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Apple study reveals carrier loyalty to be main reason for Android buys

Apple study reveals carrier loyalty to be main reason for Android buys

By Chris Burns

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There's an Apple internal study out there, and revealed today by Samsung, that says your choice of an Android smartphone was likely made because you're loyal to your mobile carrier. In this study, Apple asked consumers back in 2010 why they purchase an Android device. One of the least chosen answers, believe it or not, was that these Android lovers wanted "the latest technology."

Also near the bottom for consumers in this Apple-run study was that people chose Android because it had turn-by-turn GPS navigation. This study very well may have been part of the reason why Apple's version of Maps (Google Maps powered though it was) has thus far not had turn-by-turn navigation onboard. Another of the least-chosen answers to the question was that people "wanted the latest and greatest smartphone."

Up near the top you'll see that this study found - far and away, actually - that consumers purchasing Android devices did so because they "wanted to stay with [their] current wireless service provider." This answer had 48% of those surveyed answering that yes, this was a reason why they chose an Android smartphone or tablet - more likely a smartphone is what they were speaking about given the year, but the iPad was certainly right at the back of their minds as well.

* Wanted to stay with current wireless service provider: 48%
* Trusted the Google brand: 36%
* Preferred larger screen: 30%
* Preferred the Android market for apps (Gmail, Google Docs, Google-Voice): 27%
* Wanted better integration with google services: 26%
* Wanted the latest and greatest smartphone: 26%
* Wanted turn by turn GPS navigation: 25%
* Wanted the latest technology: 25%

Those who trusted Google's brand were next with a 36% agreement rate and 30% of responders said they preferred a larger screen, and that this was why they chose Android. Right in the middle of this list was the question of whether their choice of Android was due to them preferring the Android Market (now called Google Play) for apps, these including Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Voice as examples - this answer has a 27% share.

Keep in mind again that this study was done internally at Apple in 2010, while the original iPhone was released in 2007. The first Verizon iPhone wasn't released until 2011 - this being the first non-AT&T version of an iPhone here in the United States. Take from that what you will!

Apple vs. Samsung trial reveals sales numbers

By Ben Kersey

Apple and Samsung are currently duking it out in court over various patent infringement allegations, and as part of the proceedings the two companies have had to submit detailed sales numbers for their smartphones and tablets. Apple normally reveals how many iPhones and iPads it has shipped during its quarterly earnings results, but this is the first time we're getting a closer look at some of Samsung's sales numbers along with detailed breakdowns in the United States.

Information submitted by Samsung indicates that between June 2010 and June 2012, 21.25 million phones were sold in the United States, generating a total revenue of $7.5 billion. The best selling Samsung smartphone is the Galaxy Prevail, a prepaid device available on Boost Mobile, shifting a total of 2.25 million units. Samsung's range of Galaxy S II devices across all the US carriers sold 4.1 million units combined.

Samsung's range of Galaxy Tabs didn't seem to do nearly as well. They sold 1.4 million in total, generating a much lower revenue of $644 million. That contrasts sharply with Apple, with the company selling 34 million iPads in the United States since 2010, generating $19 billion in revenue. The company also managed to shift 85 million iPhones and 46 million iPod touches for a combined revenue of $60.3 billion.

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The thrust of Apple's legal argument is that Samsung directly copied elements from the iPhone for its range of Galaxy smartphones, from the design of the handset to the app icons. Apple argues that consumers are confused as a result, with previous evidence suggesting a large number of Samsung Galaxy Tab returns at Best Buy stores were a result of customers not being able to distinguish the product from an iPad.

Apple offered licensing deal to Samsung, wanted $30 per phone

By Eric Abent

Apple and Samsung may currently be duking it out in the court room, but a freshly-surfaced Apple presentation from 2010 shows that the iPhone maker tried to strike a licensing deal with Samsung long before the jury became involved. Apple, as many of you already know, is taking Samsung to court over allegedly copying the iPhone in its own devices, but this new presentation shows that Apple tried to resolve the dispute by offering to license its patents to Samsung. Given the fact that Apple is currently suing Samsung for $2.5 billion, it seems that negotiations didn't go so well.

AllThingsD reports that Apple patent licensing director Boris Teksler referenced the October 2010 presentation during his testimony yesterday. The presentation shows that Apple was asking for $30 on each Samsung smartphone sold (dubbed "advanced mobile computing device" in the presentation), and $40 for each Samsung tablet. If Samsung had agreed, Apple was projecting that it could have made $250 million from the licensing deal in 2010, a figure which can hardly be considered chump change.

Apple was willing to give Samsung discounts on royalties too, seeing as how it considered Samsung a "strategic supplier." For instance, Samsung could have enjoyed a 20% discount if it chose to cross-license its own patent portfolio to Apple. Phones using an Apple-licensed OS were good for a 40% discount, and phones that didn't use proprietary features - Apple references the Samsung Blackjack II in its presentation, which has a physical QWERTY keyboard - would have qualified for another 20% off.

