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Gartner: 1.6 million Windows Phone 7 devices sold in Q1, consumer interest remains tepid
Direct sales figures for Windows Phone 7 handsets have been remarkably difficult to come by since Microsoft's OS reboot at the end of last year, but here come the stat gurus at Gartner to provide us with their best estimate. 3.6 million of the world's smartphone sales in the past quarter were counted under the Microsoft mobile OS umbrella, of which 1.6 million featured the very latest WP7 software. That means Redmond partners sold more Windows Mobile devices in the first three months of 2011 than ones bearing the sparkling new operating system. Guess now we know what LG meant when it said the Windows Phone launch didn't meet expectations. Gartner sees these numbers as evidencing a failure "to grow in consumer preference" by WP7's launch devices, though it predicts better things ahead, with Nokia's participation helping to accelerate the platform's momentum. For more (much more!) stats relating to the global cellphone market in Q1 2011, click on the source link for Gartner's full disclosure. Update: ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley prodded Microsoft about these figures, but got neither a confirmation nor a denial. The fact Redmond didn't bother to at least dispute Gartner's stats seems to lend them an added sliver of credibility.
iDVM Digital Multimeter collects voltage readings on your iDevice, shares them with whoever cares
This, dear reader, is the iDVM Digital Multimeter -- the world's very first iDevice-enabled voltmeter, from Redfish Instruments. Designed with auto technicians, electricians and engineers in mind, the iDVM uses an ad hoc wireless network to connect to any iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, allowing users to record voltage, resistance and current directly from their palms. Once you've purchased the multimeter and downloaded the accompanying iDVM app, you'll be able to gather electrical measurements from up to 30 yards away from your target, log data over extended periods of time and export your findings in spreadsheet or graph displays. The rechargeable battery-powered device can also read your measurements back to you, which should make you feel slightly less lonely while digging around your car's engine at 3 am. We're still not sure why anyone would want to juggle their iPhone while chasing down a shorted wire, but if you do, the iDVM starts shipping on June 1st, for $220 -- which could buy you about 40 less complicated multimeters from Harbor Freight. Full PR after the break.
Adobe CreatePDF for Android does exactly what its name implies
Google's mobile OS is growing and maturing into a business-savvy adult before our very eyes. With the release of Adobe's CreatePDF in the Android Market, we're delighted to finally see a PDF-creation app on the mobile front. Not only does it let you build a PDF from the ground up, it can convert most popular filetypes -- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OpenOffice, Photoshop, RTF, and Illustrator, just to name a few -- into PDF format. You can import any of these kinds of docs from your phone to app via the built-in file manager, or transfer an email attachment to it using Android's share function. Available for a one-time payment of $9.99, CreatePDF won't be for the light-walleted or the casual app enthusiast; don't be put off by the price, though, because the online version charges that much per month to do the exact same tasks on your computer. Anyone rocking Eclair or better can partake of the PDF love, so head to the source link to get straight to installing.
Half of iPad subscribers willing to share information
At first, publishers were wary of the terms of publishing for Apple's iPad that would require them to ask consumers whether or not they could use their information. In traditional magazine publishing, magazines would get access to their subscribers' information, and publishers worried that they wouldn't under this new deal. But it turns out those worries were unfounded. According to Forbes, Apple has confirmed that 50 percent of subscribers are providing their information anyway. Mark Edmiston of Nomad Editions says, "what was an insurmountable obstacle no longer is." Go figure. 50 percent is still less than 100 percent, which is what publishers had with their original paper subscription plans. But it's also better than nothing, which is what publishers were worried they would end up with. With a little tweaking, offering things like free content or other incentives to share that information, publishers could get a great rate of return. Just goes to show that while there are certainly obstacles for publishers to overcome in this new age of digital publishing to tablets, not all of them are "insurmountable."
IDC: smartphone market grows 80 percent year-on-year, Samsung shipments rise 350 percent
Smartphones are getting kind of popular nowadays, in case you hadn't noticed. The latest figures from IDC show a 79.7 percent expansion of the global smartphone market between this time last year and today, which has resulted in 99.6 million such devices being shipped in Q1 of 2011. That growth has mostly been driven by Samsung, which has more than quadrupled its output to 10.8 million shipments in the quarter, and HTC, whose growth has been almost as impressive. The other big gainer is Apple, with 10 million more iPhones shipped, but the truth is that all the top five vendors are showing double-digit growth. In spite of Nokia losing a big chunk of market share and RIM being demoted from second to third in the ranking, both of those old guard manufacturers improved on their quarterly totals. IDC puts this strength in demand down to the relatively unsaturated smartphone marketplace, and believes there's "ample room for several suppliers to comfortably co-exist," before ominously adding, "at least for the short term." And after the short term, our break-dancing robot overlords take over. Update: IDC has also released data for Western Europe that shows Nokia has lost the top spot both in terms of smartphones, to Apple, and in terms of overall mobile phone shipments, to Samsung.
