Mobile application trends for 2012: the top ten applications

Market researcher Gartner has pinpointed the top ten consumer mobile applications consumers will be using and downloading in the year 2012.

The most popularly used applications will include those designed to facilitate mobile money transfers, location-based services and mobile search said Gartner in its November 18 report.

In the past, consumers purchased mobile phones based on the built-in features that came standard with the handset. With the arrival of smartphone operating systems capable of running third-party applications, consumers were freed from the phone maker's confines and were able to customize their devices with powerful applications tailored to their own needs.

Future mobile trends point to a widening of this segment, with third-party applications breaking into the mainstream mobile market and even breaking through to many lower-priced handsets.

"Consumer mobile applications and services are no longer the prerogative of mobile carriers," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. "The increasing consumer interest in smartphones, the participation of internet players in the mobile space, and the emergence of application stores and cross-industry services are reducing the dominance of mobile carriers. Each player will influence how the application is delivered and experienced by consumers, who ultimately vote with their attention and spending power."

Mobile phone makers, inspired by the success (and profitability) of Apple's App Store, have all eagerly jumped into the market, opening their own propriety application stores. Application developers too have embraced the market, resulting in the creation of hundreds of thousands of new application for mobile devices.

The wide availability of applications has given consumers free range on mobile customization, but research shows that many apps are being downloaded, used once or twice and then deleted from phones.

"We predict that most users will use no more than five mobile applications at a time and most future opportunities will come from niche market ‘killer applications'," reveals Shen.

Gartner predicts applications in the categories of mobile payments, location-based services, those that provide fast search results for users on the go and applications that facilitate mobile internet browsing will be among the top ten mobile applications for 2012.

Gartner's list of top ten consumer mobile applications for 2012:

1: Money Transfer
2: Location-Based Services
3: Mobile Search
4: Mobile Browsing
5: Mobile Health Monitoring
6: Mobile Payment
7: Near Field Communication Services
8: Mobile Advertising
9: Mobile Instant Messaging
10: Mobile Music

For more specific information about each mobile application category and to read the full report head to http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1230413

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Google Buys Motorola Mobility for $12.5 Billion [Breaking]

Google announced Monday morning that it will acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

Motorola is one of 39 manufacturers of handsets that use Google’s Android operating system.

Buying a hardware company is an unusual move for Google. The acquisition, Google said in a statement, “will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem.”

Google CEO Larry Page expanded on what that might mean in a blog post. In addition to citing Motorola’s home devices and video solutions business, Page references recent patent wars that Google believes to be anti-competitive.

“The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to ‘protect competition and innovation in the open source software community’ and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction,” Page writes. “Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.”

Android will continue to be an open platform, and Motorola will continue to be run as a separate business, Page added.


more at Mashable

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Rumored Apple iPhone 5 Pico Projector Patent Channels the SixthSense Concept Device

A rendering of an iPhone 6 concept that is
quite similar to the SixthSense device.

The tech community is raising its eyebrows over a recently filed Apple patent that shows detailed specs for a pico projector that could end up on the iPhone 5. But is Apple ripping off next-generation mobile device concepts like the SixthSense?

As the iPhone release inches ever-closer, and with the announcement month seemingly decided to be Septemeber, iPhone enthusiasts are shifting their attention once again to what to expect on the next iPhone in terms of new features. Much has been made about the name of the next iPhone — whether it will be the iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, iPhone 4Gs, or some other permutation — since the name of the next iPhone is likely to denote whether or not it is a simple refresh of the iPhone 4 or groundbreaking revamp worthy of the “iPhone 5″ moniker.

Another prevailing concern is that the iPhone 5 (or whatever name it is given), which will ostensibly be the flagship device for the iOS 5, will turn out to offer very few new, novel features that have not already found their way onto the Android OS.

It is for these reasons that the tech community has recently embraced hopes of a novel, new feature that has been virtually ignored until this week: the addition of a “pico projector” onto the iPhone 5. According to Patently Apple, Apple filed a detailed patent for an onboard pico projector for the iPhone and similar mobile-styled devices. MacRumors followed up on this story by noting Apple recently purchased the domain name applepico.com.

