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 means. Microsoft 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 videos. The 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 connectivity. There 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 everything. We 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:
16 mobile theses by Benedict Evans
Mobile 2016 Predictions from EE Times
2015 Appcelerator / IDC Mobile Trends Report: Leaders, Laggards and the Data Problem
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Japan Loves Geomagnetic Indoor Positioning
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329115&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Detecting Human Stress Using Sensors
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329111&
Chip technology enables us to improve existing measurement and diagnostic methods for conditions such as cardiac and neuro disorders. It makes the equipment more compact, more economical and more comfortable, too.
We at imec and Holst Centre are confident that sensors can help to recognize habits and make adjustments to behavior. But it is certainly no easy task: not technologically, but also not because psychologists and behavioral scientists tend not to be very familiar with modern technology. As a result, there is still some skepticism about whether or not sensors are of any value in changing people’s patterns of behavior. We are currently working with some enthusiastic behaviorists from UZLeuven and KULeuven to investigate the usefulness of sensors for stress management.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Mobile App is the New Endpoint
http://www.securityweek.com/mobile-app-new-endpoint
The landscape of enterprise endpoints has shifted dramatically in the last few years, as typical endpoints have evolved from laptops to mobile devices—a shift that’s likely to grow as mobile devices offer increased screen sizes and resolutions, better onscreen keyboards and more processing power.
Recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook was widely quoted as saying that he doesn’t even travel with a laptop anymore; he gets along fine with just an iPad and an iPhone. Cook can leave his laptop behind because software is evolving, too, from desktop applications to self-hosted web applications, to SaaS, and now to mobile apps. Using the apps on his two iOS devices, Cook can do everything he needs to do when he’s on the road.
Security Considerations
As the perimeter of the enterprise erodes and devices exist in a more distributed environment, enterprise teams have the complicated task of figuring out what they can still manage. In this day of BYOD devices and zero-trust operating environments, IT and security professionals gain nothing from trying to manage the unmanageable—which is just as well, because the device is no longer the endpoint that matters.
The new endpoint is the mobile app: it’s our interface with the user and the point at which data and transactions come into the enterprise, or service provider or retailer or financial institution. It’s the new focus of users’ interactions and the workflows they rely upon to make themselves more productive. It’s the new vault for the things that matter in their lives—their organizations’ proprietary information and their own HR records, the private health information they share with their doctors and their kids’ social security numbers for school. Mobile apps have quickly become where all of us store our most vital data.
And attackers know that the money is where the data resides. They know that security is often overlooked in the rush to release mobile apps, leaving an open door to data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MWC was everything I thought it would be (and more)
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4441585/MWC-was-everything-I-thought-it-would-be–and-more-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160308&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160308&elqTrackId=84d14d83068b4263b45e955ec5144c05&elq=aba3f8bcd3764b75912aee5acaf428cf&elqaid=31210&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27281
I began my mid-February pre-MWC (Mobile World Congress) coverage with the following statement, “The early January Las Vegas-based Consumer Electronics Show is becoming an increasingly common place for cellular industry-targeting chip, software, and systems companies to ply their newest wares.” Apparently, the converse is also the case, because plenty of historically cellular industry-targeting companies also plied their beyond-cellular wares at MWC, a historically cellular-focused show.
Still, phones (but not so much tablets), and the hardware and software technologies powering and network-connecting them, remained the primary focus at this year’s event
Next-gen wireless advancements
“5G” and IoT (i.e. LTE MTC) were indeed both widely discussed at the show, although tangible announcements (particularly of the former, understandable given that it’s in its early stages) were scant
Then there’s LTE-U, the proposed expansion of LTE cellular service into unlicensed bands such as those today commonly used by 802.11a/n/ac. Détente isn’t officially on hand, at least yet, but the Cold War between the dueling Wi-Fi and cellular camps seems to be thawing at least a bit
LG’s new flagship G5 was, in my opinion, clearly the winner of MWC, representing a refreshing departure from the increasingly commoditized Android handset market. As previously mentioned, it’s based on Qualcomm’s latest leading-edge SoC, the Snapdragon 820. But that’s not why it gets my nod.
Nor is the G5 my preference due to its dual-sensor, dual-lens rear camera architecture (which is forecasted to become increasingly common over time), although the application possibilities are intriguing.
One other standout feature offered by the LG G5, albeit common to the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge from its primary competitor, Samsung, is user-accessible microSD expansion support (although in neither case, unfortunately, can the expansion be used to fully augment integrated storage).
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Slow Penetration for RF CMOS
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329132&
After 10 years of debate, where we are with RF CMOS?
I can’t speak for the Mobile World Congress, but at this year’s ISSCC there was very little to suggest any competition remains between RF CMOS and other fabrication technologies like Silicon Germanium (SiGe) or Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) in the construction of cellular radio ICs.
After 10 years of debate, where we are with RF CMOS? A clue is available from the recent (2014) introduction of an analog front end for mobile handsets: We’re just getting started. Qualcomm introduced what it called “the world’s first [emphasis added] multimode, multiband chip featuring an integrated CMOS power amplifier (PA) and antenna switch.” Qualcomm has been the world’s largest supplier of cell phone chip sets — baseband and applications processors — but, apart from power management controllers, has had a smaller impact on the analog front ends. A multi-chip module, Qualcomm’s QFE2320 includes a multi-mode multi-band power amplifier (MMMB PA), a radio transceiver, an envelope tracking power supply, and an integrated antenna switch.
The anatomy of a cellular radio front end
The analog front end is designed to relieve the clutter of components in handsets enabling to multiple 3G/4G and LTE encoding standards (such as GSM, GPRS, EDGE and WCDMA). It accomplishes this two ways: First, carrier signal aggregation reduces the number of radios required to decode a complex signal— integrating up to 5 carriers with up to 100 MHz of spectrum or 3 carriers with peak data rates up to 450 MBits/s ─ effectively increasing data rates by paralleling carrier channels. Secondly, a built-in antenna switch allows the front end match antenna and radio choices.
