Samsung overtakes Apple in smartphone shipments

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Samsung had 24% of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of the year

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Samsung overtook Apple to become the world's biggest shipper of smartphones between July and September.

Research from Strategy Analytics showed that Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the three-month period, compared with 17.1 million from Apple and 16.8 million from Nokia.

The consultancy said Apple's growth was hindered by customers waiting for the launch of the new iPhone 4S.

Apple's number four slot in total handsets was taken by China's ZTE.

Nokia was the top handset shipper with a 27.3% market share, followed by Samsung with 22.6% and LG with 5.4%.

ZTE took 4.7%, pushing Apple into fifth place with 4.4%.

The report came shortly after the release of Samsung's third-quarter results, which showed profits falling 23% as strong growth in its mobile phone business was overshadowed by a poor performance in the memory chip arm.

Global smartphone shipments Q3 2011
Company	Shipments (millions)	Market share
SOURCE: STRATEGY ANALYTICS
Samsung	27.8	23.8%
Apple	17.1	14.6%
Nokia	16.8	14.4%
Others	55.3	47.3%

Handset profits more than doubled to 2.52tn won ($2.3bn; £1.4bn) on strong sales from its Galaxy smartphones.

"Samsung's rise has been driven by a blend of elegant hardware designs, popular Android services, memorable sub-brands and extensive global distribution," said Alex Spektor from Strategy Analytics.

"Samsung has demonstrated that it is possible, at least in the short term, to differentiate and grow by using the Android ecosystem."

A total of 117 million smartphones were shipped in the third quarter, up 44% from the same period last year.

Nokia's market share for smartphones fell from 33% in the third quarter of 2010 to to 14% this time round.

"The transition from Symbian to Microsoft as Nokia's main smartphone platform has clearly been a very challenging process this year," said Tom Kang from Strategy Analytics.

"The recent launch of the new Microsoft Lumia portfolio has helped to raise Nokia's profile."

Samsung Galaxy Nexus: World's first smartphone with HD display and runs the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Finally, the news the whole Android community has been waiting for has arrived! Samsung and Google announced in their Unpacked event in Hong Kong the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

It's been a heavy rumor period for the device, as the Galaxy Nexus leaked on a few occassions and most of what Samsung just announced isn't a particular surprise, but, at least it is now official! The device is the first one of many more to come to run the newest version of the Android OS - Ice Cream Sandwich.

It is also the every first smartphone with an HD super AMOLED display, measuring at 4.65 inches boasting the resolution of 720x1280. The display is slightly curved, just like the Nexus S is, and now features a super quick response time of just 0.01ms.

 

Following the Honeycomb approach, the Galaxy Nexus lacks hardware control buttons in favor of virtual software ones, which are located on the bottom of the screen.

Under the hood the Galaxy Nexus is powered by the TI OMAP 4460 platform, boasting a 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex A9-based processor and 1GB of RAM. At the back the device packs a 5MP camera capable of shooting 1080p video, while at the front, there's the usual 1.3MP camera for video chatting. With Ice Cream Sandwich, this snapper can take and automatically stitch shots to make a panorama, shoot a timelapse video and zoom while recording.

 

The Galaxy Nexus is fully future-proofed with LTE and NFC support on board, which should serve Google's Wallet project pretty well. Multiple carriers will be offering the smartphone in GSM HSPA version as well. The battery is now confirmed to be 1750mAh, which should keep it running for a day or two. The device will be offered in 16 or 32GB flavors expandable via a microSD card slot.

The hardware of the Galaxy Nexus is quite unique. On the bottom of the device has a hidden notification area, which glows with a green dot when you get a new email, message or miss a call. The back cover is also covered with a specially designed material called "Hyper Skin" to protect it from slipping.

Icon Ambulance: A Story About Steve Jobs And Attention To Detail

Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco in June.

No doubt there are plenty of career retrospectives about the just-departed Apple CEO Steve Jobs today. He did, after all, lead Apple to become the world's premiere technology company, and for a few moments earlier this month, Apple surpassed Exxon Mobil as the most valuable American company.

But there's one story, perhaps, that's piercing because it portrays the exacting nature of Apple's former CEO. Vic Gundotra — the man behind Google +, the company's entree into social media —posted a story about an interaction with Steve Jobs.

He writes that on a Sunday morning in 2008, he received a call during a religious service. He didn't answer, but Jobs left a message saying he had something "urgent to discuss." Gundotra returned his call almost immediately:

"Hey Steve — this is Vic," I said. "I'm sorry I didn't answer your call earlier. I was in religious services, and the caller ID said unknown, so I didn't pick up."

Steve laughed. He said, "Vic, unless the Caller ID said 'GOD', you should never pick up during services".

I laughed nervously. After all, while it was customary for Steve to call during the week upset about something, it was unusual for him to call me on Sunday and ask me to call his home. I wondered what was so important?

"So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow," said Steve.

"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"

The CEO of Apple — the tech visionary who revolutionized personal computers, the way we listen to music and the way we think of mobile devices — was worried about the yellow in the second "O" in Google. Needless to say the problem was fixed, and Gundotra says it taught him a lesson on leadership and "passion and attention to detail."

