iphone

Jan

Editorial: iPhone 4 Is Coming To Verizon Wireless - Should Android Be Worried?

Posted by David Ruddock in AT&T, Editorials, News, Verizon Wireless

The big question on everyone's mind (well, at least ours) today is: How will the iPhone coming to Verizon next month change the smartphone landscape? At this point, it's anyone's guess, but Android's unabashed domination on the US's largest wireless carrier will certainly be challenged in the coming months. However, there are significant forces at work that won't exactly help the iPhone with its Verizon debut - namely, Verizon and Android. That's not to say the Verizon iPhone won't be a success, it's just a question of exactly how much of a success it will be. Here's our take.

Upgrade or Downgrade?

Jan

Nielsen Releases Smartphone Market Share Figures, Android Domination Imminent?

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, News

America's most trusted name in bar graphs, Nielsen, released an updated look at smartphone market share distribution today. The results aren't terribly surprising: Android is growing, and quickly at that. Blackberry's free-fall into the abyss has slowed to a steady death march. But what about Apple's fare?

Since the release of the iPhone 4 in June, Apple's total share of the smartphone market has increased by a paltry 0.7%, while Android has gained 10.8% more of the smartphone pie to reach 25.8% of the total - a mere 2.8% behind Apple, as you can see below.

Meanwhile, Android is outright dominating smartphone purchases made in the last six months, representing over 40% of all smartphones purchased since June.

Nov

T-Mobile Goes After The iPhone And AT&T In A New 4G Campaign [Video]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, T-Mobile, Videos

Yesterday, T-Mobile officially rebranded its new HSPA+ network as "4G" in an effort to gain that extra G that consumers are so obsessed with (relevant: [1] [2]). In order to promote this newly proclaimed largest 4G network in the country along with the myTouch 4G that was released today, the company launched a video campaign that will air on major TV networks and websites.

The first campaign video features a fresher, younger, and even more vibrant replacement for Catherine Zeta-Jones (who has been T-Mobile's regular face in the last few years) in a familiar and kind of overplayed "Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" style.

Oct

Samsung's Galaxy Player 50 Runs Android, Shows Up In An Ad, Goes Up For Preorder

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Player 50, News, Samsung

Back in September, Samsung announced 4 new media players, one of which was of particular interest to us - the Galaxy Player 50. Out of the bunch, the Galaxy Player 50 was the only device running Android - it's what iPod Touch is to an iPhone, a Galaxy S phone without a ~~chromosome~~ phone.

What we have here today is Samsung's official video ad showcasing the player's capabilities, using a hilariously crooked finger, as Wired commenters pointed out. Seriously, once you see the finger, it's the only thing you can look at - I even had to rewind and re-watch to see the player itself:

The player sports the following specs, some of which, like the camera, are quite measly:

WiFi (obviously)
3.2 inch screen
Android Market access
FM Radio
GPS
DLNA support
Comes in 8GB and 16GB flavors
2MP camera (ouch)
Android 2.1

The Galaxy Player 50 is currently up for presale in France for €200 (8GB) and €250 (16GB).

Sep

Millennial Media: Android Still Growing Like Gangbusters: Increased Market Share 7% Month-Over-Month, Now Accounts for 26% Of Smartphones

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Devices By Manufacturer, Motorola, News

Millennial Media, one of the largest mobile advertisers in the US, has released their August MobileMix. Based on their ad impressions, they estimate that Android now commands 26% of the Smartphone market - up 7% month-over-month. If accurate, that puts Android 7% ahead of RIM - but still 22% short of iOS.

Other tidbits: smartphone impressions gained 3% in the last month, up to 51%. The original Motorola Droid surprisingly still holds 9.44% of the market as the second most popular phone (obviously, the iPhone is first); based largely on the success of the Droid, Motorola is now the third largest device manufacturer.

Sep

Love Yourself Some Plants Vs Zombies On Your Android Device? Leave Devil Alone Is A Very Decent Clone That Just Hit The Market

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Games, News, Videos

Plants Vs Zombies

I loved Plants Vs Zombies on my PC. LOVED it. I don't get excited by games much anymore but Plants Vs Zombies by PopCap captured my full attention for weeks when it just came out a couple of years back. A version for the iPhone came out later and enjoyed similar success to the original game. PopCap's Android page, however, has been quite empty. Literally:

Will PopCap ever release an Android variant? It's possible, but in the meantime, we have to quench our PvZ thirst by finding existing alternatives in the Market.

Leave Devil Alone

A few days ago, a new game called Leave Devil Alone by a relatively unknown publisher GZORZ showed up in the new releases section of the Android Market.

Sep

[Comic] The Difference Between Android And iPhone - This Pretty Much Sums It Up

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Off-Topic

Last Updated: September 26th, 2010

Found at the top of reddit's Android page today is this comic comparing the openness of Android to the closed ecosystem of Apple's iPhone and iOS. It warranted an immediate tweet, but since tweets are very short-lived, I decided to have it take a more permanent place on our site.

Here we go:

No editorial comments from me - I decided to reserve that role for you, our readers, in the space below.

Source: Icantdrawfeet

Sep

Fruit Ninja Now Available For Android

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Games, News

We told you it was coming today, and indeed here it is - Fruit Ninja, one of the most popular iOS games just entered the Android world, powered by OpenFeint.

Download

You can download the game for $0.99 by clicking or scanning the barcode below:

A Few Notes

it is quite big - almost 14MB, but it doesn't yet support apps2sd in Froyo. I'm sure that is coming later
the graphics, physics, UI - everything is very well done. It's a direct port from the iOS version using the NDK (Native Development Kit) - not a Java rewritten version
in my opinion, the copycats, such as Ninja Kaka and Fruit Pirate are nowhere near as good
the new Arcade mode is coming soon - for now it's only available on iOS

Screenshots

Sep

Nielsen Mobile App Report: Android Users Respond To Advertisement The Most + More [AppNation]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Apps/Games, News

I am live here at the AppNation conference in San Francisco, and after San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom's welcome speech, in which he tried to get a bunch of developers to make apps for the government for free (yeah, riiight), we are looking at a mobile report from Nielsen, called The State Of Mobile Apps.

Nielsen, one of the largest media research companies in the world, compiled a report containing a few interesting metrics, such as:

Most Popular Apps
Application Discovery Methods
Free VS Paid Apps
App Billing Preference
a few Advertising related stats

You can download and read the full report below, but before you do that, I wanted to highlight one metric that I found the most interesting.

Sep

August Quantcast Numbers: Android Gaining Ground In Mobile Web Battlefield, Stealing Share From Every Other Platform

Posted by Brad Ganley in News

The mobile industry is a very competitive, complicated, fast changing world. The name of the game, though, is simple: get your product out there, get people using it, and do it fast. Quantcast, a company that specializes in the world of internet usage trends, recently released some information showing how well the players in the mobile OS and software game are doing. The information is intriguing, to say the least.

There are several things we can take away from this information, the number one being that Android is definitely stepping its game. In the past year, the number of mobile internet users toting Android devices has increased by 18.6%, bringing Android's consumption share to an impressive 25%.