Photo: Google

Following the admitted mistake Google made in their release of their flagship smartphone, the Nexus One, it comes as a surprise that the firm would be having another shot at the mobile phone market. They have now announced the release of the Samsung-made Nexus S, along with the latest version of their mobile OS called Gingerbread. Unlike their failed attempt at selling their smartphone exclusively via the web, Google aim to sell the Nexus S at Carphone Warehouse.

Quickly overtaken

The specs for the Nexus S smartphone aren’t too impressive. Most manufacturers are aiming at producing Android devices with dual-core processors for release in 2011. Dual-core processors will be an important feature for mobile phones in the upcoming year, which will offer greater speed, performance and the possibility of high definition video recording, so the Nexus S will fall behind.

No extra memory

The Nexus S, which has on-board memory storage of 16GB, doesn’t have a MicroSD card slot. The option of expendable memory has become a regular feature with all previously launched Android phones and the lack of this option could work against them.

The NFC feature

An interesting piece of technology called Near Field Communication is included in the Nexus S smartphone. This technology uses a chip that communicates with other chips stored on movie posters or other advertisements, which could be scanned to forward the user to a link on their mobile web browser. The NFC feature could also be used to pay for small transactions, like groceries or transport, but it may be a bit premature as the technology is still in its testing phase.

Similar appearance

Google’s Nexus S looks quite similar to the Samsung Galaxy S phone, which is one of the more popular Android handsets of 2010. This similarity could see consumers choose the cheaper and older Samsung model.

Worth the price tag?

There are plenty of other smartphones with more appealing specs than the Nexus S, so it’s not likely that the majority of consumers will fork out extra for Google’s latest offering. Also, giving Carphone Warehouse exclusivity on the phone could do its sales figures more harm than good.

Photo: Android

It’s really difficult ignoring the smartphone space. Never in the age of the Internet has competition been this fierce for a market this huge.

So the big question, of course, is who is winning? Google Android sure has a case, with a reported 200,000 new handsets being activated daily and the platform making far more money than it loses, according to CEO Eric Schmidt.

One-fifth of a million every day!

At the Techonomy conference, Eric Schmidt has been open about Google’s strategy and plans. More specifically, he’s spoken quite freely about Google Android and its success as a platform. It’s easy to do that when you can use a major gathering of the leading technology business minds to announce that your company activates 200,000 new handsets on its platform daily. Yes, that’s one million new Android handsets activated weekly. (Take your time to recover – we’ll still be here.)

TechCrunch managed to snag the money quote from Eric Schmidt’s chatting about Android and monetary get-back. Schmidt said: ‘Trust me that revenue is large enough to pay for all of the Android activities and a whole bunch more.’ What’s particularly absurd about that is Google doesn’t sell royalty to the semi- open-sourced Google Android platform; it makes all its money from search (and, one imagines, Admob advertising will play a greater role in the coming years).

The handsets are king

The big differentiator for Google Android of course is the handsets. Not only do Google have buy-in from almost all the major independent handset manufacturers, these companies are beginning to crank out the best handsets in their companies’ respective histories, and they’re all exclusive to Android.

Photo: Samsung

HTC need no introduction, having had the single greatest year in their history, and we’re barely two thirds through the year. Motorola and Sony Ericsson have both seen resurgence due to their Google Android handsets. Finally, Samsung have just released the remarkable Samsung Galaxy S on Android, too.

The days of Android being a barren landscape with little to choose from are long gone, and Windows Phone 7 may (not definitely, but may) be dead in the water before it even launches.

Photo: Google

While NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsung Huang has indicated he believes Google will release a tablet-friendly version of Android OS for smartbooks and tablets in autumn, a Google VP has announced that the company is looking at Q4 as the release window for its other operating system – Google Chrome OS.

Speaking at the ongoing Computex conference, Sundar Pichai, VP of Product Management at Google, revealed Chrome OS will be on the market sometime in the last three months of the year.

What is Chrome OS?

Google Chrome OS is the search giant’s first attempt at a cloud-based operating system. The idea behind it is that the distinction between web browser and desktop OS needed to be removed, in that the web browser would be the desktop, so to speak. In this sense, all applications intended for Chrome OS would be cloud-based web apps, which in recent years have gathered steam as they have become significantly more sophisticated, rivaling even their desktop-based counterparts.

Unnecessary fragmenting: Chrome OS vs. Android OS

Photo: Android

Pichai was asked the question on many journalists and tech enthusiasts’ minds – essentially, what differentiates the two operating systems? Pichai responded by saying the market will decide which OS is preferred. He made specific reference to the provision of these operating systems as open source platforms, which resultantly would allow manufacturers and developers to tweak it to their needs.

