The smartphone market is on an upward surge, according to IDC, the market research firm. The market has witnessed an outbreak of cutthroat competition among the major smartphone companies, leading to a fall in phone prices.
Smartphone News
Google continues its string of good news for Android fans, revealing the new Android Market, in the second day of the Google I/O conference in Moscone Center, San Francisco. Android Market has now five new functions that will help any user find games and applications more easily.
Google moves on with their global domination plans, announcing a lot of operating systems and services from the Google Ice Cream Sandwich to the new Android 3.1, Google Music and the possibility of renting movies on Android Market, all in one single day at the Google I/O 2011 event held at Moscone Center, San Francisco.
Samsung continues to break records. After announcing a few days ago that it had sold 120,000 copies of the super-phone Galaxy S II only in South Korea, now Samsung makes public the real number of the preorders. According to the company, we are talking about 3 million people worldwide who had reserved the Galaxy S II.
According to a new research report by Berg Insight, global shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets increased almost 97 percent in 2010 to 295 million units. Growing at a CAGR of 28.8 percent, shipments are forecasted to reach 940 million units in 2015.
Worldwide smartphone sales will reach 468 million units in 2011, a 57.7 percent increase from 2010, according to Gartner. By the end of 2011, Android will move to become the most popular operating system worldwide and will build on its strength to account for 49 percent of the smartphone market by 2012.
Novell today announced the availability of Mono for Android, the first solution for developing Microsoft .NET applications for the Android platform using Microsoft Visual Studio. With the addition of Mono for Android to its existing Mono development tools, Novell is enabling Microsoft .NET and C# developers using Visual Studio and other environments to utilize a common code base to create applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.
Driven by the soaring sales of products including the iPad and the iPhone 4, Apple’s shipments of products based on its A4 microprocessor reached nearly 50 million units in 2010 from virtually zero sales in 2009, IHS iSuppli research indicates. Building on the success of its A4 microprocessor, Apple recently announced that its second-generation iPad line will be based on a new microprocessor, the A5, which the company said doubles the performance of the A4.
Sprint has announced its opposition to AT&T’s proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile USA. According to the company, the transaction "would reverse nearly three decades of actions by the U.S. government and the courts that modernized and opened U.S. communications markets to competition."
Apple announced that Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will be leaving the company. Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will assume Serlet’s responsibilities and report to Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.