NVIDIA losing ground to AMD and Intel in GPU market share
NVIDIA may be kicking all kinds of tail on the mobile front with its ubiquitous Tegra 2 chipset, but back on its home turf of laptop and desktop graphics, things aren't looking so hot. The latest figures from Jon Peddie Research show that the GPU giant has lost 2.5 percentage points of its market share and now accounts for exactly a fifth of graphics chips sold on x86 devices. That's a hefty drop from last year's 28.4 percent slice, and looks to have been driven primarily by sales of cheaper integrated GPUs, such as those found inside Intel's Clarkdale, Arrandale, and most recently, Sandy Bridge processors. AMD's introduction of Fusion APUs that combine general and graphics processing into one has also boosted its fortunes, resulting in 13.3 percent growth in sales relative to the previous quarter and a 15.4 percent increase year-on-year. Of course, the real profits are to be made in the discrete graphics card market, where NVIDIA remains highly competitive, but looking at figures like these shows quite clearly why NVIDIA is working on an ARM CPU for the desktop -- its long-term survival depends on it.
IDC claims iPhone marketshare has grown 115%
The International Data Corporation reports that Apple has been taking over the smartphone market in the past few years, with its market share growing by almost 115% over the past year. Apple's still not on top of the list (as there are much more established manufacturers on there, and as we've heard, Apple has some competitors for market share as well), but the company's growth is phenomenal, and has earned it a number four spot on the top five list worldwide, with 5% of the global market. Even more phenomenal, of course, is the fact that Apple has basically done this with one phone, rather than competitors' multiple lines and flavors of smartphones and operating systems. When the company first started selling smartphones, it said that the goal was to get at least 1% of the global market, so not only has it beaten that goal five times over, but of course it's earned record revenues to match as well. [via MacRumors]
NPD credits Verizon iPhone with stemming the Android tide in Q1 smartphone sales
As much as we were hoping to get some definitive statements from AT&T and Verizon's Q1 2011 financials about the Verizon iPhone's impact on the smartphone market, none were really forthcoming. It's left to analyst outfits like the NPD, therefore, to try and parse the data for us and read between the official lines. The latest numbers from the NPD Group's Mobile Phone Tracker indicate that Apple's share of US smartphones sales jumped from 19 percent in Q4 2010 to 28 percent in the first quarter of this year, which helped stymie Android's prodigious expansion. The Google OS went from being on 53 percent of all smartphones sold to a flat 50 percent in the quarter. Also intriguing about the period is that, for the first time, smartphones accounted for more than half of all mobile phones sold in the US, at 54 percent. The top five best-selling cellphones also happened to be smartphones, with Apple and HTC providing two each; the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, Droid X, EVO 4G, and the Droid Incredible took home the NPD commendations. [Thanks, Matt] Disclaimer: NPD's Ross Rubin is a contributor to Engadget.
Nokia's Q1 2011: smartphone share down to 26 percent, 'more challenging' times ahead
Nokia has just published its first quarterly results in the era of its Microsoft partnership and things aren't looking too bright. Smartphone market share, which had been at 41 percent this time last year and 31 percent in January, has now dipped to 26 percent, while operating profits have taken a 17 percent tumble relative to last year. The company managed to ship one percent more phones in Q1 2011 than in Q1 2010, but its 108.5 million units was an 18 percent drop from last quarter's totals. CEO Stephen Elop describes the first quarter as solid, but warns that the second will be "more challenging." The impact of Japan's disaster earlier in the year will be felt more strongly in Q2, we're warned, with respect to component supply and logistics, while new products won't figure too strongly as Nokia intends to "start shipping the majority of our new products in the second half of the year." Elop is, however, encouraged by the "roadmap of mobile phones and Symbian smartphones" that Nokia has in store for 2011, which sounds good on the surface, but we'd be more comforted if he'd have inserted the words "Windows Phone" or "MeeGo" in that sentence too. Hit the links below to see the full financial details.
