with the launch of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay bringing the feature to new markets and customers. According to insiders and a couple of trademark applications, electronics manufacturer LG may be preparing to launch its own mobile payment system under the title ‘LG G Pay’.
LG has applied for G Pay trademarks in both South Korea and the US, suggesting that a global launch may be on the cards.
Samsung Pay is seen as the leading mobile payment platform in terms of technology, due to its support for commonly used magnetic strip readers as well as NFC payment methods. According to industry insiders, LG’s technology will be more versatile than any other technology on the market right now
“LG is working hard to secure versatility that surpasses current mobile payment methods.” – source familiar with LG Electronics
Tomi Engdahl says:
How far will Microsoft go with Android?
‘We’ll go wherever our customers are’ – exec
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/14/could_microsoft_going_all_the_way_with_android_google_play/
There is only one destination for companies that fail with their own mobile operating system, and it’s called Android. Last month, BlackBerry acknowledged defeat by announcing PRIV, an Android device with a focus on security.
What then is Microsoft’s Plan B when it comes to mobile? In the Nadella era we have already seen the company embrace Android and iOS with applications for Microsoft Office and more: a quick count shows 75 current Microsoft apps on the Play Store, including games, clients for Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX, Skype, news and weather apps, and Bing Search.
Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant, is in public beta for Android and promised for iOS.
Another Android project is the Arrow Launcher, currently in private beta, which replaces the stock Android home page with a custom launcher providing frequently used apps, quick access to contacts, and a notes and reminders page.
How far will Microsoft go with Android?
“Microsoft chief experience officer Julie Larson Green told The Australian: ‘We’ll go wherever our customers are’.”
Note also that Microsoft already has Android mobiles, in the form of Nokia X phones acquired with Nokia. These devices run Android but without Google Play services
“This product does not support Google apps nor this phone Google Play. The Nokia store in the phone has nothing,
The strategic importance of Android to Google is that it promotes the use of Google’s services, such as search. In a business context – which is where Microsoft has the best chance to build on its strength in Office, Active Directory and other server applications – Google wants to promote its Android for Work security system and Apps for Work services.
These factors will make it difficult for Microsoft to succeed with Android on mobile in the same way that it did with Windows on PCs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Devs ask Microsoft for real .NET universal apps: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android
Windows 10 only is not a universal solution
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/14/developers_ask_microsoft_for_real_net_universal_apps_windows_mac_ios_and_android/
Microsoft introduced the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) this year: applications that run across many device types, provided that they all run Windows 10.
Unfortunately, that proviso means that the UWP is far from universal, targeting only a small minority of Windows PCs out there, and leaving other operating systems untouched. In a world where Macs are commonplace, and mobile is owned by iOS and Android, UWP apps are more niche than universal. If Microsoft succeeds in migrating most users to Windows 10 over the next couple of years, that will improve matters, but only on the PC.
Now developers are petitioning Microsoft for a true universal app model.
“The goal is to enable *one* .NET Client Application Project to build deliverables for the following platforms,” states the request on the Visual Studio 2015 feedback site, and goes on to list Windows 10, Legacy Windows, Unix, Linux, Android, iOS, Mac and HTML5.
The problem Visual Studio developers face is that they want to continue coding in .NET languages like C#, and to use the powerful XAML language to build a user interface, but their customers demand support for platforms other than Windows, especially iOS, Android and Mac.
The Microsoft of today is already making every effort to promote cross-platform development (as long as it is not Java).
The Xamarin tools come closest to what developers are demanding. Xamarin targets iOS, Android and Mac, and Xamarin Forms is an implementation of XAML that enables a cross-platform user interface.
Another existing piece which has cross-platform promise is .NET Core, a fork of the .NET Framework which runs on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. Currently, .NET Core only targets server-side applications using ASP.NET, or the UWP, but in principle it could be extended to client applications.
Extending .NET to HTML5 clients may seem a stretch, yet there is already a Userware project called CSHTML5 in preview which claims to implement 99% of C#, 70% of XAML and 40% of .NET Core by compiling to HTML and JavaScript. In conjunction with Apache Cordova, something like this can also work as a mobile solution.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Z3 proves firm hasn’t given up on Tizen yet
But it isn’t ready to take it global
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2430430/samsung-z3-proves-firm-hasnt-given-up-on-tizen-yet
SAMSUNG HAS MADE GOOD on its promise that it isn’t throwing in the towel on Tizen yet, unveiling the second smartphone to run its proprietary software.
