July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Samsung isn’t slowing down with its Galaxy S4 variants anytime soon.

After announcing smaller and tougher versions of its flagship smartphone, Samsung is now gearing up to launch a new version of the S4 with support for LTE-Advanced networks, Reuters reports.

The phone could hit South Korea as soon as this month, Samsung co-chief executive officer J.K. Shin told Reuters. LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) is a major upgrade over the current LTE standard, and it could end up being the driving technology behind future “5G” networks. For now, though, it looks like carriers are approaching LTE-A as a way to speed up existing 4G LTE networks. T-Mobile, for example, claims it’ll be the first to offer LTE-A in the U.S. because it has newer LTE equipment than other carriers.

LTE-Advanced will potentially offer speeds up to 300 megabits per second (three times faster than LTE’s theoretical bandwidth), so you can be sure that carriers will want to market the heck out of that upgrade. Samsung claims its LTE-A Galaxy S4 will be about twice as fast as the current LTE models.

For the most part, the LTE-A Galaxy S4 seems like a show horse for Samsung. It gets to claim that it’s the first in the LTE-A handset market, but most consumers won’t be able to take advantage of the faster speeds for some time. The phone will also serve as a way to push Samsung’s 4G networking-equipment business. (After all, it’ll only be able to convince carriers to adopt its LTE-A equipment if there’s a phone that supports the faster network.)

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Given our addiction to smartphones and tablets, mobile consumers are already primed for the coming onslaught of wearable computing devices. Indeed, we’re so tied to our mobile gadgets today that we might as well call them wearable, according to the latest research from the mobile advertising company Flurry.

Based on random sample data from more than 15,000 iOS users in the U.S., the firm has found that we’re pretty much always connected to our mobile devices — even while we sleep (see the chart below). It’s a huge difference from the way we view television, which typically sees low usage throughout the day except for a big prime-time viewership spike.

“I’m amazed at the nighttime usage for mobile — do people not sleep?” Flurry chief executive Simon Khalaf told VentureBeat. “It kind of tells you we’re already in the wearable space; it’s [mobile] glued to consumer’s bodies.”

Khalaf presented Flurry’s latest insights at its SourceDigital13 conference in New York City today, an event aimed at bringing together some of NYC’s biggest minds in advertising to help solve the mobile ad dilemma.

“It’s not about promoting Flurry … in fact, I had to beg to get a speaking spot,” Khalaf said. “It’s more about getting people who matter together and trying to figure this out as a group. This is more of a brainstorming session.”

Among other interesting finds, Flurry found that the Millennial set (ages 25 to 34) used health- and fitness-related apps more than any other group (see chart below). And when it came to games, typically the territory for the young, Flurry found that Millennials actually used them less than other age groups. (The big gamers? Middle-aged folks from the Gen X set.)

Digging deeper into its Millennial data, Flurry found that women use fitness apps 200 percent more than men. The firm also found that certain gender stereotypes held true. The second-largest app category for women was lifestyle and shopping while men focused more on media and entertainment apps.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

While we’ve been hearing quite a bit about Apple’s plans for a cheaper iPhone over the past few months, the company’s plans to go bigger have been more cloudy.

Now it sounds like Apple aims to go into phablet territory, a term for giant smartphones over 5-inches that may as well be tablets. Apple is reportedly exploring bigger iPhone models for 2014 with 4.7-inch and 5.7 inch screens, Reuters reports.

It certainly makes sense for Apple to release a 4.7-inch iPhone, since that’s pretty much the standard size for Android smartphone screens these days. But the prospect of a 5.7-inch iPhone is a bit more surprising, especially after Apple has held strong with its smaller-than-the-competition iPhone screens over the past few years. Recent research shows that consumers want both iPhones and phablets, so Apple has a huge opportunity by combining the two.

It could just be that we’re hearing early talks about how Apple is planning to take on Samsung, which has leveraged its big and bright screens to become an Android powerhouse. Samsung also helped to popularize the phablet category with its Galaxy Note series, which have typically had screen sizes around 5.5-inches.

“They [Apple] constantly change product specifications almost to the final moment, so you’re not really sure whether this is the final prototype,” one source told Reuters of the bigger iPhone.

When it comes to Apple’s iPhone launches for this year, Reuters adds weight to the rumors that we’ll see cheap models in multiple colors and plastic cases, as well as a slightly revamped iPhone 5S. Apple will reportedly add fingerprint scanning technology to the iPhone 5S (which seems like a curious addition at this point), and it’s expected to keep the same 4-inch screen as the iPhone 5.

Apple is reportedly exploring a $99 price for the cheaper iPhone. The company currently offers the iPhone 4S for that price, but it could be worth developing a phone that’s cheaper to build at that price for the higher margins.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Samsung isn’t slowing down with its niche Galaxy S4 variants: Next up is the Galaxy S4 Zoom, which basically looks like Samsung shoved a huge camera lens on its recently announced Galaxy S4 Mini.

The S4 Zoom sports a 16-megapixel camera with a 10x optical zoom. Even better, there’s built-in optical stabilization, which should make it easier to take photos in low light and video without too much shakiness. Only camera geeks need apply though, as the S4 Zoom only packs in mid-range specs like a 4.3-inch screen and a 1.5 gigahertz dual-core processor.

In many ways, the S4 Zoom looks like an evolution of Samsung’s Galaxy Camera from last year. But where that device was clearly a camera first (it also ran Android and had cellular access), the S4 Zoom is aiming to replace your smartphone. It’s around twice as thick as the Galaxy S4, but that’s to be expected given its long zoom lens.

Samsung has also put together some interesting features to help the S4 Zoom juggle its dual phone and camera identities. For example, you’ll be able to twist the phone’s zoom ring during a call to take a quick photo and send it to the person on the line. The zoom ring also gives you instant access to camera features, and not surprisingly, it’ll be the way you control the zoom levels on the phone.

Like the Galaxy Note lineup and the recently announced Galaxy S4 Active, Samsung is using this device to dabble in a slightly more specific smartphone market. Not everyone will need a thick smartphone with a decent camera lens, but for those who do there aren’t many options on the market outside of the S4 Zoom.

We’re also hearing that Nokia is gearing up to show off a 41 megapixel “EOS” Windows Phone, which likely won’t offer a huge zoom, but will rely on that high resolution to let users crop photos without losing much detail (like the 808 PureView). It’s definitely going to be an interesting year in smartphones for camera geeks.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

While it will be difficult for Android phones to compete with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One for the next few months, that doesn’t mean phone makers won’t give it a shot. Sprint is trying with the Vital, an Android phone with killer specs like a 5-inch 720p display and 13-megapixel back camera that costs $100 with a 2-year-contract.

The good spec list doesn’t stop with a good screen and back camera. This phone runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and has a 1.5-GHz dual core processor, 4G LTE connectivity, a 1-megapixel front camera, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, and a 2,500 mAh battery.

