It's official, and it's been official for a while -- Android is far and away the most popular smartphone OS in America. Ever since January 2011, when the platform surpassed RIM to take the top spot for the first time in comScore's monthly market share rankings, Google's operating system has continued to grow its user base, which accounts for 52% of the market as of this January.
Since the advent of the first modern smartphone--arguably the original Apple iPhone in 2007--the power of these mobile computing devices that also happen to make phone calls has advanced by leaps and bounds.
Wouldn't you like to have your very own gofer dedicated to doing all the menial tasks you hate? That's a big part of the appeal of the iPhone 4S: Siri, the voice-driven virtual assistant, turns anyone with a couple hundred bucks into a CEO attended by a full-time lackey. But can you get the same kind of slavish devotion from an Android phone?
Mike Lazarus, a Sydney-based software design consultant, relies on his RIM BlackBerry daily to manage his contacts database, store important documents, and keep his information secure. "I use my mobile phone essentially as a mobile office," he says. "Nearly, everything I need to do in the office, I can do from my phone."
You probably don't carry your fancy-pants DSLR camera with you all the time, but your smartphone--along with its built-in camera--is in your pocket everywhere you go. That's why these days the most popular camera used to upload photos to Flickr isn't a camera at all, but the iPhone.
With Apple preparing to talk about the future of iOS at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and the rumor mill churning, it's time for an old tradition: the iPhone feature wish list.
Roll out the welcome wagon, Android fans: It looks like you'll soon have a new place to shop.
It's a rare week indeed that doesn't see the emergence of some fresh news of Android's ascendance, but lately the evidence has been coming particularly fast and furious, suggesting that there really is no stopping the mobile platform--at least not anytime soon.
One can only hope that security software provider Trend Micro saw a nice sales boost after the proclamation of its chairman earlier this week that Android phones are more vulnerable to hacking than iPhones are. If it didn't, those blatantly self-serving statements were made for nothing.
Google's Android mobile platform may still follow Apple's iPhone in the smartphone race, according to fresh Nielsen data released Monday, but that advantage may not last long.
Retailers use various marketing and technical terms to describe the smartphones they sell. Some of those terms represent meaningful phone characteristics, while others are mostly hype. To help smartphone shoppers understand what they're looking at, we offer definitions of the most commonly used specifications, and explain why they are important.
If you were to take a quick glance at today's tech headlines, you might think hell had frozen over.
Is there really a problem with the iPhone 4 antenna? Apple is about to answer this question Friday, at a <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/201158/apple_calls_iphone_4_press_conference_for_this_friday.html">hastily announced press conference</a> at its Cupertino campus. Meanwhile, millions of iPhone 4 customers (and tech pundits) are playing the guessing game running up to Friday's event. What does Apple have to say about the antenna issue and what will it do - if anything?
Life must suck today at One Infinite Loop.
Don't look now, Apple fanatics, but Android's just made another noteworthy leap in mobile market share.
