Google Tunes into Android Mobile

Google is gradually moving into Unified Communications, but it is also making a play for the digital music market.

Sales of the Android mobile OS have overtaken the iPhone this year and now the search giant is hoping to draw custom away from iTunes too.
The manoeuvre has been welcomed by record companies which want to see Apple’s grip on music for smartphones and PCs loosened. Six out of 10 iPhone users listen to music on their phones compared to four out of 10 Android users.
Apple currently controls over 80% of digital music sales through its iTunes store. Yet record companies are not all together happy with the financial terms that Apple have set.

The soaring sales for digital music are thought to be the future of the industry which has overall taken a big hit, losing $7.7 billion in 2009, according to the International Phonographic Industry Federation.
None of the companies involved can comment right now but it is thought that licences are being drawn up in time for Google's musical offering to be released with the Gingerbread for Android platform.

Offering music downloads for the Android mobile OS is a key part of the company's challenge to Apple. There are now 7.6 million Android mobile subscribers in America compared with 12.4 million iPhone users.

The question that remains is how the music will be charged - paid downloads or streaming and whether this would be incorporated into a monthly bill.
They may also use a free entry-level tier and a paid premium tier, provided that music executives are happy with this.

A music analyst with NPD Group Inc, Russ Crupnick, told the Seattle Times: “Consumers are constantly looking for new music. Music labels know that discovering that music via Google would be profitable for everyone."

Android mobile is big in China

China is going crazy for the Android mobile smartphone. Three more Android handsets have been brought out to take the total for the country to 11 - all released in one year.

These MING handsets are made by Motorola and there is one for each of China's three mobile networks. The XT806 works for China Telecom's CDMA-2000 network, the MT810 is compatible with the China TD-SCDMA mobile network, and the Chinese Unicom WCDMA network can be accessed from the A1680 phone.

The Corporate VP and President of Greater China Motorola Mobility, Mr Frank Meng, said that the MING smartphones were designed to be customizable to each individual user.

He said: "With MING we have combined our engineering expertise with a deep understanding of how Chinese people use their devices to create powerful, user-friendly smartphones which feel great. The MING Android mobile will be part of a fantastic customer experience."

Part of the allure of the Android smartphone is that it has features in the Chinese language which make it easy to use. It also has touch screen and flip technology.

More than half the Android mobiles sold in China this year are Motorola devices, according to the company. Sales of MING phones have exceeded the five million mark.

Sneaky snake bites Android

Google operates a more laissez faire attitude to its apps for the Android smart phone than Apple does for iPhone and there are both good and bad sides to this.

The downside was revealed this week when the F-Secure forum reported that what at first appeared to be a harmless game of snake (you know the one where you try to get the big line of dots to eat the little dots) was actually a GPS spy.

That is a really cool tracking device which basically turns someone's smartphone into a sort of tag which tells you where they are at all times.
I say cool because it reminds me of a high-tech gadget from a James Bond movie. In reality the spy would probably be used by people who want to know what their boyfriend/girlfriend/partner/spouse is up to.
The only benign use I can think of for the application is to keep track of where your kids are.

It is now up to Google to either destroy the app or remove it from the Android marketplace. But is it still the job of consumers to make sure that an app is safe before they download it on their phone. That safety check could be something as simple as Googling the app to see what people have said about it.

Is Android a good listener?

Google is to release a voice control app for the Android smartphone. It will allow Android users to speak (or bark) commands to their phone such as 'send email' or 'access sat nav'.

Now I'm aware that I have a reputation for being skeptical but I'm not convinced this will be as good as it sounds.
Suffering from RSI, I just purchased the Dragon Speaking Naturally software which is widely considered to be the most sophisticated voice recognition software (I speak - it types) on the market. Please feel free to contradict me if I'm wrong on this.

Sometimes Dragon is brilliant and when it gets a head of steam up it can just sail along, putting lots of words on the page while I twiddle my thumbs.
Other times it will fail to spell a word correctly. Even if it gets the word right 99 times out of 100 and it is a word which I have trained it to spell on numerous occasions.

Allowing for my strange accent I would say that voice recognition software is temperamental to say the least and that this Google app for Android may not be the godsend that some people think.
However Google is a very powerful and knowledgable company and if anyone can get it right I'm sure they can. I'm also convinced they will have had a (legal) peak at the Dragon software for some guidance.

Android Overtakes Apple: Best of the Week's News

This week the Philadelphia Enquirer gleefully ran a story about the Apple 'cult' getting a taste of its own medicine.
The journalist witnessed a smug iPhone owner having an Android shoved in his face. The Google smartphone user wanted to show off his handset, which he felt to be superior.
The story is based around NPD Group market-research findings that Android smartphones are outselling BlackBerry and the iPhone, which is in third place.
Follow-up research (going into a cafe and asking people 'Android or iPhone?') seemed to bear out the theory, with one customer saying he preferred the large screen and the ease-of-use of the Android smartphone.
They all highlighted the flexibility of Android OS. "The heart of Google's strategy is to offer consumers choice, with the cool that comes with smartphones."
On the other hand the iPhone has suffered bad press due to the unreliable AT&T network and some design glitches.
However Macworld said Apple will not go down without a fight and has made some much needed changes to its app store. They include a 'Try before you Buy' feature, although this has not pleased all developers: "Some developers don’t think it’s fair that customers can buy a $3 app while laid over at an airport, then return it once they get home."
Meanwhile JKontherun said that the Android is due to have the largest smartphone market share by the year 2012. James Kendrick noted "Google is firing on all cylinders."
Trends would suggest that Google will have 75 million Android users in 2012 compared to 62 million users of ios4. Currently there are more than 20,000 Android activations per day. It noted that Google benefits from offering multiple handsets compared to this single iPhone design.
But Wired said there was still some work to be done on the Android. There are at least five things Google could fix including pushing for accuracy, i.e automatically correcting spelling mistakes.