The Samsung Z3, confusingly, succeeds the Tizen-based Z1 that made its debut earlier this year. The new model offers an upgrade in the hardware department, featuring a bigger 5in HD Super AMOLED screen, faster 1.3GHz quad-core processor and bigger 2,600mAh battery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The current more would like to use your smartphone as a means of payment, but security worries many. Consulting company Deloitte mobile behavior of an exploratory study shows that 40 percent of respondents said security as the biggest worry.
More than half of smartphone users would want to pay for their mobile devices on public transport and parking. – also taxi
“Mobile payment services in planning is critical to combine security and experience a smooth, for example, by utilizing sormenjälkitunnistamista. This will create services that are easy to use and safer than, for example, now in use in the vicinity-read credit cards ”
Deloitte has determined that a total of 73 per cent of Finnish have now a smartphone.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/moni-maksaisi-mobiililla-yksi-asia-mietityttaa-6058069
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s smartphone shipments to see first-ever annual decline
http://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-smartphone-shipments-to-see-first-ever-annual-decline/
Chinese up-and-comers are taking a big bite out of the global smartphone market, much to the discomfort of market leader Samsung.
This could be a real downer of a year for Samsung, which looks headed for a first-ever drop in its annual smartphone shipments.
Market researcher TrendForce said Wednesday that it expects shipments of smartphones from the South Korean electronics giant to slip 1 percent from last year’s level.
That would be a significant turn of events for a company that has made some of the most popular smartphones in the world and whose Galaxy line has vied mightily with Apple’s iPhones as a top-of-the-line choice for consumers.
That has led TrendForce to cut its projected shipments for the Galaxy S6 and the S series for 2015 to 40 million units.
Samsung is looking at total annual smartphone shipments of 323.5 million this year, according to TrendForce.
Huawei, meanwhile, this year so far has shipped 100 million smartphones, becoming the first Chinese smartphone vendor to reach that milestone, according to TrendForce.
Even with the slippage, Samsung is clinging to the top spot among smartphone makers. For the quarter ended September 30, it remained No. 1 in the global smartphone market with a 24.6 percent share, TrendForce said.
For the quarter, Apple was in second place with a 13.7 percent share
Huawei was third, nabbing an 8.4 percent share
Huawei is no longer trying to compete for just budget-minded buyers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to listen to (and delete) everything you’ve ever said to Google
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/13/google-voice-activity-listen-delete-recordings
Whether you’re asking directions or drunkenly swearing, Google never forgets, recording everything you’ve ever said to it. Do you dare listen back?
Users of Google’s voice-control features such as OK Google are probably aware that the company stores the voice recordings it receives when they talk to it. But it’s still a bit of a shock to be confronted with a list of all the recordings the company has ever made of you.
Google’s voice and audio activity page isn’t promoted heavily by the company, and visiting it gives a hint as to why. If you have (or have ever had) an Android phone with Google’s “OK Google” voice-control system, the page should show a list of every command you have ever given it – replete with a little play button next to it.
The feature is one of a number of attempts by the company to demystify its data-collection service. Similarly, Google offers a location history, showing users any location the company has tracked them to, through apps such as Google Maps as well as simply using an Android phone.
Turning voice Activity off doesn’t stop Google storing your recordings, but it means they get kept with an anonymous identifier, and can’t be easily linked back to your account.
https://accounts.google.com/Login?continue=https://history.google.com/history/audio&hl=fi#identifier
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘I’m so drunk,’ driver says on social media before arrest
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/im-so-drunk-driver-says-on-social-media-before-arrest/
LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — “I’m so drunk,” a Florida driver repeatedly tells followers on the social media app Periscope, staring at her cellphone’s camera, mounted on the dashboard, before she is arrested and charged with driving under the influence.
The Lakeland Police Department released video from the app Tuesday, after the arrest from the weekend made national headlines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Dictionary: Near Field Communications (NFC)
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/15/hackaday-dictionary-near-field-communications-nfc/
NFC is a standard that allows two devices to exchange information over a short distance without being in physical contact. The two devices communicate using a weak magnetic field that, in theory, only has a range of a few centimeters, so both devices have to be physically close, and someone standing nearby can’t intercept or alter the signal.
