Google continues to roll out their services to iOS, including
Google Play Music launching late last week. The iOS apps miss some
features seen in Android, but in other cases the applications look and
perform better on the iPhone.
I use quite a few Google services and lack of support for most of
them in Windows Phone keep me from using that platform as my daily
driver. Lately, I have been using and enjoying Android smartphones and
thought that might be the best way to access Google services.
With continued improvements in iOS Google apps, I have been able to enjoy Google services on my Apple iPhone 5s with few limitations.
Google services provided on iOS include:
Google Search: The new Google Now functionality
lets you state "OK Google" and then launch a search via Google Now. As
you can see in my short video below, the iPhone 5s beat the Moto X every
time I ran a search. I also tested my HTC One and while it was faster
than the Moto X it was still slower than the iPhone 5s. The Nexus 5 may
approach the iPhone 5s response since I believe the difference may be
due to the phone's processor.
Chrome: Google Chrome is my preferred web browser
and I love that bookmarks, search history, and everything else I use on
the desktop is consistent across my devices.
Google Play Music: The experience is similar to
Android, except you cannot purchase music directly in the app and there
doesn't look to be I'm Feeling Lucky functionality.
Gmail: I prefer to use the Gmail app on the iPhone
5s instead of the iOS email app. The current version is similar to the
older Android app without colored letters and such, but is still a very
capable client.
Google+: This is one service that I think actually looks and functions better on the iPhone than it does on Android.
Google Maps: Google Maps functionality looks to be the same between iOS and Android.
Google Drive: Apple doesn't let you access the file
structure of the iPhone, but the Google Drive app gives you access to
all your documents and files in the cloud.
YouTube: While I don't watch a ton of YouTube
videos, my MoTR podcast cohost Kevin Tofel told me you can stream
purchased Google Play movies via the YouTube app on iOS and it works
just fine.
Google Hangouts: Hangouts is a great way to stay in touch with friends using Google's ecosystem and it works just fine on iOS.
Quickoffice: Google purchased Quickoffice and the
application is available for iOS and Android with some excellent
functionality for viewing and editing Office documents.
Google Wallet: Google recently rolled out this
service for iPhone users and just like most Android devices, other than
the Nexus 5, Wallet is good for loyalty cards and sending payments via
email. There is no NFC in the iPhone so now payments can be made with a
tap. This is the same issue with nearly all Android devices since
carriers block access due to secure elements.
I think the only other Google services and apps I use on my Android
phone that I don't see on the iPhone are Google Keep and Google Wallet.
Chromecast support is provided in iOS through some Google services.
In addition to the excellent Google services support, the iPhone 5s
provides access to the Apple ecosystem as well as a solid Exchange
experience. Exchange support is important to me and iOS beats what I get
on Android smartphones.
Apple has reportedly bought 3D sensing company PrimeSense for $345m.
The Israeli maker of chips which enable 3D machine vision, as used to help power Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect, has been sold to the technology giant according to the Calcalist financial newspaper in Israel.
Sources told the newspaper that the deal is close with only a few issues to be ironed out.
Apple declined to comment, but a spokeswoman for PrimeSense toldReuters: “We are focused on building a prosperous company while bringing 3D sensing and natural interaction to the mass market in a variety of markets such as interactive living room and mobile devices.
“We do not comment on what any of our partners, customers or potential customers are doing and we do not relate to rumours or recycled rumours.”
PrimeSense's sensing technology, which gives digital devices the ability to observe a scene in three dimensions, was used to help power Microsoft's Xbox Kinect.
The acquisition of PrimeSense would be Apple's second purchase of an Israeli company. It bought flash storage chip maker Anobit in January 2012.
Sources close to the deal told AllThingsD said the deal was not yet done, and “a bit of a letdown, but a decent outcome.”
Another described it as “the best that could happen, given the circumstances: a big strategic buyer at a decent price.”
The number of smartphone owners keeps increasing - and many are in China, buying low-end "Android" phones which don't run Google services, according to new data published by the research companies Gartner and IDC.
Gartner has for the first time lifted the lid on the gigantic growth in sales of Android phones which don't run Google services in China - so-called "AOSP" (Android Open Source Platform) handsets, which use local app stores and do not count towards "activations" measured by Google, nor hook into Google services.
