Tag: technology news

Mobile commerce iOS and Android market share narrowing

| August 5, 2013

The latest report issued by Kantar Worldpanel has shown that the two platforms are drawing closer.

The latest mobile commerce news report has just been issued by Kantar Worldpanel and has indicated that the market share gap between iOS and Android smartphones is narrowing in some markets, while Apple’s portion is strengthening in these important global regions.

In some very key markets Apple is beginning to grow even stronger than it was before.

Year over year, the mobile commerce report predicted that iOS would be making gains in the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. This, despite the fact that Android has been making tremendous surges in popularity and its penetration has become even greater than it ever has before, within the last twelve months.

The mobile commerce report showed that Android has managed to hold its lead but iOS is strong.

Mobile Commerce - Android and iOSAccording to the Kantar Worldpanel ComTech mobile commerce data that was released this week, “Android has retained its lead in smartphone sales for the 3 month period ending June 2013, with a 51.5% sales share of the smartphone market, while iOS follows with 42.5%, growing 3.3% compared to last year.”

The advances that are being recorded by iOS in the mobile commerce marketplace have primarily been at the expense of the market share held by Android. Over the three months that were completed in June 2013, the sales of iOS smartphones were made up of 8 percent from T-Mobile, 10 percent from Sprint, 39 percent from AT&T, and 40 percent from Verizon.

The mobile commerce news report suggested that the largest increase in Apple device sales came from T-Mobile. This did not come as much of a surprise to many, as the iPhone has only been recently added to the carrier’s offerings. That said, Verizon is still maintaining the largest number of sales during the period covered by the report. The next few months, as new devices are launched in each platform, should be very defining for the direction that the market will be taking at least for another year. Analysts will certainly be watching the numbers closely.

NFC technology rings burst onto the wearable device market

| July 26, 2013

The enhanced jewelry will unlock doors, transfer data, link people, and communicate with other devices.

Even NFC technology becomes more widely recognized, the majority of people have yet to work it into their everyday activities either because their own smartphones are not enabled or they simply don’t see the benefit.

This is, in part because the tech has experienced a broad struggle in becoming a part of the mainstream.

However, a man named Jon McLear is betting that the use of an NFC technology enabled ring will be all that is needed to show the world some of the amazing things that near field communication can do, so that it will burst into mainstream common use. Some examples include unlocking phones and doors, among other things.

The NFC technology ring project was started by McLear through the use of Kickstarter.

At the time of the writing of this article, McLear had already doubled his goal of £30,000, having received over £61,700 through the donations of more than 2,200 backers. As the funding opportunity closes on August 19, this clearly indicates that there will be many more funds to come and that the mastermind behind this project will have much more than he anticipated needing in order to bring this device to the market.

The NFC technology enabled ring will never require charging despite the fact that it simply needs to be worn on the finger and can be used for many different purposes, including data transfers (for example, WiFi information, website links, contact information, or other custom info) or being applied as a high tech house key.

This tiny NFC technology based device is bringing wearable mobile tech to an entirely new level. In order to use it with a reader – such as a smartphone with a near field communication chip or a door lock reader – the hand wearing the ring simply needs to be waved in very close proximity. The Android phone capabilities will be available through a free third party app called NFC Ring (developed by John McLear), and the door locks will be similar to the Lockitron security systems.