MOBIZ

Steve Jobs - 20 life lessons

2012-01-28T10:57:00.003+08:00

Steve jobs - 20 life lessons

View more presentations from Rob van Alphen

Check out Steve Jobs's 20 life lessons courtesy of Rob Van Alphen on Slideshare.

Google is dominating the US Mobile Advertising Space

2012-01-27T11:03:00.001+08:00

Mobile advertising spending in the U.S. reached $1.45 billion in 2011, an 89 percent increase over 2010 spending of $769.6 million, according to a new eMarketer report. The research firm anticipates nationwide mobile ad spending will grow another 80 percent in 2012, eclipsing $2.6 billion on its way to topping the $8.2 billion mark in 2016.

Google raked in 51.7 percent of U.S. mobile ad revenues in 2011, translating to about $750 million, eMarketer states. Apple's iAd follows at $92.4 million, edging past independently owned Millennial Media at $90.9 million. Google also earns an estimated 95 percent of all U.S. mobile search ad revenues.

eMarketer anticipates that U.S. mobile search advertising more than doubled in 2011 as spending rose to $652.5 million, up from $253.2 million the previous year. The firm expects advertisers will spend $1.28 billion on mobile search ads in the current year.

Google additionally leads its rivals on U.S. mobile display ad spending, earning $127.5 million in 2011 to control 24.8 percent share of the market. Apple accounted for 18 percent of the U.S. mobile display ad market last year, just ahead of Millennial Media at 17.7 percent. eMarketer estimates U.S. mobile display ad spending, including banner and rich media ads, will grow 93.5 percent in 2012 to $861.7 million, up from $445.4 million in 2011. Spending on mobile video advertising will jump an estimated 122 percent to $151.5 million this year, compared to $68.2 million in 2011.

Apple's announces BIGGEST quarter

2012-01-26T14:40:00.004+08:00

Apple has just announced the biggest and most profitable financial quarter of 2011, revealing record-breaking sales figuures for the company. Profits have also more than doubled to $13.06bn up from $6bn in the same quarter of 2010.

Sales of the iPhone stood at an astounding 37.04 million units, a 128% rise on the previous year, with Apple stating that more could have been sold if the supplies were there. iPad sales were similarly impressive with a record 15.43 million units over the quarter, more than double that of a year ago.

A 26% increase of Mac sales was recorded over the last 12 month period with sales of 5.2 million.The only recorded decline in sales was with the iPod, which saw a 21% year on year decrease to 15.4 million units. However, Apple did make predictions that the smartphone would replace the iPod, so the sales decrease is not wholly unexpected.

With launches for the iPad 3, iPhone 5 and Apple iTV all looking to be anytime this year, it seems that the California tech giant’s reign is set to continue throughout 2012 and beyond and many analysts are targeting Apple share to touch $700 at some point. At current Apple's share price, its definitely very appealing taking into account of his current cash in hand of $98Billion, thats about a quarter of his current market cap of over $400Billion! Guess the challenge now for Apple is what are you going to do with all that cash... a bloody healthy problem to have... perhaps buying over Facebook!!

Interview - Mobile Advertising Landscape in China

2012-01-19T21:42:00.001+08:00

Check this out, my latest video interview on ITV-Asia hosted by Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO and founder of mInfo, one of the leading mobile advertising company in China. Click here to watch the interview.

Feel free to drop me any comments...

The Best Article by Steve Jobs

2012-01-02T10:53:00.003+08:00

Happy New Year everybody and wishing all of you a great start to 2012. I wanted to start the year by blogging for the man that made a huge change to all our lives. Steve hasn't been just visionary, he has been a remarkable man coming from a humble background having faced several ups and downs but had never given up. His belief in doing what he loves and making the best of everything has been Apple's most critical success factor.

Here is the inspiring article to help you jumpstart to another fun and exciting year :

Steve Jobs on His Life, Career and Illness: ‘Find What You Love’

This evening we got the news that Steve Jobs has stepped down from his post as Apple CEO after having been on medical leave since January. In a commencement speech given at Stanford University in 2005, he spoke about his life, his career and his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. His words, spoken six years ago, resonate strongly tonight.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

From,

Steve Jobs

If you have the time, please get hold of Steve Jobs' biography written by Walter Isaacson, its a great book and must read for everybody in the tech industry. Truly inspiring!!!

Google - Android activations hit 700K per day!

2011-12-26T07:30:00.000+08:00

The number of activations of Android devices has hit 700,000 per day, though some commentators believe that the latest milestone is evidence that the explosive growth in the Google OS.

Google VP Andy Rubin, the firm’s most senior Android exec, tweeted the 700,000 figure recently and also gave some detail on how the firm defines an ‘activation’ via the Google+ social network. ‘Activations’ for Google means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service.

In June 2011, Rubin tweeted that there were 500,000 Android activations happening per day, and that the figure was increasing by 4.4 percent a week. A month later (July), in an earnings call, Google said that the daily figure had increased to 550,000.

However, while Rubin gave no indication of the weekly growth figure this time round, it is thought that growth has slowed.Either way, the new 700,000 figure equates to 21 million a month, or 250 million a year.

This stacks up against estimates which suggest iPhone will sell around 105m and iPad 40m this year. But then that's just two devices against dozens of Androids - and iOS users are far more active and spend more on their devices.

Google introduces tablet-centric ad formats

2011-12-11T21:15:00.001+08:00

Google said in a blog that it has looked at how consumers engage with ads on tablets, and concluded that "they have higher expectations of ads on tablets, believing they should be more interactive and touch screen friendly."\

So it came up with Rich Media Designs for Mobile, which lets advertisers create rich media banner ads using existing assets.And in search it has put Media Ads in beta this week. Media Ads bring video content directly into an ad on the search results page.

Mobile commerce increases 254% on Black Friday 2011

2011-12-01T12:56:00.001+08:00

Mobile commerce is thriving! Record numbers of consumers turned to their smartphones and tablets during this year's Black Friday holiday shopping frenzy, with digital retail services provider GSI Commerce reporting a 254% increase in U.S. mobile sales compared to year-ago totals.

eBay-owned PayPal experienced a 516% year-over-year increase in global mobile payment volume. The number of consumers shopping via PayPal mobile services grew 371% from Black Friday 2010 and jumped 148% compared with the average Friday.

Shoppers in the U.S. purchased more than 2.5 times as many items via eBay Mobile on Black Friday 2011 compared to a year earlier.

Consumers shopped eBay Mobile for shoes, computers, consumer electronics, sporting goods and jewelry. In terms of sold items, shoppers in New York City made the most eBay Mobile purchases, trailed by Houston and Chicago.

If you are retail or online commerce, get into the space NOW where ever you are located. With smartphone adoption at all time high, it will be a disaster if you do not have a mobile commerce strategy in place.

Admob dominates Android ad space

2011-11-29T07:30:00.000+08:00

89% of ad-enabled Android apps use its SDK. App search firm Xyologic says half of the top 1000 downloaded Android apps in October have had an SDK from a mobile ad or network.

The study also found that 22% of the top 1000 downloaded apps on Android in October have two or more mobile ad network SDKs.And it revealed that, even after all these years, the original mobile ad network AdMob is still way ahead of the other big networks.

Its 89% share dwarfs Millennial Media at 34%, Inmobi at 22%, AdWhirl by Admob at 19% and Mobclix at 15%.The remaining 15% include AdMarvel, Smaato, Burstly, Mopub, Nexage, Fiksu, and Jumptap who each make up less than 3% each of the overall market share. However, together, apps with their SDKs apps represent 26% of all downloads in October among the top downloaded apps with mobile advertising.

China is the No.1 smartphone market by volume

2011-11-26T14:10:00.001+08:00

China is now the world's biggest smartphone market by volume, having taken the crown from the US in Q3 according to Strategy Analytics.

Smartphone shipments in China grew 58% sequentially during the quarter to a record 23.9 million units compared to a 7% slump in US sales to 23.3 million units. The strong growth to operators' aggressive handset subsidy strategies, as well as the increasing availability of low-cost Android phones from ZTE and other Chinese brands.

Nokia is the leading smartphone vendor in China, having shipped 6.8 million units during the quarter. Samsung is second, with 4.2 million units. In the US, HTC leads the pack, while Apple is the chief contender.

China is in a pole position of the worldwide mobile computing boom. It has become a large and growing smartphone market that no hardware vendor, component maker or content developer can afford to ignore. Beyond being the largest smartphone market, the acceleration in adoption and growth in the use of mobile internet had made this an important media that most marketers must take note. A strategy on mobile is a MUST for any organizations moving forward.

Nine out of ten top Brands are on app stores

2011-11-02T08:15:00.000+08:00

A new report by mobile analytics firm Distimo says 91 per cent of the top 100 brands now has a presence in at least one of the major mobile app stores. The rate stood at 51 per cent 18 months ago.

Distimo defines its top brands as those contained in the Interbrand 2011 Best Brands report such as Coca-Cola, BMW, Disney and IBM.The report reveals the average number of apps published at a massive 24. Pretty remarkable. But dig down and you see that the figure is skewed by the output of firms like Disney (636) and Sony (285).

The primary driver for this activity seems to be brand awareness as only 27 per cent of the brands have released paid apps: the rest go free.Apple’s App Store is unsurprisingly the primary destination of these brands. Indeed, 86 per cent have a presence in iTunes, actually you'd think it would be all of them.Meanwhile 66 per cent are on iPad, 59 per cent in Android Market, 26 per cent in BlackBerry’s App World and nine per cent on Ovi.

Among the top brands, it's media companies that are the busiest, with an average of 247 apps each, followed by software firms (36 apps per company), business services (31 per cent) and automotive (29 per cent).The report says 2,343 branded apps are available from companies on Interbrand's Top 100 list.

Samsung No.1 on Smartphone

2011-11-01T08:23:00.000+08:00

Shipments grow 44 per cent to give it 23.8 per cent of the market.The firm sold 27.8 million units in Q3, up nearly four times from a year ago, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.That helped the Korean firm's smartphone profit double to $2.2bn.The 44 per cent growth is almost four times as much as last year, and is attributable to the great success of its Galaxy range and, to a lesser extent, its Wave bada devices.And the growth also takes Samsung ahead of Apple, which saw iPhone sales fall by 16 per cent to 17.1 million units in Q3, according to the report.

Apple’s sluggish numbers have been put down to consumers choosing to wait for the iPhone 4S, so in theory Q4 should see a rise in Apple sales. It was certainly off to a good start selling four million units in its opening weekend. Apple and Samsung will continue to dominate the market in the fourth quarter.

Google's Android Ice Cream Sandwich out on Nov. 17

2011-10-29T10:10:00.003+08:00

To all the big fans of Google's Android, Samsung Electronics will begin shipping its new Galaxy Nexus Android smartphone Nov. 17. The device is the first to run Google's long-awaited Android 4.0 ("Ice Cream Sandwich") operating system overhaul.

A Samsung Mobile tweet confirms the manufacturer will begin rolling out the Galaxy Nexus to European consumers on Nov. 17. Mashable reports the smartphone is slated for a November release in the U.S., Canada and Asia as well.

