Kantar: Apple Smartphones More Popular Than Android Phones

The Apple iPhone has taken over as the smartphone in highest demand in the U.S. According to research firm Kantar Worldpanel Comtech, the latest iPhone model helped Apple beat all phones using Google’s Android platform in the U.S. smartphone market in Q4 2011, according to data presented Wednesday. It states “Apple’s share of the U.S. market doubled from a year ago to 44.9 percent in the October to December period, just beating Google’s Android smartphones, which slipped to 44.8 percent from 50 percent”.

In addition, Kantar believes Apple gained strong momentum and it looks to overtake Android smartphones as the most popular among consumers moving forward. This is demonstrated by Apple phones outselling Android manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson, HTC and Motorola. According to global consumer insight director Dominic Sunnebo:

“Apple has continued its strong sales run in the U.S., UK and Australia over the Christmas period. Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover”.

Naturally, Kantar’s recent findings don’t come without question. We saw as recently as last week that established research and measurement firm Nielsen highlighted Android not only having the most market share, but it also holding a whopping 16 percent advantage over Apple phones in Q4 2011. It’ll be interesting to see how Kantar came up with its findings and what its methodologies were used for its research.

Kantar also includes some minor information for some of the less popular devices in its report as well. Kantar mentions how the Windows Phone share in all of the nine key markets it measured remained at less than 2 percent, despite the high-profile launch of the Lumia range from Nokia. Sunnebo adds “The Nokia Lumia 800 still needs to be joined by a number of other competitive Windows Phone handsets before we are likely to see the OS (operating system) providing any real challenge to the likes of Apple, Android and BlackBerry”. Guess the consensus among research firms is not many people are interested in Windows Phones just yet.

I’m sure you all may have a lot of questions or comments about Kantar’s findings, I know I do. Be sure to hit the Comments section, sound off and give your 2 cents.

[via Reuters]

» See more articles by Roy Alugbue

Categorized as Android Manufacturers, Android News, Android Phones

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Huawei’s Diamond series smartphones set to shine at Mobile World Congress

Huawei has yet to make a real impact on the American market with the handsets they’ve released so far, but CES 2012 left us yearning for more. When Huawei unveiled the Ascend P1 S, they made it clear just how badly they want to break out of the prepaid, free-on-contract market in the US, and into the high-end. Unveiling the world’s thinnest smartphone with Android 4.0, a qHD Super AMOLED display, and a dual-core Snapdragon processor is one way to do it, but even that may not be what Huawei considers high-end.

Huawei has scheduled a press event for February 26th, one day before Mobile World Congress kicks off, where they plan to detail their Diamond series high-end Android phones. Tagged as being the “smartest, fastest and most high-performing smartphone(s),” it’s not clear exactly how Huawei would build on the still unreleased Ascend P1 S or P1 LTE.

If Huawei wants to keep up with top manufacturers like Samsung, HTC and Sony, then there’s a good chance their Diamond series devices will feature quad-core processors, HD displays and some sort of advanced imaging technology.

With just over a month until Mobile World Congress kicks off, we’re finally starting to get an idea of what to expect at the show. Everyone from LG and HTC to Epson will have something running Android on display. Is there any particular device you’re really looking forward to? Let us know in the comments below.

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Huawei To Top The Ascend P1 S With The Launch of “Diamond Series” High-End Android Smartphones

We’ve got to say, we’re extremely impressed lately with how Huawei is stepping their game up and exiting the feature phone market much like Samsung and HTC has done since they first started playing the game.  At CES 2012 we saw a serious game changer when the company introduced their newest flagship handset, the Ascend P1 S, a device that boots the Droid Razr’s title of thinnest phone on the market (7.1mm) coming in at just 6.68mm.  Damn that’s thin.  And if you thought this was impressive, the company’s not done yet.  Huawei is planning to unveil, at MWC this year, a new “Diamond Series” lineup of smartphones dubbed by the company as being the “smartest, fastest and most high-performing smartphones”.  So, if the company is stating they can do even better than the Ascend P1 S, we’ve definitely got to see that.  The Ascend P1 S is sporting a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, a Super AMOLED display rocking Gorilla glass at 4.3-inches, an 8 meg rear facing camera and 1.3 meg front facer.  I can’t wait to see them top that with something else.  Stay tuned to TA because we’ll be covering it like white on rice.  Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Huawei Ascend P1 S Smartphone

[via Ubergizmo]

