BBM for Android has been installed millions of times since its (bumpy) launch, but that's not enough for the folks in Waterloo. Today BlackBerry has confirmed what many already suspected: it's planning to launch a version of BBM for phones still running Android 2.3 in February. Those first versions only ran on Ice Cream Sandwich or later, and BlackBerry has been not-so-quietly scouting forGingerbread beta testers for at least two weeks. It's not hard to see why the company wants to branch out further, especially since it's dealing with pressure from buzzy messaging apps like Snapchat and WhatsApp. And while it might feelancient, Gingerbread still powers over a fifth of active Android devices. Lots of those phones are sold at cut-rate prices across the globe, so BlackBerry has a shot at maintaining its messaging mojo in developing markets... though pumping outcheap Foxconn-made phones should help too.
News broke last month that Google was working on bringing Chrome webapps to mobile devices, with a plan to have something ready in beta form by January. Google has delivered; the company has today released a toolset for developers to port their apps to iOS and Android.
As previously reported, Google has developed a compatibility layer using the open source Apache Cordova toolchain to allow programmers to wrap their apps in a native app shell and distribute the app on the App and Google Play stores. The tool also ports the necessary Chrome APIs the web apps would typically need on mobile, like notifications and access to local storage. The toolchain is currently an early preview, so improvements are surely on the way.
Google announced plans to bring Chrome Apps to the desktop back in September, but only delivered on the promise last month in debuting apps for OS X. Windows users will still have to wait.
Not interested in buying a Steam Machine this year, but still want a tiny gaming PC? Never fear -- CyberPowerPC has just released the Zeus Mini, its latest take on a conventional small computer with full-sized performance. The system is just 4.4 inches thick and 18 inches deep, but it has room for fast video cards like AMD's R9 290 or NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 780. You'll also find a high-end AMD Kaveri or Intel Haswell processor inside, and there's space for a large liquid cooling system if you insist on a silent rig. Zeus Mini prices start at $599 for a basic variant with a 3.7GHz AMD A10 chip and integrated graphics, but demanding players can shell out $1,479 for a flagship model with a 3.5GHz Core i7 and GTX 780 video.
Did you know that back in 1995, Apple presented a prototype of a PDA with a built-in digital camera? This conceptual device known as the Apple Videophone was developed to allow video calls to be made over a data connection. Today, some 19 years later, we have the iPhone – a versatile smartphone that can be used for not just FaceTime chats, but for taking high quality photos as well. Its 8MP main snapper is liked by many, including a considerable fraction of our readers, as it turns out. In fact, Apple's iPhone 5s was ranked first in our latest blind camera comparison.
For those who missed it, last week we took a bunch of photos using six of today's most popular high-end smartphones. (You can see all of the original images here.) Then we posted the images side by side without revealing which phones we had used and asked people to vote for the photos that they liked best. The results? Over a third of those who participated in the poll chose the photos taken with the iPhone 5s. With half as many votes, the Sony Xperia Z1 took the silver prize, and the LG G2 came third having collected some 16% of the votes. In fourth and fifth place respectively we have the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4. Trailing behind all of them, to our surprise, is the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact. For some reason, Sony's masterpiece of a smartphone didn't get much of our readers' love even though its 20.7MP cam is actually a very potent shooter.
So how are you, guys, finding the results? Surprised to see the iPhone 5s taking the first spot? And do you think that the Z1 Compact deserved to be last? Tell us down in the comments!
A report by Strategy Analytics has it that global smartphone shipments reached a record 990 million units in 2013. This comes slightly short of the 1 billion estimated by IDC, but that kind of difference is negligible when dealing with estimates.
SA saw annual growth of 41% over 2012. In Q4 alone the increase is the slightly lower 32% - 290.2 million this year over 217 million in Q4 of 2012.
Samsung tops the list of smartphone manufacturers with a record 319.8 million smartphones shipped worldwide. This achievement gives the company a market share of 32%. According to the research company, Samsung's success lies in the company's numerous devices that made a big dent in the market as well as the great performance of its Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note 3 flagships.
In comparison to Samsung, Apple didn't do as well. The Cupertino based company grew 13% year-over-year having shipped 153.4 million smartphones worldwide. In 2013, the company marks a decline in its market share to 15%, from 19% in 2012.
Still, both companies accounted for nearly half of global smartphone shipments last year. Strategy Analytics notes that enormous marketing budgets as well as the optimized and extensive distribution channels have enabled Samsung and Apple to be leaders in the industry.
However, the research company expects the two leaders to feel increased pressure from "second-tier" brands such as Huawei, LG and Lenovo, which are all growing rapidly. Combined, the trio boasts 14% market share in 2013.
Huawei has expanded in Europe, LG saw its Optimus line do well in Latin America, while Lenovo's Android phones grew in sales across China.
Source | Via
Some new numbers are in that look at the smartphone market in Q4 2013. These numbers are from research firm Kantar and they show that Android had over half of the smartphone market during the quarter in the US. While Android grew, its major competition the iPhone declined.
Kantar reports that the iPhone market share for Q4 2013 dropped to 43.9% from nearly 50% the same quarter of the previous year. Android gained in the US bringing its share of the smartphone market to 50.6%.
That growth for Android is up significantly for the 46.2% of the market it held in Q4 2012. Kantar doesn't offer details on how many smartphones shipped in Q4, but the company says Apple sold more iPhones than the same time last year despite the share decline.
Kantar also notes that the US isn't the strongest market for the iPhone anymore. Japan now has that distinction with the iPhone making up 68.7% of smartphone sales in Japan in Q4. The iPhone market share in Great Britain was 29.9% and the Apple smartphone had 19% of the market in China. Windows Phone also grew its market share during the quarter growing from 2.4% in Q4 2012 to 4.3% in Q4 2013.