Android 4.0 delivers the tablet-optimized innovations introduced in Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb update to all devices in an effort to reduce platform fragmentation. Google first confirmed Ice Cream Sandwich's forthcoming launch during its annual I/O developer conference in May. The company promised, at that time, that moving forward, the same version of Android will run across all devices, regardless of screen size.

Highlights of Android 4.0 include an evolved user interface making common actions more visible, enabling users to navigate using simplified, more intuitive gestures. A new typeface optimized for high-resolution screens touts enhanced readability and new animations and feedback support for more compelling interactions. Android 4.0 also touts new System Bar virtual buttons bringing instant navigation to Back, Home and Recent Apps, as well as more visual multitasking and more interactive notifications.

Android dominates 43.7 percent of the U.S. smartphone market according to data issued earlier this month by research firm comScore. Android-powered tablets lag far behind Apple's pacesetting iPad, however: Researcher IDC reports that Apple's iOS commands 68.3 percent of the worldwide tablet market as of the second quarter of 2011, with Android trailing at 26.8 percent

Google Mobile Ad Revenue is on track to hit $2.5 Billion per annum

2011-10-14T20:59:00.000+08:00

Google confirmed in its recent Q3 earning that its ad revenues via mobile devices had grown by two-and-half times over the last year and was on track to hit US$2.5 billion per annum. This is up from the US$1 billion figure Google cited a year ago, which was the first time it had attributed a dollar value to its mobile business.

190 million devices had now been activated globally and Google is upbeat on the platform’s future roadmap. Revenue growth continues to accelerate driven primarily by mobile search. This growth is driven both by the underlying expansion of Android devices and tablets.

In Q3, Google reported that total revenues grew by a third year-on-year to US$9.7 billion, while net profit was up by a quarter to US$2.7 billion. The results were above most analysts’ expectations. Google also used its earnings to announce that its Google+ social network had passed 40 million users.

Apple's iOS platform driving 55% of worldwide mobile internet traffic

2011-10-07T08:37:00.000+08:00

Apple's iOS operating system now accounts for 54.65 percent of worldwide mobile web traffic, more than three times Google's Android, according to new data published by Net Applications. In fact, at 16.26 percent global market share across mobile phones and tablets, Android net traffic even trails Java ME (18.52 percent). Symbian follows at 6.12 percent, trailed by Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry at 3.29 percent.

The iOS platform's dominance over the mobile net landscape is somewhat surprising given that Android controls 48 percent of the worldwide smartphone market according to recent Canalys data, far ahead of iOS at 19 percent.

Apple's iPad continues to own the worldwide tablet market, increasing to 68.3 percent global market share during the second quarter, up from 65.7 percent a quarter ago. At the same time, Android's tablet market share slipped from 34.0 percent in the first quarter to 26.8 percent, due both to Apple's dominance and the introduction of RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook, which captured 4.9 percent market share.

By 2015, more U.S. Internet users will access the web via mobile devices than PCs or other wireline channels according to a forecast issued last month by research firm IDC. The number of mobile net users is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16.6 percent between 2010 and 2015, thanks to the increasing smartphone penetration and sales of tablets like the iPad. IDC had predicted that PC-based web access across the U.S. will first stagnate then slowly decline, with Western Europe and Japan following the same trend.

Good Bye Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T08:31:00.000+08:00

Today is the passing of Steve Jobs, a great visionary who brought us the world largest company, Apple, the most powerful mobile devices, iPhone and iPad. He will always be remembered the Father of Mobility. RIP.

This is a powerful video to honor him. Its a speech by Steve at Stanford Uni in 2005 and the most powerful speech that i had watched over and over again. It sure did inspire me and changed the way i looked at life, i am sure you will find it inspiring. You got to figure out what you love and do what you love.

Forecast: U.S. mobile ad spending expected to reach $1.23B in 2011

2011-10-06T08:29:00.000+08:00

Advertisers are on pace to spend close to $1.23 billion on mobile campaigns in 2011, up from $743 million a year ago (65% year on year growth), according to a new forecast published by eMarketer. Mobile ad spending which includes display ads (e.g., banners, rich media and video), search and messaging-based campaigns and encompasses promotions viewed on both mobile phones and tablets is expected to climb to almost $4.4 billion a year by 2015, thanks to the increased smartphone penetration and surging mobile web access.

Messaging-based formats remain the primary vehicle for mobile ad campaigns, representing 36.1 percent ($442.6 million) of spending this year. As of 2012, banners and rich media efforts will pull even with search, with each bringing in 33 percent of spending (or $594.8 million), while messaging slips to 28.2 percent. By 2015, search will lead with 40.2 percent of mobile ad spending, followed by banners/rich media (36.4 percent), messaging (14.4 percent) and video (9 percent).

Video is the fastest-growing mobile ad format but comes from the smallest base, eMarketer notes. Mobile video ads will account for 4.7 percent of spending in 2011, or $57.6 million. Video is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 69 percent between 2010 and 2015, with advertiser spending set to reach $395.6 million by the middle of the decade.

Only iPhone 4S, no iPhone 5 as many had expected

2011-10-05T08:18:00.002+08:00

Its the news that many of you been waiting for but unfortunately the news came short with the launch of only an iPhone 4S. The new iPhone will go on sale on Oct 14 and with only minor improvements, I dont expect overnight campers to stay up all night to get their hands on a brand new iPhone 4S.

On a brighter note, the new iPhone 4S still pack a punch. It will boast a dual core A5 processor that will allow for 7X faster graphics, an 8 MP camera that will work in conjunction with the new iOS 5 features to capture pictures faster, and enhanced battery life.

The device will also support GSM and CDMA networks, making it a true world phone for the first time ever allowing many of you who are on on CDMA network to keep your existing numbers and upgrade to a new iPhone.

In addition to these features the unit also has a voice assistant that will allow users to enter commands into the phone simply by talking. The “Siri” assistant was developed by a company acquired by Apply earlier this year, and will enable more intuitive control over all aspects of your device.

What was interesting was the announcement with the continuation of the iPhone 3GS, which is now available for free on contract with many carriers, and which now represents Apple’s low-cost strategy for emerging markets and smartphone laggards. Rather than making a new lower-functionality, lower cost device for such markets, Apple simply continues to sell a more than two-year old device which was market-leading at the time it launched.

For a company which prides itself on the quality of its products, this strategy has always made more sense than producing a new, sub-standard device for such markets. The strategy should also keep iPhone shipment numbers growing as ever more first-time iPhone users join the back of the ranks while more savvy and trendy users will always be chasing for the latest models.

What CEO Tim Cook and others showed the press during the 95-minute presentation this morning is very symbolic of what Apple is trying to do to keep standing out ie, pay very close attention to the little things, which help make a product great. Dont be deceived by the same physical look as many had expected a whole new new look and feel to the new iPhone. The iPhone 4 is a great phone and people are still buying by the truck loads even though the iphone is more than a year old so it’s not like Apple had to go back to the drawing board or do a major overhaul. Dont forget, its not how it looks but how it performs!

Amazon launches $199 Fire tablet

2011-09-29T11:26:00.001+08:00

Amazon dramatically increased the stakes in its ongoing battle with Apple for digital media supremacy, officially launching its long-awaited, Android-powered tablet device as well as new Kindle e-reader devices.The Amazon tablet, dubbed the Kindle Fire and priced at $199 (compared to $499 for Apple's cheapest iPad), effectively gives consumers a single, portable point of access to digital media initiatives including the Kindle e-book catalog, Amazon Appstore for Android, Amazon Instant Video and Amazon MP3, with all content backed up in the cloud.

The Kindle Fire integrates with the Amazon Web Services platform and enables consumers to leverage free media offerings included within Amazon Prime, the $79 annual service that also offers unlimited two-day shipping on all products sold and processed by the e-commerce giant, excluding items offered by third-party sellers.

Unlike Apple, which relies on content from its iTunes digital media storefront and App Store to boost sales of hardware like the iPhone and iPad, Amazon is looking to the Kindle Fire to stoke consumer interest in its premium digital media ambitions."For 15 years we've been building our media business and it's become a $15 billion a year business," said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos during Wednesday's media event, stating that the company now offers more than 100 million feature films and television programs available to buy or rent.

In addition, the Amazon MP3 storefront touts more than 17 million songs, some priced as low at 69 cents.Kindle Fire also heralds the launch of Amazon Silk, a new browser promising to accelerate the mobile web user experience by caching and compressing data and images. Living both on the tablet and Amazon's own EC2 servers, Silk promises to consume less bandwidth than other tablet browsers, translating to faster page and multimedia load times. The Kindle Fire does not feature 3G network access, instead relying exclusively on Wi-Fi connectivity.

Apple eat your heart out... The $199 pricing is certainly a killer price and it will definitely eat into Apple's market dominance on the tablet segment. With the Amazon content bundled in, its definitely a great offering and more importantly affordable.

Check out the TVC on Fire below :

Apple confirms iPhone launch on Oct 4th

2011-09-29T11:10:00.002+08:00

Apple has finally ended speculation about the unveiling of its much-anticipated new iPhone model, sending out invites yesterday for an event on 4 October taking place at its HQ in Cupertino, California. However, while Apple’s invitation offered an opportunity to “talk iPhone” it did not explicitly mention the new iPhone 5.

Apple may not unveil a new model, but several new versions of the current one (iPhone 4), possibly one designed for the Chinese market or a new low-cost version.On the hardware side, the new iphone is expected to feature incremental upgrades in processing power, camera quality and very possibility a slightly larger screen size.

It will run surely be running Apple’s new iOS5 software, which includes new cloud and messaging features. I reckon shipping will begin within a few weeks after the announcement.

Guess who are paying mobile games?

2011-09-12T08:22:00.000+08:00

According to a latest stats provided by Flurry, a mobile analytics firm, its the younger people who are playing most on freemium games but its the older guys who are paying for them.

Flurry's stats are based on tracking 20 million players across more than 1.4 billion sessions in these games. It found that 13-17 year-olds account for 22% of the time playing freemium games, but only 5% of the spending. Meanwhile, 18-24 year-olds take 32% of the time but 16% of the spending.Who's stumping up for all these virtual items then? That'll be older gamers. 25-34 year-olds account for 29% of the time spent playing these freemium mobile games, but 49% of the spending. Meanwhile, 35-54 year-olds take 14% of the time but 28% of the spending.

These dynamics are actually pretty logical, as Flurry explains. If you play many of these games a lot, you are less likely to need to pay, since you can earn rewards and advancement through the gameplay itself (for example, virtual coins in a game like Tiny Tower). Younger people with time to play are therefore less likely to need to pay.

And older folk? 24 – 35 year olds presumably have more disposal income, but less time, due to work and family demands. This combination makes them less tolerant to engaging in 'the grind' but also better positioned to buy their way out of it. They play less often, but make quicker progress by simply spending."

Samsung is hedging its business by extending its tablet line to include Windows OS

2011-09-10T09:12:00.000+08:00

In not such a surprising move Samsung is preparing to expand its tablet-computer lineup by using a new version of Windows OS as its products built around Google's Android OS has come under legal attack from Apple Inc. On top of that it makes commercial sense for Samsung to hedge its business with Google's recent acquisition of Motorola.

