News/Rumors

Android and iOS leave other competitors behind

You may think that an Android and iOS  capture the world, and that’s true. According to some analyses, shipments of these two mobile operating systems made up 92% of all others during the first quarter of 2013. The fact is that Apple and Google’s platforms managed to sell 199.5 million devices across the world during the quarter. This figure has increased since the previous year, when it reached 59%. So there’s no reason to deny, that the companies leave other competitors behind.

As the research manager with IDC’s Mobile Phone team, Ramon Llamas said lately: “Android and iOS accounted for more than the lion’s share of smartphones in the first quarter, but a closer examination of the other platforms reveals turnaround and demand for alternatives. Windows Phone has benefited from Nokia’s participation, and BlackBerry’s new BB10 devices have already hit a million units shipped in its first quarter of availability.”

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And while Android continues to succeed in the smartphone operating system market, reaching almost 41% of Android hardware, Apple’s iOS is still a leader in this sphere.

Thus, IDC stated: “Although demand remains strong worldwide, the iOS experience has remained largely the same since the first iPhone debuted in 2007. That appears ready to change as online rumors and speculation predict a massive overhaul of the user interface when iOS 7 debuts.”

As for the BlackBerry, there were more than a million units operating on its new BB10 platform shipped lately. The company puts hight hopes on its new hardware and software.

News/Rumors

Facebook Home won’t come to iOs

When smartphone First has become  the result of HTC and Facebook collaboration, Facebook  Home for Google Android can be considered to be a proper development of the social network. The application is designed for active users of Facebook and provides a user with a number of relevant services.

Now, to work with a social network you do not have to open a separate application: news can be displayed both on the home screen, and on the lock screen. Give “like” and comment directly from the home screen.There is also a separate notification bar. Home received its own messenger called Chat Heads, combining a messaging application to send them in Facebook and through SMS.

Home will appear in Google Play in April and will be free of charge. But this app will be compatible only witn Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note II and HTC One X. Facebook promises to release Home updates every month, adding new functions and devices. On the agenda  now are such  features like Facebook-calls and the Facebook Camera application.

Concerning Apple, “We have a great relationship with Apple,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when asked if Home would come to iOS. “Apple is a very controlled environment,” he added. What Facebook has prepared is too expansive. It would completely disregard iOS and push Apple to the background.

 

News/Rumors

Apple’s Phil Schiller speaks out against Android

With just hours to go before Samsung is expected to announce the next-generation Galaxy S4 smartphone, Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller offered his thoughts on why devices running Google’s Android are inferior products compared to the iPhone and iOS.

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In a rare interview with The Wall Street Journal, Schiller went over fourth quarter 2012 metrics related to “switchers,” or handset users who switched between an iPhone and an Android. Citing Apple research, the executive said that four times as many iPhone users switched away from Android than to a handset running Google’s mobile OS.

Schiller also pointed to one of the major shortcomings of the Android platform: fragmentation. He noted that many Android users are running old versions of the OS, whereas Apple’s implementation of iOS is more uniform.

“Android is often given [as] a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn’t as good as an iPhone,” he said.

Digging into the Android ecosystem, Schiller noted that because different elements of the UI originate from different companies, the platform “suffers.” While sometimes derided for being a “walled garden,” Apple’s system of controlling both hardware and software allows for a more cohesive and user-friendly experience.

“When you take an Android device out of the box, you have to sign up to nine accounts with different vendors to get the experience iOS comes with,” he said. “They don’t work seamlessly together.”

Samsung is scheduled to unveil the newest flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone at an event in New York on Thursday night.

News/Rumors

Bypass android encryption by physically freezing it

Researchers in Germany have discovered that physically freezing an Android smartphone can grant access to encrypted data. Google’s encryption method, which has been a part of Android since the “Ice Cream Sandwich” release, was bypassed by exposing a smartphone to freezing temperatures for an hour, according to the BBC. After that time period, researchers were able to access previously encrypted contacts, browsing histories, and photos.

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The test was conducted by researchers from Friedrich-Alexander University in Germany with Samsung Galaxy Nexus handsets, and the phones were cooled to 10 degrees below zero Celsius. Then the battery was quickly disconnected and reconnected, placing the handset into a vulnerable mode. “This loophole let them start it up with some custom-built software rather than its onboard Android operating system,” the report said. “The researchers dubbed their custom code Frost — Forensic Recovery of Scrambled Telephones.”