The Sprint Vital is manufactured by Chinese phone-maker ZTE, but will carry the Sprint branding and act as the company’s singular flagship Android phone. That said, it does already sell the Galaxy S4 and HTC One, so it already has Android firepower to attract customers. However, those phones start at $200 with a 2-year contract, while the Vital costs $100 with a 2-year contract.

It’s unlikely the Vital will pull away people who want the very best in Android, but its lower price tag could be attractive to folks on a budget.

The Sprint Vital launches on June 14.

Top photo via Sprint

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Parham Aarabi is a professor at the University of Toronto and CEO of ModiFace. We’ll be talking about mobile user experience and more at VentureBeat MobileBeat conference in San Francisco, Calif. July 9-10.

It’s the one thing that we do most on mobile devices that often is the most annoying: typing.  With so many different kinds of mobile keyboards, and perhaps a pending keyboard redesign from Apple debuting next week (or at least an announcement allowing third-party keyboards), it’s a good time to consider some recent (and a few not-so-recent) advances in mobile keyboard interfaces.

Intelligent Keyboards

Over the past few years, several unique keyboard interfaces have garnered significant attention and popularity. Swype, acquired by Nuance in 2011, is one such example, where users type by either touching the keys as usual or by making continuous touch gestures that cover the letters of a word. The result is surprisingly robust and user friendly (side note: this is the keyboard I personally use). There are other options, such as the Fleksy keyboard by Syntellia, or the Minuum flattened keyboard by Whirlscape, as well as SwiftKey, a very popular keyboard that is similar to Swype. The “magic” with these keyboards is that they assume user touches have a spatial error (or in the case of Swype and SwiftKey, a gestural error), and account for this when finding the most probable word. In almost all cases, these intelligent keyboards work better than their traditional counterparts. In the case of Minuum, there is an added benefit that the keyboard takes up very little space on the screen.

Dynamic Keyboards

Although not mainstream, there has been work in the area of keyboards that dynamically change based on what letters are most probable. In the simplest context, this could be visualized as a keyboard where the size of the individual keys are scaled according to the usage frequency of each letter.

A more interesting example is the Dasher keyboard (created by a research group at Cambridge University), where the user types by going through a continuous sequence of dynamically scaled letters (click here to see a quick demo). Although this may not be the fastest way of typing, it works well in situations where multi-finger typing is not possible (such as for Google Glass).

A discussion of dynamic keyboards isn’t complete without mentioning Tactus. Tactus creates physical touchscreen keyboards that can “pop-in” and out dynamically, which gives users a tactile feel for the keys. It remains to be seen whether such an interface will gain mainstream popularity, but it is certainly interesting.

Beyond Keyboards

There are methods of entering text that may do away with the keyboard altogether. One such example that we have been developing at the University of Toronto is the Extended Touch interface. Here, a user can tap a location on any surface that a mobile device is placed on, and based on the unique vibrations and sounds, we detect the exact location tapped. Although the core tap detection technology works reasonably well, there are several important challenges that will need to be overcome. However, it is possible in the future that such an interface (i.e. typing on any surface) combined with a probabilistic keyboard will make a viable method for text entry.

Parham Aarabi is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he teaches a graduate course on Advanced Mobile User Interfaces and directs the Mobile Applications Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and was twice selected as a Canada Research Chair. He has been the recipient of MIT’s TR35 “Top Young Innovator” award and the IEEE Mac Van Valkenburg Award. He is also the founder and CEO of ModiFace Inc., the leading provider of virtual face simulation and virtual try-on technology.

Smartphone keyboard image via MoneyBlogNewz/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Is Samsung’s golden smartphone era coming to an end?

Samsung’s stock lost $12 billion worth of market value (after falling around 6 percent) in South Korea Friday due to brokerage downgrades, mostly related to concerns that sales of its Galaxy S4 smartphone are slowing down, Reuters reports.

Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphones have been a smashing success for the past few years — and notably, Samsung’s the only Android manufacturer that’s making a significant profit. After the insane sales of the Galaxy S III (which sold more than 30 million units as of March), any slowdown with the Galaxy S4′s sales could be a huge problem for the company.

Samsung’s issues are similar to what Apple has faced recently — after years of consistently rising sales and profits, the market has a tough time handling any sort of slow down.

Among the brokerage beating, Morgan Stanley reduced its earnings estimates after reporting that Galaxy S4 orders were cut by 20 to 30 percent in July due to lower demand in Europe and South Korea. Woori Securities lowered Samsung’s target price by 4.8 percent and also reduced the company’s earnings per share forecasts for 2013 by 9.2 percent and 11.7 percent respectively.

Samsung also faces criticism from analysts over its lower-end Galaxy S4 models, like the Galaxy S4 mini. While there’s definitely a need for lower-end smartphones, they won’t have the same high margins as Samsung’s more expensive offerings.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

In its ongoing quest to build a smartphone for just about anyone, Samsung has debuted the Galaxy S4 Active today, a new version of its flagship smartphone built to survive grueling outdoor conditions.

The Galaxy S4 Active’s sealed components make it water resistant for 30 minutes in depths up to 3 feet, as well as dust resistant. So it should easily be able to survive a day on the beach, a long hike, and even something like rafting, which would normally spell death for a smartphone.

The phone’s headphone jack, which is typically one of the most vulnerable components when it comes to the elements, is also water-resistant. There’s also an underwater photo mode (because Samsung rightly assumes people are going to be purposefully sticking this thing under water). You’ll also be able to use the phone while wearing gloves, thanks to Samsung’s new “Glove touch” technology (a feature we’ve already seen in several other smartphones).

Under the hood, the phone’s specs seem similar to the original Galaxy S4: There’s a 1.9 gigahertz quad-core processor, 2 gigabytes of RAM, and a huge 5-inch screen.

Expect many more manufacturers to pay attention to gadget durability down the line. Sony’s recent Xperia Z smartphone is also dust and water resistant, and with the move towards wearable computing devices, durability will become all the more important. That’s a good thing for consumers, since it means our expensive devices should be able to last longer.

Samsung says the Galaxy S4 Active will be available in the U.S. and Europe later this summer. Pricing details haven’t yet been announced.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Amid disastrous profits and significant marketing struggles, HTC just can’t seem to hold onto its executives.

The company’s chief operating officer, Matthew Costello, is the latest to step down, Bloomberg reports. He’ll stay on as an executive adviser with HTC, but there’s a good chance that’s just an honorary position so it doesn’t look like he’s completely abandoning the troubled company.

Fred Liu, HTC’s head of engineering and operations, will take on Costello’s operations responsibilities. Liu will also overlook product quality and sales operations in his bigger role.

The news comes amidst HTC losing its Asia CEO, and reportedly losing its chief product officer. Additionally, the Verge reports that the company also lost execs from its communications and marketing teams over the past few months.

