Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen plenty of data to show that Android is the hottest-selling smartphone OS among US buyers today, but now we have a stat point to show that it’s doing pretty well in cumulative terms as well. According to ComScore’s latest estimates, Android had 26 percent of all US smartphone subscribers in the quarter ending November 2010, bettering Apple’s iPhone for the first time. The major victim of Android’s ascendancy has actually been RIM’s BlackBerry, whose lead at the top contracted by 4.1 percentage points (nearly 11 percent less than the share it had in the previous quarter). Guess those Verizon iPhones and dual-core BBs had better start arriving pretty soon.

ComScore: Android jumps ahead of iOS in total US smartphone subscribers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 10:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier this year, we asked how you’d change Palm’s Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, both of which were launched with webOS 1.x. Needless to say, a lot can happen in three calendar quarters. Since, HP has swallowed Palm up, and webOS 2.0 has hit the wilds of our wondrous planet. The Pre 2 wasn’t exactly the most enthralling device to launch the OS on, but it is what it is. And now, we’re curious to know how you’d overhaul it if given the seat that Mark Hurd once resided in. Have you grown annoyed by any specific thing within webOS 2.0? Would you have tweaked the distribution process? Are you satisfied with developer participation? Would you alter certain things knowing that a nondescript webOS tablet was on the horizon? Go ahead and spend your last moments of 2010 in comments below — who knows what the next year holds for this gem of a mobile OS.

How would you change webOS 2.0? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 23:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google just demoed Chrome OS running on a piece of reference hardware at its event in SF. It just takes four steps and less than a minute to set up a brand-new Chrome OS machine — it pulls all your Chrome themes and settings from the cloud, so it’s ready to go almost right away, and changes can propagate in less than a second in some cases. The reference machine demoed was able to come back up from sleep almost instantly — Google says the limiting factor is actually how fast the user can move their hand. (It wasn’t that fast in the demo, but it was still really fast.) The OS also supports multiple accounts with a guest account that runs in Incognito mode, and all user data is encrypted by default. The OS itself is loaded on read-only memory that can’t be altered without physical access — a tech which enables verified booting. (A “jailbreak mode” switch on the developer units lets you install whatever you want, but we’ll see what the final machines support.) What’s more, the OS will be automatically updated every few weeks — the goal is for it to get faster over time, not slower.

There’s also offline capability — Google Docs was demoed running offline, with changes synced when the machine reconnects. It seems like that’s an app-specific feature though — apps on the Chrome Web Store have to be built for HTML5 offline to work, obviously. Google also demoed Google Cloud Print, which allows you to print on your home printer from anywhere. Chrome OS devices will also be able to use new Verizon 3G plans for offline access — you’ll get 100MB of free data per month for two years, and then plans start at $9.99 for a day of “unlimited access” with no contracts required. (There will eventually be international options, but those weren’t detailed.)

There are still some unfinished bits though — there’s no support for the USB ports on the machines yet, and there are still some performance tweaks and bug fixes to come. (Don’t expect ever being able to connect a printer, as the company thinks its Cloud Print service is a better option.) The OS will come on Intel-based machines from Acer and Samsung in mid-2011 — and “thousands of Googlers” are using Chrome OS devices as their primary machines. An unbranded 12-inch reference machine called Cr-48 will be available for developers — read more about that here.

Overall, Chrome OS is very much a modern riff on the “thin client” idea from the 90s — an idea that Eric Schmidt himself pioneered while at Sun. Indeed, Schmidt took the stage at the event to explicitly draw the connection, saying that “our instincts were right 20 years ago, but we didn’t have the tools or technology.” That’s a pretty wild statement — and now Google has to deliver.

Developing…

Google Chrome OS gets detailed, first laptops from Acer and Samsung coming mid-2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, Google might have just dropped Android 2.3 Gingerbread on the Nexus S just today, but that’s old news — Andy Rubin just took the stage at D: Dive Into Mobile and announced that Honeycomb is due “next year” with support for tablets. Andy demoed the new version of the OS on a Motorola prototype tablet, and it was very different, and highly customized — although there were still grids of icons, the apps were more “desktop” in flavor, and the traditional Android buttons weren’t present. We’re waiting for more details, we’ll let you know what’s up.

Android Honeycomb coming ‘next year,’ adds tablet support originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We saw the briefest whisper of an indication a couple months ago, but now Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci has come out and said it: Acer’s working on Windows Phone 7. In an interview with Ina Fried, Gianfranco touched briefly on the company’s plans for Microsoft’s new OS, after an ill-fated stint with Windows Mobile not so long ago. Naturally, the addition of Windows Phone 7 won’t be coming at the expense of Acer’s newfound love of Android, but Lanci oddly says he sees for WP7 “the same opportunity you can see on Android in terms of customization.” We don’t know what sort of customization he could be referring to, but we’re trembling in anticipation. So, let’s just tally them up: MeeGo, Chrome OS, Windows Phone 7, Android, and, of course, Windows itself… pretty nice collection you’ve got for yourself, Acer. What’s next, BeOS?

Acer confirms plans for Windows Phone 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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