The integrated switches enable the Analog Front End to decode a variety of frequencies and transmission modes with a small number of power amplifiers. The integrated switches also decrease the footprint of the module e frequencies and transmission modes According to Qualcomm, the QFE2320 covers all major cellular modes (including LTE TDD/FDD, WCDMA/HSPA+, CDMA 1x, TD-SCDMA, and GSM/EDGE) and RF bands 700 to 2700 MHz. The analog front end already supports a number of commercial smartphones, particularly ZTE’s new flagship product, the Grand S II LTE.
What has happened in the past ten years is not a replacement of GaAs power amplifiers by RF CMOS amplifiers. The RF power amplifier function ― the launching of radio signals into the ether ― is performed at the edge of a radio transceiver chain. What happens in that chain is increasingly fabricated in RF CMOS. It is also a definitional issue: When marketers refer to an “all CMOS” radio, they’re typically overlooking the analog component.
A modern 4G phone will have to address multiple encoding schemes and frequency bands if it is to be truly useful worldwide. The architectural choices are basically two: You build multiple radios into the mobile handset, one for each modulation scheme you hope to decode. Or you build an integrated transceiver with multiple antenna drivers (ie, power amplifiers), and include an RF switch to bump between a single transceiver and multiple PAs).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Justin Sink / Bloomberg Business:
At SXSW, President Obama advises tech industry to compromise on encryption now instead of waiting for Congress to act — Government Can’t Let Smartphones Be ‘Black Boxes,’ Obama Says — Obama advises tech industry to compromise before Congress acts — President appears at South by Southwest as FBI sues Apple Inc.
Government Can’t Let Smartphones Be `Black Boxes,’ Obama Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-11/obama-confronts-a-skeptical-silicon-valley-at-south-by-southwest
President Barack Obama said Friday that smartphones — like the iPhone the FBI is trying to force Apple Inc. to help it hack — can’t be allowed to be “black boxes,” inaccessible to the government. The technology industry, he said, should work with the government instead of leaving the issue to Congress.
“You cannot take an absolutist view on this,” Obama said at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. “If your argument is strong encryption no matter what, and we can and should create black boxes, that I think does not strike the kind of balance we have lived with for 200, 300 years, and it’s fetishizing our phones above every other value.”
Rapid technological advancements “offer us enormous opportunities, but also are very disruptive and unsettling,” Obama said at the festival, where he hoped to persuade tech workers to enter public service. “They empower individuals to do things that they could have never dreamed of before, but they also empower folks who are very dangerous to spread dangerous messages.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Hands-on with Android N: Increased customization, better notifications, and more
Hands-on with Android N: Increased customization, better notifications, and more
We cover everything new we could find in Android’s latest update.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/hands-on-with-android-n-increased-customization-better-notifications-and-more/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Himank Sharma / Reuters:
Once #1 smartphone brand in India, Micromax faces falling sales, management turmoil, and lack of funds for R&D after Alibaba passed on $1.2B deal for 20% stake
India’s Micromax, once a rising star, struggles
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-micromax-management-idUSKCN0WF00M
A year ago, Micromax vaulted past Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to become India’s leading smartphone brand. Today, its market share has nearly halved, several top executives have resigned, and the company is looking for growth outside India.
In Micromax’s slide to second place is a tale of the promise and peril of India’s booming but hyper-competitive smartphone industry.
India is the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market. Shipments of smartphones jumped 29 percent to 103 million units last year.
Rapid growth has helped nurture a crop of local brands, led by Micromax, that outsourced production to Chinese manufacturers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fred Wilson / AVC:
The challenges and opportunities of a second mobile revolution in which smartphones deliver essential services in the developing world — The Second Smartphone Revolution — Benedict Evans tweeted out this chart yesterday: … The first 2.5bn smartphones brought us Instagram, Snapchat …
The Second Smartphone Revolution
http://avc.com/2016/03/the-second-smartphone-revolution/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google announces new services for Android game devs, including a recording API for livestreaming and a new ad type to let users trial games directly from search
Google launches new services for Android game developers
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/14/google-launches-new-services-for-android-game-developers/
Google today announced a number of new services for game developers at its annual Developer Day at the Game Developers Conference. They include tools for managing virtual goods and currencies, the launch of the Video Recording API so developers can make it easier for players to stream and share videos to YouTube, and a new ad type that allows new players to trial a game for 10 minutes right from the mobile search results page.
Google didn’t share all that many new numbers about games on Google Play today, but the company did say that the number of games reaching more than a million installs grew by 50 percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Google loses anti-monopoly appeal in Russia over ‘obligatory’ pre-installation of Android apps
http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/14/google-loses-anti-monopoly-android-appeal-in-russia-over-forced-pre-installation-of-apps/
Google has been dealt a blow in its ongoing battle with European regulators — the Internet giant has lost its anti-monopoly appeal in Russia.
The Moscow Arbitration court has upheld a previous ruling from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) that found Google had abused its dominant market position and broken anti-competition legislation. The crux of the complaint was that Google hindered the ability to create competing services on Android by forcing manufacturers to bundle some Google apps, including Gmail, Google Search, and Google Play, on the phones.
While manufacturers are free to use Android without the aforementioned apps installed, if they wish to offer one of the aforementioned services, they have to offer them all.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oracle is ready to reveal ‘bombshell’ details about Google’s Android business
http://uk.businessinsider.com/oracle-to-reveal-details-about-android-2016-3?r=US&IR=T
The next round of Oracle’s copyright lawsuit against Google over Android will begin on May 9, and we can expect to be treated to a lot of “bombshells” about Google’s Android business, Business Insider has learned.
