Traffic originating from the iPhone is nearing 50 percent of all data traversing carriers’ HSPA networks. Those numbers could have a chilling effect on emerging LTE operators, who are trying to migrate to 4G but are finding themselves contending with the iPhone’s enormous 3G demands.
For its Traffic and Market Report, Ericsson sampled data from GSM carriers in the Americas, Europe and Asia, discovering that, on average, the iPhone accounts for a little more than 20 percent of their total subscribers but a whopping 45 percent of their total 3G/HSPA traffic. In comparison, Android penetration level among those same operators is around 15 percent, while those devices account for about 30 percent of their 3G traffic loads.
The differences between Android and iPhone users
Ericsson found that, on average, the iPhone and Android ran neck and neck when it comes to average consumption per subscriber: around 350 MB per month. But there was huge variation in those usage levels between different carriers, especially on Android. At the high end or Ericsson’s measurements, Android users consume 1400 MB a month, compared to 1200 MB for the iPhone, while on some networks Android phone usage averaged just a mere 50 MB a month. Network monthly averages for the iPhone never drop much lower than 200 MB.
The overall variation can be explained by carriers’ widely differing pricing policies. For instance T-Mobile USA not only offers up fairly liberal data buckets in its data tiers, but it allows customers to use mobile hotspot capabilities at no extra charge, driving up monthly consumption. Ericsson explained the even bigger variation among Google OS phones, however, by the fact that Android devices run the entire gamut of the market, while Apple targets the mid-to-high end. So in networks where Android plays second fiddle to the iPhone – which for a long while was the case at AT&T – Android devices often gravitate toward the low end, while Apple devices wind up in the hands of power users.
That helps explain how the iPhone can have such an enormous impact on operators 3G networks. Not only are iPhones a plurality of all devices on the network, they’re often winding up in the hands of carriers’ most aggressive data users.
Ericsson’s data only takes HSPA networks into account. CDMA operators like Sprint and Verizon only recently landed the iPhone, so they have spent the last several years loading up their 3G networks with Android devices. Android also is the only smartphone OS besides Windows Phone supported on an LTE network. Compared to 3G, the LTE phone install base is miniscule, but it’s growing rapidly.
If Apple doesn’t include LTE in this year’s iPhone, then the gap between Android and iOS on 3G traffic levels may only grow bigger. Android power users will start migrating to new LTE networks, while iPhone users will remain on much more inefficient 3G networks.
How moving to LTE impacts you
As I’ve written before, a 3G-only iPhone scenario could play havoc with the wireless industry, particular in North America. If operators must keep investing in their 3G networks in order to meet mounting iPhone traffic, then they won’t be able to focus on their future LTE networks, which will ultimately allow them to deliver a lot more data, a lot more cheaply.
Apple has signaled its ready to embrace LTE with the launch of the new iPad, hopefully securing 4G’s place in at least some versions of the new iPhone. LTE may sound like a carrier conceit — promising little to consumers except higher speeds and crappier battery life – but consumers stand to lose out as well if the transition to LTE is delayed. LTE is the first stepping stone to much higher-capacity LTE-Advanced systems and heterogeneous networks.
By dramatically lowering the cost to deliver data, carriers will start lowering the data prices they offer to the consumers. They won’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but that’s where competition comes into play.
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iOS v Android: why Schmidt was wrong and developers still start on Apple - The Guardian
As Apple prepares for a full week in which it will fete and educate the developers who write apps for the iPhone and iPad (and also its Mac computers) at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco - and with Google preparing to do the same for those writing Android apps at its I/O event on 27 June - the question many are asking is: if Android phones outsell iPhones, why do developers still prefer to write for Apple first?
It wasn't expected to be this way. Speaking at the LeWeb conference on 7 December 2011, Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt was in ebullient form as he considered the success of Google's Android mobile operating system. "Android is ahead of the iPhone now," he told the audience of techies and entrepreneurs. Ahead in terms of the number of phones, the quality of the software, the lower price, and having more companies making devices that used it, he said.
