Will Google be making its own phone? Does it need to given its control of the Android platform. Check out the video above for a discussion. In many ways, going in this direction makes little sense for Google. Let’s see how eager they are to enter into the hardware wars. while Microsoft has had some success with hardware, they’ve had their share of failures as well. Google should probably be cautious here.
Smartphone ownership has now reached the majority, albeit by a slim margin, says a Nielsen survey.
As of March, 50.4% of U.S. mobile subscribers owned a smartphone, up from 47.8% last December.
The smartphone is particularly attractive to adults age 25-34, with more than two out of three owning the mobile device, the survey finds.
We’ve seen a stunning reversal over the past five years. With the success of the iPhone and the Android platform, companies like Nokia have been left in the dust.
We’re just three days from the official Verizon iPhone launch. This could be the biggest tech day of the year, but not just because it’s a Verizon iPhone. According to a recent survey, the release could mean millions of users abandoning the Android and Blackberry platforms.
According to uSamp, a research firm in LA, 66 percent of RIM customers labeled themselves either ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ to switch to the iPhone. For Android customers, it was 44 percent for either somewhat or very likely. Granted, those aren’t a guaranteed switch, but it’s certainly more people than I expected. Those kind of numbers would mark huge losses for both Google and RIM, though I’d guess RIM would come away in worse shape than Google.
I spent a solid 18 or so of my last 72 hours traveling and I was shocked to see how many tablets are out there. I knew that tablets were likely doing well, but in every airport it seemed there was always one in my field of vision. Tablets, for the most part, are fairly affordable devices, but Samsung wants to offer something for the people with deeper pockets.
At the Millionaire Fair (a concept so deplorable I could puke), Samsung announced that it would offer a Luxury Edition of its Galaxy tablet that would run roughly $1,000. Now, a grand isn’t all that bad for a piece of tech, but it is still a tablet, and it’s still running Android, which doesn’t charge for licensure. I suppose if you have piles of money to swim in, a $1,000 tablet doesn’t seem so bad. The Luxury Edition will be limited, available only until the end of January.
No doubt you know that Angry Birds is a bit of a sensation. The mobile game has been downloaded more than 30 million times across different platforms, some 12 million of which were paid downloads from iOS devices. The game is also on Android, but the game is free there, supported by ad revenue. Rovio Mobile, the game’s developer, says it expects to see monthly ad revenue of a million bucks by the end of the year.
Check the video from Google’s new admob mobile success stories:
I’ve heard of mobile developers doing well – just look at Tapulous – but Rovio and Angry Birds might be the first instance we’ve seen of a developer monetizing its product so well. Rovio is turning huge profit from the game, but also turning around and merchandising the product into plush toys and soon, a kids television series.