Oracle is hoping to convince a jury to make Google pay Oracle billions of dollars in damages.
On the other hand, Google may be able to convince the jury that the Oracle Java software it used in Android falls within the “fair use” provision of copyright law.
Now a new jury will decide whether Google had the right to use the code for free. If they decide the answer is “no,” then they will have to figure out how much Google owes Oracle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pam Belluck / New York Times:
Study finds smartphone digital assistants mostly fail when speakers say they’re in distress or having a medical emergency
Hey Siri, Can I Rely on You in a Crisis? Not Always, a Study Finds
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/14/hey-siri-can-i-rely-on-you-in-a-crisis-not-always-a-study-finds/?_r=0
Smartphone virtual assistants, like Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, are great for finding the nearest gas station or checking the weather. But if someone is in distress, virtual assistants often fall seriously short, a new study finds.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jack Nicas / Wall Street Journal:
Experts estimate fewer than 10% of the world’s 1.4B Android phones are encrypted, compared with 95% of iPhones
Google Faces Challenges in Encrypting Android Phones
Some handset makers have resisted over concerns encryption would slow performance of less expensive models
http://www.wsj.com/news/article_email/google-faces-challenges-in-encrypting-android-phones-1457999906-lMyQjAxMTE2MDE3NjUxMDYzWj
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samantha Murphy Kelly / Mashable:
Fossil launches two $275 Android Wear smartwatches and other connected wearables as it expands its Q line and aims for 100 new “connected devices” in 2016 — Fossil launches 7 new fashion-forward smartwatches, trackers — Fossil Group is hard at work delivering its tall-order promise …
Fossil launches 7 new fashion-forward smartwatches, trackers
http://mashable.com/2016/03/15/fossil-launches-more-smartwatches-trackers-accessories
/#zd0ly8FuPZq4
Tomi Engdahl says:
4K gaming comes to your smartphone
Performance of smartphones grows, many will see clearly that the device can not take the traditional PC site for many uses. Even heavy graphics-intensive gaming. Lattice Semiconductor and Mediatek have developed a solution with 4K image moves to an energy-efficient processor smartphone screen 4K-level C-type USB link.
An important part of the lattice and the Czech media reference design is a small power consumption. 4K video transmission is potentially a very high power-consuming operation, so it must be to optimize the use of mobile phone to pay a lot of attention.
Lattice MHL transmitter circuit is connected to the Helio X20 processor and SiI7033 separate control circuit to move the C-type data on the USB bus. Controller chip by means of the link can be supported at the same time the transfer of the MHL and USB 3.1 interface. The solution enables charging the device at the same time, the video moves in the opposite direction.
Reference solution supports the MHL standard, but the lattice controller can also be programmed DisplayPort and Thunderbolt connections.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4130:4k-pelaaminen-tulee-alypuhelimeen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:
FOIA request shows NSA refused to give Hillary Clinton a modified BlackBerry like Obama’s, so she used her own even though her staff knew the security risks — NSA refused Clinton a secure BlackBerry like Obama, so she used her own — Condaleeza Rice had one, but NSA balked at bulk support State wanted, docs show.
NSA refused Clinton a secure BlackBerry like Obama, so she used her own
Condaleeza Rice had one, but NSA balked at bulk support State wanted, docs show.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/nsa-refused-clinton-a-secure-blackberry-like-obama-so-she-used-her-own/
Judicial Watch, the conservative political action group that has largely driven the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, has obtained documents through a Freedom of Information Act request indicating that Clinton tried and failed to get the National Security Agency to give her the same secure BlackBerry that President Obama used. Donald Reid, the State Department’s coordinator for security infrastructure, reported in a 2009 e-mail, “Each time we asked the question ‘What was the solution for POTUS,’ we were politely asked to shut up and color.”
So Reid was tasked with trying to find a “BlackBerry-like” solution that would allow Clinton to be able to check her e-mail while in the secure office suite. The problem was that the solution supported by the NSA—its SME PED (Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device)—was hardly BlackBerry-like. SME PED devices are based on a secure version of Windows CE, and they’re only rated up to “Secret” classification.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartphone makers’ path to continued success
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4441632/Smartphone-makers–path-to-continued-success?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160315&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160315&elqTrackId=b796015852a948b0b5f765382025b064&elq=2aa8830adff147ccb53f3873e4e63abc&elqaid=31313&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27381
Still, as this blog has pointed out several times in the recent past and is also regularly reported elsewhere, smartphone demand is plateauing if not on a downward trajectory across much of the world market. The root cause, I think, is the same as the leveling-off PC demand that preceded it; for a steadily increasing percentage of smartphone owners (which are now the norm, not the exception, leading to a rapidly evaporating “first-time” market), the handset they own is good enough, resulting in replacement only when the built-in battery no longer holds charge, the screen cracks, etc.
As a result, conventional measures of feature set evolution; CPU and GPU performance increases, support for newer (and newer generations of existing) wireless communications standards, larger screen sizes, etc … aren’t by themselves sufficient to stimulate sufficient upgrade demand. Manufacturers are instead choosing one (or both) of two alternative paths to hopeful continued success:
1. Coupling a continuation of historical primary feature set evolution with secondary-feature differentiation, in aspiring to carve out a proprietary (and customer-valued) niche.
2. Coupling this same historical primary feature set evolution with increasingly aggressive pricing, thereby accelerating the pace at which leading-edge features transition from high-end to mainstream and even low-end models.
Mid-range and low-end attention
The refocus of industry attention away from “flagship” handset offerings was most acutely seen with Sony, who has terminated its high-end Xperia Z product line, instead focusing its MWC announcement energy on three mainstream Xperia X variants. But plenty of other manufacturers were in similar straits.
