Samsung and Apple Slide Down in Smartphone Marketshare, Lenovo Emerges

According to the new report by International Data Corporation (IDC), Samsung and Apple are currently the top manufacturers in the smartphone hierarchy right now, as before, but their lead has slid down notably in the last quarter.

Compared to same quarter of 2012, where both the manufacturers sold 32.2% and 16.6% of the smartphones worldwide, they topped out at only 30.4% and 13.1% this time around.

Sales increased though, obviously, topping out at 72.4 and 31.2 million units respectively, compared to 50.3 and 26 million of the year before.

HTC and Huawei dropped out from the top 5 manufacturers’ list altogether while Lenovo was a surprise entry in the list. The Chinese company sold 11.3 million units and attained a marketshare of 4.7%, unbelievably close to LG, which holds a marketshare of 5.1%.

Apple’s dropping sales were not unexpected, especially since a new leak of the so-called “budget iPhone” comes out almost everyday but in Samsung’s case, it does look awkward, curiously coming after the launch of the numerous versions of its Galaxy S4 flagship.

The overall smartphones sales were 237.9 million units. The case for Nokia shouldn’t be dissimilar from Apple, since this was the time period when it launched its Lumia 1020 flagship.

Top Five Smartphone Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share, 2013 Q2 (Units in Millions) 

Vendor	2Q13 Unit Shipments	2Q13 Market Share	2Q12 Unit Shipments	2Q12 Market Share	Year-over-year Change
Samsung	72.4	30.4%	50.3	32.2%	43.9%
Apple	31.2	13.1%	26.0	16.6%	20.0%
LG	12.1	5.1%	5.8	3.7%	108.6%
Lenovo	11.3	4.7%	4.9	3.1%	130.6%
ZTE	10.1	4.2%	6.4	4.1%	57.8%
Others	100.8	42.4%	62.8	40.2%	60.5%
Total	237.9	100.0%	156.2	100.0%	52.3%

Top Five Total (Feature+Smartphone) Mobile Phone Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share, 2013 Q2 (Units in Millions) 

Vendor	2Q13 Unit Shipments	2Q13 Market Share	2Q12 Unit Shipments	2Q12 Market Share	Year-over-year Change
Samsung	113.4	26.2%	97.5	23.9%	16.3%
Nokia	61.1	14.1%	83.7	20.5%	-27.0%
Apple	31.2	7.2%	26.0	6.4%	20.0%
LG	16.2	3.7%	13.1	3.2%	23.7%
ZTE	15.0	3.5%	15.2	3.7%	-1.1%
Others	195.2	45.2%	172.2	42.2%	13.4%
Total	432.1	100.0%	407.7	100.0%	6.0%

Google Play is Now the Largest Application Store

After almost 5 years of its release, Google’s Play Store, formerly known as Android Market has finally overtaken Apple’s App Store to become the largest online application market in the world. The store now contains over a million apps compared to its nemesis’ 900,000+ apps.

The number of downloaded apps has also reached 50 billion and the amount of money developers are now making is almost 2.5 times the money which was made before. The figures are certainly understandable especially since Android is currently being used by several hundred manufacturers worldwide in millions of devices.

The figures are also better than those posted by the App Store and other online stores at this very moment of their lifespan, as Android has got apps quicker than anyone.

It doesn’t seem too long ago when Google changed the name of the store and added the “Play” button in the search engine, but the amount of development made on that front is quite incredible too. The company only recently redesigned the entire section again from scratch to make it more user-friendly.

Given Google Play’s lead now, it’s highly unlikely that the store will see its top spot snatched in the future.

Google Announces Android 4.3 Jelly Bean

Google has finally taken the curtains off the latest offering of its mobile OS. Some people might’ve been left disappointed again by Google’s reluctance to announce Key Lime Pie immediately but the new Android 4.3 Jelly Bean isn’t bad by any standards.

The update is largely an incremental one, which brings some performance improvements, alongside some software enhancements.

Here are the most-important features which the update brings:

Multiple-users and restrictions

The ability to make multiple profiles in a single device is a feature already brought in the previous versions of Android but Google has added the feature to restrict the “rights” of any particular profile just now. This is a bit similar to the Kid’s Corner in Windows Phone and here too you can select only a number of apps/features which can be accessed by the profile being restricted.

Different users can also make different environments with their respective widgets, homescreens and customizations.

Better notifications

Android 4.3 brings the ability to view your notifications history. Apps, accessories and games can now take even better control over your notification bar now and can be sent to other paired devices from there.

