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Thursday 03 November 2011

Android Phones More Prone To Failure Study Finds [ 03-11-2011 19:31 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Reuters Translation by: Paul Smith

One of Android's greatest strengths has been the breadth of its portfolio. Simply put anyone who licenses the platform from Google can knock out an Android phone and this has resulted in some pretty cheap deals for customers. That's a good thing right? Well maybe. A study by WDS, a wireless service company, involving 600,000 support calls across Australia, Europe, North America and South Africa found that hardware failures were being reported more often for Android devices.

To be clear here the issues being reported weren't to do with Android itself, rather the hardware it was running on. The freedom to knock out cheap devices certainly gives Android greater reach than much of its competition, but at the same time it means that quality is being compromised. This poor hardware performance is costing mobile networks around $2 billion in hardware repair costs as Tim Deluca-Smith, VP of Marketing at WDS commented on "Whilse the price point sounds very attractive, when you look at the total cost of ownership its a different story".

Android has its top quality players too with solid handsets coming from the likes of HTC and Samsung, but that doesn't mean that less well known brands can't throw in some pretty shoddy devices too. Deluca Smith perhaps sums up the situation best when he says "At the moment, Android is a bit of the Wild West"

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U.S. Figures: Android Still Growing In Q3 [ 03-11-2011 19:13 ]

Author: Ivanov Konstantin Source: Nielsen Translation by: Paul Smith

Nielsenhave just published their figures for the third quarter in the American market and the results are predictablyin keeping with previous trends. Google's Android platform continues to advance its dominance of the market at the expense of both Microsodt and RIM.

Android finds itself sitting atop 43% of the market, which is an increase from the 39% it held in quarter two this year. That comes about as Microsoft sees its combined platforms (Windows Phoneand Windows Mobile) sliding from 9% in quarter two to 7% this quarter. RIM also lost marketshare to Android, falling from 20% to 18% over the same time period. Apple's iOS didn't make any gains, but then it didn't loose anything either, staying constant on a 28% share of the market. It's important to note that these figures won't have taken into account the launch of the iPhone 4S yet so expect tosee iOS nudge up a tad in the next set of results and Apple was yet again the number one smartphone vendor in the U.S.

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Apple: Kindle Fire Is Good For The iPad [ 03-11-2011 18:59 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Business Insider Translation by: Paul Smith

Amazon's Kindle Fire is being touted as some as the first real competition for the iPad in the tablet space. That pretty much stems from the fact thatit has a relatively low price whilst also appearing to be a pretty good device. With that in mind you would think Apple might at least be a little worried about it, but even after his death Steve Jobs' reality distortion field seem to be in full effect at Apple as the company are saying that the Kindle Fire might actually be a good thing for the iPad.

It's certainly an interesting spin from Apple and it rests on the view that the Kindle Fire will introduce more fragmentation to Android. Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Barclays, met with both Tim Cook and Petter Oppenheimer, Apple's CEO and CFO respectively, and had this to say on Apple's view of the Kindle Fire:

While the pricing at $199 looks disruptive for what seems to be the iPad’s most important rising challenge, the Amazon Fire – it is important to note that it could fuel further fragmentation in the tablet market—given it represents yet another platform. While compatible with Android, the Apps work with Amazon products. The more fragmentation, the better, says Apple, since that could drive more consumers to the stable Apple platform. We believe that Apple will get more aggressive on price with the iPad eventually but not compromise the product quality and experience.

Now to be fair whilst Apple can be expected to spin this to their advanatge they are actually making a pertinent point about fragmentation, which has long been seen as Android's biggest weakness. The thing is though that the Kindle Fire, priced at $199, is being sold pretty cheaply so it has the potential, through Amazon's enormous reach, to sell millions of units. Even if standard Android apps don't look entirely at home on the Kindle Fire there could very well be a development community dedicated solely to the Kindle Fire, especially if it does start selling well. If that were to happen then it would, in effect, become its own mini-platform, which might mean Apple's point about fragmentation becomes sort of moot as the Kindle Fire becomes well supported in its own right.

If that were to be the case then Apple might have a hard fight on its hands given the Kindle Fire's low price point. pple could conceivably lower the price of the iPad a bit, but would it be enough to compete with $199?

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