It's never a dull moment with Google's mobile OS
Today was one of Those Days where a whole bunch of little news items popped up that related to Android and I didn’t have time to write stories on all of them. So instead, for your benefit, I’ve decided to round them all up in one pithy blog post. Enjoy!
- Instagram finally launched for Android today! For those of you who don’t know, Instagram is an incredibly popular iPhone app that now has more than 27 million users and has drawn universal praise from customers on the Apple App Store. The app is essentially a photo-sharing app that features several nifty features that give your pictures a more arty, retro feel to them. It also has a social networking component that lets you see all your friends’ latest pictures as they post them whenever you open up the app. You can also instantly share your pictures onto Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare and Posterous, meaning Instagram has all the major social networks covered. If you’re interested in checking the app out for yourself, here’s its Google Play page.
- Android hits the crucial 50% mark for U.S. smartphone owners. The good folks over at comScore today released another batch of mobile operating system market share numbers today and found that Android averaged more than 50% of the total share for the first time over the past three months ending this past February. Apple’s iOS also increased its total market share to 30.2% while both RIM’s BlackBerry OS (13.4%, down from 16.6% in the previous quarter) and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile (3.9%, down from 5.2% in the previous quarter) declined. RIM’s further deterioration isn’t all that surprising since the company has been in turmoil for the past couple of years, but Microsoft has to be somewhat disappointed that it hasn’t been able to make headway against Apple and Google. I guess we’ll know soon whether the Nokia Lumia does the trick…
- BlackBerry Mobile Fusion branches out to competing operating systems. Speaking of RIM, it appears the company is running up the white flag by releasing mobile device management software that supports both Android and iOS. Alan Panezic, RIM’s vice president of enterprise product management, said that the newest edition of RIM’s Mobile Fusion software can “manage a mixed environment of devices in the most secure, simple and cost-efficient manner possible.” RIM is letting customers have a 60-day free trial, so it couldn’t possibly hurt for any IT manager overwhelmed by supporting multiple device types to give it a try. This strikes me as a pretty smart move by RIM and it fits in with the company’s goal of refocusing itself on the mobile enterprise space and away from the consumer market.
- Sprint launches the LG Viper smartphone. Sprint is having a big press event with HTC tomorrow, but in the meantime the company has announced the release of the LG Viper, an LTE smartphone featuring a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, the Near Field Communications (NFC)-powered Google Wallet app, and Android 2.3 (“Gingerbread”). The best part of this device is undoubtedly its price point as it costs just $99.99 with a two-year service agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate. So if you’re looking for a cheap Android phone with LTE connectivity and solid overall specs, the Viper looks like a good choice.
- New Galaxy Tabs delayed in the U.K. Britons hoping to get their hands on Samsung’s newest Galaxy Tab tablets will have to wait a little longer as a Samsung spokesperson told IDG News that Google and Samsung were still ironing out some of the kinks with the implementation of Ice Cream Sandwich on the devices. They wouldn’t elaborate any further so it’s anyone’s guess what the deal is, but this isn’t exactly helping the notion that Google has been slow to roll out ICS to Android devices. As I reported earlier today, Ice Cream Sandwich adoption is still stuck in the 3% range, which is surprisingly low given its importance to unifying Android across tablets and smartphones, not to mention the fact that Google is already planning to roll out Android 5.0 (“Jellybean”) by the end of the year. By the time the majority of devices get ICS, will it already be irrelevant.
- The HTC One X, still getting rave reviews. And finally, HTC’s new One X smartphone continues to get glowing reviews from tech journalists who praise its quad-core 1.5GHz processor. its 32GB of storage and its 720p HD video display. HTC was one of the first company to release and Android phone here in the United States and I’m really glad the company is still coming out with top-notch Android devices all these years later. If you want to read just some of the reviews for the device, you can go to TechnoBuffalo, CNET, Slashgear, Wired and Techspot.
Whew! That’s a lot of Android news for one day. And the best part of covering this beat is that I’m sure there will be lots of Android news tomorrow as well…
