At the iPhone 5 press conference today Apple CEO Tim Cook laid out a lot of stats about the market and device growth in his opening remarks before the new handset was revealed. (See Danny's hands-on first impressions.) Because I know you want them, I've rounded up the key facts and figures from Cook's commentary below -- with a few bonus data points that weren't presented today. The total number of iOS devices (iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads) sold to date is 400 million. This compares with 500 million Android devices that Google says it has sold so far (1.3 million daily Android activa [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Features & Analysis | Top News

After today's iPhone 5 launch event, I had a chance to play with Apple's new phone. So far, I see plenty of reason for me to upgrade. Below, what I like and what you may wish to consider. How Android Won Me Away From The iPhone First, some background. For the past two years, I've been primarily an Android user. I've owned an iPhone since the iPhone 3GS, upgraded to the iPhone 4 and currently have an iPhone 4s. But in 2011, the 4G LTE speed of the Droid Charge wooed me away to making that my primary phone in 2011. The iPhone I use as a secondary phone (I live a strange multiplatform life, [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Features & Analysis | Top News

Live from San Francisco, it's Marketing Land's live blog of the big Apple press event, where the new iPhone 5 will almost certainly be announced, along with new iPods, iTunes 11 and more. How can we say that so confidently? Well, 9to5 Mac spotted pages within Apple.com's own search results. While you can't get to the actual pages, they pretty much speak to these product coming out. The tech blogs have gone wild, though these were largely expected. What remains a mystery is whether we'll get the rumored iPad Mini. Another rumor is that this will be announced later this year. Stay tuned. [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Apple: iPhone | Apple: Siri | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Features & Analysis

Google has launched a new iOS YouTube app, that is now available in the App Store as a free download by clicking here. The announcement of a new YouTube app prior to the release of iOS 6 later this month, is not unexpected. As you may know, Apple decided to drop the YouTube App as a default app on iOS 6 going forward. In order to ensure users have an app, Google pushed out an iPhone and iPod Touch version of the YouTube app last night. Note, there is no "universal," iPad version available yet - but I expect that to come soon. One should also note that YouTube works nicely as mobile web s [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Video | Google: Mobile | Google: YouTube | Top News

Reuters is reporting that Google's CEO Larry Page and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been involved in "behind-the-scenes conversations about a range of intellectual property matters." Like Russia and the US during the cold war, Reuters says the "two companies are keeping the lines of communication open at a high level." The article suggests the discussions started before the recent Apple victory over Samsung in the much-watched US patent trial. That litigation was widely thought to be a proxy fight against Google-Android. And many assumed that direct Apple-Google litigation was likely in its wake [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Industry | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Legal: Patents

Will Apple's sweeping, yet still preliminary, patent victory over Samsung have a positive or negative impact on Android? Will it have any impact at all? Will it be the death of competition or a boon for competition? Opinions are all over the place. Over the weekend Google issued a statement (via TheVerge) that the decision will have no impact on "core Android" features or capabilities: The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don’t relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Pate [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Industry | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Legal: Patents | Top News

This is the question on many minds following the dramatic Apple victory over Samsung in its patent case in US federal court on Friday. Many bloggers, pundits and tech journalists are now mulling over the implications and considering "What comes next?" Decrying the $1 billion-plus verdict Samsung immediately predicted the sky will fall on consumers: "It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation and potentially higher prices," the company statement claimed. Mostly hyperbole, that's unlikely to happen. Indeed the verdict is unlikely to impact Samsung in a big way either. Samsung Unlikel [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Features & Analysis | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Legal: Patents | Top News

Apple has been waging a proxy war with Google and Android through its global litigation with Samsung. Now the companies will be directly battling it out in a new action filed by Google subsidiary Motorola before the US International Trade Commission (ITC). Motorola filed and partly won a patent case before the ITC, prior to the Google acquisition. But this is the first case filed under Google ownership. The earlier Motorola ITC patent victory was based on a single claim related to wireless 3G standards. Motorola seeks an import ban on iPhones in that case. A final decision from the administ [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: Siri | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Acquisitions | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: International | Google: Legal | Google: Mobile | Legal: Antitrust | Legal: Patents | Top News

Apple released beta 4 of iOS 6, their latest iPhone and iPad OS to developers today, and one glaring omission in the version was the YouTube app. Bad news for Google, or perhaps with some perspective, a benefit? YouTube, along with Maps powered by Google Maps, were some of the first third-party powered Apps to be found on the iPhone, even before there was an app platform. In iOS 6, Apple is replacing Google Maps with their own Apple Maps, and now it appears Apple is dropping YouTube with no replacement. Apple told The Verge that Google and Apple did not renew the license rights to the a [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Video | Google: Business Issues | Google: Mobile | Google: YouTube | Top News

Several analyst firms have recently released tablet market-share estimates; however these are based almost entirely on "shipments," which are not reflective of actual device sales or usage. By contrast, ad network Chitika released data today showing the breakdown in actual usage by device type in North America. As the chart below illustrates, the iPad still overwhelmingly dominates with more than a 90 percent share of tablet-generated web traffic. However a few Android devices seem to be gaining. Source: Chitika Among the gainers are the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Google Nexus 7 (just i [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Mobile

