Articles about Android

Back in October, Canonical Ltd. announced that Ubuntu would be coming to smartphones, tablets and TVs. Tuesday, Canonical announced it is not only bringing Ubuntu to phones, tablets, and televisions, but it is doing so through Android, and in a form very similar to Motorola's Webtop interface.

"Your Next Desktop Could be a Phone," Canonical says.

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Nvidia's Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip architecture has thus far been used in a handful of high-end Android "superphones": Motorola Atrix 4G, Photon 4G, LG Optimus G2X, and the Samsung Captivate Glide, to name a few.

Today, Nvidia and Chinese smartphone maker ZTE announced the Mimosa X, the first Android smartphone to use Nvidia's products for both applications processing and wireless communications since the company acquired wireless modem maker Icera last June.

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"Smartphone volumes during the quarter rose due to record sales of Apple iPhones". That's a helluva statement -- from Gartner's press release on Q4 2011 handset sales today. Emphasis on sales, which is what the analyst firm measures, not shipments into the channel like its competitors. One hundred-forty nine million smartphones sold globally during the quarter, up 47.3 percent year over year, 35.46 million from Apple.

Last month, Apple claimed 37.04 million iPhone sales, which, of course, really means shipments. Apple's stunning fourth quarter raised its ranking. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company passed LG to take third place in overall handset sales for all 2011 -- not just smartphones -- 5 percent to 4.9 percent share, respectively. In smartphones, Apple claimed top spot for the quarter and all 2011, with 23.8 percent and 19 percent market share, respectively. Apple sold 89.7 million handsets last year.

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Did you think that the marriage of Motorola and Google meant your pre-Ice Cream Sandwich Moto device would see an update quicker? Wrong. The company on Wednesday updated its upgrade roadmap for devices slated to receive the new software, and some devices available here in the United States could wait up until a year for ICS (Android 4.0). Imagine the outcry if Apple had an upgrade cycle like this.

The issue of device obsolescence plays a role at that point. Furthermore, with Jellybean probably not too far off, software obsolescence may also come into play -- your upgrade may be out-of-date the day it comes out.

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Amid rumors the US Justice Department will approve Google's merger with Motorola Mobility this week, the European Union's Competition Commission acted first, clearing the deal.

In a procedural move, the European Commission halted merger review in mid December, after requesting additional information. Today's approval puts Googolora (not any official name, of course) within view. Merger now seems all but inevitable.

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Yesterday, Google pulled the trigger and finally launched Chrome for Android in beta. It is undoubtedly one of the most significant app releases ever for the Android platform, but like other platforms, the browser market is a strange beast and BetaNews readers, of all people, should be acutely familiar with that fact.

If you do not own an Android device capable of running the Chrome Beta, you probably looked around at the reviews and got a general feeling for the new software and why it's "the platform's best new browser," or the native browser killer with an improved interface and simple tab handling. But none of these reviews really addressed the burning question:

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For years, OneNote seemed like a promise without purpose. Microsoft developed a fresh, flexible application capable of pulling together content from many sources and in a way that made creative sense. Sure the Office family member imitated note-taking software already available for the Mac, but with surprising approachability for Microsoft-developed Windows software. But who really used OneNote?

Then during the Office 2007 release cycle, Microsoft swapped out Outlook for OneNote in the low-cost consumer edition and millions of users discovered the promise. But not the purpose. Microsoft would later imbue that quality quite unexpectedly by connecting OneNote to SkyDrive. Sync is the software's killer capability -- that gives purpose to promise behind great usability and remarkable flexibility. Where OneNote and SkyDrive really, well, sync is on mobile devices. Windows Phone, then iPhone, iPad and, today, Android. Yeah, if you use OneNote on the PC and are a two-timing Android user, grab the phone. Microsoft has got a treat for you.

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Big news came from Google on Tuesday as the company released the very first beta version of its Chrome web browser for Android. Like the mobile versions of Opera and Firefox for Android, browser tabs and favorites from the user's desktop version are synced to the mobile browser, providing a unified experience across platforms.

