android

PhoneDog editor choses Nokia Lumia 900 over HTC One S–“I need a tool, not a toy”

May 18, 2012 | By Surur

Sydney Myers prefers the Zen of Windows Phone ownership over the chaos of Android.

This is not the biggest news story in the world, but it is of course the kind of news we like to hear.

Sydney Myers is an editor over at PhoneDog.com and a Windows Phone user. She has previously used Android and enjoyed her Windows Phone user experience, but was tempted in switching back to Android by the rampant customization options the OS allows.

She picked up a HTC One S and started customizing, and quickly found this was an endless hole into which can easily suck up your time and in fact reduce your enjoyment of your device.

She writes

In the beginning, it was great. I created a simple but fun design and it was pretty cool. Sure, it took a couple of hours every day for a week to complete it, but it looked good. After a few weeks, though, I grew tired of it. It was my first design so it wasn’t very complex and I felt the need to spruce it up. I tried a couple of new things, then scrapped the design completely and started the tedious task over from scratch. I searched though new widget creation apps, apps that allow you to create completely custom widgets. I scoured five different wallpaper apps. I downloaded a new launcher. I went through a couple of different designs and never felt satisfied with one. This is where the trouble set in.

…

The customization drove me crazy, and not in a good way. I spent hours every day for weeks simply trying to find a good wallpaper, a good clock widget (or design my own), or an icon pack I liked, even downloading custom fonts for my text widgets. There’s so much you can do! In a way, this is great. But you know what they say, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. I spent so much time trying to create a design that appealed to me and I never settled on one. Finally, I gave up. ‘I don’t need this!’ I thought. Why don’t I just use an OS that actually appeals to me aesthetically?

This is when Sydney decided Windows Phone was in fact the OS for her.

Which brings me back to the reason I switched to Windows Phone in the first place – I like the way it looks. I don’tneed to change it because I don’t want to. Yes, there are things about Android that I really enjoy and will miss. (In fact, I’m still trying to find a simple design that will make the phone usable since I’m not ready to give up just yet. The thing is, now that I’ve seen what I can do, I just can’t go back to Sense 4 with a grid of icons and a few widgets.) But the fact that I can customize it so much makes it more of a distraction than an actual tool. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but honestly, I need a tool, not a toy. Android is fun. It’s cool. It’s open and free. But I don’t have time to care about all of that. I need a phone I can pick up and use. Windows Phone is exactly that and it manages to be seductively attractive in the process. It has all the apps I need, it has a fantastic and effective UI, and it has incredibly useful features like live tiles, Local Scout, the ability to pin pretty much any part of an app or the app itself to my Start screen, Microsoft Office integration, Bing Search, and more.

After extensive experience with both Android and Windows Phone, I feel I can honestly say that there are few things (outside of areas influenced by personal preference) that Android does better than Windows Phone. In some areas, perhaps some influenced by my personal preferences, Windows Phone is better.

While Sydney’s choice may be personal, and it is clear Android seduces many more users than Windows Phone, it remains of note than Windows phone users are just happier with the handsets. After all the HTC One X still only has 18 reviews on Amazon, of which a quarter are One star scores, suggesting many Android users, for all the customizability of the handsets, simply hate their experience, but are unable to articulate why.

We suggest they try a Windows Phone handset and find a happier place.

Read Sydney’s full post at PhoneDog here.

41

AT&T’s CEO loves Windows Phone, thinks Android has security issues

May 8, 2012 | By Surur

In a recent interview hosted by the Milken Institute AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson had some good things to say about Windows Phone and some not so flattering things to say about Android.

While recognizing that they were committed to Android, he said he believed the ecosystem was best served by a number of healthy mobile operating systems and confirmed he “really loved” his Windows Phone, likely a Nokia Lumia 900, which he had for a month and called robust, solid and exciting.

While calling Windows Phone great he also said Android had work to do regarding enterprise security.

He also alluded to some exciting things coming this year, by which we hope he means Windows Phone 8, as we suspect very little exciting is coming from Android and he is probably not privy to the new features of iOS.

See the original video here.

Thanks Mark for the tip.

15

Windows Phone is saving Nokia … in Finland

May 4, 2012 | By Surur

While angry investors and many Symbian fanboys have blamed Nokia’s recent woes on switching to Windows Phone, looking at their market share over the long term shows that the rot had set in a long time ago, and that Windows Phone does have the potential for righting the ship.

The graph above is Statcounter data from Finland over the last 2 years, from May 2010 till May 2012. The Cyan line is combined Symbian, Meego, Meamo5 and Windows Phone data, which until week 43 2010 only consists of Symbian devices (red).