NFC transceivers are now being built into many mobile devices including the iPhone and iWatch, and the technology underlies touchless payment systems like Apple Pay and Android Pay. It has had a rocky evolution, though, going from toy-store curiosity to the mainstream of the mobile world. The technology evolved from the older Radio Frequency ID (RFID) system that was developed for making keys for electronic access systems. Unlike RFID systems, NFC communications can work both ways, and the devices can be written to.
The first device to use an early version of NFC was a Star Wars toy from 1997, which used an early version of the technology called CommTech to give voice to the figures. You tap the chip on the player, and it plays the voice.
The full NFC standard was defined in 2002, as ISO standard number 14443. Since then, the standards have been expanded by the NFC Forum, an industry group set up by the companies that use it.
There are two sides to every conversation, and NFC is no different. This conversation has two modes: passive or active. In the passive mode, one device emits a rapidly alternating magnetic field. This is picked up by the other device, which is a passive device that just receives: it doesn’t emit a magnetic field. This effectively turns the two devices into an air-gap transformer, with induction causing a current to flow in the antenna of the passive device. By altering the resistance of the antenna, the passive device can modulate the field, signalling back to the active device. This doesn’t require a battery in the passive device
In an active connection, both devices can emit a magnetic field, and they alternate between sending and receiving the magnetic field. This is typically used between two computers, or between two other battery-powered devices that want to exchange larger amounts of data.
Either way, this magnetic field is alternating at a frequency of 13.56MHz, right in the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band, which means that there is no licence required to use.
The data is sent using Amplitude Shift Keying with Manchester or Miller coding at a speed of 106, 212 or 426 kilobits per second, with each direction using a different speed. That way, data can be sent in both directions at the same time without colliding.
In Peer-to-Peer, both devices are sending and receiving data.
In Card Emulation, the device pretends to be a dumb, unpowered NFC card, even if it is a powerful cell phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows Mobile 10 nears point of no return
New Build, new bugs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/16/windows_mobile10_build_10549/
A fresh version of Windows Mobile 10 has wobbled off Redmond’s servers, and landed on devices enrolled in the Windows Insider programme.
There are no major surprises in Build 10549, which is an incremental update. It remains a mishmash of UI styles and experiments, and rebuilt apps that fall far short of the functionality of their predecessors. But perhaps the most interesting practical change is the closer integration of Skype into the Messaging client.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
App Annie: iOS App Store revenue was about 80% higher than Google Play in Q3 2015, up from 70% in Q2 2015
iOS App Store Revenue Now 80 Percent Higher Than Google Play, Thanks To China
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/15/ios-app-store-revenue-now-80-percent-higher-than-google-play-thanks-to-china/#.b5imzi:QIne
The move to larger-screened iPhones has led to China becoming Apple’s most important market, according to a new report from App Annie analyzing the impact the country has had on App Store revenues in the region since the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus last year. According to the analytics firm’s findings, China led all countries in absolute growth in the third quarter of this year versus the prior quarter, in terms of both iOS app downloads and revenue.
Meanwhile, Google Play still leads in sheer number of downloads thanks to growth in emerging markets like India and Southeast Asia, though iOS is still tops when it comes to revenue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Removed: Photographer Removes Phones From His Photos To Show How Terribly Addicted We’ve Become
http://www.boredpanda.com/portraits-holding-devices-removed-eric-pickersgill/
Tomi Engdahl says:
GA Tech Students Use Cell Phone Pings To Find Missing Person
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/10/19/2150204/ga-tech-students-use-cell-phone-pings-to-find-missing-person
Georgia Authorities are giving kudos to technology – and the perseverance of Georgia Tech students – for the safe return of a fellow student who disappeared after a Friday night party.
Comment:
I had that idea years ago. They could mount one in a chopper and once they get a ping, crank down the range to quickly narrow the search. But of course we wouldn’t want to use Stingrays for saving lives when they’re much more useful for spying on everyone.
