Android surpasses iPhone in US

[Asher]

Worldwide, iPhone still has a lead but Android is growing much, much faster.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/mobile-market-up-smartphones-up-iphone-and-android-way-up-1.ars

iPhone WW sales up 112.2% year over year.
Android WW sales up 806.3% year over year.

iPhone marketshare up from 10.5 to 15.4%
Android marketshare up from 1.6 to 9.6%

Looks like Android will dethrone iPhone this year worldwide also.

[Asher]

Android 2.2 is being announced.

They're activating 100,000 Android devices a day right now, a rate that's increasing rapidly.

50,000 apps, also increasing rapidly.

New features announced so far:
- Browser in 2.2 is 2-3x faster than 2.1 in Javascript.
- All Android phones can now be mobile WiFi hotspots. Uses your data plan, phone acts like a wireless router.
- Supports JIT (just in time) compiling for apps now. Should be significantly faster as the code is just compiled once, not interpreted in realtime.
- Better support for MS Exchange
- Bunch of cool developer features no one else here cares about

[Asher]

Look at that activation curve.

[Asher]

- Google Maps tilts in the Android browser based on compass.

- Demo: Google Voice Search. It’s gotten better (a lot more). Long queries like “Barack Obama at the G8 Summit” works like a charm — at least in the demo.

- Voice triggers: Saying “call” and a contact triggers the call.

- The microphone is in the browser. They’re showing it off in Google Translate, where “Can you help me find the nearest hospital” is not only translated, but it’s repeated via voice to others.

Flash, Marketplace, and More
- Flash for Android: “Being open means you’re inclusive, not exclusive.”

- Google Vic Gundrota’s railing into Apple for not playing Flash, telling a story about how his daughter couldn’t go to her favorite website (Nickelodeon) on an iPad and asked for an Android phone.

- First demonstration of apps: new widget for searching for Android, it has improved.

- There is now search within app data. You can search within the Mint Android app, for example.

- Android apps finally support installation on SD Card. If there is no space on your phone, it’ll automatically place the app onto your SD card.

- One-step updating of apps announced. Much easier to update.

- You can now report applications and developers can use that information to build better and more reliable apps. Google’s also giving access to a ton of information, such as the stack trace, so they can understand what’s going on with their apps.

- Sneak Peek of Android marketplace: Android Marketplace on the web! Finally, an Android marketplace online that doesn’t suck.

- Demo: they’re sending applications from the web directly to an android phone, no action on the phone required.

- Android Froyo can bring your entire home music library to your phone as a stream. So yes, all of your iTunes songs can be streamed onto your Android phone, so long as you have an Internet connection.

[DanS]

When will 2.2 be made available for the Nexus One?

[Asher]

I assume very soon as there's no carrier roadblocks, but it hasn't been said.

[onodera]

I guess N1 will be the first phone to get Froyo.

[Asher]

http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/20/um-did-google-just-quietly-launch-a-web-based-itunes-competitor-yep/

Google quietly launches web-based iTunes competitor. Best part is when you buy songs on it, it automatically sends the song over the air to the Android. No more damn syncing!

[Asher]

Brilliant

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/20/google_android_announcement/

Google mocks Jobs with Flash on Android

Google has unveiled a new incarnation of Android: version 2.2, codenamed Froyo. And yes, it includes support for Adobe Flash Player 10.1.

"It turns out that on the internet, people use Flash," Google vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said this morning as he unveiled the new Android at the company's annual developer conference in San Francisco. As he demoed Froyo - and hailed the continued expansion of the Android platform - Gundotra slipped in more than few sideways jabs at Steve Jobs and Apple.

At one point, Gundotra said that if Android hadn't arrived, the mobile world faced a future controlled by one man and one carrier - and as he spoke, a slide appeared behind him that read "Not a Future We Want. 1984."

At the same time, Froyo brings Chrome's V8 Javascript engine to the Android browser, promising three times the performance. Gundotra couldn't help but run a demo showing Froyo besting the Apple iPad on Javascript speed.

Froyo is short for Frozen yogurt. Google likes to name Android releases after desserts.

The new OS also offers a new Dalvik JIT compiler purported to offer two to five times better performance on CPU-bound code, a Microsoft Exchange front-end, tethering tools that can transform handsets into portable hotspots, and several new APIs. These APIs handle everything from application data backup, messaging between devices and server-based services, and management of devices by IT admins.