AT&T reports best-ever first quarter for smartphone sales with 5.5 million, 60 percent of them are iPhones
We've been waiting for this one, the first indicator of the mythical Verizon iPhone's impact on the fortunes of the formerly exclusive Applephone carrier, AT&T. As it turns out, business is rolling along as usual over on the blue team, where AT&T spent Q1 2011 activating a total of 3.6 million iPhones, a nice round million more than the same period last year. Also interesting is AT&T's note that somewhere around 40 percent of its smartphone sales come from Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices, leaving the iPhone to account for the remaining 60-ish percent. Taken as a whole, that group totaled up 5.5 million sales in the quarter, a new best for AT&T in the first three months of the year, and the smartphone segment is now said to account for 46.2 percent of the company's postpaid user base. Jump past the break for more details in AT&T's press release.
Eye-Fi launching new 8GB wireless SD card today, kicking out Direct Mode for iOS and Android next week
Remember how Eye-Fi was cooking up some software to let their WiFi-enabled SD memory cards sling photos directly to your tablet or phone? Here's some sweet news -- starting next week, Direct Mode will be a free download for any Eye-Fi X2 card, and debut alongside companion apps in the Android Market and iTunes App Store. Moreover, the company's celebrating the launch of the new transfer protocol with a brand-new card, the $80 Eye-Fi Mobile X2, which should be available for purchase online momentarily and make its merry way to Best Buy and Apple stores by April 17th. Basically, the Mobile is a redux of the $50 Connect X2, but with double the storage capacity (8GB) and Direct Mode pre-installed -- though a price drop on the top-of-the-line Pro X2 (to $100) will add geotagging and RAW support for just one Jackson more. Need a refresher on how Direct Mode works? Peek our CES video demo (and a hefty press release) after the break.
Nokia experiments with Drop, elegantly shuttles photos and web links to mobiles (video)
Proving not all clever projects need witty names, Nokia introduced an experimental project known as Drop -- and it's likely to make your web browser and Symbian phone the best of friends. Intrepid testers may now push links, pictures, and even apply wallpaper to linked mobile devices, all from the comfort of Firefox or Chrome. While Nokia intends to add more features as development matures, what we're previewing appears decidedly familiar. Symbian^3 and S60 5th Ed. users can get a taste of the clever trickery right now, though considering Nokia's excitement in heralding this innovation late in Symbian's life cycle, we wonder if our friends from Espoo are pondering Drop's future for Windows Phone handsets. Want to join us in the speculation? Take a gander at the video after the break to see what these wide-eyed developers have in store.
Facebook's Open Compute Project shares plans for energy-efficient data center
We know, you've seen an awful lot of Zuckerberg and crew here lately, and the Facebook news just keeps rolling in. This time the social networking giant is doing some sharing of a different sort by offering public access to the specifications and best practices behind its new, more efficient data center in Prineville, Oregon. According to the company, the center, built in collaboration with AMD, Dell, HP, and Intel, has boosted energy efficiency by 38 percent while lowering cost by 24 percent. The information now available through the Open Compute Project includes technical specs and mechanical CAD files for everything from servers to building design. Basically, if you want to erect your own multi-million dollar Facebook-style data center, you've got the go ahead. Full PR after the break.
PogoPlug Video and Buffalo CloudStor now shipping, streaming your stuff all over the place
Yes, you've seen these guys before, and now the latest PogoPlug offspring are ready to ship. Both PogoPlug Video and its storage-sporting cousin, the Buffalo CloudStor, put their own unique twist on the firm's remote access service. As you might recall, PogoPlug Video, which is now available exclusively from Best Buy for $200, allows you to hook up your external hard drives and share streaming video, music, and images to devices anywhere with internet access. Buffalo's CloudStor, on the other hand, provides the same cloud-based access, with a little something extra. It's the first PogoPlug branded gadget to sport integrated storage, and comes in three iterations, ringing in at $150 for 1TB, $210 for 2TB, and $250 for the 2TB Pro version. Now you can share all your favorite kitten clips, without ever uploading them to YouTube. Isn't that precious?
IDC fails to learn from previous mistakes, issues 2015 smartphone predictions
The stat guardians at IDC are among the most reliable sources for keeping track of the latest developments in the smartphone market, but we've got to say their forecasts haven't always benefited from the same accuracy. It's with this disclaimer that we present you the world of 2015 as seen through the IDC prism. In just four years' time, says the data, Windows Phone 7 (or whatever version it reaches by then) will have ascended to occupy a fifth of the market and second spot overall behind Android, whose leading position is expected to stabilize somewhere around the 45 percent mark. Apple and RIM are projected to hold steady with shares close to where they are today. It has to be humbling for the IDC, which predicted Symbian would continue to dominate all the way into 2013, to now have to foretell of its almost complete extinction (a mere 0.2 percent) and total irrelevance in the smartphone market. Alas, while the new prediction sounds very reasonable today, four years of unknown unknowns is a mighty long time to try and forecast through, and we have a feeling we'll be looking back and chuckling at this within a few short months -- probably (hopefully!) in the midst of a massive webOS revival.