If your cellphone is turned on (and not out of battery), and within range of a cell tower, your provider will know about it. Your phone “checks in” every so often to make sure calls to it are being routed to the correct tower. Police can lawfully, with a warrant, subpoena this information from your provider, no Stingray required. If for some reason your phone was on but outside the range of any cell towers, your idea might make some sense.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forget Google Glass. Here Come Google Contacts
http://www.nextgov.com/mobile/2015/10/forget-google-glass-here-comes-google-contacts/122793/
In the future, your wearables might be a bit harder to spot than an Apple Watch or Google Glass. In a patent awarded Oct. 13, Google outlined a design for a wearable communication device, replete with sensors, memory and a microprocessor, shaped like a contact lens.
This lens would at least be partially powered by what the patent calls “optical signals.” In theory, a tiny photodetector and solar cells could harvest light signals from an external source, that could then be converted into electrical power.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Galaxy S7 release date, rumours and price
Updated Everything we know about Samsung’s next smartphone
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2421412/galaxy-s7-rumours-release-date-and-price
THE GALAXY S6 debuted just a few months ago, but speculation is already rife about what the company has up its sleeve next.
We don’t yet know much about the so-called Galaxy S7, but speculation suggests that the smartphone could debut sooner than expected, a decision that may have been fuelled by lacklustre sales of this year’s Galaxy S6.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM floats power-sipping Mali-470 GPU for Internet of Things things
50% reduced energy claim
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/20/arm_launches_new_mali470_gpu_claiming_50_energy_efficiency/
ARM has launched the Mali-470 GPU for Internet of Things (IoT) with – the firm claims – half the power consumption of the Mali-400.
The Mali-470 targets wearables but could be used in lower-end smartphones as it supports OpenGL ES 2.0 – necessary for Android Wear.
Mali is best paired with the Cortex-A7s and A53s for optimal performance with ‘leccy-dieting System on Chip (SoC) devices, according to ARM.
Mali-400 and Mali-450 GPUs had already shipped in over a billion devices by 2015
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:
New York Times partners with Google on virtual reality project, will distribute over 1M cardboard VR viewers to subscribers, and will release new VR film — The Times Partners With Google on Virtual Reality Project — The New York Times announced on Tuesday a virtual reality project …
The Times Partners With Google on Virtual Reality Project
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/business/media/the-times-partners-with-google-on-virtual-reality-project.html?_r=0
The New York Times announced on Tuesday a virtual reality project in collaboration with Google, which will include the distribution of more than a million cardboard VR viewers to subscribers.
The New York Times Magazine will release a new virtual reality film, called “The Displaced,” about children uprooted by war. It can be watched with the cardboard viewers, which are used with a smartphone and will be sent to home delivery subscribers on the weekend of Nov. 7. Some digital subscribers will receive codes by email to redeem for a free viewer.
Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said the magazine had “created the first critical, serious piece of journalism using virtual reality, to shed light on one of the most dire humanitarian crises of our lifetime.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Google Invests In Mobvoi, Its Android Wear Partner In China
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/20/google-invests-in-mobvoi-its-android-wear-partner-in-china/#.ojwuxm:kEu8
Google’s services are not available in China, but that isn’t stopping it from making a significant investment in a company based on Chinese soil. The U.S. search giant is backing Mobvoi, a three-year-old company specializing in mobile voice technology.
The duo already have business ties. Mobvoi is the company that Google picked to bring Android Wear, its operating system for wearables, to China, so this deal takes things up to the next level.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
New Android phones and tablets that ship with Marshmallow must enable full-disk encryption by default if their AES crypto perfomance exceeds 50 MiB/s
Android 6.0 re-implements mandatory storage encryption for new devices
As long as you meet the minimum speed requirements, that is.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/android-6-0-re-implements-mandatory-device-encryption-for-new-devices/
Shortly after the announcement of iOS 8 in 2014, Google made headlines by saying that it would make full-device encryption mandatory for new Android devices running version 5.0. It then made more headlines several months later when we discovered that the company backed down, “strongly recommending” that Android device makers enable encryption but stopping short of actually requiring it.
Now Google has published an updated version of the Android Compatibility Definition Document (PDF) for Android 6.0, and it looks like mandatory encryption is back with a couple of exceptions. New devices that come with Marshmallow and have AES crypto performance above 50MiB-per-second need to support encryption of the private user data partition (/data) and the public data partition (/sdcard).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s growing problem: 50% of people do zero searches per day on mobile
https://theoverspill.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/searches-average-mobile-google-problem/
Amit Singhal, Google’s head of search, let slip a couple of interesting statistics at the Re/Code conference – none more so than that more than half of all searches incoming to Google each month are from mobile. (That excludes tablets.)