It’s not tough to see why executives are losing faith. HTC recently reported a 98 percent drop in profit from a year ago, and its flagship One smartphone has been plagued with production issues. It’s not all doom and gloom: The company recently reported that it sold 5 million One units in its first month, and it expects revenues to increase by $1 billion this quarter (mostly due to One sales).

Despite all of HTC’s troubles, I still think the One is the best smartphone out right now. It’s worth a look — especially since it could end up being HTC’s last great device.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It’s time to celebrate Verizon Wireless customers — soon you’ll be able to get your hands on the best smartphone on the market.

Verizon confirmed that it will offer the HTC One later this summer in a tweet this afternoon. There aren’t any other details yet, but it’s nice to see some confirmation after months of speculation.

Verizon took its sweet time announcing that it would carry the phone — it’s already available on AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile’s networks, and it was announced way back in February. The One shares a few design elements with the slightly larger Droid DNA, an HTC-built phone that Verizon launched last fall, so perhaps the carrier just wanted to give its older model a bit more time on the shelf.

The HTC One wowed me consistently in my review. Its metal design is sleek-yet-strong, it has a bunch of useful features (like stereo speakers and a great low-light camera), and it’s incredibly fast. Most importantly, it was good enough to make me give up on the iPhone 5. That’s saying a lot.

It’s coming – the HTC One will be available on the #Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network later this summer #HTCOne @HTCUSA—
Verizon Wireless (@VZWnews) June 03, 2013

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Android fans, contain yourselves.

HTC just announced a special version of its acclaimed One smartphone with a “Nexus user experience” — meaning there’s nothing getting between you and a pure Android experience. The new One will be available on the Google Play store for $599 starting June 26.

Just like the recently announced Nexus-fied Samsung Galaxy S4, the new HTC One model forgoes its proprietary Sense software for stock Android software. That means you lose some of Sense’s features, like the nifty BlinkFeed, but you get a user experience that’s like one of Google’s flagship Nexus devices.

This One model comes with 32GB of storage and runs Android 4.2.2, while existing models are currently running Android 4.1.2. It will also receive Android updates directly from Google — so you’ll get updates months ahead of other HTC One owners.

In its original incarnation, I found the HTC One to be the best smartphone on the market. Now with a pure Android option, though, there’s practically nothing to complain about (except for that high price). Expect Android fans to eat it up.

HTC also offers a SIM unlocked One model for $599 and a special Developer Edition with 64GB of storage for $649.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Android’s market share is a joke, and most tech writers aren’t getting the punchline.

That, at least, is the opinion of John Kirk, a “recovering attorney,” financial adviser, business coach, and investor who wrote an interesting column recently stating that market share in general, and Android’s market share in particular, is not an appropriate measure of success.

And that contrary to all popular opinion, Apple is “winning the smartphone wars — and winning them handily.”

That’s not what you hear from most pundits, industry analysts, or Wall Street investors these days. Rather, the news is all about how Android has won, how its market share is massively outpacing Apple’s, and how Apple has failed by slowing innovation and refusing to release cheaper and more diversified iPhones.

I wanted to understand Kirk’s position, so yesterday we chatted about Apple, Google, Android, and Wall Street.

Source: John Koetsier

Android is open for business, apparently.

VentureBeat: You stated that Android’s market share is a joke. Why?

John Kirk: It’s a reference to the old joke that you can lose money on every sale but make it up in volume.

Many companies in the Android ecosystem are losing money or, at best, breaking even. HTC, Motorola, and many of the other phone manufacturers are in that boat.

VentureBeat: But isn’t profit a trailing indicator?

Kirk: Yes, it is.

But market share isn’t necessarily a leading indicator. Profit comes from a combination of market share times margins, and people are completely ignoring margins.

VentureBeat: That’s typically explained via platforms and ecosystems, and the network effects that a bigger platform has, and that the profits are coming — at some point.

Kirk: Different business models should be scored differently.

I’m talking almost exclusively about hardware manufacturers, which I think are poorly measured by market share and should be measured by profit share. If you’re looking at Apple and companies like Motorola, HTC, and Samsung from the manufacturer perspective, Apple is winning, Samsung is in second, and everyone is in a very distant third.

Source: John Koetsier

Android meets Wall-E.

Regarding platform, there’s an assumption that market share is the only thing that matters. And yet, all the evidence indicates that Apple’s iOS has a very strong platform, even with much, much smaller market share than Android.

The way the Android advocates explain this is to say that their theory is sound and that profit share must follow market share and that it’s going to happen any day now … but there’s no evidence that it actually is happening.

Saying that market share is the only thing that matters in platforms is like saying that acreage is the only thing that matters in real estate. Sure, the size of a property matters, but the location matters more. And sure, the size of market share matters, but the quality of the market share matters more.

In other words, Apple owns the high end of the market.

VentureBeat: One example that platform effects might be starting to impact iOS and Android is Google Music. Apple can’t seem to get a streaming music deal done, but Google was able to.

Kirk: Just because Apple hasn’t done it yet doesn’t mean they won’t do it. I think the music industry would much, much rather have Apple’s ecosystem than Android’s because that’s where the money is.

I’m not saying that Google Music won’t be OK, but it doesn’t impress me. It’s not necessarily another Google TV, but I don’t think it’ll be that big a deal.

Market share is like advertising … a huge audience is fine, but it’s much better to have a very focused, targeted audience.

VentureBeat: Are Google and Amazon wrong? They’re betting on the value of an ecosystem being a function of the value that flows through it — media, apps, books, ads, commerce — not just the value of the device it’s on.

Kirk: Google is playing a different game and wants to be scored differently … and it should be scored differently.

But Apple is winning in manufacturing … and that doesn’t mean that Google is losing in the advertising war. In fact they are winning, too — they’ve got exactly what they want.

It’s a mistake to think that Android is the only platform that matters to Google … in fact they’re spending a ton of resources on iOS apps as well.

VentureBeat: Leveraging a high profit share on a low market share is certainly efficient. But is it safe?

Kirk: There are two possible answers to that.

You can look at the PC wars versus the Mac, which everyone says that Apple lost … but what Apple “lost” by losing that war was winning 45 percent of the current market’s profits! So despite the fact that currently they’re at 8 percent market share, they’re doing very well.

Apple has historically demonstrated that they’ve been able to not just survive but thrive on limited market share.

I don’t think that history is repeating … it seems much more likely that we’re ending up with a duopoly rather than a monopoly, and that Apple’s ecosystem is large enough to be self-sustaining right now.

So what Apple needs to do is continue to add value to its ecosystem.

VentureBeat: If you’re right, why does Wall Street disagree with you?

Kirk: Wall Street had Apple valued at $700 last fall, and they have Apple valued at under $400 six months later.

