All Eyes Should Be On Verizon This Quarter

After losing on its home turf to the iPhone last quarter, the Droid brand is stepping up with its strongest showing yet, backed by new models and great deals. But will it be enough?
The Droid brand was Verizon’s reaction to the AT&T exclusive iPhone. It was, I believe, smartly executed and became a synonym for Android phones. But then Verizon did get the iPhone and thanks to their first new iPhone launch, the iPhone 4S in October, it counted for 55% of Verizon’s smartphone sales last quarter. This happened despite the launch of the Droid RAZR and the Galaxy Nexus the same quarter, and the fact the iPhone currently lacks Verizon’s heavily promoted 4G LTE connectivity.
Droid 4This quarter, Verizon’s Droid is rallying strong with the release of the Droid RAZR MAXX and Droid 4, which are essentially Droid RAZRs with a bigger battery and a slide-out keyboard, respectively. It’s a good array of options for customers while maintaining a distinct, recognizable style. They are further supported by price cuts and buy-one-get-one deals, not to mention the network edge with 4G LTE. There’s also the Android flagship phone, Galaxy Nexus, backing it up. Droid and Android in general are going into the quarter with every advantage. That pretty much has to make an impact on Verizon’s iPhone sales, but how big an impact?
Line in the sand
We’ll have to wait and see on that, but I’m going to say the point of success is 45%. If the iPhone slips to 45% of Verizon’s smartphone sales, then I see the effort as being worthwhile. Knocking it from 55% to 45% doesn’t sound like a major feat, but you have to take Apple’s own efforts in selling iPhones into account.
On the flip side, if the iPhone continues to account for more sales than all other Verizon smartphones combined, then we know Droid is in trouble. Verizon didn’t bet all its money on iPhone like AT&T (and Sprint) did. It has other horses in this race. Collectively, the Droid brand needs to make a strong showing this quarter. It won’t be put down if it doesn’t, but the strategy will definitely need to be reviewed.
A microcosm of the smartphone war
iPhone 4S build qualityHowever it turns out, this battle on this carrier is a microcosm for the larger one between iPhone and Android. Kevin Tofel at GigaOM questions whether the iPhone surge at Verizon means Android’s best days are behind it. I don’t see it that way. The surge is exactly what I expected from the first launch of a new iPhone on the Verizon network. I believe Verizon expected it as well, hence the strong reaction with Droid this quarter. The iPhone surge was not, in my opinion, a sign of things to come. Instead I believe the direction of the smartphone war depends on what happens next.
The iPhone has rolled out at a slow, deliberate pace and has yet to reach every carrier. This left a huge void for another platform to fill as carriers sought their own iPhone alternative. Android’s triumph was to beat out all other contenders in filling that void, but that victory is mostly within that void, with carriers that don’t have the iPhone. It is only in this past year, particularly last quarter, that Android is facing the iPhone on U.S. carriers that were once iPhone-free. How the iPhone fares this quarter on Verizon, without the shock of a launch, will give us a more lucid indication of how well Android handles the challenge of head-to-head competition.
Android may, as Kevin Tofel wonders, falter or it could bounce back. This quarter on Verizon will show us which way it’s headed. The Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.0, a massive show of force with Droid, the 4G LTE advantage, special pricing on phones and data, this is Android at its strongest. It’s this quarter or never to dethrone the iPhone as Verizon’s smartphone sales king. If you want to know which way the winds of the smartphone war will blow, this is the battle to watch.
Source-gottabemobile

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Microsoft releases OneNote for Android with Office and cloud syncing

Microsoft is starting slow with bringing its bread-and-butter Office suite to mobile, this time with OneNote. After appearing for iOS device, the note-taking and reminder app was released with a version for Android yesterday.

OneNote for Android can sync across the Microsoft Office suite, but the best part is that it also syncs with the SkyDrive cloud services and the web-based version of Office for an airy experience.

The app is stripped down of some features compared to the real thing, like the inability to create and share handwritten notes, or make a voice note. It also starts to cost a few bucks for the pro version if you want to create more than 500 notes, and is also lacking its own widget for now. The full list of features includes:

• Text formatting, images, and bulleted lists
• To-do lists with clickable checkboxes
• Quick photo capture with your phone’s camera
• Quick access to recent notes
• Store and access multiple OneNote notebooks
• Sync to your free SkyDrive account for access anywhere
• Offline access to your notes
• Option to sync notebooks only over a Wi-Fi connection
• Built-in spelling checker
• Support for external hyperlinks
• Table editing

There is unfortunately no tablet optimization of OneNote for Android, it just blows up as a regular phone-only app would do, so hopefully Microsoft will remedy this in future releases, or maybe it will keep its tablet-optimized version for its own Window 8 slates, time will tell.

Source-Microsoft 

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LG Optimus LTE Soon to Launch on TELUS

Last year we saw the LG Optimus LTE get launched on Bell Mobility, and now it looks as if the flagship device is headed to TELUS as well. The Canadian carrier’s website has outed the device as model number LTE P935, which varies slightly from Bell’s P930 model number. To you U.S. folks, you might be more familiar with the device as the LG Nitro HD which launched on AT&T late last year. Also, LG recently announced that the device has already sold over 1 million units worldwide.