The number of malicious Android apps has quadrupled so far in 2012, according to the antivirus/security company Trend Micro, and some of those apps are making their way into Google's official app store, Google Play. The company reports that it identified about 5,000 malicious Android apps in the first quarter of 2012 -- a number which rose to 20,000 by the end of Q2. The number doubled from 10,000 to 20,000 in just one month. Trend Micro also reports that it found 17 malicious apps in Google Play, Google's official Android marketplace, and those apps were downloaded more than 700,000 tim [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Google Play | Google: Mobile | Mobile Marketing | Top News

Samsung has built a range of Android tablets: the 5-inch Galaxy Note, and the 7, 8+ and 10.1-inch Galaxy Tabs. Almost none of them have succeeded save the 7-inch version, which has sold modestly well mostly in Europe. In the end, however, there will be two tablet sizes: 7-inch and roughly 10-inch versions. Apple owns the larger category and until last week Amazon's Kindle Fire dominated the smaller category. But with the release of the Nexus 7 at the Google developer conference, Mountain View now "owns" the 7-inch category. The NY Times' gadget reviewer in chief David Pogue loves the Ne [...]

Related Topics: Amazon | Apple: iOS | Channel: Retail | Google: Android | Google: Mobile

Monday's WWDC Facebook announcement marked Apple's full integration of the top two social networks in the world.  The odd network left out (other than Google+) was Ping, Apple's social network.  Ping was launched in 2010 and was dubbed the social network for music but only ever saw mediocre usage.  The service allowed users to follow artists & friends to see what they were playing and view their updates. AllThingsD reported that Apple is going to retire Ping which won't be included within iOS6.  All of Apple's new social elements will now rely on Facebook or Twitter.  In the [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Facebook | Facebook: Open Graph | Social Media Marketing

Research firm eMarketer is predicting that the number of iPad users will grow to 53.2 million this year. And by 2015 eMarketer argues that "more than one-third of all US internet users will have such a device." The fastest growth in the market is coming from the young and seniors, those under-12 and over 65. The "tablet" market overall is growing faster than the iPad, though iPads dominate the tablet market. Earlier this year The Pew Internet & American Life Project released survey data showing that 19 percent of US adults owned tablets. Last week comScore released data asser [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage

Most of the major internet companies are either actively in market with mobile payments or flirting with the idea. This includes Google, eBay/PayPal, Amazon and Facebook with Credits (there's an article to be written about the future of Credits). And there are scores of startups and others also competing for consumer attention and merchant adoption of their mobile payments systems: Square, Intuit, ISIS, Groupon, Visa, FirstData, LevelUp, Jumio, Card.io, Boku, Tabbedout, GoPago and many others. The list grows longer by the week it seems. Joining that list, as of yesterday, is Apple -- almost [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Mobile | Mobile Marketing | Top News

As expected, Apple has announced a significant integration of Facebook into iOS6, the next generation of its mobile operating system. Apple's Scott Forstall just told today's WWDC keynote, in Apple's typically understated style, that the company has worked with Facebook to create "the best Facebook experience ever on a mobile device." Some highlights from the announcement: Persistent login: Users won't have to re-login to Facebook when going from app to app. Facebook integrated with numerous apps, such as Photos (post photos to Facebook directly from the app), GameCenter, Notificat [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Facebook | Facebook: Mobile | Top News

Flurry Analytics has released data, drawn from its logs, that illustrate mobile app developers' continuing preference for Apple's iOS over Android. Among other reasons, Apple's iOS offers "efficiency" and a "homogenous device base" (iPhone, iPad). By contrast, Flurry observes that Android is highly fragmented and that the problem "appears to be increasing." Indeed, there are numerous Android devices, with different hardware and screen sizes, as well as different versions of the Android OS: Gingerbread, Froyo, Ice Cream Sandwich, etc. Flurry reports that "for every 10 apps that develo [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Strategy | Google: Android | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing

Echoing comments that he made earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said again on Tuesday that a deeper integration of Facebook into Apple products might be on the way. Cook appeared at the D10 Conference last night and told Walt Mossberg and KaraSwisher that Apple has "great appreciation" and "great respect" for Facebook. When asked why Apple's iOS has very deep Twitter integration, but not the same with Facebook, Cook said, "I think we can do more with them [Facebook] and, so, just stay tuned on this one." He later expanded on that idea: We want to provide customers simple and eleg [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Mobile | Top News

Research firm IDC is out with Q1 global smartphone estimates. These are shipments and not sales estimates. However the striking thing is that the market is totally dominated by Android and iOS. The former has about 60 percent share and iOS has 23 percent. The estimates don't include tablets/iPads however. Source: IDC Windows is seen shipping more units than last year; but, again, this is not indicative of sales. The platform has seen some sales success this year but not uniformly across markets. Compare Gartner global smartphones numbers below, which are generally consistent wi [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Strategy | Google: Android | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News

After I wrote the story saying that Apple was going to replace Google Maps with its own product when it rolls out as part of iOS 6, I had a conversation with a friend. He reminded me that Apple is actually in control of the majority of elements of the Maps app on the iPhone. Accordingly, "Google Maps" on the iPhone is not exactly that. Google provides the local data and some other things but Apple dictates and controls the ultimate user experience. Apple controls mapping on iOS I had logically assumed that we weren't seeing all the cool Google Maps updates and features (i.e., indoor navig [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Features & Analysis | Google | Top News