Last month, Andy Rubin, Google's Android project lead, told The New York Times that the company would include Flash on Android 2.2. With Steve Jobs and Apple banning Flash from the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad - even when translated into Apple machine code - Google is suddenly Adobe's BFF. The company also intends to bundle Flash with its Chrome browser.

This isn't all that surprising when you consider that YouTube is built on Flash - and that Flash is such a popular advertising technology. But just a year ago at the 2009 Google I/O, Mountain View was hailing HTML5 as the future of web development.

Google believes in "open." But that could mean anything. Rubin told The Times that it means "not being militant about the things consumer[s] are actually enjoying." Gundotra echoed these words. "Being open on the web means not being exclusive," he said.

It should be noted that Flash 10.1 is still in beta. ®

[Dinner]

I'm glad we're getting some cool new handsets but there is still the major problem of lack of competition in the carrier market. Even the US government refuses to say the wireless provider market is competitive. There has just been so much consolidation during the Bush years that most of the competition is now gone.

U.S. fails to describe wireless industry as competitive

(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission for the first time since 2002 did not describe the wireless industry as having "effective competition," a situation one senior regulator blamed on consolidation.

Technology

The key omission was in an annual report on the state of competition in the wireless industry. The FCC on Thursday released the report, which covers 2008 and a portion of 2009.

The last time the FCC did not describe the industry as having "effective competition" was in a report released in 2002.

The lack of the key phrase could set the stage for U.S. regulators to impose policies and regulations to increase competition for consumers who are demanding more data plans on their mobile handsets to surf the Internet and watch videos.

It also could help shape the terms of the next set of major auctions on spectrum for a wireless industry largely dominated by AT&T Inc, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile unit. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.

Sprint and T-Mobile are seeking more airwaves, also called spectrum, to better compete against AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Robert Quinn, AT&T senior vice president of federal regulatory policy, said the FCC's decision was a dramatic break from years of solid precedent.

"We can't help but worry that this seems intended to justify more regulation in a market where it is clear beyond doubt that regulation is simply unwarranted," Quinn said.

After the open meeting, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told reporters that the facts and data in the report will help the agency make "the right decisions" on upcoming issues.

"In some cases that will be to do absolutely nothing," he said. "In some cases it will be to take smart actions to spur competition."

CONSOLIDATION EFFECT

His colleague, Michael Copps, one of three Democrats on the five-member panel, however, was more critical of some of the findings, calling them sobering and worrying.

"Specifically, the report confirms something I have been warning about for years -- that competition has been dramatically eroded and is seriously endangered by continuing consolidation and concentration in our wireless markets," Copps said.

"We are going to need an extra dose of vigilance going forward and use whatever policy levers we have available to ensure good outcomes for American consumers," he said.

All five FCC commissioners voted in support of the report, but the two Republicans expressed disagreement with some of the findings.

"I believe we actually should have made an affirmative finding of a competitive market," Republican FCC member Meredith Attwell Baker said.

The industry has seen an explosive demand from consumers who increasingly surf the Web on mobile devices, especially smartphones. Demand is increasing faster for data than for voice services.

In August, the FCC began an inquiry into competition in the wireless industry. Under recommendations made in the National Broadband Plan, the agency is considering ways to provide more airwaves to wireless companies to meet a growing demand for mobile devices.

Chris Riley, a policy counsel at public interest group Free Press, praised the FCC for omitting the key phrase, but said the agency should have gone further.

"The market is largely controlled by two companies (AT&T and Verizon), and it will not dig itself out of this mess and magically produce competition," Riley said. "Oversight and reform are badly needed."

Verizon executive Kathleen Grillo said in a statement, "The U.S. has the most intensely competitive wireless market on the planet...Prices keep falling and usage keeps rising."

(Reporting by John Poirier; editing by John Wallace, Lisa Von Ahn and Leslie Gevirtz)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64J4P820100520

[Dinner]

The subcontractor who makes Apple's Iphone in China has been having problems with workers committing suicide by jumping off the factory roof; 11 workers have tried but two survived in the last year. Apparently the working conditions are horrible, the hours worked are slave like, and workers are often required to work seven days a week nonstop. I know Apple wants to produce their products as cheaply as possible and sell them for as much as possible but this sounds pretty unethical.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10137101.stm

[Asher]

I guess N1 will be the first phone to get Froyo.

Review units sent to the press have already had Froyo just pushed to them this morning.

The others are sure to be next.

[VetLegion]

Nokia N8 FTW!

[Asher]

LOL

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Asher, maybe you can help me understand something: what kind of business sense does it make for Apple to want to have its phone with only one carrier, yet that carrier is also in business with Apple's direct competitors?