Mobile trends 2016

In year 2016 it will be sold over 1.4 billion smart phones. Mobile is the new central ecosystem of tech. The smartphone is the single most important product, which will determine the development of the semiconductor market. Smart phone centre of innovation and investment in hardware, software and company creation. The smart phone market is huge. Today, there are well over 2bn smartphones in use, and there are between 3.5 and 4.5bn people with a mobile phone of some kind, out of only a little over 5bn adults on earth. With billions of people buying a device every two years, on average, the phone business dwarfs the PC business, which has an install base of 1.5-1.6bn devices replaced every 4-5 years

Smart phone market is no longer fast gowing market. Expect single-digit worldwide smartphone growth in 2016. According to a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC ) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker , 2015 will be the first full year of single-digit worldwide smartphone growth. IDC predicts worldwide smartphone shipments will grow 9.8% in 2015 to a total of 1.43 billion units. The main driver has been and will continue to be the success of low-cost smartphones in emerging markets. China has been the focal point of the smartphone market – now China has largely become a replacement market and there is economic slowdown in China.

Apple & Google both won, but it’s complicated – both Apple and Google won, in different ways. Android won the handset market outside of Apple, but it’s not quite clear what that meansMicrosoft missed the shift to the new platform so Windows Mobile is on life support.

We will continue to see a globalization of the mobile landscape in 2016, as new China brands shake up the smartphone markets with new designs and business models. Expect continuing growth from China brands like Xiaomi, Lenovo and Huawei. Huawei says it sent in 2015 to more than 100 million smartphones and its now firmly among the world’s three largest suppliers. Samsung is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, but it looks that it’s production volumes are shrinking because of cheaper Android phones coming from China.

Last year’s CES had a conspicuous lack of killer smartphones, and O’Donnell expects this year to be very challenging for handset vendors – Apple included. It is getting really hard to differentiate from a phone perspective. In the smartphone market changes happen slowly, and for the challengers it is difficult to penetrate the market.

Apple’s position in smart phones is not currently a threat really none. The volumes of the iPhone does not come close to the Android camp in the unit sales figures, but it is clearly not Apple’s target at all – it targets to high-end phones. Apple made record sales in 2015 holiday season, but it is possible that Apple is going to have a tough year in 2016. Some Wall Street analysts predict an end of iPhone sales growth, shrinking iPad sales, and a tough year ahead for Apple. The high cost and the markets getting full are met weigh the Apple iPhone phone sales.Wall Street expects iPhone sales for the fiscal year ending in September will barely budge — and might even decline — from last year. That would be the worst year for iPhone sales since the device was introduced in 2007.  If realized, the forecast significantly affect Apple’s value. Despite recent reports of cuts by iPhone suppliers, Apple remains most profitable company in S&P 500. Fortunately for Apple, most of its smartphone competitors are struggling.

 

Microsoft got the third mobile ecosystem market position, but it’s market share is pretty low: Microsoft’s market share was only 1.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2015. It is very possible that Microsoft will cut Lumia production significantly in 2016. Microsoft’s long-rumored Surface Phone is coming in the second half of next year, reports Windows Central. Windows 10 phones are not dead yet even from other manufacturers as Acer, Alcatel OneTouch just made some new ones. The key feature in the Jade Primo is support for Microsoft’s Continuum feature, allowing you to use the phone like a PC when connected to a larger display – though limited to apps that run on the device’s ARM processor. The idea, claims Acer, is that you can leave your laptop at home, but what’s the demand for PC phones? It is hard to get winning much traction in a market dominated by Android.

Microsoft says the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade will begin early 2016  to select existing Windows 8 and 8.1 phones. Microsoft could not update the smart phones in 2015 despite the fact that the operating system had originally been set to launch alongside the desktop version of the software in July. Microsoft has had a longstanding “chicken and egg” problem: Too few people have Windows phones for developers to care about making apps for the platform, and customers don’t want to buy Windows phones because they don’t have enough apps. Microsoft tries to help his problem With Windows 10, apps that developers write for the PC will also work on Microsoft’s phones. It could have some positive effect, but is no silver bullet.  Microsoft’s biggest problem: The 10 most-used apps of the year in the U.S. were all made by three companies — Facebook, Google, and Apple.

It’s only been 15 years since the first camera phone came out. Today smartphones are giving consumers enhanced photo and video capabilities with 8-16 megapixel class. Smartphone cameras are great, or at least close enough to great that you don’t notice the difference. We’ve reached the point where you’ve got to work pretty hard to find a phone with a mediocre camera. Compared to a DSLR, smart phone cameras are lousy because they use tiny sensors, but still the camera in your pocket is crazy good considering the limitations manufacturers work under. The vast majority of top-tier smartphones use Sony sensors for their main cameras. The molded plastic lens elements in many cameras have reached the point where they’re essentially perfect.

For new smart phone camera technologies you could see array of lenses to enable Lytro-like refocusing, create 3-D depth maps, and improve image quality in low light. Some manufacturers are also exploring new areas, such as 3D cameras, massive megapixels (80MB), cameras that can take 360 degree panoramic images and video and cameras that can shoot 1,000 frames a second. 4K Ultra HD for mobile is another move to watch in 2016 as it becomes more common feature. Smartphones have decimated the point-and-shoot camera segment.

Smart phones are increasingly used to shoot videos. Smart phones are already deployed in many newsrooms for mobile journalism video shooting as it is easier (and cheaper) to learn how to film and edit on your phone than it is to use a big camera.(check for example step-by-step guide to shooting iPhone video). Live streaming video from smart phone becomes mainstream. Periscope was one of the first apps to really make live streaming events simple and easy enough that people wanted to do it. Many other apps are following the trend. Facebook begins testing live video streaming for all users.

Smart phones have  already replaced many separate technical gadgets already, and this trend will continue. Smartphone have increased screen sizes and have finally become mobile TVs: Smartphones have overtaken the tablets as the most popular mobile device for viewing videosThe most watched content were targeted at teenagers videos and animation series for children.

Mobile display will be more accurate than eye in 2016 in high-end smart phones. Few enjoys a 4K-quality image even in his living room, but by the end of 2016, the same accuracy can be your smartphone. ETSI is preparing for development at ETSI CCM working group (Compound Content Management). Scalable 4K signal requires a very high dynamics (HDR, high dynamic range), as well as the WCG wider color space (Coloc Wider gamut). Such HDR / WCG techniques has only slowly been add to TV broadcasting. One can of course ask whether UltraHD- or 4K image are planting a cell phone make any sense, but they are coming (Sharp already announced that it would launch 4K-level mobile phone).

So device manufacturers need to support user expectations for downloading larger files for apps, movies, photos, videos and other materials, more frequently and more quickly. Networking speed is an area where we will see companies start to push the envelope in 2016, such as new creative strategies for caching, spectrum hopping and managing the Internet of Things.

The quality of LTE modem can make or break your smart phone product. Smartphones consist of two main components: Modems and application processors. Application processor performances of several smartphone brands are widely published, but LTE modem performance measures are much more difficult for the average purchaser to assess. Consumers have generally ignored the importance of connectivity in smartphone purchases, but device performance and positive user experiences are driven by best-in-class connectivityThere are 5 LTE smartphone modem chip makers currently shipping in mobile devices and besides U.S.-based Qualcomm, they include: HiSilicon (China), Intel (U.S.), Leadcore (China), MediaTek (Taiwan), Samsung (Korea), and Spreadtrum (China).

