Was searching on Google when it spewed that first notice and upon posting the screenshot to Tumblr, this happened.
Tag: Tech
Boom. Samsung to merge Tizen with bada
Elizabeth Woyke for Forbes:
Bada/Tizen could eventually power a lot of Samsung products, but the transition will take time. Kang said Tizen will probably find its way to “at least one to two” Samsung devices this year. ”Tizen will not become Samsung’s main operating platform anytime soon,” he added.
“anytime soon” in the mobile world means within a year. In two years, who knows. Five years is an eternity, just ask Nokia and RIM.
Singapore Looking to Sell Camera-less iPhone 4S
Who would want to buy them? Apparently Singapore’s national servicemen. The military has guidelines regarding electronic devices and that includes the restriction on camera-equipped gadgets. Seems that it is often the case that military personnel would use one phone for personal use and another during active duty.
Taking out the camera from the iPhone clearly is an unsanctioned modification and as it happens, will void the warranty although it is likely that the telcos who modify the phone may be required to foot the bill on service requests, depending on how Singapore’s consumer protection laws work.
Since the camera is one of the iPhone’s most significant highlight, it makes no sense why anyone would want to buy a camera-less iPhone regardless of military regulation. If anything, these servicemen who may already have an iPhone since half the country apparently does already, or those looking to buy one, could just buy another phone that has no camera.
There are plenty of camera-less phone in the market and it would be much less costly than having to buy two iPhones or even just one “blind” iPhone. With a two year contract, the 64GB model supposedly will go for S$900 (US$700). A basic phone would fetch for S$50-$70 and switching SIM cards between the phones, if you don’t want to keep two numbers, isn’t that complicated.
This reminds me of the tall tale of the NASA pen, which, although humorous, was mostly false.
Nokia’s Lumia 800 vs N9
Posting it here since I seem to be referring to this chart quite often. Will update it with the Lumia 900 as soon as more details are available.
Android fans wouldn’t understand this reasoning
M.G. Siegler
I hate Android for the same reason that Severus Snape hates Harry Potter — the very sight reminds me of something so beautiful, that was taken from me. Except it’s worse. It’s as if Harry Potter has grown up to become Voldemort.
Samsung could show off Tizen-based phone at MWC in February
I can’t believe I forgot about Tizen, the MeeGo offshoot that Intel and Samsung had been working on since September after Nokia practically abandoned MeeGo to join the Windows phone camp. This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about in my earlier blog post.
Looks like Tizen is far enough in its development that Samsung is said to be ready to show it at Mobile World Congress next month in Barcelona.
Given that Samsung has been delivering phones that have become hits among consumers, it’s only a matter of convincing them that these Tizen phones are as good if not better than its Android offerings.
Though Tizen right now looks like a poor copy of Android, things could change between now and launch time.
An important factor in delivering a mobile platform is the support of third party developers working on the most important apps for consumers. Right now, apps and web services are still the primary draw cards for smartphone platforms and if Samsung can convince developers to create the right apps for Tizen, consumers could be ready to pick up.
It’s never the number of apps available on a platform but which apps, games, and services are available. At the moment, social network services as well as photography apps are the major draw cards to smartphones in addition to productivity and games.
Put the right apps and payment system in a platform’s application store, and consumers will be tempted. Of course, this is if the phones and the operating system themselves are solid enough. Nokia’s N9 with MeeGo and Microsoft’s Windows Phone have the hardware and operating systems all set but neither have managed to convince developers of the most persuasive apps and web services to adopt their respective platforms.
Not having killer apps would kill a platform. All platform vendors know this and it’s something they have to deliver to ensure consumer adoption.
Why Android Tablets Failed
Jason Hiner for Tech Republic:
If we look at actually tablet usage, the numbers get really ugly for Android. Recent reports (like this one from ComScore) that track web traffic from tablets show that the iPad accounts for 95% of tablet traffic in the U.S. and 88% globally. That means that either Android tablet sales to paying customers are much lower than previously reported or the people who buy Android tablets aren’t using them very much, or a combination of the two. Whatever the details are, it’s an ugly scenario that means Android tablets have almost no traction in the market.
Samsung could be a threat to Google
Today’s Monday Note by Jean Louis Gassée sparked an interesting thought and possibility that Samsung is gaining a serious upper hand in the Android world and could use it as leverage against Google. Now why would Samsung do that?