Unique-feature differentiation
Microsoft’s latest smartphone may not support Continuum, but Hewlett Packard’s new Elite x3 wholeheartedly embraces its phone-as-PC capabilities. More generally, HP is one of the only companies, aside from Microsoft itself, now leveraging the Windows Mobile 10. Different? Definitely. Successful in doing so? Only time will tell, although I’m admittedly skeptical.
Here are some other examples of differentiated-product attempts, with to-be-determined success:
The CAT s60 integrates a FLIR thermal camera.
Acer’s Liquid Jade 2 and the Nextbit Robin also supplement built-in memory with (supposedly seamless) “hybrid” cloud storage.
Jolla showed up in Barcelona with the Aqua Fish in hand, based on the company’s proprietary Sailfish O/S.
Similarly, Meizu showed off an “Ubuntu Edition”-based version of its PRO 5, made equally unique by virtue of its Samsung Exynos processor foundation.
And Oppo focused on its hardware’s fast-charge attributes.
Bucking the trend, Gionee went in the opposite direction, deciding to clone Apple-originated features.
VR salvation?
Meanwhile, virtual reality was everywhere at MCW.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s “Let Us Loop You In” not exactly surprising
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4441691/Apple-s–Let-Us-Loop-You-In–Not-Exactly-Surprising?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160322&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160322&elqTrackId=79bb846f527a40f9b1107e99f41cae3a&elq=47083f7e60e143f682f6b9be2422beaf&elqaid=31429&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27467
I wish that I could tell you that Monday’s Apple intro event was radically (or even remotely) different from what I prognosticated last week. After all, who doesn’t enjoy a surprise, right?
Unfortunately, the Apple rumor mill is becoming increasingly accurate all the time
iPhone SE
I guessed right on the name, the guts, and pretty much all of the details. This is basically an iPhone 6s in iPhone 5s clothing. No 3D Touch (but you already knew that). An 8-to-12 Mpixel uptick for the rear camera, although no resolution upgrade for “selfie” fans (but you do get Retina Flash support this time, which you didn’t have on the iPhone 5s). A two-generation newer SoC, along with twice the DRAM. Integrated NFC for digital wallet support (to do Apple Pay on the iPhone 5s, you needed to use a NFC-equipped Apple Watch intermediary). And 802.11ac support this time around, plus faster (Category 4) LTE.
The biggest surprise here was the price.
The 16GB iPhone SE? $399 (and $499 for the 64GB version)
9.7″ iPad Pro
Again, it’s pretty much as I suspected. Its integrated Lightning controller only supports USB 2 transfer speeds, not the USB 3 capabilities of its big brother, but otherwise it’s pretty much a shrunken down 12.9″ iPad Pro, complete with a Pencil, Smart Connector-based detachable keyboard, etc.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 8 Most Expensive Mobile Phones in the World
http://dorogists.com/top-8-most-expensive-mobile-phones-in-the-world/?track-praise=outbrain
Phone is a major requirement of our daily lives. Mobile phone or even has the prices vary widely ranging from the cheapest phones in the world up to the most expensive mobile phone in the world. In today’s society, there aren’t many things that people are more attached to than their mobile phones. A person’s cell phone is his gateway into everything that goes on in his life. With the recent advances in technology, it now seems as if your cell phone can do everything that your computer can do. It then comes as no surprise that your cell phone could cost as much as it does. If you’re in the market for a phone that will do nearly everything, then you should expect to pay a lot of money. Here is a list of world’s top 8 most expensive mobile phones.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s Chrome browser is clearly the most popular smartphone in use.
Adobe’s survey showed that 43 percent of iPhone users favors the prepared device’s Safari browser. Yet one in three iPhone käyttääj browse the web with Chrome.
Adobe’s survey, page views made smartphones have grown by 18 per cent from 2012 onwards. In tablets, the growth has been only four per cent. Smartphones are now 76% for all the mobile web browsing experience.
56 percent of mobile buying is done with smartphones.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4163:chrome-suosituin-selain-alypuhelimissa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s latest camera is the best
the device recorded the best overall rating DxOMark test. Galaxy S7 edge got the test 88 points.
With that number S7 passed devices that have since December kept top possession – Galaxy S6 Edge + and Sony Xperia Z5′s.
The result also confirms the new trend cell phone cameras: fewer but higher quality pixels is better.
Samsung S4 has 12 megapixels camera (previous S6 model had sixteen megapixel cell).
S7′s secret lies in the camera’s new dual-pixel technology
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4155:samsungin-uusimmassa-on-paras-kamera&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android Pay is expanding in Europe: now works in the UK
Google starts to offer Android Pay -maksupalvelua England. Competition with Apple Pay is expanding, writes the Financial Times .
Android Pay is a working Android smart mobile NFC payment application that allows you to pay by touching the phone payment terminal. The money is transferred payment application is connected from a bank account or credit card.
The service supports MasterCard and Visa cards, as well as a number of operating banks in the UK.
Google announced the Android Pay in the United States last September.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/android-pay-laajenee-eurooppaan-toimii-nyt-britanniassa-6535538
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Sources: Google building Periscope-like live streaming app YouTube Connect for iOS and Android — Google is building YouTube Connect, a live streaming app to take on Periscope — Google has quietly been building a new live streaming app called YouTube Connect, VentureBeat has learned.
Google is building YouTube Connect, a livestreaming app to take on Periscope
http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/23/google-is-building-youtube-connect-a-live-streaming-app-to-take-on-periscope/
Google has quietly been building a new livestreaming app called YouTube Connect, VentureBeat has learned. This service highlights the company’s efforts to double down on live video while also placing it in a position to compete directly against Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook Live. YouTube Connect will be available on both iOS and Android devices.
Google did not immediately respond for comment.
