The Alphabet Car app is free today on the Amazon Appstore for Android as one of the online retailer’s Daily Deal specials. The word game normally goes for $2.99, and it has a 4-star rating or higher on both Amazon and Google Play. Folks can even receive a complimentary $1 Amazon MP3 Credit with this download. One claim per Amazon account, however, until Dec. 31.
Check it out: Amazon | Alphabet Car by Animoca
A new survey by research organization Pew Internet & American Life Project depicts how Android rose from 15 percent in 2011 to 48 percent in 2012, in terms of U.S. adult tablet ownership, due to the higher-priced iPads steadily losing traction.
Pew’s Journalism website elaborated:
Over the last year, tablet ownership has steadily increased from 11% of U.S. adults in July of 2011 to 18% in January of 2012, according to PEJ data. Currently, 22% own a tablet and another 3% regularly use a tablet owned by someone else in the home. This number is very close to new data, released here for the first time, conducted in a separate survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project on July 16 through August 7 2012 that found 25% of all U.S. adults have a tablet computer.
The growth in tablet adoption is likely related to the advent of the lower-priced tablets in late 2011. Overall, about two-thirds of tablet-owning adults, 68%, got their tablet in the last year, including 32% in 2012 alone. That has lessened Apple’s dominance in the market. Now, just over half, 52%, of tablet owners report owning an iPad, compared with 81% in the survey a year ago.
Android-based devices are now at 48 percent overall: approximately 21 percent own the Android-forked Kindle Fire, 8 percent own the Samsung Galaxy, and the remaining is a mix. It is worth noting Android would only hold 27 percent without the $199 Kindle Fire.
The survey did not include Google’s Nexus 7 or Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, however, as they were not yet introduced. The final numbers also mirror world sales data, according to Pew, which place the iPad at 61 percent and Android at 31 percent.
Check out Pew for more related information on smartphone ownership and operating system loyalty.
The folks at iFixit are performing its usual teardown ritual today. This time it has a full breakdown of Amazon’s new Kindle Fire HD announced earlier this month. One of the teardown highlights: the device includes a 3.7 V, 4400 mAh, 16.43 Wh Li-ion battery that has about the same juice as the previous-generation Kindle Fires, which means the 11 hours of expected battery life is up for debate. Other findings: The Kindle Fire HD sports an upgraded Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM from Elpida, a LCD from LG Display, and 16GB of flash memory from Samsung. Overall, the device scores a decent 7 out of 10 repairability score, which ties with the Nexus 7 and beats the third-generation iPad.
-Samsung KLMAG2GE4A eMMC 16 GB Flash Memory and Flash Memory Controller
-Elpida B8164B3PF-1D-F 8 Gb (1 GB) DDR2 RAM
-Texas Instruments TWL6032 Fully Integrated Power Management IC
-Broadcom BCM2076 GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, and FM Receiver/Transmitter
-Wolfson WM8962E Ultra-Low Power Stereo CODEC
-B50 5222 12507A9A10
iFixit’s notes on the teardown are below:
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Update: Here’s the full presentation video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYi1jZXz9Kg&list=UULN8H0cLurGAUgwwufetV3Q&index=2&feature=plcp
That’s it folks!
3:00: The ‘big kahuna’ is a $499 LTE 32GB version of the 8.9 inch Kindle HD. That’s exactly where Apple starts.
2:45 Bezos says Amazon wants to make money when people use its products. If someone puts it in a desk drawer, Amazon deserves nothing.
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A lot of social media ties to games. Cloud streaming etc.
2:30 Devices called the Kindle SD and HD 7 and 8.9 inch respectively.
Parental controls for more multiple children.Kindle FreeTime: You can set different time limits for different kinds of content for your kids. Books? Unlimited. Games and TV? Limited.
“Sometimes you invent for customers. Sometimes you invent for yourself.” Bezos has four kids. He knows about negotiation over screens.
2:20 First time I’ve seen Amazon bring out speeds and feeds. Touting TI OMAP processor over Tegra 3 (as in Nexus 7) in floating point. Lots faster. Means wicked fast page turning. MIMO dual antenna radios help get content faster.”41% faster than iPad, even faster than Nexus 7.”
