iPhone still second-place US smartphone while Android grows

The latest data from market research firm comScore shows Apple holding on to a quarter of the US smartphone market, which grew roughly 18 percent over the last six months. That makes the iPhone the number two smartphone in the US, though it still lags well behind number one RIM. Android-based devices are still growing rapidly in popularity.

Over the last few months, comScore data shows RIM and Apple holding pretty much steady, with RIM at 43 percent and Apple at 25.1 percent. Unsurprisingly, Palm (which includes webOS and PalmOS) devices and Microsoft-powered devices continued to decline. Android-based devices, however, continued to rise sharply, enough to eclipse Palm to take fourth place in the US market.

Though Apple still lags significantly behind RIM in this category, it's worth noting that Apple has been able to hold a pretty steady share over the last few months. This is in spite the typical cyclical ebb and flow of Apple's market share, which has tended to drop significantly in winter in anticipation of updated iPhone models that are typically released in June or July, followed by a sharp spike in late summer or early fall.

comScore says that an average of 42.7 million Americans were actively using smartphones between November 2009 and January 2010. That's about 18 percent of the overall 234 million Americans using a mobile phone over the same period. Motorola, LG, Samsung, and Nokia continue to lead overall sales of mobile phones in the US.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Android Surges While the iPhone Stalls Out

The latest smartphone subscriber numbers are out, and the last three months have been kind to Google. Android's still a relatively small player, but its usage base more than doubled since October. The iPhone, meanwhile, keeps on treading water.

RIM remains the leader in the smartphone space, with nearly half the market using BlackBerries. Apple's 25.1% share is undeniably impressive, but only growing .3 percentage points (relative to the market) means this summer's impending iPhone 4 release can't come soon enough for Cupertino. Either that or a whole mess of patent lawsuit wins.

The losers, predictably: Palm, whose business model is collapsing before our eyes, and Microsoft, whose sitting duck WinMo 6.5 OS is in the process of being totally scrapped.


[ComScore via TechCrunch]

Source: Gizmodo.com

The Body of a Tank, the Brain of an Android

We've come across plenty of robots that were controlled by phones before, but usually those phones were being controlled by human hands. Some California hackers, however, are building bots that harness Android for their robo-brainpower.

Their first creation, the TruckBot, uses a HTC G1 as a brain and has a chassis that they made for $30 in parts. It's not too advanced yet—it can use the phone's compass to head in a particular direction—but they're working on incorporating the bot more fully with the phone and the Android software. Some ideas they're kicking around that wouldn't be possible with a dinky Arduino brain: face and voice recognition and location awareness.


If you're interested in putting together a Cellbot of your own—can you even conceive of a cooler dock for your Android phone? Or a better use for your G1?—the team's development blog has some more information. The possibilities here are manifold; mad scientists, feel free to share your Android-bot schemes in the comments. [Wired]

Image credit Miran Pavic / Wired.com

Source: Gizmodo.com

Adobe releases Photoshop.com Mobile editor for Android developers

Adobe this morning announced that third-party developers now have access to the Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 editor, allowing them to make it a part of their applications.

The news comes four months after the company released Photoshop.com Mobile for Android, enabling users to easily edit and share their photos. That app got an upgrade, too.

Amusingly, Adobe also takes a bit of a swing at Apple for not being able to provide such tools to iPhone app developers. Said Doug Mack, vice president and general manager of Digital Imaging and Rich Media Solutions at Adobe:

“Unlike iPhone, the Android platform allows us to make the Photoshop.com editor broadly available to developers so they can provide it within any application they are working on. Photoshop functionality can then easily be accessed from an online auction, real estate or social media application so users can quickly fix photos and make them look their best, before being showcased.”

The updated version of Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 brings effects like Vibrant (to boost photo colors) and Pop, which brings a ‘pop art’ style to images. The Soft Black and White, and Warm Vintage tools can be used to add a classic and aged effect to photos. Other new effects include Vignette Blur, White Glow and Rainbow.

Adobe Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 is available as a free download in all countries with Android Market in English only. Search the Android Market for “photoshop.com” to find it.

Source: Mobilecrunch.com