Android 2.2 is now the dominant version of Google's OS with 61.3 percent of all active devices
Considering that we're about nine months removed from Google's release of Froyo, you'd expect that version of its mobile OS to have been distributed quite widely by now and indeed it has. 61.3 percent of (the many) active Android devices -- handsets and tablets, anything with access to the Market is eligible -- worldwide are now running version 2.2, making it the most prevalent iteration of the software at the moment. Even more encouraging news is that, when taken together with Android 2.1, that group swells to account for more than 90 percent of active Google devices. If you want to look at the reverse, rather moldy, side of the coin, however, you'll note that the latest mobile version of the OS, Gingerbread (2.3), is only on 1 percent of devices, while the absolute finest Android, Honeycomb (3.0), barely scrapes a couple tenths of a percent together. So yes, things are moving inexorably forward, just not as rapidly as some might have hoped.
Bing advances past Yahoo! to become world's second most used search engine -- with 4.4 percent
How far we've come from the heady days when Microsoft was willing to splash $44 billion to acquire Yahoo! Since then, the online portal has done whatever the opposite of going from strength to strength is, and today it's suffered the somewhat predictable ignominy of losing its second spot in search to Microsoft's upstart Bing. Statcounter places the February global share of search at 4.4 percent for Microsoft and 3.9 percent for Yahoo! (the Redmond giant can actually lay claim to a bigger slice since Bing "powers" Yahoo! search results in some countries), neither of which should give Google much reason for concern while it's sitting pretty with a share of just under 90 percent. It's the first time Google has dipped below the 90 percent mark for a long time, but Statcounter says "it shows little sign of losing its global dominance any time soon." So that settles that.
Apple maintains lead in mobile app store revenues, but its share is shrinking fast
Growth. You don't have to be Gordon Gekko to recognize that exponential growth in revenues is the mark of both a buoyant industry and, on an individual level, a healthy participant within it. Kudos must, therefore, be handed out to all the top four app stores globally, as each one expended its total revenues by over 130 percent between 2009 and 2010. Interestingly, Apple's growth looks to be slowing down as the App Store begins to reach a saturation point on smartphones, while Nokia's Ovi Store and Google's Android Market blossomed during 2010 by multiples of 7.2 and 8.6 times their 2009 size. Apple's share at the top has shrunken as a consequence, a trend that looks likely to continue when Windows Phone 7's Marketplace and the Ovi Store are melded into one through this year and beyond.
iOS now accounts for 2% of global web browsing traffic, Chrome rounds the 10% mark
After the desktop stalwarts of Windows 7 and Mac OS, the world's third most popular platform for web browsing turns out to be Apple's iOS. The software that makes iPhones, iPod touches and iPads tick has been identified by Net Applications as responsible for over two percent of the global traffic data analyzed in the web statistician's latest report -- the first time iOS has crossed that threshold. The UK and Australia had more than five percent each, while the USA clocked in at 3.4 percent. Leaving operating systems aside, Chrome has continued its steady growth on the browser front and now stands at a 10.7 percent share, more than doubling its slice from this time last year. Internet Explorer overall has dipped to its lowest level yet, at 56 percent, however Net Applications indicates IE8 is showing nice growth. So at least it's looking like we're finally ready to bury the zombies known as IE6 and IE7, whatever other browser we choose to migrate to.
Report that iPad is losing share to Android tablets corrected
A circulating report falsely suggests the iPad is still the #1 tablet on the market, but is losing market share to Android. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, the iPad held on to a 75.3 percent market share in Q4 2010, while Android captured a respectable 21.6 percent share. This distribution differs greatly from the previous quarter, when the iPad dominated with 95.5 percent market share, and Android took a small 2.3 percent. Much of this boost comes from sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which reportedly jumped to 2 million units by the end of the year. Good news for Apple, though, as the data used in this Strategy Analytics report is incorrect. After stating it had sold 2 million Galaxy Tab devices early last week, the Korean manufacturer confirmed on Friday that this figure was the number of devices sold to carriers and other retailers. It was not the final number that landed in the hands of consumers. Samsung executive Lee Young-here corrected this misunderstanding and stated that the number of tablet devices sold to consumers is actually "quite small." Until Samsung can produce numbers based upon consumer sales, the iPad will continue its reign as the dominant tablet on the market. [Via Cnet]
