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Showing posts with label 2014 at 03:42PM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014 at 03:42PM. Show all posts
Mobile analytics firm Flurry today reports Apple accounted for just over half of new mobile device activations for the holiday season, with 51.3 percent of worldwide activations going to the Cupertino-based company.



Using data from more than 600,000 tracked apps, Flurry focused on the week leading up to and including Christmas, from December 19-25. Trailing Apple in worldwide device activations was Samsung with nearly 18 percent and Nokia at almost 6 percent. Xiaomi, Huawei, and HTC all had less than one percent of device activations, which Flurry notes could be related to their popularity in Asian markets where the holiday season isn't the big gift-giving event it is in other parts of the world.



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To put this in perspective, for every Samsung devices that was activated, Apple activated 2.9 devices. For every Microsoft Lumia device activated, Apple activated 8.8 devices. While, the holidays in general and Christmas in particular are not the sole indicator of the smartphone market share and trends, it is safe to say that Apple’s newly released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have had a blockbuster holiday season, despite a lackluster holiday season for the consumer electronics industry.

Flurry also notes that on Christmas Day the number of app installs more than doubled compared to the early weeks of December, pointing to games and messaging apps as seeing the biggest jumps on Christmas morning.



The analytics firm also notes that "phablets" are gaining significant share in the market thanks to Apple's entry with the iPhone 6 Plus. "Medium Phones" such as the iPhone 6 still dominate the market as in years past, but the growth of the phablet in 2014 has taken share away from "Full-size Tablets" and, less drastically, "Small Tablets."



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Looking at the year ahead, Flurry predicts iOS devices will continue to perform well alongside a continued shift in public opinion that will drive continued growth for the phablet form factor.


















Months before Apple is expected to release its next-generation iPhone, functional iPhone 6 clones already are starting to appear in China's mobile phone marketplace. One of the first clones, the Wico i6, is profiled by 86DIGI (via Nowhereelse.fr ) in a two-part hands-on video.



(Note: Contains fairly loud soundtrack of The Carpenters' "Top of the World")



Like most clones, the Wico i6 is quite detailed for a fake, with authentic-looking FCC labeling and the characteristic Apple branding. The phone also closely mimics the rumored styling of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 with a thin chassis that houses a side-mounted power button and elongated volume buttons.






Wico isn't the only clone maker ready to enter the mobile phone black market, however. Chinese clone maker Goophone has also announced (via GizChina.com ) that it is preparing the Goophone i6 for release in August, ahead of Apple's expected September iPhone launch.



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The GooPhone also borrows its styling from the rumored schematics of the iPhone 6 and pairs it with a quad-core Mediatek MT6582 chipset, 1GB RAM and 13 megapixel rear camera. Similar to previous Goophone clones, the i6 model is powered by the Android operating system.


















T-Mobile Music Freedom Net Neutrality

In case you missed it, T-Mobile on Thursday announced a new program called Music Freedom that will let T-Mobile customers stream as much music as they like from select streaming services without any of it counting against their monthly data caps. This is obviously a great deal for T-Mobile customers but it does raise some troubling questions when it comes to net neutrality.


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Earlier this year, Apple was rumored to be in negotiations with chipmaker Renesas Electronics to acquire its Renesas SP Drivers division, which produces chips for smartphone displays including the iPhone. Talks between the companies reportedly "failed to make progress," with touchpad and touchscreen maker Synaptics entering the picture as the likely acquirer. As noted by Reuters , that deal is now official, with Synaptics paying $475 million for Renesas SP Drivers.



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Synaptics previously supplied the scroll wheel for the first iPod, but lost Apple as a customer when the Cupertino company decided to bring its touch technology in house. Synaptics hopes to bring back Apple as a customer now that it will be acquiring Renesas SP Drivers in a deal expected to close later this year.
"Our better opportunities are really complementary technologies to what they do internally. And at this junction I don't believe they do any driver chips internally so that would really be an opportunity for us," Synaptics Inc Chief Executive Rick Bergman said to Reuters.

Synaptics reportedly will use this acquisition to develop a single-chip solution that combines its touch technology with Renesas SP's display technology. This combined chipset is projected to improve display performance and lower component cost for smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung. Synaptics also manufactures fingerprint sensors and controls 90 percent of the market after it acquired fingerprint ID provider Validity for $255 million last year.


















HP Windows 7 PCs Return

Public opinion on Windows 8 seems to be in an unending state of flux, but at least one PC manufacturer has decided to take a stand on the matter. HP has announced via the front page of its website that Windows 7 computers are "back by popular demand," signaling yet another delay to what Microsoft must have assumed would be an inevitable shift to the latest operating system.



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