YouTube Connect has much of the same functionality that you’d already find with Periscope and Facebook Live, according to a source close to the matter. You can log into the app using your Google or YouTube account and immediately begin streaming from your mobile phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jason Del Rey / Re/code:
Sources: Apple Pay coming to mobile websites, will be available to Safari users on iPad and iPhone with Touch ID this year — Apple Pay Coming to Mobile Websites Before Holiday Shopping Season — Apple Pay is finally ready to move beyond apps. — Apple has been telling potential partners …
Apple Pay Coming to Mobile Websites Before Holiday Shopping Season
http://recode.net/2016/03/23/apple-pay-coming-to-mobile-websites-before-holiday-shopping-season/
Apple Pay is finally ready to move beyond apps.
Apple has been telling potential partners that its payment service, which lets shoppers complete a purchase on mobile apps with their fingerprint rather than by entering credit card details, is expanding to websites later this year, multiple sources told Re/code.
The service will be available to shoppers using the Safari browser on models of iPhones and iPads that possess Apple’s TouchID fingerprint technology, these people said. Apple has also considered making the service available on Apple laptops and desktops, too, though it’s not clear if the company will launch that capability.
The move would pit Apple more directly against PayPal, which is a popular alternative payment method on countless retail websites.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Sony forms mobile gaming firm ForwardWorks to make PlayStation games for iOS and Android devices in Asia — Sony announces plans to make PlayStation games for iOS and Android — It looks like Sony will follow Nintendo’s cue and focus on mobile gaming. The company announced today …
Sony announces plans to make PlayStation games for iOS and Android
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/23/sony-announces-plans-to-make-playstation-games-for-ios-and-android/
It looks like Sony will follow Nintendo’s cue and focus on mobile gaming. The company announced today that it will form a new business unit that is tasked with bringing PlayStation titles and IP to iOS and Android devices.
That sounds like great news for gamers, but there’s a caveat here, it seems. Forward Works, Sony’s mobile gaming arm, is going to focus on users based in Japan and Asia, according to today’s announcement.
Nintendo released its first mobile game this month, Miitomo. The long-awaited title isn’t really a mainstream release, though.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Biometric identification market will double
More and more smartphone will be opened with your fingerprint. Or their own face image. ABI Research predicts that the biometric identification devices and applications market will double by 2021.
Last year, biometric identification devices sold 13.7 billion dollars. In 2021 market size of $ 30 billion already. Year on year growth increases to more than 40 per cent.
fingerprint sensors ere delivered to the market 266 million last year
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4177:biometrisen-tunnistuksen-markkina-kaksinkertaistuu&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oracle seeks $9.3 billion for Google’s use of Java in Android
The figure appears in a report by Oracle’s damages expert, which Google strongly contests
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3048818/oracle-seeks-93-billion-for-googles-use-of-java-in-android.html
Oracle is seeking as much as US $9.3 billion in damages in a long-running copyright lawsuit against Google over its use of Java in Android, court filings show.
Oracle sued Google six years ago, claiming the search giant needs a license to use parts of the Java platform in Google’s market-leading mobile OS.
The companies went to trial over the matter in 2012 but the jury was split on the crucial question of whether Google’s use of Java was protected by “fair use,” which permits copying under limited circumstances.
The new trial will cover six additional versions of Android, up to and including Lollipop.
To put $9.3 billion in context, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, made $4.9 billion in profit last quarter.
Google has hired its own damages expert who’s sure to have come up with a much lower estimate for how much harm Oracle suffered. That damages report isn’t yet public, but a filing by Oracle last week suggests Google caps at least part of the damages at $100 million.
Google did not respond to requests for comment, and an Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Biometrics Market To Double Over 6 Years
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329281&
The global market for biometrics technologies and applications will grow from about $13.7 billion in 2015 to more than $30 billion in 2021, according to market forecaster ABI Research.
The demand from within consumer electronics, particularly smartphones, will help drive this growth of 118 percent. Annual embedded fingerprint sensors are forecast to reach two billion by 2021 at compound annual growth rate over the period of 40 percent. That equates to shipments of about 266 million units in 2015 and of 372 million units in 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Microsoft is bringing modding and programmable “command blocks” to Minecraft for phones and tablets
Microsoft megahit Minecraft to get more powerful on mobile
http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-bringing-muscle-to-android-ios-versions-of-popular-minecraft-game/
Sad that the mobile version lacks the flexibility of the PC version? Cheer up. Microsoft is bringing power tools — command blocks and modding — to Minecraft for phones and tablets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearables Face an App Gap
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329298&
There is a gap in delight between wearable devices and their associated apps, leaving consumers hard pressed to easily collect and interpret their personal data, according to a new report.
The wearables market began as a collection of bulky wristbands and impractical glasses, but is rapidly evolving into a network of connected sensors. While fitness bands and smartwatches are currently the cornerstone of the wearables market, developments in technology are allowing manufacturers to make almost anything wearable. As hardware improves and spreads away from the wrist, it is becoming more and more important to improve to provide the user with comprehensive analysis of all their personal data.
A new report from Argus Insights surveyed 136,000 consumer reviews of wearable devices and applications from November 2015-February 2016.
Analysis of current feedback across wearable apps points to major frustrations with syncing data and broken app experiences. While users are attempting to use apps to track metrics like calories, heart rate, steps, and sleep, they are having trouble interpreting all their personal data to make this information useful.
The need for a killer app to process and present wearable data will only become more important as hardware continues to improve and migrate away from just the wrist
While consumers report satisfaction with hardware from brands like Samsung, Lumo Bodytech and Fitbit, these same brands fail to delight users with their corresponding applications. On the other hand, the report finds that while consumers are not satisfied with Jawbone devices, Jawbone apps see the highest delight rating.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner: RIP double-digit smartphone growth. 2016 has killed you
Microsoft can stop worrying about smartphone non-strategy
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/31/gartner_2016_smart_phone_boom_years_gone/
Remember the rapacious smartphone growth that turned once-troubled Apple into the world’s most valuable company? That’s over.