The figures, released on Thursday, show a two-speed smartphone market, with AOSP sales in China nearly doubling in a year - increasing to 84.1m in the third quarter of 2013 from 42.3m a year ago - while growth outside it was only 28% year-on-year.
But China, where AOSP handsets with prices ranging from $150 to $300 make about 90% of handset sales, is now such a large share of the world market that it drove overall smartphone growth to 77.3%.
World smartphone shipments Q1 2007 - Q3 2013, showing AOSP figures for China. Source: Gartner/IDC. Photograph: /PR
AOSP handsets made up 41% of all "Android" phones shipped in the third quarter, according to Gartner, up from 34% a year ago. They connect to dozens of app stores, or are sold through companies such as Xiaomi or Tencent.
China is the world's largest smartphone consumer, with sales there reaching roughly 85m in the third quarter, and 1.1 billion people having mobile phones. Chinese consumers are also eager purchases of phones, with a Umeng Analytics study recently finding that 90% replaced their phone at least once every 15 months.
Even discounting China's giant presence, "Google Android" phones made up 100.9m, or 72%, of phones shipped during the third quarter, cementing Google's grip on the sector.
Normalised smartphone market share (showing shipments as percentage of total), 1Q 2007 - 3Q 2013. Source: IDC/Gartner. Photograph: /PRWorldwide mobile phone shipments (featurephone v smartphone OS), 1Q 2007 - 3Q 2013. Source: Gartner/IDC. Photograph: /PR
But in the US, which is still the world's richest smartphone market, other data from industry analyst Chetan Sharma suggested that during the quarter Android handsets only made up 54% of shipments in the US market, against 42% for Apple. Smartphones made up nearly 90% of handsets sold during the quarter, Sharma said; 64% of owners there now have smartphones, but that is concentrated among 40% of households - "leaving plenty of growth in the marketplace."
Sharma added: "Though China has overtaken (primarily because of the sheer size of its population) US in terms of the overall smartphone penetration, US remains the market where OEMs have to be really successful in order to be consider a serious player on the larger canvas. Though the likes of Xiaomi and Micromax [which is popular in India] have had good success in their local markets (and still have a great amount of growth left), the prized market to make a sizable dent in their overall revenue and margins is the US market."
Price drop
Separately, IDC's figures showed that the world average selling price (ASP) of a smartphone dropped by 12.5% year-on-year in the third quarter to $317 - indicative of more phones being sold at lower prices.
The average is pulled down by the cheaper handsets in China. “Sales of feature phones continued to decline and the decrease was more pronounced in markets where the ASP for feature phones was much closer to the ASP of affordable smartphones,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “In markets such as China and Latin America, demand for feature phones fell significantly as users rushed to replace their old models with smartphones.”
However larger-screened "phablets" measuring over 5in diagonally kept a higher price, at $443 - although they had fallen even further, by 22.8% from last year's $573.
The dropping ASP for smartphones caused by low-end market expansion, particularly in China, is putting added pressure on mid-range vendors, while leaving open the question of how long Apple can maintain its premium pricing on the iPhone - which had an ASP of $577 in the third quarter, according to the company's results.
Samsung accounted for just under 40% of all Android shipments, including China, according to IDC. But it is the only non-Chinese vendor in the top ten Android sellers there; Lenovo and Yulong dominate, with Xiaomi - which recently hired Google executive Hugo Barra - holding 4.3% of the market there.
Lenovo became the seventh largest smartphone vendor - although more than 95% of its phones were sold inside China.
Android vendors: pressure below the top
IDC highlighted concerns about the financial pressures on Android handset makers, where Samsung is the only one known to make significant profits. "The vast majority of its vendors still struggle to find meaningful market share," IDC noted, pointing out that besides Samsung, "the rest of the vendors either saw single-digit market share or, in the case of the majority of vendors, market share of less than 1%." HTC, the Taiwanese company which was once the largest Android supplier in the US, recently announced its first quarterly loss, and is expected to break even during the current period by selling its shares in the Beats headphone company for $265m.