OpenGL ES 3.0

Android 4.3 brings support for OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics which will be great for games as it improves details. It brings much more complexity in both 2D & 3D (Google also demonstrated this at its event) and adds a real depth to the whole experience.

Things much more complex than Real Racing are coming soon. This feature will be available on the new Nexus 7, Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 as of now.

Low Energy Bluetooth mode and AVRCP

Bluetooth Smart is a new feature which interacts with accessories and will use the same technology to conserve the battery. Also added is Bluetooth AVRCP 1.3 which sends additional information to the audio device paired with your phone.

Better performance

Performance has been Android’s Achilles Heels but Google hasn’t made a secret that it has waged a war against it. The performance enhancements which were brought in Jelly Bean are built upon here. Vsync, touch latency, CPU input boosts, and others will make working on the OS smoother than before.

The rendering performance across various fronts have been improved drastically too.

Support for RTL Languages, Keyboard

Android 4.3 also brings support for languages which are written from right-to-left. The notifications bar, dialpad and lists, all are reworked for these specific keyboards. That will also be supported by a lot of pre-installed apps. Unfortunately, this is not available for Urdu yet but hopefully that will change in the future.

Emoji Keyboard also comes along with the system now and is activated by a long press on the spacebar key.

Software additions

Google is adding a Google Play Games app from Android 4.3 onwards which is a bit like Apple’s Game Center, where you have a leaderboard showing yours and your friend’s progress and the achievements you have accomplished.

Google Keep is yet another app which will be coming pre-installed and Hangouts will be replacing Talk officially. Several new additions like a separate menu for your disabled apps have been added as well.

Convenience for developers

Android 4.3 brings great convenience for developers. Apart from OpenGL ES, it also brings a vastly better Systrace tool which will give the developers an even better idea of their app’s performance.

When will it roll out?

The new Android 4.3 is already being rolled out to the Nexus 10, Nexus 4, Galaxy Nexus and the original Nexus 7 worldwide. Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One Google Editions will follow later. Other phones not running on stock-Android will be receiving the update through their respective manufacturers in the coming few months.

Android version 4.3 is a great step forward for both users and developers. Features like OpenGL ES don’t only open new doors for app-developers, but also make sure that users will get even better stuff in the future.

What is Cloud Gaming? Is It Any Good?

Cloud Gaming is a new trend in gaming world that is getting a lot of heat by gamers. Why is it so? Well – for those who don’t know – Cloud gaming allows you to play those high graphical console games on a system that has regular or low specs and has internet connection which should be fast enough to get fluent gameplay out of the games.

Cloud gaming is not only limited to your PC’s but its also available for TV, Mac, smartphones and tablets. Which means you can run Just Cause 2, Split/Second, Assassins Creed Revelations or Sleeping Dogs like games on your iPhone, iPad, TV, Mac, Android phone or tablet which is just amazing because Mac users don’t get to play games that are made for Windows and other devices as they are usually not capable of handling such graphic loads.

Cloud gaming doesn’t require heavy specs for your computer which means you don’t need to buy expensive computers instead your normal work computer would get the job done. You don’t need to download or install those heavy games, no more booting of game that takes forever to setup and customize; plus no more errors that we usually come across and the need for countless software in order to run the game is simply gone.

Besides you get to save a lot of memory on your hard disk. For TV’s you need to buy a mini console that is needed to be hooked up with your TV and internet in order to run games.

The gamers can play games by installing client program that can access to cloud servers. The game actually runs on a remote server that streams the game on your device, while all the data and computer processing is done in the cloud. It’s just like viewing a video.

For cloud gaming you need at least 2 MB internet connection but 5 MB is recommended and higher would give you higher results.

Cloud gaming was first introduced by OnLive in 2009 by running Crysis over the net. A server that’s miles away running a high graphics game on a low end pc is just amazing. OnLive, though, had trouble earning money from cloud gaming as the number of customers were low and their heavy servers weren’t being fully utilized. But they’ve managed to get on their feet back by selecting a new CEO.

Cloud gaming phenomena is new, as mentioned above, and services are provided in just few countries plus hardcore gamers are not satisfied as the games get little scaled down to 720p which is good for a casual gamer but not for a hardcore gamer. But still a mobile processor playing a graphic-rich game is way better than playing angry birds on tablets and smartphones.

The idea of cloud gaming can surely takeover the console gaming if the games’ quality get better.

After cloud gaming no one would buy expensive devices, no one would buy physical copies of CD’s, no one will have to wait to get a new released titles, no one will be restricted to take their consoles or pc with them where ever they go as you can run these games on your mobile devices like tablets and smartphones.