This averages out to less than one search per smartphone per day. We’ll see why in a bit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Blocks: A customisable, modular smartwatch
A customisable, modular smartwatch called Blocks promises a choice of features to fit your lifestyle.
http://www.cnet.com/news/blocks-a-customisable-modular-smartwatch/
The beautiful thing about a PC is that it can be customised for your needs. You need better graphics capabilities? You can upgrade your video card. Running out of memory? You can install some more. Heck, you could gut the entire case and fill it with entirely new components if you wanted.
With the ubiquity of mobile devices now, it would seem that that level of customisability would be very useful.
That’s the idea behind Blocks, a modular smartwatch with mix-and-match features.
Proposed modules include rectangular and circular touchscreen faces; an E Ink face, a la Pebble; microphone; motion sensor; gesture control; GPS; heart monitor; blood oxygen monitor; environment sensor; fingerprint scanner; audio jack; camera; extra battery; concealed USB stick; NFC chip for contactless payments; flashlight; programmable button; SIM port; and kinetic charging.
Each of the modules will also have removable covers, meaning that you can customise the look, as well as the functionality, of your device — and you could even swap out which modules the watch contains on a daily basis if you needed to. As for where these modules all fit, they make up the links of the bracelet.
Blocks will enter a crowdfunding
The watch is supposed to ship toward the end of 2015.
Blocks
http://www.chooseblocks.com/
The world’s first modular smartwatch is here. BLOCKS lets you choose the features and designs that best suit your lifestyle and needs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nearly One-third of Consumers Would Give Up Their Car Before Their Smartphone
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/15/10/21/037207/nearly-one-third-of-consumers-would-give-up-their-car-before-their-smartphone
A survey of 1,200 general consumers in four major countries by global tech design firm Frog found that 30% of respondents would give up their car before their smartphone. The online survey, which included the U.S., China, Denmark, and Germany, found that 37% of car owners would like to give up their car outright
Survey shows a third of people would opt for smartphone over car
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2995001/telematics/survey-shows-a-third-of-people-would-opt-for-smartphone-over-car.html
Meanwhile, security remains a top concern with self-driving vehicles
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel finally gets into the iPhone
According to some reports, Intel and Apple is already agreement on this matter. It would take 450 Mbps LTE-Advanced publication inside iPhone 7 shells using Intel chip: XMM 7360 supports 3GPP Release 9 and 10 specifications. At best, it supports three 20 MHz channels into a single link, the theoretical data rate will increase to 450 megabits per second. Intel has been told to start 7360 modem circle deliveries by the end of this year.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3471:intel-paasee-vihdoin-iphoneen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Blind Camera Shootout – the winner is…
http://www.androidauthority.com/blind-camera-shootout-winner-650299/
a big blind smartphone camera shootout to find out how the new Sony Xperia Z5 camera compares to the iPhone 6S, Galaxy Note 5 and the LG G4
a big blind smartphone camera shootout to find out how the new Sony Xperia Z5 camera compares to the iPhone 6S, Galaxy Note 5 and the LG G4
Samsung Galaxy S6 vs iPhone 6s
http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s6-vs-iphone-6s-647546/
The two biggest giants in the smartphone game go head to head in this comparison
Tomi Engdahl says:
C# biz Xamarin fancies a change, sinks fangs into Java upstart RoboVM
Cross-platform mobile development business now pitches to Java developers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/22/xamarin_acquires_robovm/
Xamarin, the company co-founded by Mono inventor Miguel de Icaza to enable cross-platform mobile development with C#, has acquired RoboVM.
RoboVM lets developers target iOS and Android with cross-platform Java code, complementing what Xamarin already offers for C#. “The acquisition means that Xamarin now controls the cross-platform mobile development market for the most widely adopted languages capable of native, client-to-server, cloud-to-mobile development,” is the bold statement in the company’s press release.