5G will be talked a lot enven though standardization is not ready yet. Just five years after the first 4G smartphone hit the market, the wireless industry is already preparing for 5G: cell phone carriers, smartphone chip makers and the major network equipment companies are working on developing 5G network technology for their customers.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that a smartphone is also a telephone. Nearly half of all phone users today employ their mobile phones as their primary voice connection (a number sure to grow). That the voice features in cell phones also advance. Very early on, the standard for human voice transmission was set as the “voice band” located between 300 Hz and 3.3 kHz (to put this in perspective, the natural frequency span of human voice during speech ranges from about 50 Hz to nearly 10 kHz). These standards were carried over for cellphone audio quality. Now that there are about about as many cellphone subscriptions as there are people on earth, one would think that there really shouldn’t be any more technological excuses for poor voice quality. New standards branded as HD Voice and VoLTE promise the eventual extension of voice transmission frequency range up to 7 kHz. There are also other major challenge preventing great sounding calls – especially noise challenges facing cellphone users. To get good sound quality we need to develop algorithms that isolate the person speaking from all other sources of noise.

 

 

Financial Services needs to get over its reluctance and go mobile in 2016, but it might not happen in large scale this year. Compliance concerns have long prevented financial services businesses from adopting mobile capabilities as quickly as other industries.  Yvette Jackson of Thomson Reuters argues that technology advancements have made compliance worries of the past now obsolete.

Mobile payments are finally taking the momentum in North America, Japan and some European countries in 2016. Every second consumer is expected to smartphone or wearable device purchases to pay in few years. There are now types of mobile payment technologies in use. Some of them will turn to be interim techniques.

Despite many tools available mobile application development is still hard work in 2016.  Mobile developer report shows growing back-end challenge: 33.9 per cent spent more than half their development effort on back-end integration. This effort includes creating and debugging APIs, finding documentation for existing APIs, and orchestrating data from multiple sources. iOS and Android dominate as target platforms. The disappointment for Microsoft is that all its hoopla about the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) does not seem to resonate here. What about making money? Only just over 60 per cent of those surveyed are primarily out to make money from apps themselves, with others aiming for goals such as customer loyalty and brand awareness.  In-app purchases are the most effective method, followed by advertising and app purchase. Application landscape is changing: Single-function applications no longer meet the everyday life needs on mobile devices.

Web standards are becoming promising for mobile use but they are still far from making mobile apps obsolete in 2016. There’s a litany of problems with apps. There is the platform lock-in and the space the apps take up on the device. Updating apps is a pain that users often ignore, leaving broken or vulnerable versions in use long after they’ve been allegedly patched. Apps are also a lot of work for developers. Use the Web and the Web browser can sometimes help in solving some of those problems while creating other different set of problems. For example updates to HTML apps happen entirely on the server, so users get them immediately. Also HTML-based platform and a well-designed program that makes good use of CSS, one site could support phones, tablets, PCs, and just about anything else with one site. Currently HTML5 standards are advancing rapidly in the area of mobile Web applications. Web standards make mobile apps obsolete? I don’t think that it will happen immediately, even though many big tech companies are throwing weight behind a browser-based world (backed strongly by Google and Mozilla). So app or web question will still very relevant for mobile developer in 2016.

Google appears to be lining up OpenJDK – an open-source implementation of the Java platform – for future Android builds. Android runs apps written in Java on its Dalvik engine, and lately, its Android Runtime virtual machine. These apps require a Java class library, as well as various Android-specific bits and pieces, to work.  Now it seems the next big releases of Android will use not the heavily customized Harmony-derived library but instead OpenJDK’s core libraries.

Android, which is controlled by Google, is one of Facebook’s biggest markets. Facebook has a contingency plan in case the company falls out with Google, according to The Information: a way to deliver app updates without going through the Google Play Store — currently the only way to update apps — and has a way of handling in-app payments. Amazon, which makes Android-based tablets, has a similar system: The app acts as a new store front from which other apps can be downloaded and updated, without Google Play.

There will be fascinating conversation in tech about smartphone apps and the web – what can each do, how discovery works, how they interplay, what Google plans with Chrome, whether the web will take over as the dominant form and so on. Ask the question:  Do people want to put your icon on their home screen?

Mobile Internet continues to be important also in 2016. There is place for both Internet pages and apps. The internet makes it possible to get anything you’ve ever heard of but also makes it impossible to have heard of everythingWe started with browsing, and that didn’t scale to the internet, and then we moved to search, but search can only give you what you already knew you wanted. In the past, print and retail showed us what there was but also gave us a filter – now both the filter and the demand generation are gone.

There is hunt for a new runtime, and a new discovery layer. Could it be messaging, Facobook or something else? Facebook and Google try to make mobile publishing platforms faster. Facebook has Instant Articles platform that aims to make articles loading fast on mobile devices. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is Google’s plan to make pages appear super-fast for those using mobile devices. Fast-loading pages may also mean fast-loading ads, with advertising platform support for AMP that’s been announced. I expect that first those plaforms will make loading the articles faster than traditinal pages, but over years those systems, if they catch, will be bloated to be slow again.

Maybe in 2016 we should stop talking about ‘mobile’ internet and ‘desktop’ internet -  it’s like talking about ‘colour’ TV, as opposed to black and white TV. We have a mental model, left over from feature phones, that ‘mobile’ means limited devices that are only used walking around. Get over it. For 15 years the internet was a monolith: web browser + mouse + keyboard. The smartphone broke that apart, but we haven’t settled on a new model.  Mobile’ isn’t about the screen size or keyboard or location or use. Rather, the ecosystem of ARM, iOS and Android, that has bigger scale than ‘Wintel’.

Dick Tracy had it right. Wearable devices are becoming more of any every day item as they proliferate across markets. Wearable market is still immature and growing in 2016. While many new fitness bands, smartwatches, and other wearable devices have entered the market, most have under-whelmed prospects and users. It is quite clear the wearable industry is in its infancy and fraught with growing pains. You can expect the top five vendors will not only shift places, but come in and drop out on a quarterly basis. Wearables grew 197.6% in Q3 2015 when mobile companies shipped a total of 21.0 million wearables worldwide.

Whereas the smartphone is the ultimate convergence product, we are learning that wearables are inherently divergent products.  It seems that super-duper smartwatches loaded with full-blown phone/email/camera/voice assistant capabilities together with all other bells and whistles are not necessarily winning recipe like it was for smart phones. Many consumers want instead simplicity, ease of use, and instant actionable feedback. As an embedded developer of wearables, not only do you have the challenge of addressing battery life issues, but also architecting and developing a system that takes full advantage of the underlying hardware. Heartbeat monitoring has become the must-have feature for fitness trackers. China has quickly emerged as the fastest-growing wearables market, attracting companies eager to compete on price and feature sets.

The newest wearable technology, smart watvches and other smart devices corresponding to the voice commands and interpret the data we produce - it learns from its users, and generate as responses in real time appropriate, micro-moments” tied to experience.

 

Links to some other mobile predictions articles worth to check out:

Mobile 2016 Predictions from EE Times

2015 Appcelerator / IDC Mobile Trends Report: Leaders, Laggards and the Data Problem

 

702 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Forget high-powered PCs, mobile is the future of VR, says Google
    But you’ll need a new phone to do it
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/19/mobile_is_the_future_of_vr_says_google/

    Google I/O 2016 Google has been outlining plans for kickstarting its virtual reality portfolio this year, including new hardware, software tools, and developer support.

    Unlike Facebook’s Oculus platform, which requires a high-end PC to crunch the code, Google thinks that you can get a perfectly decent VR experience just using a smartphone, like Samsung’s Gear VR setup. As a result, Android N is going to be built with Google’s Daydream VR platform in mind.

    If you want to slip into Google’s virtual world, it’s going to cost you, however. Its reference designs require the highest-powered processors, lots of extra motion sensors for tracking head movements, and a low-latency screen capable of displaying 60fps graphics with no ghosting.