We don’t have any pricing or availability yet because TELUS has yet to announce the device’s official confirmation. When it does, you can probably expect the price to fall somewhere around $99 on contract just to be competitive with their rival Bell Mobility. Stay tuned because as soon as we hear more we will definitely let you know.
Source-talkandroid

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SAMSUNG GALAXY S ADVANCE OFFICIAL: Android MID-RANGER WITH TWO CPU CORES

Samsung just made the Galaxy S Advance that leaked this morning official, and the specs are quite likeable. Graced with a 4" Super AMOLED display with the obligatory 480x800 pixels resolution, the Galaxy S Advance was rumored to be Samsung's first effort with the 1GHz dual-core NovaThor chipset from ST-Ericsson.

Samsung Galaxy S Advance official: Android mid-ranger with two CPU cores
This raised our suspicion that it is destined for China, as handsets like the HTC Z710t usually have this chipset specifically because it supports China Mobile's TD-SCDMA network. NovaThor iterations also support HSPA+ networks as well, and the Galaxy S Advance is listed with 14.4Mbps HSDPA radio, so we can very well see it in Europe as well.

There is a 5MP rear camera with LED flash and 720p video recording, as well as a 1.3MP front cam - we don't know what's with Samsung, but the Galaxy R also has a dual-core processor, yet record "only" 720p video. ST-Ericsson lists on its site a NovaThor U5500 dual-core chipset, which has a 14.4Mbps modem integrated with up to 720p video recording, so that's what we might have in the Galaxy S Advance.

The rest of the specs are Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 768MB of RAM, 8 or 16GB of internal memory, and DivX/Xvid video codec support right out of the box. Not a bad configuration with a dual-core chipset, but we will spare final judgment until we get our hands on one, and put it through its paces.
Source-Samsung

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MICROSOFT MIGHT BRING SOME OF THE XBOX LIVE MOBILE GOODNESS TO ANDROID AND iOS

Xbox Live integration is one of the huge selling points of Microsoft's Windows Phone, and with the valid right to be so - it integrates with your Xbox 360 experience, and encompasses or will include TV, video streaming, music and social networking.

With all these under the big roof of its gaming division, which brought us success stories like the Kinect, it is no wonder that Microsoft is looking to bring the Xbox experience to more popular mobile platforms as well, and spread the word.

It's a bit tricky, though, since a full-blown port would cannibalize on one of Windows Phone's competitive advantages, while the lack of the Xbox Live experience would hurt name recognition and Xbox 360 owners who would sport other than WP devices. Microsoft has eventually decided to give it a shot by offering some, but not all, of the Xbox Live functionality, similar to what it did with My Xbox Live for iOS, and its much richer Xbox Companion app for Windows Phone:

''While the Xbox Live experiences and games always work best on the Windows platform, we understand that some Xbox fans may be using other types of devices. To satisfy that need, we are working to extend a few of our Xbox experiences and titles to other platforms.''

There you have it, directly from a Microsoft spokesman. Hopefully this means that we'll finally see some of the Xbox Live functionality and games officially in the Android Market.
Source-phonearena

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INFOBAR C01: JAPAN’S NEWEST ANDROID PHONE

Japan’s mobile landscape is currently in the midst of an Android revolution, and today KDDI au (the country’s second biggest carrier) announced another 5 smartphones with that OS on board for the local market. The most interesting model in the new line-up is the so-called INFOBAR C01 [JP], a candy bar coming with a heavily customized UI (based on Android 2.3).

KDDI au introduced a similar model back in May last year, the INFOBAR A01 (both handsets are part of KDDI’s designer sub-brand iida).

The fresh model, which is more compact and weighs a little less, features the following specs:

    3.2-inch screen with 854×480 resolution
    8MP CMOS camera
    e-wallet function
    digital TV tuner
    infrared
    USB, microSDHC ports
    Bluetooth 3.0+EDR
    Wi-Fi
    CDMA/GSM/GPRS compatibility
    size: 130×52×12.3mm, weight: 106g

One of the biggest selling points (apart from the unusual design)  is the redesigned iida UI, which you can see in the video embedded below (Japanese narration).

KDDI au plans to start offering the INFOBAR CO1 next month.
Source-techcrunch

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THE BEST ANDROID PHONES

It's hard to believe that it's been just three years since Google's open-source Android mobile operating system hit the scene. When the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, was released, the mobile landscape looked very different. Most people carried simple handsets that focused on making calls. If you were lucky, you could listen to music or play games on your mobile phone. Back then, you didn't have to have a smartphone that ran thousands of apps to let you, in the palm of your hand, do many of the things your computer could do. Apps weren't even a thing yet. Apple had only released the iPhone 3G and launched its groundbreaking App Store a couple of months earlier.

It was the introduction of Android that helped propel the app-based smartphone to what it is today. The thing Android offered, which Apple's iPhone couldn't, was choice. Since it was an open-source platform, several hardware manufacturers could use the OS on their handsets, and a variety of wireless carriers could offer those phones—and they did.

A year after Android was released, in the U.S. there was a single Apple iPhone on a single carrier, but there were eight different Android handsets with varying form factors available on three of the four major carriers. Today, you can find a variety of Android phones on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. According to Comscore, Android enjoys 45 percent of the U.S. smartphone market.

That's a lot of phones to choose from. To come up with our list, we've chosen two winners for each of the four major carriers, and if you're contract-phobic, the best unlocked handset. If you've settled on Android as your mobile platform, these phones are your best bets—for now, that is. At this rate of growth, we can assure you that there's another great 'Droid right around the corner.
Source-Pcmag

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