Mobile/Insights/2011 Week26
Opera released Opera Mini 6.1 and Opera Mobile 11.1, announced a partnership with a top Brazilian Internet website and announced that its former CEO is departing
Android: device activations reached 500,000/day, Market downloads reached 4.5 billion
Search: Google and Baidu are optimizing their mobile search and Baidu is developing own Android flavour
Asia, particularly Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China, is proving to be a key market for mobile players like Apple and HTC
Nokia is planning new Symbian devices with good specs and Intel is launching a chip aimed at Windows 8 tablets
Opera Mini 6.1 and Opera Mobile 11.1 were released with the main improvement being the built-in search function in the URL bar, as well as top-level domain anticipation and auto-completion. Integrated search engines and Google and Baidu (Baidu probably just for the Chinese market). The separate search field still remains. Among developers features, Opera Mobile got multi-columns and linear gradients CSS support. On the partnership side Opera announced a collaboration to one of Brazil's top Internet destinations, Globo.com, to offer a customized version of Opera for desktop and Opera Mini. In related news, Opera's co-founder and former CEO, Jon S. Tezchner left the company to follow other interests. Read more and more
Andy Rubin announced that the number of Android activations reached 500,000/day with a 4.4% week-over-week growth. The 400,000/day activations announcement was on May 10 and the 300,000/day one 6 months ago. Another number announced this week was 4.5 billion downloaded applications through the Android Market. Also, the Android Market added detailed user reviews breakdown on the public page of the application. Read more
In the search market, Google and Baidu have announced a series of improvements to their mobile searches as the mobile search market is differentiating from the desktop one. Baidu is rumoured to be producing its own flavour of Android which will be called Quishi and will be launched before the end of 2011. One of the strategic reasons for the custom Android ROM would be the ability to integrate ads into it. Read more
Asia is proving to be a key area for Apple, as the more mature markets of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, as well as China are in the top countries for app downloads, according to a Distimo report. Findings also suggest that China became the second biggest market for iOS after the US. On the Android side (and not only), HTC is planning a massive deployment of retail stores in the Chinese market, tripling the current number. Read more
As cyber-security has been making headlines for the past weeks, Symanted released an analysis of Android and iOS security. Findings report that the two mobile OSs are more secure than desktop-based ones, but are still susceptible to many existing categories of attacks. The report analyses Web and network-based, social engineering, data and malware attacks. Possible weaknesses in iOS include its encryption, which allows someone with physical access to the device to read most of its data. The iOS Web browser is also one of the 200 identified security vulnerabilities. Android's permission system for applications was identified as the biggest security weakness. Both OSs lack protection against social engineering attacks. For the full report you can ping me or find it on the Symantec website. Read more
Nokia is planning to upgrade its existing Symbian installed base in the wait for worldwide deployment of its Windows Phone 7 devices. Additionally, leaked documents are promising 4 new Symbian handsets in Q3, code-named Helen, Cindy, Zeta and Fate. The specs of the new Symbian devices include 1 GHz processors, NFC chips and large 3.2-3.5 inch displays. While the first WP7 device will be rolled out in Q4 this year, it is expected to be sold to 125,000 people in selected European countries, which is not enough to replace Nokia's huge, worldwide Symbian installed base. Read more
Intel is preparing a new chip named "Cloverview", aimed at tablets running on Windows 8. Cloverview is a 32-nanometer processor which is set to be released before the launch of Windows 8. In April this year Intel rolled out the Atom Z670 Oak Trail platform, also aimed at tablets which are expected in the market this year. The company is also rolling out its Cedar Trail platform for tablets and its Medfield chips for smartphones, which should be in devices that hit the market in early 2012. Read more