    Clay Bavor, Google’s VP of VR, said the Chocolate Factory was going to be building its own Android N smartphones to use for virtual reality, but other manufacturers have also promised hardware, he said, including Chinese firm Xiaomi. Don’t expect the price of such high-end kit to be cheap.

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    eBay is betting shoppers will embrace virtual reality as much as gamers
    http://mashable.com/2016/05/18/ebay-virtual-reality-shopping/#BKonSADiRGq9

    Virtual reality could be the next big thing after the mobile shopping boom, and the brands want in.

    Not just for gaming, the technology could also support retail and browsing experiences, and eBay is one of the first companies to take the leap.

    Once the iOS or Android eBay Virtual Reality Department Store app is downloaded, it works with headsets like Samsung’s Gear VR. eBay and Myer are also offering 20,000 free “shopticals” — basically just Google Cardboard headsets — to shoppers.

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google Announces Allo, Duo, Stable Android N Preview, Instant Apps
    https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/05/18/1849256/google-announces-allo-duo-stable-android-n-preview-instant-apps

    Also at the conference, Google announced Allo, a new smart messaging app, and Duo, a high-definition video chat app for Android and iOS devices.

    Allo leverages Google’s assistant bot to prompt interesting and relevant responses to texts. Duo is a one-to-one video chatting app with a number of interesting features including “Knock Knock” which lets you see the real-time video of the person calling you.
    Google has also released the third preview of Android N.

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Marco Arment / Marco.org:
    If users prioritize big-data AI services, like those offered by Google, Amazon, Facebook, then Apple will be in a position similar to BlackBerry was in 2007 — Before the iPhone, RIM’s BlackBerry was the king of smartphones. They seemed unstoppable, because by most accounts …

    Avoiding BlackBerry’s fate
    https://marco.org/2016/05/21/avoiding-blackberrys-fate

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Sean Hollister / CNET:
    Google’s Ara team on why they ditched swappable core components like CPUs and radios to focus on differentiated modules like cameras, batteries, and glucometers

    Inside Project Ara, Google’s Lego-like plan to disrupt the smartphone
    http://www.cnet.com/news/google-project-ara-hands-on-rafa-camargo-interview-modular-phones/

    Next year, Google will sell a smartphone with interchangeable parts. Swap in different ones to give the phone new abilities.

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nokia phones tricky piece of Foxconn

    Nokia will return in earnest to mobile phones, while Foxconn subsidiary of FIH Mobile and established in Finland HDM Global engage in manufacturing, as well as the basic Nokia mobile phones in the Nokia range of Android smartphones. The arrangement is awkward to say the least taiwanilaisarvioiden According to Foxconn.

    Foxconn has so far been the traditional consumer electronics contract manufacturer. Its main customers are undoubtedly had Apple and its iPhone. The contract does what termikin image itself: to produce any of the other devices under the Agreement.

    Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4470:nokia-puhelimet-hankala-pala-foxconnille&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Hearing aid directly translate to another language

    American Waverly Labs, a new button will be replaced rather reminiscent of the Star Trek science fiction, or some other technique. The company has developed a pilot device to translate a foreign language in real-time speech into your own language

    The company has been very silent in terms of technique. It is applied for a number of funding led by Indiegogo service. Some information, however, is told.

    Pilot communicates with your smartphone, where the actual translation takes place. At the initial stage device supports English, French, Spanish and Italian.

    As such, the translation is done simply. Microphone hears the speech converted into text, which is fed to the network translation service, the translation of which will be heard by the ear. The problem is that all of this must be done in parallel during a conversation.

    It is clear that this type of translation technique causes a delay in the discussion. At the moment, the delay is a company, according to the order of a few seconds

    Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4469:kuulokoje-kaantaa-suoraan-toiseen-kieleen&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Humanity has gone too far with an automated ‘wind-effect’ selfie-stick
    http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2016/05/22/humanity-gone-far-automated-wind-effect-selfie-stick/

    Let’s get this disclaimer out of the way: The ‘Selfie Stick Unreal‘ is promotional product for TV show, and isn’t being sold to the public (yet).

    But that doesn’t stop it from joining the MacBook selfie stick in the category of ‘products that make you die a little on the inside:’

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Grew 3.9 Percent in First Quarter of 2016
    http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3323017

    Chinese Smartphone Vendors in the Top Five Garnered 17 Percent

    Apple Registered First Double-Digit Decline

    Smartphone sales were driven by demand for low-cost smartphones in emerging markets and for affordable 4G smartphones, led by 4G connectivity promotion plans from communications service providers (CSPs) in many markets worldwide.

    “In a slowing smartphone market where large vendors are experiencing growth saturation, emerging brands are disrupting existing brands’ long-standing business models to increase their share,”

    In terms of the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android regained share over iOS and Windows to achieve 84 percent share (see Table 2). “As mature smartphone markets are reaching saturation, Google is pursuing new revenue growth opportunities by expanding the reach of its platforms in cars, wearables, connected homes, immersive experiences and more,”

    “Despite the Android platform’s advancements and its dominant market share, the challenges of profitability remain for a number of Android players. This will have an impact on the vendor landscape where new or more innovative business models will increasingly become key to succeed.”

    Windows Phone market share in 1Q16 was 0.7%

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Steven Levy / Backchannel:
    A look at the design process behind Pebble Core: an untethered music-streaming accessory with two programmable buttons, GPS, and optional cable-less charging — The Pebble Core lives on your keychain. It plays music and tracks your run. But it won’t give you the time of day.
    http://backchannel.com/pebble-makes-a-run-for-it-c1da3db0f400

    Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:
    New $99 Pebble 2 and $169 Pebble Time 2 smartwatches add heart rate tracking; the $69 Pebble Core is a clip-on Spotify-streaming device for runners
    http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/24/pebble-returns-to-kickstarter-with-99-pebble-2-169-pebble-time-2-and-a-69-wearable-that-streams-spotify/

    Reply
  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Fast Company:
    Samsung says no Android Wear devices are in development or being planned, citing better battery efficiency of Tizen OS — It was at Google I/O two years ago that Samsung announced its Gear Live smartwatch (now discontinued) running the Android Wear OS. Two years later the collaboration is over.

    Samsung is done with the Android Wear OS
    https://news.fastcompany.com/samsung-is-done-with-the-android-wear-os-4008110

    The executives said Samsung’s own Tizen OS, used in almost all the company’s wearables now, is far more battery-efficient than Android Wear. Also, Tizen is becoming the standard OS on other Samsung products from TVs to refrigerators, the executives said.

    Reply
  12. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The State of Mobile Device Performance and Health:
    Q1 2016
    http://www2.blancco.com/en/research-study/state-of-mobile-device-performance-and-health-trend-report-q1-2016

    In the first quarter of 2016, we have learned that Android devices are prone to high rates of device failures, crashing apps and app cache.

    Reply
  13. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The Danish company revolutionized the hearing aid

    Danish Oticon has developed a new type of hearing aid, hearing aid that moves the traditional direction of the tool in history. The new Oticon hearing instruments Opn has been used in the world’s first completely new system, which allows hearing experience expands to 360 degrees.

    Opn Oticon hearing instruments scan the sound environment for more than 100 times per second to 360-degree radius to detect and analyze their frequency channel 64. These features help the brain to interpret sounds correctly.

    The device also suppresses excessive background noise 360 ​​degree radius very quickly and efficiently. It eliminates noise even between words.

    Oticon Opn can be combined with smart phones to hearing aids are converted to top-quality headset. control of the Oticon hearing aids successful smart phone ON application. Opn Oticon hearing instruments can be connected wirelessly to other everyday devices such as radio, television and a portable computer without a portable accessory. is used to connect devices via Bluetooth.

