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Dan Graziano | May 31st, 2012 at 12:19AM
The Canadian variant of the Samsung Galaxy S III will scrap the quad-core Exynos processor found in the European version and instead feature a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor. The Canadian handset, like the Japanese model, will also receive a RAM boost from 1GB to 2GB. It has already been confirmed that the Galaxy S III would be equipped with a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor on U.S. carriers with 4G LTE networks. It is unclear, however, if U.S. devices will also receive the RAM increase, although it does seem more likely now. The Samsung Galaxy S III will be available in Canada beginning June 20th. Samsung’s press release follows below.
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Dan Graziano | May 30th, 2012 at 12:00PM
Google’s Nexus tablet has seemingly been confirmed by Rightware’s Power Board benchmark test result site. The rumored device recently appeared in the results database and is confirmed to feature a 7-inch display with a resolution of 768 x 1,280 pixels and a quad-core Tegra 3 processor clocked at 1.3GHz. The benchmarks also confirm that ASUS is the manufacturer, and the device is running Android 4.1 with the build JRN51B, the “J” likely indicating Jelly Bean. The tablet is listed under the name “Google Asus Nexus 7″ and it bears the code name “Grouper,” which lines up with Google’s previous fish-based code names for its Nexus devices. Google’s Nexus tablet is expected to be unveiled at the company’s annual i/O Developer Conference that will take place in San Francisco from June 27th to June 29th — the device is rumored to retail for between $199 and $249. Additional details from the benchmark test results follows below.
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Dan Graziano | May 25th, 2012 at 10:00PM
Sony Mobile on Friday confirmed that it no longer plans to update its Xperia Play smartphone to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich due to compatibility issues with the device’s gaming features, Phone Scoop reported. “Ice Cream Sandwich demands more from the phone hardware than Gingerbread,” a Sony spokesperson said. “Android 4.0 is a more powerful OS and thus, more resource intensive – applications require more RAM, CPU power, and network bandwidth. From internal testing and feedback from the developer community on the beta ROM software release, we have seen a significant decline in user experience when running high performance games, as they are more demanding on the hardware. As gaming content is so integral to the core Xperia Play proposition, we cannot recommend an upgrade.” Sony’s decision will affect both the AT&T and Verizon Wireless models, as well as models sold overseas. The Xperia Play launched on Verizon last May and AT&T this past September.
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Dan Graziano | May 25th, 2012 at 06:15PM
According to a new report from online advertising network Chitika, smartphones and tablets now account for 20% of all Web traffic in the U.S. and Canada. Traditional PCs accounted for 80% of Web traffic, with smartphone traffic totaling 14.6% and tablets making up 5.6%, AllThingD reported. Chitika found that a whopping 95% of tablet Web traffic came from a version of Apple’s iPad, mainly the newest iPad, and 72% of smartphone traffic also belongs to Apple, compared to 26% for Android devices. The Cupertino-based company didn’t fare as well on the desktop side, which saw 85% of Web traffic from Windows machines compared to 13% from Macs. The report also noted that Windows Phone now accounts for a third as much traffic as BlackBerry phones, and while Microsoft’s mobile platform owns a smaller share of the market, the handsets’ larger displays may be responsible for the proportionally large share of Web browsing.
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Dan Graziano | May 25th, 2012 at 05:00PM
HP’s open source webOS team, known as Enyo, will reportedly be leaving the company and joining Google, according to The Verge. The computer giant in December announced its failed webOS mobile operating system would move to an open-source model under the name Enyo, with version 1.0 slated for release in September 2012. The website’s sources claim the entire Enyo team will not be headed for Google, but Matt McNulty, the head of the project, will be among those departing. This wouldn’t be the first time the Internet giant has hired former webOS workers; Android’s current design chief Matias Duarte oversaw the creation of the user interface for the operating system while working at Palm. It is unclear if the Enyo team members will be joining the Android group or another Google project.
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Zach Epstein | May 25th, 2012 at 07:40AM
GameFly announced on Wednesday that it plans to begin publishing mobile games for Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s Android operating system. In addition, the video game rental service plans to further expand into mobile by launching its own Android app store to take on the Google Play store. ”GameFly is dedicated to giving consumers the best user experience possible, and to be their single destination for console, PC and mobile gaming needs,” GameFly co-founder Sean Spector said in a statement. “We plan to be a leading player in mobile games by launching our retail GameStore for Android and helping to fund mobile developers of all sizes to publish, promote and sell their smartphone and tablet games.” The GameFly GameStore will launch this fall on Android tablets and smartphones. GameFly’s full press release follows below.
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Dan Graziano | May 24th, 2012 at 10:45PM
Millennial Media on Thursday released a new report outlining estimates first-quarter market share across mobile devices and operating systems. The mobile advertising company found that tablets — the top being Apple’s iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Amazon’s Kindle Fire — accounted for 20% of all ad impressions during the first quarter of 2012, an increase from 15% in the first quarter of 2011. “Tablets and other non-phone connected devices have established a clear role in the growing mobile ecosystem,” said Jamie Fellows, SVP, Product, Millennial Media. “The substantial quarterly growth of impressions in this category is tied to both increased usage and adoption, and we expect this trend to continue in the foreseeable future.” The report also found that 14 of the top 20 mobile phones ran Google’s Android operating system, which was installed on 49% of all devices. Apple’s iPhone was the top handset, helping the Cupertino-based company to edge out Samsung, which had four of the top 20 mobile phones, as the top manufacturer. Millennial Media’s press release and two additional tables follow below.
