It was 40 years ago today that Martin Cooper, an employee at Motorola, made the first ever cell phone call from the streets of Manhattan. Cooper used the Motorola DynaTAC to dial his rival, Joel Engel, the Bell Laboratories research chief. The cell phone Cooper had helped create was ten-inches tall and weighed two and a half pounds. It would be ten years before Motorola's DynaTAC hit the market, costing $3500 in 1983. While mobile phone technology has greatly improved during the last 40 years, the mobile Internet is still relatively new. With the first iPhone in 2007, followed by the first [...]

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

Net Applications, a site that monitors web traffic, announced today that Apple's iOS browser Safari won 61.79 percent of all mobile browser web traffic last month, a solid six-point percentage jump from February when it led with 55.41 percent of the market. At 61.79 percent, Safari ranks high above its competitors, owning 40 percent more than Android's default browser which holds the No. 2 spot in mobile browser marketshare. Android captured 21.86 percent last month, dropping from 22.82 percent in February. Safari and Android are the only browsers with marketshare in the double digits. O [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: Safari | Channel: Content Marketing | Google: Android | Microsoft: Internet Explorer | Mobile Marketing | Top News

A new report from Reuters, citing anonymous sources, says that Google's new Nexus 7 tablet will be released in July and could be priced at the low-low price of $149. This would be $50 better than the current version, which was the best small tablet until the arrival of the iPad Mini. It's still the best for its price point and better generally than Amazon's Kindle line of tablets. Reducing the price by $50 for the entry level Nexus 7 would not only drive more sales but put enormous pressure on Google rival Amazon, which has generally been selling Kindle Fires at break even. The repor [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iPad | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Mobile | Google: Nexus

Since the announcement of Google Reader closing shop July 1, Feedly has taken the lead for top news app on Androids, iPhones and iPads. After winning the No. 1 spot for news apps on Google Play and U.S. iTunes App Store last week, Feedly showed up No. 2 on Google Play and No. 4 on the U.S. App Store for both iPhones and iPads as of March 24. While a slight drop from last week's rankings, Feedly continues to out-rank other mobile Google Reader alternatives like NewsBlur, a favorite of our corresponding editor, Gary Price. Earlier this month, more than 500,000 Google Readers  transitio [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iPad | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Content Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Google Reader

[caption id="attachment_36725" align="alignright" width="324"] The Pebble[/caption] Consumers have only recently gotten used to smartphones and barely integrated tablets into their routines. Soon they'll be presented with yet another mobile device: wearable computers (watches) from both Apple and Samsung. There are other companies offering or developing versions of a "smartwatch" as well. One such device is the Pebble smartwatch (pictured at right), which raised a record $10 million through kickstarter. It integrates with the iPhone and Android smartphones. The anticipated Apple iWatc [...]

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

At a Broadway-style premiere this evening at New York's Radio City Musical Hall, Samsung unveiled its heavily anticipated Galaxy S4 handset. The event had the hype and production values of an Apple product launch. But, what barely seemed in attendance was any idea that the S4 is an Android phone or contains Google services. Samsung obviously spent a great deal of money on the show. Parts of it were awkward and many of the scripted jokes fell flat. But, the phone is sure to be a hit. The new S4 looks very much like the Galaxy S III (I watched the live stream and haven't held it in my hand [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Local | Gadgets | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Maps | Google: Mobile | Google: Nexus | Samsung | Top News

Apple's iOS 6.1.2 -- to correct a bug that reduced battery life and increased network activity for some users -- made its way into the hands of consumers on February 19th, 2013. Adoption of iOS 6.1.2 took off, and within a week, it was the most used version of iOS. According to a recent report by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Apple's iOS claimed the majority of smartphone OS sales in the U.S. in Q4 2012, standing at 51.2%. Given the popularity of the iPhone and iOS in North America, Chitika Insights conducted a research study analyzing iOS version click through rate (CTR) to help quantify the [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Analytics & Marketing Column | Apple | Channel: Analytics

The tablet is becoming the device of choice in the air. According to Gogo, 35 percent of in-flight Internet usage happens on tablets, 32 percent on smartphones. The remaining 33 percent is on laptops. It's easy to see why tablets are becoming the preferred in-flight work and entertainment device. Economy travelers are often unable to open their laptops when the seats in front of them recline. (As an aside, here's an aggressive response to that problem.) The majority of in-flight mobile devices running on Gogo are on iOS (84 percent), while 16 percent are Android, which has grown from [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: iPad | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News

The US smartphone story has been pretty consistent for well over a year: Android is now on more than 50 percent of US smartphones, followed by iOS. All others are losing share. Samsung and Apple continue to battle for the top two OEM positions in the market (and around the world). January data from comScore largely repeat and affirm this story line. According to comScore's survey data Android had a 52.3 percent market share in January. However the Google operating system slipped a bit (1.3 points) as the iPhone gained. Apple’s share grew 3.5 percent to 37.8 percent. The US is proba [...]