    Its price is 2300 euros each.

    Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4481:tanskalaisyritys-mullisti-kuulokojeen&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
  14. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The expected news – Microsoft ending phones

    According to several magazines Microsoft today announces its withdrawal still working in the majority of the developers of Finland. Notice of the decision related to the global software company to give up completely on their own smartphone manufacturing.

    A decision is expected, but very tedious. The redundancies for up to 1350 employees.

    The decision of the Finnish mobile phone at the same time sealed the fate of the design, at least for now. In a way, former nokia kind of fate was sealed as early as 2012, when the then Director-General of Nokia Stephen Elop under the leadership decided to replace Symbian with Windows Phone.

    Windows has been the platform for smartphones total flop.

    Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4488:odotettu-uutinen-microsoft-lopettamassa&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
  15. Tomi Engdahl says:

    This will remain from Windows phones

    Microsoft plans to continue to support a small group of customers. However, the main focus appears to be a third-party Windows-phones.

    - We will focus our efforts phones in areas where we can differentiate: companies who value data security, device management and Continuum functionality , as well as consumers, who value the same things, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in the announcement.

    Beyond this, Microsoft has not commented on the follow-up.

    Microsoft is trying at the same time strongly to get other manufacturers of Windows Phone.

    Source: http://www.digitoday.fi/mobiili/2016/05/25/tama-jaa-windows-puhelimista-jaljelle/20165627/66?rss=6

    Reply
  16. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Apple is the new Nokia
    http://betanews.com/2016/05/24/apple-is-the-new-nokia/

    Washington Post reporter Hayley Tsukayama asks, following up on a commentary by software developer Marco Arment: “Is Apple really at the risk of becoming BlackBerry?”. The answer absolutely is No. But the concept is right. The fruit-logo company’s dire straight is much more profoundly catastrophic. The risk is becoming Nokia, and the path to that destination is already well-trodden.

    smartphones were a niche category in 2007, so insignificant that analyst firms lumped the devices together with PDAs. iPhone’s disruption was far, far greater—Nokia lost its perennial global handset lead; for many of the reasons Arment identifies. Nokia, and not BlackBerry, is the metaphor, and it is frighteningly foreshadowing.

    Arment is “worried for Apple” as he sees Google and other tech innovators make big investments in artificial intelligence; meanwhile, iPhone’s maker lags behind: “If the landscape shifts to prioritize those big-data AI services, Apple will find itself in a similar position as BlackBerry did almost a decade ago: what they’re able to do, despite being very good at it, won’t be enough anymore, and they won’t be able to catch up”. I agree with the reasoning and said something similar about Apple three years ago.

    “The newest iPhones demonstrate that Apple, like Nokia during late-last decade, can’t break free from older design ethics. For the Finnish phone maker, the keyboard and its success selling feature phones, hobbled early efforts with touchscreens.”

    “Apple’s ‘finger first’ design philosophy looks much the same in 2013 as 1984. The company is attached to touch, and why not? ”

    Risky Rewards

    The problem is risk. One of the many reasons Nokia—the company that invented the smartphone—didn’t adapt is success. In 2007, the phone maker was the marketshare leader across the globe and in most geographies

    Apple’s problem is similar. For example, with iPhone generating 65 percent of overall revenues during calendar Q1 2016—whopping 32.9 billion bucks out of $50.6 billion—the incentive is to keep the floodgates of cash flowing rather than to risk disrupting them with newfangled user-interaction design concepts.

    Apple needs to disrupt itself. Touchless interaction already advances beyond voice, the early motif, as innovation leaders adopt AI concepts. Google says one-in-five search inquiries on mobile are from voice. Amazon invests massive resources expanding and marketing Alexa, its digital assistant core to Echo and Fire TV. Both companies aggressively push beyond touch by AI-enhanced voice interaction.

    Reply
  17. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
    Microsoft is laying off 1,850 to “streamline” its smartphone business, takes $950M charge — Following last week’s news of Microsoft selling off its feature phone business for $350 million, today Microsoft turned its attention to smartphones: the company announced it would lay off 1,850 staff …

    Microsoft is laying off 1,850 to “streamline” its smartphone business, takes $950M charge
    http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/25/microsoft-is-laying-off-1850-to-streamline-its-smartphone-business-takes-950m-charge/

    Reply
  18. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Bloomberg:
    Sources: Google is aiming to reduce Android fragmentation by pressuring carriers, OEMs into pushing out updates more quickly — Web giant creates rankings that could shame ecosystem laggards — Friendly tactics also used to unify top phone operating system

    Google Steps Up Pressure on Partners Tardy in Updating Android
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-25/google-steps-up-pressure-on-partners-tardy-in-updating-android

    Getting phone makers and carriers to update to the latest version of Android has been one of the thorniest challenges facing Google as it tries to widen the use of its mobile software and generate more sales from its apps and web services.

    Now, Google is getting serious about remedying what ails Android, and it’s using both carrots and sticks to get partners to keep the world’s most popular mobile operating system more up to date.

    The issue — a mishmash of different smartphones running outdated software lacking the latest security and features — has plagued Android since its debut in 2007. But Google has stepped up its efforts recently, accelerating security updates, rolling out technology workarounds and reducing phone testing requirements.

    Reply
  19. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Magic Leap partners with messaging startup Twilio
    The mixed-reality startup wants us all to interact via holograms.
    http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/25/magic-leap-partners-with-messaging-startup-twilio/

    We still don’t know all that much about super-secret mixed-reality startup Magic Leap. But today we learned that it will be partnering with communications company Twilio to make chatting with holographic-looking versions of your friends and family eventually happen.

    Twilio CEO, Jeff Lawson was joined onstage via telepresence robot by Magic Leap CEO, Rony Abovitz who said that the companies will be “working to integrate what I think are amazing services and components for communication.” The two companies also announced that 10 lucky developer teams in the Twilio community will have a chance to build for the mixed-reality hardware via an SDK.

    Reply
  20. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Lenovo: Motorola Acquisition ‘Did Not Meet Expectations’
    https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/05/26/162221/lenovo-motorola-acquisition-did-not-meet-expectations

    Lenovo acquired Motorola from Google in 2014. Since then, the Chinese technology conglomerate has been trying to merge Motorola’s offering into its large portfolio. But things aren’t going as planned. Lenovo on Thursday announced that the “integration efforts did not meet expectations”. The company, however, insists that it has drawn many lessons from the experience since the close of the Motorola acquisition, and it is making changes to them quickly.

    It’s not the best time in the market if you’re an Android smartphone maker. There’s an increasingly growing competition especially from companies such as Xiaomi, Meizu, Micromax, Yu and others that are making premium smartphones with a razor-thin margin.

    Lenovo: Motorola acquisition ‘did not meet expectations’
    http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/26/11782808/lenovo-motorola-acquisition-did-not-meet-expectations

    Both crucial mobile markets, China and the United States, disappointed in the wake of Lenovo’s takeover, with Chinese shipments declining by a huge 85 percent and product transition in North America deemed simply “not successful.”

    Lenovo says it has drawn many lessons from the experience since the close of the Motorola acquisition and it’s applying them quickly. One aspect of its refreshed strategy is to have two co-presidents, with two distinct strategies for China and the rest of the world.

    Reply
  21. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Android Is ‘Fair Use’ As Google Beats Oracle In $9 Billion Lawsuit
    https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/05/26/2030233/android-is-fair-use-as-google-beats-oracle-in-9-billion-lawsuit

    Ars Technica writes that Google’s Android OS does not infringe upon Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs is protected by “fair use.” The jury unanimously answered “yes” in response to whether or not Google’s use of Java APIs was a “fair use” under copyright law. The trial is now over, since Google won.

