Tag: android

Lenovo executive claims Samsung sold only 20,000 Galaxy Tabs

Samsung said at the end of 2010 that it had shipped 1m of its 7-inch Galaxy devices, which were seen as the first real Android competitors to Apple’s iPad. However, according to Barrow, Samsung only sold 20,000 of the tablets. Samsung had not returned a request for comment on Barrow’s claim by the time of publication.

A claim by Samsung’s Lee Young-hee earlier this year that the sales of the first Galaxy Tab Android tablet was “smooth” was apparently misheard as slow. If what Andrew Barrow of Lenovo said is true or close to the truth, slow and smooth apparently mean the same thing to Samsung. Also, how many people you know would describe sales performance as smooth?

Lenovo executive claims Samsung sold only 20,000 Galaxy Tabs

Apple claims Android has roots at Apple

Before you go all crazy and accuse me of fanboyism or Apple being ridiculous (or both), go read the piece from Florian Mueller. In one of Apple’s filing against HTC, it says that when Andy Rubin worked at Apple in the 90s, his superiors were the ones who came up with a patent that Rubin later used to create Android, which means he may have been a contributor to the patent that Apple owns. If the ITC judge holds up Apple’s argument, this clearly will not bode well for Android.

Rubin worked at Apple long before the iPhone – even long before the iPod. If Apple had just claimed without particularity that Android started at Apple, most people would dismiss such an allegation as complete nonsense. But Apple now asserts – in a filing with the ITC, which means Apple has a legal obligation to make truthful representations of fact – that Rubin’s superiors at Apple were the inventors of that realtime API patent and he worked for them at the very time they made that invention. He worked as a low-level engineer while the inventors were senior people. It’s possible that he then contributed to the implementation of the claimed invention.

Apple claims Android has roots at Apple

More and more tweets from iPhone or Android apps in my timeline. Last year almost all comes from Blackberry apps. Shift happens, RIM.

@rayafahreza

Nvidia CEO explains slow Honeycomb tablet sales

“It’s a point of sales problem. It’s an expertise problem. It’s a marketing problem to consumers. It’s a price point problem,“ he reportedly said, adding: "And it’s a software richness of content problem.” – Jen-Hsun Huang

Honeycomb tablets are chock full of problems. In the meantime, iPads continue to dominate tablet sales, mindshare, and discussions despite its lack of availability.

Nvidia CEO explains slow Honeycomb tablet sales

How Google’s Andy Rubin defines open. If that is indeed Andy Rubin’s Twitter account. For context, see this transcript of Steve Jobs’ tirade on Google and RIM from Apple’s Q4 financial conference call.

To Apple and Jobs, Android vs iOS isn’t about open vs closed it’s about fragmentation vs integration.

15june:

Developer showdown: Android/Google vs iOS/Apple

Apple takes 48% of smartphone industry profits

Apple may be shipping less than 5 percent of the world’s mobile phones and “only” 14 percent of worldwide smartphones but according to a research by Asymco, it managed to grab almost half of the entire industry’s profit share.

While Android fans are cheering the massive rise of their platform through multiple vendors and models, Apple quietly moves towards enlarging its bank account with what is essentially one phone.

HTC isn’t included since their numbers aren’t as comprehensively available as the other manufacturers’. 

Market share vs profit. Pick one.

Apple takes 48% of smartphone industry profits

About the lack of paid apps in the Android Market

You can buy Android apps from the Android Market in only 13 out of 46 countries and you can only develop paid apps in 9 countries.

Of course there are third party Android app stores but who knows about them? Do they advertise? Are they being promoted to potential Android buyers? How do operators fit in to this equation?

Google is an advertising company. Android’s existence is a vehicle to deliver ads in the mobile space. Having
a large library of universally accessible paid apps is counter to Google’s reason to have Android.

About the lack of paid apps in the Android Market

It’s time for the baked-in Android UI to die

This is why I’m not too fond of customized Android interface. Many phone manufacturers insist on having their own “optimized” interfaces according to their perceived need of their intended customers. This whole forcing people to use their custom interface meme flies in the face of the whole idea of openness that Google claims to champion. Or perhaps it’s open but from the vendor’s perspective, not the user’s.

It’s time for the baked-in Android UI to die

Google pulls apps too

Just as some people are up in arms about Apple pulling Camera+ from the App Store, the Cupertino company isn’t the only one with that prerogative. Google recently pulled EasyRoot from the Android Market because Verizon complained it allows Verizon Droid phones’ owners to circumvent Verizon’s hotspot policy even though it’s not a function of the app.

Rooting an Android phone is the same as jailbreaking an iOS device. It lets you access and enable functions not made available by the vendor. In Verizon’s case, rooting the Droids will let the owners share their phones’ internet connections via wifi freely, something that Verizon charges money for, despite the feature being standard on Android 2.2.

Just like Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Market has policies. Any app that violates those policies or receives complaints from significant enough parties will be removed. 

Google pulls apps too