Gartner Sales Figures Show Android, Samsung Extending Mobile Dominance

Gartner has published sales figures for Q1 2013 and they make excellent reading for Google and Samsung, with other Android OEMs LG. Huawei and ZTE also posting significant growth, likely the result of booming sales into China.

Every fourth phone (smart or otherwise) sold last quarter came from Samsung.

Apple's iPhone sales were up by more than five million units (about 15%), although with the rate that the market is growing that equated to a drop of 4.3% market share in the smartphone space.

Windows Phone was the biggest mover in the smartphone market posting a 120% increase in sales year on year and Nokia effectively became Windows Phone last quarter, outselling all other Windows Phone OEMs combined by almost seven to one. Overall though it wasn't great news for Microsoft/Nokia - Windows Phone was still outsold by Blackberry, even though the Canadians were dead men walking for most of the quarter. The arrival of new generation Blackberries may make third place in the OS market difficult to claim for Microsoft.

There was more pain for Nokia as feature phone sales and the death of Symbian saw them ship twenty million fewer phones than a year ago. Smartphone sales this time last year were around 18% of overall sales, which slipped to around 10% last quarter, suggesting that not only are the Finns selling fewer phones, but the mix of those sold is weakening too.

Dominating the rapidly disappearing feature phone market isn't helping Nokia right now, even if its strategy of producing phones for emerging markets may pay off in the medium term.

Symbian and Bada are slowly disappearing off the sales chart - which doesn't bode well for those companies looking to secure a chunk of the smartphone market with new mobile platforms - Jolla, Firefox and Ubuntu for example.

Full numbers can be found here.

Xbox One Announced And Sony's Stock Price Explodes

Microsoft announced the third generation Xbox this morning (New Zealand time anyway) and whilst there are still too many unknowns to call it a winning product or not, the stock markets have made their decision already.

In the time between Microsoft's announcement and the close of trading in New York Sony's shares posted a remarkable 9% increase. 

Clearly the Xbox One launch was a good advert for Sony's PS4, in the battle for the living room. 

I'm not sure what it could be, but there's a lot of people who saw today's Microsoft announcement as a reason to grab large numbers of Sony stock. 

Someone should be worrying right now. 

Nutella Kills World Nutella Day... Wait What?

Boing Boing is reporting that Sara Rosso, founder and promoter of World Nutella Day has received a Cease and Desist letter from Ferrero, makers of the Hazelnut spread, bringing to an end all of the Nutella type fun.

I'm sure that there's a good reason for this, but I'm struggling with what it might be. I mean its not as if this is a new thing - World Nutella Day has been going for years.

Copyright issues? Perhaps, but surely even if the lawyers had advised that there was a problem there must of been a less heavy-handed way of dealing with this.

Ferrero have demonstrated a worrying lack of understanding of the modern world - I wonder how many brands would have paid for the sort of publicity that Sara generated for Nutella. And now they've killed it.

The Internet of Things

We've been long promised a glorious future of technology that talks to 'things' rather than just other bits of technology.

It's been a long time coming but there's evidence that we might just be getting there. 

There's not been a sudden avalanche of devices, but slowly and surely, more and more everyday objects are appearing that have the ability to talk to devices. 

The Philips Hue Lighting system is a popular one at the moment, but connected refrigerators, scales, health devices and power switches are all out there too. Not to mention the TVs and DVD players, consoles and media players. Even door locks. They are all linked by their ability to connect. 

We have the connected devices, the next stage is finding a service that manages to tie them all together. 

I don't know who'll be the first to make this work, but I suspect first mover advantage is going to be key. 

And wherever the solution comes from you can be sure that the central point of control will be your smartphone. The most personal of devices will become an even more central part of your life. 

Yahoo Gets Tumblr, Geocities 2.0?

Its being reported that Yahoo has added another company to the list of acquistions since Marissa Meyer took over the reins. This weeks lucky cash prize winners are the good folks at Tumblr.

Tumblr is an easy to use blogging site with over 200 million users, or a user base equivalent to Yahoo's own.