The move is expected to be announced at a Microsoft developers conference in California next week though representatives from both Samsung and Microsoft declined to comment. The development was reported earlier by the Korea Economic Daily newspaper.

Tablets are a relatively tiny business for Samsung. Analysts estimate that Samsung shipped about two million tablets in the first half in comparison to a total 140 million shipped on handsets. Apple shipped 13.9 million iPads in the half.A double betting for Samsung is commercially sound than relying solely on Android, this will give them a greater bargaining power over Google's Android and the smaller market share Window's mobile OS and of course expose them to a broader group of customers.

Chinese search engine Baidu launches its own mobile OS

2011-09-06T07:35:00.000+08:00

Chinese search engine Baidu has launched its long-anticipated mobile OS, revealing it to be a heavily modified Android version. The search-centric OS, Baidu Yi, replaces many of Android's in-built Google services with Baidu app alternatives.

Baidu will supply its own maps, reader and music apps, and provide its Shen Bian service to stand in for Google Places. The music app will likely integrate with Baidu's Ting licensed music download service.

As with the competing platform launched by Alibaba last month, Baidu's OS utilizes cloud storage, backup and sharing capabilities. It will also provide single sign-in integration with Baidu accounts, and come complete with its own app store.

Baidu had been rumored to be planning the OS and to be using a modified version of Android for some time, but had refused to provide confirmation.

Apple's Safari is the No.1 mobile/tablet browser

2011-09-05T08:13:00.000+08:00

Apple's Safari dominates worldwide mobile/tablet browser market share according to the latest data published by web analytics firm NetApplications.

Safari, the default browser on all devices running Apple's iOS powers 52.99 percent of mobile browsing as of August 2011, more than double its nearest competitor, Opera Mini, at 20.77 percent. Google's Android browser follows at 15.73 percent, trailed by Symbian (5.83 percent), BlackBerry (2.90 percent) and Opera Mobile (0.58 percent).

Although Android far outpaces iOS in regards to worldwide smartphone market share, controlling 48 percent of the global market compared to iOS's 19 percent according to Canalys data published last month, NetApplications' research examines both smartphone and tablet web activity, giving Apple a major edge.

“Uncover Your World” with AdMob rich media and the Google Search app

2011-08-30T12:25:00.002+08:00

Check out the video below how Google uses Admob rich media mobile advertising to promote its Google Search app.

China Mobile Ad Market Landscape by Guohe Ad

2011-08-29T17:45:00.003+08:00

Guohe Ad, a local chinese mobile ad mediation player had just released its first report and infographics for China mobile ad market. Launched in January 2011, Guohe Ad has now integrated 11 leading mobile ads platform in China, serving over 1000 popular apps across iOS and Android system, and its ads has been displayed over 600M times on 5M mobile devices.

Below are some highlights of the report :

80% of ads impressions came from 10 provinces in China, and Beijing is leading the pack followed by Shanghai, Guangzhou, Jiangsu and Zhejiang;
Larger iOS impressions over Android 58:42
More attention on a smaller screen resulting in higher CTR (click through rate).
Apart from Apple devices, HTC, Samsung and Moto are the top 3 brands producing better ads impressions;
iPad is dominating the tablet market in China, accounting for over 98% of total ads impressions on tablet devices.

Source : technode (Check out the site for the infographics provided by Guohe Ad)

The Death of Palm WebOS

2011-08-22T07:42:00.002+08:00

Just days after widespread rumours of poor sales for HP's TouchPad tablet, HP has announced that it's canning the webOS software and the devices that it runs on. WebOS became a HP property when it acquired Palm for $1.2 billion in April 2010, and the company had talked up its ambitions for the software not just on smartphones and tablets, but on a range of other devices too.

Those ambitions appear to have gone up in smoke. Earlier this week, reports suggested that US retailers were sitting on piles o f unsold TouchPads, after sales failed to match positive reviews of the company's first tablet.

Ironically, it was only recently that was reported the TouchPad being the second most desirable tablet behind Apple's iPad in a US survey although with only 10.3% of respondents interested in buying it versus 94.5% for iPad.

iPad is by far a runaway success and looking at the momentum generated, its unlikely in the short term that anybody can rival the success of Apple. Expect more casualties in this segment unless anybody could come up with something out of the box. It was only quite recently that Dell had also officially discontinued its 5" Streak.

Google acquiring Motorola Mobility for $12.5bn

2011-08-16T07:09:00.004+08:00

Both firms had just confirmed that Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The official release says the deal will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing.

In other words, don't panic all you other OEMs. But you have to wonder how this might affects the giving out of Android platform goodies.

In the past, Google has been careful to share evenly first dibs on new OSs. HTC, Samsung and Moto have all taken their turns to be first to rush out devices based on an updated platform.

Will Google be so even-handed now?

The deal has to be great for Moto though, which endured a hideous period post-Razr and has been partly rehabilitated by Android in its native US, but less so in the rest of the world.

Android dominates U.S. smartphone ownership, representing 39 percent of the market as of June 2011 according to the latest Nielsen data. More than 150 million Android devices are active worldwide, with Android products available from 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers across 123 countries.

Motorola went all out on Android in 2008, embracing the platform as its sole operating system. The company now ships 11 percent of Android smartphones in Q2, but still made a loss.

Having been outbid in the recent sell-off of Nortel’s patent portfolio, Google was clearly willing to look elsewhere to build up its arsenal of IP and in the light of the growing number of IP legal disputes in the smartphone market; this move will put Google in a stronger position competitively.

Three important points to this deal :

1. Apple. This means war! Don’t doubt for a minute that Google is going after Apple’s lunch, directly competing with the iPhone with this move into hardware.

2. Patents. Google now has access to Motorola’s 17,000+ wireless-related patents. The word “patent” came up more than 25 times in this morning’s call, underscoring how much this deal helps Google protect itself from legal challenges from competitors.

3. Mobile computing. The buyout makes Google the owner of some of the most popular Droid smartphones, giving it a direct way to monetize it’s popular Android operating system.

Android taking up almost 50% share of smartphone shipments globally

2011-08-08T08:26:00.000+08:00

Android accounted for 48% of all smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2011, according to the latest figures from analyst firm Canalys.

Canalys estimates that 107.7 million smartphones shipped globally in Q2, up 73% year-on-year, split between Asia Pacific (39.8m), Europe, the Middle East and Africa (35m) and the Americas (32.9m).

But it's that Android growth that stands out from Canalys' figures. 51.9 million Android smartphones shipped in Q2, up 379% year-on-year thanks to the efforts of manufacturers including Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei.

APAC is particularly strong for Google, with Android taking an estimated 85% share of the market in South Korea, thanks to strong backing from the local manufacturers.

iOS in second place globally with 20.3 million shipments giving iPhone a 19% market share, overtaking Symbian for the first time. The company thinks that less than 1.5 million Windows Phones shipped during Q2, however, giving Microsoft just 1% of the global market.

Nokia still clinging on the overall No.1 market lead but not for long

2011-08-01T08:40:00.000+08:00

Strategy Analytics had confirmed Nokia’s dramatic collapse in smartphone market share, with the Finnish vendor falling behind both Apple and Samsung in shipments in Q2. According to the firm, total global smartphone shipments grew by 76 percent year-on-year to reach a record 110 million units in the quarter.

However, Nokia’s smartphone shipments fell from a market-leading 23.8 million a year ago to just 16.7 million. Apple took the top spot on 20.3 million, followed by Samsung on 19.2 million.

Total handset shipments incl. smartphones reached 361 million units in Q2 2011, rising 13 percent from 320 million units a year earlier. Nokia hung on to its overall device lead by shipping 88.5 million handsets worldwide, but saw its market share drop sharply to 25 percent (from 35 percent), its lowest level since 1999.

Samsung was second on 74 million units, followed by LG on 24.8 million. Apple’s 20.3 million iPhone sales cemented its position in fourth place. Though with only 6% market share, Apple made more profits than all the handset manufacturers combined. Gone were the days where the larger you ship, the more money you make. Such was unthinkable 4 years ago before the rise of iPhone and totally impossible to see anybody unseat Nokia who had such a commanding market share. As the saying goes, whatever that goes up must come down. Its hard to reach the top and its even more harder to continue staying at the top. I wonder who will be able to take on the commanding position Apple is in now..... maybe Google?? What do you think??

Bringing the Hypermarket to your mobile phone

2011-07-31T21:03:00.003+08:00

This is a really smart and intelligent e-commerce integration using the power of smartphones. At the click of a button, the QR code taken will automatically drop the product you are buying into the shopping cart ready to be purchased. Once you complete the purchase, the product will be on its way to your home. This would save many of us a lot of time and no longer need to make the long queue at the hypermarkets.

Check the video below :

Google Plus - Do we need another social network

2011-07-29T09:37:00.003+08:00

Watch the video below and it tells why you need GooglePlus. If you dont have an invite, drop me a comment below.

Apple sold 20.34 million of iPhones in the past 3 months

2011-07-21T08:04:00.007+08:00

Another stunning quarter for Apple recording a massive increase in profits thanks to the dominance of Apple's iPhone. Sales for its fiscal 2011 third quarter, ended 25 June 2011, increased 82 percent year-on-year to US$28.57 billion and profit was up 125 percent to US$7.31 billion. Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 142 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

Sales of the iPhone mean that Apple will almost certainly have passed the formerly dominant Nokia and will be battling Samsung for the title of the world's largest smartphone vendor by volume. Gartner believes that Apple could overtake LG by the next quarter and become the third largest mobile phone vendor worldwide.

Its a phenomena growth to the top for Apple with just one device where as other manufacturers had to spend so much effort coming up with with various designs and models. Its a game-changer and iPhone had definitely turn the table for the industry and at the present moment its a huge catch up game for many and I dont reckon this is going to change for the short to mid-term. With iPhone 5's launch not too far away, its definitely going to be another record breaking year for Apple.

Google - Mobile Ad Revenue to Hit US$14 Billion By 2015

2011-07-18T08:01:00.002+08:00

A new report by Canaccord Genuity has predicted that Google’s mobile ad revenue will reach US$14 billion by 2015 driven by smartphone uptake, growth of Android, and new services offered by Google.

This figure represents nearly half the US$29 billion Google generated from online ad sales last year and shows that the mobile platform is closing the gap on web based platforms.

This report is in line with the prediction that mobile will eventually draw level with online platforms before overtaking them due to changing consumer behaviour.

According to the report Google already brings in 2.5 billion from Mobile Ads with much of this coming from search and display ads that Google serves on Apple devices. But their dominance will only increase thanks to all the new products that they are releasing and as the consumer uptake for these services continues to grow.

550,000 activations on Android daily

2011-07-16T09:06:00.002+08:00

550k daily device activations, and more than 135 million having been sold so far according to Google. Google has announced its latest set of quarterly financials, revealing revenues of $9.03 billion for the second quarter of 2011, and net income of $2.51 billion.