But, in doing that, he still hasn’t answered the question that has bothered many from day one – why have two operating systems to begin with? It seems Google specifically intended to use the two OSes in separate areas, like the iPhone OS and Mac OS X separation at Apple, but as Android OS has developed, it has begun encroaching into the area Google Chrome OS was intended for. So much so that Sergey Brin indicated the two operating systems may become one.

The major gamble in building an operating system is paying off in spades with Android OS as a platform for smartphones. Still, though, is the world ready for a purely web-based OS? It seems we’ll find out later this year.

Photo: NVIDIA

Everybody has an opinion on tablet computing and where the future lies in this regard. The latest to give his admittedly weighty two cents is NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsung Huang, who has said he believes Android OS is the operating system to rally behind.

Better suited for tablets

Speaking at Taiwan’s Computex event, he said ‘Windows is too big’ and ‘too full featured for smartbooks and tablets’, agreeing in sentiment with our opinion on Windows-powered tablets, if not in reason (we oppose it because it was built for mouse-and-keyboard and not for touchscreens).

Having pointed out the problem with Windows 7 tablets, NVIDIA’s CEO realised the need to back another OS. As such, he said that Google’s Android OS is the ‘operating system to unite behind’.

Needs time, still

The NVIDIA CEO was careful to point out that, in its current iteration, Android isn’t quite tablet ready, and that he believed the core Google Android team realised this. Huang says he reckons come the US autumn (between September and November) this problem will be rectified.

NVIDIA’s agenda

Photo: Android

Naturally, NVIDIA would not speak on this area if the company did not have an agenda of its own. The GPU chipset company hopes that the tablet market will be a new avenue to proliferate its product range.

The tablet OS war

Much like the vaunted smartphone OS standoff lead by RIM, Google and the iPhone, tablets are quickly becoming a proving ground for new mobile OS platforms. Windows, the leading operating system on the desktop, is making the transition, as well as Android OS and iPhone OS, the leading operating system on smartphones.

From early clues, it seems adding to the core smartphone OSes works better than trying to reduce the comparatively bloated Windows 7 OS to tablets. In this regard, it looks like Microsoft would be adopting the wrong strategy to another potential billion dollar industry, with the need to build a tablet equivalent of Windows Phone 7 Series looking more promising than what the company is trying to do.

Regardless, with the iPad’s fantastic start out the gates, and other tablets soon to join the fray, we’ll see if Hsuang’s rallying call is heeded.

Photo: Apple

Smartphones seems to be all the craze these days, with the lost iPhone saga and RIM consistently releasing new phones to impress the masses. Well, it seems that the biggest winners in the smartphone market right now are Apple and Google, with their iPhone OS and Android OS being the only to increase and making up a combined market share of 25 per cent.

How they matched up

In terms of how the operating systems performed alone, Gartner estimated the iPhone OS to currently make up 15.6 per cent of the market while the Android OS came in at 9.6 per cent. Android’s market share increased faster than Apple’s OS and all the other smartphone OSes lost out on relative market share, even though the number of people who now use the iPhone OS has increased.

The most used mobile OS

A more insightful look at the data released by Gartner showed Symbian to be the most used OS currently, with Research In Motion’s OS coming in second, and the Apple iPhone OS third followed by Android and Windows Mobile at four and five respectively. However, we should see Android moving up a few places in the future as it continues its upward trend and more and more people move towards the Google-designed OS.

How smartphone sales turned out

Photo: Android

Looking at overall smartphone sales, it was a good quarter for all concerned, with sales increasing across the board. The strongest performer was RIM’s Blackberry who dominated sales, moving an outstanding 10.5 million smartphones in the first quarter. Noting the RIM only makes smartphones, they were also one of the top five best sellers of mobile devices. Samsung and LG came in second and third respectively in terms of smartphones sold.

This is all good news for smartphone makers who continue to dish out new devices. However, it seems that Apple and Google are definitely getting something right when it comes to the mobile devices UI which sets it apart from the competition.

Tesaer: The biggest winners in the smartphone market right now are Apple and Google, with their iPhone OS and Android OS being the only to increase and making up a combined market share of 25 per cent.

Photo: Sony Ericsson

Sony has introduced a new phone into their range – the Xperia X10. It has a smart, sleek and rather original design, but what’s pretty impressive is the big 4-inch LED screen. The full colour touch screen displays all the important widgets like Timescape which gives you automatic updates of Facebook, My Space and Twitter sites, and a quick scroll up menu. The Xperia X10 has 3G connectivity and uploads to websites quickly, and the change from vertical to horizontal is done very smoothly with no delays.