Samsung, obviously, wanted nothing to do with this licensing deal, and Teksler said in his testimony that none other than Steve Jobs and Tim Cook were driven to confront Samsung executives about the similarities between the Galaxy S and the iPhone. Hopefully Samsung made the right choice in turning down that licensing deal, because if it loses this case, it could end up owing Apple a lot more than it would have been paying in royalties. Samsung is set to begin calling its own witnesses to the stand on Monday, so keep an ear to SlashGear for more information on this high-profile trial.

Apple patents licensed to Microsoft while Samsung declined

By Chris Burns

It seems that one of the bigger stories to come out of the Apple vs Samsung trail over the past few days has gotten just a bit more complicated, as the patents Apple offered to Samsung several years ago - the same that are on trial now - were also offered to Microsoft. As Apple's director of patent licensing and strategy Boris Teksler noted in the case, Microsoft and Apple have had a long-running cross-licensing deal going in which all of the patents in the case at hand were and are included. With that deal came "specific rules" in which both companies are not allowed to make "clone" products.

In this Microsoft / Apple licensing deal, Teksler notes that "there's a clear acknowledgment that there's no cloning", this same sort of deal having been offered to Samsung some years ago. Samsung objected noting that Apple had made no mention of their design patents when they met with them at this licensing deal several years ago. Apple responded with the idea that some of those patents were still pending at the time, with several having only been granted years later.

Teksler also noted that Apple never planned on offering up everything they had, "clone" clause or not.

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"We were clear we weren't offering a license to everything. We had yet to discuss some what we termed 'untouchables,' if you will. ¡­ We wanted to get properly compensated for that which was infringed, and with respect to our unique user experience. That's exactly what we were trying to do with this presentation." - Teksler

This is one of the last points of "attack" Apple will be able to go on as Samsung's side of the trial, if you will, begins this week. Apple's segment was essentially played out throughout the week previous to this one, while Samsung will call witnesses and experts to the stand Monday through Friday. Stay tuned as it all goes down right here on SlashGear!

Windows Phone 8 hardware to compete with Android's best. Maybe

By Marco Chiappetta

Images and specifications of the supposed successor to Nokia's Lumia 800 suggest that the initial batch of Windows Phone 8 devices are going to go head-to-head with some of the more powerful Android-based smartphones on the market.

Microsoft has already disclosed quite a few details regarding Windows Phone 8. The biggest news was that Windows Phone 8 would use the NT Kernel, but Microsoft also disclosed that its upcoming mobile OS will support multi-core processors, higher resolutions, NFC, customizable home screen tiles, and sport seamless SkyDrive integration, among a number of other details. The first device shown publicly running Windows Phone 8, however, was clearly a prototype design vehicle that would never hit retail. It was thick and bulky, with sharp edges and a relatively large bezel.

Some details of a reported Nokia-built device have recently emerged, though, that shed more light on the direction Windows Phone 8-based hardware is headed.

The leaked pictures of Nokia's supposed first Windows Phone 8 device seems to show a smartphone with a 4.5-inch to 4.65-inch screen. It's difficult to say for sure, but holding a sampling of smartphones in my own hand, with my fingers in the exact same position as the person in the leaked image, lead me to believe the phone is similar in size to the HTC One X, which has a 4.7-inch screen. The amount of overhang over the pinky is the clearest indicator of the phone's size.

Based on my highly scientific hand-modeling method, I estimate that the Nokia device in the picture appears to be much bigger than either the HTC Touch Pro 2 (3.6-inch screen) or HTC Inspire 4G (4.3-inch screen), and somewhat larger than a Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket (4.6-inch screen). Unless the person in the photo has tiny hands, the phone in the image is likely much larger than the Lumia 800 (3.5-inch screen), which the upcoming Windows Phone 8 device is obviously modeled after. The resolution of the screen hasn't been reported, but in light of competing offerings with similar screen sizes, a 720P resolution is a possibility.

Other leaked details suggest the phone will have a Qualcomm dual-core SoC, an external MicrsoSD card slot, and support for NFC and LTE. Based on those details, the phone is most likely powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, which also happens to be used in the two most powerful Android-based devices currently on the market in the U.S.: the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X. Clock speeds and memory capacity weren't reported either, but I suspect Microsoft and its partners are going to make the spec sheets for the initial batch of Windows Phone 8-based devices comparable to anything the competition has to offer. Speeds of 1.5GHz+ and at least 1GB of memory are safe bets.