So far, more than 135 million Android devices have been activated in total, catching up steadily with Apple's 200 million iOS devices. More than 400 different Android devices are now available, and Android Market has generated more than six billion app downloads, too.

The milestones came after Google introduced new features to its Android Market app, including editorial picks, e-books and video rentals.

Android is certainly on a rampage growth.

Nielsen: iPhone in pole position, Android sales flat

2011-07-01T12:21:00.003+08:00

Although Google is now activating 500,000 new Android devices each day, research firm Nielsen reports that Android smartphone sales to U.S. subscribers have flattened over the last three months. Android phones made up 27 percent of U.S. smartphone purchases between Mar. 1 and May 31, Android also accounted for 27 percent of new smartphones during the Dec. 1, 2010 to Feb. 28, 2011 period.

Apple's iPhone is now driving U.S. smartphone sales, representing 17 percent of smartphone purchases during the most recent three-month period, up from 10 percent during the previous three-month segment. RIM's BlackBerry continues to nosedive, sliding to 6 percent of smartphone sales from 11 percent during the previous three-month block. Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 7 has remained consistent over the last six months, generating just 1 percent of U.S. smartphone sales.

Fifty-five percent of U.S. consumers who purchased a new mobile handset during the last three months opted for a smartphone over a feature phone, the first time smartphone sales set the pace in the American market, Nielsen reports. Just a year ago, smartphones made up 34 percent of U.S. handset purchases.

Smartphones now make up 38 percent of the addressable U.S. mobile market. Android remains the dominant platform, representing 38 percent of the overall U.S. smartphone market. iOS is next with 27 percent market share, followed byBlackBerry at 21 percent. Windows Phone 7 makes up 19 percent, and Microsoft's legacy Windows Mobile accounts for 9 percent.

2011 - Global mobile ad revenue forecast to reach $3.3 billion

2011-06-24T08:49:00.003+08:00

Global mobile advertising revenue is forecast to reach $3.3 billion in 2011, more than double the $1.6 billion generated in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Its expected to reach $20.6 billion by 2015, but not all types of mobile advertising will generate the same opportunity. Search and maps will deliver the highest revenue, while video/audio ads will see the fastest growth through 2015.

As the adoption of smartphones and media tablets extends to more consumers, the audience for mobile advertising will increase and become easier to segment and target, driving the growth of mobile advertising spend for brands and advertisers.

North America and Western Europe are the regions where mobile advertising budgets will grow most, representing 28 percent and 25 percent of the global market by 2015 (refer to the table above). However, Asia/Pacific and Japan will remain the leading market throughout the forecast period. Asia/Pacific and Japan is forecast to account for 49.2 percent of mobile advertising in 2011, and 33.6 percent of the global market in 2015.

Samsung expects to dethrone Nokia as No 1 Smartphone manufacturer this quarter

2011-06-14T11:04:00.003+08:00

Samsung will become the world’s leading smartphone vendor this quarter, taking a 15-year crown from Finland’s Nokia according to Investment bank Nomura and to worsen matter, Nokia is expected to lose the number two spot to Apple in the next quarter. Although research firms such as IDC, Canalys and Gartner have forecast falling share for Nokia in the smartphone space over the next few quarters, Nomura’s reported prediction is the most damning for the Finnish company to date.

Despite the negative forecasts, Nokia remains the world’s largest mobile handset manufacturer due to its strong position in basic devices and its wider distribution network in emerging countries but this may change at some point as Nokia is up against so many low end manufacturers from China.

Nokia is hoping things would change with the roll out of Windows Phone platform by end of the year. And frankly I m not sure whether the new product launch will change anything for Nokia as they are way far behind and had lost a great deal of branding over the past years and unlikely customers will jump on a Windows platform Nokia devices. The odds are definitely stacked against them as I could never understand why Nokia had picked up just Windows OS as they should had just picked whichever platform that works and built the best device with great user experience. My prediction by next year around this time, they will realized the mistakes of relying on just one platform and start kicking themselves for not being realistic and pragmatic. By then, its going to be a steep mountain to scale and almost game over for Nokia.

Or I may be entirely wrong on this as Nokia will beat all odds and surpass everybody expectation to continue dominating the mobile devices market. IDC had predicted that Windows platform will be the 2nd most popular smartphone platform in 2015. It expects Microsoft's platform overtaking Symbian, BlackBerry and iOS in the next three years to take a 20.3% share of global smartphone shipments in 2015. Google's Android will remain top dog, with a 38.9% share of global shipments in 2011 rising to 43.8% in 2015.

Apple launches iOS 5 and iCloud at WWDC

2011-06-07T07:29:00.009+08:00

Apple had just launched iCloud and iOS 5, the latest version of the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, and released a beta version to iOS Developer Program members. The iOS 5 beta release includes over 200 new features that will be available to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users this fall.

With iOS 5 and iCloud, you just enter your Apple ID and password and iCloud will seamlessly integrate with your apps to automatically and wirelessly keep all of your mail, contacts, calendars, photos, apps, books, music and more, up-to-date across all your devices without having to plug into your PC.

Before going into the details of the new features, lets look at some of the impressive stats that were released :

- 200 million iOS devices shipped out so far;

- 25 million iPad 1 & 2 sold

- 15 billion songs sold on iTunes

- 130 million books downloaded

- 14 billion apps downloaded from App Store

- 425,000 apps available on App Store and 90,000 only for iPad

- 225 million registered credit cards on iTunes

- paid $2.5 billion to developers building on iOS

- 54 million active Macs out there

Here are some of the groundbreaking iOS 5 new features :

Notification Center

This new feature will provide users with an innovative way to easily access all notifications―text messages, missed calls, calendar alerts, app alerts and more, all in one place, from anywhere in iOS 5. When they arrive, notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen without interrupting what you’re doing. With one swipe you can see all your notifications, and a simple tap will take you right to its app for more detail. Notifications also appear on the lock screen, with the ability to be taken to the notifying app with just one swipe.

Newsstand

Newsstand is a beautiful, easy-to-organize bookshelf displaying the covers of all your newspaper and magazine subscriptions in one place. A new section of the App Store™ features just subscription titles, and allows users to quickly find the most popular newspapers and magazines in the world. If subscribed to, new issues appear in the Newsstand and are updated automatically in the background so you always have the latest issue and the most recent cover art.

Safari
New features include Safari Reader, which gets all the clutter out of the way and sets the right font size on a web page, so you can easily scroll and read through a story; Reading List, so you can save articles to read later and they automatically show up on all your iOS devices; and Tabbed Browsing, which makes it easy to flip between multiple web pages on iPad.

Twitter integration
Big boost for Twitter as the new iOS 5 includes built-in Twitter integration, so you can sign in once and then tweet directly from all your Twitter-enabled apps, including Photos, Camera, Safari, YouTube and Maps with a single tap. New APIs give third party developers the ability to take advantage of the single sign-on capability for their own iOS 5 apps.

iMessage
iMessage in iOS 5 brings the functionality of iPhone messaging to all of your iOS devices ie, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Built right into the Messages app, iMessage allows you to easily send text messages, photos, videos or contact information to a person or a group on other iOS 5 devices over Wi-Fi or 3G. iMessage also features delivery and read receipts, typing indication and secure end-to-end encryption. Clearly a nightmare for the mobile operators as this will surely takes a chunk away of their profitable sms revenue. The Operators had been ripping us off for so many years and its high time for them to re-think their messaging strategy-all you can eat sms??

Camera
New features in the Camera and Photos apps give you instant access to the camera right from the lock screen, and you can use the volume-up button to quickly snap a photo. Optional grid lines help line up your shot and a simple tap locks focus and exposure on one subject. The new Photos app lets you crop, rotate, enhance and remove red-eye, and organize your photos into albums right on your device to share them on the go.

PC Free feature
With the new PC Free feature, iOS 5 users can activate and set up their iOS device right out of the box with no computer required, and iOS software updates are delivered over the air and installed with just a tap. Wi-Fi Sync in iOS 5 transfers and backs up your content securely over SSL and wirelessly syncs purchased content from your device to your iTunes® library.

The iOS 5 beta software and SDK are available immediately for iOS Developer Program members at developer.apple.com. iOS 5 will be available as a free software update for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad, iPod touch (fourth generation) and iPod touch (third generation) this fall.

The new iCloud service will be offered for FREE and for those who had paid recently for the MobileMe service will get a refund. MobileMe service will gradually be taken over by iCloud.

Want to watch the whole keynote where these things were announced? Head on over to Apple.

You can also check out the Apple's iOS 5 video below :

What do expect at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference next week

2011-06-03T07:38:00.001+08:00

Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m and will unveil iOS 5 and its new iCloud service at its WWDC show in San Francisco next week according to Apple.

At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch; and iCloud, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering."

iCloud has been the subject of constant rumours in recent months. The service is expected to build on Apple's existing MobileMe offering, but may also include streaming access to people's music and video collections.

Rumor - Microsoft bidding for Nokia mobile business

2011-06-02T11:51:00.004+08:00

Earlier today BGR reported that Microsoft is buying Nokia’s mobile business for around $19 billion. While I usually don’t listen to hear-say and rumors, I think this deal is very likely to happen taking into consideration that Microsoft had picked up Skype for $8 billion earlier and $19 billion for Nokia will surely seem like a bargain. It would make a lot of sense strategically to add Skype to the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world.

Nokia will surely be a good fit for Microsoft as they have been playing behind the scene for years and perhaps this would be the best way for them to get in front of the game. And owning Nokia will allow Microsoft to embed Windows OS on all their future devices instead of begging the other device manufacturers to embed them.

While its a great fit for Microsoft, i m not too sure whether the deal will pan out positively at the end as its going to take a lot of pursuasion to Nokia shareholders to give up their crown jewel mobile business. Even if the shareholders were to agree, its going to be fascinating to see whether other bodies like the US government, Finnish government, and the internal staff of Nokia will give the support and approval.

Good luck to Microsoft and Nokia and as for us, lets enjoy the show.

Q1 2011 - Top 10 Mobile Phone Vendors

2011-05-23T08:42:00.000+08:00

Fresh from rumors that Nokia would be selling off its handset division to Microsoft, new numbers from Gartner reveal that Nokia’s current market share is at its lowest since 1997. And things could only worsen while preparing to launch devices running on Windows OS.

While mobile devices growth has been astounding jumping 19% year on year, Nokia has lost 5.5%, Android took 36% of the pie and Apple doubled its number of iPhone sales. Nobody could had ever imagined that this would happened 4 years ago. Not only that, there are 3 chinese companies occupying the top 10 ie, ZTE, Huawei and HTC (to be more accurate, HTC is a Taiwanese company).

100 million devices on Android

2011-05-12T16:36:00.001+08:00

Google kicked off its annual I/O conference last night with some headline stats about the growth of its Android platform.

100 million Android devices have now been activated, with another 400,000 being activated every day. There are now 200,000 free and paid apps available in the Android Market store, which has generated more than 4.5 billion downloads so far.

Google's Android product management director Hugo Barra revealed the figures in a blog post published shortly after they were announced at I/O. He also revealed that there are now more than 310 individual Android devices available to buy.