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Dan Graziano | May 24th, 2012 at 02:40PM
Google on Thursday announced an update to its Google Play Store that allows Android users to make in-app subscriptions. The update comes more than year after the Mountain View-based company introduced in-app billing in what was then called the Android Market. “Since the launch, In-app Billing has been extremely successful in helping developers monetize their apps through try-and-buy, virtual goods, upgrades, and other popular business models,” Google said on its developer blog. “Today, 23 of the 24 top-grossing apps in Google Play use In-app Billing, and the total revenue generated from in-app purchases exceeds revenue from traditional app purchases.” In-app subscriptions will allow developers to sell monthly or annual subscriptions from within their apps. “Developers just set the price and billing interval and Google Play manages the purchase transactions for them, just as it does for other in-app products and app purchases,” the company said.
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Dan Graziano | May 24th, 2012 at 09:00AM
Google’s Nexus tablet will reportedly ship in June with an initial volume of 600,000 units per month, according to Digitimes. The slate, which is being co-developed by ASUS, is set to be released in July according to the report. The publications claims that Google originally planned to release its 7-inch tablet in May, however the design of the device did not meet its expectations and the cost was too high. As a result, the product was delayed until July for some minor adjustments. The Internet giant has high hopes for its own-brand tablet, shipments of which are expected to reach between 2 million and 2.5 million units in 2012. Previous rumors claim the Wi-Fi-only tablet will be equipped with a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and could cost as little as $199. The slate may be unveiled at Google’s annual I/O conference, which begins on June 27th.
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Zach Epstein | May 24th, 2012 at 07:45AM
Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS platform showed big market share gains in the first quarter of 2012 as Symbian and BlackBerry shipments plummeted. Market research firm IDC on Thursday published its global smartphone market share report for the first quarter of this year, and Google’s Android was far and away the biggest winner in terms of year-on-year shipment gains.
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Dan Graziano | May 23rd, 2012 at 10:30PM
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang previously mentioned that more Tegra 3-powered tablets would be coming to the market this summer, starting at the low price of $199. At the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting last week, vice president Rob Csonger revealed Kai, a plan to democratize its quad-core Tegra 3 system-on-a-chip. NVIDIA is looking to offer tablets that are more powerful than Amazon’s Kindle Fire, but that will be offered at the same low price point. “Our strategy on Android is simply to enable quad-core tablets running Android Ice Cream Sandwich to be developed and brought out to market at the $199 price point, and the way we do that is a platform we’ve developed called Kai,” he said. “So this uses a lot of the secret sauce that’s inside Tegra 3 to allow you to develop a tablet at a much lower cost, by using a lot of innovation that we’ve developed to reduce the power that’s used by the display and use lower cost components within the tablet.”
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Zach Epstein | May 23rd, 2012 at 07:50PM
Samsung’s Galaxy S III hasn’t even launched yet and it’s already setting records. News of the high demand among carriers for the upcoming flagship Samsung smartphone emerged last week, and now U.K. carrier Vodafone has confirmed that it has received a record number of end-user preorders for the Galaxy S III ahead of its launch later this month. A Vodafone spokesperson wouldn’t confirm numbers while speaking with The Inquirer, but the company did say preorders of Samsung’s latest Galaxy phone have been off the charts. “With over a week to go until launch, it’s already the most pre-ordered Android device we’ve brought into our smartphone line-up to date and our limited time offer of 2GB of mobile data and 100 free music tracks is being snapped up,” the Vodafone spokesperson said. U.K. retailer Carphone Warehouse also confirmed that it has seen huge pre-sales demand for the phone. The international version of the Galaxy S III is currently available for preorder in the U.S. from Amazon, but Samsung has not yet unveiled any local versions of the smartphone.
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Dan Graziano | May 23rd, 2012 at 06:35PM
As previously reported, after a less than stellar unveiling at Mobile World Congress in February, Samsung delayed the launch of its Galaxy Note 10.1 in order to make revisions. The original Galaxy Note 10.1 featured a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800-pixel display, a dual-core Exynos processor clocked at 1.4GHz, 1GB of RAM and a 3-megapixel rear camera. The slate utilized Samsung’s S-Pen stylus, however unlike its “phablet” counterpart, the device lacked a slot to store the nifty stylus. Samsung has addressed the issue in the redesigned version of its upcoming tablet, and the company added a new quad-core Exynos processor as well, according to Tablet Community. Unfortunately, the South Korea vendor has not announced a release date for the device. A second image follows below.
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Dan Graziano | May 23rd, 2012 at 02:35PM
In the widely publicized patent infringement case between Google and Oracle, a San Francisco jury on Wednesday found that Google’s Android operating system does not infringe Oracle’s patents. Jurors have been dismissed and Judge William Aslup of the U.S. District court of Northern California exonerated the Internet giant of any wrong doing. The verdict marks the end of the trial’s second phase, which focused on patent infringement claims. Google earlier this month was found to have infringed Oracle’s copyrights, however, and the proceedings are set to resume on Tuesday morning.