2:15: Kindle Fire: “In less than a year, Kindle Fire is 22 percent of tablet sales in the US.” #1 best selling device on Amazon.com
$159 is the new price of th 7-inch version including longer battery life and more RAM and better performance.
New 8.9″ version 1920×1200
The 8.9-inch Kindle has Dolby Digital Plus – the first tablet to have this. Dual speakers vs. singular speaker on iPad.
“Customers are smart. Last year, there were more than two dozen Android tablets launched into the marketplace, and nobody bought ‘em. Why? Because they’re gadgets, and people don’t want gadgets anymore. They want services that improve over time. They want services that improve every day, every week, and every month.”
2:00 Keeping the $79 Kindle with new Black plastic. Adding more fonts and faster pageturns and knocking off $10: $69
1:45: Kindle Paperwhite: 8week battery life, 7.7ozs/ 9mm thick. Patented backlighting. High Re screen – 212ppi. Don’t call it Retina.
[tweet https://twitter.com/markgurman/statuses/243769411838816256]
1:42: Lights go down. Commercial from the game last night plays
[tweet https://twitter.com/nickbilton/statuses/243765633240662016]
1:40 So the first 10 minutes are over an nothing to show for it. only 110 more!
1:30 here we go…
1:20 BREAKING:
[tweet https://twitter.com/adamlashinsky/statuses/243761459065143298]
1) Amazon CEO will be present. 2) there will be demos. 3) amazon has prepared.
1:18: Mobile Nations peeped Amazon Board member and former Apple/Palm/HP hardware design guru Jon “Ruby” Rubinstein. He’s here to “learn”
1:15: 2 hours eh? This is going to be a helluva show.
1:00: I just want to say for the record that a Streaming TV product makes more sense than a Phone for Amazon. That is all.
Show starts at 1:30PM ET folks.
e
Following the verdict in the Apple vs. Samsung trial today, where Samsung was found guilty of infringing various Apple patents related to the case, Apple is also coming out a winner, at least temporarily, in Google/Motorola’s attempt to block imports of iPhones and iPads to the United States.
In late June, we told you about Google’s attempt to block U.S. imports of iPhones and iPads based on a previous ruling that Apple infringed on one standard-essential Motorola patent. The initial ruling was under review by the ITC, which has power to block U.S. imports of Apple devices from Asia, with a decision expected at a hearing scheduled for today.
The ITC has now concluded its review (via paid blogger FossPatents), finding no violations for three of the four patents in the initial suit (including the one mentioned above), but remanded an investigation on a fourth, non-standard essential patent to Judge Thomas Pender. The result? According to FossPatents, there might be a violation and import ban related to the patent, but a remand and ITC review could take up to a year:
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Android Police pulled some nice quotes from a recent Reddit thread on the future of the Facebook App on Android…
FB: Facebook is committed to both Android and iOS, and you’ve now seen what we can do. Stay tuned. (There are things in the Android app that aren’t in the iOS one today, like mentions in posts and comments, photo multi-upload, event creation. Since version 1.9 the Android app has tested faster than the iOS one, but FB-iOS 5.0 obviously changes the game.)
Android presents some unique challenges for developers, especially those with a large user base, but we do and will power through them. A lot of time is spent dealing with device-specific issues and limits, and you really have to fight with the toolkit to get iPhone-smooth interactions. Some vendors have a different HTTP stack (!), none implement the Camera APIs consistently, and reliability of hardware acceleration is…imperfect, GC pauses are terrible, lots of the toolkit insists on doing real work on the UI thread and allocating recreationally. On iOS you can test on 5 devices and basically have the market covered. We have to test on many dozens to get to the top 1/3 of our users, and then the tail starts to getreally long.
Q: Do you know when we could expect a native app too? I realise you probably can’t give away too much but are we talking weeks? Months?