He also had some predictions: "Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favoured by the open approach Google is taking," he said. "There are so many manufacturers working so hard to distribute Android phones globally that whether you like ICS [Ice Cream Sandwich, the name for version 4.0 of Android, released in October] or not… you will want to develop for that platform, and perhaps even first."
When one Android user told Schmidt it was frustrating to see iPhone and iPad - known as "iOS" - versions of apps coming to market before the Android one, Schmidt said that in part because of the new software, "my prediction is that six months from now you'll say the opposite". That is, that Android versions of particular products would be written before the iOS ones.
Calendar time
Six months later, there are few signs of that happening. Instead, even while the number of Android phones in use has continued to grow steadily, to more than 300m, and with Android phones making more than 50% of the 150m-odd smartphones sold worldwide every quarter, developers still look to Apple's platform first.
It's not initially obvious why. A huge number of apps are being launched on Android. Analytics firm Distimo, which tracks the various app stores, reckons that in the first four months of 2012 more than 100,000 apps were added to the Google Play store, versus 63,000 for Apple's App Store. Microsoft's Marketplace, for Windows Phone, and BlackBerry's official stores added 35,000 and 22,000 respectively in the same period.
But follow the money - a big factor for the important developers, who can easily spend thousands writing a new app - and it's a different story. Distimo and analyst firm CCS Insight launched their App Vu Global service in early April 2012, tracking downloads and revenues from the app stores. Its initial findings claimed that Apple's App Store is generating $5.4m every day in app sales for the top 200 grossing iPhone and iPad apps. For Google Play, their estimate was just $679,000 for the top 200 grossing apps on Google Play, or about 12% of Apple's revenue.
Another mobile app-tracking service, Flurry, noted on 7 June that "For every ten apps that developers build, roughly seven are for iOS." Though the total volume of apps being developed has doubled - from over 9,000 in the first quarter of 2011 to more than 18,000 in the second quarter of 2012 - that 7:3 ratio in Apple's favour has remained consistent.
Part of that has been because iPhone users have shown themselves willing to pay for apps in a way that Android users so far have not. In January 2012, Apple said that since 2008, when its App Store opened, developers had been paid a total of $4bn, of which more than $700m was paid in the last quarter of 2011 alone. Google hasn't given a comparable figure, though Horace Dediu, who runs the Asymco consultancy, puts the figure for Google's total app sales in 2011 at $300m - meaning developers would get $210m in total.
In March 2012, Flurry crunched data from developers using its tracking tools in their apps, and claimed that given the same number of users per platform, a developer who got $1 on the iTunes App Store would get $0.23 from Google Play.
Nine-year headstart in credit cards
That's a key pointer to why developers don't look to Android first. Some cases are simple examples of what economists call "opportunity cost". Dave Addey is managing director of Agant, a British software developer which has written, among others, the Train Times app which costs £4.99 on the iPhone, and uses National Rail data to offer real-time data feeds, plan journeys and show timetables. "We still prioritise iOS," he says. "Because it's the main platform on which people will pay for an app. We haven't done Android apps for business reasons. It comes down to this: do you port [translate] to Android, or do you develop another app for iOS? In the end, iOS is the better business case. Apple's greatest trick has been making it really easy to pay for apps. Once you have your iTunes account, you just enter a password." Google is trying to emulate that by encouraging people to add a credit card when they first set up a phone; but it is coming from a long way behind Apple, which started its iTunes Music Store selling music online in 2003, and is now one of the web's biggest five holders of credit card details, along with Amazon, eBay and PayPal.
Addey points to the problems encountered by Imangi Studios, developer of the hugely popular Temple Run game - in which you are pursued along stone-lined routes by fast-moving unseen monsters - when it ported the app to Android, releasing it at the end of March.
