QBurst Technologies - Blog » Android

One out of two Smartphones you see run Android

Amal Ambili — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:28:08 +0000

Researchers 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!

Android’s pace has definitely affected all its competitors who are literally gasping to keep up with this Google product’s velocity. Even iOS, Android’s major competitor who had a market share of 16.6 percent a year ago and an 18.2 percent in the second quarter, plummeted to 15 percent in the third quarter. However, they registered a sale of 17.3 million units in the third quarter. Anyway, with the release of the new 4S iPhone into the market, we should be seeing some significant movements in the figure now.

Samsung Bada has also put up a good fight and its market share went up from 1.1 percent last year to a striking 2.2 percent this year; thus pushing its way ahead of Windows Phone 7.

Symbian, the once famous OS, fell from 36th percent to 17 percent, with unit sales dropping by about 10 million devices. The OS which had a 36.3 percent market share a year ago, tumbled to an unbelievable 16.9%. As Nokia shifted to Windows phone 7, many of their existing customers ditched them and their OS. However, with new operating systems and many stylish phones in the production line, Nokia is planning to make a comeback. But for Symbian, the time has comes to say goodbye.

RIM, whose unit sales were almost flat during the past one year, also couldn’t do much. They helplessly watched as their share fell from 15.4 percent (Q3, 2010) to 11 percent in the third quarter of 2011. However, RIM, hopefully, should be minting some gold with the launch of BB 7 and BBX phones.

According to the study, corporate giant, Microsoft too, had a tough time in the market with their Windows phone 7. They ended up selling just 1.7 million devices in the third quarter compared to 2.2 million units in the same period, last year. Recently, Nokia started launching devices with Windows Phone 7 OS. That, along with new Mango updates available in the market, should hopefully boost sales for Windows Phone 7.

The war in the mobile industry is raging violent. No doubt we are going to see and hear about the many ups and downs, laughter and whimpers, hopes and despair and a mix of other emotions out there. Who’s going to succeed and who’s not, is something we’ll have to simply wait and watch.

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Windows 8 Tab: Microsoft’s Fuel To The Tablet War

Vivek V — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:40:51 +0000

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.

Recently, Microsoft released the preview of their newest operating system called Windows 8, to compete with iPad and Android based tablets. This operating system is being developed for both Desktop and Tablet PC customers. The Windows 8 tablets will have a marvellous new interface that looks rather like Windows Phone 7, called Metro. The Windows 8 Metro interface is well-suited for tablets with the UI designed and optimized for touch.

Windows 8 introduces a number of features in its tablet and PC versions.

Windows Store:- Windows 8 comes with Windows Store that is similar to Apple Store and Android Market. Application developers will be able to upload their applications to Windows Store.

Support for NFC:- Windows 8 also introduces APIs to support Near Field Communication (NFC) on Windows 8 devices, allowing functionality like launching URLs/applications and sharing of information between NFC supported devices just by touching the devices.

USB 3.0 Support:- In addition to USB 2.0 support, Windows 8 will have USB 3.0 support for higher data transfer.

Windows Live ID Integration:- Customers will be able to link their Windows Live ID with their Windows 8 operating system. This can be used to synchronise their settings and files across multiple computers running on Windows 8 operating system.

Windows To Go:- This feature allows Windows 8 to boot from a USB device. Windows To Go works both on USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 connections.

Protogon Filesystem:- News update states that Windows 8 will support a new file system called Protogon. However, the Microsoft team hasn’t released any more information about this file system or its features.

ARM Processor Support:- Windows 8 will will support ARM based processors in addition to AMD and Intel processors. There will be separate editions of Windows 8 for ARM based processors and x86 based processors such as AMD and Intel. ARM based processors consume less energy and this will be a plus for Windows 8 based tablets.

Windows 8 based tablets are expected to be released in the mid of 2012. The preview build released recently is getting the attention of the mobile and tablet application developers because of the wide array of supporting features and its fresh GUI.

QBurst, is eagerly awaiting the release of Windows 8 to see how it competes with iPhone and Android markets in the coming years. If you would like to hear more about apps development on various tablet platforms, just shoot us an email or contact us today.

Apple and Android to dominate the mobile game market

Amal Ambili — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:12:25 +0000

For 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.

Nintendo and Sony together had generated $2.2 and $1.6 billion in game revenue in 2009 and 2010 respectively. However, by the end of this year, according to Flurry’s projection, their combined revenue would be a relatively small $1.4 billion, compared to an astounding $1.9 billion of iOS and Android put together.

Apple had entered the gaming market in 2008 with the launch of App Store. Soon, their rival, Google, entered the same with their Android Market. Today, there are millions of applications available in both stores that could be downloaded with a simple tap on the screen.

iOS and Android’s game tactics were simple. They attracted the casual gamers, who were willing to spend a few dollars to play on their phones, by providing free or low-cost games that could be played on multi-function devices. These games, which were usually supplemented by in-app purchases, delivered deadly blows to the already struggling dedicated, but relatively high-cost, gaming devices.