So what's new with Android? Google talked about the next version of the OS, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. "Our goal with Ice Cream Sandwich is to deliver one operating system that works everywhere, regardless of device," writes Barra. That means it will run across Android smartphones and tablets, in the same way that Apple's iOS 4.2 did for iPhone and iPad.

Android smartphone owners will get features including holographic UI, better multi-tasking, a new launcher and richer widgets that have so far been restricted to the Android 3.1 Honeycomb OS on tablets.

One big criticism of Android in recent months has been the time it takes for OS updates to be rolled out by operators and handset makers. As we reported yesterday, only 4% of Android handsets are running the latest smartphone version of the OS, 2.3 Gingerbread.

Google has now taken steps to speed things along though. It has created a 'founding team' of operators and handset makers including Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola and AT&T to banish these update delays.

"We're jointly announcing that new devices from participating partners will receive the latest Android platform upgrades for 18 months after the device is first released, as long as the hardware allows," writes Barra. "And that's just the beginning."

More news at I/O included the launch of movie rentals in the Android Market, with thousands of films available from $1.99 that are watchable on tablets and smartphones, as well as online. The Motorola Xoom tablet on Verizon will be first to get an update to the Android Market client to enable these films to be watched, with other devices following in the coming weeks.

Apple is No.1 World's Most Valuable Brand

2011-05-10T11:07:00.003+08:00

The latest 'BrandZ' study by global brands agency Millward Brown puts Apple at the top, pushing last year's top dog Google to No.2 spot.

Behind Apple in the list are Google, IBM, McDonald's, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Marlboro, China Mobile and General Electric.

Facebook entered the top 100 at number 35 with a brand valued at $19.1 billion, while Chinese search engine Baidu rose to number 29 from 46.

Its hard to comprehend as this was the same company that was almost out of business more than 10 years ago.

The full list and report can be downloaded here.

Canalys: APAC becomes world’s largest smartphone region

2011-05-06T19:10:00.002+08:00

Asia-Pacific has become the world’s largest smartphone region, according to new figures from Canalys. Smartphone shipments in the region reached 37.3 million in the first quarter, a year-on-year growth rate of 98 percent, putting it ahead of EMEA for the first time since Q3 2007.

Asia-Pacific growth was driven by countries such as China, South Korea and India, which all recorded triple-digit growth. Overall, worldwide smartphone shipments grew 83 percent to 101.0 million units. Though its market share shrank from 39 percent a year ago to 24 percent in Q1 2011, Nokia held onto its worldwide leadership position with 24.2 million units shipped – a 13 percent year-on-year rise.

Asia-Pacific became the largest region for Nokia, accounting for 53 percent of its overall shipments, overtaking EMEA by more than 3 million units. Canalys’ country-level data shows that the vendor remains number one in 28 countries, including mainland China.

At the platform level, Google’s Android OS led the market for the second quarter running with 35.7 million units shipped, increasing its share to 35 percent driven by HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson, with each vendor shipping well over 3 million devices.

iPhone makes up 50% of Apple's revenue

2011-04-21T10:22:00.003+08:00

Its a crazy quarter for Apple almost doubling its profit to $6 billion thanks to 3 main drivers, iPhone, MacBooks and China. The iPhone now makes up half of Apple’s revenues, or $12.3 billion in the quarter. Sales grew 126 percent in dollar terms, with unit sales up 113 percent. Its amazing taking into account this revenue was non existent 4 years ago and all this was created through just 1 device is simply astounding.

Greater China's sales which makes up of P.R. China, Hong Kong and Taiwan grew 250%, very soon the Asia Pac region will rank the 2nd largest market for Apple.

iPad sales were below the 6 million expectation coming in at 4.69 million presumably due to short of supply and possibly many buyers were waiting for the launch of iPad 2. The following quarter should reflect a much higher iPad sales thanks to the launch of the new iPad 2.

The current stock price for Apple seems so appetizing even though it has gone up so much in comparison to 2 years ago.

2010 - Top 10 Largest Online Retailier in China

2011-04-18T14:18:00.002+08:00

HTC is bigger than Nokia

2011-04-08T18:27:00.003+08:00

Such would not had been easily comprehended a few years ago. How can a giant like Nokia be smaller than a tiny Taiwanese handset manufacturer (HTC) who had almost negligible market share. As of today, HTC's market capitalisation had over taken global handset market leader Nokia, in a development that was seen to reflect HTC’s strength in the booming smartphone sector where Nokia is losing ground rapidly according to Bloomberg.

A 5.3% increase in HTC’s share price yesterday took its value to US$33.8 billion, ahead of Nokia’s US$33.6 billion. The value of HTC’s shares have tripled in the past year, as its smartphone growth outpaced the market, while Nokia has seen its value slide with a significant drop-off after it announcement of its alliance with Microsoft in February 2011.

While Nokia is still the bigger of the two in terms of operating profits and revenue, it is expected that Nokia will struggle from its current Symbian OS platform to Windows Phone, a process that is expected to take several years.

The bulk of Nokia’s volumes also come from low price, low margin devices, which means its operating margin is pressured. In contrast, HTC is focused on the more lucrative premium device sector, without the burdens associated with delivering a mass-market handset portfolio meaning it has healthier operating margins.

The position for Nokia is just going to get worst before it gets better. The road ahead is definitely going to be more than just bumpy.

comScore: Android accounts for 33% of US smartphones market

2011-04-06T08:41:00.000+08:00

Google's Android OS continues to go from strength to strength in the US, with a third of smartphone owners now having an Android handset according to comScore's latest stats.

Android's share of US smartphone owners climbed from 26% in November 2010 to 33% in February 2011, overtaking BlackBerry, which fell from 33.5% to 28.9% in the same period. Apple's iOS is holding its own, with a 25.2% share in February 2011.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined share fell from 9% to 7.7% in the same period, while webOS' share declined from 3.9% to 2.8%. Overall, 69.5 million Americans now own smartphones, according to comScore's MobiLens data.

The growth in smartphones continues to affect content usage among US mobile users as a whole. 36.6% of all US mobile subscribers used downloaded apps in February - up from 33.4% in November. 24.6% played games (up from 22.6%) and 26.8% used social networking services from their phones (up from 23.5%).

Overall market share by handset maker in the US with Samsung in the lead taking a 24.8% share of all US mobile subscribers in February, followed by LG (20.9%), Motorola (16.1%), Research In Motion (8.6%) and Apple (7.5%).

Google putting more restrictions on Android to halt fragmentation

2011-04-05T07:39:00.000+08:00

Google is putting more control over its open-source Android mobile operating system in a bid to halt ecosystem fragmentation, informing operator and manufacturer partners it must now approve all significant tweaks to the platform. About a dozen executives from firms including LG, Toshiba and Samsung told Bloomberg Businessweek that Google has stated it will no longer tolerate random changes to the Android OS nor will it accept Android-related partnerships forged outside of its domain.

Sources say that in recent months, Google has demanded that Android licensees adhere to "non-fragmentation clauses" that award the company final approval over new user interface tweaks and service additions. Although Google has always included these clauses in its Android license but many had cracked down on its policies.

Android smartphone shipments topped 33.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, translating to a 32.9 percent share of the global smartphone market, research firm Canalys reported in January a year earlier, Android shipments represented just 8.7 percent of the worldwide market, a 615.1 percent annual leap. Google's choice to make Android available as an open-source platform is arguably the most decisive factor behind the operating system's staggering growth, with smartphones now available from a host of manufacturers and carriers both in the U.S. and abroad.

Last week, Google said it has temporarily restricted access to the new Android 3.0, the first version of the OS designed from the ground up, for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets.

250 million Facebook users on mobile

2011-04-04T13:27:00.003+08:00

More than 250 million people are now accessing Facebook from their mobile phones according to Facebook. That represents rapid growth, since in February 2010 it passed the 100 million mark.

Alongside the new mobile milestone, Facebook has relaunched its mobile web presence, merging its two sites m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com. The former was for feature phones, while the latter was for touchscreen smartphones.

Now they will use the same framework, but Facebook will automatically serve the best version of the site for each device that visits it, according to what features they have or don't have.

10 Predictions for China’s Internet in 2011

2011-03-30T10:33:00.002+08:00

10 predictions for China’s Internet from Dick Wei of JP Morgan. Although published in January, all the predictions still look pretty much valid up until now.

(1) eCommerce to see wider adoption, driven by convenience, lower-price alternatives to traditional retail, and improved trust & safety. Gross merchandise volume (GMV) is expected to reach Rmb723B in 2011, or less than 4% of retail sales.

(2) Social commerce. Expect social sites to be an emerging and important traffic generator for eCommerce companies. Synergistic relationship between social networks and commerce merchants will fuel growth for both segments.

(3) Gaming segment likely to see re-rating with good game titles launch. Highly anticipated games in 2011 include Duke of Mountain Deer, World of Warcraft Cataclysm, etc., which could generate greater player interest and, as such, sector rerating.

(4) Video advertising to prompt ad dollar shift from TV to internet. With the recent IPO of Youku, a broader range of online video content, growing online video user base, and a familiar ad format, TV advertisers are likely to accelerate the ad budget shift from offline to online.

(5) Mobile Internet to see increased competition. We expect Internet leaders like Baidu and Tencent to formally launch middle-ware products that could include third party application distribution platforms; compete with existing players UCWeb other mobile game platforms.

(6) Search continues to see solid growth, with wider market adoption. Baidu still maintains dominance, other players such as Soso and Sogou still unlikely to gain meaningful market share.

(7) Solid consumer spending trend supports good advertising segment growth. Expect continued good macro environment to support consumer spending. We believe the sector growth story remains intact: Internet usage growth, particularly in lower-tier cities, to drive ad budgets online.

(8) Expect transition from time-base pricing to CPM-base pricing to accelerate in 2011, but remain gradual, driven by user-segregation and better online adserving/tracking technology. Yet, leading portals will still benefit from their own brand influence.

(9) 2011 Rmb appreciation to improve sector profitability. Expect sector margins to have very slight improvements from Rmb appreciation, as only a small portion of costs are in US dollars (game licensing fee, overseas video/sports content fee, and some servers, etc.). Benefits to come from translation gains from Rmb-denominated EPS to US$-denominated EPS.

(10) More IPOs likely in 2011. We expect investors will likely continue to look for growth investment opportunities in 2011. We think China’s internet segment offers good secular growth, as well as a number of sizable private companies. We believe more new listings are likely.

Feel free to add any predictions on top of the 10 listed above.

iPad 2 - Truly Enterprising Chinese

2011-03-21T12:15:00.002+08:00

With iPad 2 launched only in the US on March 11, hardcore buyers in China are able to get their hands on it by the same weekend thanks to the ever enterprising Chinese who had sent their troops to station near the Apple Store located on the Fifth Avenue, New York. These chinese scalpers had paid people to line up to purchase the iPad 2. No wonder the iPad 2 were completely sold off minutes after it was opened.