It was a huge success in terms of downloads, hitting 5m in about 10 days. But Imangi Studios - a husband-and-wife team, plus a designer - soon discovered that Schmidt's promise of Android being ahead in the number of phones and manufacturers was only too true. Despite writing it to run on 707 Android devices, they said that 99% of the emails requesting support were actually complaints that it wouldn't run on the user's particular phone model or version of Android. They were pilloried on Facebook, despite having what would be regarded by anyone as a successful release.
Breaking up is easy
Those subtle differences between devices are known in the industry as "fragmentation". While Apple does have some fragmentation - there are seven models of iPhone, three different iPads and four of the non-phone iPod Touch - they pale into insignificance compared to Android's, where OpenSignals, which provides a network coverage app, recently found 1,363 device models running Android, from 599 different brands - though Samsung dominates with about 40% of the market.
Android fragmentation, as perceived by OpenSignals based on devices downloading its Android app. Click for original post. "It's a problem, especially for testing your app," says Agant's Addey. "You need to get a representative set of [Android] handsets so you can try it out. But that makes it hard to create a best-of-breed app because of the fragmentation, and because people are less likely to have the latest version of the [Android] software. You have to build to the lowest common denominator, rather than using the latest features." Google's statistics to the beginning of June say that just 7.1% of phones actively using its Google Play app market run version 4.0, or "Ice Cream Sandwich". The most-used version is 2.3, or "Gingerbread", released in December 2010, running on 65%; in total, 84.1% of devices using Google Play run Android version 2.3 or 2.2, dating back to June 2010.
Google Play: proportion of devices running different versions of Android accessing within 14-day period, since January 2010. Source: Google By contrast, although Apple's oldest handset on sale - the iPhone 3GS - dates to June 2009, before Android 2.2, it can run the latest version of iOS – so app developers can target apps at features it includes, confident the majority of users will be able to run them.
And iPhone users definitely do update. Addey points to data for the UK Train Times app, which is available for every iPhone and iPod Touch ever made. The latest version of iOS, v5, was released in October 2011: Addey saw the proportion of devices using the preceding version, iOS 4, drop dramatically - while the proportion using iOS 5 leapt.
Update fever
iOS versions accessing UK Train Times app feed, by time. Source: Agant. Click for larger version with longer time series Now, just under nine months since iOS 5's release, 86.2% of devices using the Train Times app run iOS 5, 12% use iOS 4, and just 1.7% use iOS 3 (released in 2009). Other developers put the proportion of iOS 5 users at 75% - lower, but still overwhelming.
"Compare this to the 7.1% uptake of Android 4.0, and it's pretty easy to see why we develop new apps for iOS first," Addey says. "Apple is constantly pushing its users and developers to be running the latest versions." He says Agant has tended to focus on bigger apps, "because we know we can support the latest features from Apple." The team's latest product is a World War 2 app for the iPad which includes a day-by-day timeline that interacts with a map, Pathe newsreel videos, and commentary by the historian Dan Snow.
There's no a priori reason why Apple should be able to get updates out more quickly. Changes to the "baseband" software which operates the radio systems in mobile phones (to connect to networks) have to be tested and approved by phone carriers; Apple has to go through those just like Android handset makers. Such changes are part of every major version both of Android and iOS.
But Apple has a clear incentive to roll out updates - to keep users and developers happy - whereas carriers and Android handset makers are less eager; fragmentation and opportunity cost hits them too, and they may have more incentive to encourage people to buy a new handset than see them using the same one with newer software.
Putting kids first
However, generalisations about what "developers" are doing in terms of platform support are risky. In key fast-growing categories – particularly free-to-play social mobile games – a number of companies launch new titles simultaneously on iOS and Android, or even on Android first. Glu Mobile, TinyCo, Storm8 and TeamLava, who have some of the most lucrative iOS games according to Apple's "top grossing" chart, are also fixtures on Android. Some companies are adopting an Android-first strategy here too.
