Are Android Powered Devices on Pace to Surpass Apple's iOS?

Since the debut of the Apple iPhone in 2007, competition in the smart device market has been dismal at best. That is, until the development and marketing of the Android operating system. Focusing on what Apple did well and aiming to change what the iOS platform is lacking, the Android OS has quickly gained praise from users of its Droid devices. Addressing concerns such as the lack of flash and the proprietary nature of the APP store, the Android operating system has appeared to remove the governor from the iOS platform, and has taken a host of users with it in the process. The following article will address the surge of the Android platform and will compare growth in the top 20 markets worldwide.

A major initial selling point to the Android platform is that unlike iOS, Android powered devices can run flash applications. The lack of flash has proven to be a continual hair-puller for most iPhone and iPad users, with most users anticipating the addition on each software update, only to be fooled. Steve Jobs, made it clear before passing that his intentions were to never allow the software on his devices due to inefficiency. In return he developed HTML5 as a more processor friendly application engine. It remains to be seen if Apple will add Flash to its new ramped iPhone and iPad processor or if they will respect the wishes of their legendary CEO and founder. One thing is clear, sales and demand for the Android platform may be in large driven by this disparity.

With 2011 coming to an end, holiday sales and network usage are an accurate indicator of how each market fared in the smart device war. With the iOS still clearly the worldwide leader in overall usage, it was very interesting to see the percentage gain in market proportion drawn by the Android powered devices. In the nation's top 20 markets, Android powered devices reigned in countries like South Korea (the manufacturing site of the Droid) and Sweden. With a 60% increase in growth vs Apple's 30%, it is clear to see that the Android platform is more than here to stay, it may eventually take the title.

While overall growth numbers are staggeringly high, the more impressive number is the total number of smart phone users worldwide. Increasing 12 times since 2009, the smart phone market is one of the largest growth areas on the planet. Driven largely by Apple and Android, the future of personal portable computing and communication is apparently limitless.

For questions regarding this article or iPhone Screen Repair or iPhone 4S Screen Repair please visit our website.

I have been actively following the development of Apple products since the debut of the iPhone in 2007. Since that time I have expanded my interest to the iPad, iPod and competing devices such. In early 2008 I founded an iPhone repair company that expanded its vision to the eventual repair of all Apple branded devices. Since that time I have continued to actively follow the progression of the smart phone market, while actively writing and blogging about the innovations being made worldwide.

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Apple's iPhone 4 8GB Deals Receive First Discounts

The new iPhone 4 8GB edition from Apple offers a lower memory capacity for a smaller price tag than the two larger capacity 16GB and 32GB models but up until now has been priced very similarly to the deals for the 16GB refurbished handset.

Retailers have been able to offer significant discounts on the iPhone 4 16GB as a 'clearance' phone by inspecting, refurbishing and re-boxing their returned stock which has kept deals for the 16GB edition very close to those of a brand new 8GB version.

This has now changed as mobile phone suppliers secure cheaper prices for the new iPhone 4 8GB and pass the savings onto consumers via new discounted pay monthly contract deals, on release the new 8GB iPhone would have cost a minimum of £35 per month over a two year contract deal which was the same for the 16GB model.

Now, the brand new Apple iPhone 4 8GB can be ordered on T-Mobile with no upfront costs for as little as £30.64 line rental per month, that is a substantial saving of £104.64 over the minimum 24 month agreement.

Included in this T-Mobile tariff known as 'iPhone 30 + Unlimited Text' are 300 minutes of inclusive calls which can be used to call any network (including landlines) at any time of the day, an unlimited number of text messages which again can be sent to any network and a healthy 500MB of internet access which is essential for the iPhone 4 8GB to operate at full capacity.

The closest any other network gets to this free offer for the 8GB iPhone is from Orange which for a £31 per month line rental charge will allocate either 100 or 200 inclusive minutes on two separate tariffs, the first offers the fewer minutes but with unlimited SMS and substantial 1GB of inclusive data whilst the second only 250 text messages and 500MB of internet access.

The other three UK networks currently offering deals for the iPhone 4 8GB charge significantly more per month for a free phone, 3 Mobile ask for £35 per month, Vodafone require £36 and O2 are the most expensive at £37 line rental costs.

The 8GB edition of the iPhone 4 is to be the only model continued to be manufactured as the 16GB and 32GB versions are phased out in favour of the new iPhone 4S, this latest Apple release is already available in 16GB and 32GB variants but also a new, larger 64GB edition.

If you would like to take a look at the latest, discounted iPhone 4 8GB deals or peruse the new iPhone 4S deals then please pop over to our website: Phones Limited.

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Can I Put Apple's iPhone4S Siri Features on My Regular iPhone 4?

You are probably wondering if you can get Siri voice command on your regular iPhone 4 rather than upgrading to an iPhone 4S, especially considering the reality that the 4S has sold out, waiting lists grow, and you were not in the long-line on opening day to get yours.

