Android Operating System

Android Sees Substantial Growth Through January 2010

According to recent stats released from comScore Google’s Android jumped 4.3% in popularity from October 2009 through January 2010.

RIM is still the leader with a 43% market share, a 1.7% increase from October of 2009. Apple has gained 0.3% moving up from 24.8% to 25.1%. The bigger winner in comScore’s latest market share report is Google’s Android OS which jumped 4.3% from 2.8% to 7.1%.

Both Palm and Microsoft saw their numbers decline. Palm is down 2.1% from 7.8% to 5.7%. Microsoft dropped 4 percentage points from 19.7% to 15.7% market share.

comScore Reports January 2010 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

[via: comScore]

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Is Fragmentation Going to Kill Google’s Android?

Is Android Truly Fragmented?

A lot of people are talking about fragmentation and how it’s going to be the downfall of Google’s Android Operating System.  I was beginning to buy into this mindset until it hit me on a recent trip home to Laguna Beach why that’s not true.

While I was back in the OC a friend asked me to help them set up their iPod (yeah, they’re tech challenged), so I jumped on their extremely outdated Dell running Windows 2000 Professional.  First I had to search for a compatible version of iTunes, after an exhaustive search I installed iTunes 7.something and hooked up their iPod.  Doh!  Their iPod needs iTunes 8 or higher in order to do its thing.  Guess what?   iTunes 8 isn’t compatible with their outdated version of Windows.  After 3 days of installing updates that dated back to when Jesus was a child I gave up, there’s nothing more frustrating than trying to update a rickety old slow as molasses Windows system.  I told them they had two choices either buy an updated version of Windows or invest in a new machine, preferably a Mac!

This experience got me thinking what is it about Google’s Android that’s fragmented?

Read more…

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Sales of Android Phones Jump 3.5% in 2009

Smartphones based on the Google Android Operating System saw growth last year, increasing their market share in 2009 by 3.5 percentage points. Sales of Android phones should continue to surge, though confusion over Google’s presence in the market could put a damper on growth, according to Gartner.

Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner said:

“Android’s success experienced in the fourth quarter of 2009 should continue into 2010 as more manufacturers launch Android products, but some CSPs (communications service providers) and manufacturers have expressed growing concern about Google’s intentions in the mobile market.”  ”If such concerns cause manufacturers to change their product strategies or CSPs to change which devices they stock, this might hinder Android’s growth in 2010.”

Read more…

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Android Powered AutoLinQ for Your Car

Continental will be offering a system that will bring Google’s Android OS into your car’s head units. The system, AutoLinQ, is obviously powered by Google’s Android, and is part of a new connected services platform that car makers can choose to install in their vehicles. Thanks to it being powered by Android, the head units will be able to download existing Android applications.

Continental is also planning to release an AutoLinQ SDK in the first quarter of 2010 with a specific app store in the 2nd half of the year. With all this tech wizardry in your car, you’ll be able to remotely connect to your car via a mobile phone or PC and check the status or location of your vehicle. Continental has also teamed up with Navteq to come up with map, traffic and location applications, and it seems that location-based social networking is also on the horizon.

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Google’s Android to Hit 68 Million by 2013

Google Inc.’s Android software will be the fastest growing operating system between now and 2013, when it will become the second most popular mobile OS, according to IDC.  The IDC projection nearly mirrors recent findings by Gartner Inc., which predicted that the Android OS will hit the second spot behind Nokia’s Symbian in 2012.

Will we all be dancing The Robot in 2013? Read more…

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Should I Install a Task Manager/Killer on My Android Device?

We are asked this question several times daily, the short to the point answer, No.  However, that’s not usually good enough because readers visit other forums and read other tech sites where the uniformed recommend the installation of Task Killer/Manager applications.  We’re going to try to explain in simple terms why the use of these programs may be doing more harm than good.

The quoted text is from the Android Developers site, I’ll be explaining the bold statements: Read more…

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Android Knocks RIM To Number Three

According to new data from ChangeWave Research, both usage and consumer sentiment towards Google’s Android operating system has increased over the past several months. As of December 2009, the research firm’s survey shows that 4% of all smartphone owners now use a phone running some version of the Android OS. That’s an increase of 200% since the previous survey released in September. Read more…

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Forget the Flan Bring Me the FroYo

Erick Tseng Google’s senior product manager for Android let the cat out of the bag regarding the name of the next version of Google’s Android Operating System.

Speculation around the web had everyone believing that next generation of the growing OS would be called Flan. It was a logical conclusion based on the previous pastry names Donut, Cupcake, and Eclair. Google being Google decided to throw us another tasty treat naming the latest iteration of Android “Froyo” as in Frozen Yogurt.

This was revealed during the Engadget Show and although they pushed for more information, that was about all Erick said about the next release. No word if it would be Android 2.5 or 3.0 or anything like that. Also, no word on the new features we can expect, hopefully this next build will be usable by all devices, such as the myTouch 3Gs and Droids out there. One thing is almost certain you can bet it will run on the Nexus One.

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iPhone Touchscreen More Accurate than Android

The Apple iPhone beats its Android competitors when it comes to tracking and accuracy on its touchscreen, according to a new study.

According to analysis by MOTO Development Group, the iPhone has better integration of software and screen than the Motorola Droid, Google Nexus One or HTC Droid Eris.

In a test, MOTO conducted a line touch test on each handset — seeing how smooth and straight lines are when drawn slowly with a finger.

MOTO writes:

“Why do you need to draw slowly? On a good touchscreen, users can draw clean straight lines, even while going very slowly, so the graphics that appear on screen accurately represent what was physically drawn.

On inferior touchscreens, it’s basically impossible to draw straight lines. Instead, the lines look jagged or zig-zag, no matter how slowly you go, because the sensor size is too big, the touch-sampling rate is too low, and/or the algorithms that convert gestures into images are too non-linear to faithfully represent user inputs.”

According to the results, the iPhone was the best of the bunch, both with light pressure and moderate pressure. All three Android phones showed hints of poor finger tracking, MOTO found this to be less evident with more pressure.

The iPhone did have one major drawback, however: sensitivity fell off near the edges of its screen, especially along the bottom edge. In the edge test, the Nexus One was king, with the Droid Eris a close second.

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Encrypted App Storage on SD Card Coming to Android

Andy Rubin revealed something that’s sure to be a relief for Android users and developers alike: you’ll eventually be able to store a vast number of applications on your phone, even large ones the same way you can on an iPhone. The change will come with a future software update, when Android begins storing applications as encrypted files on the SD card. Rubin didn’t say how long it will be until we see the update, but it’s clear that the team is working to resolve the problem.

Up until now, developers have been hampered by the fact that every Android phone to date has had a relatively small amount of storage available for applications (a couple hundred megabytes as opposed to the iPhone’s many gigabytes). Apps are stored in the phone’s ROM rather than the phone’s removable (and cheaper) SD storage, which grants developers enhanced protection against piracy. It’s also a proven handicap.

Many of the iPhone’s most popular applications are graphics intensive, rich games. But these games often require high quality visual assets to go with them. The iPhone handles these fine, you can download massive apps over Wi-Fi or through iTunes sync. On the other hand, while the newest Android phones are certainly capable of rendering high quality graphics, their ability to handle large apps is limited by the phone’s available storage. Yes, developers can choose to download their app’s assets to the SD card after the initial install, but this isn’t a good experience for the end user.

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