Patent litigation does indeed impact innovation
Tag: android
Samsung Galaxy S4 Launch
Samsung held their launch event for their flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone in Times Sq yesterday. With Samsung’s marketshare growing to 21.4% for Jan 13, many are curious how the new handset will compete with Apple which holds 37.8% of the market. We could dive into some of the tech specs like the 5″ display or 13 megapixel camera, but let’s move our focus to the software and business concerns that will likely have the greatest impact for the Korean tech giant in their battle with Apple.
S Features: Despite being a Google Android phone, Samsung has a number of unique features that give it an edge over other Android products. One of the most interesting is their touchless controls like gesture inputs that let you wave your hand to take a call or smart pause which will stop videoplay when you look away. We’ve been talking about vanishing interfaces since our 2012 trends report which seem to be more prevalent each day. Also interesting is the line of “S” features like voice drive which converts text to speech and S Health that uses integrated sensors to measure steps taken and monitor other health activity. Samsung is smart to capitalize on the quantified self trend that previously relies on external hardware like Nike Fuelband or Fitbit.
Marketing: Samsung has bet big on the Galaxy SIII and SIV in an Us vs. Apple marketing push. The company has spent $401 million in the US alone in 2012 compared to Apple’s $333. We predict them to keep the spend strong for several months following the launch, but that may die down if they are not able to see increased sales growth.
Converting Users: Samsung is certainly taking over the Android space with HTC, Motorola and LG trailing way behind but how about Apple users? That valuable chunk of the market may be the most difficult to sway, despite lowered price point. One big consideration is the media sales as Apple users are known to spend substantially more in apps, content and more. For an iPhone owner to switch, they would need to begin their media purchases from scratch as they move into an entirely separate platform. This will undoubtedly be the biggest hurdle for Samsung, UI considerations aside.
Do you have any predictions for the S4? Weigh-in in the comments section below.
SXSW 2013: Swarmly Launches For Android
As if it wasn’t easy enough to find tech savvy people in public by following their trails of tweets and cast-aside year-old Apply products, Swarmly now geolocates packs of them and delivers the information directly to iOS and Android phones. After a quiet iOS launch last September, the Android version launched today on Android to increase its effectiveness and potential user base. Swarmly doesn’t require check-ins. Instead, users enable the app to use their location data to contribute to “swarms” of people nearby, linked to specific locations where groups are likely to congregate. The app is designed to work instantly, instead of relying on historical data patterns like many check-in based applications. Swarmly could be a darling of SXSW 2013, and it will be interesting to see its guerrilla marketing implications.
SmartAds Pays You To Watch Ads
In what appears to be an emerging app trend, SmartAds has positioned itself as a secondary player in the “Pandora for Advertising” model utilized by HitBliss. But whereas HitBliss incorporates their own media store, SmartAds skips the entertainment incentive and goes for the jugular: the app pays you real money to watch the ads. As of yet, SmartAds can only pay $25 per month per device, so if you also have a tablet you could make up to $50 per month. The premise is simple: ads show up in your lock screen, and if you like what you see you can click for more info, buy the product or service, and share it with friends; if you don’t like it you can close it and your regular lock screen will appear again. The company also claims that the ads won’t drain battery life or seep data from your monthly plans. SmartAds is still a small IndieGoGo project, so HitBliss definitely maintains an advantage in terms of development, but if the campaign proves successful, SmartAds could become a functional competitor in the advertising app market.
Appglu Keeps Apps Fresh Without Developer Intervention
Without updates after release, Apps have a tendency to decay. Across the board, the trend is clear: the initial launch of the app attracts a large number of users, many of whom then drop off. Part of the reasoning behind this drop is that the app becomes stagnant quickly; but the real problem is the only person who can make updates is the developer, who oftentimes takes too long to act. AppGlu aims to eliminate this Catch-22 by making updates to apps from a business, rather than a developing, perspective; it shifts the responsibility of app maintenance to business-savvy managers without tasking the developer to make new frameworks or sweeping technical shifts. Developers can build new aspects of the software from within the AppGlu platform using their own code, while the AppGlu team runs in the background maintaining the fresh face of the product and, ideally, keeping fickle users interested.
Samsung Continues To Expand Its Ecosystem
As expected Samsung did not announce a new phone today at Mobile World Congress, but instead teased a big announcement, presumably the Galaxy S4, coming on March 14th. It did however unveil a couple new products, including a new 8″ Galaxy tablet.
Another new product being showcased was their new HomeSync set-top box. Retailing for 299 Euros at launch, the box is touted as having three key features:
- “Home Cloud” – You can tap your Samsung mobile device running Android Jelly Bean or higher to a paired HomeSync box and it will automatically copy over all your photos and videos for big screen viewing. The device includes a 1TB internal drive.
- The Media Center – This functionality, which looks very much like the Google TV interface for selecting content, allows you to browse and buy video content for playback on your TV.
- Screen Mirroring
– Wirelessly mirror whatever you see on your device screen up to your compatible Samsung TV
In keeping with another major theme of the week, Samsung showcased a couple NFC technologies. One was a soda vending machine that accepted an NFC tap for payment, though it was unclear what the underlying clearing mechanism was and whether it is meant to compete with or complement technologies such as Google Wallet or Isis. They also showed off a product called TecTiles, which are programmable NFC stickers not unlike the ones we saw from Sony at CES 2012. After you set up the tags, you can tap them to launch a particular app on your phone or change phone settings.
There was also an in-development 2nd Screen app tentatively called S Catch. Like Shazam or IntoNow it listens for video content audio and matches the content accordingly. It is envisioned that this could evolve into an effective platform for ads.
From the “not sure why it is at a mobile event” category, they also showed off a blood testing kit where you bleed into a modified CD with plastic grooves on it leading to test strips. Then you put it into this machine that looks like a photo printer and it spins the CD around for 20 minutes and produces a result.
PAUL Wants to Pre-Load Your YouTube Videos
The award for clever app name of the year goes to PAUL, an app named for the octopus who correctly predicted the outcome of Germany’s 7 matches in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The Android app, created by inmobly, uses a predictive cache/download algorithm to provide videos that match your preferences, even without a data connection, based on videos you have watched in the past. The service currently uses five major video sharing services – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, CNN, and ESPN ScoreCenter, with plenty of room for expansion in the future. The service dramatically reduces network strain, but is also exciting for its potential to collect a gold mine of preference information.
Bitcasa Launches “Infinite Storage” Cloud
If you’ve been holding off putting your digital life in the cloud, it might be time to go for it now. Bitcasa is shaking up the tech sphere with its public launch offering “infinite storage” to users across multiple devices and operating systems including iOS, Android, Mac, PC and web. The update process is done automatically and every account is unlimited, so users never have to worry about forgetting to update or running out of space. The pricing is competitive as well, with an introductory price of $69 a year – regular cost is $99 for a year.
Japan Outpaces U.S. In Android App Revenue For First Time
Revenues from the Google Play store in Japan have grown by a factor of 4.5, besting U.S. totals for the first time. Android is dominating the Japanese market and apps are proving more lucrative for developers as well, particularly with the growth of in-app purchases and advertising. As the President of Kontagent points out, Android may monetize less well than iOS, but user acquisition costs are lower.
Google’s ‘Ingress’ augmented reality game puts Android users into a battle against worldwide mind control | The Verge
Google To Release Scavenger Hunt AR Game For Android