Java is normally compiled to an intermediate language called Java bytecode, which is further compiled to native code by a just-in-time (JIT) compiler at runtime. By contrast, RoboVM has a native compiler for Java bytecode, which it calls “ahead of time” (AOT), since it produces a native executable. This is necessary for iOS, since Apple does not allow JIT compilation on its mobile platform.
The way this works is that RoboVM uses the Soot open source tool to translate Java bytecode to LLVM IR (intermediate representation).
RoboVM also offers a custom Java-to-native bridge, called Bro, which lets you wrap native C or Objective-C functions in Java code using annotations.
Although RoboVM targets both iOS and Android, the focus of the documentation is on iOS, presumably because Java is already the native programming language for Android applications
Those prices are similar to Xamarin, which is also subscription-only.
This acquisition makes sense for Xamarin, enabling it to pitch for Java as well as C# developers. It may not be so welcome to Microsoft
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple adds Find My Friends app to iCloud on the web
http://9to5mac.com/2015/10/21/find-my-friends-to-icloud-com/
Today, Apple has added the Find My Friends web app to the site.
Mirroring the app for iOS, the web app shows a map of friends who have opted in to sharing your location with them; pins for each person are displayed on an Apple Maps map.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is China dumping smartphones on world+dog?
We’re the landfill
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/22/is_china_dumping_smartphones/
We’ve heard much this week about China dumping steel, but less so about China dumping smartphones onto the rest of the world. But the latter accusation is actually far closer to truth.
For years, the leading phone brands like Samsung, Sony and HTC have spent huge amounts in the hope of gaining the windfall profits that follow from a hit flagship. But the wheels have come off: Samsung alone makes a profit on its smartphone business, and even that’s declining.
That’s only to be expected in a maturing, commoditised market. The £600 Android isn’t twice as good as the £300 Android, and you can now pick up excellent deals for £250.
There has been a revolution in component packaging, resulting in a glut of what I call “Shenzhen Generics”: low cost, high quality flagship alternatives. Integrating components used to take years, now they come ready-rolled.
“Even a small agile player like Wiley Fox, with few staff, can button up a phone and do quite well with it,” said Wood.
The ASP (Average Selling Price) for smartphones will peak this year and decline at a rate of 4.6 per each year “before reaching $236.38 in 2019,” IDC predicted last month.
Huawei can’t be accused of dumping – defined as selling at or below cost – and it refuses to do so. But the picture is different with Xiaomi and OnePlus, both of which have acknowledged they sell at cost.
“None are aiming to lose money – they all sell at or just above the Bill of Materials (BoM) cost”.
Wood compares Xiaomi’s strategy to Amazon selling the Kindle at rock bottom prices, to increase interest in eBooks, and its other services.
But Xiaomi’s actual “services” offering is threadbare. There’s an IM client … and not much else. OnePlus, which sells at cost, is even vaguer about how it plans to make money in the future.
“Companies that do that indefinitely do that aren’t going to survive,” Wood thinks.
Both steel and smartphones are a consequence of overcapacity as the world’s leading industrial country seeks to stimulate demand abroad to make up for weaker demand at home.
Tomi Engdahl says:
64-bit Android* and Android Run Time
https://software.intel.com/en-us/android/articles/64-bit-android-and-android-run-time?utm_source=Taboola&utm_medium=Syndication&utm_campaign=Android_ASMO_Q1+2015_Syndication_IDZarticles_Iron+Horse&&utm_term=bloomberg&utm_content=+64-bit+Android*+and+Android+Run+Time
The new buzz in the mobile marketplace is about Android 64-bit systems. In September 2013, Apple released the iPhone* 5 with a 64-bit A7 processor onboard. Thus began the mobile technology race.
It turns out that the Android-based kernel GNU/Linux* has been supporting processors with 64-bit registers for a long time. Ubuntu is “GNU/Linux” while Android is “Dalvik/Linux”. Dalvik is the process virtual machine (VM) in Google’s Android operating system, which specifically executes applications written for Android.
The first Intel 64-bit processors for mobile devices were created in the 3rd quarter of 2013 and were the new powerful multicore System on a Chip (SoC) for mobile and desktop devices. This new SoC family consists of Intel® AtomTM processors for tablets and 2 in 1 devices, Intel® Celeron® processors, and Intel® Pentium® processors for 2 in 1 devices, laptops, desktop PCs and All in One PCs.
