News tagged ‘smartphone’

While Apple has earned much praise for its iPhone design aesthetic, it also has received criticism for durability problems, with many users experiencing the issues after dropping their smartphones onto hard surfaces.

In the fifth-generation iPod touch and iPhone 5 Apple began using sapphire crystal in order to cover the rear camera of the devices, providing superior scratch resistance and durability. Apple notes:

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DigiTimes reports that the components for the next generation iPhone will be shipped at the end of may, and the new Apple’s smartphone may appear somewhere in the third quarter. This confirms other reports that iPhones will be released in June or July.

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Check out these charts that visualize the rise and fall of key players in the smartphone market since 2005. The data is from comScore's 2013 Mobile Future in Focus whitepaper.

While Android and iOS might appear poised to lock up the smartphone market for good, it is worth looking at the history of the smartphone market to understand just how quickly fortunes can change. In 2005, the market was dominated by Palm, Symbian and BlackBerry. However, by the following year all three had ceded control to Microsoft as the new market share leader. 2008-2010 saw BlackBerry stage a comeback to assume the #1 position before eventually giving way to the upstart Android platform in 2011. The only key player in the current smartphone market never to have owned the market share lead, interestingly enough, is iOS.

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Primate Labs has posted benchmarks scores for the new Samsung Galaxy S 4 revealing that the device is nearly twice as fast as the iPhone 5.

I've charted the Geekbench 2 scores for the Samsung Galaxy S4 along with several Android phones, the iPhone 5, and the BlackBerry Z10. If you're not familiar with Geekbench 2, higher scores are better.

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AppleInsider reports that an analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI Securities has shared a few new details about rumored Apple's low-cost iPhone. He expects the cheaper iPhone will have a plastic and fiberglass casing that will be thinner, lighter and stronger, than typical plastic casings.

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Taiwan's Commercial Times points to a research note issed by an analyst Kirk Yang from Barclays claiming that Apple is planning to launch a lower-cost iPhone and an iPhone 5S in the August/September timeframe.

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The Wall Street Journal reports on recent Apple’s operations to increase sales in India, one of the fastest growing markets in the world. The company recently launched iTunes and Apple TV there. There also were rumors that Apple was planning to open retail stores in India.

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FixYa, a site that provides troubleshooting tips, today published a "Smartphone Reliability Report", comparing user complaints on Apple’s iPhone, Samsung’s Galaxy, Motorola’s Droid and Nokia’s Lumia.

Based on the reported issues, coming from a database of around 30 million users, FixYa gave a dependability score to each smartphone. According to its rankings, iPhones were the most reliable smartphones with the fewest reported issues.

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Joshua Topolsky from The Verge has written a lengthy report about his experiences using on-face computer Google Glass.

Google Glass is a small computer mounting to an eyeglass frame that has a display visible only to the user. The device includes GPS, a built-in camera, which can record what the wearer sees, and Bluetooth and Wi-FI connections. The wearable device can handle many of the tasks performed on smartphones, including sending text messages, showing weather reports, giving driving directions and more.

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Market intelligence firm IDC published a report on what it describes as the Smart Connected Device Market. The graphic created by the company shows the market share decrease for both laptops (from 29% in 2010 to 17% in 2012) and desktop PCs (from 23% to 12%), while smartphones grew from 45% to 60% and tablets from 3% to 11%. Overall, the PCs’ market share fall from about 50% to 30% in just two years.

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At an event, which was held in New York City, Sony announced the PlayStation 4, new next-generation video game console. The new console will allow gamers to try out new games before buying, share video games with friends, as well as to watch friends play in a spectator mode.
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In November, research company Strategy Analytics claimed that Samsung's Galaxy S III had become the best-selling smartphone worldwide in the third quarter of last year, taking advantage of iPhone 4S decreased sales ahead of the iPhone 5 launch.

The firm’s latest research published today shows that Apple easily retook the title for the fourth quarter of 2012 with the iPhone 5 shipments reaching 27.4 million units for 12,6 percent of the market.

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According to the information provided by The Verge, the music streaming service Spotify has been talking about creating a section of free subscription for smartphones and tablets.

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Today NPD released a report analyzing consumer technology sales in U.S. for 2012. According to the report, since 2010, U.S. consumer technology sales have decreased by $4 billion, down to $143 billion.

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Today analyst Brian White from Topeka Capital issued a note to clients (via Forbes) providing his expectations for much-rumored cheaper iPhone. According to White, Apple can release the low-cost iPhone as early as June and the device will be called “iPhone Air” or “iPhone mini”. He also expects that the contract-free model will cost from $250 to $300, which would allow the device to compete with high-end smartphones priced below $320 from China-based Xiaomi. He also noted:

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