What should be obvious and very striking is that even in Finland Symbian had been losing market share dramatically, at a very steady rate. Actual drops in sales were likely masked by a growing market, but started well before Stephen Elop had arrived at Nokia. Also of note is that the post-Microsoft announcement period (the shaded area) did not increase the rate of fall in Symbian market share (red line), until Nokia actually released Lumia handsets in the rest of Europe (week 46 2011). The Osborne effect was a myth. Symbian’s trajectory however seems to have been drawn with a straight ruler, heading steadily down for a very long time. In 12 months time it is scheduled to hit 0.

Nokia added Meamo5 to the mix in week 43 2010, and after a brief period of enthusiasm sales seems to have rapidly faltered. This was likely one of the things which pushed Stephen Elop to look outside of the company for a solution.

Of note is that Android (green) was rapidly eating Nokia’s lunch, while the iPhone maintained a steady 30-something market share. Android’s meteoric rise was only tempered by the iPhone 4S in Q4 2011, which boosted the iPhone to 35-40% range.

Ultimately however it was the introduction of Nokia Lumia handsets (light purple) in February 2012 which halted Nokia’s steadily dropping combined market share (cyan). It also halted the ascendency of both the iPhone and Android inn the Finnish market. Yes, Symbian was still losing share apace, but Windows Phone was growing faster.

In short, the stats clearly show Meego and Meamo 5 was not going to save Nokia, whereas Windows Phone has so far proven to be effective at halting the Android and iPhone onslaught. Of course this is just Finland, but I am pretty sure Stephen Elop goes to bed at night wishing this success would also spread to the rest of the world.

The graph to the right, of the UK market over the same period, shows once again that Nokia’s Lumia range is only helping the company, not making things worse, and that things had been pretty bad for a long time, well before Windows Phone came along.

The stats can not answer whether switching to Android would have worked better for Nokia, but it certainly shows those who suggested Nokia continue going down the Meego route was as surely wishing Nokia dead as those who wanted them to continue relying on Symbian.

19

Greatest Windows Phone fan found (video)

April 28, 2012 | By Surur

Droiddog may have found the greatest Windows Phone fan, and he is certainly does not think much of Android.

Watch the 4 min video (which contains pretty strong language) with your headphones on, and let us know if General the Destroyer is the biggest Nokia Lumia 900 fan ever.

28

Trend Micro rates Windows Phone behind iPhone but ahead of Android for enterprise security

April 11, 2012 | By Surur

Trend Micro has compared four mobile operating systems, Blackberry 7, iPhone, Windows Phone 7 and Android for suitability for enterprise use, scoring them on a combination of factors including built-in security, application security, authentication, device wipe, device firewall, virtualisation, and many others.

The final outcome was BlackBerry 7.0 scored highest across the board (2.89), ahead of (in descending order) Apple iOS5 (1.7), Windows Phone 7.5 (1.61), with Google’s Android 2.3 scoring the lowest at 1.37.

On Windows Phone they said:

Windows Phone - Microsoft has learnt the lessons of the past and created a reasonably robust and secure smartphone operating system in Windows Phone. The OS uses privileges and isolation techniques to create sandbox processes. These “chambers” are based on a policy system that, in turn, defines which system features the processes operating in a chamber can access.

Android was criticized for not having a central means of providing Operating System updates, meaning that many users remain unprotected from critical vulnerabilities for a prolonged period, having removable storage and allowing the user to give apps privileges which can easily compromise security.

Windows Phone 8 is expected to increase Enterprise support tremendously, which should vault the OS over the iPhone, if not completely up to Blackberry territory. Maybe buying RIM will solve that problem .

Read the full report here.

5

200 Million Android users, 411 sales

April 5, 2012 | By Surur

We have on occasion received tips from disillusioned Marketplace developers when the performance of their apps have not met their expectations. Often these emails end with the statement that Marketplace is not worth the investment.

One such email was from the maker of Arachna, a free maze game exclusively for WP7. He complained that after 2 months of sales he only managed 200 downloads in around 60 days, and that he expects if he developed for Android and maybe even iOS he could have done a lot better.

The example of Papermill on Android should act as a reminder that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

They developed their Android Instapaper app at the cost of around $30,000, mainly in labour, and their app was featured The Verge, LifeHacker and BeautifulPixels. With the app already successful on iOS one would have expected thousands of sales.