    Google beats Oracle—Android makes “fair use” of Java APIs
    Oracle has spent many millions trying to get a chunk of Android, to no avail.
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/google-wins-trial-against-oracle-as-jury-finds-android-is-fair-use/

    Following a two-week trial, a federal jury concluded Thursday that Google’s Android operating system does not infringe Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs is protected by “fair use.” The verdict was reached after three days of deliberations.

    “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, listen to your verdict as it will stand recorded,” said the court clerk, before polling each of the ten men and women on the jury.

    There was only one question on the special verdict form, asking if Google’s use of the Java APIs was a “fair use” under copyright law. The jury unanimously answered “yes,” in Google’s favor. The verdict ends the trial, which began earlier this month. If Oracle had won, the same jury would have gone into a “damages phase” to determine how much Google should pay. Because Google won, the trial is over.

    “We’re grateful for the jury’s verdict,” said Google lead lawyer Robert Van Nest before getting into the elevator with Google’s in-house lawyers. “That’s it.” Oracle attorneys had no comment.

    Google said in a statement that its victory was good for everybody. “Today’s verdict that Android makes fair use of Java APIs represents a win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming community, and for software developers who rely on open and free programming languages to build innovative consumer products,” a Google spokesperson said via e-mail.

    Reply
  22. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google Doesn’t Owe Oracle a Cent for Using Java in Android, Jury Finds
    http://www.wired.com/2016/05/google-doesnt-owe-oracle-cent-using-java-android-jury-finds/

    Google’s use of the Oracle’s Java programming language in the Android operating system is legal, a federal jury found today in a verdict that could have major implications for the future of software development.

    The case, which has dragged on for six years, could have cost Google as much as $9 billion in damages had it lost. But the decision affects more than just Google. The case is important because it helps clarify the copyright rules around what programmers can borrow for their own work. Programmers routinely borrow APIs from existing products either to ensure compatibility between products or simply to make it easier to learn a new product. An Oracle victory could have seriously curtailed that practice, hindering the creation of new software.

    Reply
  23. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A Third Of New Cellular Customers Last Quarter Were Cars
    https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/05/26/1824240/a-third-of-new-cellular-customers-last-quarter-were-cars

    With the U.S. smartphone market saturated, most of the growth in the cellular industry is actually coming from other kinds of devices including tablets, machine-to-machine connections and lots and lots of cars. In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars (Editor’s note: amounting to a 32 percent capture) as new accounts than they did phones.

    A third of new cellular customers last quarter were cars
    Most smartphones go to existing customers, with the real growth coming from tablets and other devices.
    http://www.recode.net/2016/5/26/11785930/connected-cars-cellular-growth

    With the U.S. smartphone market saturated, most of the growth in the cellular industry is actually coming from other kinds of devices including tablets, machine-to-machine connections and lots and lots of cars.

    In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars as new accounts than they did phones.

    That doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of phones sold, though, but most smartphones went to existing customers. When it comes to new accounts added, so-called “net adds,” things were fairly split among cars, tablets, phones and industrial connections, according to a new report from industry consultant Chetan Sharma.

    Reply
  24. Tomi Engdahl says:

    ForcePhone adds pressure sensitivity to any phone using ultrasonics
    http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/forcephone-adds-pressure-sensitivity-to-any-phone-using-ultrasonics/

    Force touch may be a feature exclusive to the latest iPhones, but something like it is now possible on pretty much any phone out there, thanks to research from engineers at the University of Michigan.

    It works not by polling sensors in the touchscreen, but through ultrasound. The phone’s speaker emits a sound covering the 18-24 kHz range, well outside what a human can hear — but the device’s microphone can detect it just fine. When the user presses on the screen or squeezes the phone’s body, the character of the sound changes, and the software detects that.

    Don’t worry, though — the sound is played at a very low volume, so it won’t bother any dogs or sharp-eared young folks in the area.

    “You don’t need a special screen or built-in sensors to do this,”

    Reply
  25. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Bendable Smartphones Are Coming
    But are they ready for prime time?
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-23/bendable-smartphones-are-coming

    A little-known startup in China is gunning to be the first to sell bendable smartphones this year, seeking to upstage Samsung Electronics Co., which has started to dabble in flexible-screen technology.

    Moxi Group, based in Chongqing, says it will ship 100,000 of the devices in 2016. They are, at the very least, unique.

    For now, the gadgets will only feature black and white displays.

    “Black and white phones are much easier to make,”

    screens are based on graphene technology

    Yu said the bendable phone is based on e-ink, which is also used in Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle devices

    “If you make a working, bendable phone then it’s a massive market,”

    Reply
  26. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The State of Mobile Device Performance and Health:
    Q1 2016
    http://www2.blancco.com/en/research-study/state-of-mobile-device-performance-and-health-trend-report-q1-2016

    In the first quarter of 2016, we have learned that Android devices are prone to high rates of device failures, crashing apps and app cache.

    There was a glaring disparity in Android device failure rates (44 percent) and iOS failure rates (25 percent).

    Crashing apps were detected on 74 percent of Android devices, while open/cached apps were found on 44 percent of Android devices.
    Device failure rates were significantly higher in Asia (55 percent) than in North America (27 percent) and Europe (35 percent).

    Reply
  27. Tomi Engdahl says:

    “The current state of terms and conditions for digital services is bordering on the absurd.”

    Norway consumer body stages live app terms reading
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36378215

    Norwegians have spent more than 30 hours reading out terms and conditions from smartphone apps in a campaign by the country’s consumer agency.

    The average Norwegian has 33 apps, the Norwegian Consumer Council says, whose terms and conditions together run longer than the New Testament.

    To prove the “absurd” length, the council got Norwegians to read each of them out in real time on their website.

    “Their scope, length and complexity mean it is virtually impossible to make good and informed decisions.”

    The council is calling on the industry to write shorter, clearer terms and conditions and to adopt a common standard.

    Reply
  28. Tomi Engdahl says:

    13,949 Commits and 6,148 Closed Issues Later: Thank You for Helping Realm Reach 1.0
    https://realm.io/news/realm-1.0/

    It was July of 2014 when we announced Realm as “the first mobile-first database.” Today — 13,949 commits and 6,148 closed issues later — we’re proud to release Realm 1.0, a major milestone not only for Realm as a company and a product, but also for the iOS and Android developer communities that have embraced Realm.

    Realm is currently used by more than 100,000 active developers and in tens of thousands of apps, including apps with massive usage from companies like Starbucks, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch, NBCUniversal, Alibaba, eBay, and thousands more. They are using Realm because Realm makes their apps better

    Realm is not an ORM, and is not built on top of SQLite. Instead we’ve built a full database for mobile app developers, one that uses native objects that are dynamically mapped to a full, custom database engine (not just a key-value store). This allows us to provide a simple API while even enhancing performance.

    Cross-platform

    Realm supports Java, Objective-C, React Native, Swift and Xamarin. You can share Realm files across platforms

    Realm is built in the open on GitHub.

    Realm prioritizes support and bug fixes above all else. You can get answers about your database directly from the people that build & maintain it, via Stack Overflow, GitHub, or Twitter.

    https://github.com/realm

    Reply
  29. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Steve Kovach / Tech Insider:
    Sources: Jawbone has stopped making UP fitness trackers, sold the remaining inventory to a reseller at a discount to raise cash — Jawbone has stopped making its UP fitness trackers and sold its remaining inventory to a third-party reseller, sources familiar with the matter told Tech Insider.