Tumblr has been openly on the market for a little while now, it has run out of cash and with revenues of around $13m annually, was close to spending itself into oblivion.

Yahoo clearly hopes to turn that advertising spend around with its own platform, but a buy price of over $1b sounds like the bean counters there have taken leave of their senses.

Using Apple TV With Android

Apple TV works okay as far as it goes, however it has one fundemental failing, the inability to access any kind of network storage natively.

You can use third party apps on an iPad or Mac to stream from a NAS to the Apple TV using AirPlay Mirroring - however that means you can't use them for anything else.

If you have an Android device there's an easy solution, to the point that its probably true to say that Android users get better utility out of the Apple TV unit than Apple's own customers.

Download iMedia Share to your Android phone and/or tablet and fire it up. It will find your NAS and Apple TV and then its just a question of selecting what it you want to watch and choosing the Apple TV as the output device. Once it starts playing you can use your Android for anything else you like - it will even continue to stream whilst the Android device is asleep.

EA Dumps Wii U - Beginning Of The End For Nintendo?

EA has confirmed that it is no longer developing games for Nintendo's latest console the Wii U.

This must give Nintendo serious concerns about its ability to compete in a rapidly shrinking home entertainment market where both Microsoft and Sony are about to launch new consoles with full support from the multi-licence holding EA.

Of course Nintendo does have a safety buffer built around its own licenses, but history tells us that wasn't enough save Sega when third parties stopped development for the  Dreamcast.

Nintendo's licenses are stronger, but whether that will be enough to see off Sony in what looks like a battle to the death for a future in the console market remains to be seen.

Apple TV vs Xbox 360 vs Google TV

The living room is the centre of the next stage in the battle between computing mega powers for control of our digital lives. Having carved up the desktop and now the pocket, Apple, Google and Microsoft are after control of your TV set.

Of the three, Microsoft has the best current position. The Xbox has been a great sales success and over time more and more features have been added to make it more entertainment and media centre and less games console.

F1: Honda and Mclaren Re-united For 2015

Honda's first ever race winner, the 1967 RA300

Honda is the fifth most successful F1 engine supplier of all time. Its partnership with Mclaren produced, in the 1988 season, an almost total domination of the sport. More recently the company endured a disastrous period as a constructor and engine supplier, eventually abandoning the sport after producing just one win from an alleged half a billion dollar investment in the team. Its return to the sport is a landmark moment.

Which Honda will turn up I wonder? Certainly the return to turbocharged engines should suit the Japanese manufacturer - of the turbo championships (effectively 1983-1989) the company provided the power for four constructor championship winning cars and powered three drivers to World Championships.

The Mclaren-Honda returns to the fray in 2015, although Mclaren's 2014 engine partner, Mercedes are likely to take measures to ensure that its technology isn't available to its rival firm's engineers - which probably suggests another poor season in the offing for the struggling Mclaren team.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition Is Official

Secret until just yesterday, the Galaxy S4 Google Edition was made official at IO13 today. Its every bit as exciting as it first promised to be, packing all of the S4's hardware (no word on processor, so I'm guessing the availability of LTE means it will pack Snapdragon, rather than Octacore Exynos) and Google's Nexus experience.

This Google Edition experience will extend beyond the purchase (Play store, United States only, for now) and naming; to the upgrade experience. Google will be responsible for providing the updates to this edition of the S4 - likely at or around the same time as Nexus devices get them. The S4 arrives packing the latest Android Jelly Bean build, but with 4.3 due to be announced any day now, its comforting to know you won't have to wait on Samsung to deliver your freshly baked Key Lime Pie.

Price in the US is listed as $649 - which looks pretty competitive. Thats about $50 cheaper than Amazon in the US, £60 cheaper than Clove's unlocked SIM-free S4 in the UK and about $200 cheaper than shelf prices for New Zealand.

Availability is slated for June, now its time to see if all those people demanding a Samsung device running AOSP are prepared to put their money where their mouths are.