Instead, after 3 week of sales, they only managed a 411 sales and $1630.12 in revenue. Once the media spotlight moves on from the app sales are expected to drop further.

The lesson the Papermill developer learned? Android users do not like to pay for apps.

The take away for Windows Phone 7 developers is that a larger user base does not necessarily mean significantly more sales, especially when looking at the Android platform.

Via The Verge.com

16

Is Google killing itself with Android?

March 30, 2012 | By Surur

I stumbled across an interesting article at the Examiner.com, asking if Google was still relevant.

Its a pretty long article, so I will summarise the main point.

They note Android is not making Google much, with recent estimates arising from a Google filing in court suggesting the company only made $550m since 2008 from Android, but, with the Motorola purchase, would have spent more than $20 billion so far on the OS.

At the same time while nearly dominating the mobile market, the company is diverting users away from their real cash cow, the desktop search market (with the desktop supported for free by Microsoft of course), responsible for much more than 90% of their earnings.

And on mobile, users do not search the web, they use apps to get information. Brian Hall at the Examiner writes:

In almost all cases I instead go to Siri or an app. For flight information, for restaurant reviews. To check on what friends are doing. To discover new relationships. I go directly to the Wikipedia app or to the Amazon app or to WorldMate or Yelp, for example.

I go into the Twitter app to discover trends, find new people to follow.

And of course you can fit much less ads on a small screen.

At the same time their “android success” is distracting the company from concentrating on real challenges like Facebook and Twitter and even Bing. All the time while Motorola drains their profitability.

The full article is a fascinating read at why Android may end up being Google’s white elephant. See it here.

34

Windows Phone once again rivals iPhone in PCMag’s Reader Survey

March 28, 2012 | By Surur

PCMag has posted the results of their annual Readers Survey, and unlike most surveys this one is from readers chosen at random who actually own the handsets and administered by an accredited polling company.

Last year Windows Phone did very well, scoring 8.1/10 in customer satisfaction, vs 8.4 for the iPhone.

This year Windows Phone did even better, matching the iPhone overall at a customer satisfaction score of 8.7 for both handsets. Android remained 7.9 and did not improve at all from last year.

In fact the handset with most satisfied users on AT&T is not the iPhone, but a Samsung Windows Phone 7 handset.

On Verizon the venerable HTC Trophy is as appreciated as the iPhone 4 and 4S, making it the little handset that could.

Windows Phone scored better than the iPhone in several key areas, including reliability, text messaging, Web browsing, and gaming. Apple’s iOS, however, rates substantially better than Windows Phone for satisfaction with the quality and availability of apps and its music player.

Windows Phone 7 users are also least likely to need technical support (20%) vs 25% for iOS and 32% for Android.

With the iPhone, Windows Phone 7 received a PCMagazine Editor Choice award for “providing a winning experience.”

The survey makes for fascinating reading, with more available here.

Via TNW.com

15

IDC Developer survey show interest in Android is dropping in favour of Windows Phone

March 20, 2012 | By Surur

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IDC and Appcelerator’s regular quarterly survey has for the first time shown a trend of dropping interest in the Android platform, which the analysts blames on fragmentation of the platform.

For 2 quarters in a row now interest has been dropping in developing for Android, with developers very interested dropping to the 78% level at the moment.

"We’ve seen a steady erosion of interest in Android" among developers, Appcelerator’s principal mobile strategist Mike King told The Register.

About a year ago the number of developers who said they were "very interested" in developing for Android for smartphones was just 3 percentage points behind iOS for iPhone and 2 points behind iOS for iPad.

“We believe it’s really because of the fragmentation that Android’s experiencing," King continued, "both at the platform and OS level, but also at the monetization-model level," due to multiple Android app stores.

Windows Phone seemed happy to step into the gap.

"The fact that Windows Phone is increasingly a strong third in interest level, and the fact that we’re getting some compelling Windows Phone devices out there, I think is going to cause some problems for Android over the long term if they don’t do something to curtail that fragmentation."

Over the same two quarter period Android developer interest dropped from the high 80’s to high 70’s, Windows Phone increased in developer interest from 30 to 40%

Windows Phone has increasingly separated itself from other “also ran” mobile operating systems like Blackberry and webOS.

"All the BlackBerry stuff? Just continuing to drop," King said, and the survey showed the number of developers very interested in webOS phones to be at a dismal 7.5 per cent, and webOS tablets, 8.4 per cent.

Microsoft Research shows you pay for free apps in battery life

March 19, 2012 | By Surur

The reality discovered by many developers is that, given a choice between a for-pay app and a free ad-supported app, users will chose the free app 100 times more often than the pay app.