    Jawbone has stopped producing its fitness trackers and sold the remaining inventory to a third party
    http://www.techinsider.io/jawbone-stops-production-of-fitness-trackers-2016-5

    Jawbone has three major fitness trackers: The UP2, UP3, and UP4. The company has struggled to sell the devices and was forced to offload them at a discount to a reseller in order to get the revenue it needed to keep the business going, according to the source.

    It’s unclear if Jawbone will start making the UP trackers again.

    It’s been over a year since Jawbone has released a new flagship fitness tracker. Despite entering the wearables market almost five years ago, Jawbone has failed to gain any significant market share in the space. FitBit and Apple currently dominate.

    Reply
  30. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Free Radio On My Phone
    http://hackaday.com/2016/05/28/free-radio-on-my-phone/

    If you have owned Android phones, there’s a reasonable chance that as the kind of person who reads Hackaday you will at some time have rooted one of them, and even applied a new community ROM to it. When you booted the phone into its new environment it’s not impossible you would have been surprised to find your phone now sported an FM radio. How had the ROM seemingly delivered a hardware upgrade?

    It’s something your cellphone carrier would probably prefer not to talk about, a significant number of phones have the required hardware to receive FM radio, but lack the software to enable it. The carriers would prefer you to pay for their data to stream your entertainment rather than listen to it for free through a broadcaster.

    We have covered numerous attempts to use the DMCA to restrict people’s access to the hardware they own, but this story is a little different. There is no question of intellectual property being involved here, it is simply that the carriers would rather their customers didn’t even know that they had bought an FM radio along with their phone

    Reply
  31. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
    Google-Oracle verdict: good in that it allows for the re-implementation of APIs in different software, but fair-use was the wrong judicial vehicle

    Big Win For Fair Use: Jury Says Google’s Use Of Java API’s Was Fair Use… On To The Appeal
    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160526/13584834558/big-win-fair-use-jury-says-googles-use-java-apis-was-fair-use-to-appeal.shtml

    Overall, a good result of a bad process and a confused judicial system. For now.

    Reply
  32. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google May Shame Partners Into Ending Android Fragmentation
    http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/google-may-shame-partners-into-ending-android-fragmentation/a/d-id/1325696

    Google might resort to naming and shaming smartphone makers and carriers who are behind in updating Android devices.

    Android smartphones have faced an issue called fragmentation almost as long as the platform has been around. Nexus-branded phones receive new versions of Android right away, but all other handsets are at the mercy of their makers, and the makers’ carrier partners. Some companies are better than other at pushing updates, but that’s no consolation for the hundreds of millions of devices left running old builds of Android.

    Google is sick of the sluggishness, and it’s hatched a plan that might speed things up.

    Security, more than user-facing features, is the heart of the matter. After the Stagefright scare in 2015, Google immediately stepped up efforts to improve the security of Android devices. It now issues security patches on a monthly basis. The problem? Besides Nexus phones, few models ever receive these security updates.

    Reply
  33. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The new wireless link to try on your smartphone

    Developed by the Japanese Toshiba TransferJet technology for fast wireless transfer of files have already been about five years old, but the extent to which it is still not a breakthrough. Now, the situation may change

    Antenova is known as a developer of mobile antennas, but developed TransferJet connections Zoma is not an antenna in its traditional sense. The antenna will attempt to send a signal far as possible, but TransferJet switch focuses the near-field signals, and data transmission starts only when the two devices touch each other or come very close to each other.

    Zoma switch has a size of 4 x 4 x 0.4 mm

    Link physical speed of 560 megabits per second, which in practice means the transmission of data about 375 megabits per second.

    Until now, the market has been seen mainly in their own Toshiba TransferJet USB sticks, but now believes Antenova technology spread to smart phones, PC micro families, tablets, digital cameras, and even M2M devices.

    Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4506:uusi-langaton-linkki-yrittaa-alypuhelimeen&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
  34. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Rats revive phones-and-cancer scares
    Study good for a headline, not much else
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/30/rats_revive_phonesandcancer_scares/

    Mobile phones do cause cancers – and rats’ cells are modulation-sensitive. That’s what emerges from a preliminary study dropped on a pre-print server by America’s National Toxicology Program.

    That news comes a few weeks after a huge study covering decades found that mobile phones weren’t killing us.

    The new study hit the headlines with headlines claiming a “cancer link” had been found in the preliminary results of work under the US National Toxicology, released on the pre-print Biorxiv server.

    In the study of 90 rats getting varying doses of 900 MHz radiation (from zero, to beneath America’s maximum 1.6 W per kilogram of weight, up to four times that dose), two kinds of cancers attracted the researchers’ attention: malignant glioma, and glial cell hyperplasia.

    However, it hasn’t taken long for researchers to note several problems: the study had a small sample size; irradiated rats lived longer than those that got no dose; the cancers appeared only in male rats; and nobody’s proposed a mechanism for the signals to cause the cancers.

    Reply
  35. Tomi Engdahl says:

    China’s Huawei has become the big mobile phone brands. During the first quarter, the company delivered 28.3 million mobiles and tablets. The company claims to be the only one of the biggest manufacturers, which is grown. Two other large are Apple and Samsung, both of which supply has fallen.

    Research firm GfK reports that the 15-nation Huawei has increased its sales, especially in Central Europe and the Nordic countries. Huawei has strengthened its position especially in Finland, where the company’s market share in smartphones in the first quarter was 21.5 prosenttiaa

    Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/05/30/huaweilla-ripea-nousutahti/

    Reply
  36. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Ina Fried / Recode:
    Report: in Q1 2016, 69% of new cellular accounts in the US came from cars, tablets, and IoT; cars accounted for 32% of new accounts versus 31% for phones

    A third of new cellular customers last quarter were cars
    Most smartphones go to existing customers, with the real growth coming from tablets and other devices.
    http://www.recode.net/2016/5/26/11785930/connected-cars-cellular-growth

    With the U.S. smartphone market saturated, most of the growth in the cellular industry is actually coming from other kinds of devices including tablets, machine-to-machine connections and lots and lots of cars.

    In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars as new accounts than they did phones.

    Reply
  37. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Frederic Filloux / Monday Note:
    The top 5 things news publishers can learn from game publishers: monetization, design process, testing, metrics, introduction of one-click payment for content

    Want to boost your news app? Hire a gamer.
    https://mondaynote.com/want-to-boost-your-news-app-hire-a-gamer-4a7cd104eafa#.m16b2xe5y

    News publishers have a lot to learn from the gaming industry. Especially when it comes to testing and promoting apps.

    In the gaming industry, average revenue per user is a news publisher’s dream. Last week, I spoke with Alexis Bonte, CEO of successful game publisher eRepublik Labs. The company stretches between Dublin, Bucarest, and Madrid where Bonte lives. One of its best selling products, Age of Lords, has made €129 ($144) in cumulative revenue per player after its first 335 days of existence. For 2 million players, that would be €258m ($288m) in revenue. But as good as it is, Age of Lords’ ARPU is low compared to Summoners War ($280) or Game of War ($500).

    To put things in perspective, the ARPU for a publication such as the New York Times is $176 per digital subscriber per year (based on 2015 figures: 1.094 million subscribers generating a revenue of $193m). But for a publication charging $9 per month, taking in account a 15% discount (promotion, trial offers), the ARPU evolves around $90 per year.

    As with every freemium model, eRepublik’s game revenue comes from multiple, well-crafted in-app purchases where players acquire currency or fighting capabilities, on a regularly repeated basis.

    In fact, the bulk of the revenue comes from the tiny fraction (1.5%) of users spending more than… €1000 in the game: they weigh 59% of the revenue generated by Age of Lords.

