Rubin and Schmidt: Here's what they said about Android past, present and future from the Dive Into Mobile conference!

   If you're remotely interested in tech then it's almost impossible to avoid the march of Android that we're seeing at the moment. We already know that the OS powers a whopping 70% of the smartphones in the world, so when two of the people who are responsible for the direction Android takes put themselves up on the stage at a major conference, we pretty much need to tell you what they said!

   So what better place to start then right at the very beginning of the Android story? The operating system which now powered hundreds of millions of smartphones actually started its life tailored for cameras! Andy Rubin revealed the news earlier this week in Tokyo. While outlining Android's humble origins he said, "the exact same operating system we built for cameras…became Android for cellphones". Initially Andy Rubin connection to home PC's and then the subsequent option to connect to an “Android Datacenter.” The plan was supposedly only changed when the camera market was deemed to be a bit restrictive did Android's founders look to smartphones, just before they were snapped up by Google in 2005!

   Rubin added that Android's goal is still to get the OS into as many hands as possible and the next significant milestones will be Android 5.0 and the one billion activations milestone! Talking of those activations it seems Google's work is relentless! Eric Schmidt updated us on the Android landscape today at Dive Into Mobile. He said that daily activations of Android devices are now at 1.5 million! That's up again from the 1.3 million activations we were seeing per day back in the Autumn of last year. With that in mind the one billion goal is becoming a very realistic target which we can expect to see reached by the end of the year! Schmidt said that when devices start to come onto the market with an average price of $100 then the sales figures will look even better still!

   With so many sales it's vital that Google retains good relationships with their vendors and a key partner in this whole operation is Samsung. During the conference today the question and answer session turned to Google and Samsung's relationship, because there's near constant rumblings that Samsung could fork Android and simultaneously demolish Android's market share. We shouldn't worry about that for the time being though because Schmidt said the relationship between the pair was "very healthy". Schmidt said that he didn't see the relationship changing any time soon and he even went on to say how Samsung's partnership has helped to Google with their efforts and how he will "always appreciate their decision to go Android early on” because it has ultimately “helped to define Android.”

   The final thing to note from today was that with the relatively recent acquisition of Motorola, Google will have a lot more influence in how the company's phones look, fell and perform and Schmidt also touched on the future devices. He said that we can expect Motorola's new devices to be "phones plus" (or should that be phones+?!) and the new devices will be 'phenomenal.'

   Any one else excited for what's to come? And in case you were wondering no Andy didn't tell us what he's working on now!
Via Phandroid (1) and (2) and AndroidCommunity.

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27/09/2012

Qualcomm introduces some cheap quad-core processors for 2013's mid-range!

   Today Qualcomm has announced they have three new reference designs for future mobile phones. Each of them includes new processors which we can expect to see in consumer products next year.

   The new processors have the memorable names MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q! Each of these will have four CPU cores each and will support LPDDR2 memory. The chips will also have dual-SIM support, enough bus bandwidth for 720p video encoding and decoding and they'll play nice with 720p displays.

   The processors have slightly different radio compatibilities; the MSM8225Q has an integrated UMTS modem, while the MSM8625Q works with Qualcomm’s own integrated multimode UMTS/CDMA modem. Both of them will work with FM radio, Bluetooth 4.0, wi-fi connectivity, and Qualcomm Atheros AR6005 and WCN2243 chips.

   The final processor that's being worked on is going to be called the Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8930. It's made specifically to support all China operators with UMTS, CDMA and TD-SCDMA. This processor was first announced way back in February 2011 and should be with us by the end of the year, but it won't turn up inside your next device until the first quarter of 2013. This processor is dual-core and has support for 4G LTE. So it'll work with LTE-TDD and TD-SCDMA in China!

In other news:

• Happy birthday Google!!! The company is celebrating their 14th birthday today!

• Rovio's new Bad Piggies is officially available in your app store of choice!!!... Assuming it's Google's Play store or Apple's App store.

• Google's Eric Schmidt came out today and all but called Apple a patent troll. This is what he had to say;

“Literally patent wars prevent choice, prevent innovation and I think that is very bad. We are obviously working through that and trying to make sure we stay on the right side of these issues. So ultimately Google stands for innovation as opposed to patent wars …I think one of the worst things that happened in the last few years has been the belief that somehow there are so many patents in the mobile phone world, an estimated 200,000 patent that are overlapping and complicated and so forth, that one vendor can stop the sale of another vendor’s phones or devices.”

• LG has filed a patent suit against Samsung in Korea, with the former accusing the latter of stealing some of the OLED technology. The most that's at stake here is $6million, so it hardly seems worth it to us!

• It turns out that the real reason Apple decided to ditch Google maps was because Google was unwilling to offer iOS users turn-by-turn navigation. Google instead wanted to reserve that particular right for their Android users! 

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16/09/2012

Texas Instruments is cutting back on mobile chip productions.

   Most of you will probably have heard of TI's OMAP smartphone processors. They may even be powering your smartphone or tablet at this very moment. Unfortunately, the company has announced that they will be scaling back their mobile chip productions.

   The news comes as the market has become increasingly competitive, with NVIDIA, Samsung, Qualcomm and many others offering alternative chips. The company has said they plan to focus on embedded systems instead. 

   This news comes after the recent announcement of Motorola that they will be using Intel’s Medfield processor for the RAZR i. Motorola was and still is one of TI's biggest customers, but for the moment TI says it will continue to support its existing clients, Reuters reports.

In other news:

• It's come to light today that Apple's new Lightning connector is in fact different on each side but, as Slashgear said it must have 'must be using some sort of process to dynamically identify which pin order the cord is currently using – depending on which side is up and which is down, that is.' What this will mean for you is that it is a lot harder for 3rd parties to make connectors, so you might be paying Apple prices for your accessories for a while!

• It's been widely reported today that Google's Eric Schmidt will meet with Samsung execs in South Korea this week, just before the launch of the Nexus 7 in the country. Samsung's mobile chief confirmed the meeting today but refused to comment on the agenda. Most people are expecting it to be an attempt to boost Google's involvement in Android litigation.

• LittleBigPlanet is now available for your PS Vita!

• Google has launched a little sale to mark the 25 billionth download from the Play store. The sale items will cost you either $.25 for those of you in the US or 25p if you live in the UK.   Included in the sale are games such as Angry Birds Space Premium, Granny Smith, Draw Something, NFL Kicker 13, OfficeSuite Pro 13 and a couple more!

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