Articles about Android

Who says Android device diversity is bad for developers? There has been lots of blabbering on the InterWebs about fragmentation and how it hurts Android compared to iOS. Not at Netflix, which claims support for about 1,000 different Androids. Yowza!

Fragmentation is real. As of March 5th, 93.9 percent of the install base was on Android 2.x -- 62 percent on Gingerbread (v2.3.x) and 25.3 percent on Froyo (v2.2). Newest version, Ice Cream Sandwich (v4.x) accounts, for just 1.2 percent, and that's nearly six months after release.

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Analysts love to make predictions. It's a no-risk gambit, because the forecasts are years away and nobody remembers if they're wrong. After thrice predicting that Windows Phone would beat out Apple's iOS by 2015, IDC has another for the same year: Android media tablet shipments will exceed iPad. By that reckoning, the firm predicts that Google's mobile OS will dominate the two major cloud-connected -- post-PC, if you insist -- device categories (the other being smartphones).

"As the sole vendor shipping iOS products, Apple will remain dominant in terms of worldwide vendor unit shipments", Tom Mainelli, IDC research director, says. "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".

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Project management software-as-a-service LiquidPlanner on Monday launched its first Android app after offering an application on iOS for more than two years.

"Internally we are jumping up and down about this latest release because it’s been such a long time coming," said Liz Pearce, LiquidPlanner's VP of sales and marketing. "We were so glad to finally get a chance to work on this because we are truly committed to making LiquidPlanner work for mobile."

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With the domination of Apple's iPad, the Android-based tablet market has lots of mid-range competition, with different companies jockeying for differentiation.

Archos has a pretty big line of Android-powered tablet products, and today the company announced its G9 family of Android tablets will begin receiving over-the-air upgrades to Android 4.0.3 "Ice Cream Sandwich" today. This line is easily differentiated from the pack of Android tablets because they can be outfitted with a 250GB HDD, giving them vastly more storage than most Android-powered tablets, which tend to utilize flash-based storage and max out at 64GB.

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Apple now offers more than 550,000 mobile apps -- 200,000 specifically for iPad. CEO Tim Cook revealed the number today during a special event launching the third-generation iPad. Over the weekend, Apple's App Store reached a mighty milestone -- 25 billion downloads since opening nearly four years ago.

Yesterday, Google rebranded Android Market. What's in a name? In this case lots of foreshadowing that should give open-source developers the willies. Google Play puts the search and information giant's brand front and center, removing Android altogether. Everyone with vested interest in Android should reflect long and hard on what that means, particularly now that with the Motorola Mobility acquisition Google can build its own branded devices.

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There's no Ice Cream Sandwich for you, baby. Verizon has announced the smartphones and other devices eligible to receive the sweet Android 4.0 dessert, and all but two are 4G LTE. That's right, if you're among the 95 percent of Verizon subscribers on 3G, and you've got Android, no upgrade is planned.

Only 5 percent of Verizon subscribers currently have LTE, even though the service is available to over 200 million in 196 metro areas. Verizon offers about two dozen LTE smartphones, tablets, netbooks and modems/mobile hotspots. Only 15 devices make the cut.

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Google on Tuesday unveiled a major change to the Android Market: a name change.

Since Google's content market is for Android devices and beyond, the destination formerly known as the Android Market, is now known in the United States as Google Play.

Last year, Google completed its upgrade of the Android market, adding video, music, books, and a rich browser-based interface to the store which had previously only offered Android applications and games.

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That's one of the startling data points from a report that Pew Internet released today. The non-profit "fact tank" asked American adults what kind of smartphone they own. Twenty percent responded "Android device", up from 15 percent in May 2011. iPhone: 19 percent, up from 10 percent during the same time period. Pew concluded the newer survey in February.

The percentage of people saying they own iPhone nearly doubled between surveys, which is stunning growth compared to Android. Meanwhile, BlackBerry ownership fell to 6 percent from 10 percent. Those respondents describing themselves as Windows Phone owners was unchanged, at 2 percent.

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Motorola Mobility on Tuesday announced new initiatives for Android in the enterprise space, asking users to "make the switch."

This initiative focuses on the Motorola Business Ready smartphone line which consists most of Motorola's devices with the "Droid" label, and others including the Atrix and Photon 4G models.

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Sony's foldable, dual-screen Android tablet, known simply as Sony Tablet P will finally be available in the United States beginning on March 4, for $399 with a two-year contract with AT&T or $549 off contract.

Sony first revealed the uniquely designed clamshell tablet almost one year ago along with the wedge-shaped Tablet S, which has been available in the U.S. since last August.

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Chipmaker Intel is still on the cusp of making its big entry into the consumer smartphone business, but at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, the company is providing a look at some of its advancements in the field, including the first real-time graphics performance and power analysis tool suite for Medfield that will be spotlighted at the Game Developers Conference in a little more than one week's time.

The Intel GPA System Analyzer is a developer tool that can capture real-time metrics of Android games and apps running on the Medfield processor, with the ability to switch between different rendering scenarios in the app (wire frame only, no alpha, textures only, rendering distance, different resolutions, etc.) to optimally tune it for best performance.

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In October 2009, I explained why "iPhone cannot win the smartphone wars". Many of the reasons then still hold true today. But I wrote that analysis before Apple released iPad. So, 10 months later I followed up with "Apple can still win the mobile platform wars, but it won't be easy". Now, 18 months later, as Mobile World Congress starts in Barcelona, Spain, I claim: Apple is winning the mobile platform wars, but achieving ultimate supremacy won't be easy.

In August 2010, I observed: "Pundits already are predicting iPhone's death brattle before the great Android god. I wouldn't write off Apple just yet. The mobile wars are bigger than smartphones, as Apple already has shown". Little has changed since. Android apologists still predict victory over iOS, while ignoring fundamental platform gains that put Apple in front.

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Finally, an analyst firm comes clean about the cell phone market's volatility. Gartner and IDC continue to make outrageous predictions -- like Windows Phone as No. 2 smartphone operating system in 2015 -- despite many earlier forecasts being drop-dead wrong. But comScore says pretty much anything can happen and likely will.

That's a stunning assessment, considering Androids' and iPhone's 2011 success, as highlighted in comScore's "2012 Mobile Future in Focus" report. iPhone 4 -- right, not 4S -- was the top-acquired phone in the United States and five combined Euro countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom) last year. Android led among smartphone operating systems.

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Back in July, we were among the first people to get our hands on the 1" wearable Android module from WIMM labs that later launched to developers as the WIMM One developer platform.

Now, after just about six months in the hands of developers, the Wimm Micro App Store has launched in beta.

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Handset manufacturers aren't exactly rushing Android 4.0 out the door for recent smartphones. At least Sony has something for the cheery fan set who can't wait but might not want to install a rogue ROM. Today the consumer electronics giant posted an Ice Cream Sandwich beta ROM for 2011 Xperia phones.

The software can be applied to Xperia arc S, neo V and ray running Xperia software 4.0.2.A.0.42. However, the beta ROM isn't recommended for everyone. "Even though a lot of the basic functionality of this ICS beta ROM is working, you should only download and install the beta version if you are an advanced developer", according to Sony's mobile developer blog.

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