Smartphone sales will grow seven per cent in 2016, to 1.5 billion units.
It’s the first time sales of this once must-have piece of personal tech has grown by a mere single digit percentage, according to Gartner.
The analyst blamed falling consumer confidence, saying worsening economic conditions – factors that had had negligible impact on smartphone sales were finally taking a toll.
Shoppers will hold on to their phones for longer, Gartner said.
By 2020, consumers in “mature” markets will be holding onto their phones for 2.8 years – up from 2.5 now, leading to a drop in sales of 100 million phones.
Ranjit Atwal, Gartner research director, said in a statement: “The double digit growth era for the global smartphone market has come to an end.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft integrates Xamarin into Visual Studio for free, will open source Xamarin runtime — Microsoft today announced that Xamarin is now available for free for every Visual Studio user. This includes all editions of Visual Studio, including the free Visual Studio Community Edition …
Microsoft integrates Xamarin into Visual Studio for free, will open source Xamarin runtime
http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/31/microsoft-integrates-xamarin-into-visual-studio-will-open-source-xamarin-runtime/
Microsoft today announced that Xamarin is now available for free for every Visual Studio user. This includes all editions of Visual Studio, including the free Visual Studio Community Edition, Visual Studio Professional, and Visual Studio Enterprise.
Furthermore, Xamarin Studio for OS X is being made available for free as a community edition, and Visual Studio Enterprise subscribers will get access to Xamarin’s enterprise capabilities at no additional cost.
The company also promised to open-source Xamarin’s SDK, including its runtime, libraries, and command line tools, as part of the .NET Foundation “in the coming months.” Both the Xamarin SDK and Mono will be available under the MIT License. Speaking of the .NET Foundation, Microsoft also announced that Unity, JetBrains, and RedHat have all joined.
Xamarin cofounder Miguel de Icaza was on stage at Microsoft’s Build 2016 developer conference today demoing using his tools for writing iOS and Android apps in Visual Studio. It was like a dream come true for him: “I am happy to have finally completed the longest job interview in my career.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft releases HoloLens emulator for developers to build and test AR apps — Microsoft launches HoloLens emulator so developers can test holographic apps, no headset required — As promised, Microsoft today started shipping its $3,000 HoloLens development kits.
Microsoft launches HoloLens emulator so developers can test holographic apps, no headset required
http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/30/microsoft-launches-hololens-emulator-so-developers-can-test-holographic-apps-no-headset-required/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sensors, not CPUs, are the tech that swings the smartphone market
The more your phone knows about the world, the more useful – and invasive – it becomes
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/28/the_smartphone_market_is_about_to_become_a_war_of_the_sensors/
A computer without sensors is a pitiful, useless thing. Keyboards are sensors, as are mechanical-optical paper-tape readers, magnetic heads on storage discs, and the logic scanning for ones and zeroes on an ethernet interface. Everything a computer does – outside of calculations – involves a sensor.
Despite this, we tend to judge of our computers by their CPUs, rather than their complement of sensors – or we did, until the smartphone came along. Although CPU is important on a smartphone – my iPhone 6S Plus is faster than any desktop I’d purchased before this year – the raw grunt at the core only matters if the mobile has the right complement of sensors. The history of the smartphone is an arms race, fought with sensors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner has updated its forecast of how the sales of PC PCs and smart phones will develop in the coming years. Cell phone sales are no longer growing, and the dreaded shrinkage of sales of PCs stops.
Smartphone market growth will fall this year for the first time less than 10 per cent, while growth will be only seven per cent. Smart phones sold nearly 1.5 billion pieces. When calculated according to the basic phones, sales volume approaching two billion.
we are already in this year of zero growth in the major markets in China and North America. In emerging markets, the smartphone’s popularity is still growing, but even this rate will slow down.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4197:pc-lasku-taittuu-kannykkakasvu-hiipuu&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Holding out for a Jobs: Tim Cook still auditioning for position of Apple god
The future is Watch, the future is data, the future is taking on Uncle Sam
1 Apr 2016 at 08:33,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/01/apple_god_and_steve_jobs/
Apple is 40 years old. The leader was Steve Jobs, but he’s gone and many still don’t understand his core idea. The idea was Apple’s control over “the user experience”. That control is at risk today, and the company’s future hangs in the balance as a result under the new leader.
Of course, it wasn’t just the design that made today’s Apple possible. That was China.
China allowed it to ramp up production. It did the same with the iPod, iPad and iPhone.
The Apple Watch is Tim Cook’s first big gamble as Apple’s leader, and the jury remains out on the device
Health
Consider that 86 per cent of America’s health bill is spent dealing with preventable chronic conditions such as (some cases of) heart disease and many cases of type 2 diabetes. Better monitoring of the conditions and habits leading to them can lower the US’s $3 trillion a year health care bill by hundreds of billions of dollars, while enabling longer, healthier lives.
Apple Watch peripherals such as the Kardia band, which acts as an EKG monitor, can be the “killer apps” that unlock the savings. The iOS 9 Healthkit is Apple’s entry in the race to do just that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teens would sell their personal data instead of working
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/03/30/teens-would-prefer-to-sell-their-personal-data-rather-than-work/
Teens are well aware of the value of their personal data.
In fact, it’s about as valuable as a large pizza.
For the not-so-princely sum of £15 (call it $20), 42% of survey respondents said they’d rather give away their personal data than work at a job to earn the cash, according to a new study.
This is what the kids said they’re “mostly happy” to exchange personal data for:
Sharing location data with university to help use facilities or campus better, improve personal safety (39%).