So Wall Street was either wrong about Apple then, or they’re wrong about Apple now, or they were wrong both times. You shouldn’t judge the business value of a company by Wall Street’s variable estimates — you need to judge the fundamentals.

Frankly, if you’re investing in Wall Street, you need to be lucky as hell.

Image credit: Jesus Belzunce Gomez/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

We spend 58 minutes talking on or staring down at our smartphones, each and every day, according to a new survey by Experian. Surprisingly, almost half of that is good old-fashioned communicating via voice and text.

And yes, there are significant difference between iPhone and Android owners.

iPhone folks used their devices 26 minutes more than Android owners each and every day, according to the almost 13,000 consumers who participated in the study. Android users visit more websites, while iPhone users use more apps. And iPhone owners spend more time texting, e-mailing, using the camera, and social networking.

Source: Experian Marketing Services

Quality time spent with your smartphone.

Overall, we collectively spend more than half our phone time on things phones couldn’t do well just a decade ago. And the 46 percent of the time spent talking and texting by this consumer audience is probably quite a bit more than your average early adopter, who is hardly speaking on their phone at all, using it instead to play games, Facebook, and Twitter.

That’s a problem for Google’s Sergei Brin, who said smartphones are emasculating and a “nervous habit” just a couple of months ago during a TED talk.

“You’re just rubbing this featureless piece of glass,” he said.

Emasculation doesn’t seem to be related to the core problem that Google’s Glass is designed to solve — that we’re buried with our heads down every spare moment, gazing at that featureless piece of glass. But the nervous habit is definitely one that Google is attempting to replace with instant-on, instantly available information right in front our eyes.

I wonder what Brin would say about smartphone ultrausers, an astonishing 8.6 percent of us who are on their mobile phones more than 40 hours a week. Presumably, they are completely sexless.

The good news, I assume, is that Google Glass will restore our masculinity (and, I assume) femininity.

Just as soon as it’s commercially available.

photo credit: Mark Nye, Club of Human Beings via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Only a few months after Samsung debuted its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, the company is gearing up to launch a new set of devices.

Samsung announced this morning that it will hold an event in London on June 20, where it will highlight new Galaxy (Android-based) and ATIV (Windows-based) gadgets. For those not local, it’ll be livestreamed at Samsung’s mobile YouTube page.

There’s a chance we could see a new Galaxy Note smartphone — the Note 2 was announced last August — and perhaps a refresh of the company’s Galaxy tablet line. Over the past few years, Samsung has been increasingly focused on its Note tablet lineup, but the company could potentially refresh its Galaxy Tab slates with a lower price to compete with other cheap Android tablets.

As for Ativ, Samsung’s brand for all of its Windows devices, we could potentially see Samsung explore new tablet and Ultrabook designs. Its Ativ smart PCs sport removable screens, so they can function as both tablets and notebooks. At this point, I’m excited to see what Samsung comes up with for the Windows 8 Ultrabook ecosystem.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Apple’s countdown (err, up) to 50 billion apps ended today with one lucky winner, as yet unannounced, bagging $10,000 in iTunes money for apps, media, and more.

It’s a good thing Apple hit the number today, because if they waited even another week, the Cupertino company might have been second-best to Google’s Android. At Google’s developer-focused I/O conference today, Google’s Hugo Barra announced that Google Play has just passed 48 billion app installs — and had a massive 2.5 billion just last month.

Just as Apple has done before for major app store download thresholds, it’s giving away the $10,000 gift card to a lucky iOS user who downloaded the 50 billionth app. In addition, 50 lucky people who where the next to download an app have won a $50 gift card — even if they don’t know it yet.

Don’t go rushing to try to be one of those 50, of course … there are about 1,000 app installs on iOS each and ever second.

This is probably the last major app install number that Apple will trumpet to the skies, as Android will be making the big news from now on. At the same Google I/O conference, Android chief Sundar Pichai said that Android has now reached 900 million device activations — far more than Apple.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

In the first quarter of 2013, a third of smartphones sold in the U.S. were prepaid, double the amount from the previous year. Apple’s share of the prepaid market? A mere 8 percent.

People are just trying to get the best long-term deal, says Stephen Baker at the NPD Group:

“In a quarter without a major product launch from either of the two market leaders, consumers refocused their attention away from the postpaid wars and toward finding the best value for their dollar.”

Those two market leaders, of course, are Samsung and Apple. But Apple is hardly even a participant in the prepaid market.

The portion of the market sold prepaid has been increasing for years, says Baker.

“Sales of prepaid smartphones doubled from the previous year, continuing a string of more than 12 quarters of triple-digit sales increases.”

Apple’s share looks tiny, especially in a U.S. market where it has dominant market share, but it has quadrupled year-over-year since the first quarter of 2012. However, with the prepaid market growing so quickly, Apple’s latest –and typically expensive — phones have not been the big sellers. Rather, it’s the year-old iPhone 4S that is Apple’s leading contender in prepaid, just as one of Samsung’s top prepaid sellers is the now somewhat aged Galaxy S II.

Even outdated models get pricy — the iPhone 4S can cost $400 to $600 unlocked and brand-new, while the Galaxy S II can be between $300 and $400. But consumers make up the heavy upfront cost by saving on cheaper plans, potentially saving hundreds, if not a thousand dollars over the lifetime of their phones.

For Apple, however, capitalizing fully on this fast-emerging market trend means bringing out a cheaper iPhone that can be sold as a new, current model-year device at a price point closer to Android models from Samsung and LG. And Samsung has some work to do, too — while its market share remained stable from 2012 to 2013, competitors such as Apple and HTC have gained share.

Where are people buying prepaid phones? Mostly at retail, NPD says.

“Prepaid has proven to be a real winner for national retailers,” said Baker. “The easy purchase cycle and grab-and-go nature of the product play into the strength of large-format stores. Certainly, companies like AT&T recognize this shift in purchasing as they ramp up their focus on prepaid phones with their recently announced ‘Aio’ product branding initiative.”

If you’re looking forward to tons of new gadgets and big product news at this year’s Google I/O developer conference, you may have to adjust your expectations. But that could actually end up being a very good thing for Google.

The company’s new Android head, Sundar Pichai, said in an interview with Wired yesterday that there won’t be many new products shown off at I/O. That means no new version of the Android OS, and no new gadgets like the failed Nexus Q.

“Both on Android and Chrome, we’re going to focus this I/O on all of the kinds of things we’re doing for developers, so that they can write better things,” he said. “We will show how Google services are doing amazing things on top of these two platforms.”

While it may be disappointing for some, the focus away from big product blowouts at I/O may actually be better for Google in the long run.

If anything, last year’s blockbuster I/O showing was an anomaly for Google — and when it came to setting expectations for future events, it probably hurt the company more than it helped. While that insane live Google Glass skydive was indeed amazing, the company also wasted plenty of time, energy, and goodwill on the Nexus Q, a baffling product that Google (wisely) never released.

