Android accounts for half of all smartphone sales
by Leigh Goessl (Guest contributor/Digital Journalist)
The success of Android continues to grow, and according to third quarter data in 2011, its rise soared. New figures published by Gartner found more than half of all smartphone sales are running the Android OS platform.
Gartner reported global sales of mobile devices equated to 440.5 million units in the third quarter of 2011, which is an increase of 5.6 percent from the third quarter of 2010.
The organization said, “Non-smartphone devices performed well, driven by demand in emerging markets for low-cost devices from white-box manufacturers, and for dual-subscriber identity module (SIM) devices.”
Gartner also said, “Smartphone sales to end users reached 115 million units in the third quarter of 2011 [globally], up 42 percent from the third quarter of 2010.”Of those devices Android seems to currently be the clear market leader (60,490.4 units during 3Q 2011). Google’s OS has jumped to its current 52 percent market share, which is up from 25.3 percent of Android sales a year ago. This growth has come at the expense of competitors, all other platforms have declined in this market over the course of the last year.
Android is effectively “outstripping the growth of the overall smartphone market,” according to PaidContent.org. Bloomberg Business Week reported, “Android benefited from more mass-market offerings, a weaker competitive environment, and the lack of exciting new products on alternative operating systems,” Roberta Cozza, an analyst in Gartner’s European unit based in Egham, England, said in the report.
“The entry-level Android smartphones are getting better and better,” Cozza said. “This lower end is really what will be driving more growth next year.”
Microsoft’s Symbian saw a significant tumble in its command of the market, but remains in the number two place in terms of actual sales, however its market share saw a distinctive drop. While Apple’s iOS grew in actual units sold, their market share decreased. Last year the technology giant owned 16.6 percent for 3Q, but this year dropped slightly to 15 percent.
Research in Motion (RIM) also experienced a dip, losing four percent of its market share, despite the fact it sold an additional 200,000 devices when contrasted with last year’s 3Q.Growth of smartphones in the U.S., Western Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, has slowed, while China and Russia are seeing a significant boost, Gartner reported.
Experts say the slowdown can be partially due to economic uncertainty, but also could be attributed to the fact many consumers wait until the fourth quarter to purchase their devices during holiday promotions and/or as newer models become available towards the end of the year.
Last month Digital Journal reported Google TV updates coming that would integrate the Android interface.
This article originally appeared on Digital Journal [Link]
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Paul Jacobson
Facebook launches new dedicated messaging app for smartphones
By Chris Hogg
Facebook has announced a stand-alone mobile app called Messenger. The new app allows users to send messages to friends or groups of people, positioning the company to compete more directly with traditional email and group-messaging services.
Editor’s note: Scroll down to see screenshots of the app
Facebook Messenger launches today and apps will be available for iPhone or Android. The new app allows users to send messages to their friends on Facebook, or by SMS to mobile phones. Users can send messages to one person or a group of people and attach photos and location data along with their message.
Messenger works just like the existing Facebook Messages, only it will be a separate application on mobile phones. Facebook says a large portion of its users send messages from the company’s iPhone and Android apps, as well as from Facebook’s mobile website, so it saw an opportunity to pull out a feature that is widely used and launch it as a stand-alone entity.
How it works
Users launch the application and can type messages to friends, similar to sending an email or the way current messages work on Facebook. The app pulls your friends list from Facebook, and you can also add mobile phone numbers and send to people who are not on Facebook. The app is designed to function like an instant message service so messages can be sent quickly and easily to anyone.
When someone replies to the message, everyone else receives a copy of the reply. If your recipient is not on Facebook, you can provide a mobile number and the message will be delivered as a text message. The recipient is notified who else is in the conversation, and in the event a recipient wishes to opt out of a conversation, he or she can simply reply “mute” and Facebook will stop sending replies.
Launching a stand-alone app
While group messaging is not new to Facebook, the strategy of pulling out one feature and launching it as a stand-alone app is a step in a new direction for the company. Facebook says Messenger was built from the ground up by the same people who developed Beluga, a company Facebook acquired in March. Messenger incorporates a lot of the learning and features from that company.