SOURCE: Computer World
Nokia is rumored to announce a family of Windows Phone 8.1-running smartphones at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of February, according to Taiwan’s supply chain insider DigiTimes. The new Nokia Windows Phone 8.1 phones will allegedly target both the high and entry-level.
The Nokia Lumia 1820 is the handset that is said to head the lineup, as it is expected to run on the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 system chip, feature a 5.2-inch 1440 x 2560 pixel (QHD) display, and sport a gigantic 3400mAh battery. These are specs that sound like a fantasy for the Windows Phone platform that currently only supports 1080p displays (as of Update 3), but keep in mind that Microsoft is expected to bring the hugely improved Windows Phone 8.1 around April 2nd. Hopes are that the new Windows Phone 8.1 will introduce a unified notification center, a new ‘Cortana’ voice assistant, and more. It should also enable support for QHD displays in order for this rumored Lumia 1820 to materialize.
Nokia is also said to be preparing the Lumia 1520V for an official unveiling at MWC. The Lumia 1520V is a variation of the 1520 model, and it is said to feature a smaller, 4.45” display and a 14-megapixel camera.
The last smartphone Nokia is said to be bringing to MWC is the 6-inch Lumia 1525, according to DigiTimes.
We have also been hearing about the entry-level Android-based Nokia smartphone, the rumored‘Normandy’. It’s still up for debate whether or not it’s real, but if it is, MWC seems like a good place for Nokia to show it as well.
Nokia reached record Lumia Windows Phone smartphone sales in Q3 2013, but in the traditionally busy Holiday quarter, sales disappointed and actually dropped down to 8.2 million units.
source: DigiTimes
Samsung is now officially listing theGalaxy Grand Neo (model number GT-I9060) over at its global website, despite the fact that it didn’t properly announce the handset. But perhaps the company doesn’t consider it to be an important addition to its ever-growing portfolio of Android devices.
Sitting in between the Galaxy Grand 2 and the Galaxy Grand from yesteryear, the Grand Neo GT-I9060 is not exactly a smartphone that can turn heads. Its official features include a 5-inch WVGA display, HSPA+ 21Mbps (900 / 2,100 MHz), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, 5MP rear camera with LED flash, VGA front-facing camera, quad-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal memory. The handset weighs 163 grams, measures 143.7 x 77.1 x 9.6mm, and comes with a 2,100 mAh battery that can provide up to 11 hours of talk time, or up to 430 hours of standby time.
Samsung doesn’t specify what Android version the Grand Neo is running. We heard it would be 4.2 Jelly Bean, and the official photos of the device don’t contradict this.
According to Samsung, the Galaxy Grand Neo will be available in four color versions: white, black, orange and lime green. Hopefully, it won’t cost more than $300 when it hits the market later this quarter.
At its Semiconductor and Display Technology Roadmap workshop, Samsung presenters have apparently indicated that they indeed have a QHD Super AMOLED mobile display panel ready, with 560ppi pixel density, and even more resolute ones are in the works.
QHD is 1440x2560 pixels, and to achieve such pixel density a smartphone screen panel should be about 5.2 or 5.3 inches in diagonal, so that's what the upcoming Galaxy S5 might aim at in terms of screen size. It'd be pretty surprising if Samsung has such a high-res AMOLED screen ready, and doesn't use it in the S5 to gain advantage, especially considering that everyone and their parakeet will be releasing QHD flagships this year.
What is even more interesting is that Samsung hinted it has even higher-resolution smartphone displays in the pipeline, and plans to launch UHD phones in the not so distant future. UHD is the whopping 2160x3480 pixels of 4K resolution, and the pixel density here jumps to the crazy 860ppi count, indicates the source, nestled in a sub-5" display size.
These resolutions, however, are mentioned together with the "diamond pixel" term, which is a fancy way to say a non-standard pixel matrix arrangement, that is closer to PenTile, than the standard RGB stripe matrix. In any case, at 500+ ppi, nobody would notice the individual pixels anyway, so we can't wait to see what Samsung is prepping for us in future phones, just when we thought Full HD panels are more than enough for anyone's purposes.
source: Daum via G4Games
According to a report by the DigiTimes, renowned computer hardware manufacturer Gigabyte has primed its engines to push up to 500,000 smartphones of its own brand on the market this year. The maker will deliver more than ten new Android smartphones, utilizing processors by MediaTek and Qualcomm. Some of them will offer LTE as well. However, the company's handset business targets mainly the Asian and European markets, so most of these smartphones will end up in those parts of the world.
Compared to the millions of devices that most manufacturers target, such a figure is tiny. But the smartphone business is incredibly saturated and difficult to compete in, which makes Taiwan-based Gigabyte's decision seem cautious, but reasonable. As appetite comes with eating, perhaps the now unpretentious maker will eventually discover the ambition to compete on a larger scale. Although they have kinks to be ironed out, so far Gigabyte's GSmart smartphones have provided decent value for the money.
Additionally, the company is preparing new handset accessories and companion wearable devices, including smart-watches and bracelets. According to Gigabyte Communications, as reported by DigiTimes, they will be made to match leading international vendors' smartphones, and will be sold under the company's own brand.
source: DigiTimes
If you own a BlackBerry Z30, Q10 or Q5, then your smartphone can suddenly do a neat little trick. The company's latest software update enables those devices to become an FM radio, letting you stage an impromptu dance party without a data connection. Version 10.2.1 also brings a series of minor, but welcome, tweaks to the platform, including a new screen for answering calls, SMS groups, offline reading mode and picture passwords. The update is making its way to all BlackBerry 10 handsets from today, including the Porsche P'9982, for all you fancy-dans out there.