Android, Samsung hold off Apple in US mobile space

Google's Android system has grabbed more than 50 percent of the US smartphone market, while Samsung cemented its leadership as the top device maker, a survey showed Tuesday.

Even though Apple's hot iPhone is surging, it has not dented the lead of the Android system and the South Korean manufacturer, according to a quarterly survey from research firm comScore.
The Android system snagged 51 percent of the operating system market in the three months ending in March, up from 47.3 percent in the prior quarter, comScore said.
Apple's operating system had 30.7 percent of the market, up from 29.6 percent.
The biggest loser was BlackBerry, which saw its platform share fall to 12.3 percent from 16 percent. Microsoft's share also slipped to 3.9 percent from 4.7 percent and Symbian held steady at 1.4 percent.
The survey found more than 106 million people in the US owned smartphones during the three months ending in March, up nine percent from December.
Samsung remained the top maker of mobile devices including smartphones, with 26 percent of the US market, from 25.3 percent three months earlier. Second was fellow Korean LG with 19.3 percent, down 0.7 points, and Apple was third with 14.6 percent, up from 12.4 percent and overtaking Motorola.
A separate report earlier this year concluded worldwide shipments of smartphones soared 54.7 percent in the final three months of 2011 from the same period a year earlier, with Apple leading the space.
An IDC report found smartphone makers shipped 157.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Apple had a 23.5 percent share of the global smartphone market, followed by Samsung and Nokia with 22.8 percent and 12.4 percent respectively.
Android and iPhone smartphones accounted for slightly more than 90 percent of US smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2011, industry-tracker NPD Group reported earlier this year.

LG announces cloud services for Android smartphones

Following the footsteps of many, even LG has announced its cloud computing based services, called LG Cloud. Starting today onwards, this service enters in to the beta phase.
The LG Cloud aims to cater to the users for managing and consuming content on Android based smartphones, computers and Smart TVs. The Android based smartphone users will have to download the LG Cloud App from the Google Play or LG SmartWorld App Store.
Recently, it was reported that Samsung is set to launch its cloud computing centred service - S Cloud. This follows after Apple launched its iCloud service and Microsoft made its SkyDrive service official. While HTC had closely tied up with Dropbox, that left Samsung and LG to take a call.

The LG Cloud service basically involves storing your multimedia content in your dedicated LG Cloud account. The app on the Android phone automatically synchronises multimedia content with the user's LG Cloud account and makes it available on the PC and Smart TVs. All the photos taken with the smartphone can be viewed on PC or Smart TVs almost instantaneously.
Besides, users can also stream videos from their cloud account to the smartphone, PC or the TV with minimal wait time. The streaming doesn't involve downloading the file first. LG has used its Real-time Streaming Technology that makes the video conversion to take place on the LG's servers in real-time.
The users need not worry about installing any converters or third party apps to watch the videos. LG has formed a special division to take care of the Cloud services and related offerings.
LG Cloud service is currently in beta and accessible through - www.lgcloud.com and the Android app can be downloaded from Google Play Store.

Huawei announces Android ICS upgrade for MediaPad

Chinese mobile phone manufacturer, Huawei has announced the availability of Android ICS update for its MediaPad in India. There are a lot of new and cool things that the upgrade will bring to the tablet.
The new operating system is based on the stock Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 reference design and the appearance of the OS is pretty close to the stock Google Android 4.0 experience without many customisations. Along with users will get the new and improved camera application that can be accessed directly from the standby mode with the help of the unlock key or the slider button. Along with that users get the all new gallery application, a new people app, the ability to dismiss apps from the recently used menu, and a number of performance tweaks.
Android 4.0 is known for its better compatibility and performance and is certainly better than the stock Honeycomb operating system featured on the device till now.

The Huawei MediaPad features a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display, a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage, front and rear cameras, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS.
MediaPad owners can connect to the support website to download the update file amounting up to 340 MB of data download. Users will need to update the file in the SD card of the device to upgrade the device's software after downloading it form the link below.

Acer Iconia A500 tab gets Android 4.0 update

Acer has released the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for its Iconia A500 and A501 tablet. If you are an Acer Iconia A500 or Iconia A501 user, you can check for the availability of the update by tapping Menu > Settings > About tablet and then tap 'Check for update' to get Android 4.0.3.
Acer has also released an application to make the process of upgrade easier for the users. The app called 'ICONIA TAB Update Enhancement'can be downloaded from the Google Play app store (Android Market). This app is useful even after you get the update.
The app is meant only for Iconia A500 or A501 users and is required for the ICS upgrade. The app includes firmware updates and application refreshes.

In order to get the best out of your Iconia Tab, installed applications, and prevent system incompatibility, you must apply all application updates before upgrading the firmware. And this app is designed to help you do just that.