According to Flurry, Nintendo DS and Sony PSP consumers paid around $200 for the gaming device and up to $40 for popular game cartridges; whereas mobile phones and tablets users acquired games either for free or for a price less than $10.

It is estimated that iOS has activated around 250 million devices and Android, approximately 190 million. As long as smartphones and tablets continue to grow in popularity, there will always be demand for apps and games too.

In short, it seems like the right time for businesses to venture into the lucrative mobile app market. If you would like to know more about app or game development, do drop us a mail. Our well experienced mobile and tablet app development team would get back to you in almost no time.

jQuery Mobile – The Upcoming Mobile Framework!

Vivek V — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:55:39 +0000

The 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.

jQuery Mobile is presented as a mobile framework rather than a plugin by the jQuery development team. jQuery Mobile framework is built on top of jQuery framework. According to the jQuery Mobile website it is,

“A unified user interface system across all popular mobile device platforms, built on the rock-solid jQuery and jQuery UI foundation. Its lightweight code is built with progressive enhancement, and has a flexible, easily themeable design”

Instead of writing unique apps for each mobile device or OS, the jQuery Mobile framework allows you to design a single highly branded and customized web application that will work on all popular smartphones and tablet platforms. The first alpha version was released on October 26, 2010. jQuery mobile developers are very fast in releasing new versions of their mobile framework and have released 8 versions so far. People began to create websites using jQuery Mobile framework extensively since the start of 2011. The first beta version of jQuery Mobile that was released in July 2011, was a big hit because it introduced a number of new functions. The first Release Candidate(RC) was released just two weeks ago and they are planning to come up with the stable version, by the end of next month.

What Makes JQuery Mobile Easy and Useful

jQuery Mobile is the preferred framework for web developers who develop websites for mobile devices. There are plenty of reasons for jQuery Mobile being their favorite.

Not a New Language: jQuery Mobile is not a new language. It is based on jQuery, so anyone who knows jQuery can easily write scripts in jQuery Mobile.

Wide array of supporting devices: It supports a vast range of mobile devices, such as iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, etc.

HTML5 & CSS3 Support: It is built completely on HTML5 and uses CSS3. The jQuery Mobile behaviour is controlled by the “data-” attribute in HTML5.
Effects: jQuery Mobile can show many types of transition effects that enhance application visibility.

Native functions: It is rich with native mobile functions such as ‘longtap’ or ‘taphold’, ‘tap,’ etc. which are easy to implement.

Example :

$('div').live('tap',function(event) { alert(“You just touched”); })

Less Complexity: Due to its simple nature, it is very easy to study and deploy jQuery Mobile on various applications.

PhoneGap Compatible: jQuery Mobile works fine with PhoneGap framework, giving the application a native look and feel.

Everything is Ajax: jQuery Mobile uses AJAX for loading pages. All the pages are loaded with AJAX to the DOM. After it loads the page, it can do any fancy transition that we have come to associate with native mobile applications.

Easy Themes: jQuery Mobile comes with 5 pre-designed themes – ‘a, b, c, d,& e’. However, the developer can extend these themes and even create his own style sheets. Besides these inbuilt themes, jQuery Mobile supports 26 themes. Since it is built on jQuery UI foundation, themes are highly customizable.

Native Look: The jQuery Mobile team worked hard in the theme section to create native looks. The framework enhances the display of normal HTML tags with its own style sheets to do so.

Large Community Support: Since jQuery Mobile is based on jQuery itself, a large number of jQuery developers are moving into jQuery Mobile web development. The jQuery team also maintains a community forum where one can post questions and get answers.

jQuery Mobile is still in active development and the first stable version is expected to be released the next month. Their plan is to release additional RCs at a quick pace as they close critical bugs and move towards the release of version 1.

QBurst always take an extra step to study and explore latest trends and our developers are eagerly waiting for the release of jQuery Mobile 1 stable. QBurst Technologies is a global software services organization with a strong focus on new generation technology platforms and has a track record of developing more than 250 mobile applications for customers across the globe. For inquiries, contact us today!

What iDont, DROID does?

Mahadevan Sreenivasan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:41:39 +0000

Over the years since Apple released its iPhone, many other manufacturers have come up with handsets that were supposed to become ‘iPhone Killers’. None has succeeded so far to say the least. From what we have seen so far, the Motorola DROID can be a serious contender to the crown of the iPhone 3GS. Both phones are available from their respective carriers at $199 with contracts. So the battle will be fought not in terms of price, but in terms of specs and overall usability of the devices.

Internals

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!

Final Word

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.