    To that extent, le gaming industry looks like the movie business. Roughly speaking, explains Alexis Bonte, out of five games put on the market, one will be a hit, two will pay for development and promotion costs, and two will fail. “The luck factor plays a big role: we operate in a highly competitive market”, he continues, stating that 1 game publisher out of 50 actually makes money. “The simultaneous release of a comparable game could make our life more complicated…”

    As a result, two elements become critical: Testing everything at every stage, and defining strong KPIs.

    “We test at every single stage of the development of a game”, explains the CEO of eRepublik Labs. “Actually, even before writing the first line of code, we begin testing.”

    Next, audience reaction is measured. This is forward-looking A/B Testing.

    The next step is to build a crude prototype that is deployed on the Android platform, under an assumed name. Again, player behavior is scrutinized and analyzed: what triggers in-app purchase, how fast is the core loop, etc.

    Interestingly, in the gaming business, the Android platform is closing the gap with Apple in terms of sheer profitability.

    Player acquisition is mostly driven by Facebook. Ads are bought for highly targeted segments of prospective players. For instance, a $10k budget will be allocated to a specific target group with a maximum acquisition cost of $1.00 or $1.5 per player; the Facebook platform could come back with a higher acquisition cost but better in terms of reach. The Cost Per Install (CPI), is roughly calculated as follows: let’s say a publisher wants to buy 100 players at an average cost of $1.00. He invests $100; 90 players don’t buy anything in the game but 10 players will each buy $10 over three months, the CPI then lands at $1.00.

    here are at least five lessons to draw from the gaming industry:

    1. Think way upstream when considering launching an app. In terms of design but also monetization

    2. Allow your high-end user to spend large amounts. The Pareto principle applies in the news business like everywhere else. After all, 12% of the New York Times’ readers deliver 90% of its digital revenue

    3. Rely on a simple set of metrics.

    4. Test everything, all the times. From prospective design changes to circulation within the app, nothing must be left to chance, to consultants or, worse, to a committee. Tools are abundant, cheap and easy to master.

    5. The importance of one-click purchase. It worked wonders for Amazon, Apple, and for top grossing games

    Reply
  38. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Chris Velazco / Engadget:
    Samsung disputes reports that it is dropping Android Wear, says it has not changed commitment to any of its platforms

    Samsung denies giving up on Android Wear for smartwatches
    Well, for now, anyway.
    http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/24/samsung-denies-giving-up-on-android-wear/

    Hold your horses, folks: Samsung hasn’t officially broken with up Android Wear just yet. A recent report from Fast Company cited unnamed Samsung executives who said the hardware giant wasn’t working on any Android Wear smartwatches, and didn’t plan to develop any new ones either. Sounds like a pretty emphatic answer, but Samsung disagreed when asked for comment:

    “We disagree with Fast Company’s interpretation. Samsung has not made any announcement concerning Android Wear and we have not changed our commitment to any of our platforms.”

    Samsung launched three Tizen-powered watches before it, and went full speed with Tizen after.

    Tizen offers its share of advantages — those unnamed Samsung execs said it was more power-efficient, and would bring some cohesiveness to the company’s wearables lineup. More importantly, though, Tizen gives Samsung something it lacks with Android Wear: control. While the Android Wear 2.0 update packs some long-awaited improvements, device makers still can’t customize a Wear watch’s software as extensively as they can Android on a smartphone.

    Reply
  39. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Qualcomm launches new Snapdragon Wear chips for targeted wearable devices
    http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/30/qualcomm-launches-new-snapdragon-wear-chips-for-targeted-wearable-devices/

    Qualcomm is launching a new set of Snapdragon Wear chips for targeted wearable devices.

    The company made the announcement at the Computex trade show in Taiwan today. The new Snapdragon Wear 1100 chips are an expansion of the company’s previously announced wearable chips that have many different functions. The new chips will be part of devices that are targeted at certain audiences, such as kids’ watches or watches for the elderly, fitness trackers, smart headsets, and wearable accessories.

    “Snapdragon Wear 1100 is targeting purpose-built wearables, or those that are designed only around a few usage cases,” said Pankaj Kedia, senior director and business lead of smart wearables at Qualcomm, in an interview with VentureBeat. “These kinds of products do two to five things really well. They run a more targeted software environment, like Linux. The whole user experience is much more targeted around these use cases. They still require low power, high integration, small size, and a good connected experience.”

    The chips are part of the San Diego, Calif.-based chip maker’ broad initiative to go beyond pure mobile chips. Qualcomm is focused on the larger market of chips for the Internet of Things (or making everyday objects smart and connected). That includes “smart bodies,” “smart homes,” and “smart cities,” Kedia said. The Snapdragon Wear 1100 is optimized for size, power, sensors, connectivity, and location.

    Reply
  40. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Sam Byford / The Verge:
    ARM announces new Cortex-A73 CPU and Mali-G71 GPU, hoping to power mobile VR in 2017 — ARM, the company that designs the processor architectures used in virtually all mobile devices on the market, has used Computex Taipei 2016 to announce new products that it expects to see deployed in high-end phones next year.

    ARM’s new CPU and GPU will power mobile VR in 2017
    http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/5/29/11808042/arm-cortex-a73-mali-g71-computex-2016

    ARM, the company that designs the processor architectures used in virtually all mobile devices on the market, has used Computex Taipei 2016 to announce new products that it expects to see deployed in high-end phones next year. The Cortex-A73 CPU and Mali-G71 GPU are designed to increase performance and power efficiency, with a particular view to supporting mobile VR.

    ARM says that its Mali line of GPUs are the most widely used in the world, with over 750 million shipped in 2015. The new Mali-G71 is the first to use the company’s third-generation architecture, known as Bifrost.

    Reply
  41. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Mobile USB charging is dangerous

    Security company Kaspersky Lab points out that downloading a smartphone via USB includes a variety of risks.

    Security Company notes that the USB interface is designed for charging, but also for data transfer. Because of this, every time the device is connected to the USB port, it will try to handshake and establish a connection. Even at this data transfer takes place, of course.

    While the phone is in charging mode – when data transmission is blocked – data is still transferred between your phone and the host device. The amount of this data depends on your platform and operating system.

    At least the master device goes information about a device, the manufacturer’s name and serial number of the device.

    The problem is that this information can be AT commands used to capture the SIM card telephone number and contact information. Since then, the attacker can call any phone number at the expense of the SIM card owner.

    The important thing to remember is that you never know what the unknown USB port can do to your phone.

    Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4517:kannykan-usb-lataaminen-on-vaarallista&catid=13&Itemid=101

    More:

    Previous
    Charging your smartphone’s battery over USB can be dangerous
    https://blog.kaspersky.com/usb-battery-charging-unsecurity/12206/

    Chances are that each of us has found ourselves in a situation where our phone is dying and we have no charger on hand, but at the same time we desperately need to stay connected — to answer an important call, receive a text message or email, whatever.

    It is perfectly normal to look for any source of precious electricity on such occasion — any USB port would do. But is it safe? No. In fact, it can be dangerous: Over a USB connection someone can steal your files, infect your smartphone with something nasty — or even brick it.

    Reply
  42. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google’s Abacus Project: It’s All about Trust
    http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/googles-abacus-project-its-all-about-trust

    Do you hate having to remember your password when you want to access a secure Web site? Well, that soon may be a thing of the past. Google has announced a new API that developers can use to identify you without messing around with passwords pet names. The new system (codenamed Abacus) should be ready for use by the end of the year.

    Of course, Google currently supports OAuth 2, which enables users to log on to third-party sites with their Google account. As long as you’re logged on with Google, accessing a secure site is as simple as clicking a button.

    That seems simple enough—how can Google improve on that?

    Well, there’s always the case where you forget your Google password. And, what happens if someone else picks up your phone? Others easily could use OAuth’s one-click mechanism to access your secure data.