In October 2014, Google released a preview emulator image of the 64-bit Android L for developers. This allowed them to test their programs and rewrite code, if necessary, before the OS is released.
In June 2014, Google announced that Android would support 64-bit in the coming L release.
Revision 10 of the Native Development Kit (NDK) should be posted with support for the three 64-bit architectures that will be able to run the new version of Android: arm64-v8a, x86_64, and mips64. If you’ve built an app using Java, your code will automatically have better performance on the new x86 64-bit architecture. Google has updated the NDK to revision 10b and added an emulator image developers can use to prepare their apps to run on devices built with Intel’s 64-bit chips.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The fingerprint company that Samsung never bought is now everywhere
Fingerprint Cards has gone from a weird non-acquisition to making the Nexus Imprint sensors
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/22/9591636/the-fingerprint-company-that-samsung-never-bought-is-now-dominating
Two years ago, a press release was posted to the website of Fingerprint Cards AB, announcing that the Swedish fingerprint sensor maker would be acquired by Samsung in a $650 million deal. That announcement was later retracted and bizarrely debunked as false, and Fingerprint Cards has basically been absent from the public eye ever since. But the Gothenburg-based firm has kept busy behind the scenes, and now it finds itself enjoying a leading role, highlighted most recently by the use of its sensors in Google’s Nexus 5X and 6P smartphones. That’s right, the company that Samsung didn’t buy is now responsible for Nexus Imprint, the technology that Google is using to enable fingerprint verification in the latest version of Android and the newly introduced Android Pay service.
Another Swedish company, Precise Biometrics, provides the fingerprint recognition and matching algorithms that work with Fingerprint Cards’ sensors in the new Nexuses. Between them, these two relatively anonymous companies have become the de facto default choice for smartphone manufacturers shopping for a fingerprint reader. The OnePlus 2, the LG V10, the Huawei Mate S, the Oppo R7 Plus, and the Nextbit Robin are just a few of the many new or upcoming smartphones that rely on the Fingerprint Cards technology (and all, except for LG, also use Precise Biometrics).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android Candy: Who Ya Gonna Call? Anyone!
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/android-candy-who-ya-gonna-call-anyone
I have a love/hate relationship with the contact manager on my phone. I absolutely love having all of that information available, and I love even more that it syncs with my Google contacts. What I don’t love, however, is the cumbersome way you have to scroll around looking for who you want to call.
Enter Drupe. It feels a bit like a mix between a game and a standardized test’s matching exercise. That might sound like an odd comparison, but Drupe makes it easy not only just to call, but also to communicate with contacts with a simple drag. Want to call Mom? Drag her face to the phone icon. Want to text your significant other? Drag his or her face to the SMS icon.
give Drupe a try
It’s completely free
http://www.getdrupe.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
BlackBerry’s first Android phone may cost more than the best Android phones
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/22/9593774/blackberry-priv-pricing-leak
Rather than announcing its first Android phone, BlackBerry has taken the odd strategy of just letting every detail about the device leak out and then casually referencing it in an official capacity every now and then. The latest detail to leak out is the phone’s pricing, which apparently comes in at $749.
That would make the BlackBerry Priv one very expensive phone, putting it up there with top flagship devices. BlackBerry’s reasoning would likely be that it’s offering a similarly high-end experience — Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 5.4-inch Quad HD display, and basically the only smartphone keyboard anyone has ever wanted to use — but that’s a hard sell when you’re coming from so far behind.
that’s a price range that very few companies — really just Apple and sometimes Samsung — have managed to succeed in
Tomi Engdahl says:
Voice commands while driving still distracting and risky, AAA study says
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-aaa-distracted-driving-20151022-story.html
Drivers who use hands-free commands remain distracted for up to 27 seconds after they have made a call or changed music, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
“Overwhelming scientific evidence concludes that hands-free is not risk-free,” said Marshall Doney, AAA’s chief executive.
The distraction continues even when a motorist turns attention back to the road and has both hands on the steering wheel, the AAA report said.
“The results indicate that motorists could miss stop signs, pedestrians and other vehicles while the mind is readjusting to the task of driving,”
AAA judged a mental distraction rating of 2 or higher to be potentially dangerous while driving. At a speed of 25 mph, cars travel the length of nearly three football fields during a 27-second distraction time. Even with the better systems — which leave drivers with about 15 seconds of distraction — cars travel about half that distance.