What’s it got?

The Xperia X10 uses a 1GHz Snapdragon core processor, making it a powerful and effective phone. The logs are kept on a system called ‘Spline’ which allows you to scroll up and down to check messages, social networking updates and phone calls. The Spline may be quite slow when loading all the items, but speeds up once the process gets going. The Sony Ericsson X10 runs on Android version 1.6, not the highest, but seeing that Google keeps on installing new versions, it’s difficult to keep up. The mobile phone is compact and a bit bulky at 13 mm thick, but is still light enough to carry around.

Photo: Sony Ericsson

The new Sony Ericsson mobile phone has fully integrated sites like YouTube, Google Maps and Gmail. The X10 has an 8.1 mega pixel camera, giving it the highest res count among all Android phones. The camera has loads of customisable options like white balance control, smile detection, autofocus modes, multiple metering and more. The only photo feature it struggles with is macro capturing, and can only shoot images up to 4 inches away. The Xperia X10 has excellent sound quality, especially while on a phone call, almost no distracting noise can be heard, and sound is very clear and precise. The speakerphone also works well, and is ideal for conference calls.

Encountering a few problems

The X10 has great quality for both video and audio displays, but may be a bit slow once all your applications and websites have been calibrated onto the phone. The keypad has a few problems and freezes then starts again which is rather bizarre, but on the bright side the keypad can be changed because of the Android technology. There is no .com button which may throw some people off, and the X10 goes retro with zoom buttons in place of the now popular pinch to zoom feature.

Already released

With a powerful processor, cool widgets and designs, the X10 has potential, but it seems that Sony Ericsson just tried to do too much in one phone, and that makes it slow. The camera is a huge bonus, and photo enthusiasts will enjoy the options and clear picture of a regular point-and- shoot camera. The audio application is also really cool and displays all the album art you could wish for. Sony has tried and tried again with their X1 and X2 Android phones and hasn’t yet succeeded. But the Xperia X10 has been improved and comes close to a great phone; it just needs a few changes here and there. The Sony Ericsson X10 was released in March 2010 and costs £500.

Photo: BlackBerry

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS 6.0, which was only scheduled for a June or July release, has had its screenshots and some specs leak to the public.

New exciting features

From the leaked screenshots of the BlackBerry OS 6.0 users can expect to be touching their BlackBerry screens a bit more to resize and pinch anything from fonts, webpages or photos. The new web browser looks like it has been the product of RIM’s recent acquisition of Torch Mobile. The end result is a more fluid browser with tab browsing and a favourites list included.

And some more

Photo: BlackBerry

The new home screen seems to have taken on an Android-like appearance, allowing users to access a list of applications bordered on either the left or right of the home screen. Overall, it should work better than the current OS 5.0 hassle to switch between applications. Another interesting feature which has a lot of tongues wagging is how the techies at RIM have managed to develop a more contextual menu which pops up with more interactive icons when the touch screen is held for nine seconds or more.

Taking a look at the photo app for the new BlackBerry OS 6.0, you can’t help but think how similar it is in function to the Apple iPhone picture application – which also means it works like a charm. Scrolling on the new OS also seems to be breeze with the new kinetic scrolling feature which really pushes the BlackBerry’s touch screen technology.

We first got wind of RIM developing the new OS in February and a few months later we have the leak and screenshots on what it should look like and how it should work. The new BlackBerry OS 6.0 was planned to be unveiled at WES 2010, and rumour has it that Apple’s iPhone 0S 4.0 should be dropping around the same time. This should make things really interesting in world of smartphones and we can’t wait to see who will come out on top come their release.

Photo: Admob

Reuters reports that a source close to the FTC has indicated that the Federal Trade Commission is preparing to recommend the government block Google’s attempted acquisition of Admob for $750 million (£487,5 million) on anti-trust grounds.

Too much power

This comes in the wake of various anti-trust investigations in Europe on Google’s operations, as well as growing scrutiny in North America, especially regarding privacy. In addition to recommending the move not go through, the FTC has indicated it is prepared to sue, and has already established an internal litigation team for that very purpose.

So much for that iAd leverage

Photo: Google

It was suspected that Google would embrace Apple’s expected announcement of its advertising platform, iAd, in an iPhone 4.0 preview event they’re held on 8 April. This, people believed, would give Google enough wiggle room to say ‘look, there are viable competitors in this space’, which would be sufficient for convincing the FTC it isn’t anti-competitive. But it appears this acquisition may be rejected regardless of Apple’s iAd.