Back in China, the same item was sold between $1,700 to $2,000. Crazy premium taking into consideration that the highest retail price of iPad 2 in the United States is only 829 USD. While there is little that Apple could do to stop this rampant trade, what they could do in the future is to have a same date for worldwide release or perhaps a shorter release date for China.

iPad 2 - Will It Blend?

2011-03-19T08:37:00.000+08:00

iPad 2 completely blended and destroyed... Hilarious as hell as always coming from the guys from Will it Blend..

New iPhone 4 TV Ads

2011-03-18T09:30:00.000+08:00

Here are 3 new iPhone 4 TV ads that just went live.

Apple launches iPad 2

2011-03-03T14:11:00.003+08:00

Apple has unveiled the new iPad 2 promising a device that is twice as fast as its predecessor.

The product, announced by Steve Jobs himself in a rare public appearance since his latest medical leave, is also one third thinner and 15% lighter than the original iPad.

The iPad 2 will begin shipping in the US on March 11 and internationally on March 25.

It will use a new dual-core A5 processor, and be powered by iOS 4.3. The base version will have 16GB of memory, scaling up to 64GB on the highest-end model. It will come in black and white from launch.

It will use the same screen as the original iPad, but use new graphics processing capabilities that Jobs said promises a ninefold speed boost.

As expected, the device will come with two cameras, including a front-facing one capable of recording 720p HD video.

The base model will have an RRP of $499 in the US, the same as the first iPad. To coincide with the launch, prices for the original models have been shaved by $100.

Apple's first-mover advantage should help it enjoy a market lead over Android until at least 2015, when devices based on Google platforms overtake those on Apple's iOS by a margin of 36% to 35%.

Simple pointers from Bill Gates to High Schooler

2011-02-26T08:20:00.000+08:00

Love him or hate him , he sure hits the nail on the head with this!

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world doesn't care about your
self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault , so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

MRM - Study on Mobile and Attituides

2011-02-25T10:59:00.002+08:00

Mobile & Attitudes - a Mobile Web User Typology from MRM Worldwide Deutschland on Vimeo.

Mobile online usage is growing rapidly but attention has been focused on devices, networks and operating systems instead of the users. Find out who is spending time in the mobile internet and how different user groups are using the mobile online services.

MRM Worldwide Frankfurt conducted a new mobile Internet user types study in partnership
with the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. The study sheds a new and detailed light
on current mobile phone Internet usage patterns beyond brand ownership (of their mobile
phone) or plain socio-demographic. Interesting comparison and well crafted information on mobile for both UK and Germany.

A Billion SMSes went through the Beijing Operators' network in 1 day

2011-02-19T07:05:00.000+08:00

China's major mobile phone operators confirmed that about one billion SMSes were sent in Beijing alone on the eve of the Spring Festival, China's biggest festival. If you were to translate that into monetary term, the Operators in Beijing would be making a cool RMB 100 million in just one day for doing almost nothing thanks to the frantic subscribers who are eager to send out spring festival well wishes to all their friends and contacts listed in their address book.

Motorola XOOM Tablet on demo

2011-02-18T07:28:00.001+08:00

This is XOOM, Motorola's first ever tablet computer. The device surely looks sexy, as it has a large widescreen display and a bezel that is quite thin. Naturally, most of the buzz around the Motorola XOOM comes from the fact that it’s the first tablet to run Google’s tablet-optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system. It features :

- 10.1-inch screen with a very high resolution of 1280x800;

- a 5MP HD camcorder (front-facing cam included);

- dual-core ARM-based Tegra 2 chipset which will allow for full 1080p HD video playback.

- In addition, the tablet will feature an accelerometer, gyroscope and of course, Adobe Flash 10.1 Player support.

Check out for the demo video below :

Nokia comeback strategy by partnering Microsoft

2011-02-15T09:58:00.006+08:00

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has finally outlined the company's comeback plans, including retaining Symbian and shifting MeeGo to computers.

Nokia running Windows 7 will surely be happening. The rumours that have been bubbling throughout the week have just been confirmed by Nokia, as the company unveiled its strategic direction under new CEO Stephen Elop.

The key details: Nokia will adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

Symbian isn't being killed off instead, it will become 'a franchise platform', as Nokia looks to 'retain and transition' the existing base of 200 million Symbian users, while selling 150 million more Symbian devices around the world.

And MeeGo will become 'an open-source, mobile operating system project' with 'increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences'.

Nokia will also work with Microsoft on joint marketing, a shared development roadmap, and will aim to 'help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies'.

Microsoft's Bing will be used for search across Nokia's devices, as will the Microsoft adCenter for search advertising. Nokia's maps service will be 'integrated' with Bing and adCenter to create a 'local search and advertising experience'.

While the news to partner someone is a fantastic one for Nokia having been living in denial for years without coming out with innovative device to compete with iPhone and Android, the problem here is that Microsoft is a wrong partner of choice.

I m not saying that Windows 7 is a lousy platform, the platform is certainly nice and interesing but lack developers. Despite all the advertising that Windows 7 has been doing, it simply hasnt done enough to convince mass adoption. In the eyes of the current buyers of smartphone, the defunct user experience has to be an iPhone or Android.

If Nokia is going to partner with a third party OS, why just work with Microsoft, they should had just worked with any viable OS. This would had been a much better strategy as it would have allowed them to have scale, have multiple market entry points and essentially leverage their core DNA ie, their ability to make good hardware and use their logistics to push it into the market.

What would Nokia do in 12 - 18 months when they discover that the partnership isnt working out? By then, its almost game over for Nokia. While i m not hoping and wishing for their demise, the current strategy seems heading that path.

China Internet Users - Feb 2011

2011-02-11T07:22:00.000+08:00

According to CNNIC latest report this January, China’s total Internet users has reached 457 million, up 19.1% compared to 2009. Internet penetration rate (34.3%) is still low in China but higher than the world average.

China’s total broadband users are 450 million, up 30%! Broadband penetration rate is 98.3% but the average Internet connection speed in China is only 100.9KB/s, far below the world average which is 230.4KB/s.

66% of China’s Internet users access Internet through mobile phones. On average, China internet users spend 18.3 hours per week on internet access; or, 2.6 hours per day.

More Smartphones shipped out than PCs in Q4 2010

2011-02-10T08:27:00.003+08:00

IDC's latest figures reveal that 100.9 million smartphones shipped in the final quarter of 2010, compared to 92.1 million PCs.

IDC says Android was one of the key drivers of the smartphone market in Q4. "It has become the cornerstone of multiple vendors' smartphone strategies, and has quickly become a challenger to market leader Symbian.

IDC claims that in Q4, Nokia shipped five million Symbian OS 3 smartphones, while Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 saw shipments of 1.5 million units during the quarter.

However, its public charts focus on manufacturers rather than operating systems, ranking Nokia as top dog for smartphone shipments with a 28% market share - down from 38.6% in Q4 2009. Behind come Apple (16.1%, flat YoY), Research In Motion (14.5%, down from 19.9%), Samsung (9.6%, up from 3.3%) and HTC (8.5%, up from 4.5%).

With Samsung nearly tripling its smartphone market share and HTC nearly doubling its, you can see the Android effect in action.

The end of traditional paperback books

2011-02-08T09:56:00.002+08:00

Sales of Kindle ebook titles now outnumber traditional paperback releases, online retail giant Amazon.com reports. Amazon now sells 115 Kindle titles for every 100 paperbacks sold in addition, ebook sales now outnumber hardcover sales by a three-to-one margin. Amazon adds that the sales metrics include sales of books where there is no equivalent Kindle edition.

Free Kindle titles are excluded, with the retailer noting that if free ebooks were included in its sales breakdown, the discrepancy between Kindle downloads and traditional print sales would grow even wider.

More tablet computers will be launched this year and this will further accelerate the adoption and at some point book shops and libraries will no longer needed in the nearest future.

Android surpasses Symbian in smartphone OS market share

2011-02-03T17:04:00.002+08:00

Android operating system overtook Nokia’s Symbian during the fourth quarter of 2010 to become the leading platform in the smartphone segment according to market analyst firm Canalys. Shipments of Android devices reached 32.9 million by Canalys’ estimation, with Symbian trailing on 31.0 million.

The increasing popularity of smartphones saw segment shipments grow by 89 per cent to 101.2 million units for the quarter, pushing the number for 2010 as a whole to just short of 300 million units.

Top downloads on App Store

2011-01-23T11:04:00.002+08:00

Apple has released a list of the most popular apps since the launch of the App store. The list is divided into four different categories that highlight the free and the paid apps for the iPhone and iPad.

The most downloaded paid apps for the iPhone:

Doodle Jump
Tap Tap Revenge 3
Pocket God
Angry Birds
Tap Tap Revenge 2.6
Bejeweled 2 + Blitz
Traffic Rush
Tap Tap Revenge Classic
AppBox Pro Alarm
Flight Control

The most downloaded free apps for the iPhone:

Facebook
Pandora
Google Mobile App
Shazam
Movies by Flixster
The Weather Channel
Google Earth
Bump
Skype
Paper Toss

The most downloaded paid apps for iPad:

SoundHound
StickWars
FlightTrack
Backbreaker Football
Calorie Tracker
BlocksClassic
iFart Mobile
GoodReader for iPad
Cro-Mag Rally
Ambiance

The most downloaded free apps for the iPad:

Pandora
Google Mobile App
Movies by Flixster
Google Earth
Yelp
Fandango Movies
Remote
iBooks
Bible
Solitaire

China Internet user count reaches 457 million

2011-01-21T08:38:00.000+08:00

The number of Internet users in China reached 457 million at the end of 2010, growing by more than 73 million users from the previous year, according to official statistics released on Wednesday.

The growth, while impressive, is a slow down from the previous year and points to a gradual maturing of the Internet market in China.

Last year's addition of 73 million people represents a 19 percent growth on 2009, when the Internet population expanded by 86 million people or 28 percent. In 2008 it grew by 88 million, equivalent to a 41 percent increase. The first major surge in the Internet user base occurred in 2007 with the addition of 73 million users for growth of 53 percent.

Internet usage from desktop PCs, laptops and cell phones all increased during 2009. China's Internet population includes 303 million users who use mobile handsets to go online, an increase from the 230 million figure a year ago.

Using search engines, listening to music, and reading news were the top three most popular activities for Web users in the country. Micro-blogging is done by 13.8 percent of Chinese Internet users, while group buying is at 4.1 percent.

While growth has slowed, more than half the population is still not online.

The bulk of China's Internet users live in urban areas. Web users from China's rural areas were 125 million, making up about 27.3 percent of China's total Internet user population.

Source : China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC)

Apple's best quarter results

2011-01-20T10:46:00.003+08:00

Record quarterly results from Apple have helped allay fears surrounding the company's future after CEO Steve Jobs (pictured) was forced to take medical leave. Apple reported a 71 percent jump in first-quarter revenue, to US$26.74 billion, and a 78 percent surge in net profit, to US$6 billion.

International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue. The company sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter, while 7.33 million iPads fell into the hands of consumers during the quarter.

Chinese government clamping down on fake mobile phones in China

2011-01-20T10:31:00.002+08:00

China infamous "shanzhai," or fake mobile phone industry days may be numbered after several years of booming business. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has joined with the State Administration of Industry and Commerce to crack down on the industry for the first time. Targeting sellers and producers, illegal phones will be seized and destroyed and those involved in the business punished.