Japanese social games publisher DeNA, which recently reported revenues of $529m for the first quarter of 2012 alone, chose Android as the platform to launch its Mobage community globally in 2011. Its recently-released Rage of Bahamut game is on Android but not iOS yet.
US publisher Pocket Gems launched a game called Tap Dragon Park exclusively for Android in May. Another US studio, Bionic Panda, focuses on Android games rather than iOS.
Certain kinds of apps can only work on Android rather than iOS, too. British startup SwiftKey is a good example: its natural-language keyboard app SwiftKey X has notched up millions of paid downloads on Google's store. It works by replacing the default keyboard on Android devices – which Apple does not allow on iOS.
"The early adopter community on Android is quite tech-savvy, and very keen to shout about the latest thing that they've discovered," says Ben Medlock, chief technology officer at SwiftKey. "We're one of the rare paid apps which is making money on Android."
Other app categories remain dominated by iOS – for example book-apps and children's apps. Swedish developer Toca Boca recently passed its 20 millionth kid-app download on iOS, but chief executive Bjorn Jeffery outlines the reasons it has so far shunned Android.
"It is a highly fragmented ecosystem to develop for, and the business model for upfront sales of apps still has its issues," he says, pointing to a question of how to allocate resources. "The answer there is unique to each developer, but I don't see 'Android first' becoming something strong in the kids app community within a foreseeable amount of time."
Resources are at the heart of why Schmidt's hopes that more companies would put Android first are currently certain to be disappointed. Toca Boca, Instagram, Temple Run... These companies were well aware of strong demand on Android for their apps, and they all knew they could probably make money there. But, faced with a decision to double down on iOS or put already-stretched resources into Android, they prioritised Apple's platform.
Volume, scale, or revenues?
Schmidt's bold statement that "application vendors are driven by volume" was, it turns out, inaccurate. True, the economics for certain kinds of apps – particularly free and social ones – are driven by scale. Yet the majority of app developers are driven by two simple motives: where they see the most revenues, and by the constraints of their resources and team size. And both those presently favour Apple - substantially.
Motorola’s Updated MOTOACTV Combines Fitness and Social Media - Zeropaid
Hey kids, don’t tweet and run: fitness and social media collide head on with Motorola’s updated MOTOACTV gadget.
Motorola have released a comprehensive update for their fitness gadget MOTOACTV, giving users advanced fitness tracking features, and the ability to receive Twitter and Facebook updates during a workout.
As well as a redesigned screen, new options for workout plans and the ability to set targets, users can now read Twitter and Facebook updates. The gadget can already send and receive texts and phone calls, and the new update is designed to provide users with added communication options. While you can’t send updates using the device, you can still “Like” other people’s posts
But how useful is this feature? For the less coordinated among us, it takes enough brain power to put one foot in front of the other, let alone make a phone call, check Facebook or read the latest Twitter updates. Plus, the screen size of the MOTOACTV is designed to be small enough so that it can function as a watch or armband, which doesn’t make it the most user-friendly device for reading.
This raises the much-heard question: how much social media is too much? Is it really necessary to be able to stay connected with our friends and followers while pounding the pavement, on a bike, or letting off steam on the driving range? With this feature, it seems like Motorola are attempting to move their product out of the “only for exercise buffs” category and into the mainstream. Starting at $250, this isn’t exactly the cheapest watch on the market, so the availability of the optional social media plug-in somewhat sweetens the deal for users who aren’t persuaded by the watch’s existing features.
Even without the plug-in, the MOTOACTV’s latest update consolidates the gadget’s place in the top ranks of sophisticated fitness devices. Its GPS tracker uploads your exercise route to the website, allowing you to analyze time and speed statistics, measure your heart rate and set fitness goals. With a scratch-resistant touch-screen display that adjusts to lighting, and a smart player that learns what music motivates you the most, the device isn’t for the faint-hearted, but rather encourages users to get serious about exercise.