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

While Google's PC search market share may be hovering below 5 percent, Android is the overwhelmingly dominant smartphone operating system in the world's largest mobile market. As a result China may be preparing to take some sort of regulatory action against it. According to a Reuters report the Chinese government released a white paper, through its state-controlled China Academy of Telecommunication Research, that expresses concern about Android's domestic market share. According to figures cited by Reuters Android is on about 90 percent of Chinese smartphones, while iOS has less than 5 [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Critics | Google: Mobile | Legal: Antitrust | Mobile Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Top News

According to ad network Chitika's latest traffic study, Samsung's Galaxy S3 has caught the iPhone 5 in terms of the amount of Internet traffic it generates. The findings are drawn from "tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian smartphone mobile ad impressions" this month. Chitika said that in October 2012, Apple's latest iPhone enjoyed an 8-point lead in Web traffic share over Samsung's Galaxy. Now, it's down to one point, according to the ad network. The chart below reflects the comparative shares of the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5 when looking only at traffic coming from the two devices. [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Samsung | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage

Woe be to any mobile phone maker that isn't named Apple or Samsung. Numbers out today from IDC show the two combining for a staggering 87.6 percent of all smartphones "shipped" in 2012 on a global basis. In Q4, according to IDC, the two companies' products constituted 91 percent of all smartphones shipped. Shipped is actually a false market share metric. That's because shipments don't always equal sales or usage. However, in the case of Apple and Samsung these data are a reasonable proxy for actual sales. According to IDC, Samsung controlled 42 percent "of all Android smartphone shipment [...]

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Dan Nolan, an app developer, is concerned that Google Play giving email addresses of app purchasers to developers is a privacy blunder. As an app developer myself, I could not disagree more! How Developers Sell In Google Play Vs. iTunes The way the Google Play market works and has worked since it launched on October 23, 2008 is as follows. A developer who charges for their apps has to set up a Google Wallet account. The Google Wallet account makes the developer the merchant on record in the Google Play store. When someone buys your app from the Google Play store, that transaction, along [...]

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

People are starting to shun conventional mobile phones also known as "feature phones." But sales of smartphones continue to grow. According to sales data compiled by Gartner, global mobile handset sales in 2012 hit 1.75 billion units. However that was a nearly 2 percent (1.7 percent) drop from the previous year. According to the firm, "Demand for feature phones remained weak in 2012 and in the fourth quarter." Indeed, feature phone sales were off over 19 percent in Q4. By contrast demand for smartphones continues. As already widely documented Samsung and Apple were the two dominant smartpho [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Microsoft: Mobile | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News

This afternoon comScore released data on December US smartphone market share. The story is the same as in previous months. Android and iOS are up and almost all others are down. Apple and Samsung gained share, while others besides LG lost share. LG produced the wildly popular, perpetually sold out Nexus 4 handset. Apple was the single top smartphone OEM, while Android was the top platform with 53.4 percent of the market. Increasingly, however, Samsung is the hardware maker synonymous with Android, although Samsung rarely promotes the "Android brand." It markets Galaxy rather than And [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | Google: Mobile | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing

Last week Apple announced quarterly earnings: $54 billion revenue, $13 billion in profit. Despite their size, investors started dumping the stock, worried that its growth and glory days were over. Then the "Has Apple lost its cool to Samsung?" articles started appearing. Around the world, Samsung and Android have solidly claimed the top spot in sales. But in the United States, that's not true. According to Strategy Analytics, Apple is the "number one mobile phone vendor for the first time ever." This is based on shipments, a metric I don't like. However, for Apple, shipments and sales a [...]

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Research firm IDC has released a preliminary global estimate of tablet market share for Q4. The figures are all based on shipments, which are typically not the same as device sales to end users although in some cases shipments do predict sales. According to these numbers, Apple's dominant position in the market declined from 51.7 percent to 43.6 percent. Samsung lead the Android tablet makers with 15.1 percent market share, followed by Amazon's Kindle Fire, with 11.5 percent of the market in Q4. Source: IDC (1/13) Last week Apple reported that it sold roughly 23 million iPads in Q [...]

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

For a time, it looked like Apple's $1 billion patent infringement verdict against Samsung would would rock the smartphone world. However, in the months since the landmark decision was handed down, it has proven to be little more than a symbolic victory. Courts and the US International Trade Commission have been loath to ban the import of Android devices regardless of infringement findings. Apple is thus left with its damages and the dubious, symbolic argument that its claims were vindicated by the courts. None of that means anything to the smartphone buying public. By duplicating the "tr [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Legal: Patents | Samsung

Microsoft Corp announced quarterly revenues this afternoon. Investors received the news with a mixed reaction (the stock is down in after hours trading). The company posted growth in most areas but offered little visibility on the success of Surface or Windows Phones. Microsoft said it made $6.38 billion in net income on revenue of $21.46 billion. Like Apple this week, revenues missed expectations. However earnings per share beat analysts' consensus estimates. As reflected immediately above, the following are the divisional revenue results: Windows Division: $5.88 billion (24 per [...]

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In what is widely being seen as a miss (except for profit), Apple reported quarterly revenues of $54.5 billion this afternoon. That was slightly below consensus revenue expectations. The company posted higher profits ($13.1 billion) and earnings per share than expected. Even though they were "record results" according to Apple, analysts' expectations were extremely high. Accordingly each sales category came in just under anticipated unit sales figures. For example most analysts expected 50 million iPhones to have been sold in the previous quarter. However the company "only" sold 47.8 m [...]

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