Hasta La Gadget!

Here at the start of 2013 we’re seeing some rather conflicting messages coming from analytical sources across the web, this week’s message appearing to be that Android is “crushing” iOS – could it be true? Hardly. The most recent report from Strategy Analytics has Apple selling 17.7 million iPhones in the USA alone, this part of Apple’s official number 47.8 million iPhones sold across the planet. Compared the last year that’s a 38% year-over-year increase in the USA and the single largest number of iPhones sold in any one quarter in Apple’s history.

The same Strategy Analytics report notes that Apple is now the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the United States, having taken that honor from Samsung this past quarter for the first time ever. This includes both smartphones and feature phones, not just smartphones – it includes Samsung’s whole smartphone lineup while Apple only sells smartphones in the iPhone across the board.

According to the data presented by Net Market Share on this past month’s traffic (and for many months before that), iOS dominates the web by a large margin. Net Applications’ data suggests that in January of 2013, iOS had 60.56% of the smartphone and tablet market while Android sat much lower on the list with 24.51%, Android having peaked in November of 2012 with 28.02%. You’ll notice there also that iOS had a bit of hump in growth back in the middle of the summer in 2012 and appears to be evening out after a dip near November.

Meanwhile the folks at NPD have shown that the iPhone continues to be the top selling smartphone in the USA with the iPhone 5 model keeping the #1 spot through 2013. NPD’s Mobile Phone Track for Q4 2012 in the USA shows Apple taking 39% of the market while Samsung works with 30%, this study showing market share for the top smartphone manufacturers in the USA.

Top selling mobile phones in the USA listed by NPD this past quarter show the iPhone 5 in first place, the Samsung Galaxy S III in second, the iPhone 4S and 4 in third and fourth place, and the Samsung Galaxy S II in fifth. The NPD team also made clear that iPhone sales have been increasing drastically, with comparisons between Q4 and Q3 of 2012 showing iPhone 4S unit sales to have increased 43 percent and iPhone 4 unit sales to have increased a whopping 79 percent.

With Apple’s most recent report racking up more than 75 million iOS device sold in the holiday quarter, the Apple mobile sector seems to be doing quite well. With approximately 10 devices sold every second this past quarter, Apple continues to remain quite confident in their cut of the pie.

Is Android really crushing iPhone, or is it hype? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week we’re having a bit of a double-take on the IDC’s release outlining the fourth quarter mobile device market share breakdown for the end of 2012, with none other than Huawei taking third place. This is absolutely surprising as all get-out as Huawei has never before cracked the top 5 smartphone vendors in the world – it’s only been inside the top 10 before now. Groups like LG, Motorola, and Nokia do not appear in the top 5 for smartphone sales in the quarter, while Nokia sits pretty in second place for total mobile phone “Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share” for 2012 (that includes non-smart phones).

According to the IDC, Huawei’s strategy including the high-end Ascend lineup which continues through 2013. IDC also notes that Huawei has “demonstrated its innovative skills” with such releases as the (at that time) world’s thinnest phone with the Ascend P1. The Ascend Mate is also on the way here in 2013 with the world’s first 6.1-inch smartphone display.

You’ll also find Samsung and Apple right up on top of the smartphone market this fourth quarter of 2012, as it was expected, with a 29% and 21.8% market share respectively. Compared to these numbers, the third place entrant (Huawei) brings on a tiny 4.9%, while Sony and ZTE come in fourth and fifth with 4.5% and 4.3% respectively, the all-encompassing “Others” category gathering up the rest with 35.5% of the market total. This is all accounted for with a total of 219.4 million smartphones sold over the fourth quarter of 2012 all around the world, a 36.4% jump from Q4 of 2011.

As for smartphone sales recorded over the entirety of 2012, Samsung and Apple once again reign supreme with 30.3% of the market and 19.1% of the market respectively. Third, fourth, and fifth place may be surprises to you, on the other hand: Nokia, HTC, and Research in Motion (RIM, BlackBerry). Of course it’s only with less than 15% of the market between the three of them that they exist on the list, less that one percentage point separating each of them, but there you have it – they’re still up there!

[via IDC]

Huawei shocks smartphone market with 3rd place finish in 2012: IDC is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

According to the latest comScore Mobile Metrix ranking working with the audiences of the top mobile apps in the USA, Facebook has taken a relatively massive leap ahead of Google Maps through 2012 to become the top app in the USA. This listing includes polling of users aged 18 years or older on both iOS and Android devices with a time frame between March and December of 2012, and you’ll find that this isn’t the first month in which Facebook has taken the lead. Google Maps and Facebook have been nearly neck-and-neck since the earliest results from March of 2012, with Google Maps in the lead until September where usage of Google’s mapping solution appears to take a bit of a fall off of a cliff while Facebook continues to steadily rise.

Of course when you measure Google’s success in apps across the board, they’re still doing extremely well for themselves. Have a peek at the top US Mobile Apps as ranked by comScore according to unique visitors (again, from polls of 18+ year old citizens on both iOS and Android) and you’ll find that in December of 2012, Facebook still has the lead. It’s Google though that holds every position from number 2 to number 6, YouTube and Gmail as well as Google Maps, Play, and Search included.