Google is, of course, the biggest advertising company on the planet. With over 75 per cent of the global search market, which commands over 40 per cent of worldwide online advertising revenue, every time Google so much as makes a move to fortify its position in advertising, the company will come under scrutiny. It is, in many people’s eyes, the new Microsoft.

Is it really anti-competitive, though?

Photo: Apple

In Google’s defense, it is questionable whether this Admob acquisition would be anti-competitive. The company commands a large share of the global mobile search revenues, yes, but this platform, which drives in-app advertising on popular smartphone platforms, is a nascent market owned by no one company, at present. If the FTC is likening iPhone and Android App advertising to mobile web advertising, they’re mistaken.

If, however, the FTC’s recommendation is accepted, Apple may find itself leading the mobile applications advertising competition with iAd. Which, ironically, would do to Google what Google did to Apple by entering the smartphone market. Not only that, it’s widely documented Google all but snatched AdMob from under Apple’s nose, so this would be doubly satisfying for the Cupertino-based company.

Photo: Motorola

The iPhone OS and Google Android OS have raced ahead as the smartphones of choice, with a wide range of carriers building their smartphone handsets on Android OS, and Apple’s iPhone continuing its vice grip on the industry. Where do we stand now and where to next?

Mobile OS

Both mobile OSes have performed and aged well. The much-anticipated Android 2.1 is expected soon, bringing with it a lot of new functionality, stability and a slight interface tweaking. iPhone 4.0 is set to bring with it rumoured new functionality, most notably video conferencing. Based on momentum and hype alone, Android 2.1 pips iPhone 4.0 in terms of having the more exciting mobile OS.

Applications

Photo: Apple

At last report, the iPhone had over 140,000 applications in its App Store, with Google’s Android applications store showing signs of life having crossed the 30,000 mark. The major difference between the two has been that people are prepared to spend a lot of money on Apple’s App Store, while the same doesn’t hold true for Google.

This is due partly to Apple’s store being built on top of iTunes, which is already a well-established platform. Though Google Android is beginning to show life in this area, it needs to catch up quickly if they want their share of the predicted $15 billion dollar mobile applications industry.

Handsets

The iPhone is still the archetype for smartphones. It still looks great, even though not much has changed since 2007, and various tests have indicated that it has the best touchscreen of any smartphone in the world. Google Android handsets have been catching up fast, though.

The Motorola Droid was the first competitor to show that the iPhone’s capability could be matched and the HTC Legend and HTC Desire have shown that the iPhone’s aesthetics can be matched and its capabilities outperformed, respectively. At the current trajectory, it would be safe to assume far more capable and better looking handsets will come from the Android camp if Apple don’t completely rethink the iPhone.

Perception and success

Photo: HTC

The big difference maker, however, remains sales, and here the iPhone is king. It is to the smartphone market what the iPod was to personal music players, but the gap isn’t nearly as wide as it was back then. Google Android is putting up a brave fight, and making a sizeable dent in the industry, but it finds itself playing catch up to a company that, in many rabid fans’ minds, can do no wrong.

In terms of mobile OSes and handsets, Google Android OS seems more exciting, but if the applications and public perception don’t catch up, it will do the company little good.

Photo: Virgin

Virgin Media has announced plans to launch their own IPTV service toward the end of 2010, allowing the company to compete with Sky Player and the BBC iPlayer service.

Highest quality

Alex Green, Executive Director of Online, announced this at the IPTV World Forum, where he specifically makes reference to the end of year rollout as well as a promise to have a user experience of the ‘highest quality’.

By quality, Green may be hinting at the possibility of HD content being delivered over IPTV and his saying that they want the right balance between ‘viewing quality and usability’ suggests Virgin may very well be wrestling with this challenge.

Platforms

Photo: BlackBerry

Green stated that the service will deliver on-demand shows to users via the Internet and on mobile devices, indicating applications for mobile OSes like Android, iPhone OS and Blackberry are in the works too. The Virgin Media IPTV competitor BBC iPlayer recently rolled out its own Blackberry solution, to add to the other platforms that service is available for.

The TiVo dovetail

The projected timeline is in line with that of the Virgin Media TiVo set-top boxes launch, implying the two services would be merged in some way. In addition to that, Virgin has been hard at work punting its super fast 200mb/second broadband network, also set for rollout during 2010.

Photo: Android

The convergence of these three products – especially if they’re priced as an affordable bundle – could see Virgin Media working its way into UK homes on television sets, broadband infrastructure and online and mobile programming all at once.

The competition

Virgin may have a very difficult time unseating the incumbents in BBC iPlayer and Sky Player, who have invested significant resources in frequently updating their service. If Virgin does deliver HD programmes while retaining usability, the service may have a lot of traction.