There was an interesting article in Technorati recently titled "Apple In Trouble: Hackers Successfully Ported Siri to the iPhone 4" by Salman Khan published on October 15, 2011. The article stated:

"Siri is Apple's new innovation and creativity. It's a new application added for iPhone 4s and a new way to control the iPhone with voice commands. Siri takes voice commands, you can ask Siri anything you want. Two Days earlier, the Apple Dev Team announced that porting Siri to the iPhone 4, can't port Siri without stealing some copyrighted files from the iPhone 4s. "The unique selling point of iPhone 4s is Siri and has a processor that's 2X's faster than the iPhone 4. If developers can exploit or hack Siri and place it on the iPhone 4, it could reduce the sale of 4S."

This tells me that Siri is basically an APP, not a new feature or technological breakthrough, just software, and if it runs on the so-called slower processor, then why does one need a 4S phone for something like that? It appears that Apple may have over-embellished the hype once again, in order to stay on the hyperbolic inflection point turn-off to keep redlining revenues. Apparently, Apple sold 1 million iPhone 4S models on the first day and 4 million over the first weekend.

In fact, there were wide spread outages on the "set-up" servers for those registering their new 4S phones, as no company has ever sold that many handsets in a day or weekend. The Wall Street Journal reported this in an article titled; "Softbank Server Glitch Damps iPhone 4S Launch," published on October 14, 2011 - the day the Apple 4S iPhones became available. MacRumors Online also had an article; "AT&T Activation Servers Overloaded with iPhone 4S Launch," also on October 14, by Arnold Kim.

Okay so, Apple's big announcement coinciding with Steve Jobs death had everyone waiting in line at Apple Stores across the nation for the iPhone 4S with an abundance of fanfare, but when iPhone users discover that they could have merely added an APP and thus, had the Siri features anyway, it will turn off many, even highly-sophisticated brand loyalists.

Now then, the company will most likely tell us that without the iPhone 4S processing speed, the Siri system won't work as well - which may be true since voice software is a processing hog, but will that explanation be enough to satisfy the iPhone 4S upgraders who spent big bucks to stay on the leading edge of Apple's technology, or will they be completely turned off and feel burned?

Well, to answer the question, yes, you can get Siri on your regular iPhone 4 and there should be instructions online on how to do this, which may or may not void your iPhone 4 warranty, and it may not work 100% as good as it might on the iPhone 4S or maybe it will, that remains a question. Still, I ask, why didn't Apple merely allow Siri as an APP or a software upgrade for a small one-time price, rather than using it as a reason to buy a newer model? Does Apple think everyone is stupid, that we are all dumb consumers serving their will? Maybe we are, maybe Apple is right, you decide. Please consider all this.

*In full-disclosure - this author owns NO Apple Products, and is not a brand loyalist of Apple, and believes their products are overpriced, over-hyped, and too trendy.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Future Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

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Apple’s Lion Recovery Disk Assistant makes creating your own OS X Lion recovery drive easy

 

Apple's Lion Recovery Assistant

One of the big changes ushered in by Apple with OS X Lion was the form of delivery. Since Lion was initially only available as a digital download, users no longer had a physical disc if they wanted to do a reinstall of the OS. Although Lion does automatically create a recovery partition on your hard drive during installation, this isn't much help if the reason you want to do a reinstall in the first place is because the hard drive itself has failed. Apple has now provided a simple solution that lets Lion users create their own recovery disk - or rather, recovery USB drive.

While instructions from third parties on how to create a recovery DVD appeared on the Internet even before Lion's official release, Apple's solution is much simpler. Just head over to the Apple support site and download the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, which is a download of just over one megabyte. Run the downloaded disk image and, after agreeing to the usual legal terms and conditions, you're presented with a display of currently connected USB drives. If you haven't already plugged in a USB drive with at least 1 GB of free space, you can do it now.

It's a good idea to use a dedicated thumb drive for the recovery drive as all data on the selected partition will be erased. Hit continue and after a couple of minutes you'll have your very own external Lion recovery USB drive. Don't worry when the drive disappears from the Finder as it is now invisible in both the Finder and Disk Utility.

By holding down the Option key after a reboot and selecting the Recovery HD from the Startup Manager you can now reinstall Lion, repair the hard drive using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari.

If the system used to create the recovery drive shipped with Lion already installed, the recovery drive will only work on that system. However, if the system was upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion, the recovery drive can be used on other systems that also upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion. Either way, with 4 GB USB thumb drives costing peanuts now days there's really no reason not to create your own recovery drive.

The announcement of the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant earlier this week is timely as a couple of days later Apple also started selling OS X Lion Recovery USB drives for US$69. Unlike the US$29 Lion download from the App Store, which only works on Macs running Snow Leopard, the USB drives will also work Macs running an older OS, provided they are compatible with Lion.

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