A: Nobody is more excited about the state of our current development version than we are, and we will get it to users as soon as we can. One of our awesome PR people is standing next to me (10,000 miles away) with a gun (frowny face), so I can’t say more. Also, I have been doing software 20 years too long to make estimates in public. Experience and quality determine the time. I am utterly confident that you’ll find it worth the wait, and I wish I could give it to you today.
Q: Pretty much everyone I know has problems with the app even loading anything at all, and that’s before complaints about performance issues. This has gone on for ages, how come something as important as this has been unresolved for so long?
A: There are lots of reasons that people can experience problems, and we work through (and fix) different ones all the time. We have pretty detailed metrics on different aspects of performance, stability, load-time, load-error, etc. We can see them getting better in meaningful chunks, but that spreads out across 130M users in a way that isn’t to anyone’s satisfaction. (This is one area in which neither the inherent characteristics of the Android webview nor the OEM-specific tweaks that occur are our friends. Really, they aren’t even cordial.) We’ve been on fixed-date release cycles since 1.9, and we’re now down to every 4 weeks (where we’ll stay); this was a shit-ton of work for a large number of people, but it means we can get improvements out to users faster even while investing in longer-term features or architecture changes.
Q: What’s the best way for us, as users, to make it known that something isn’t working right with the app and make a difference? As of right now I could make quite a list of things that don’t work with the app, however it would feel a bit like a drop in the ocean for all the feedback you probably receive and feels like it would go unnoticed…We want to help :)
A: There’s a bug reporting mechanism either via the website or the app that someone on my team reads and rolls up for the developers weekly. My internal build has another mechanism for it, so I embarrassingly can’t tell you in more detail right now. :-/
Q: Is it true that Facebookers have been forced to use the android app to get a feel for how bad it is?
A: Neither the assertion nor the implication are true to my knowledge, and I am virtually certain that my knowledge on this issue is complete.
The folks at iFixit are once again ripping apart the latest devices. This time Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1, officially launched just last week, gets the teardown treatment. It scored relatively high for repairability compared to the industry’s leading tablet, the iPad. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 came in at 8 out of 10—that is in comparison to the newest iPad’s 2 out of 10 score.
* Major players on the motherboard include the following:
* Samsung Exynos 4 Quad 1.4 GHz processor with integrated 3D graphics
* Wacom W8008 (we assume this is used for S Pen input)
* Atmel mXT1664S touchscreen controller
* Samsung KLMAG2GE4A NAND flash memory
* Wolfson Audio WM1811AE audio codec
* F0514A 430 1201KP411
iFixit shared a few of the highlights:
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Amazon’s next-generation Kindle Fire could land in the fall with a larger display.
At least that is what Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader reported after receiving a tip about a new Kindle Fire clearing the Federal Communications Commission yesterday:
A friend of mine has tipped me to an anonymous set of FCC documents which were posted yesterday. They don’t show any useful detail, but they do lead somewhere interesting. Like Amazon’s past FCC submissions, this paperwork belongs to a new front company. This time around the company is Harpers LLC.
Hoffelder did not find any details in the FCC filing beyond the eReader’s label, but he reviewed the dimensions given and said it looked like a 9.7-inch or 10-inch tablet:
The general screen geometry is likely going to be 4:3 (like the iPad), and not widescreen like many Android tablets. And since some of the hidden parts of the FCC paperwork will be revealed in December, this device will clearly be launched this fall.
The original Kindle Fire is a version of Amazon’s popular Kindle eReader. It announced in September 2011 with a color 7-inch multi-touch display and a forked version of Google’s Android operating system.
Go to The Digital Reader for the full report.
Pinterest updated its entire mobile app lineup today with a completely refreshed design, and it released all-new tablet and Android apps. Previously only available on the iPhone (and now iPad), the developer released Android versions today that work on both phones and tablets. Pinterest walked through some of the new features in a blog post announcing the updated apps. The app is available as a free download on Google Play now.
Android owners have been very vocal with their requests for an app – every product announcement we’ve recently made has resulted in the question “What about an Android app?” We were listening, and our custom-designed Android app makes it simple and fast to pin, so that the time you spend on Pinterest is as productive as possible. We also made sure the app works well on Android phones and tablets, regardless of your device’s cost, speed or screen size.