You can read more about this story here on the iPhone 5 News Ticker.

Pranav Mistry's SixthSense device

While we have observed that patents typically take a year ow more to find their way into production, Apple Patents believes that the level of detail in this patents suggests that Apple may be ready to roll out a pico projector for the iPhone 5. We are inclined to believe that it may be a more likely technology for the iPhone 6.

But before you get excited about this new feature as something completely unique and novel, it’s important to note that, once again, Android has already tested the waters with onboard pico projectors. The Independent notes that “Apple is not the first company to try integrating pico projectors into its smartphones. Samsung showed off an Android smartphone called the Galaxy Beam back in 2010, LG strapped a projector accessory to the back of its LG Expo smartphone in 2009, and camera maker Nikon started shipping its Coolpix S100pj digital camera with a built-in 10 lumen LED pico projector during the same year.” On top of that, other elements of the patent suggest that Apple may be looking to steal the groundbreaking concept of an even more audacious concept device — the SixthSense.

In case you are unfamiliar with the SixthSense device, it is quite possibly the next-generation mobile device concept that could easily replace the laptop, tablet, and smartphone in one fell swoop. developed by M.I.T. prodigy Pranav Mistry, SixthSense is essentially the conflation of a compact CPU, digital camera, and pico projector. Rather than relying on a fixed touch screen, the SixthSense uses a pico projector to project the display onto virtually any surface: the pal of your hand, a wall, a piece of paper, or a desk. The camera will interpret gestures that you make against the projection of the screen so that you can manipulate it in 3D. The camera will also allow the CPU to detect certain media types — such as a newspaper — and project hyperlinks and video onto the paper itself to augment the story. Here is Pranav Mistry’s presentation of the SixthSense at TED:




source: iPhone5NewsBlog

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Face Recognition Coming to iOS 5

Apple is planning to include face detection capabilities in the next version of its smartphone/tablet platform, iOS 5, 9 to 5 Mac has discovered.

It is too early to tell exactly how the face recognition in iOS 5 will work, but it appears Apple plans to open it up to developers via several API controls, including a call for recognizing the position of the person’s eyes and mouth. This means that in the future we’ll be seeing iOS apps utilizing face detection from third-party developers and possibly from Apple itself.

The technology behind this feature probably comes from Polar Rose, a Swedish face recognition company, which Apple acquired in 2010.

Check out this video showcasing an augmented reality app called Recognizr, which Polar Rose co-developed.

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Android Now Owns 39% of Smartphone Market [STATS]

Android retains its crown as the top smartphone operating system in the U.S., while RIM continues to falter, according to the most recent data from Nielsen.

In assessing the latest data from June, Nielsen found that 39% of the smartphone market belongs to Google’s Android operating system. Apple has 28% of the market, while RIM and the BlackBerry OS are down to 20%.

When we compare those figures with the data Nielsen released for February through May, Android is up 3%, Apple is up 2% and RIM is down 3%.

When it comes to top phone manufacturers, however, Apple is the clear winner. Like RIM, Apple has the advantage of controlling the software and the hardware for its smartphone platform. Unlike RIM, Apple sells only three smartphones in the U.S.: the iPhone 4 (AT&T), the iPhone 4 (Verizon) and the iPhone 3GS (AT&T).

HTC is the biggest Android manufacturer, according to Nielsen, with 14% of the Android market. Motorola and Samsung have 11% and 8% respectively.


more at Mashable

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iPhone 5 Set for Record Launch: 35% of Consumers to Buy New iPhone

Anticipation in the consumer electronics world is soaring for the launch of Apple's iPhone 5, which is rumored to be hitting store shelves this fall.  About 35 percent of consumers plan to purchase the latest iPhone upon its release, according to a survey by PriceGrabber, a part of online shopping site Experian.

The Cupertino, California-based firm typically unveils a new iPhone model at its annual developers' conference in June.  Thus hype on the iPhone 5 picked up after CEO Steve Jobs did not talk about the iPhone 5 at the conference.  Sales of iPhone 5 are expected to surpass the 1.7 million units sold for the iPhone 4 within 3 days of its release.