Ultimately, it felt like Google was trying desperately to out-Apple Apple with last year’s keynote. Perhaps this year, it won’t feel the need to try so darn hard.

There’s plenty of time for Google to host big media events. At I/O, the company would be better off selling the gospel of its services to the thousands of excited developers in attendance. In particular, Google needs to convince developers to prioritize Android more (most devs focus on iOS apps first) and to build more Google+ apps.

Apple may be taking a similar approach this year with its own developer conference (which sold out in just two minutes). Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that there won’t be any new hardware announcements at WWDC this year.

Here are a few things we expect to see at I/O this year, as well as several things we predict won’t show up.

More about Android’s future

Sundar Pichai got everyone thinking about Android again with Monday’s interview, and you can tell he was setting up the pieces for what Google will tackle during this week’s I/O keynote.

Pichai dismissed talk of combining Android and Chrome OS, but when it comes to Android’s biggest challenge, he noted an interesting dilemma: “Without changing the open nature of Android, how do we help improve the whole world’s end-user experience?”

It sounds like he’s trying to figure out new ways to move Android’s design forward without leaving behind too many Android devices. Android is already heavily fragmented — one quick glimpse at Google’s Android platform tracker shows almost half of the devices out there aren’t yet running Android 4.0 — so Pichai is probably worried about making that situation worse.

A new Nexus 7

Google’s inexpensive Nexus 7 tablet was by far the most significant announcement made at last year’s I/O conference. It didn’t have the flash of a giant skydiving sequence — but then it didn’t need it. The prospect of an inexpensive and powerful Android tablet was more than enough to prove its worth. The Nexus 7 proved a cheap tablet didn’t have to feel cheap, and it ultimately went on to become one of the most successful Android tablets.

This year, expect Google to show off a newer Nexus 7 that’s faster, thinner, and perhaps even cheaper. We’ve seen rumors circulating about such a revamp, and it makes sense for Google to announce a new Nexus 7 now. Just imagine the attention a $150 revamaped Nexus 7 would get. (And even better, imagine if Google could continue selling the existing model for just $100 or less.)

No new Nexus phone

The Nexus 4 debuted last fall, so it’s way too soon for Google to show off yet another Nexus device. I won’t rule out an LTE Nexus 4, though — the lack of LTE was my biggest gripe in my review of the Nexus 4, and by this point Google may have managed to score LTE support with carriers.

There’s also word that Google-owned Motorola is working on some killer smartphones for this year, which could end up overshadowing whatever new Nexus is in the works. Don’t expect those Motorola devices at I/O either — if they’re as interesting as we’re hearing, they’ll get their own blowout media event in a few months.

No more Nexus Q talk

Come on, now.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It’s been five months since BlackBerry changed its name and launched its first BlackBerry 10 smartphones, the Z10 and Q10. Today the company is holding its annual BlackBerry Live conference (formerly called BlackBerry World) in Orlando (yes, the day before Google’s I/O developer conference begins).

Proving that BlackBerry is targeting all markets, Heins announced the company’s first budget BlackBerry 10 device, the Q5. It’ll come in red, white, black, and pink, and Heins describes it as a device “built for emerging markets.” It looks like a colorful version of the company’s previous BlackBerry Curve line.

The Q5 will launch globally this summer, but no pricing was announced. (Expect it to be cheap, obviously.)

“Some of you said last year would be the last conference for BlackBerry. I’m happy to say, they were wrong,” said BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins on stage at the event. “We are not only still here, we are firing on all cylinders as a company… We’re definitely in the race. In one year, we’ve brought this company to a profitable quarter.”

BlackBerry needs all the help it can get. I loathed the Z10, which was so half-baked it felt like a device the company should have released two years ago. The keyboard equipped Q10 seemed like a better fit for the company’s audience, but it wasn’t released until several months after the Z10.

“We will show the world that Blackberry understands mobile better than anyone else … it is in our DNA,” Heins said. “BlackBerry 10 as a platform is built for mobile.”

BlackBerry now has more than 120,000 apps in its app store, and it’s getting popular apps like Skype with the recent BlackBerry 10.1 update. The company also lets developers easily run Android apps on BlackBerry 10, so it’ll be interesting to see just how many of those apps are actually from Google’s platform.

Taking the term “mobile computing” a bit literally, BlackBerry also showed off a concept Bentley vehicle powered entirely by QNX, the operating system at the core of BlackBerry 10. Heins showed off two-way video calling with full stereo sound, which also took advantage of the car’s large touchscreen display.

For a more real-world view of what QNX can do, Heins was join on stage by Johann Jungwirth, the CEO of Mercedes Benz’s North American R&D group. Jungwirth pointed out that QNX is already being used in some Mercedes cars. “All of the cars we are bringing to market now are connected and have the ability to be ‘always on,’” he said.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It came as a shock.

In March, Andy Rubin, one of Android’s co-founders and the man who led it to world dominance, announced he was stepping back from his role spearheading the mobile OS. His replacement: Google’s Chrome OS head Sundar Pichai (pictured).

Google didn’t have much to say about what that massive leadership change meant for Android, and Pichai was strangely quiet about the shift as well. Now just a few days before Google’s I/O developer conference kicks off, Wired’s Steven Levy has finally gotten Pichai to chat about Android’s future.

The conversation covers most of what you’d expect, including why Google is developing two operating systems at once (Chrome OS and Android), Pichai’s thoughts on Facebook Home, and the status of Android’s revenue model. Here are a few things we learned from the interview:

Pichai sees Chrome OS and Android similar to how Apple handles OS X and iOS: “Users care about applications and services they use, not operating systems,” he said. Having two operating systems lets Google be nimble as computing changes over the next few years to include more devices, sensors, and displays.

There may be a more “synergistic answer” for juggling Android and Chrome OS down the line: Google is likely thinking about how it can eventually streamline both operating systems. My guess? Chrome OS will likely be absorbed into Android down the line.

Pichai’s biggest challenge with Android is improving the entire world’s user experience (without making it more closed): It sounds like Google is thinking hard about how to make Android a more uniform experience like iOS and Windows Phone without affecting Android’s openness.

Pichai finds Facebook Home “exciting,“ but hints that such Android customizations may not stick around forever:

“Some users really want this,” he said. “We don’t want to get in the way of that. [But] in the end, we have to provide a consistent experience. As part of that, with every release of Android, we do go through changes. So we may make changes over time. But if this is what users want, I think Facebook will be able to do it. We want it to be possible for users to get what they want.”

In that statement, you can feel the tension we’ve heard from plenty of Googlers around Facebook Home. While it’s a great way to show off Android’s customizability, Home also shows how easy it is for competitors to completely co-opt Google’s platform.