Although Windows Phone 7 didn't need (or even support) multi-core processors and performed very well with only 512MB of RAM, I had suggested in this very blog that Microsoft's hardware partners would want to bolster the specifications of their next-gen devices to make them appear more competitive, at least on paper. If these initial indicators hold true, it seems Microsoft partners - or at least Nokia - are going to do just that. We'll all know for sure in a few more weeks.

I can't help but miss Google Now on the HTC One X

By Taylor Martin

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If you've been following my weekly Official Smartphone Rankings(TM) each week, you've likely discovered that I absolutely love the HTC One X. It has been my #1 choice since it launched back in May, and not even the Samsung Galaxy S III has been enough to sway me in any other direction. It is my top choice in phone, and it's there to stay for the foreseeable future.

From the inside out, I love what HTC has done with the One series; they dug deep to get back to their roots and focus more on what matters, quality over quantity, performance and durability.

Granted, there are some aspects of each One device that could definitely be improved upon (like the cameras, for instance). I explained back in June that there is no perfect 10 consumer device ¡­ and there may never be one, for all we know. In my opinion, however, the HTC One X is the closest thing to perfect for me and my needs. I prefer its S-LCD2 720p display over the HD Super AMOLED on the Galaxy S III. I prefer the unibody design over a cheap, lightweight and flimsy plastic chassis. And I can live with Sense UI, whereas TouchWiz has always been one of my least favorite Android customizations.

While I could definitely go for some more storage space and battery life at times, I thoroughly enjoy the One X and have been, for the most part, content with it since day one. (I say "for the most part" because the first unit I received had a dud battery. Ever since replacing it, I have been thoroughly happy with it and its battery life.)

That said, last month, I asked whether software or hardware is more important. I explained that I have had a terrible time choosing between the Galaxy Nexus with Jelly Bean and the One X with Ice Cream Sandwich, Sense-flavored. The consensus I came to back then was that software ultimately won. While I would much rather choose the hardware on the One X, I found myself erring on the side of the Nexus due to its stock Android 4.1 software.

When I started the Voice Input Challenge, though, I chose to carry three handsets: an iPhone 4S, One X and a Galaxy Nexus. I typically only carry two phones with me every day. But I wanted to actively try the two different Android phones since there were some pretty significant changes in dictation software between Android 4.0 and 4.1. After the challenge, I kept my primary AT&T SIM in the One X and started leaving the Galaxy Nexus at home when I set out for the day. (There is simply no need for a third line. A second line is excessive, I will admit. But a third? That's above and beyond, and it's not even convenient.)

Almost immediately, I started to miss one feature of the Galaxy Nexus and Jelly Bean: Google Now.

To be fair, the One X has voice search, which I have been using quite often. But that's not the problem. The problem is that it's not as easily accessible from anywhere within the operating system (a la slide gesture up from the home button), and it's not as feature-packed as the automated personal assistant service dubbed Google Now.

To quickly access Google Now on the Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 7, you simply slide your finger up from the home button. Google Now appears and immediately gives you any pertinent information based on time, location, any of your upcoming appointments and the other various things it has learned about you. I don't get that on my One X. I don't get automatic traffic reports for my commute home every day. I don't get weather updates each time I go for a Google search. And I don't get results nearly as fast or in such a consumable, easy-to-understand (card) format.

It may seem like a petty complaint. But I seriously miss Google Now when I'm using my One X. I have become attached to how quick and painless Google Now and the Google voice search in Android 4.1 are. Over the weekend, Evan asked, "If you had to choose, would you pick Google Now or Siri?" The fact that I'm consistently switching back to an older phone to continue using Google Now while I have had Siri at my side all along and haven't cared to use it is a pretty clear testament to where I stand. And it should serve well as a testament to the power of Google Now.

To be clear, I could hack and mod my One X to retrofit it with Google Now. But that's neither the point or something I'm willing to do at this time. The point is: I have one of the newest Android smartphones available and there will likely be another four or so months before the One X (or any other high-end Android phone, for that matter) officially receives the Jelly Bean update. And thus, it will be the same amount of time before I have Google Now officially on my One X. That's a shame considering the usefulness and potential of Google Now.

I'm not sure what I will end up doing in the end, but I still find myself trying to balance the two devices on a single line. Carrying three devices every day is not the answer and neither is switching back and forth every couple days. But I'm having trouble coping without Google Now. And likewise, I'm having trouble settling with the hardware of the Galaxy Nexus.

Google Now may not be one of my favorite Android features ¡­ yet. But the power of voice input is definitely one that is continually growing in importance, and Google Now is undoubtedly one of the more impressive context aware voice search utilities to surface of late.

Tell me, ladies and gentlemen. Is voice search all that important to you? Do you find yourself growing attached to Google's voice search? Siri? Google Now? Do you miss your voice search of choice when it's unavailable? Have you changed phones (or respective software) just to get a taste of the latest voice input tech?

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