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Google's Android Gaining on Apple via Developers

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:00:17 +0000

June 23, 2010, 2:50 PM EDT

(Adds Motorola unveils new phone in 12th paragraph.)

June 23 (Bloomberg) — Google inc.’s Android mobile operating system is winning over an important group of allies in its fledgling rivalry with Apple inc.’s smartphone software: application developers.

more than half the 2,733 developers surveyed by Appcelerator, a mobile-software tools provider, see Android as having the most long-term potential among operating systems. About 40 percent of respondents said Apple’s iOS would have the best long-term outlook, according to the survey released today.

The study yields another signal that Android is gaining steam on iOS, which will power the new iPhone 4, Bloomberg Businessweek.com reported. With some 60 Android-based devices and more than 60,000 apps available, the operating system is adding more than 100,000 users daily, according to Mountain View, California-based Google. Android will eclipse iOS as the world’s second-most-popular mobile operating software in 2012, researcher Gartner inc. has said.

“Google and Apple are playing a chess game, and everyone else is playing catch-up,” said Scott Schwarzhoff, vice president of marketing at Appcelerator, also in Mountain View.

It’s not just in phones where Android may challenge Apple and other smartphone software makers, including Microsoft Corp., Research in Motion ltd., Palm inc. and Symbian, the world’s most popular mobile-operating system. Dozens of manufacturers such as Sony Corp., Logitech International SA and Toshiba Corp. are readying tablet computers, netbooks, set-top boxes, e-readers and televisions that will run on Android.

Deja Vu

“Android is the only viable alternative to Apple right now,” said Ken Dulaney, a vice president at Gartner in San Jose, California.

Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, declined to comment.

The competition for connected electronics resembles the battle that played out between Apple and Microsoft in the 1980s and early ‘90s, when the personal-computer operating-system market was still up for grabs.

“Now you get the Microsoft-Apple war in PCs on the mobile devices,” said David Owens, vice president of marketing at Sprint Nextel Corp., the third-largest U.S. wireless provider, which has introduced three Android-based smartphones since late last year. The latest, HTC Corp.’s Evo 4G, released this month, had the best first-day sales of any device at Sprint.

Market Share

Robust Android sales boosted HTC’s U.S. smartphone share to 9.4 percent in the first quarter from 7.3 percent in the third period of 2009, according to preliminary data from researcher IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts. Motorola inc., maker of the Droid, saw its share jump to 12.4 percent from 2.1 percent.

“They feel this is something that, moving forward, is really going to help them,” said will Stofega, program director at IDC.

Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, unveiled a new Android handset today, the Droid X, with an 8-megapixel camera and a faster processor.

Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. is “putting a lot of investment” behind its Galaxy S phone debut in the U.S. through AT&T inc., said Justin Denison, vice president of strategy for Samsung Telecommunications America. he called the device the company’s “most important product in the premium smartphones category this year.”

‘Robust’ Portfolio

Carriers including AT&T, the iPhone’s exclusive U.S. service provider, are hungry for Android. Since offering its first Android handset in March, AT&T released HTC’s Aria in June and said it will soon offer Samsung Captivate.

“We are planning a robust Android portfolio,” AT&T spokeswoman Dawn Benton said.

Verizon Wireless has run big promotions for Motorola’s Droid.

Eventually, “we are going to do as well as if we had the iPhone” as the company expands its Android portfolio, Verizon Communications inc. Chief Financial Officer John Killian said at a technology conference last month.

Google fell $3.38 to $482.87 at 2:46 p.m. new York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock had dropped 22 percent this year before today.

Well-Known Name

Google’s support and well-known brand is part of the reason behind Android’s surging popularity among consumers. “People know Android is from Google,” said Sprint’s Owens. “That market knowledge has translated into consumer interest.”

Competitive pricing has also helped. in the past six months, Verizon Wireless offered two Droid phones for the price of one. It currently sells HTC’s Droid Eris for $50 with a two- year contract. The cheapest iPhone retails for $99. The new iPhone 4 will be released on June 24, starting at $199.

Phone makers are working on developing even cheaper Android smartphones to take share from so-called quick-messaging devices, whose use has exploded in recent years, Gartner’s Dulaney said. such “junior smartphones” — with less memory and lower-resolution screens — should become available in late 2010, he said.

many of Android’s early bugs are getting worked out and the software offers more features.

“They’ve learned from those mistakes,” IDC’s Stofega said. “Android is now mature.”

–Editors: Lisa Wolfson, Peter Elstrom

To contact the reporter on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland, Oregon, at okharif@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net; Thomas Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

Google's Android Gaining on Apple via Developers

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Devour phone less fulfilling than Droid

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:00:15 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO — its name suggests that it will eat the competition for breakfast, but despite a sprinkling of positives Motorola’s new Devour smart phone left me hungry for something more.

With the user-friendly Android operating software, the Devour lets you surf the Web, check e-mail and update your Facebook status with relative ease over Verizon Wireless’ network. The phone ($100, after a rebate, with a two-year contract) is available through Best Buy and will start selling from Verizon this month.

Unfortunately, the phone’s features are less aggressive than its name. a seemingly cramped touch screen, unimpressive camera and weird keyboard layout made me prefer its more full-featured, pricier cousin, the Motorola Droid ($200, after a rebate, with a two-year contract), which is available from the same wireless carrier.

At first glance, the Devour’s solid-feeling, brushed aluminum body and slide-out keyboard radiate user-friendly vibes. The phone’s face has just one mechanical button — a nifty touch-sensitive square at the lower left that can be used for scrolling down lists and Web pages and selecting things.

In addition to running the Android software, the Devour comes with Motorola’s super-social Motoblur software, which displays content such as e-mails, Twitter tweets, Facebook updates and news in little on-screen “widgets.”

Like the Droid, the Devour is a husky hunk of a handset — it weighs 5.9 ounces, making Apple’s 4.8-ounce iPhone look like a flyweight.

has a smaller screen than both, however — 3.1 inches diagonally compared with 3.7 inches on the Droid and 3.5 inches on the iPhone. This is the same size as Motorola’s first Android phone, the Cliq. But because the Droid raised the bar when it was released in November, this now seems irritatingly small by comparison.

Once I tired of trying to tap out messages using the on-screen keyboard, I slid open the physical keyboard and found it nicely spaced, with easy-to-press raised keys.

Sadly, its layout made it hard to type e-mails and insert common characters such as commas and the “at” symbol. instead of using the area on either side of the space bar for character keys, the Devour breaks up the standard QWERTY format and devotes this real estate to letter and character keys.

And a separate key that lets you access symbols and other special characters is awkwardly placed on the bottom far right of the keyboard. This made me, a righty, feel all thumbs.

I was also unimpressed with the Devour’s 3-megapixel camera. many photos looked washed-out. and although it has a number of simple photo-editing options, such as the ability to adjust the color of your images, I was miffed to see that it doesn’t include a flash or zoom. at least there is a good amount of space to store your photos and other media, because the handset comes with an 8-gigabyte microSD memory card.

I was surprised by the Devour’s external speaker, which was quite clear for listening to music or watching videos aloud.

I wasn’t as thrilled with the dedicated volume buttons on the side of the phone, however: They’re next to a button that activates voice commands, and I kept hitting that when I tried to lower the volume.

The Devour is proficient at standard smart phone tasks, and it can certainly handle basics such as surfing the Web, checking e-mail and updating Facebook and Twitter. if you’re hankering for a slab of smart phone that is more advanced, however, chances are you’ll find the Droid more satisfying.

Devour phone less fulfilling than Droid