Pichai uses a Samsung Galaxy S4 (but not the cheesy eye-tracking feature): He also doesn’t seem too worried about Samsung’s Android dominance (it’s basically the only company making a significant revenue from Android devices). Pichai points to Microsoft and Intel’s “very codependent” relationship as a historical example of how two companies can be a bit over-reliant on each other.

Facebook’s HTML5 snub doesn’t affect how Pichai views HTML5: “There are other companies with very successful apps that have taken an HTML 5 approach on mobile and done really well,” he said. “For instance, a lot of magazines have switched from native back to HTML 5 for the mobile apps.”

Google isn’t too worried about generating more revenue from Android: Pichai points out that Android serves as a gateway to Google’s core services, which makes it inherently useful to the company. Additionally, he noted that Google quadrupled payments to Google Play developers in 2012.

I/O is going to be less about gadgets this year: Basically, don’t expect anything like last year’s crazy Google Glass skydiving stunt. Google also doesn’t have any big product or operating system updates to announce, Pichai said.

Photo: Google+

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Finally, there’s an Android phone that doesn’t make me miss anything about the iPhone. It’s called the HTC One, and it’s the best Android phone I’ve ever laid hands on.

It might also be the best smartphone I’ve ever used.

That’s saying a lot. Until now, the iPhone 5 embodied everything I wanted in an ideal smartphone: a solid-yet-elegant design, seemingly limitless speed, and a great screen. Android phones have certainly come close, but up until now there’s always been something that inexplicably held them back: the Nexus 4’s lack of LTE, the Galaxy S4’s cheap-feeling plastic case, or Android’s own design immaturity until Android 4.0.

What makes the HTC One so great? Simply put, it’s a phone that never leaves me wanting. It has a great camera, it’s freakishly fast, and its screen is fantastic without needing to be oversized. It also packs in several features I never thought I’d want in a smartphone but that I’ve found myself coming back to quite a bit.

Did I mention it’s gorgeous? Holding the HTC One in your hand will instantly make your current phone seem cheap and dated. Yes — even if your current phone is an iPhone 5.

Perhaps most of all, I appreciate HTC’s restraint. Unlike Samsung’s pile-on of features and questionable technology in the Galaxy S4, just about everything in the HTC One feels like a deliberate choice meant to create a better experience. That’s important, as it may just be the company’s last chance to turn its dismal fortune around.

It’s just too bad that most buyers will probably ignore it.

The good: It inspires pure gadget lust

The HTC One is so striking that strangers didn’t hesitate to ask me questions about it. “What is that?,” was a common refrain among New Yorkers as I was testing the phone throughout the city. I could tell they noticed it wasn’t just another Galaxy S or iPhone. It was something completely different — and they just had to know more.

One young couple I talked to, both Android owners, immediately noticed that the HTC One felt more substantial than the Galaxy S phones because of its solid metal case. They also appreciated the clean design of the phone, as well as HTC’s Sense software, which they noted was more tasteful and less intrusive than other Android phones they’ve used. These weren’t gadget geeks either, which made the conversation all the more intriguing.

I’ve tested plenty of phones in New York City, and the HTC One has managed to get me more attention than any other phone from random passersby.

You can chalk up its immediate appeal to that case, which is carved out of a single piece of metal and evokes Apple’s MacBook Air. HTC stacks the phone’s hardware to take full advantage of its limited internal space, which makes for a slightly rounded rear that fits comfortably into your hand. The HTC One feels like an evolved form of last year’s One S, which was one of my favorite Android phones so far. (Since it was only available on T-Mobile in the U.S., most people didn’t even know it existed.)

From afar, the HTC One looks similar to the iPhone 5, but up close it’s distinctly different. The One’s 4.7-inch screen commands most of its front, and it’s flanked by noticeable-yet-attractive speaker grills. Its screen is bright and vibrant with a sharp 1080p display. It even looked flawless under direct sunlight while wearing polarized sunglasses.

I initially thought the One’s stereo speakers were a gimmick (who really uses their phone like a boombox?), but I’ve grown to enjoy its ability to project decent audio. It’s particularly great for watching YouTube videos with friends — and it’ll amaze people used to tinny smartphone speakers. The One also includes Beats Audio support, but, as always, its impact on music quality felt negligible aside from making things a bit louder.

Under the hood, the One packs in a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor running at 1.7 gigahertz, as well as 2 gigabytes of RAM. Those are the same basic specs as Samsung’s Galaxy S4, and you can be sure that most other new Android phones will match it as well. For the most part, that means you can expect similarly fast speeds across most modern Android devices. The big differentiators for smartphones now are build quality, style, and features — all of which the One excels at.

It’s been a while since I’ve been unable to keep my hands off of a piece of tech, but the One’s combination of confident style, speed, and useful features has made it my go-to gadget over the last few weeks (beating out the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini).

Pages: 1 2 3

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Nokia continued its befuddling marketing roll-out for the Lumia 928 today — even though we’ve seen ads for it already, as well as a Nokia-produced camera comparison — by announcing that it will hit Verizon Wireless next week on May 16.

Nokia is also holding a large press event in London next week, which the entire tech world assumed would be centered on the Lumia 928. The company could still use the event to further show off the Lumia 928 (or surprise everyone by showing off something completely new, like a Windows 8 tablet).

In a blog post today, Nokia confirmed that the Lumia 928 sports most of the features of its predecessor, the Lumia 920, while packing in a slightly redesigned case and xenon camera flash. The 928 features a 4.5-inch screen, as well as support for wireless charging accessories. I’m just hoping its lighter than the Lumia 920 — as intriguing as that phone was, it felt like a brick compared to other modern smartphones.

While it’s a slightly minor upgrade, the Lumia 928 is significant because it’s Verizon’s first high-end Lumia smartphone. Up until now, Nokia has focused on AT&T for debuting its top-end Lumias, while Verizon has had slim pickings with mid-range devices like last year’s Lumia 820.

Now Nokia can target an even bigger audience for its most desirable devices (although this marketing campaign probably won’t do much to woo people away from the iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4).

The Lumia 928 will cost $100 on Verizon (after a $50 mail-in rebate) and comes with a $25 credit for the Windows Phone app store.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Take a deep breath, hold on to your hat, and take a seat: Amazon is building a smartphone.

Still there?

Sorry for the big shocker. Almost a year after reports that Amazon was testing smartphones in Asia, half a year after rumors Amazon was buying a smartphone chip processor, a year after more reports that Amazon was building its own smartphone, five months after unveiling a notifications system that would look really nice on a smartphone, and six months after probably wild speculation that Amazon was going to unveil a smartphone for the pre-Christmas shopping spree in 2012, there’s yet another report that Amazon is building a smartphone.

But this one has a 3D screen.