    Abacus works differently. It uses a wide range of different biometrics to verify the identity of the person holding the phone. It uses data from your phone’s sensors to recognize you, and it combines multiple pieces of information, from your location to the way you type. Voice recognition and facial recognition also are a part of the system.

    Third-party developers will access Abacus through the “Trust API”, which will be integrated into the Android platform.

    Most mobile devices lack dedicated biometric sensors, such as fingerprint readers or iris scanners. So Abacus uses only data that a regular Android phone can collect.

    Every time you interact with your device, you send a stream of tiny signals that can be used to uniquely identify you. Most of these data points aren’t enough to identify you, on their own, but taken together, they form a complete picture of the user.

    But while the Trust API may be a boon for people with password amnesia, it does raise some concerns. To begin with, it’s hard to be comfortable with a system that constantly monitors you.

    The Trust API effectively spies on you, listening to your voice, using your phone’s camera to peer at your face and tracking your position using satellites. Just a few years ago, this would sound like paranoid ravings. Today, it’s a reality.

    Reply
  43. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Ricardo Bilton / Nieman Lab:
    36% of smartphone users in Asia-Pacific region use browsers that automatically block ads; global mobile adblocking userbase hits 419M, up 90% YoY, says PageFair

    Asia is leading the adoption of mobile adblocking; North America is dodging the bullet (for now, at least)
    http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/05/asia-is-leading-the-adoption-of-mobile-adblocking-north-america-is-dodging-the-bullet-for-now-at-least/

    The rise of mobile adblocking may not be burning publishers in the U.S. so far, but the story is very different in Asia.

    Countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan are leading the adoption of mobile adblocking with roughly 36 percent of smartphone users in the Asia-Pacific region using browsers that automatically block ads, according to the latest report from PageFair.

    China and Indonesia are countries where mobile data is expensive, and where mobile networks and devices tend to be slower

    the most popular adblocking browser is Alibaba’s UC Browser, which has seen wide adoption in many of the countries with the highest mobile adblocking penetration.

    The overall mobile adblocking userbase, now at 419 million people (or 22 percent of the world’s 1.9 billion smartphone users), represents 90 percent increase from January of last yea

    It’s worth noting, as it always is when a new PageFair report drops, that the company makes money by helping publishers circumvent adblockers. It, in other words, has something of a vested interest in making the adblocking problem seem larger, not smaller.

    Reply
  44. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Why China’s Xiaomi and Microsoft Are Teaming Up
    http://fortune.com/2016/05/31/why-chinas-xiaomi-and-microsoft-are-teaming-up/

    Can it boost their struggling smartphone businesses?

    A just-announced partnership between Xiaomi and Microsoft represents a potentially promising collaboration between two struggling smartphone businesses.

    Starting in September, Xiaomi’s smartphones will ship with Microsoft’s Office apps and Skype, while Xiaomi will receive some much needed patents from the Redmond, Wash., giant.

    Neither company is approaching this deal from a place of strength. Microsoft is all but irrelevant in smartphones—the global market share for its mobile operating system dropped below 2% last year, says IDC— while Xiaomi’s once ascendant path has stalled.

    The deal is most important for Xiaomi’s ambitions of becoming a global consumer brand.

    Reply
  45. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Ericsson predicts that this year mobile phone networks in breach of the magical gigabit data rate.

    Ericsson predicts in its report that the number of smart phones will almost double by 2021. Currently, smart phones is 3.4 billion, five years after already 6.3 billion.

    Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4521:kannykkadatan-nopeus-jopa-20-kertaiseksi&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
  46. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Kathleen Chaykowski / Forbes:
    Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report: in 5 years 50%+ of searches will be through images or speech; both global internet adoption and economic growth slowing

    Five Highlights From Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2016/06/01/five-highlights-from-mary-meekers-2016-internet-trends-report/#11f19d7f7dac

    1.Slowing global Internet growth: Global Internet user growth was flat from 2014 to 2015 at 9% year-over-year, and down from more than 15% in 2009. Why? Meeker said it’s harder to acquire new Internet users globally now that such a high portion of people in developed countries are already online.

    2.“Easy” economic growth is over: Global economic growth in six of the last eight years is below the 20-year average of 3.8% (from 1996 through 2015).

    3.The era of the image: Images are growing in importance and use, while text, and specifically textual search, are fading. Meeker said in five years, at least 50% of searches will be made through images or speech.

    4.Messaging as the new mobile home screen: Over time, messaging apps could overtake the home screen on mobile devices. This is believable given that 80% of users’ mobile time is spent in three apps, and the average global mobile user accesses just 12 apps daily.

    5.Rise of voice interfaces: Meeker said voice should become the most efficient form of computing input, largely because it is hands and vision-free. Voice lends itself to an “always on” way of life. Humans can speak 150 words per minute, for instance, but can type only 40 words per minute.

    Reply
  47. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The Play Store’s Uninstall Manager Intelligently Suggests Apps That Could Be Uninstalled To Clear Up Space
    http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/06/01/play-stores-uninstall-manager-intelligently-suggests-apps-uninstalled-clear-space/

    Apps are getting big – that’s one thing no one will deny. With some games reaching more than a gigabyte of space – LEGO Star Wars on my Nexus 6P is 1.17GB – it’s becoming an issue for phones with less storage capacity than the more high-end offerings. To that end, Google is introducing an uninstall manager to the Play Store, nine months after Cody discovered its existence in an APK teardown.

    It works by suggesting a user uninstalls apps that have not been used for a while, because they’re taking up space which could be used by other apps or games. It also displays how much space each unused app is using, and how much is needed for the thing that the user wants to install.

    Reply
  48. Tomi Engdahl says:

    IDC:
    IDC: 2016 worldwide smartphone sales expected to grow 3.1%, down from 10.5% in 2015; Android will grow to 84% of shipments with an average selling price of $218

    Worldwide Smartphone Growth Forecast to Slow to 3.1% in 2016 as Focus Shifts to Device Lifecycles, According to IDC
    http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41425416

    According to a forecast update from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, smartphone shipments are expected to grow 3.1% in 2016, which is a substantial slowdown from the 10.5% growth in 2015 and 27.8% in 2014. Shipments are expected to hit 1.48 billion in 2016 and grow to 1.84 billion in 2020. The new forecast is 2.6 percentage points lower than IDC’s previous forecast for 2016 on the basis of the continued slowdown in mature markets and China.

    “Consumers everywhere are getting savvy about how and where they buy their smartphones, and this is opening up new doors for OEMs and causing some traditional channels to lose some control of the hardware flow,”

    Reply
  49. Tomi Engdahl says:

    India’s Micromax Plans to Sell Smartphones in China, Raise Cash
    Company is losing market share in India to Samsung, Chinese smartphone-makers
    http://www.wsj.com/article_email/indias-micromax-plans-to-sell-smartphones-in-china-go-public-1464845743-lMyQjAxMTA2NzA0MjcwOTI5Wj

    Indian smartphone-maker Micromax Informatics Ltd. said Thursday it plans to start selling handsets in China next year and potentially go public in two years, as it looks to boost sales and generate cash to stay relevant in a fiercely competitive industry.

    The company aims to become the world’s fifth-largest smartphone maker by number of phones sold by 2020, and can’t do that without access to Chinese consumers and more cash

    Micromax, which is India’s second-largest smartphone maker after Samsung, has seen its share of the South Asian nation’s market decline over the past year as it faces stiffening competition from Samsung and a host of Chinese manufacturers.

    The announcement is a sign that India’s smartphone market won’t save a struggling global smartphone industry.

    “The Chinese market is not growing and it’s really competitive. I don’t know how they will survive there.”

    Reply

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