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Nov

Chart: Android Phone Size Over Time - We're Going To Need Bigger Hands

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials, HTC, Motorola, Samsung

Android has a mysterious case of gigantism, and I'm not entirely certain why manufacturers keep feeling the need to have a bigger phone than the next guy. The size war (all male anatomical euphemisms aside) is on, and we're not sure when it's going to end. Take a look at these device charts for the three major Android manufacturers in (pretty much) chronological order of release:

High-end phones only. No QWERTY devices. Phones ordered by release date - more or less. Data from GSMArena.com.

Somewhat ironically, Motorola has shown the slowest rate of touchscreen device size-creep of any of the major manufacturers, having started out pretty big with what, at the time, was the gargantuan DROID X.

Oct

Timeline Graphic: US Android Phone Releases - We're Definitely Moving Faster, But How Fast Is Too Fast?

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials

There's been some discussion of late that, perhaps, Android phone manufacturers are iterating handsets at a pace which is detrimental to product polish and subsequent software support. In fact, a couple of days ago I took a look at the state of Android phones on US carriers with a few simple charts.

I also promised to write another post looking at how quickly, as opposed to how prolifically, Android handsets are moving in the US marketplace. I decided to look at two carriers - T-Mobile and Verizon. In the interest of cleaning up the timelines, I decided not to include budget handsets or QWERTY phones, because we all know the subtext of this whole conversation: the iPhone.

Oct

Chart: Are There Really Too Many Android Phones? That Depends On How You Look At It

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials

After reading a couple of great pieces on Droid-life about how Android manufacturers seem to be moving at breakneck pace to advance hardware and iterate handsets like crazy, I had an idea - let's visualize it in different ways. First, we'll start with a pretty basic comparison, showing the US's four major carriers and the number of Android devices they currently offer.

*includes upcoming DROID RAZR and Galaxy Nexus on Verizon. Based on respective carrier websites as of 10/28/11.

Next, we'll see how much each of the major handset manufacturers contributes to these numbers at the present moment.

*includes upcoming DROID RAZR and Galaxy Nexus.

Jul

[Neat] Android Web Market Now Shows Handy Charts Of App Install Histories

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Apps/Games, News

In a quiet update to the web Market, Google today rolled out these handy charts showing on each app page a 30-day history of installs. The charts can help gauge relative popularity of a given app throughout the last 30 days of its existence, but are relatively basic and not very practical.

Still, we'll take any addition to the Market that doesn't make it worse. I suppose it's actually kind of fun to see what effects new releases, updates, and promotional campaigns have on applications - for example, take a look at the chart of SwiftKey X, which recently went through a major revamp.

Jul

[Video] Sprint Takes Shots At Verizon, T-Mobile, And AT&T's Data Plans With Its New 'Charts' Ad

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Sprint, Videos

Last Updated: July 23rd, 2011

Sprint has been making great strides to bash its competitors and show us who has the real unlimited data plan as of late, but this new ad puts it all on the table: Verizon and AT&T charge overage fees for anything more than 2GB and T-Mobile throttles your speed after a certain amount of consumed bandwidth, but The Now Network gives you unlimited data, sans-catch for one price. Have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1kkAG9PAkU

The more Sprint ads I see, the more I want to jump ship from Verizon, so they must be doing something right.

With all the data plan drama lately, is anyone else is thinking about jumping to The Now Network?

Jul

Google Updates Android Platform Distribution Chart Again - Eclair On The Decline, Gingerbread Continuing To Make Headway

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Android OS, News

As is its wont at this time of the month, Google has updated its Android platform distribution chart, and while there aren't any real shockers to be found, it's still nice to see which versions of Android are most popular.

Let's start from the top of the table: as should be expected, the number of devices running Android 1.5 (Cupcake) and 1.6 (Donut) is steadily dropping, as more and more users upgrade their devices or receive software updates. 2.1 (Éclair) is continuing to loose headway, with 17.5% of Android users running it.

Moving on to more modern versions of the OS, Froyo (Android 2.2) is still the king of the hill where stats are concerned, claiming 59.4% of users.

Jun

Just In: Android Web Market Now Shows A Handy App Rating Breakdown Chart

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Apps/Games, News

Friday seems to be the Android web Market team's favorite day to release new features, no matter how incrementally small they may be. Today is no exception, as the web Market now includes a neat little breakdown chart of application ratings on each app page, together with a prominent average score. Have a look at the ratings for the Facebook app, which got an update today:

Every little bit counts, so thanks for this pre-weekend present, Google!

Cheers, Joseph!

Jun

Android Platform Distributions Updated, Gingerbread Finally Making A Dent In Froyo's Lead

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, News

It's that time of the month once again, Google has updated the platform version distribution charts for Android, and Gingerbread is finally gaining steam:

Gingerbread now makes up a whole 9.2% of the Android ecosystem, and the Gingerbread source has been publicly available for 6 months as of today. Froyo still dominates, at around 65%, with Éclair placing second. Pre-2.1 devices now account for less than 5% of the total, which really makes the whole 2-year device-life logic seem rather silly.

Honeycomb also has peaked its head above the grass, and represents a little over a half-percent of all Android devices presently (most thanks likely going to the XOOM and ASUS Transformer for that).

Apr

Nielsen: Android Runs On 37% Of All US Smartphones And 50% Of All New Smartphones Sold

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, News

NielsenWire has released yet another one of their bar and pie chart-filled smartphone surveys for the US this morning, and it's just more good news for Android. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the key stats Nielsen compiled:

Android now represents 37% of all US smartphones
50% of smartphones sold in the month of March were Android phones
31% of consumers said their next purchase will be an Android phone, compared to 26% one year ago. Android now leads iOS here as well (iOS accounts for 30%, down from 33%)
20% of consumers don't know which OS their next smartphone will run

Another interesting tidbit the survey revealed is that Blackberry has finally dropped to third place in all three of the comparisons Nielsen publishes (future purchases, March purchases, total market share).

Mar

Developers, Take Note: Google Unleashes Fascinating New Android Market Statistics And Charts For Your Apps

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, News

Late last night, the Android team pushed out a set of changes to the Android app publishing interface that developers use to upload and maintain their apps. The new features, while completely invisible to the end-users, are absolutely fascinating to app developers.

Each app now has a Statistics link, which consists of the following:

a Google Finance-style Flash chart of all installs, the time period for which you can adjust as you see fit
Android versions (conveniently placed side-by-side with the same stats for all apps in the Market)
specific device models
countries where your app is downloaded from (also side-by-side with countries for all apps in the Market)
languages used on the phones with your app on them (also compared to the global stats)

Have a look at some screenshots, then, if you are a developer, hurry to your own publishing console and check out those sexy stats for yourself.