» See more articles by Joe Sirianni

Categorized as Android Manufacturers, Android News, Android Phones

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Snapdragon Running Sony Smartphones Get Extra Support From GLONASS GPS Systems

If you are the proud owner of an Xperia phone with a Snapdragon S2 or S3 and you feel that your GPS is lacking then you are in luck. Sony announced that these phones will be able to connect to Russia’s GLONASS GPS system. Adding this support gives your Sony device a total of 55 satellites over the 31 it could connect to before. Chances are we will even see it on both the Xperia S, Xperia Ion and possibly the Sony Xperia ST25i we told you about yesterday. While other devices have support for GLONASS, like the Galaxy Note, it’s great to see support being added to older phones as well as the new ones. GLONASS assistance improved accurancy by up to 50 percent. If you’re interested in reading more hit the source links below.

[via sedeveworld through Engadget]

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Categorized as Android Carriers, Android Manufacturers, Android News, Android Phones

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Deal: U.S. Cellular Offering $100 Off All Smartphones Now Through February 14th

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Could OLED Displays With Solar Panels Lead to Self-Sustained Smartphones?

Now that the push into HD displays, quad-core processors and 4G LTE radios is in full swing a lot of manufacturers are looking into ways of making their device’s battery life last more than a couple of hours. We told you about how Samsung was going to look at tweaking radios for better battery life, Motorola is releasing phones with giant 3300mAh batteries and so on. Well others are looking into more efficient smartphones in a completely different direction. 

Arman Ahnood, a researcher for the London Centre for Nanotechnology has a prototype that uses solar cells to collect wasted energy from OLED displays. Relying on an array of solar panels that both surround and sit beneath the display, the system averages 11 percent energy capture efficiency that peaks at 18 percent efficiency. Before you scoff at that realise that there is still room for improvement.

According to Ahnood, only 36 percent of light generated is projected outward. Right now, this system is able to generate five milliwatts of additional power on a 3.7 inch screen but it shows considerable promise for the future. So while we may have a while before this becomes a mainstay in our phones it’s nice to see that the battery life issue is finally being addressed. Hit the source to read in detail about this upcoming technology.

[via IEEE Spectrum by Engadget]

» See more articles by Jack Holt

Categorized as Android Development, Android Manufacturers, Android News, Android Phones, Android Tablets, Hardware Mods

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Samsung promises full day of battery life for 2012 smartphones

One of the biggest concerns for Android users is battery life. We’ve taken many routes to make our devices last as long as possible. Viable options include carrying charging accessories, external battery chargers, use of multiple batteries and extended batteries (usually bulky). Wouldn’t it be nice if our phones could just last us all day? That’s what Samsung is promising for devices to come. This is what Kevin Packingham had to say during an interview at CES:

When you wake up to when you go to bed, we don't want you feeling anxiety about your battery life.Kevin PackinghamVice President of Product Innovation at Samsung

The latest phones are rolling out with bright, large displays, stronger processors, 4G connectivity and specs that are getting closer everyday to matching a PC. All these specs and features come with a substantial battery drain. Some of these smartphones cannot even make it a few hours without needing a charge.

Along with all the tips and tricks we already know, manufacturers are starting to include larger batteries in order to solve this issue. Take the Droid RAZR MAXX and its 3300 mAh battery as an example.

While Samsung does plan to include bigger batteries, that is not the only solution to be included in its future devices. Samsung also plans to improve battery life by better managing the way our smartphones act. Optimizing the way the device searches for WiFi connection and more efficient 4G LTE management are included in the list. After all, Samsung devices are known for being thin. Many users would like to keep that feature.

This does not mean that every user will be able to enjoy a full day of juice, though. Packingham emphasizes the fact that power users will probably need to rely on ulterior methods for keeping their smartphones alive. But Samsung’s plan is to have the average and moderately heavy users covered for a full day.

As mentioned by our colleague Android sites, it is hard to define what an average or moderately heavy user is. Many factors contribute in the equation. Samsung has not had a bad start, though. Reports are proving that most Samsung Galaxy Nexus users are going through a full day without needing to resort to battery-saving/charging tactics.

The Galaxy Nexus does use 4G LTE and all the other great features. And we have to remember that having Vanilla Android makes quite the difference. The fact that the offered extended battery is not as huge of an impact in size is also great.

We look forward to seeing Samsung make big steps in battery efficiency and hope that they can deliver on their promises. Do you guys think Samsung will prove to be successful in this area?

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