HTC Reaps Profits from Android

Despite predicting a huge 58.45% rise in sales, mobile handset provider HTC has exceeded its own sales forecasts.
Last month (June), there was actually a 66.69% rise in smartphone sales against the comparable period in 2009. In fact HTC outdid its revenue estimates for sales in both the quarterly and the monthly figures.
Sales of the Android smartphone form a large part of the revenue of HTC and there have been record breaking figures recently.
For those who have been part of this boom peroid, there is news about when to expect the new Froyo 2.2 Android update.
Eric Lin of HTC said: "We are aiming to roll-out all planned HTC updates to Android 2.2 Froyo before Christmas."
The update will cover the HTC Desire and the HTC Incredible among other handsets. However there is no news yet on whether there will be an update to Froyo 2.2 on older handsets like the HTC Hero.

Android Gingerbread Rumours are a Fairytale

Google execs have rubbished news that the Gingerbread 3.0 would be incompatible with most smartphones. They have clearly stated that there will be no minimum hardware requirements of the Android Operating System (OS) when Android 3.0 Gingerbread is released.
Smartphone owners had gotten nervous at the news which would have meant that their 3.7 inch screens would be obsolete with a 4 inch screen required for Gingerbread to work. Had that rumour been true it would have ruled out using Gingerbread 3.0 on either the HTC Desire or the Nexus One smartphone.
When the rumours originally started spreading following a Russian technology podcast, Android owners feared that they would have to trade in their handsets, a costly and time-consuming process.
Commenting on the rumours Dan Morrill, Tech Lead for Android Open Source Compatibility stated: “I love it when people make stuff up. You shouldn’t believe everything you read because rumours are not official announcements.”
However it is a bit strange that the rumours quickly gained so much credence as they contradicted what Google itself had said in the I/O conference - i.e that Android 3.0 would be standardized for all phones and one source platform.
Part of the problem for Google is that so many handsets are now compatible with Android OS that the company is having trouble keeping up with all the apps.
In other news Google has declared itself so happy with the Nexus One Smartphone that the company sees no need to bring out a sequel.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is reported to have said to his board of directors: "Ok, it [the Nexus One Smartphone] worked. Congratulations – we are stopping now”.

Are Google apps for Android safe?

While the openness of the Android app market is normally beneficial to users, it can also make them vulnerable.
According to a report by SMobile Systems, a mobile security firm, as many as one fifth of Google apps for Android can expose your data to third party hackers.
The report states: "The Android Market offers flexibility by allowing anyone to develop and publish an application to the consumer market. This presents the opportunity to easily defraud innocent consumers for financial gain. Since today’s Smartphone devices are the equivalent of mobile computers, it is logical that attackers have expanded their focus."
Google said that it was regulating the market but that it had had to remove two dodgy applications so far from the devices of Android smartphone users.
A security lead for Android, Rich Cannings, stated in the blog post that the remote application removal feature is one of many security controls that Google uses to protect Android users from malicious applications.

Google plans are music to the ears of Android users

Industry insiders expect Google to venture into the area of music downloads, according to reports by the Wall Street Journal. The competition between Google and Apple is fierce, not least in the smartphone market where Google's Android OS is fast making ground on the popular Apple iPhone. But Apple executives will get chills when they hear about this new rumour. Up to now Apple has pretty much monopolised the music side of things with its iTunes software for iPod, which is the leading digital music seller in the USA.
The Google music service will be tied to its search engine and available on the Android phone, with a subscription service possibly starting in 2011. By using the search engine music store, Android users will be able to stream music onto their smartphones directly from the cloud.
Google has been exploring branching out into music for a while now and the search engine has partnered with online radio station Pandora among others.
Although Google's plans are at a nascent stage and they have not made any connections with music labels, many music labels in America would like to see a challenge to Apple's dominant market position.

Google Android makes ground on Apple iPhone

The Android smartphone OS is currently beating its competitor the iPhone in terms of mobile traffic, according to research from the industry analyst Quantcast.

The last quarter has been a very profitable one for Google’s Android phone, though Apple’s iPhone still has almost two thirds of the total smartphone mobile traffic.

Yet Apple is seeing its market share being consumed by the success of devices like the HTC Incredible, the 4G Sprint Evo and the Motorola Droid.

Google is hot on the heels of Apple and now accounts for just under 20% of the smartphone market, a rise of roughly 12% over the year. That rise has conversely meant the market leader Apple has seen its share of smartphone traffic fall by around 8%.

The Blackberry OS, which is made by Research In Motion, has also taken a hit with a 1.2% traffic fall as have all other platforms by 2.9%.

However, at the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) recently held in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that he couldn’t care less about mobile market statistics.