In some cases Android vendors are seeking diversification."Almost all successful Android vendors have added one or more 5-7-inch phablets to their product portfolios," said Ryan Reith, IDC's program director. "And Nokia’s recent announcement of the Lumia 1320 and 1520 put them in the category as well." Reith says that in the third quarter phablet shipments accounted for 21% of the smartphone market, up from just 3% a year ago - that is, 54.8m devices, compared to 5.6m a year ago.
"We believe the absence of a large-screen device may have contributed to Apple's inability to grow share in the third quarter," Reith added. Apple is rumoured to be working on a larger-screened phone for release in 2014, though the company has not commented on the reports.
Apple squeezed
While Apple increased the number of handsets it shipped to 30.3m, up 23.1% year-on-year, its share of worldwide sales including China fell to 12.1%, its lowest since the start of 2009. Excepting China, it was about 18%; the company does not disclose shipments of iPhones inside China.
Both Gartner and IDC expressed doubts about Apple's pricing of its colourful iPhone 5C product, which was launched at the same time as the high-end fingerprint-reading iPhone 5S.
With carriers complaining that there is little difference in the wholesale price of the 5S and 5C, many are preferring to focus sales on the 5S, which has a higher selling price to customers. Gartner commented that "the price difference between the iPhone 5c and 5s is not enough in mature markets, where prices are skewed by operator subsidies, to drive users away from the top of the line model. In emerging markets, the iPhone 4S will continue to be the volume driver at the low end as the lack of subsidy in most markets leaves the iPhone 5c too highly priced to help drive further penetration."
Nokia grows
Windows Phone saw success, particularly in low-end markets, as Nokia began to win buyers. Sales of handsets running Microsoft's software more than doubled, from 4m a year ago to 8.9m in the third quarter, Gartner said. Nokia's handset business - which Microsoft is preparing to take over early in 2014 - remains the largest vendor of the software. Gartner noted that "regional and Chinese Android device manufacturers continued to beat market demand, taking larger share and creating a tough competitive environment for Lumia devices." Even excluding China, the figure still leaves Windows Phone with only 5% of shipments three years after its launch.
(Reuters) - Apple (AAPL.O) squared off against Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) at a damages retrial on Wednesday, as the iPhone maker once again tries to secure a legal victory against its biggest mobile rival.
Apple attorney Harold McElhinny told jurors in a San Jose, California federal court that Samsung should pay $379.8 million for violating five patents on the iPhone. Samsung attorney William Price, meanwhile, said Samsung should only have to pay about $52.7 million.
Apple and Samsung are engaged in global litigation over each other's intellectual property. Last year, Apple was awarded over $1 billion after it convinced a jury that Samsung copied various iPhone features - like using your fingers to pinch and zoom on the screen - along with design touches like the phone's flat, black glass screen.
Last year's verdict was a high point in Apple's legal war on Google's Android operating system, which Samsung uses on its phones. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose then rejected Apple's request for a permanent ban on the sale of some Samsung products in the lucrative U.S. market. Apple has appealed that decision.
Then, in March, Koh ruled that the previous jury had made some errors in its calculations, impacting about $400 million of the verdict. She ordered a retrial of that portion of the original award.
In court on Wednesday, McElhinny said Samsung had sold about 10.7 million phones that infringe Apple's patents, generating $3.5 billion in revenue. Apple was entitled to be made "whole," he said in an opening statement.
Just a minute into his presentation, McElhinny invoked Apple's iconic founder, Steve Jobs, with a video of Jobs unveiling the iPhone back in 2007. McElhinny asked the six-woman, two-man jury to remember when the iPhone's signature features were brand new, and the business risk Apple had taken to develop the product.
"If Apple had invested all that time and money and product had not worked, it would have been a major blow," McElhinny said.
However, Samsung attorney William Price said $52 million is "not a trivial amount" for Samsung to pay. While Samsung violated some Apple patents, Price said, those ideas were not new. Apple should not be rewarded with a windfall damages award based on the 13 Samsung products at issue during trial.
"Apple is simply asking for much more money than it's entitled to," Price said.
The jury includes a pharmacist, a medical researcher at Stanford and a licensed therapist. The trial is expected to last about a week, with jury deliberations to follow.
The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Apple Inc vs. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, 11-1846.