The Wall Street Journal says that Amazon is building at least two smartphones, including a high-end model with 3D graphics and retina-tracking technology so that users can navigate content by “using just their eyes.” Plus an audio-only “streaming content device.”

Harrumph.

Amazon is almost certainly working on a smartphone and almost certainly planning to release it in 2013. There’s just too much smoke for there not to be fire. And having made its bet on digital content being the growth engine of the company’s future success — 12 of the 15 highlights in Amazon’s recent earnings release were about digital content — a smartphone that makes use of Amazon’s recently expanded app store and burgeoning virtual shelves of ebooks, TV shows, movies, and all other forms of digital content makes way too much sense.

But a couple grains of salt.

Amazon hasn’t made its bones in the tablet market by offering the absolutely latest and greatest technology but by presenting a solid product at a rock-bottom price. So I’m a little skeptical about all the wild 3D speculation — especially because that could be a sweet datapoint plant for the company to identify leak sources. And, in reality, a company the size of Amazon, like Apple, is working on many different projects at any given time. Some of them will come to market, and some of them won’t.

One company that can’t be happy about Amazon impending smartphone plans, however, has to be Google. Amazon has essentially hijacked Android for its Kindle offerings, taking the open-source mobile operating system that Google has developed, stripping out the Google app store, Google apps, and Google branding, and replacing them with its own offerings. Amazon will doubtless adopt the exact same strategy with any smartphone play — as Samsung might as well.

And, given the fact that Kindle is probably the leading Android-based tablet, it has the potential to do well in smartphones as well.

Of course, incumbent leader in Android sales Samsung might have a thing or two to say about that.

Image credit: Brian Sawyer/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Global shipments of smartphones, tablets, and laptops hit 308.7 million in the first quarter of 2013, with 216.3 million smartphones, 50.5 million laptops, and 41.9 million tablets shipped, according to the latest numbers from Canalys.

Once again, Android accounted for 75.6 percent of all smartphone shipments, and once again, Samsung is killing it.

The Korean smartphone king grew smartphone shipments by 64.3 percent year-over-year while shipping 82.2 million tablets, smartphones, and notebooks combined. Meanwhile, mobile rival Apple grew its iPhone shipments by a shockingly low 6.7 percent, hitting single digit growth in a market which has overall growth of 37.4 percent.

Let me say that again: Apple is at single digit growth in a market growing at almost 40 percent.

Source: John Koetsier

Android meets Wall-E.

If there’s any doubt why Apple’s stock in moldering in the mid-400′s after hitting highs last year of over $700, that’s why. And with Tim Cook basically telling Wall Street that Apple won’t ship any significant new products until this fall, or even 2014, the situation is not likely to change.

‘Despite its slowing growth, Apple still shipped over 37 million iPhones,’ Canalys analyst Pete Cunningham said in a statement. ‘But HTC and Samsung have raised the bar with their latest handsets and Apple needs to respond with its next iPhone. The iPhone user interface is now six years old and badly in need of a refresh.”

Tablets are one area of slight comfort for Cupertino.

Apple retains 46.4 percent of the tablet market, Canalys says, shipping 19.4 million tablets. That’s down from 58 percent market share in the first quarter of 2012, and once again, in a market growing at over 106 percent year-over year, Apple grew less than others — about 60 percent growth year-over-year.

‘Spearheaded by Google and Amazon, the commoditization of the tablet market has happened far quicker than that of the wider PC market,’ Canalys analyst Tim Coulling said.

The upshot?

Without significant new Apple products, major new product categories, and a much more intense Apple effort to produce a wider range of phones and tablets that the market is looking for right now, Apple share will continue to drop.

And one other interesting tidbit in the Canalys data:

Calculating operating system share over all “smart devices,” lumping in smartphones, tablets, and laptops does provide interesting insights. With that view of the industry, Microsoft ends up with an 18.1 percent OS market share — a very different proposition than high-90-percent share in the laptop/desktop world.

Image credit: Louish Pixel/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

OK, we get it, Nokia. Your Lumia cameras are pretty darned great for low-light shooting.

Nokia has just released a video showing just how well the camera on its new Lumia 928 Windows Phone performs at night compared to the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III (I guess even Nokia is waiting in line for a Galaxy S4).

Not surprisingly, the Lumia 928′s 8.7 megapixel PureView shooter smokes the competition with sharper images, better colors, and less blur (the Lumia’s optical stabilization is a big help with that). It’s based on technology from Nokia’s 808 PureView phone, which was notable for its astounding 41 MP camera. Unfortunately, we still don’t know how much different the 928′s camera is from the Lumia 920, which had an 8MP PureView camera.

Nokia seems to have learned its lesson from its controversial faked Lumia 920 promotional video, which ended up overshadowing much of that phone’s great camera tech. It looks like the company shot this latest video right on the Lumia 928 at the Adventureland theme park in New York.

Nokia will officially unveil the Lumia 928 next week in London. Judging from a premature print ad, it’ll eventually land on Verizon Wireless in the U.S.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

After a successful collaboration with the Nexus 4 Android smartphone, Google may also be working with LG for yet another Nexus device, reports the Korea Times.

Let’s be clear: The Korea Times is often wrong, but it would make sense for Google to tap LG’s services again. The Nexus 4 was a solidly built Android phone — and most importantly, Google and LG were able to offer it at a bargain off-contract price of $299. (It’s unclear how much Google subsidized that price, but I’d wager that LG also tried to reduce manufacturing costs as much as it could.)

But after spending a few months with the Nexus 4, its design issues began to grate on me. Its glass back just felt cheap (and kitschy with that reflective grid), and the soft touch trim felt boring (and was quick to get grimy). And let’s not even get into its crummy camera. Overall, the Nexus 4 constantly reminded me that LG doesn’t really innovate with its designs — it just tries to copy the good stuff from other manufacturers.

The Nexus 4′s lack of LTE was its biggest problem when I reviewed it, but over time LG’s design inexperience ended up hurting more.

It’d be much more interesting if Google worked with HTC again for a Nexus phone, especially after the impressive HTC One showed that it can still innovate. HTC has also come a long way since the days of the Nexus One. But given HTC’s current financial troubles, Google would probably want a more stable partner for its next Nexus device.

We’re also hearing that Google-owned Motorola is working on a killer “X Phone” for release this year, which could end up being the Android device Google wants to push more this year. If the X Phone project is as significant as we’ve been hearing, it’d probably make sense for Google to work on a minor Nexus upgrade with LG once again.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Mobile phone theft is a massive and growing problem, accounting for more than 40 percent of all thefts in San Francisco in 2012. But is that a good thing for mobile carriers like AT&T and Verizon?

According to one police chief, yes.

District of Columbia police chief Cathy Lanier says that carriers benefit from phone theft, going so far as to insinuate that they are somehow complicit in the underground economy of stolen mobile devices.

“The carriers are not innocent in this whole game,” Lanier told the NY Times. “They are making profit off this.”