The majority of American teens prefer YouTube to iTunes, radio, online radio, and CDs when it comes to finding and listening to music.
Approximately two-thirds of 18-and-younger U.S. teenagers, according to a “Music 360” survey from research firm Nielsen (via The Wall Street Journal), claimed they sidestepped other music-listening mediums for Google’s video-sharing platform.
YouTube snagged 64 percent of 13-to-17 year olds, while radio came in second at 56 percent. iTunes held 54 percent, with CDs and Pandora rounding the top five at 50- and- 35 percent respectively.
The Wall Street Journal noted young folks regard YouTube as a “de facto free music service,” but adults do not take full advantage of the site’s complimentary content. The survey showed 67 percent of them actually preferred radio for music consumption, but another 61 percent still gave CDs a whirl. Meanwhile, YouTube stole 44 percent, Pandora landed the No. 4 spot at 32 percent, and iTunes sat at fifth with 29 percent.
According to the latest data from IDC, four of the top five worldwide vendors eyed shipment increases year-over-year and solid growth in Q2 2012.
Global tablet shipments hit 25 million units, with a 66.2-percent year-over-year increase, while Apple’s iPad set a shipment record in Q2 2012 by jumping from 11.8 million units shipped in Q1 2012 to 17 million.
Samsung sits at second place with 2.4 million units shipped, which is an increase from 1.1 million units in Q2 2011, and ASUS notably almost tripled its amount of units shipped from a year ago. Interestingly, shipments of the Google/ASUS-branded Nexus 7 are not a part of these totals.
Get the full breakdown at IDC.
This article is cross-posted at 9to5Mac.
Apple and Samsung appeared in a San Jose federal court today, where U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh presides, to give opening statements starting at 9 a.m. PST.
Apple filed the first suit in this monumental case in April 2011. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company claimed Samsung infringed its patents by “slavishly copying” its iPhone. Samsung, a South Korea-based Company, promptly countersued.
This is one of the important cases to go to trial among a slew of other litigations on smartphone patents. If Apple wins, Samsung could suffer a financial blow and the ability to sell its infringing products in a large market. If Apple loses, its “thermonuclear war” against Android smartphone manufacturers could essentially wither away as Samsung collects royalty fees.
This morning’s most notable highlights are below (continually updated).
This Apple vs. Samsung trial is turning into a treasure trove of information on the two companies, with the latest bit of information being that Samsung is readying a 11.8-inch Galaxy Tab with an incredible 2,560-by-1, 600 pixel resolution. That is a 30-inch monitor brought down to the size of a netbook display, and it is somewhere between the screens on a retina MacBook Pro and a Retina iPad. This mega-tablet is labeled “P10” on slide 83 of Samsung’s presentation, so it has no one but itself to blame for this premature announcement.
A rough calculation on the size is just slightly bigger than the screen of the smaller MacBook Air. I will admit that I would love to try one of these out. And, before you go blaming Samsung for stealing Apple’s Retina invention, remember that Samsung makes the displays in Apple’s Retina iPad. Therefore, it has just as much right as anyone. As for the look and feel of the Tab, that is for the courts to decide.
A German court ruled this morning that the Android-powered tablet does not violate the patented look of Apple’s tablet. The Duesseldorf court discarded one claim by the Google-owned manufacturer, however, about the iPad’s design patent being inapplicable.
FoxBusiness explained:
- Apple initially sued Motorola for allegedly infringing three iPad designs with the Xoom. It sought to have the device banned across Europe.
- Although the judges ruled Motorola’s Xoom doesn’t infringe on the iPad, the court rejected a counterclaim brought by Motorola alleging the iPad’s design patent is invalid, a spokesman for the court said.
- As the court ultimately rejected both parties’ claims, it ordered Apple to pay two-thirds of costs and Motorola to pay a third, the spokesman added.
- […] During two hearings prior to the ruling, the presiding judge had indicated the court was leaning in Motorola’s favor. Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann said in March that the court considered the evenly bent back and shaped edges on the front of the Xoom tablet sufficient to give the product individual character.