Now Microsoft Research has shown there is no such thing as a free lunch. By analysing free ad-supported Android apps they were able to show the ads displayed when the app is active can consume much more battery life than the app itself, saying running just one app could drain your battery in around 90 minutes.

The culprit is location-based ads, which get your location using GPS, already notorious as a battery drain, and then download ads over an open 3G connection.

For example, in Angry Birds only 20 per cent is used to display and run the game, while 45 per cent is spent finding and uploading the user’s location with GPS then downloading location-appropriate ads over a 3G connection. The 3G connection stays open for around 10 seconds, even if data transmission is complete, and this "tail energy" consumes another 28 per cent of the app’s energy.

When they looked at popular Android apps such as Angry Birds, Free Chess and NYTimes they found that only 10 to 30 per cent of the energy was spent powering the app’s core function.

The solution, according to Abhinav Pathak, the lead researcher from Purdue University, Indiana, was not to get rid of ad-supported apps, but to optimise the code of the 3rd party ad SDKs for battery life also, no an issue that has been considered before.

Pathak will present the research at the EuroSys conference in Bern, Switzerland, next month.

Via NewScientist.com

8

Quad-core ARM processors not really ready for prime time

March 13, 2012 | By Surur

There is a mad dash in the smartphone market at present for ever more powerful processors, and some Windows Phone users complain that when Windows Phone finally goes dual-core at the end of the year everyone else will already be on quad-core.

A report today from Digitimes suggests this Speeds and Feeds marketing play by Android OEMs can seriously backfire by generating a poor user experience for their smartphone users.

Digitimes notes that while HTC, LG Electronics, Huawei Device and ZTE have all unveiled quad-core smartphone the processors are not market ready yet, with high power consumption, high cost and lack of support for LTE being a major reason why those handsets will have poorer battery life, be bulkier and cost more.

The main quad-core ARM chip used at present is the Nvidia’s Tegra 3 processor, which lacks LTE support, requiring a separate LTE modem, which has pushed up production costs, raising retail costs into the US$500-700 range, which may deter sales in stores.

With Windows Phone using old(er), cheaper and more mature technology, and prices at the till finally reflecting this, users are finally recognizing the value for money in buying a Windows Phone while Android users pay a premium for bragging rights on a phone which needs to be tethered to the mains constantly.

12

Apple’s rumoured Android licensing fee may give Windows Phone a boost

March 7, 2012 | By Surur

android_dollar1 With the passing away of Steve Jobs last year, much of the passion with which Apple was pursuing the death of Android seems to have faded away, and now there is a rumour that Apple may be offering licensing terms to Android OEMs of between $5 and $15 per Android handset.

The terms bring to mind Microsoft’s own very successful efforts at extracting licensing deals from Android OEMs, but the effect would be much more significant, mainly due to the cumulative effect.

Adding the $15 to a similar amount already being paid to Microsoft would add $ 30 or more to the cost of Google’s new $100 Android phones, making them prohibitively expensive, when Microsoft may be offering similar terms with more support for an OS which is increasingly gaining traction.

Of course the killer blow would be if Microsoft makes Windows Phone free or very cheap while extracting revenue from Marketplace purchases, advertising and other revenue streams, while Android handsets remain encumbered by significant patent costs.

Do our readers think Microsoft should make Windows Phone free for low-cost handsets? Let us know below.

15

Webkit mono-culture strikes as major browser vulnerability affects iPhone, Android and Blackberry

February 28, 2012 | By Surur

An often heard refrain is that Microsoft should stop trying to develop its own browser rendering engine and just capitulate to webkit, the browser engine used in most of the mobile web.

Microsoft’s stubbornness is paying off today, as George Kurtz, CEO of the new security company CrowdStrike warned of a new vulnerability affecting all Webkit Mobile browsers which could give malware complete control of your phone.

He warned the malware could listen in on your conversations, view through your camera, track your location and record everything in your email and messages, and that devices can be infected by simply visiting a malicious website. Devices would even potentially be infected by SMS messages.

Kurtz has some credibility, having discovered the Chinese Shady Rat operation that compromised US government and defence contractors in 2011 while he was CTO at McAfee. He left that company after the Intel acquisition.

Kurtz is set to demonstrate the vulnerability at the RSA security conference tomorrow, but until the issue is fixed he said there is not much users can do except not to click on untrusted links and wait for updates, something which on Android especially can be an issue.

Kurtz confirmed Windows Phone 7 was unaffected.