Google announced a special edition Galaxy S4 smartphone running stock Android at its I/O Developers Conference last week. The device will be sold directly through Google Play for $649 in June and won’t run Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface. There was some speculation that other manufacturers may also release a “Google Edition” variant of their flagship devices. Although HTC confirmed that it has no plans for a stock HTC One, a well-connected developer and HTC insider reports otherwise. Twitter user “LlabTooFeR,” who has gotten accurate scoops on HTC in the past, said this week that he knows “for a fact” that a “Senseless” HTC One will be released at the end of the summer. HTC’s flagship smartphone has been praised for its metal design and front facing speakers, however some critics have argued that the company’s Sense user interface is holding the device back. The HTC One is equipped with a 4.7-inch 1080p full HD display, a 1.7Ghz Snapdragon 600 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 4.3-ultrapixel rear camera.
In one point in time, Nokia was the top-selling smartphone vendor in the world by a wide margin. It wasn’t even that long ago, in fact. But when Nokia failed to respond quickly enough to the industry’s shift toward touch, the Finnish giant lost its footing and toppled spectacularly. Just how bad have things gotten for Nokia? Market share numbers paint a pretty frightening picture, but a single tweet from Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis might do an even better job of putting things in perspective. More →
Earlier this week, BlackBerry announced the arrival of BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS. A new report suggests that the messaging service will have some limitations, however. According to TrustedReviews, BBM will not be available for the iPad or for Android tablets at launch. Vivek Bhardwaj, head of the BlackBerry software portfolio, reportedly told the website that BBM will be limited to iPhones running iOS 6 or higher and Android smartphones. More →
Millenial Media, a leading mobile advertising platform, is out with another Mobile Mix report. It shows Amazon’s tablets gaining share in the mobile content market at a fairly dizzying clip. The Mobile Mix report is based on billions of monthly ad impressions and it offers an interesting glimpse of emerging trends in mobile content consumption. Perhaps the biggest bombshell is that Amazon is now hogging 28% of ad impressions served to Android tablets; just marginally behind Samsung’s tablets that get a 35% share. No other Android vendor has achieved double digits. The cheapo Kindle tablet strategy has helped Amazon to already vault to the top tier of the U.S. tablet market when it comes to content consumption. More →
The first day of Google’s I/O Developers Conference keynote has come and gone without a single mention of a potential update to the company’s Android operating system. Despite a number of rumors that suggested Google would announce a new version of Android at the annual event, the company remained quiet on the issue. According to a press release from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, however, a new version of Android will be announced in the ”in the coming months.” The group announced on Wednesday that Google has committed to bringing support for Bluetooth Smart to future versions of the operating system. The power efficient Bluetooth standard is already supported in Apple’s iOS, as well as in a number of Android smartphones such as the Nexus 4, Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note II. Bluetooth SIG notes that the newest version of Android, rumored to be Android 4.3, will be the first version to support Bluetooth Smart.
Microsoft and BlackBerry are fighting to become viable alternatives in the mobile market, and while Android and iOS accounted for a majority of smartphone shipments in the first quarter, Windows Phone made some significant moves that propelled it ahead of BlackBerry. Research firm IDC found that Windows Phone shipped 7 million smartphones, accounting for 3.2% of all shipments in the first quarter of 2013, more than double the year-ago quarter. Microsoft was able to overtake BlackBerry, which despite its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, saw smartphone shipments decline from 9.7 million units to 6.3 million units, accounting for 2.9% of global channel sales. More →
Google made a splash at its I/O Developers Conference on Wednesday when it announced a special edition Galaxy S4 smartphone. The device will be sold directly through Google’s Play Store for $649 and runs a stock version of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, rather than Samsung’s TouchWhiz user interface. Unfortunately it would appear other manufacturers will not be following Samsung and Google’s lead. HTC confirmed in a statement to TechnoBuffalo that it has no plans to offer its popular all-metal One smartphone with a stock version of Android. The company does offer an unlocked developer edition of the HTC One on its website, however that model still runs the company’s Sense user interface.
HP on Wednesday announced the Android-powered SlateBook x2 and the Windows-powered Split x2. The SlateBook x2 is equipped with a 10.1-inch 1920 x 1200-pixel display and a new 1.8GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor. The tablet also features 2GB of RAM, up to 64GB of internal storage, a rear-camera capable of 1080p video recording, an SD card slot, HDMI-out, a USB port and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. More →
Google on Wednesday at its annual I/O Developers Conference in San Francisco announced Google Play game services. As earlier rumors suggested, the gaming suite is similar to Apple’s Game Center and allows developers to add support for leaderboards, achievements, matchmaking and the ability to save game data to the cloud. Early partners include developers such as Gameloft, Glu, Ironhide Games and Miniclip. Google Play game services is cross-platform and can be integrated into applications on Android 2.2 or higher, as well as iOS and web apps. More →
Google’s annual Google I/O conference is the biggest event of the year for Android and the rest of Google’s always expanding product portfolio. Google’s keynote at this year’s I/O is set to be an absolute beast, with three straight hours of announcements and demos set to kick off at 12:00 p.m. EDT, 9:00 a.m. PDT. The next-generation Nexus 7 is expected to be among the stars of the keynote, as is a new version of Android and maybe even Google’s X Phone. What else does Google have in store for us? Live streaming video of the Google I/O keynote can be viewed below, and all of our I/O coverage can be found on this page. More →
Google plans to unveil Android 4.3, an updated version of its popular mobile operating system, at the Google I/O conference on Wednesday. The news won’t come as much of a surprise to those who follow the mobile industry closely, since rumors to that effect have been swirling for weeks. Android 4.3 is now confirmed, however, as a Google search result discovered by Verge references the new Android build in a page that will soon go live on the Android developer website. Google’s I/O keynote is scheduled to begin at 12:00 p.m. EDT, and BGR will be bringing you all the news as it breaks. A screenshot of the Google search result mentioning Android 4.3 follows below. More →
Want to know why Google is nervous about Samsung’s dominance of the Android ecosystem? Look no further than new research from Strategy Analytics showing that the company accounted for 95% of all Android operating profits in the first quarter of 2013. The research firm says that this is a record high for Samsung and shows that rival Android manufacturers are increasingly finding it difficult to make any money off the platform. Although Strategy Analytics’ new research is certainly striking, it isn’t all that surprising given that other data has shown that Apple and Samsung together account for all the smartphone industry’s profits while all other smartphone vendors find themselves lucky to simply escape the red in any given quarter.