Apple is also suing Motorola in a Mannheim court for allegedly breaching a patent on multi-touch enabled devices.
Get the full report at FoxBusiness.
IMDb, the unofficial resume for everyone and everything Hollywood, just announced its iOS and Android apps have experienced more than 40 million total downloads. The Android counterpart for tablets and smartphones claimed half of those downloads, and IMDb is celebrating with today’s launch of “highly anticipated discovery, personalization and social features.”
The IMDb Movies & TV app is a free app at the Google Play store. It rates 4.5-stars as of press time.
The press release is below.
Reports from last week noted that Samsung’s attempt to lift Apple’s preliminary injunction placed on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the United States was rejected by District Judge Lucy Koh. Today, in Apple’s ongoing patent cases with Samsung in the United Kingdom, Bloomberg reported Judge Colin Birss ruled against Apple, claiming Sammy’s Galaxy Tabs “are not as cool.” It is hard to imagine Apple losing in any more of a complimentary way, as Judge Birss claimed his decision was based partly on the fact Galaxy tablets “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity.”
The Galaxy tablet doesn’t infringe Apple’s registered design, Judge Colin Birss said in a ruling today in London. He said that consumers weren’t likely to get the two tablet computers mixed up.
The Galaxy tablets “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design,” Birss said. “They are not as cool.”
The company provided a full email statement regarding today’s decision (via Pocket-lint). Samsung explained the court referred to roughly 50 pieces of prior art when dismissing Apple’s case:
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The folks at iFixit recently took a look inside Google’s Nexus 7 tablet, and today they are ripping apart another new Nexus device: the Nexus Q media streaming, Apple TV competitor. We already told you all about Google’s reasoning behind manufacturing the device just 15 minutes away from its United States headquarters, but iFixit wanted to find out exactly what parts came from where.
There was nothing too shocking in the teardown, but iFixit was able to identify the origin of many components. As noted in the report, “it’s nearly impossible to have a truly American-made electronic device.” Here is what it found:
iFixit is hardcore when it comes to breaking open our favorite electronics to see what’s inside, and the website did it again today with the refreshed Google-flagship, Asus-built Nexus 7 that unveiled at the Google I/O conference last week.
Teardown highlights:
— The 7-inch tablet offers GPS, NFC, and Wi-Fi antennas all manufactured between April 20 and May 25, 20011.
— The Nexus 7 boasts a 4326 mAh battery that lasts 9:49 hours, whereas the Kindle Fire has a 4400 mAh battery that lasts 7:42 hours. Meanwhile, the new iPad battery, which is “significantly larger” at 11,500 mAh, only lasts 9:52 hours for HSPA and 9:37 hours for LTE.
— The official Nexus page stated there is one “speaker” in the back, but iFixit spotted
— Hydis manufactures the 7-inch, 1,280-by-800 HD display designated by model HV070WX2.
What’s inside:
— NVIDIA T30L Tegra 3 processor
— Hynix HTC2G83CFR DDR3 RAM
— Kingston KE44B-26BN/8GB 8GB flash
— Max 77612A inverting switching regulator
— AzureWave AW-NH665 wireless module
— Broadcom BCM4751 integrated monolithic GPS receiver
— Invensense MPU-6050 gyro and accelerometer
A gallery is below.
Google’s Chrome browser is now No. 1 in Apple’s App Store for free apps.
The mobile browser went live for iPhone and iPad owners yesterday, and now it holds the top spot for both device categories. The app notably allows users to view open tabs, bookmarks, and other browser particulars running on other computers and devices. Users can even send pages from Chrome on a computer to their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with “one click and read them on the go, even if you’re offline.”
Chrome for iOS already touts 4.5-stars based on over 3,500 reviews as of press time. Despite the glowing accolades, some folks are noticing its lack of Apple-given attention:
[tweet https://twitter.com/piecykw/status/218530635013300224]
This article is cross-posted on 9to5Mac.
