News tagged ‘Droid’

Since the iPad SDK became publicly available January 27 there were more than 2,000 apps released in App Store. The mobile metrix firm Flurry analyzed some facts and made a conclusion: in comparison to December the number of new iPhone OS apps released in February is more than 185% higher. Most of them are customized versions of the apps released for iPhone/iPod Touch earlier.

Flurry said that iPad allowed AppStore to gain more apps and increase the distance between it and its biggest rival Android's Market Place.

For the last few months we have been witnessing the competition between Google and Apple that becomes more and more significant. We tried to analyze some facts and made a conclusion that the confrontation is more personal than corporate.

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After the news about Apple's lawsuit many of us have been wondering why Apple did this. Obviously, the thing is not about money as the company already has $40 billion of cash and investments. Digital Daily's editor John Paczkowski thinks the reason is a desire to extend iPhone's growing lead on the market.

"Apple is suing to make an example out of HTC and lengthen the engineering time-to-market for Android handset builders."

While other Android smartphone manufacturers will spend their time solving a problem with developing of noninfringing technologies to avoid lawsuits, Apple will continue to iterate the iPhone.

Ok, this is clear, but why Apple accused HTC now?

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Yesterday morning began with shocking news about lawsuit that was filed by Apple against HTC. As it turned out, Cupertino's company is accusing smartphone manufacturer of infringing 20 Apple patents tied to the iPhone. Google Nexus One, Droid Eris, T-Mobile G1, Touch Pro2, Touch Diamond and the Imagio are listed as exhibits in the litigation.

Copies of the suit can be read here and here. Short list of patents at issue is under the cut.

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The Wall St. Journal published a small article about Adobe Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen's talk at the Goldman Sachs technology conference this week. Adobe's CEO spoke on his view of why the iPad wasn't equipped to play Flash:

Narayen said Apple's decision likely had everything to do with its business model as it tries to keep a proprietary, closed system so everything goes through its iTunes store, and has nothing to do with the Flash technology. He said about 85 of the top 100 Web sites in the world use Flash, and 75% of the video on the Web today is in Flash, including Google Inc.'s (GOOG) YouTube, News Corp.'s (NWS) Hulu and broadcasters such as ABC and Fox.

Flash will be on every Android device sold at the end of the year. It will also be on Nokias, Palm Pres, Windows Mobile, Blackberries and just about anything else with an ARM Cortex processor. Not to mention 98% of all the Macs and PCs (and Windows/ChomeOS Tablets) throughout the world. It looks like Apple has it's own vision of what is good and bad for the business.

An interesting fact was revealed by Admob Mobile Metrics when they ran an opt-in surveys on iPhone, iPod Touch, webOS and Android devices to understand how they are engaging and interacting with applications.

As you see on the photos below, it becomes obvious that iPod Touch is more popular for teenagers. Moreover, as latter are mostly supported by their parents, they use these devices differently, and that is why the number of free downloads is so high for iPod Touch users.

Apparently, iPods make a high profit to Apple, but is this so because of children?

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The annual Pwn2Own hacking contest is coming up next month. During the event competitors will be given the chance to win cash prizes.

The competition will start on March 24 at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. This year, hackers will take on an iPhone 3GS, a Blackberry Bold 9700, an unspecified Nokia smartphone running the Symbian S60 platform and a Motorola, most likely a Droid, powered by Google 's Android. A successful hack must result in code execution with little to no user-interaction. Any exploited phone wins its attacker $10,000 in cash.

Opera Software company just announced that it plans to show Opera Mini browser for iPhone during the Mobile World Congress 2010 (MWC).

"We are thrilled to offer journalists and partners an exclusive preview of Opera Mini for iPhone during the year’s biggest mobile event,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software. “This is a unique opportunity to introduce the fast, feature-rich Opera Mini experience for the iPhone, and to showcase our latest beta releases of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on other platforms and devices. Opera’s mission is to bring the Web to the world, and by making Opera Mini available on yet another platform, we are one step closer."

But remember that Apple would never allow alternative browsers that are not based on WebKit. So what's the point of all this? A Cydia Store release? The real intent might be to draw attention to Opera's Mobile and Mini browsers running on other platforms where the software is actually released like Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Android.

Google released a software update for Android-based Nexus One smartphones. The update offers a number of enhancements, but the most interesting one is a support of the multi-touch technology in phone's Browser, Gallery and Maps applications. The new functionality is called "pinch-to-zoom".

Google previously had an agreement with Apple, that Android OS would not support multi-touch in the U.S. Now it looks like all the agreements are gone.

Engadget posted a video of the Nexus One's pinch-to-zoom functionality:

A few days ago Apple introduced the iPad, but obviously it is not the only device of its kind on the market. Gizmodo created a comparison table, where they are analyze different features of 8 devices:

• Apple iPad
• HP Slate
• Fusion Garage JooJoo
• Notion Ink Adam
• Dell Mini 5
• Archos 7 Android
• Lenovo IdeaPad U1
• Archos 9

Here is the table:

As you can see, these wonderful devices have different strengths and weaknesses, all users have to do is to choose which ones are more important, visit the store and... buy an iPad

MOTO Development has posted results of a DIY touchscreen analysis for the Apple iPhone, Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Eris, and Google Nexus One.

MOTO evaluated the resolution and accuracy of each touchscreen device. They used a very simple technique that anyone can perform at home. The results are very interesting. The iPhone’s touch sensor showed the most linear tracking with the least amount of stair-stepping. The Droid Eris and Nexus One tied for second with only faint wiggling – but actually performed best at the edge of the screen. Last in the line-up was the Motorola Droid, which demonstrated significant wavy artifacts or “stair-stepping.

You can find a chart with the results and a video below:

Here is a video:

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Google today announced the launch of its Nexus One smartphone. It is based on the Android 2.1 operating system and offers 800x480 screen, 5 megapixel camera with flash,  Qualcomm's 1 GHz Snapdragon processor. The Nexus One offers 512 MB of Flash and 512 MB of RAM, and ships with a 4 GB Micro SD card with support for cards up to 32 GB.

Nexus One is initially available from the Google web store in the US without service for $529 or starting at $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA. In the near future, Verizon Wireless in the US and Vodafone in Europe plan to offer similar service plans.

Here is the full list of hardware and software features:

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We posted a very good comparison table with iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, MyTouch 3G and Motorola Droid. Here is a new one comparing iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, Motorola Droid and new Google Nexus One:

Google has announced an Android-related press conference for January 5th, and all indications point to a launch of the Nexus One at the event.

Rumors say that the Nexus One will be offered at an unsubsidized price of $529.99, or at $179.99 with a two-year agreement on T-Mobile. There will be only one rate plan avaliable for the Nexus One - unlimited talk, text and web for $79.99 per month.

This is the first video hands-on of Nexus One, best known as the first Google Phone to be released in early 2010. In the movie we can see the Android Market, the speed of the processor, quite functional browser, the ability to open documents, and even Google Maps Widget.

Here are some characteristics of the device:

• OLED display with capacitive touchscreen
• Home Screen renovated with the possibility of using an animated background
• Two microphones to reduce background noise during a conversation
• The new version 2.1 operating system,
• Snapdragon processor
• Supports GSM networks
• WiFi
• Great camera
• Virtual keyboard on the screen, but there is ability to use voice to dictate the words

Here is a side-by-side photo of Nexus One and iPhone:

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