comScore today released a new U.S. smartphone manufacturer and platform market share report for the three month period ending in March. The data suggests that while the continued strength of iPhone 6 adoption has resulted in market share gains for Apple, Android is still the most popular smartphone platform in the United States.
During the measured period, comScore reports that 187.5 million people in the United States owned smartphones, which equates to 77 percent of the total population. Of that, Apple was the most popular OEM (original equipment manufacturer) with 42.6 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 1% from December), followed by Samsung with 28.3 percent market share (down 1% from December), and LG taking third place with 8.4 percent (up 0.4% from December).
If Google’s recent job listings for Google Glass has tempted you to consider a move to the US, data from the Office of Foreign Labor Certification may provide a guide to your chances. Applications for H-1B visas–those allowing overseas workers to accept job offers in the US–reveal that top tech companies like Google mostly sponsor the visas for five main roles, reports TechCrunch.
By examining the most common professions among H-1B applicants for Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, five consistent career paths emerged across each company. Software engineers, systems software engineers, financial analysts, computer systems analysts and marketing managers make up a large part of H-1B visa applications.
The salary data shows that the average salary paid to foreign workers employed in the USA by the five tech companies is highest at Facebook, at $135k, with Google second-placed at around $127k.
Update: A class action suit has now been funded by a major US law firm, allowing any qualifying UK user to join the action at no cost. You can complete a qualifying questionnaire here.
A not-for-profit company, Google Action Group Ltd, has been set up to manage the case which is seeking to win between £400 and £4000 in compensation for each claimant who used a . It has appointed Hausfeld, Europe’s leading claimant firm, to challenge Google on behalf of all those Apple users in England and Wales who used the Safari browser on Apple computers, iPod Touches, iPads, and iPhones during the infringing period of Summer 2011 to about 17th February 2012.
The Google Action Group is seeking more members of the public to sign up for the legal action. The public can join the action for free, because the costs will be met by a £2.5m pot of money being put up by a major US litigation funding firm.
UK Apple users have been given the go-ahead to sue Google for continuing to drop cookies on their devices even after they had refused permission through their Safari browser settings.
It was revealed in 2012 that Google bypassed the setting in Safari which instructed sites not to drop cookies, enabling it to deliver personalized ads. The FTC in the US fined the company $22.5M for the practice, with millions more in additional fines levied by 38 US states. There was no government action in the UK, but a group of British iPhone users took Google to court, seeking compensation for breaching their privacy.
Google had attempted to have the case dismissed, claiming that there was no case to answer as the plaintiffs had not suffered any financial harm, but the UK’s Court of Appeal has rejected this argument, allowing the case to proceed …
While Android Wear has not yet set the world alight, Google is not sitting idly by while Apple grabs all the media attention with its Apple Watch. The company has announced a deal with Tag Heuer and Intel to create a smartwatch version of one of the watchmaker’s best-selling models, the Carrera.
TAG Heuer, Google and Intel have announced a partnership to launch a Swiss smartwatch powered by Intel technology and Android Wear. The effort signifies a new era of collaboration between Swiss watchmakers and Silicon Valley, bringing together each company’s respective expertise in luxury watchmaking, software and hardware.
While the company did not go into details, Reuters reports that the watch “will be a digital replica of the original Tag Heuer black Carrera, known for its bulky, sporty allure, and will look like the original.”
Sincere or not, Tag Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver says that he welcomes the launch of the Apple Watch … Expand Expanding Close
Bloomberg is reporting that the Samsung Galaxy S6 will be released in two versions, one of them with a wraparound screen similar to the Note Edge but curving around both left and right sides of the display.
Samsung Electronics Co. plans to release two new versions of its top-tier Galaxy smartphone next month, including a model with a display covering three sides, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter […] The second model to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Spain will only have a front-facing display.
Earlier claimed renders had also suggested a curved screen, though with some confusion about whether the wraparound would be on only one side, like the Edge, or both sides as now claimed by Bloomberg … Expand Expanding Close
We noted 18 months ago that Android could be on track to ship a billion devices in 2014, tablets included, and Strategy Analytics has just revealed that the tablets weren’t needed: more than a billion Android smartphones were sold last year.
Android shipped 1.0 billion smartphones worldwide in 2014, rising from 0.8 billion units in 2013. Android has become the first ever smartphone operating system to ship more than 1 billion units in a single year. Android accounted for a huge 81 percent share of all smartphones shipped globally in 2014.
Putting the number at 1.0427B handsets, the research company said that emerging markets like China were key to the growth. The figures show that the Android smartphone market has doubled in size since 2012 … Expand Expanding Close
Android apps from the Google Play Store were 60% higher than those from the iOS App Store, reports mobile analytics firm App Annie in its 2014 retrospective. Total Android downloads will be higher when other app stores are figured in.
Recent data from AppFigures also showed that the Play Store now has more apps and more developers than iOS. iOS apps did, though, make more money, the data showing that Apple’s app downloads generated around 70% more revenue.