The strange and involved process of bypassing Android encryption is not likely a concern to end users of Android devices, but could be an issue for corporations and governments that carry highly sensitive information on mobile devices. The researchers said that while they tested their methods with the Galaxy Nexus, other Android phones are also likely to be vulnerable.

Freezing the phone reportedly aids in the hacking of Android because the low temperatures cause data to fade from internal chips more slowly. Researchers used this phenomenon to obtain encryption keys and unscramble the phone’s encrypted data.

News/Rumors

Android accounts for 96% of all mobile malware in Q4

According to a new report released today from security specialists F-Secure, Google’s Android accounted for 79% of all malware in 2012 and an astounding 96% in forth quarter 2012.
Apple’s iOS, which powers the industry-defining iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and iPad mini, accounted for a mere 0.7% of malware in 2012.

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Android malware has been strengthening its position in the mobile threat scene. Every quarter, malware authors bring forth new threat families and variants to lure more victims and to update on the existing ones. In the fourth quarter alone, 96 new families and variants of Android threats were discovered, which almost doubles the number recorded in the previous quarter. A large portion of this number was contributed by PremiumSMS—a family of malware that generates profit through shady SMS-sending practices—which unleashed 21 new variants.

Quite a number of Android malware employ an operation similar to PremiumSMS. It is a popular method for making direct monetary profit. The malware quietly sends out SMS messages to premium rate numbers or signs up the victims to an SMS-based subscription service. Any tell-tale messages or notifications from these numbers and/or services will be intercepted and deleted; therefore, the users will be completely unaware of these activities until the charges appear on their bills.

The rise of Android malware can be largely attributed to the operating system’s increasing foothold in the mobile market. Android’s market share has risen to 68.8% in 2012, compared to 49.2% in 20112. On the threat side, its share rose to 79% in 2012 from 66.7% in 2011. Symbian on the other hand, is suffering from the opposite fate. In 2012, it only held 3.3% market share which is a huge drop from 16.5% in the year before3.

Its share in the threat scene also reflected this drop, going from 29.7% in 2011 to 19% in 2012. Nokia’s decision to halt all Symbian development in February 2012 may have contributed to the huge drop in numbers. As its market share declines, so does malware authors’ interest in the platform as evidenced by the statistics seen in Q4 where only four new families and variants of Symbian malware were recorded. As for the other platforms, i.e., Blackberry, iOS, windows Mobile, they may see some threats popping up once in a while. But most likely, the threats are intended for multiple platforms similar to the case of FinSpy4
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News/Rumors

iOS free apps leak more personal data than Android apps

Popular free apps on Apple’s iOS platform are sharing significantly more user data than the most popular apps on Google’s Android platform, according to a study recently released by Appthority.
Appthority’s App Report for February 2013 looked at the top performing free mobile apps across both iOS and Android, as free mobile apps are more likely to rely ad networks and analytics companies as a means of generating revenue. Despite Android’s reputation as a less secure platform, Appthority found that it was iOS apps that are allowed to engage in more risky behaviors.

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The study found that all 50 of the top free iOS apps — and 92 percent of the top 50 free Android apps — send and receive data without encryption. iOS apps get more access to user data, with 60 percent of the top apps tracking user location, 54 percent having access to a user’s contact list, 60 percent sharing data with ad or analytics networks, and 14 percent accessing users’ calendars.
Fifty percent of Android apps shared data with ad networks, while 42 percent tracked user locations. Only 20 percent of Android apps, though, had access to users’ contact lists, and none were found to access the calendar. Entertainment apps were found to be the loosest with user data, with games and business apps close behind. Educational and finance apps were found to display the fewest risky behaviors.

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A number of questionable policies and security concerns have painted Google’s Android platform as inherently less secure than Apple’s iOS. Android does appear to be more vulnerable to malware than iOS, but mobile malware affects only one percent of apps. The larger concern, the study concludes, should be over how mobile apps handle personal information and company data.