To download Motorola’s update, tether your device to your computer, then go to the GooglePlay store and search for MotoACTV Facebook and Twitter. There you’ll find the app’s software update and the social plug-in.
Motorola Introduces 2 latest batteries - Kashmir Times
SRINAGAR, Jun 10: Say hello to the smartphones that defy expectations. Water-resistant, scratch-resistant, dust-proof, and featuring large batteries for amplified battery life, the Motorola DEFY™ XT and dual-SIM Motorola DEFY™ MINI set you up for social survival wherever you decide to go, making sure you stay connected for longer.
The phones’ crystal-clear Corning Gorilla Glass touchscreens --3.7-inch for Motorola DEFY XT and 3.2-inch for DEFY MINI—and colourful displays are great for email, texting and browsing the Web.
And don’t worry about battery life. Both Motorola DEFY XT and Motorola DEFY MINI come with an extra powerful 1650mAh battery giving Motorola DEFY XT 9.5 hrs hours of talk time and Motorola DEFY MINI 9 hours of talk time. You’ll stay entertained and informed all day and into the night.
The Motorola DEFY XT sports a 5-megapixel camera and the Motorola DEFYMINI a 3-megapixel camera. Both come with VGA front-facing cameras to connect with friends while you’re commuting or just relaxing at home. Featuring an intuitive interface with social and activity widgets, you can instantly share all the fun you’re having with your friends. The Motorola DEFY XT and DEFY MINI also have the brains to know what matters to you most and how to get it to you fast. They are the first smartphones in India to feature MotoSwitch, a handy user interface which learns the songs you love, who you talk to most and which apps you get the most mileage from. It then cleverly collects all your preferences and stores them, which means you’ll be so organised you’ll have loads of extra time on your hands.
But don’t worry… your boredom won’t last long. Since Motorola DEFY XT and Motorola DEFY MINI are Android™-powered smartphones, you’ll have immediate access to more than 500,000 games, apps, music, books and movies available on Google Play™.
“Our original Motorola DEFY was a hit all over Asia. We are now expanding our portfolio of water-resistant smartphones to give you more choices without having to break your wallet,” said Rajan Chawla, country head (sales and operations), India, Motorola Mobility. “Now you can stay connected all day long, through every adventure, and share your fun with everyone who matters most to you.”Motorola DEFY XT is available at selected retailers starting today for a recommended retail price of INR16,190 and Motorola DEFY MINI will start retailing on June 20th for a recommended retail price of INR11,490.
The iPhone 4S – Best Selling iPhone Today - News Broadcast
This handset may bear the same design as its predecessor the iPhone 4, but the iPhone 4S is still considered as the best iPhone today. We all know how we all loved the industrial design of the iPhone 4. This is also the very same reason why Apple has decided to use the same design and tweak it a little bit.
You also have to admit it that the new features of the iPhone 4S made you love it more. With the addition of the virtual assistant named Siri, it is not that hard to fall in love with the iPhone 4S. It can basically do anything you want for you. You can ask it to call someone or to text someone, or even ask it for weather reports. This is a feature that not all smartphones of today are equipped with.
So what else is new? There is the addition of a powerful A5 chip on this handset. It also ships with a whopping 1GHz Dual-Core processor. This handset is capable of processing images and almost everything faster than its predecessor or older iPad.
You will also enjoy an 8MP shutter on this handset. And if that is not enough, well this handset is capable of recording videos at 1080p (in full HD). There is also the phone’s VGA front-facing camera. The phone’s new operating system will also amaze you. It may originally ship with the iOS 5 but you can now upgrade it to iOS version 5.1.
This handset ships with 3.5” LED backlit IPS TFT capacitive touch screen with 16M colors. The phone’s screen resolution is at 640 x 960 pixels and with 330 ppi for its pixel density. This handset comes in with the tough Corning Gorilla Glass for screen protection. You will also love its oleophobic coating.
These are just some of the reasons why the iPhone 4S is still today’s best iPhone.
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