The beta version is currently only available on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Korea, Argentina, and Brazil, so if you don't have ICS at your disposal right now or you're in a country not listed, we'll follow up with some first impressions to let you know how it fares against all the other Android browsers.

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In fourth quarter, that would be iPhone 4S, 4 and 3GS, in order from one to three, according to NPD. But before the Apple Fanclub does high-fives, Android share among first-time buyers outpaced iPhone, as measured by smartphone operating system, contradicting some other analyst data.

"iPhone 4S outsold the iPhone 4 by 75 percent, and outsold the iPhone 3GS, available for free on AT&T, five to one", Ross Rubin, NPD executive director, says. Well, so much for my theory older, discounted iPhones was a brilliant Apple strategy. Which again raises questions about the power of brand, considering iPhone isn't LTE, while AT&T and Verizon offer real 4G smartphones -- all Androids.

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iPhone's remarkable fourth-quarter surge -- 37 million units -- lifted the handset ahead of the two previous smartphone leaders, according to Canalys. For full year 2011, Apple shipped 93.1 million smartphones, compared to Samsung's 91.9 million and Nokia's 77.3 million. Nokia, the company that invented the smartphone, has bled share since iPhone launched nearly 5 years ago, but artery versus vein since announcing the switch to Windows Phone from Symbian in February 2011.

Apple's climb to the top followed October's iPhone 4S launch and availability of older 3GS and 4 models for free and $99, respectively. Samsung shipped 35.3 million smartphones in Q4, behind Apple, while Nokia shipped 19.6 million -- a stunning 31 percent decline. By comparison, iPhone shipments surged 128.1 percent for the quarter and 96 percent for the year.

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Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google's Vice President of Engineering for the Android mobile platform, revealed on Thursday that the Android Market has secretly had a system in place named "Bouncer" to scan apps for malicious code.

"Bouncer" was running in secret for most of 2011, and Lockheimer says that the period between the first and second halves of 2011 showed a 40% decrease in the number of potentially-malicious downloads from Android Market.

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Just weeks ago the Apple Fanclub of bloggers and journalists giddily posted about how iPhone had reversed Androids' gains. But new data from comScore shows that, in the United States at least, Android is doing just fine, despite iPhone's remarkable fourth-quarter sales surge (more than 37 million units).

As measured by smartphone OS among cellular subscribers 13 and older, Android share grew to 47.3 percent at the end of December from 44.8 percent three months earlier. During the same time period, iPhone/iOS rose 2.2 points to 29.6 percent share. More broadly, for all handsets, Apple was the only manufacturer to gain share during fourth quarter -- up 2.2 points to 12.4 percent, or twice free-falling Research in Motion. Samsung firmly held its lead, 25.3 percent, which is the same as end of September.

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Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, takes a slightly different approach to social content organization and management, and includes a couple of new APIs to let application developers surface social network data.

If you've got ICS running on your phone already, you have probably already noticed the "People" application, Android's revamped contacts system that unifies different social networks and methods of communication under a single profile, allowing information to be more centrally located on a user's phone and shared out when needed.

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Mint, the elegant personal financial management app owned by financial software company Intuit has finally released a version of its application specifically for Android tablets. Mint's app has been available on Android-based smartphones for over a year, but with the growing prevalence of tablets, and Ice Cream Sandwich promising to unify Android's smartphone and tablet interfaces, the time was right for a Mint tablet app.

Because Mint is so UI-centric, the tablet app doesn't try to cram more information into the larger screen real estate, but instead provides a clearer, easier-to-navigate interface.

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Hey, Firefox fans, don't settle for just the desktop browser that popped up on Mozilla servers overnight. Firefox 10 mobile is also available at the Android Market. While the big browser offers significantly improved plug-in support, it's still DOA on the small one. That means no Adobe Flash for you, Bud.

New features include anti-aliasing for WebGL and accelerated layer-support via OpenGL ES. Firefox 10 mobile improves sync and HTML5 capabilities, as well. Among the fixes: "Extremely rare case where the browser may become unable to load web pages or close tabs".

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