App Annie’s data, which is generated by analytics from more than 700,000 apps, showed that just three countries generated more app revenue than the rest of the world combined–the USA, Japan and Korea–while the so-called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, China and India) were not surprisingly the fastest-growing regions.
Chinese manufacturer Huawei has announced record-breaking results for 2014, with smartphone sales up 45% to 75 million and revenue up 30% to $12.2B. The numbers aren’t too great a surprise, as Reuterscame pretty close to calling them in a piece posted on New Year’s Eve.
The dramatic growth in sales could see Huawei threatening the rankings of both LG and Xiaomi in the next round of market share estimates after recently being knocked down into fifth place …
Asked at a tech conference to name his hero, Google exec chairman Eric Schmidt told interviewer Sal Khan (of Khan Academy) that the answer came immediately to mind.
For me, it’s easy: Steve Jobs […] When I look at what he achieved in terms of impact on society, we could all aspire to be a small percentage of Steve.
Speaking at the Commonwealth Club of California’s Silicon Valley event , Schmidt said that while the competition between Google and Apple had not always made things easy, it worked out because they shared a mutual respect. Jobs was, he said, an exceptional person, and they are always worth spending time with “because there’s a good chance they’ll change the world.”
Schmidt served on Apple’s board from 2006 to 2009, at which point he resigned due to increasing competition between the two companies.
The recessed Motorola logo was originally going to be a fingerprint sensor
The fingerprint reader widely rumored before the launch of the Nexus 6 was indeed part of the plan, confirmed former Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside. Speaking to the Telegraph, Woodside said that the dimple on the back of the handset was originally intended to be a fingerprint reader, but they were stymied by Apple’s purchase of biometrics company AuthenTec back in 2012.
Indeed, the 6-inch Nexus 6, he can now admit, was stymied by just one of those big players. A dimple on the back that helps users hold the device should, in fact, have been rather more sophisticated. “The secret behind that is that it was supposed to be fingerprint recognition, and Apple bought the best supplier. So the second best supplier was the only one available to everyone else in the industry and they weren’t there yet,” says Woodside.
It’s believed a fingerprint reader was included in internal prototypes, before it was abandoned. Woodside’s comments provide the explanation, Motorola originally intending to buy or license the sensor from AuthenTec. Motorola of course pioneered the smartphone fingerprint reader with the “Atrix” in 2012.
Google has started to block AdSense and Adwords accounts in Crimea, and Google Play services will cease on 1st February, reports TechCrunch. The moves are being made in order to comply with sanctions on the Crimea region of the Ukraine imposed by the US Government.
Free services, like search, maps and gmail are all expected to remain unaffected, but all services involving payment to or from Google will cease, said Russian site Lenta.ru.
“Google’s prohibited from providing paid services in the Crimea,” a source at Google told Lenta.ru. “In addition, Google cannot make payments to anyone in the Crimea. It is now technically impossible, as almost all international banks have ceased to make payments.”
The US joined the EU in imposing economic sanctions in protest at Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula, which legally remains part of the Ukraine. TechCrunch notes that the political conflict could escalate, with the possibility that Russian government may retaliate by blocking the sale of US imports into Russia–an important market for many US companies, including Google.
Apple terminated its own agreements with app developers in the region earlier this week, and has announced that all sales of Apple products and services will cease as of 1st February. Other companies are similarly ceasing business in the region, including both Steam and PayPal.
Two of the biggest tech companies in the world–Google and Apple–couldn’t be more different in their philosophies. Apple has always believed in doing a very few things very well, famously saying no to a thousand things for every time it says yes. Google, in contrast, has tried to do– well, almost everything, including things well in the realms of science fiction.
Steve Jobs and Larry Page spoke about this difference shortly before Jobs died, with the Apple co-founder urging Page to “figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up.” Jobs expressed the view that, without focus, Google was in danger of turning into the next Microsoft, creating a large number of ok products but none of them with any wow factor … Expand Expanding Close
Reuters has pre-empted Huawei’s financial results, due to be released next month, citing an internal memo showing a 40% year-on-year increase in smartphone sales, with divisional revenue up almost a third to $11.8B.
The division shipped about 75 million smartphones in 2014, according to the year-end memo to employees sent by Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s consumer business. Although that represented a more than 40 percent year-on-year increase, the figure lagged behind Huawei’s previously stated sales target of 80 million units.
While the company started life making low-end handsets, it later branched out into high-end smartphones, including the recently-announced Honor 6 Plus, closely modelled on Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus … Expand Expanding Close
Samsung is planning to launch its own mobile payment service next year, in competition to both Google Wallet and Apple Pay, reports Re/code. It suggests that the company is in talks with LoopPay, a startup which describes itself as “the most accepted mobile wallet on the planet.”