The phones are mass-produced at low cost by small domestic companies. They are illegal because some producers don't have business licenses and none of the phones has network access licenses.

The phones have been extremely popular in China because they look like all the current popular brands, such as iPhone and BlackBerry, with some even boasting similar functions but selling for a much lower price.

But the cheap phones have many drawbacks. After-sales service is poor or non-existent, some have high power batteries that may explode, and they are prone to the latest "money-stealing" scandal.

Source : People's Online Daily

IDC: Google now controls 59% of U.S. mobile advertising marke

2010-12-30T08:02:00.003+08:00

Google is on pace to control 59 percent of the U.S. mobile advertising market by the end of 2010, according to research firm IDC. A year ago, prior to its $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob, Google represented 48.6 percent of the U.S. mobile ad market (including search and display ads), IDC notes; Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which in January 2010 acquired mobile ad network Quattro Wireless for $275 million and introduced its iAd platform in July, will finish the year controlling 8.4 percent of the market, the researcher adds.

Millennial Media will finish the year in third with 6.8 percent of the market, up from 5.4 percent. Both Yahoo and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) lost market share in 2010, IDC reports: Yahoo is down from 7 percent in 2009 to 5.6 percent in 2010, while Microsoft slipped from 6.3 percent a year ago to 5.4 percent.

The U.S. mobile ad market more than doubled over the past year to $877 million, IDC states. The firm said it believes Google will continue to build its market lead as its Android mobile operating system continues to grow. Android controls 23.5 percent of the U.S. smartphone market as of October 2010 per comScore data, up from 17.0 percent three months earlier.

BlackBerry shipments up 40% in Q3

2010-12-29T07:54:00.000+08:00

RIM's revenues rose 40% year-on-year and shipped 14.2 million BlackBerry smartphones in its fiscal third quarter, which ended on 27 November. That's up 40% year-on-year, despite stiff competition from iPhone and Android in RIM's key North American markets.

RIM's revenues were also up 40% year-on-year, rising $5.5 billion, as the company added around 5.1 million net new BlackBerry subscriber accounts in its Q3, bringing the total to more than 55 million.

RIM reported net income for its Q3 of $911.1 million, up from $796.7 million a year ago.

RIM's BlackBerry App World is now generating two million downloads a day, and has 16,000 apps available, according to RIM

Microsoft confirms 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 handset sales

2010-12-28T07:47:00.000+08:00

Microsoft confirmed that 1.5 million handsets running Windows Phone 7 (WP7) have been sold by its manufacturer partners in the six weeks since launch although this is based on sales to operators and retail channel partners, rather than to end users.

The figures come after speculation that Microsoft was remaining tight-lipped on sales because the numbers were poor, following reports that supplies were limited in some markets. Early in November 2010, Taiwanese publication DigiTimes reported that demand from consumers was outstripping supply, although this was “largely due to limited initial shipments” as manufacturers took a cautious approach with the unproven platform.

Last week, advertising network Chitika said that for every WP7 impression it sees, there are 110 Android impressions and 172 iPhone impressions, which it said was “relatively stable, with very little significant market share growth in WP7.” The company has managed to generate some traction among the app developer community, with 4,000 products now available for the platform.

China Mobile is the leading 3G provider

2010-12-27T10:28:00.002+08:00

China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom each had more than 10 million 3G subscribers at the end of October 2010. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the total number of 3G service subscribers reached 38.64 million at the end of October, up 10.4% month-on-month, and up 295.7% year-on-year.

China Mobile is so far leading with a 43.9% share of the 3G market by subscribers.

Google Voice app made available in App Store

2010-11-17T08:49:00.000+08:00

Apple had finally approved Google Voice and its officially released on AppStore. It brings full Google Voice functionality, including background notifications and full two-way communication and message sync. Go check it out!

Facebook valued at $41 billion!

2010-11-16T08:47:00.000+08:00

Facebook now ranks as the third largest web company, with a estimated valuation greater than EBay, based on trades of over $16 per share on SecondMarket.com.

Based on recent private-market transactions, Facebook has a total estimated value of $41 billion, exceeding eBay’s $39.4 billion in market capitalization. The only two web companies worth more than Facebook are Amazon, at $74.4 billion and Google, Inc., at $192.9 billion.

I m sure the recent announcement of Facebook new email service is going to further increase their valuation. You can head over here to request for an invite though i cant guarantee how long is the waiting time.

T-Mobile's Parody of Apple “Get A Mac” Commercial

2010-11-09T07:18:00.000+08:00

T-Mobile goes after AT&T in their new myTouch 4G “Piggyback” commercial, which is a parody of Apple’s popular “Get a Mac” ads.

TVC - China : "Now America works for us"

2010-11-04T07:47:00.000+08:00

Created by the American campaign group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW). The TVC produced a commercial portraying a future with China as the new superpower in 2030.

Below is a parody made by Taiwanese-based Next Media Animation as a response to the original version.

Android is the No.1 smartphone in the US

2010-11-03T07:05:00.000+08:00

Android continues topping US sales in Q3 and accounting for almost half the smartphones sold in the country. Devices running the Android operating system took 43.6% of sales in the market during the period, compared to 26.2% for Apple and 24.2% for RIM, Canalys revealed.

Android took mostly market share away from RIM. Apple iOS's share remained largely unchanged at 23%, and the iPhone 4 is still the No.1 best selling single mobile device for the quarter.

The most popular Android phones in the market during the quarter were the LG Cosmos, Motorola's Droid X and the HTC EVO 3G.

Globally, demand for smartphones was up 95% year-on-year, but grew particularly fast in Brazil, Russia, India, China and Indonesia markets, with sales up 112%.

Apple is now No.4 largest handset vendor by market share

2010-11-02T07:58:00.000+08:00

Apple had overtaken RIM but still far behind Nokia, Samsung and LG. IDC has published its rankings for handset shipments in Q3, and it shows Apple overtaking Research In Motion to become the fourth biggest mobile phone vendor in the world.

The top three places are unchanged: Nokia remains at No.1 with 32.4% market share, followed by Samsung - 21% share and LG - 8.3% share. Apple's 14.1 million units shipped in Q3 gives it a 4.1% share globally, followed by RIM's - 3.6%. Sony Ericsson falls out of the top five for the first time since 2004.

LG had a particularly poor Q3, with unit shipments falling by 10.1% year-on-year, and its market share falling from 10.6% to 8.3% accordingly. Nokia's modest YoY shipments growth of 1.8% was behind Samsung (18.6%), RIM (45.9%) and Apple (90.5%), which is why Nokia's market share fell from 36.5% to 32.4%.

Apple App Store launches in China

2010-11-01T06:23:00.000+08:00

Apple has opened a simplified Chinese version of its App Store and a new online store in China, the latest in a sharp ramp-up of operations in the market. Mainland China customers can order Apple products, including the iPhone 4 and iPad, and have them delivered for free.

Until now they would have to collect them from one of the handful of Apple retail stores in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. Apple is offering free engraving on any iPod or iPad ordered through the store. Apple is shipping iPhones in China in one to two weeks, and iPads in 24 hours as of Tuesday morning.

Apple, which had only one Apple Store in China last year and relied largely on authorized resellers to reach other customers, has said it plans to open 25 Apple Stores in the country by 2011.

With e-commerce booming in China and consumers spending tens of billions of dollars in transactions each year online, the move could help boost the company's distribution in China. Apple had 7.1% of China's smartphone market as of the second quarter, ranking fifth after Nokia Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., Motorola Inc. and Sony Ericsson, according to research firm Analysys International.

Releasing a Chinese version of Apple's Chinese App Store, an online marketplace where customers can purchase software applications for their iPhones, iPads and iPods, also removes a barrier for Chinese users to access the store. But other hurdles remain, including the requirement for users to have dual-currency credit cards in order to make purchases within the store and problem with users jailbreaking the iphones for free softwares.

China Mobile's Growth slowing down

2010-10-23T07:46:00.000+08:00

China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator, has reported single-digit growth in revenue and profit amid signs of a maturing market. In the nine months between January and September this year, the firm reported profit of CNY87.2 billion (US$13.1 billion), up 3.9 percent from the same period a year ago, on revenue of CNY352.6 billion, up 7.8 percent.

However, ARPU was flat at CNY72 and the EBITDA margin dropped by about 1 percentage point to 50.4 percent. The increasing penetration rate of mobile telecommunications and the changes in the competition environment of the telecommunications industry, the group's customer growth showed signs of slowing down. China Mobile’s total customer base increased to just under 570 million.

Unicom revealed its customer numbers for September, noting that it is now adding more 3G than 2G customers. It added just 800,000 net 2G subscribers in September to reach 151.5 million 2G subs, but 1 million 3G subscribers to reach 10.6 million 3G customers.

iPhone 4 TVC in China

2010-10-22T11:32:00.002+08:00

iPhone 4 has finally landed in CHina and Apple has just launched two commercials to promote the ‘game-changing’ product to the Chinese market, pretty similar to the one made for the US market.

Apple Crushing 4th Quarter

2010-10-19T08:13:00.004+08:00

Apple crushed revenue and earnings estimates, as expected, and the company's guidance looks strong for its holiday quarter. But the iPad business posted a huge miss: 4.19 million shipments versus the Street's consensus at 4.7 million and many estimates above 5 million due to a supply issue, noting that supply and demand weren't balanced until September, the last month of the quarter.

Steve Jobs stole the show on the call, trashing competitors like RIM and Google, and suggesting that the iPad and iPhone will win against rivals because they are better products at great prices and holding onto its cash in excess of $50 billion now which put them in great position for any strategic acquisition.

On the positive side, Apple's iPhone business posted huge numbers despite the "Antennagate" moving 14.1 million phones last quarter, and boasted in its press release that this beat RIM's most recent quarter, when it shipped 12.1 million BlackBerry devices.

Key Stats:

Revenue: $20.34 billion vs. $18.9 billion consensus;
iPad shipments: 4.19 million vs. 4.7 million consensus (via Piper Jaffray); accounted for $2.8 billion in total revenue
iPhone shipments: 14.1 million vs. 11 million consensus (via Piper Jaffray); The iPhone continues to be the biggest money maker for Apple, accounting for $8.8 billion in revenue, with an average selling price of about $610
Mac shipments: 3.89 million vs. 3.7 million consensus (via Piper Jaffray)
iPod shipments: 9.05 million vs. 10 million consensus (via Piper Jaffray)
Apple TV device : 250,000 units sold
Sales in the Americas generated $7.2 billion in revenue. Europe accounted for $5.4 billion and Asia Pacific was $2.7 billion.
iTunes had revenue of more than $1B for the quarter.

It was also confirmed by Jobs that Apple isnt working on a smaller iPad based around a 7-inch screen giving reason that it would be too small to express the software.

Nielsen: Android is the No.1 choice for new smartphone buyers in the US

2010-10-07T07:27:00.000+08:00

The Nielsen Company has published research claiming that Android accounted for 32% of new smartphones bought in the US between January and August this year. That means Google's OS has overtaken BlackBerry.