Researchers also examined the effect of using voice commands to control phone systems while driving.
The Google Now system performed best with a distraction rating of 3.0, while Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana earned ratings of 3.4 and 3.8, respectively.
But using voice commands and phones to send texts created extra distraction. While sending voice-activated texts, Google Now rated as a category 3.3 distraction, while Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana rated 3.7 and 4.1, respectively.
New Hands-free Technologies Pose Hidden Dangers for Drivers
http://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/10/new-hands-free-technologies-pose-hidden-dangers-for-drivers/
Surprising Research Finds that Mental Distractions Can Persist Long after Completing a Task
“Drivers should use caution while using voice-activated systems, even at seemingly safe moments when there is a lull in traffic or the car is stopped at an intersection,” said Marshall Doney, AAA’s President and CEO. “The reality is that mental distractions persist and can affect driver attention even after the light turns green.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jonah Bromwich / New York Times:
Inside the Unicode Consortium and how it decides which emojis to officially support — How Emojis Find Their Way to Phones — An obscure organization that standardizes the way punctuation marks and other text are represented by computer systems has in recent years found itself at the forefront …
How Emojis Find Their Way to Phones
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/technology/how-emojis-find-their-way-to-phones.html
An obscure organization that standardizes the way punctuation marks and other text are represented by computer systems has in recent years found itself at the forefront of mobile pop culture, with its power to create new emojis.
A new batch is under review, a process that takes months.
The Unicode Consortium is sometimes labeled “mysterious” (as in a recent post from New York magazine) but Mr. Davis said there was nothing shadowy about it. Its work is largely transparent, and information about its history, members and processes are included on its website.
The group includes executives from Apple, Google, Facebook and other technology giants. Mr. Davis is chief internationalization architect at Google. The group meets quarterly; at a meeting in May, they will vote on whether to formally induct the 67 new emojis.
Unicode was started in the late 1980s to develop a standardized code for text characters.
Take Colin Rothfels, who works for a keyboard company. His job title? “Emoji grammarian.”
“We’ve had this vocabulary kind of dropped on us and different kinds of people are finding different ways to use it,” Mr. Rothfels said. “Obviously it’s a very limited language, if you want to call it a language.”
Before the 67 new emojis can be the building blocks of language or personal style though, they will have to be made official.
“These don’t magically appear once we approve them,” Mr. Davis. said. “Manufacturers have to put them on their phones. But once they are approved in the May meeting, then vendors will typically go ahead and start working on them.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrii Degeler / Ars Technica UK:
Hands on with the modular smartphone Fairphone 2, which ships in December for €525 — Fairphone 2 hands-on: Modular phones are finally here — AMSTERDAM—With more and more similarly priced and specced Android smartphones arriving on the market, unique selling points are becoming increasingly rare.
Fairphone 2 hands-on: Modular phones are finally here
The first modular phone, built by a Dutch startup, starts shipping in December for €525.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2015/10/fairphone-2-hands-on-modular-phones-are-finally-here/
AMSTERDAM—With more and more similarly priced and specced Android smartphones arriving on the market, unique selling points are becoming increasingly rare. There’s nothing bad about selling a decent phone with an attractive price tag, but it’s always more interesting to take a look at something that stands out.
You don’t have to add a plethora of unnecessary features or keep pumping the display resolution up, though. You can also stand out by changing the way a device is manufactured and sold. That’s what Dutch startup Fairphone has been doing for a while now.
Back in 2013, it raised €7.5 million (£5.5 million) for its first “ethically sourced smartphone,” in which it tried to minimise the usage of conflict minerals, i.e. those extracted from conflict zones, mostly in Africa. The phone was built and designed by an ODM manufacturer in China.
“The proposition was mostly about the supply chain and not about the phone [itself],” Fairphone CEO Bas van Abel told Ars Technica UK. “The phone just needed to work [as well as any other smartphone].”
Earlier this year, Fairphone announced the Fairphone 2, which has been designed by the company from scratch and has a unique feature: the users can (and are encouraged to) easily disassemble the phone themselves, swap or upgrade parts, and keep using the device longer than any other similar smartphone. In a word, it is modular.