"It was a lesson I'll never forget," wrote Gundotra. "CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday."

JailbreakMe creator Comex joins Apple as an intern

Allow us to extend our congratulations to Nicholas Allegra. He's more popularly known as Comex, the party responsible for crafting the infamous JailbreakMe and Spirit tools that's given Apple so many headaches recently. Starting the week after next, he'll be officially wandering around 1 Infinite Loop as a bona fide intern. We're not terribly surprised, since the skill level needed to give iOS engineers a run for their money can be a highly valuable asset to the company; hiring someone with the know-how to spot vulnerabilities in Apple's OS would only serve to make the platform more secure. It wasn't mentioned how Allegra's talents will be utilized by Apple, but -- given the programmer's extensive history -- we can make a few educated guesses.

COMPLETE HISTORY OF ANDROID SUCCESS.THE BEST SMARTPHONE OS EVER. Keep updated with the latest RFID technology and cost effective solutions from below link: Earn free money using http://adf.ly/1D0sH1

Android represented a whopping 46.4 percent of global smartphone shipments in Q2 2011, with 34 percent of Android's total coming from Samsung, putting it a close second behind Apple, says ABI Research.

Interesting Android Code Name

Android is the most popular mobile operating system initiated by Android which is acquired by Google sooner.

Android has released a number of updates since its launched.Generally each update is developed under a code name based on a dessert item, such as Android 2.1 is named at Eclair and Android 3.0 at Gingerbread. The code name of Android 4.0 is  Ice Cream Sandwich,which complies the Alphabetical order.

HISTORY BEGINS HERE:

Android 1.0 Angel Cake

Released 23rd September 2008. This is where the dream began. The world’s first open source mobile OS gave manufacturers, developers and bedroom coders carte blanche to get creative with user-interface designs, widgets and apps. At this stage Google didn’t have an obsession with giving each OS release a cake-based moniker, so in the name of continuity we christen Android 1.0…Angel Cake.

Android 1.1 Battenberg

Released 9th February 2009. Again the alphabetical dessert OS nicknames hadn’t kicked in yet, so we’re calling 1.1 Battenberg. This update didn’t really bring many new stellar features to the table, instead just a few tweaks here and there, ironed out those pesky bugs and glitches and improved overall performance.

Android 1.5 Cupcake

Released 30th April 2009. This is where the updates started to get serious and Google raided its patisserie dictionary for OS codenames. Cupcake delivered video recording capabilities, the uploading of videos and snaps to YouTube and Picasa, Stereo Bluetooth (aka A2DP) so you can wirelessly stream music to compatible headphones or speakers, while the onscreen keyboard got text prediction.

Android 1.6 Donut

Released 15th September 2009. Donut brought more major features enhancements the biggest of which was Google Maps with turn-by-turn navigation for gratis. The Android Market became a friendly place to shop for apps while voice and universal search facilities were sharper – to name but a few.

Android 2.0/2.1 Éclair

Released 26th October 2010. The naughty-but-nice-Éclair, didn’t serve up too many headline features but there was still enough to get excited about. The UI and browser were giving a revamp, phone cameras could now take snaps in lowlight thanks to built flash support and live wallpapers tarted up your homescreens with animation.

Android 2.2 Froyo

Released 20th May 2010. Froyo, short for Frozen Yogurt, broke the cake nickname rule (what was wrong with Fairy Cake or French Fancy?) but along with a general performance retune to improve the OS speed and support for hi-res, hi-def screen resolutions the two key feature introductions were USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot plus support for Adobe Flash 10.1 for watching videos from the phone’s web browser.

Android 2.3 Gingerbread

Released 6th December 2010. After the detour with frozen dairy products we’re back to familiar biscuit based OS upgrades with Gingerbread. The newest smartphone OS release sees Google introduce the much touted NFC (Near Field Communications) tech that will let you make mobile payments or swipe a poster tag to receive info and free goodies for example. Elsewhere internet calling contacts are integrated into your phonebook, app management has been improved while the virtual QWERTY is redesigned for more accurate typing.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb

 Released 2nd February 2011.It is an incremental release that adds several new capabilities for users and developers. Highlights include optimization for a broader range of screen sizes; new "zoom-to-fill" screen compatibility mode; capability to load media files directly from the SD card; and an extended screen support API, providing developers with more precise control over the UI.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich 

 

"One OS that runs everywhere." There you have it, folks! Google intends to meld its Honeycomb tablet wares and Gingerbread smartphone software into one delicious Ice Cream Sandwich. Maybe that's why the "sandwich" bit is in the name, eh? Either way, it'll be a universal OS that runs on everything from teeny tiny Android phones to 10-inch tablets and will intelligently adapt to each form factor with things like a resizable status bar. Some other fancy new additions were demonstrated during Google's I/O 2011 keynote, including face-tracking and camera focus shifting based on voice recognition, but most of the salient details remain under lock and key for now. We'll be sure to dig around Mountain View campus fridges in search for more clues about the next major iteration of Android.