Last week, Apple launched its the new MacBook Air line of laptops together with the Mac OS X Lion, Apple's eighth major operating system update for Mac desktops and its laptops.  The iOS 5, Apple's operating system for the iPhone and iPad tablet, is due to launch this autumn. 

According to reports Apple did not confirm, Apple is releasing a thinner and lighter iPhone at the end of September, together with the iOS 5.  The new iPhone is said to be similar to the current iPhone 4, but slimmer with an improved eight-megapixel camera.  iPhone 5 will reportedly have a A5 processor, a more powerful chip that was added to the iPad 2, which was released in April.  Production problems have delayed the iPhone 5's launch, The Wall Street Journal reported weeks ago, citing sources it did not identify.

Of the PriceGrabber survey respondents, 51 percent indicated that they will buy the smartphone within the first year of release, 30 percent will purchase it before the end of 2011, 14 percent will buy it within the first month, and 7 percent will buy it within the first week.  Conducted from July 1-11, 2011, the survey includes responses from 2,852 U.S. online consumers.

Lower Price, More Battery Life
Consumers are hoping for an improved battery life and reduced costWhen it comes to the new features shoppers deem most important in their decision to purchase the iPhone 5, practicality seems to reign.  When respondents were asked to select new iPhone 5 features most important when considering a purchase, 59 percent indicated a better battery life, and 55 percent are looking for cost reduction.  Forty-six percent said that 4G network compatibility was important to them, 45 percent are hoping for a larger screen, and 42 percent would like an improved camera.

"Our survey data confirms the strong following Apple has built around its iPhone, with more than one-third of consumers planning to upgrade to the latest model only a little over a year following the release of the iPhone 4," stated Graham Jones, general manager of PriceGrabber. "Anticipation and brand loyalty are certainly high, but in today's 24-7 work culture and uncertain economic environment, consumers are cautious to look for a reasonably priced phone that will perform optimally over an extended time period."

Top Choice for Mobile OS
PriceGrabber said consumers' love for Apple products is clear. When asked which smartphone operating system they prefer, an overwhelming 48 percent of PriceGrabber survey respondents said Apple iOS. Nineteen percent of respondents indicated that they prefer Android OS, 7 percent said Microsoft Windows, and 6 percent chose RIM BlackBerry.

Respondents also were asked which smartphone they would prefer to receive as a gift.  An astonishing 69 percent of consumers indicated that they would most like to receive Apple's iPhone 5. Seven percent said they would like to receive Motorola's upcoming Droid Bionic, 4 percent would prefer to get the Samsung Galaxy S II, and 3 percent said the BlackBerry Curve.

Going Back to Basics
PriceGrabber noted that these days, smartphones' abilities are practically limitless, and app marketplaces are full of solutions to enhance everyday life.  However, according to PriceGrabber's survey data, smartphones' simplest features remain the most popular. When asked what they generally use their smartphone for, 88 percent of respondents said phone calls, 77 said email, 73 percent indicated texting, 69 percent use it to browse the Internet, 51 percent said searching, and 50 percent use the phone's Global Positioning System. 

Shopping Aid
According to PriceGrabber, even in our largely virtual world, the thrill of shopping in a real brick-and-mortar store has not died.  PriceGrabber's survey data found that 36 percent of consumers said they use their smartphone for shopping.  When these respondents were asked to select all the ways in which they use their smartphones for shopping, 48 percent said they compare prices online when shopping in a store; 35 percent use it to scan product bar codes to find the best price; 29 percent use localization features to find nearby products; and 28 percent like to receive coupons, deals and alerts while on the go.

When asked how often they make shopping-related purchases on their phone, 22 percent of respondents said a couple of times a month, 16 percent said a few times a year, and 12 percent said one or more times per week.

"Mobile shopping has truly emerged as a trend among savvy consumers, and what positions it for long-term success is the fact that consumers can use their smartphones as an enhancement to the shopping they already do in brick-and-mortar stores," said Jones. "Analysis of our survey data shows that shoppers are not just sitting behind a computer doing their shopping from home; they are engaging with and leveraging the technology of their smartphones to take advantage of what their local retailers have to offer, which is certainly a promising prospect for the Main Street economy."


more at IBTimes

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