However, when it comes to all smartphone owners, BlackBerry is still top dog in the US with a 31% market share, although Apple is up to 28%, and Android climbing fast with 19%.

This is a significant development and the future for Android taking a commanding lead in the nearest future isnt going to be far-fetched. I wonder where will Microsoft's Window Phone 7 is going to be positioned from this competition. Its going to be interesting to see how they will fair in this competition...

Parents' Favorite Poster

2010-10-02T07:58:00.001+08:00

Simply brilliant!!

Apple is world's second largest company by market cap

2010-09-29T07:27:00.002+08:00

It doesn't seem all that long ago that Apple was in danger of going out of business yet now they are the world's second largest company (in terms of market cap) and not too far away from snatching the No.1 position held by Exxon.

Apple, maker of the Mac, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, surpassed Chinese oil giant PetroChina during trading on Thursday to become the world's second-largest company in terms of market value.
Apple shares hit a record 292.76 dollars during trading on Wall Street, giving the California gadget-maker a market capitalization of 266 billion dollars, more than PetroChina's 265 billion dollars.

The most amazing element of all this is how companies like Microsoft, IBM, Intel and Nokia, formerly one of the world's largest technology company, has lost so much of its market share and mind share. Guess whatever that goes up must come down and Apple would need to continue designing the best products with best in class user experience to stay on top. And the one formula that really turn the table for Apple is their way of marketing, Steve Jobs and team are simply the best story teller in the world.

Source : Yahoo News

iPhone 4 - Total Sell-Out at China Unicom on the 1st day

2010-09-27T08:43:00.000+08:00

China Unicom has stopped taking orders for the iPhone 4 after being swamped by customers seeking the new phone when it went on sale last Saturday. 200,000 orders were booked on the same day with 40,000 phones with contracts sold.

It took Unicom, the sole official supplier of the popular smartphone nearly six weeks to the sell the first 100,000 iPhones after they went on sale last year thanks to the quick launch by Apple.

Unicom is selling the phone for prices starting from 226 yuan ($33.70) a month for an 8GB phone with a two-year contract up to to 386 yuan for a 32GB device. Without contracts, the 16GB phone sells for 4,999 yuan and the 32GB for 5,999.

IDG's video report of the iPhone 4's launch in China.

iPhone 4 will be on sale in China today

2010-09-25T06:57:00.002+08:00

Apple will start selling its iPhone 4 in mainland China from 8am starting today! The new iPhone 4 products will be sold at the Apple Stores at Shanghai's Hong Kong Plaza, Beijing's Xidan Joy City and all China Unicom's retail stores.

Customers who buy an iPhone 4 at Apple Store in Shanghai and Beijing will gain Apple's Personal Setup services, which will help customers set up their email accounts; download applications at Apple Stores; and help them learn skills to start and run these applications. In addition, special lectures will be given at Apple Stores to help customers learn more about how best to utilize the features of the iPhone 4.

iPhone 4 sold at Apple Stores are 16GB version with the retail price of CNY4,999 and 32GB version with the retail price of CNY5,999. These products are sold without any telecom contract. However, iPhone 4 sold at China Unicom's retail stores will be sold with a two-year contract.

Apple wont be making the same mistakes in the past with the delay in launching previous iPhone. I m sure the uptake of the new iPhone 4 will be huge with the official launch. Congrats Apple.

iPad set for China debut today

2010-09-17T07:40:00.003+08:00

Apple will start selling the Wi-Fi version of the iPad in China today. The tablet will be sold through Apple stores and other retail outlets, with prices ranging from 3,988 yuan ($590) for the 16GB version and 5,588 for the 64GB model. There is no mention where Apple will launch its 3G version in China.

The device, which began selling in the US in April, has been available in limited volumes through gray market channels in China for several months at a much higher price.

iPhone app lets consumers 'try on' real watches

2010-09-16T08:36:00.000+08:00

Canadian Nuevo Watches offers consumers to "try on" its range of watches by downloading an iPhone app. Compatible with the iPhone and the 4th generation iPod touch, the Nuevo app from Monokromik lets users try on and select watches in the Neuvo watch collection without physically touching them.

The free app is available for download from the iTunes store; it requires iOS 3.1.3 or later. Once it's downloaded, users can virtually try on any of Montreal-based Nuevo's four CAD 45 watches, which come in black, bronze, gold or silver. The watches are only sold online, which makes the app especially useful.

China Internet Status Report 2010

2010-09-15T08:04:00.000+08:00

A comprehensive status report on China Internet which is based on CNNIC data.

China internet status 2010

View more presentations from Rocky Fu.

Source : China Internet Watch blog

Gartner: Android on track to take over Mobile OS top position

2010-09-14T09:18:00.002+08:00

Google’s Android could be on the verge of becoming the world’s largest smartphone operating system by 2014, according to new figures from Gartner. The research firm forecasts that by this point there will be less than one percentage point between Symbian (30.2 percent) and Android (29.6 percent) in terms of OS sales market share. Moreover, Gartner forecasts that Android will overtake RIM's BlackBerry to become the second-largest mobile OS (after Symbian) by the end of 2010. This is almost two years earlier than Gartner had earlier predicted.

A Symphonic Orchestra on iPad

2010-09-03T07:20:00.000+08:00

The iPad Orchestra is an ensemble of four musical players. The t-shirts they wear during concerts are marked with the musical instrument they are each playing on their iPads. These instruments consist of the clarinet, cello, flute and violin. The downloaded musical application is called ‘Seline HD.’

Make calls to a regular phone from your Gmail account

2010-08-27T07:53:00.001+08:00

Gmail users can soon make phone calls from within their accounts for free to the U.S. and Canada and for pretty cheap to several other countries. The service will be rolling out to Gmail users in the U.S. immediately, with international availability coming at an unspecified later date.

At least 200 million accessing Facebook on their mobile

2010-08-25T07:21:00.000+08:00

Facebook revealed that its iPhone app has 102.2 million monthly active users, with another 57.5 million using Facebook for BlackBerry, 11.9 million using its Android app, and 2.6 million using its Palm webOS app.

That's already 174.2 million monthly active users, and this figure doesn't include the 986,000 people still using Facebook for Sidekick, the 120,000 people on INQ handsets.

What's more, these figures don't include anyone using Facebook from their Nokia handset - it doesn't have a dedicated application page on Facebook like those listed above. Nor does it include any users accessing the social network through operator or handset UIs (Vodafone 360, Motoblur etc), or through Facebook's mobile website, which is big in the developing world.

In short, Facebook's active mobile user base is surely already over the 200 million mark, and probably well on the way towards 250 million.

Apple captures half of all handset profits though only capture 3% of global sales market revenue

2010-08-24T07:07:00.000+08:00

Apple took nearly half of the available profits in the $6 billion mobile phone market in Q2 despite generating only 3% of sales. Apple's Q2 share was more than double that of closest competitor Nokia, even though Nokia captured 34% of total sales.

The disparity is partly down to Apple's emphasis on profitability over sales, as well as the increasing importance of the smartphone market. Apple and RIM, both exclusive smartphone vendors, have gone from a combined 7% profit share to 65% in the last three years.

Samsung and Motorola took out a respective 1% and 2% share of the ebit pie in the quarter, after eight quarters of both running at a loss and LG sank to a loss after years of profit.

Guess the moral of the story is to focus on bottom line than top line. Great product with fantastic user experience is the real key which both Apple and RIM had certainly came out on top. Unfortunately as of now, there isnt a competitive device out there that can rival either Apple and RIM.

$35 Indian's "iPad" version

2010-08-23T17:27:00.002+08:00

It is probably the cheapest tablet around and still puzzled how these guys could make money out of this pricing. Up until now, its still not in production so unsure whether they will price it out at $35. The cheapest faked ipad in China operating with an Android OS is priced around $

Bear in mind that the $35 price on this tablet, which we heard about a couple weeks back, is a fantasy until it is actually in production and releasing with that price. And also note that when the narrator is talking about how well it handles Android 1.6, the video is sped up quite a bit. I’ll believe it when I see it — but if I do see it, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Nissan and Unilever report good engagement and click-through figures on Apple iAds

2010-08-17T07:39:00.000+08:00

The first two advertisers on Apple's iAd network have said they are pleased with the results from their campaigns. Nissan tells the Los Angeles Times that people spent an average of 90 seconds using its iAd, ten times longer than comparable online ads and click-through rates were five times higher.

Meanwhile, Unilever's iAd for its Dove brand saw a "double-digit" percentage of users seeking further information about the product advertised, while 20% of viewers watched the ad more than once.

The caveat here is that these were the first two iAds, and iOS users were excited enough about them to want to watch and interact with them. They had an extreme novelty value. Even i had clicked on almost all of the ads just to check it out. I must admit the user experience is good but since the amount of ads arent that many, thus its still too early to judge.

The real proof of iAd's effectiveness will come a few months down the line but this is certainly a good start.

Android surpasses BlackBerry as top-selling smartphone OS in the US

2010-08-16T07:12:00.000+08:00

Google's Android platform now represents 17.2 percent of the global smartphone market, overtaking Apple's iOS as the world's third most popular smartphone OS and edging past Research In Motion's BlackBerry to emerge as the top-selling OS in the U.S. according to new data published by research firm Gartner.

Worldwide sales of Android-powered devices topped 10.6 million in the second quarter of 2010, up from just 756 million just a year ago, at which time Android made up only 1.8 percent of the global smartphone market.

Gartner reports that global smartphone sales totaled 61.6 million units in Q2, up 50.5 percent year-over-year. Symbian remains the leading smartphone OS worldwide, controlling 41.2 percent of the market (down from 51 percent a year ago), sales of Symbian devices topped 25.3 million in the second quarter, up from 20.9 million in Q2 2009.

BlackBerry unit sales exceeded 11.2 million (up from 7.8 million a year ago), with the platform representing 18.2 percent of the worldwide market, off from 19.0 percent. Sales of Apple's iPhone surpassed 8.7 million, with iOS now making up 14.2 percent of the market in Q2 2009, consumers purchased 5.3 million iPhones, translating to 13.0 percent market share.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile took the biggest hit: Sales slipped to 3.1 million from 3.8 million a year ago, corresponding with the platform's market share plummeting from 9.3 percent in the second quarter of 2009 to 5.0 percent in the most recent quarter.

For more on worldwide smartphone sales, check this release.

Chances of you getting laid is higher if you are using an iPhone

2010-08-14T12:44:00.002+08:00

In news that is likely to please Apple fanboys, research conducted by a dating site has found that iPhone users have had more sexual partners than smartphone owners.

OKcupid.com found 30 year-old women who use an iPhone had slept with an average of 12.3 people, double the number of those with an Android device (6.1) and around three more than BlackBerry users (8.8).

Among men aged 30, Android users again fared worst, with an average of six sexual partners, compared to 8.1 for BlackBerry owners and ten for iPhone users.

The results will be good news for Apple, the dating site aimed exclusively at Apple lovers, which last month announced it had over 22,000 members.