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Oct

BlueStacks Announces App Player For Windows And Cloud Connect

Posted by Brad Ganley in Applications, Apps/Games, Games, News

Today, BlueStacks - a company specializing in Android app integration in Windows - will be making two large, and (hopefully) impressive announcements.

One of these announcements is the Alpha version of their App Player for Windows. If the name didn't already clue you in, BlueStacks App Player allows you to run Android applications on your Windows machine and enter a whole new level of Appoholism. This means that all of your favorite Android apps are now also your favorite PC apps and, by extension, your favorite Android games can now be your favorite PC games. Imagine the convenience of playing Angry Birds on a huge screen that isn't in your bathroom (Android Police cannot be held responsible if you get confused in this scenario and require new pants).

Jul

comScore: Android, iOS Continue To Gain Market Share, Everyone Else Loses

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, News

We know Android continues to grow at an amazing rate, with 500,000 Android devices activated per day and an activation growth rate of 4.4% per week (as an aside - if that growth rate is correct, that means the number of activations would double roughly every 16 weeks, based on the Rule of 72.) But how is that raw growth reflected in market share, given the rapidly expanding smartphone market? Turns out pretty well, according to comScore:

76.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May 2011, up 11 percent from the preceding three month period.

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).

Apr

[App Review] Join.me Is A Clean, Easy Way To Share Your Screen From Desktop To Phone

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you have ever tried to do tech support for someone on the go, needed to remotely see how exactly somebody did something on their computer, or found it necessary to view another person's screen from your smartphone for some other reason, you're already well aware of the frustration that arises from not having your computer handy. Fortunately for you, you've got an Android phone, and I've got the perfect tool for you.

Join.me, a sweet program designed by those crazy screen-sharing, remote-controlling, virtual LAN-creating programaholics at LogMeIn, allows you to either share your computer screen or view people sharing their screens from anywhere.

Apr

Editorial: Motorola XOOM Sales Estimated At 100,000 So Far - Does It Really Matter?

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, XOOM

No doubt you've seen at least one mention of the 100,000-XOOM sales figure somewhere on the web today - and for me, it has reached the point of mild annoyance. From this number, all sorts of wild extrapolations and theories are being tossed around about Motorola's future, Android's future, and the viability of tablets in an Apple-dominated market.

Boy Genius Report took a step back, and presented a level-headed but clearly pro-XOOM take on the news:

So, according to Deutsche Bank, Motorola has sold 100,000 XOOM tablets in less than a month and a half, which is an average of over 75,000 units per month.

Mar

Verizon, Sprint Rule Android Market Share Among US Carriers. AT&T? Downright Embarassing

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Carriers, News

According to the latest from ad network Chitika, Android market share is far more lopsided than you probably imagine. That Verizon is the largest is perhaps not surprising, given the data we've seen time and time again. What is surprising is just how much of a lead they have: the company accounts for a whopping 51.4% of the market. Sprint comes in at second with 25.3%, while T-Mobile pulls up third with 16.8%. Meanwhile, AT&T checks in with a measly 3.6% - embarrassingly low, to say the least.

Given how much of a push T-Mobile has made with Android, it's perhaps surprising to see that they only have 16.8%; then again, they are the smallest of the four, and it's understandable that their market share would suffer commensurately.

Mar

Only 0.3% Of The Global Population Owns A Tablet - But There Are Over 5 Billion Mobile Subscribers

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, News, Off-Topic

RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky has run the numbers on tablets and lined them up for comparison against a bevy of other figures. Surprisingly, there are 5.113 billion mobile subscribers in the world (out of 6.898bn global population), but only 394 million smartphone and tablet users.

Abramsky's calculations show that there will be more than 400m tablet users by 2014. Equally as impressive is that he thinks 185m tablets will be sold in 2014 - or 47% of the number of smartphones and tablet owners today.

It's a bit surprising that the number of smartphone and tablet users is so low, but then again, that just speaks to the massive upside potential of the market.

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.

Dec

Tunerfish Releases Android App, Aims To Be FourSquare For TV, Movies, And Videos (Complete With A Back Story - Read It)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Tunerfish, which dubs itself "a social discovery engine for TV, movies, and online video," released version 1.0 of its Android app to the Market today.

The idea behind Tunerfish is similar to the one behind 4square, only if you replaced locations with TV shows, movies, and online videos. In order to use Tunerfish, you can create an account or log in using Facebook or Twitter. Once logged in, you can:

see what your friends are watching in real-time
see what they were watching in the past
check out trending shows, movies, and videos, i.e. what's being watched now by everyone
earn badges and awards
participate in discussions, view profiles
check in and share what you are watching on Tunerfish, Facebook, and Twitter

You can read more about Tunerfish here.