The technology would allow people with certain Samsung phones to pay in the vast majority of brick and mortar stores by waving their phones instead of swiping with a credit card or cash […]
The talks between Samsung and LoopPay come as the idea of paying for goods in stores using a phone was rekindled in the U.S. thanks to the launch of Apple Pay.
The plan would allow Samsung’s mobile payment service to work with all cards and all payment terminals right out of the box … Expand Expanding Close
Apple Pay may be grabbing all the mobile payment attention right now, but Google isn’t neglecting its iPhone-owning Google Wallet users. It’s just updated its iOS app to support Touch ID, add optimization for the iPhone 6/Plus and enable users to split bills between friends.
One thing it can’t yet do, however, is allow contactless payment on the iPhone. Apple is for now keeping access to the NFC chip on the phone all to itself, so Touch ID only logs you into the Google Wallet app.
Version 8.174.19 of Google Wallet also allows access to loyalty and gift cards while offline. The app is a free download from iTunes.
It was last month revealed that Google Wallet appears to be benefiting from the publicity generated by Apple for mobile payment solutions, the number of users doubling since Apple Pay was launched. The company also launched a ‘Buy with Google’ promotion offering discounts at 14 different retailers if you use their app and pay with Google Wallet.
Google’s diminutive and cheap Chromecast is making strong headway against its competitors according to a report today by Parks Associates. Priced at $35 but now going for just over $20, the dongle, which is controlled by Apps on iOS and Android devices rather than a traditional remote has passed the almost forgotten Apple TV and is closing in on the king of streamers, the Roku. Roku and AppleTV represented two thirds of the market last year but with entrants like Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV/Stick, the two dropped to around half the market.
The research finds Roku is still the leading brand with 29% of sales, but Google Chromecast (20%) has supplanted Apple TV (17%) in second place. New entrant Amazon Fire TV is in fourth place with 10%. Consumer content choices are also increasing, with Showtime and Sony planning to launch their own OTT video services to compete with Netflix and HBO.
“Nearly 50% of video content that U.S. consumers watch on a TV set is non-linear, up from 38% in 2010, and it is already the majority for people 18-44,” said Barbara Kraus, Director, Research, Parks Associates. “The market is changing rapidly to account for these new digital media habits. Roku now offers a streaming stick, and Amazon’s Fire TV streaming stick leaves Apple as the only top player without a stick product in the streaming media device category.”
Sticks are where it is at it would seem. Conversely, Google’s Nexus Player, introduced in October, has yet to make a blip but it might also show up in results next year.
The Nest Learning Thermostat remembers what temperatures you like, turns itself down when you’re away and can be controlled from your smartphone, tablet or laptop
Auto-Schedule creates a personalized schedule for your home by remembering when you adjust the temperature
Auto-Away automatically turns Nest thermostat down when there’s nobody home so you don’t waste energy heating or cooling an empty house
Remote control Nest thermostat over Wi-Fi from your smartphone, tablet or laptop
Energy History shows you how much energy you’ve used and what affects your energy use most
The Dropcam Wireless HD Video Monitoring Camera can be found for $99.99 with free shipping. That’s $50 below list and the lowest price we have ever seen on this cloud-based camera/recording system.
Google, according to a report out of Reuters, has agreed to settle all of its patent litigation with the Rockstar consortium, which consists of a variety of tech companies including Apple, Sony, BlackBerry and Microsoft. The Rockstar consortium paid $4.5 billion for Nortel Network Corporation’s huge patent portfolio in 2011, outbidding Google at the time. The Rockstar consortium originally sued Google and a handful of Android manufacturers in October of 2013, claiming that the companies infringed on seven Nortel patents.
Samsung has announced Flow, providing seamless transfer of content, work in progress and phone calls between different Samsung devices.
People today use multiple devices in their daily activities: phones, tablets, laptops, smart watches, TVs, and more. But the way we work is still device-centric. We still use one application, within one device, with data that is tied to that application and device.
Samsung Flow is a platform that enables developers to create seamless transitions across devices, so that people can change devices in the midst of an activity and continue right from where they left off.
Flow is compatible with anything that works with Android’s Share feature: if content can be shared with other apps, Flow can be used to to hand it off to other devices … Expand Expanding Close
Samsung has announced its own location-based alerts system, designed to allow businesses to send alerts to your smartphone. These highly-localized messages could range from offers on products in the section of the store you are in, to directions to your seat in a stadium or theater.
Xiaomi, the Chinese Android manufacturer which heavily bases its product designs and marketing on Apple products, is to invest $1B in the Chinese YouTube equivalent, Youku.
Xiaomi has long been aware of the importance of an integrated hardware-and-services offering, initially selling its smartphones at cost-price in order to build market share, relying on its app store to generate profits. A tie-in with a video service makes similar sense – smartphones and tablets providing an audience for video content, and video content driving demand for devices on which to view it – but the move is likely to be primarily driven by Xiaomi’s move into the smart TV market … Expand Expanding Close
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