News/Rumors

China is the biggest market for Apple& Android devices

According to the latest data China has surpassed the U.S. for the total number of smart devices in operation. The fact is the world’s most populous nation is now the biggest market for devices such as Apple’s iPhone and those running Google’s Android operating system,

Researchers traced more than 2.4 billion anonymous, aggregated application sessions across more than 275,000 applications around the world, finding that the Chinese smart device market left behind the United States market over the last month. According to stats, in January 2013, China’s 221 million total active iOS and Android devices was about equal to the 222 million in the United States.

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So, to clear the situation up let’s take the period from January 2012 to January 2013:as for the U.S. – 55 million new smart devices we added. Over the same period of time, China added nearly three times as many: 150 million new devices.

Taking into consideration the huge growth for the mobile market, China should at the end of February have roughly 246 million devices, while the U.S. should have 230 million.

And one more important factor: China has more than four times the population of the United States, thus personally I don’t expect the U.S. to regain the lead in device activations.
The only country that could come close is India, which has a population comparable to China’s. India, though, currently stands at only 19 million active smart devices, and is not likely to challenge China in the near future. China and the United States each have more than five times the smart device install base of the next largest market, the United Kingdom.

News/Rumors

Apple and Google’s New Biggest Threat: Alibaba

It is well known that Apple is currently arguing on patents with most of the tech giants, including Samsung, HTC, and Amazon, who recently declared war to the Cupertino Company. So far, Apple won all the battles and managed to stand on top of the tech industry. Yet, a huge threat that no one ever heard of is challenging Apple and Google.

Apple and Google are the two most powerful worldwide leaders of the mobile market and of the Internet, but a third company comes to claim the smartphone market and it has to take on Android first.

China’s largest e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, launched the year that passed a Linux-based mobile operating system, called Aliyun, and it is now receiving increased demands from handset makers. The difference between Aliyun and Android/iOS is that users connect to apps over the Web instead of downloading them.

Moreover, Alibaba Group has great expectations from its mobile OS; there are only two mobile makers using Aliyun, namely Beijing Tianyu Communication Equipment Co. and Haier Electronics Group Co., and the company believes that their number will increase to five by the end of this year.

“We want to be as strong as Android in China,” Chief Strategy Officer Mr. Zeng said on the sidelines of a conference. “We have quite a few [new handset partners] lined up,” he said, declining to provide the names of the handset makers.

Anyway, Google’s Android is bigger in china than Apple’s iOS and Aliyun has to take on Gmail, Google Maps and Google Search first and if it does, then Apple should really feel threatened.

See more details about Alibaba’s plans on The Wall Street Journal.

News/Rumors

Know your iPhone & Android Mobile Broadband Speeds with SpeedTest

If it ever crossed your mind how fast a 3G, 4G LTE or Edge network is performed on your smartphone gadget, take a glance at SpeedTest for discovering your Download, Upload and Ping. Apart from the fact that you get to easily test your network, you could also compare the mobile broadband speed with other smartphones. Whether it’s a smartphone or a cell equipped iPad coping with AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, you are highlighted the results in a blink of an eye also providing track past tests with detailed reporting.

When it comes to comparing the broadband speed with other devices, ask your friends to take a picture of their results and afterwards see the differences. Also for coming with the best results, it’s advised to get pictures from different locations in which you use your smartphone.

There are a lot of factors that can lower the transfer speeds and data connectivity of your device, namely the location, signal strength, network capacity and so on and so forth.  It’s common to face low download speed in big cities and quite an impressive fast one in smaller areas. The app is free to download in App Store.

News/Rumors

Siri-like Voice Assistant for Blackberry 10 Update

RIM Blackberry has attempted to rise in sales like good old times, coming with an update for the developer edition devices and namely Siri-like voice assistant.  Siri is the one that made the iPhone 4S so popular so could Blackberry chuckle over success with the new virtual assistant?

So devices running Blackberry 10 Alpha could get in touch with the new update, even the voice resembling to Siri. All the user needs to do is long press the voice command button positioned on the right side of the gadget between the volume up and volume down button. As highlighted in the video, the virtual assistant provides basic functionalities like searching the web but it can’t provide answers like Siri, lacking the artificial intelligence.

It’s stated that Nuance, the same company that developed Siri is behind Blackberry’s voice assistant. Blackberry is creating a new operating system for making its way through iOS and Android and gain the success that was taken from him after the two smartphones became the most popular.