This set of polls also includes comScore’s monitoring of time spent on Google and Facebook apps specifically, this accounting for Instagram (owned by Facebook) and YouTube (owned by Google) as well as Facebook, Google Maps, Gmail, and the rest. You’ll find that the largest piece of the pie goes to “Other Apps” for those polled that don’t actually find themselves on Facebook or Google apps all that much. After that though, It’s all about Facebook taking the number one spot with 23% of the time users spend on their smart devices.

It’s a tie between several other apps after that, with 3% of users’ time being spent on Instagram, Gmail, YouTube, and Google Maps. An ever-so-slightly smaller amount of time is spent (2%) on Google Play, Google Search and “all other Google apps” get another 1% of the pie each, then it’s that massive hunk for everything else in the universe. If there’s one thing this set of charts shows us, it’s that comScore wants to make it clear that both Facebook and Google are here to stay – in the mobile universe at least!

[via comScore]

comScore: Facebook ends 2012 as #1 mobile app in the USA is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has released a projected roadmap of Apple products spanning the next 12 months, this map including no less than an iPhone 5S and a new iteration of the iPhone 5, complete with plastic casing. While an actual “official” leaked roadmap as such leaked from Apple would be a first sign of the apocalypse, we’re ready and willing to have a peek at this possible vision for the future, especially given the relatively good future foretelling we’ve seen come from Kuo specifically in the past.

What this map shows is an iPhone 5S coming in Q3, followed within weeks by a new design and release for the iPhone 5, complete with a set of case modifications we’ve been hearing rumors and suggestions about over the past week – how odd! These predictions include a device which has largely the same specifications as the iPhone 5 as it exists on the market today, but with a 1600 mAh battery instead of 1420, 8.2mm of thickness instead of 7.6, and a weight of 130g instead of 112.

Perhaps most interesting of all is the suggestion that the refreshed iPhone 5 will be coming with multiple different colors, not unlike the most recent push with the iPod touch. This release will also have plastic casing rather than aluminum, this keeping the cost of the device down considerably – and remind yourself here that these are all predictions from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, not assurances.

The price for this newly refreshed iPhone 5 will be between $350 and $450 unlocked (compared to the current $600-700 on the market today) and it’ll be completely free when purchased with a 2-year contract. This contradicts the pattern Apple worked with when the iPhone 4S was revealed, the “free” model being at that time the iPhone 3GS, aka the least powerful of the three models on the market. With this release there’d only be two.

This roadmap also predicts that there’ll be an iPad 5 released between the iPhone 5S and the modified iPhone 5, with a newly designed Retina MacBook Pro released at the same time. Also released with the iPhone 5S will be a modified iPod touch 5th gen and an iPod nano refresh. Predicted for Q1 is an Apple TV refresh of some kind, near the end of Q2 a new MacBook Air, and last in Q3 an iPad mini 2nd gen.

Lastly Kuo suggests that at the start of the fourth quarter of 2013 we’ll be seeing a new iMac and a new Mac mini – exciting times! Have a peek at our Apple hub for more Apple action through the year, and get ready for the multi-colored plastic of the iPhone 5 refresh – if that’s what you believe will be coming, of course.

[via MacRumors]

iPhone 5 in multi-colored plastic predicted in Apple 2013 roadmap is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

According to NPD analyst Stephen Baker, it’s “the beginning of the end” for traditional e-readers, and according to Pew Research’s most recent findings, it’s full-color tablets that are replacing the segment – with traditional print dying out as well. According to Pew’s newest survey, 23% of Americans ages 16 and older say they’ve read a real e-book over the past 12 months, this number jumping 16% compared to last year. This number becomes especially significant given their finding that number of people (16 and up) that read a printed book in the same amount of time fell 5% year-over-year.

Only 67% of the respondents questioned in this most recent survey by Pew said they’d read a real book (paper, print, that is) in the past 12 months. Take the number of Americans 16 and older that own a tablet, according to Pew, and you’ll see a possible reason why paper books are getting less popular: 25% – one in four! This number rose a whopping 10% from the same period of time surveyed in 2011.

Pew also showed that the number of respondents who said they owned an e-book reader (aka an e-reader, of course), rose from 10% to 19% this year compared to last. This tells us that though e-readers aren’t gaining popularity as well as the full tablet, they’re still on the up-and-up. Perhaps Stephen Baker is wrong?

“We are still in the early stages of the transition. It’s a big deal for the publishing industry, in the same way that the transition to digital news was a big deal for the newspaper business in the late ’90, and the same way Napster was a big deal to the music industry in the early 2000s.” – Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project

NPD also reports that they’ve estimated 33 million tablet computers have been sold “through November 2012″. NPD’s Baker assures the world that devices with displays smaller than 8 inches seem well suited to reading. But you be the judge: what do you think is about to happen over the next few years with e-reading in general? Will any one media be cut out entirely?

Pew’s survey is based on 2,252 Americans age 16 and older from Oct. 15 to Nov. 10 in 2012 in this case, just so you’re aware. They’ve also come to the conclusion that those that have a college degree, lived in a household with more than $75,000 in earnings, and were aged from 30 to 49 were most likely to have read an e-book. Sound about right to you?

[via LA Times]

Pew Research and NPD suggest tablets replacing e-readers and traditional print is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.