Health data being monitored and shared with medical staff to better diagnose (37%).
Biometric data passwords (42%).
On the other hand, this sort of data sharing made them “mostly unhappy”:
Organizations sharing data with third parties (60%).
Movement tracked in-store via personal device for marketing purposes (41%).
Online habits used to provide targeted ads and promotions (50%).
Location data used or shared (54%).
Unlocking the keys to a teen’s data-sharing heart is pure gold to marketers, of course.
These are the activities they spend time on during those hours online, on average:
Other: 17 minutes a day.
Blogging: 9 minutes a day.
Coding: 10 minutes a day.
Taking selfies: 15 minutes a day.
Email: 21 minutes a day.
Video calls: 24 minutes a day.
Research/search: 54 minutes a day.
Instant messaging: 55 minutes a day.
Gaming: 1 hour 12 minutes a day.
Streaming content: 1 hour 32 minutes a day.
Making videos: 1 hour 40 minutes a day.
Social media: 1 hour 40 minutes a day.
(Total: 9 hours 29 minutes.)
The Truth Behind UK’s Future Workforce: £15 the Value of Privacy, Coders in Every Classroom
http://www.uk.logicalis.com/news/the-truth-behind-uks-future-workforce-15-the-value-of-privacy-coders-in-every-classroom/
A nationwide survey of 1000 13-17 year olds has revealed a growing number of digitally literate teens able to code, hack, and who are happy to swap their personal information in return for cash. The findings are published today in the eighth annual Realtime Generation report commissioned by Logicalis UK, entitled ‘The Age of Digital Enlightenment’.
A day-in-the-life of a UK teen is mobile (93% own a smartphone) and includes nine hours online, consuming, publishing or creating content. For this generation, there is an app for everything and, if one doesn’t exist, a growing number (18% currently) are acquiring the coding skills to build their own.
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Ruddock / Android Police:
LG G5 review: inferior to Galaxy S7 in almost every way; modular design and accessories, wide-angle camera feel more like gimmicks than useful features
LG G5 Review: A Bit Of A Mess, Frankly
http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/03/31/lg-g5-review-a-bit-of-a-mess-frankly/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartphone Sales Growth Projected to Slip to 7%
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329335&
Smartphone sales will grow at the lowest rate on record and PC sales will decline again in 2016, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.
Gartner (Stamford, Conn.) said it expects smartphone sales to grow 7% this year to reach 1.5 billion units. It would mark the first time that smartphone sales grew at less than 10% in a year, according to the firm.
“The double-digit growth era for the global smartphone market has come to an end,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, in a statement.
Atwal added that worsening economic conditions have historically had a negligible impact on smartphone sales. But that is no longer the case, he said. Smartphone sales in both North America and China are forecast to be roughly flat this year.
The total mobile phone market is forecast to reach 1.9 billion units in 2016, Gartner said.
Combined, global sales of PCs, tablets, “ultramobiles” and mobile phones are projected to reach 2.4 billion in 2016, an increase of less than 1% from 2015, Gartner said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Mobile Chip Leader Is Leaving After Less Than a Year in That Role
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-01/intel-mobile-chip-leader-aicha-evans-said-to-be-leaving-company
Intel Corp. executive Aicha Evans is leaving the company less than a year into her tenure as head of the semiconductor maker’s struggling mobile phone division.
Evans, who joined the company a decade ago, has handed in her notice at Intel, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the move hasn’t been made public
Intel, the largest chipmaker because of its hold on personal computer and server markets, has spent billions of dollars and more than a decade trying to get into phones. It ended 2015 with a 1 percent share in phone processors
Evans’s departure comes amid speculation her unit is close to a rare mobile breakthrough by becoming a supplier of parts for Apple Inc.’s iPhone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Electronics to Release Foldable Smartphone Next Year
http://english.etnews.com/20160401200002
Foldable Smartphone, which is being developed by Samsung Electronics, is taking its shape. It is a new-concept product which can be a 5-inch Smartphone and 7-inch tablet if opened.
It is heard that Samsung Electronics acquired many technologies that are needed to implement Foldable Smartphone. It is going to mass-produce foldable display by end of this year and is planning to sell Foldable Smartphones on markets starting from next year.
According to industry on the 31st, it is known that Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display have partnered up with domestic and foreign businesses to develop 7-inch foldable Smartphones.
Foldable Smartphone is a Smartphone that can bend a screen in half by using OLED Display. One can carry it like a wallet and use it by opening it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s Push to Flood India With Used iPhones Ignites Backlash
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-03/apple-s-push-to-flood-india-with-used-iphones-ignites-backlash
Apple Inc.’s latest attempt to crack the Indian smartphone market — by selling used phones — is meeting a wall of resistance.
The iPhone maker is seeking permission to become the first company allowed to import and sell used phones into the country, its second attempt in as many years.
“Make in India could turn into Dump in India,”
Another criticism focuses on potential damage to the environment. When destroyed, phones produce toxic materials that India isn’t equipped to deal with, critics say. Used batteries and LCD screens could worsen the mountainous e-waste problem the country already faces.
Importing used phones also dovetails with developments on the other side of the globe. In February, Apple launched a U.S. program that allows users to upgrade older iPhones for a small monthly cost. Shah said the 14 million to 15 million older phones he expects to be traded-in could be refurbished and sent to emerging markets — including India.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Facebook announces Automatic Alternative Text on iOS, that uses AI to automatically describe images to blind users — Facebook begins using artificial intelligence to describe photos to blind users — Ask a member of Facebook’s growth team what feature played the biggest role in getting …
Facebook begins using artificial intelligence to describe photos to blind users
Second sight
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11364914/facebook-automatic-alt-tags-blind-visually-impared
Ask a member of Facebook’s growth team what feature played the biggest role in getting the company to a billion daily users, and they’ll likely tell you it was photos. The endless stream of pictures, which users have been able to upload since 2005, a year after Facebook’s launch, makes the social network irresistible to a global audience. It’s difficult to imagine Facebook without photos. Yet for millions of blind and visually impaired people, that’s been the reality for over a decade.