Wozniak Likes Windows Phone Better Than iOS, Android

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak reportedly just purchased the new Nokia Lumia 900 packed with Windows Phone 7.5 "Tango" and loves it. Even more, he seems to prefer the device over Apple's own iPhone 4S and Google's Android OS. It's the "bees knees."
During a recent interview, Wozniak laid down his four smartphones on the table -- two iPhone 4S phones, the Droid Razr, and the Lumia 900 -- and pointed to the Nokia Lumia 900 as his favorite, saying it was "no contest." It runs the fastest and most reliably out of the four, he said.
However just on "looks and beauty" alone, Wozniak says he still favors the Nokia phone over the iPhone 4S and Android devices, blown away by the Metro-style interface and how it transforms the typical sea of app icons into something fresh and new.
"I'm shocked, every screen is much more beautiful than the same apps on Android and iPhone," he told Dan Patterson and Gina Smith, the latter of which co-authored with Wozniak on Wozniak's biography.
Still, Apple's co-founder hasn't abandoned Team Apple, as he still prefers using the iPhone 4S over Windows Phone simply because iOS has a larger library of apps -- but that's seemingly it. He admitted that he will probably carry the Lumia 900 "almost everywhere," and there will probably be situations where the Lumia 900 will take precedence just because it's easier to use.
"The iPhone has a lot of beauty and simplicity, and you don't get lost as much in it [compared to Android]. But it is more awkward to use [than Windows Phone 7]," he admitted.
After the interview, Wozniak reaffirmed that iPhone is still his #1 platform, but then turned around and said that the Windows Phone 7 device has a superior visual appearance and operation cues that are also more attractive.
"In my opinion, it sets the mark for user interface," he said. "I would recommend it over my Android phones given that it doesn’t yet have the breadth of apps. I surmise that Microsoft hired someone from Apple and put money into having a role in the UI and appearance of some key apps. I also surmised that Steve Jobs might have been reincarnated at MS due to a lot of what I see and feel with this phone making me think of a lot of great Apple things."
News of Wozniak's love for the new Nokia phone is certainly great PR for a mobile OS that currently only commands a sliver of the mobile market. Just recently Microsoft started airing the new "Smartphone Beta Test" campaign featuring the Nokia Lumia 900, getting word out on the street that the stylish phone is the next step in smartphone evolution. Wozniak's enthusiasm seems to back up that promise.

Unofficial Nintendo game apps hide nasty ads in Android store

Gaming addicts with Android devices should be wary of supposed Android versions of Nintendo classic games like “The Legend of Zelda” from the Google Play store – they may hide nasty ads.

 

Computer security firm Sophos said one user who installed a “Legend of Zelda” game on his Android smartphone from the Google Play marketplace found aggressive ads on his notifications bar.

 

“Remember, of course, that Nintendo doesn’t create official versions of its popular Legend of Zelda games for any non-Nintendo platform. So anytime you see a Zelda game being hawked for the PC, Macintosh, Android or iOS system it’s almost certainly illegitimate,” it said in a blog post.

 

It added the offending app has since been removed by Google.

 

Sophos said that in this case, the app is an open source N64 emulator packaged with an old game ROM – and as such, “clearly represents theft of Nintendo’s intellectual property.”

 

Also, it said the app added two icons to the Android phone’s home screen, one claiming to be a shoot-the-terrorist game, and the other to something calling itself “Top Offers.”

 

But the icons are just shortcuts to web links, Sophos noted.

 

“Whoever is behind the application that installed the icons is hoping that Android users will click on them and to display advertising,” it said.

 

It noted six icons that the app could install onto users’ home screens, supposedly designed to represent YouTube, Game of the Day, iTunes, and assorted Nintendo characters.

 

“Whoever created the illegitimate Zelda app is probably hoping you are going to click on one of those icons,” it said.

 

Meanwhile, Sophos also noted similar apps such as “Counter Terrorism” app, which resides on the official Android Google Play market.

 

It claims to be a first-person shooter in the style of “Call of Duty” or “CounterStrike” but is also designed to install shortcuts using misleading icons onto the home screen – “and bug you with advertising from several different advertising frameworks (Google Ads, Leadbolt, Airpush, Mobox and Sellaring).”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with ad-supported apps, of course. That’s a legitimate business model. But there’s something very shady about taking the hard work of others (or indeed their intellectual property) and trying to make a quick buck out of it by installing irritating shortcuts and revenue-generating adverts,” it said.

 

Aside from games, Sophos said it found other Android apps that we found in the Google Play store, all seemingly up to the same shady practices.

 

“For instance, the MP3 Music Download Free app claims to use code from Ringdroid - an Android open source project designed to help you create your own ringtones, and alarm noises,” it said.

 

Another, Star Chart Free, claims to use the open source code of the StarDroid sky-mapping app.

 

There are genuine apps with similar names, and it appears that these dodgy icon-installing apps have been created purely to trick users into installing them, Sophos said.

 

Sophos said its products detect the apps as Andr/Adop-A.

 

“It can’t go without saying that it seems extremely unlikely that Apple would ever have allowed these apps to have entered its App Store for iPhones and iPads. Once again, the freedom offered by the Google Android market is being abused,” it said. — RSJ, GMA News

Google Originally Figured Android Tablets Would Own a Third of the Market in 2011

The search engines had some awesome high objectives for Operating system pills back truly.

According to a monthly Operating system review presented truly and discovered by The Brink, The search engines predicted to offer 10 thousand Operating system pills in 2011 and catch a 33 % business. This year, it predicted to offer another 10 thousand for a 22 % discuss.

At time, those might have seemed like reasonable reports, but history has proven them to be a tad over-optimistic. Speaking at our AsiaD conference last Oct, Google’s Andrew Rubin said there were a little more than six thousand Operating system pills in the wild then. That being a final number, it’s well short of the 10 thousand Operating system pills sold per year The search engines had expected for.

 

So in the end, The search engines never catch the 33 % discuss of the product industry to which it had aspired this year. And according to Gartner, it will not quite hit that level this year either, though it will exceed the 22 % discuss first estimated. This year, the research house desires Operating system pills to account for 31.9 % of the industry – though which is such as Amazon’s Amazon ereader Flame, which operates a forked edition of the OS.