Posts Tagged ‘Android’
One out of two Smartphones you see run Android
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011Researchers at Gartner now report that one in every two Smartphones sold in the world, run Android. According to their latest study, Android claims a 52.5 percent market share worldwide, in the third quarter of 2011. About a year ago, their market share was a mere 25.3 percent and by the last quarter, it touched a mark of 43.4 percent. Today, with its stunning operating system and a vast collection of devices, Google sits pretty at the top, stealing market shares from almost every other Smartphone.
Smartphone market has been a churning revolution for a while and so, it’s not surprising to see a steep 42 percent in its growth in just a year’s time. As a matter of fact, sale of Smartphones to end users reached 115 million units in the third quarter of 2011! (more…)
Windows 8 Tab: Microsoft’s Fuel To The Tablet War
Monday, November 21st, 2011
Microsoft, one of the oldest tablet developing companies, released their first tablet 10 years ago with Chairman Bill Gate’s prediction that within five years it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America. The release was a complete failure mainly because of the operating system they had used in it – Windows XP, which was originally developed for Desktop PC customers. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, recognized the importance of having a different operating system for tablets from Microsoft’s failure. Apple wrote its name in golden letters in the history of tablets, by introducing iPad in which they included a new operating system called iOS. iPad was a big hit in the US market and very soon Google followed with Android based tablets.
Apple and Android to dominate the mobile game market
Friday, November 11th, 2011For over two decades, Nintendo and Sony have ruled the portable gaming industry literally like kings. But now, winds have started changing direction dramatically!
According to a new research from Flurry, a mobile analytics firm, Android and iOS games have taken a significant lead in the US portable game market in the year 2011.
The study reveals that iOS and Android, which had a mere 19 percent of the U.S. portable game market in 2009 when Nintendo and Sony together had 81%, has grown up to 58 percent in 2011, leaving Nintendo and Sony fighting for the rest of the share. The low price tag of mobile apps and the high adoption rate of new smartphones and tablets seem to have closed the deal for Apple and Android. (more…)
jQuery Mobile – The Upcoming Mobile Framework!
Thursday, October 20th, 2011The era of Smartphones began when Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPhone to the world. Google followed next by introducing Android phones which gave a boost to the mobile application development. Architectural changes in mobile platforms such as iOS, Android, Symbian, etc. have brought out the need to develop multiple versions of the same application.
Today, there are many scripting packages available to develop mobile browser compatible pages, such as DynamicX, Sencha, jQTouch, Wink ToolKit, iWebkit etc. Most of these target only Webkit-based browsers/mobile phones, and are not presented as framework. However, there is now a new player in the market called jQuery Mobile, built on the rock-solid jQuery foundation.
What iDont, DROID does?
Monday, November 16th, 2009Internals
The DROID runs on Arm Cortex A8 CPU 550 MHZ processor, 256MB of RAM, and 512MB of ROM. The CPU is actually 600 MHZ but it has been under-clocked at 550 MHZ. Reason for this could be battery life and over heating. There are system level applications available to clock it out at 800 MHZ but it will compromise the battery life heavily. From the initial responses it seems the Android 2.0 OS will help DROID utilize the full potential of this processor. One of the features of the DROID being hyped by Verizon is in fact its ability to switch between multiple applications at run-time – true multitasking. With this processor, there are reports that the DROID will be the fastest Android device on the market.
One important difference between the iPhone and DROID is that the iPhone comes with internal memory of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB variants with no provision of adding a SD card. The DROID has a standard internal memory but supports SD cards up to 32GB. One drawback compared to iPhone is that DROID provides only a meager 256 MB for application storage. Google does not support directly installing apps into the SD card, which largely limits the developers while deploying their products. This is a problem when it comes to graphics / game development which typically takes up a lot of space. It is also like a paradox because Google has introduced APIs for 3-D graphics and OpenGL libraries with the release of Android 2.0. Developers can however store app resources in the SD card similar to Windows Mobile development.
Touch and Feel
The screen on the DROID is a 3.7-inch capacitive touch screen (unlike the resistive iPhone / Blackberry screens) that showcases a full glass display with WVGA resolution at a handsome 480 x 854 pixels. The responsiveness on the DROID due to the capacitive touch is better than most of the other smart phone counterparts. For example gestures and flicks are registered with little to no lag. Whether that can be attributed to Moto’s screen technology, Android 2.0 improvements, or just the speedy CPU inside the DROID is anyone’s guess, but that certainly won’t let the phone down. Another advantage to having that big screen is seeing webpages how they’re meant to be viewed, and browsing on the DROID is certainly a solid experience.
The phone comes with a huge touchscreen with multi-touch but still has space for an actual hardware keyboard. It is just slightly thicker than the iPhone at 0.5 inches but manages to pack a full QWERTY keyboard, which makes it the thinnest QWERTY keyboard mobile available in the market. The only comparison that can come in its way is the Nokia N97 but it too can’t match up with its huge screen and its interface offered by Motorola and Google.
Camera
Google has made some pretty major improvements to the camera application in Android 2.0. This includes more control over white balance, focal length, flash settings, and effects. To complement this Motorola has smartly outfitted the DROID with a 5 megapixel camera coupled with an LED flash. However many initial users claim that the camera is painfully slow to focus and take a snap.
Video
The performance of video capture and playback, on the other hand, is astounding. The DROID is capable of shooting at a 720 x 480 resolution, producing viewable if not totally shake-free video. The phone definitely proves to be better in this department than with stills. The phone also comes with a HDMI port for High Definition Video. However with a resolution of 720 x 480 pixels, the full exploitation of the HDMI support is worth questionable.
Software
Android 2.0 addresses some important changes to the smart phone scene including Google Navigator, voice improvements and more. Google is in fact taking a pro-active approach at improving the platform, along with the opportunity to sync multiple Exchange and/or Google Accounts. The DROID is the first phone to come with Google Maps Navigation, which provides free, turn-by-turn, spoken driving directions.Verizon will sell a car mount for the DROID, as well completely eliminating the need of third party navigation devices like Garmin. The combination may make the DROID the best GPS phone on the market. But what really makes the software a complete win is something completely invisible – APIs. Google has added account/contact/sync APIs that will greatly improve the platform, and inherently the phone’s capabilities over time.
Browser
Mobile internet browsing is another interesting feature of this handset. The browser is of top quality supporting Flash and HTML 5. Google has promised to support Flash 10 from 2010.
Connectivity
DROID comes with a EVDO rev A on-board card for super fast 3G connectivity on Verizon Wireless. There is support for GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and a USB 2.0 port. The speed of connectivity is observed to be a notch higher than the iPhone 3GS.
Battery
The system comes with a 1400 mAh removable battery which is not bad at all but we expect that it won’t deliver the rated 270 hours standby time or 6 hrs 25 min talktime, especially comparing it to the previous CLIQ. However Motorola has managed to provide a decent talktime of around 5 hrs 30 min, thanks to the somewhat ironic under-clocked CPU!
Overall, the DROID is a nice phone and joins the ranks of one of the best smartphones that are available in the market today. However, it’s a mixed bag on whether this handset could really usurp the iPhone as the best performing smartphone on the market. Nonetheless, DROID is a formidable competitor of the current top performing smartphones on the market, and there is a serious competition just getting under way between the different supported mobile OS’s.
-
Powered by Sociable!