“At the end of the day, messaging is different than any other part of the Facebook mobile experience,” Peter Deng, Director of Product, said in a phone interview. “It’s one of those things you need really quick access to. “Messages are sent instantaneously and the app feels really fast. We’ve removed a bunch of clicks and made it a separate application for speed.”
Deng says Messenger was born from looking at Facebook data and seeing how people use its applications. “An astounding amount of Facebook messages are sent via Facebook mobile right now,” said Deng. “It was surprising to us to see how many people use iPhone, Android and [our mobile site] to send messages.”
Web-mobile integration & features
The mobile experience is heavily embedded into the Web experience, so whenever a message is sent via Messenger, it’s also added to the user’s Facebook Messages inbox. This allows users to have a single copy of conversations no matter what device they use.
Facebook says Messenger gives users added functionality above what traditional text messaging offers, letting anyone opt-out of a conversation that isn’t of interest.
Deng says Messenger can be especially useful when you’re planning an event and you need to quickly put together a conversation with people who are attending, be it a ski trip, a bachelor party or dinner at a restaurant.”Mobile messaging has been one-to-one traditionally,” said Deng. “But now you can attach a location with a message that will only be visible to people you send message to.
“Location data is pulled from GPS so recipients can view a map and see your location.With the launch of a separate messaging app, there are questions around how it could impact usage within Facebook’s existing app, but Deng said the company is not concerned.
“We expect people to use the Facebook app exactly how they’re using it today,” said Deng. “It’s the same system in the Facebook app but the separate app has a few extra features. The conversation between you and friends will be accessible everywhere you go and we don’t expect too big of a change in usage in the Facebook app.”
Deng said the company will continue to watch how people use its applications and iterate as it gets more feedback about what its users’ needs are.
“Right now, we focused on sending and receiving quickly and keeping the user interface simple and minimal,” said Deng. “We as Facebook just want to get out of the way.”
Messenger will launch on iPhone and Android in Canada and the United States today. Apps will be made available in other geographies in the coming weeks.
Watch out for malware hidden in Android apps
As much as Google’s Android Market has been lauded for its near instantaneous approval of developers’ apps, it’s now taking flak for malware-infected apps popping up in the service. Google recently removed at least 10 applications from its Android Market because they all had malicious code disguised as add-ons to one of the most popular apps of all time.
The Angry Birds app, for instance, include “a spyware program called Plankton, which connects to a remote server and uploads phone information like the IMEI number, browser bookmarks and browsing history,” Wired reports.
Webroot analysts Andrew Brandt and Armando Orozco investigated Plankton and found how its file names could confuse users. “Some of the samples we looked at came as Android apps with names like Angry Birds Rio Unlocker v1.0, Angry Birds Multi User v1.00 or Angry Birds Cheater Trainer Helper V2.0,” they wrote in a blog post.
When you install the malware-infected apps, the following message appears: “Welcome! Simply click on the button below to unlock ALL levels in Angry Birds Rio. This will not delete your scores but might change the number of pineapples and bananas you have.”
The installed code then gives remote access to the malware creator, whose identity remains unknown.
The analysts said users should be smart about what they download. “Android users can protect themselves by using a little common sense when they download apps: Does the app sound like what it promises to do is too good to be true? Does it ask for all kinds of permissions that it shouldn’t need to fulfill its mission? Did you get it from the official Market or a legitimate app store such as Amazon, or from some random app collection?”
The malware found in these Android apps raise a troubling question for Google. Its Android Market wins praise for not having months-long waiting periods for apps to be available to users, unlike Apple’s App Store. “However, the Android Market’s app submission process comes at a cost. Google’s lack of vetting applications lends the Market to security vulnerabilities like these,” Wired writes. “Google mostly relies on a self-policing community…to spot offending apps, which means malware can sit in the market for months before someone spots it.”
Google has faced this problem before. In March, users reportedly downloaded as many as 200,000 of the free apps infected with malware before Google pulled them from the Market.
CNN’s new Android app lets citizen journalists file stories from tablets
At a press event designed to show off the new features of Google’s Android 3.0 OS, the world got to see various features of CNN’s new Android app. The app carries hundreds of stories, different categories, live video and interestingly, citizen journalism.
Here is a video demo courtesy of Venture Beat: