0 Google Proves Android Fragmentation With an iOS App

By Admin_AT | At 7:13 PM | Label : android , fragmentation , google , iOS | 0 Comments

A few days ago, Google released Google Now, an Android feature for iOS through an update to their Google app. The feature is like Siri, only for Google searches. By releasing it on iOS, they made it available to over 500 million iOS users. However, on Android, it's only on at most 120 million Android phones. Yes, a key feature of Android, their version of Siri, is available on more iOS devices than Android devices. It's not because of marketshare, it's because of fragmentation.

Google Now only works on Android devices using Jellybean, the latest version of the OS. Less than 25% of people have the latest version of Android. Unfortunately, since upgrading the operating system is left to the manufacturers who have made their own Android customizations, users don't often get updates. In fact, unless you're using a Nexus device, the best way to keep up to date with the latest OS is to buy a new Android phone. Of course, phone manufacturers don't mind that, but users probably do.

Issues like this are probably why Gizmodo called the iPhone one of the best Android phones. Google is more interested in selling their services, rather than their phones. That means getting it to as many people as possible. Since they can't get it to many Android users, they have to share their services with iOS.

via TheTechBlock, photo via Chris Barischoff

 

0 iPhone Marketshare to Surpass Android in 2016

By Admin_AT | At 2:08 PM | Label : android , apple , customer satisfaction , google , iPhone , Marketshare | 0 Comments

According to the Yankee Group, marketshare for the iPhone will surpass Android by 2016. Their prediction is based on data they collected from a survey of 16,000 people over the past year. Form the chart above, you can see the iPhone stealing marketshare from non-smartphone devices, and a single percentage point from Blackberry. Thanks to customer loyalty towards Apple, and a number of Android users looking to switch to iOS, iPhone marketshare should grow in the next few years, while Android marketshare will remain stagnant.

There are two main reasons for the Yankee Group's predictions. First, iPhone customer satisfaction and loyalty is much higher than Android's. In fact, 91% of iPhone owners say their next phone will be an iPhone. Comparatively, only 75% of Android users want another Android phone, and most are heading to iOS. Only 6% of iPhone users said they were considering Android, while 18% of Android owners said they were going to get an iPhone. That alone is a good indicator of customer satisfaction on these two platforms.

Beyond that, currently consumers seem split down the middle, at first glance, anyway. 42% of people are planning on getting an iPhone, and 42% are buying an Android device. However, buying intention vs ownership is higher on the iPhone. That means iPhone marketshare is going to grow fire than Android marketshare.

With so many Android users switching to iOS, and so many iPhone users who only want an iPhone, it seems pretty obvious that if this trend continues, iOS will get the lead. The Yankee Group says that will happen by 2016, and the results of their survey could be a good indicator of the future.

via AllThingsD

 

0 Another Lawsuit Claiming Google Biased

By Admin_AT | At 5:34 PM | Label : antitrust , google , lawsuit | 0 Comments

Google is being sued once again for favoring their own services in search results over their competitors. Due to the near monopoly Google has over search results, this is a big deal. Streetmap, a UK company is now using Google, claiming that results for their service are buried underneath Google's own search results.

Google actually does this. If you search for maps, you're going to get the Google maps search results before anything else. By favoring their own services over all competitors, they're furthering the monopoly they already have on web searches to other services, and that can't be permitted. But what can Google do to right this?

Streetmap joins a European Union antitrust lawsuit against Google for the same reason. Google's going to have to do something if they don't want further investigation of their practices. Microsoft has had similar issues, and now needs to prompt users to download third party browsers when they start using a new PC. Perhaps Google will need to do something like this for various services, allowing users who are logged in to choose what services they want to be their default for maps, app stores, videos, and more. That would be a more fair and seamless solution.