At this point, Samsung probably wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the relationship with Google, after all, it’s selling tons of Android phones across the world and has become the number one smartphone maker on the planet because of it. Samsung owes a lot of that to Google.
On the other hand, it’s exactly this position that may allow Samsung to put pressure on Google. Samsung is large enough to dwarf its closest competitors and enough of an influence to pull off two of the three Nexus phones, the pinnacle and showcase of Android.
HTC and Motorola are the next largest Android manufacturers yet their sales are nowhere near Samsung’s and in fact have been cannibalized by its Korean competitor. The two companies are suffering.
Erik Sherman at CBS MoneyWatch puts Samsung’s share of Android phones at 55%. Given that it’s an estimation, it’s likely to be off by a bit but still an impressive ballpark figure. Since Samsung no longer officially announces its sales figures for mobile devices, it’s difficult to ascertain just how much of a lead precisely it has over its competitors both inside and outside of the Android ecosystem.
Android is still Samsung’s bread and butter as far as smartphones go, but it also has bada, its own mobile operating system and also Windows Phone to fall back on in case things go sour and you may never know what could happen in this industry. Look at Palm, Apple, RIM, Nokia. In the last five years, the mobile industry has changed so much.
Seeing what Amazon managed to do with Android along with a number of Chinese manufacturers, it’s not out of the question that Samsung could consider forking and maintaining its own version of Android away from Google, thereby creating its own ecosystem.
Why would it want to do that? Control. Google is beginning to assert a level of control that it previously did not require. Ice Cream Sandwich, the fourth iteration of Android, will require partners to include the default Holo theme as an option or risk losing Android Market access.
This may not sound like a big deal at first but it could ruffle some feathers at Samsung, HTC, and other Android companies. The very reason they came up with their own display themes is to differentiate themselves from the competitors and now Google wants conformity (albeit as an option) across the board and it is willing to punish partners for not abiding. After this, what else would Google do to assert control? That’s the question likely going around at the headquarters of those companies.
Google may not want to follow up further than this though, seeing that Microsoft hasn’t been successful going with this very strategy of requiring near-uniform features on its Windows Phone handhelds but it also has market challenges elsewhere. In fact, Microsoft is looking like it will rely mostly on Nokia to push its mobile platform ahead of its other partners.
However, if Samsung were to go by this route, it could face consumer backlash if it fails to execute it properly. An Android variant by Samsung would initially have to be compatible with Android Market apps, just like the Amazon’s Kindle Fire but it may decide to move its entire platform towards its own marketplace. It already has Samsung Apps as a repository for Samsung-exclusive apps and ChatOn could be step one towards establishing its own ecosystem.
At the moment, the smartphone market is run by four major operating systems; Symbian, Android, iOS, and BlackBerry. Windows Phone is still in its infancy and unlikely to make a significant enough move by itself in the next 12 months to break into the top 3. In three years though, who knows.
There’s no way Samsung would pull this off in the next 12 months but I’d be surprised if they’re not working on something that could significantly reduce their reliance on external parties.
Google looks like it needs to pull off its acquisition with Motorola Mobility more than most people think and somehow get people to buy Android phones from Motorola instead of others.
Google may be buying Motorola Mobility for its patent portfolio and is vowing to operate the company independently but down the road, it may be the most important play it makes for its Android platform if it can execute it well.
With “Open” Arms
Chris Ziegler of The Verge was finally able to clarify (via a source, presumably within Google) what Google means exactly when they give Android activation numbers. Essentially, it’s when you activate Google services on the device.
In other words, Kindle Fire, Nook, etc, don’t count as Android devices by this metric. Seems a bit odd, no? Android is an open ecosystem, but Google only counts you if use their services.
Sure, you can argue that Google has no way of knowing the numbers for those other Android devices, but they could at least acknowledge them. It’s weird that they don’t given the millions of units this would add overall ecosystem bottom line.
On the other hand, Google probably doesn’t like what players like Amazon are doing by forking Android. You usually don’t give your enemy a pat on the back.
It has been almost a month since Steve Jobs officially stepped down as CEO of Apple. Today the stock is literally off-the-charts at a new all-time high.
Apple’s market cap is now nearly $25 billion larger than Exxon’s, the second most-valuable public company in the world. Apple’s market cap will soon surpass $400 billion.
The iPhone 5 hasn’t even been announced yet.
AuliaSays 