Our own reporter, Christina Farr, was recently robbed of her iPhone 5 at knife-point in downtown San Francisco. Police who took her statement were “nonchalant,” simply having far too much experience with similar crimes. San Francisco and New York Police have launched special initiatives and teams to curb mobile crime in response to the influx of thefts.

But what about carriers?

The contention seems to be that carriers should be doing more to identify stolen phones as they enter the underground resale market, often on auction sites like eBay, and are activated by new owners. Carriers have established a national stolen phone database that works by tracking stolen phones’ IMEI numbers, a International Mobile Station Equipment Identity that identifies a mobile device independently of the owner and can be used to block network access to a device that has been reported stolen.

One problem, however, is that full integration is not scheduled to take place until November. Australia, for example, had similar technology in place country-wide a full decade ago, in 2003. In addition, many Verizon and Sprint devices don’t yet have IMEI numbers.

Carriers say that the full database will help prevent crime, that they do care about cell phone theft, and that it is not just an excuse to sell another phone or register another subscriber.

Image credit: Dave Hosford/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

HTC’s first quarter saw a massive decline in revenue and profit — but the company expects a rosier second quarter.

The Taiwanese phone maker reported first quarter revenues of $1.45 billion with just $2.88 million in profit (which it previewed last month), a 98 percent fall in profit from last year. The numbers are also a huge decline from the already low $34.4 million in profit from HTC’s previous quarter.

The bright side: The company projects that second quarter revenues will jump to $2.4 billion (and hopefully profits will follow).

“We’re focusing a lot in terms of marketing,” said Peter Chou, HTC’s chief executive, during the company’s earnings call today, according to the Wall Street Journal.

HTC used to be the top Android smartphone maker in the U.S., but Samsung’s popular Galaxy S series of phones, together with the iPhone, quickly eroded HTC’s market share. Now, HTC doesn’t even rank among the top 5 smartphone vendors (when it comes to phone shipments), according to IDC.

The company’s troubles are particularly crushing since it just debuted the best Android phone I’ve ever laid hands on: the HTC One. My full review of that phone is coming soon.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Even Samsung admits that the Galaxy S4 isn’t a “radical difference” from the Galaxy S III.

Instead, the phone is “more of an evolution,” a Samsung employee says in a new video detailing the Galaxy S4′s design story.

The video offers an intriguing glimpse into how Samsung’s designers think — though it all sounds very similar to what we heard around last year’s Galaxy S III. Once again, Samsung was inspired by many design aspects found in nature, and it attempted to figure out the perfect way to make the phone your ideal “life companion.”

In my review, I found the Galaxy S4 to be a solid crowd-pleaser. For its next phone, though, I hope Samsung focuses more on good taste and better build quality rather than cramming in every feature under the sun.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Samsung’s Galaxy S4 smartphone is about to hit stores everywhere and will no doubt be a popular phone choice for consumers. Thankfully, if any buyer needs to get the thing fixed, the repairs shouldn’t be too hard, according to iFixit.

iFixit routinely tears down the hottest new phones to give us a peak inside these devices and let us know if the damned things can be fixed. Among recently launched Android phones, the two top contenders are the HTC One and the Galaxy S4. iFixit gave the HTC One a 1 out of 10 repairability score (the worst possible rating). The Galaxy S4, by comparison, got an 8 out of 10 repairability score in today’s breakdown.

The Galaxy S4 is much easier to repair because it has a removable battery, has just 11 screws inside, and has mostly easy-to-replace components. The only major drawback is the display panel, which is fused to glass and a display frame.

Here are the most important takeaways:

• The battery can be replaced in seconds, without any tools.
• Very easy to open and access internal components.
• There are only 11 screws in the entire device, all standard Phillips #0 (no proprietary or security sizes).
• Most of the smaller components are modular and can be replaced individually, but several of them are adhered in place, increasing replacement difficulty.
• The glass is fused to both the display and the display frame, increasing repair costs.
• You’ll have to go through the entire phone in order to replace the front panel, since everything is built into the back of it.

And if you really wanna geek out, here are all the main components inside the S4:

• 5″ display with a resolution of 1920-by-1080 at 441 ppi (just shy of the HTC One’s 468 ppi)
• 16, 32, or 64GB of internal storage, expandable with up to 64GB of external microSDXC storage
• 2GB RAM
• 13 MP rear-facing camera and 2 MP front-facing camera
• Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T 1.9 GHz Quad-Core CPU
• Qualcomm MDM9215M 4G GSM/UMTS/LTE modem
• Qualcomm PM8917 power management
• ARM Holdings MBG965H
• Samsung K3QF2F200E 2GB LPDDR3 RAM (we suspect the Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T 1.9 GHz Quad-Core CPU lurks below)
• STMicroelectronics 011914
• ATMEL UC128L5
• Qualcomm WCD9310 audio codec
• Skyworks 77619 power amplifier module for quad-band GSM/EDGE
• Qualcomm WTR1605L seven-band 4G LTE chip (same one found in the Nexus 4)
• SWA GNF09
• Broadcom 20794S1A standalone NFC chip
• Maxim MAX77803 microcontroller
• Silicon Image 8240BO MHL 2.0 transmitter
• Qualcomm PM8821 power management IC

Photos via iFixit

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Apple and Google aren’t the only ones benefiting from the smartphone revolution. Qualcomm, which makes mobile processors and other components powering smartphones, is also cashing in big.

Qualcomm reported a year-over-year revenue jump of 24 percent in its second quarter earnings report today, up to $6.12 billion from $4.94 billion. Given just how closely Qualcomm’s fate is tied to the mobile industry, it’s not a huge surprise to see its revenues flying high.

Qualcomm also made a big splash at CES earlier this year, with chief executive Paul Jacobs taking over Steve Ballmer’s traditional keynote spot (that certainly didn’t stop Ballmer from stopping by though). The company hasn’t been too vocal about promoting its brand until this year. Now Qualcomm is making sure it’s practically synonymous with the success of mobile.

Total device sales (those from Qualcomm’s licensees) for the quarter were up 18 percent to $61.1 billion, while sales of Qualcomm’s mobile chipsets increased 14 percent. The company reported “strong traction” of its Snapdragon 600 and 800 processors, but didn’t offer up any details in the initial earnings report.

Don’t expect Qualcomm’s growth to slow down anytime soon. Its chips power the latest high-end smartphones, Samsung’s Galaxy S4, HTC’s One, and BlackBerry’s Z10, and we’ll be seeing them in even more devices throughout the year. At this point, the company has a huge head start on Nvidia’s Tegra 4 mobile chip, its closest competitor in terms of power and efficiency.

We’re following Qualcomm’s earnings call which is going on now, so check back for more news.

Photo: CEA President Gary Shapiro with Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs at his batshit CES 2013 keynote