Not anymore. Today Facebook will begin automatically describing the content of photos to blind and visually impaired users. Called “automatic alternative text,” the feature was created by Facebook’s 5-year-old accessibility team.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tech Firms Have An Obsession With ‘Female’ Digital Servants
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/04/04/2349223/tech-firms-have-an-obsession-with-female-digital-servants
Alexa, Tay, Siri, Cortana, Xiaoice, and Google Now. These technologies all have one thing in common — they are digital servants aimed at a mass-market audience that feature a “female” voice or persona. And it’s not just the voice or persona of the digital persona we interact with that is biased. The results of those interactions also demonstrate male favoritism.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobe and Wi-Fi firms flog your location data to commercial firms, claim reports
That’s why you’re seeing loads of massage parlour ads
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/05/mobile_wifi_firms_sell_your_location_data_advertisers_others/
Two reports by privacy campaigners into mobile and Wi-Fi services’ location tracking activities have revealed practices of questionable legality and security.
The studies found that “at best, companies are fulfilling the minimal legal requirements, and at worst could breaking the law and breaching our right to privacy.”
The collection and exploitation of traffic and location data is detailed in two reports which are published today. The Open Rights Group (ORG) has provided a 44-page inquiry titled “Cashing in on your mobile?” (PDF), which reports on “how phone companies are exploiting their customers’ data.”
Pairing up, the advocacy groups have launched Opt Me Out Of Location “to encourage the British public to demand that mobile and Wi-Fi service providers are explicit about what they are asking their customers to opt into and provide clear choices for opting out.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android gets larger-than-usual patch bundle as researchers get to work
Monthly update goes out to Nexus owners, a few others
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/05/android_security_patch/
As a further sign that researchers are getting serious about finding holes in Android operating systems, Google has released one of its biggest ever monthly patch bundles, with 39 flaws fixed.
“The most severe of these issues is a Critical security vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device through multiple methods such as email, web browsing, and MMS when processing media files,” the update states. “There have been no reports of active customer exploitation or abuse of the other newly reported issues.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
With Galaxy S7, Samsung seen rediscovering its mobile mojo
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/31/with-galaxy-s7-samsung-seen-rediscovering-its-mobile-mojo.html
Early indications of stronger-than-expected sales of new Galaxy S7 smartphones suggest technology giant Samsung Electronics is emerging from a two-year decline at its flagship mobile business.
Squeezed by Apple in premium products and undercut by Chinese rivals like Huawei in cheaper devices, Samsung’s smartphone profits and global market share have fallen and sapped momentum at South Korea’s most valuable company.
But several brokerages on Wednesday upgraded first-quarter forecasts for what is still the world’s top smartphone maker, citing a strong start for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge premium phones that were launched earlier this month.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple is close to selling its billionth iPhone
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/04/technology/iphone-sales/
McDonald’s hamburgers are getting some illustrious company. “Billions sold” will soon apply to the iPhone as well.
Between June 29, 2007 — when the iPhone first went on sale — and the end of 2015, Apple has sold 896 million iPhones. If Wall Street analysts’ forecasts are accurate, Apple will sell its billionth iPhone sometime this summer.
When Apple (AAPL, Tech30) provides its quarterly finances on April 25, the company is expected to report that it sold 50 million iPhones during the first three months of 2016.
That would get Apple to 946 million total iPhones sold. During the current quarter, analysts polled by FactSet said they expect Apple to sell another 44 million, pushing the total to 990 million.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top Story: Cybersecurity experts warn that 75% of mobile apps are vulnerable to attack
http://www.komando.com/happening-now/348073/75-percent-of-mobile-apps-are-vulnerable-to-attack?elq_mid=7882&elq_cid=546544
Just like consumers are focusing more on mobile gadgets with each passing year, so are hackers. After all, your smartphone or tablet potentially contains browsing history, banking information, location history, text messages, photos and plenty more hackers can use to steal your identity and money.
Plus, from the hacker’s perspective, mobile gadget security isn’t quite as advanced as computer security. While gadgets’ built-in mobile security continues to improve, a lot of relies on keeping malicious apps out of the various app stores. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work so well.
Hackers still do slip malicious apps into legitimate app stores. Plus, on Android, which can install apps from any source, there are plenty of third-party app stores just teeming with malicious apps. Hackers can even trick you into installing a malicious app from a text message.
In addition to malicious apps, there are a lot of legitimate apps out there that have flaws hackers can exploit. Because apps are so easy to make, a lot of app developers don’t have a background in security and don’t even think about it. Or they use code libraries that have flaws already in them.
So it isn’t a surprise that in its Cyber Risk Report for 2016, Hewlett Packard Enterprise found that 75% of the mobile apps it scanned contained a “critical or high-severity” vulnerability.
In fact, HPE doesn’t say if it only scanned apps from official app stores, or included third-party app stores as well
The most common mobile app flaws HPE found relate to internal worries, such as unencrypted storage (75%), the inability to tell the gadget is jailbroken or rooted (72%), misused push notifications (65%), location tracking (54%) and so forth
The biggest “critical-severity vulnerability” HPE found showed up in 30% of the apps, and it’s “Insecure Transport.” That means the app’s Internet communication isn’t encrypted or uses old or weak encryption, like old versions of OpenSSL (this was the flaw behind Heartbleed in 2014).
The second most common critical flaws is “Privacy Violation” (29%), which is apps reading too much information.