android
iPad Might Lose Half Tablet Market to Android [Study]
After the launch of Android Honeycomb tablets which was developed in what seemed to be a hurry, manufacturers like Motorola and HTC have been trying to enter the market with tablets that are extremely costly, even more than the iPads of that time. In their haste to launch Honeycomb and the expensive tablets, it seemed like all the companies involved forgot that there were not enough tablet-optimized applications to sustain the ecosystem out there.
To price an Android tablet at the same level as any of the iPads would not be the right thing to do and here’s why. Apple has been getting its developers to maintain a healthy ecosystem filled with apps that are meant for tablets and not just stretched to fit the screen. Even if many of the Android tablets had hardware specifications that beat that of the iPad, it still wasn’t offering enough for most people to choose it over the iPad.
Now that some time has passed however, it seems that Android tablet manufacturers are getting their act together and repositioned their market. Inexpensive tablets such as the Kindle are starting to gain market share and are only a good effort away from taking half the tablet market share from the iPad. A study that was conducted on this very phenomenon shows that a little more than a year ago, the iPad held a massive 95% of the tablet market. Now however, it has only 55%. Android tablets have notched up 42% of the market share from a mere 12% which was where it was only 6 months ago.
In order to clarify, this does not mean that the iPad with its latest installment hitting amazing new sales digits is selling less. On the contrary, it’s selling more than ever but Android tablets seem to be selling even faster and therefore grabbing the iPad’s market share away little by little. If the Android ecosystem wants to prolong this struggle for the gain of market share, a lot of it would depend on Google’s Play Store and the developers involved.
While the store does only show apps that are compatible with your device, it doesn’t highlight which apps are meant for tablets and which are not. The tablet race seems to be hotting up with a variety of new tablets on their way but with rumors of a cheaper “iPad Mini” circulating the interweb, Android tablet manufacturers had better start strategizing about how to hold on or increase the market share they have all worked so hard to achieve.
The Fairphone 2 was first unveiled in June earlier this year, where this particular handset carried a modular design while featuring majority of its components that have been sourced from conflict-free mines. It seems that this particular handset that you can purchase with a clear conscience has begun to ship to those who happen to live across Europe.
Fairphone announced in a blog post, “It’s been almost two years in the making, and some of the earliest buyers have been patiently waiting since July to receive their new phones. As community manager, I want to personally welcome the new batch of Fairphone owners to our community.” The initial 1,000 units are tipped to ship this month, before the other pre-orders follow in January 2016.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Fairphone 2 will run on a Snapdragon 801 chipset, has a 5″ 1080p screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, with Android 5.1 Lollipop in tow. It will be a dual SIM capable handset with a microSD memory card slot and plays nice with 4G LTE networks, retailing for approximately €525 a pop.
It looks like the upcoming flagship model from Xiaomi will feature NFC support, at least based on a document that was released by China UnionPay. Just in case you are scratching your head and wondering who China UnionPay is, they happen to be the only domestic payment gateway supplier and card organization, and hence, to see them offer detailed support concerning the newly released NFC-based payment system points to the very real possibility of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 featuring NFC capability.
After all, the Xiaomi Mi 3 was also mentioned on the list, which so happens to feature NFC, and there is no mention of the Xiaomi Mi 4 which does not come with NFC. Still, such a new payment system would be the ideal tool to see the reintroduction of NFC to the flagship model.
OnePlus did make an announcement in the previous month that the Ceramic variant of the OnePlus X will be released on November 24. True to their word, they did exactly that – although only a pitiful number of units were made available, and not only that, this was through a charity auction. Thankfully for the rest of the masses who are on the lookout for this device, it has gone on sale officially already.
Needless to say, this particular variant is available only by an invitation, although do bear in mind that standard OnePlus X invites are not good here – you will still need to snag yourself a specific Ceramic variant invite before you make a purchase. OnePlus is also on the lookout to offer additional methods of picking up this smartphone, although no further details were revealed.
The OnePlus X Ceramic will be available only in select markets, where among them include Europe, India, and Hong Kong. To date, we do know that OnePlus had made only 10,000 units of the handset available. A case of the early bird getting the proverbial worm here?