Via Bloomberg

 

0 How to Switch from Android to iOS

By Admin_AT | At 10:30 AM | Label : android , apple , apps , contacts , google , iOS , iPhone , itunes , media , switch , transfer | 0 Comments

So, you've either made the switch to iOS, or you're thinking about it. Congratulations! But, what's going to happen to all your data on your old phone? How do you keep your music, movies, apps, and perhaps most importantly, you contacts? Fortunately, there is a way to keep everything, although admittedly, transferring apps isn't possible, but you may be able to get iOS versions of them, maybe even for free.

Contacts

First of all, let's get those contacts transferred over. I see so many people say they need their friends phone numbers because they got a new phone. There's no excuse for that, phone numbers, emails, and other contact information is very easy to transfer over. Once you have an iPhone, this will all be easy to sync and back up, but even transferring your contacts from Android to iOS is simple. Here's how you can do it.

 

The online method:

This is the easiest way to do keep your contacts, and the way I recommend.

1. First, synchronize your data with your Google account. There's a variety of ways to do this, depending on what Android phone you have, but it should be in the settings.
2. Next up, on your iPhone, go into Settings > Mail, Contacts, and Calendars
3. Set up an Exchange account, not a Google account
4. Input your Google email address and password
5. For the server, type "m.google.com" (no quotes)
6. On the final screen, just make sure it's syncing contacts, and you're good to go.

 

The offline version

There may appear to be less steps here, but it really is a bit more time consuming. I've done this before for an old Samsung phone, before Android came out. It was a pain, as I had to transfer them individually, but I still have all my contacts from when I first got a phone.

• First, get an SD card, skip this if you already have one
• Second, go into your contacts app on your Android phone, press the Menu button, and choose to export your contacts to your SD card
• Now that you have all your contacts on the SD card, you have a few options. On a Mac or PC, you can choose to import your contacts into your computer's address book.
• If you're on a Mac:
• -Sync your iPhone, make sure contacts are set to sync. You're done.
• If your on a Windows PC:
• -Sync your iPhone with iTunes
• -On the sidebar, select your iPhone, and check sync contacts.
• -From the drop down, choose your Windows contacts, you may need to find the location of them.

 

Alternatively, you could also take the .vcf files from your Android phone, and import them to a Google account, and then do the steps I described above for the online version".

Finally, you could email yourself the vcf file, and open it on your iPhone. Select it, and choose to import all the contacts from it. There are probably even more ways to do this, but these are among the easiest (that I know of).

 

If you've followed these steps, your contacts are now on your iPhone, and it wasn't too hard. Now for your music, movies, and TV shows.

 

Media and Documents

Keeping your media is very easy.

Start off by transferring your media to a computer. You could do so in a number of ways. You could either move your media to an SD card and put it on your computer, or you could just attach it via USB and put all your media on your PC or Mac.

Now, just add all that media to iTunes, and sync your iPhone. You're all done. iTunes makes this all very easy.

 

If you have documents, media, or files online in the cloud, like in Dropbox, Google Drive, or any other cloud storage service, don't worry, those apps are all on iOS. Just download the iOS versions of the apps, and log in. You'll have access to all your files.

 

Apps

There's some good news, and some bad news. The bad news is, you can't sync your apps. Although, aside from emulators, malware, porn, and other such apps that are banned from the App Store, you should be able to find all your favorite apps on iOS. In fact, people say that the iOS versions of the apps are far better than the Android versions. Plus, there are plenty of exclusive apps for iOS that you're going to love.

 

For free apps, this is acceptable. But, for apps that you paid for on Android, you'll have to pay for them again on iOS. Maybe. You could always send a email to the developers asking them if they could comp your purchase of the app. Just explain that you paid for it on Android, and see if they'll oblige. They may say no, but that's about all you can do.

 

 

Your data and contacts should be transferred over to iOS by now. So, it's time to enjoy what iOS has to offer. You'll find the app centric pages, simple notifications, clean design, and secure and centralized App Store far more enjoyable than your experience on Android. Plus, over the years, I've made plenty of app recommendations over the years, so look around, play around, and have fun on iOS. Enjoy your new iPhone.

via Gizmodo and Cnet