Google just announced at its second day of Google I/O that Chromebooks and Chromebox would come to 100 Best Buy stores in the United States and Dixon’s stores in the United Kingdom. Google’s Chromebook website already has a “Buy In Store” option, which will allow you to locate a Best Buy location near you that is stocking the Chromebooks. Google also promised more retailers and more OEMs would get their hands on Chromebooks before the 2012 holiday season. Lucky, I/O attendees were given a free Chromebox, which means we will soon have a hands-on for you.
[tweet https://twitter.com/googlechrome/status/218399112062701568]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSKZy2ayvMs&feature=player_embedded]
Update: The app is already available in some international App Stores and will hit the U.S. store soon.
Google just announced at Day 2 of Google I/O that Chrome for iPhone & iPad will come to the App Store later today for devices running iOS 4.3 or later. The app will feature many of the features present in other versions of the browser, including: Chrome sync, incognito mode, and its unique tab UI. Google also announced during the keynote that it would bring its recently launched Google Drive cloud service to iOS devices.
As noted by Daring Fireball, the Chrome iOS app will have to rely on WebKit:
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[tweet https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/217362407469748224]
Update: A report from Bloomberg Businessweek confirmed with some clarification. As we reported in April, the ITC will have to review Judge Pender’s previous ruling that Apple infringed on one Motorola patent related to industry standard 3G and wireless technologies. The date for that hearing is now scheduled for August 24 and could result on a block of iOS devices from Asia to the United States:
The U.S. International Trade Commission said it will review ITC Judge Thomas Pender’s findings that Apple was violating one of four Motorola Mobility patents. The commission is scheduled to issue a final decision on Aug. 24, and has the power to block devices made in Asia from entering the U.S.
According to several tweets from financial analyst @zerohedge, Google is apparently attempting to block shipments of the iPhone and iPad in the U.S. related to 3G patents. We do not have any more information at the moment, but we will keep you updated as the story unfolds…
[tweet https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/217362478374457345]
CNBC reported a Reuters story of the same nature.
[tweet https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/217364425290686464]
(Developing)
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Amazon just bulked its Kindle app for Android, iOS, and its Cloud Reader by adding children’s books, comics, and graphic novels that were previously exclusive to Kindle Fire owners.
The apps now offer over 1,000 titles for children with features like Text Pop-Up, which help to improve and simplify the reading experience, and Kindle Panel view for comics and graphics to allow panel-by-panel viewing. A few of the literary additions include Brown Bear, Curious George, Batman, and Superman.
Android tablet owners, or those with Cloud Reader on a widescreen display, will also notice the ability to customize their reading experience with new margin and line spacing controls. The update also brings side-by-side viewing of two pages in landscape mode. Meanwhile, iOS users have a new Search option to locate content by title or author.
This article is cross-posted on 9to5Mac.
Analytics firm Flurry has dissected developer ratios for Apple and Google’s mobile platforms as their respective annual conferences are on the horizon, and research findings show the two companies boast a joint market cap of about $750 billion.
The study compared developer support for iOS versus Android by examining data collected from more than 70,000 companies across more than 185,000 mobile apps. The bar graph below illustrates developers’ loyalty to Apple: For every 10 apps that developers build, only three are for the Android operating system.
“While Google made some gains in Q1 2012, edging up to over 30% for the first time in a year, we believe this is largely due to seasonality, as Apple traditionally experiences a spike in developer support leading up to the holiday season. Apple’s business has more observable seasonality,” explained Flurry in a blog post.
Flurry further cited iOS as the more attractive platform to developers due to its stronghold on the tablet market share. The pie chart below represents a sample size exceeding 5 billion total user sessions. It reveals the Galaxy Tab and Amazon Kindle Fire sit at “very distant second and third places in terms of consumer usage.”
Another comparison on revenue generated by top apps for both Android and iOS uncovered the difference in revenue generated per active user is four times greater on iOS than Android. Flurry noted that for every $1 earned on iOS, a developer could expect to earn about 24-cents on Android.
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is June 11 to June 15 in San Francisco, while Google’s I/O conference is June 27 to June 29 in the same California tech-hub city.
