Category: Gadgets

Smartphone trends show increase in consumer mobile shopping and TV watching

| April 10, 2015

The research was conducted in Canada and showed that people like their devices for these purposes.

A new study has been conducted by Catalyst and GroupM that has looked into the latest smartphone trends among Canadian consumers, which has shown that there are certain activities that are beginning to stand out as more commonplace.

The results of the survey were published in a report that was entitled “The Evolving Canadian Mobile Landscape.”

The report is quite insightful with regards to recent smartphone trends, though it is important to note that the sample size was only 1,100 people. The results indicated that there is now a 68 percent smartphone penetration among Canadian adults. This represents a growth rate of 24 percent over what it had been last year. That figure is less than what Canadian wireless carriers reported within their own data. For instance, Rogers stated, last quarter, that among its subscribers, 84 percent had smartphones. Similarly, Bell and Telus reported a penetration of 76 and 81 percent, respectively, among their postpaid customers.

The report also indicated that these are not necessarily brand new smartphone trends, as most owners have had multiple devices.

Smartphone Trends - Mobile Shopping It said that “Most smartphone owners are already on their second or third device,” and pointed out that “In 2014, the mean number of smartphones ever owned by current smartphone owners was 2.12. In 2015, that number increased by nearly 12 per cent to 2.37.” Though the report doesn’t specifically explain why this increase has happened, the decision of the CRTC to require carriers to move into shorter two-year contracts and gradually eliminate the three-year contracts is quite likely to have played a role.

Another potential factor is the average age of mobile device users. Over the last year, it has experienced an increase, particularly when it comes to smartphones, specifically. This, according to the data within the Catalyst report. Among its sample, those who owned that kind of cell phone were primarily within the age groups of 25 to 34 years, and 45 to 54 years.

That said, what was likely the most fascinating about this smartphone trends study was the way in which those device owners were actually using them. Activity while on the go has decreased, while usage while at home has climbed. A growing number of Canadians are engaging in mobile commerce, news article reading, television watching, and Facebook access over these small screen devices.

Will Google miss its wearable technology opportunity?

| April 9, 2015

The company has yet to show that it has secured a long term position within the smartwatch category.

Google does seem to have embraced the idea of wearable technology as it produced an open-source software, Android Wear, that could be installed into the devices of hardware partners, and it had even been selling test models of smart glasses for a while through its Google Glass line, but it has shown that it is moving toward a higher amount of control over a heavier version of the operating system, including its APIs, which are typically licensed to smartphone and tablet makers.

Some have reported that they believe that Google doesn’t want to repeat past mistakes through its Android Wear.

The Android operating system for wearable technology is considerably more closed than the version of the OS that is designed for tablets and smartphones. Because of this, many OEMs have become a little bit leery of choosing the operating system for their own wearables. Samsung, for example, has chosen to use its own proprietary platform, the Tizen OS, for the majority of its smartwatches in the Gear line. LG is another brand that has created its own Wearable Platform OS, using the WebOS that it obtained from Palm.

The upcoming release of the Apple Watch is expected to throw the wearable technology market forward.

Wearable Technology - Missed OpportunitySince that device is clearly based on a smartwatch version of the iOS platform, many are starting to wonder if Google’s actions to protect itself from the mistakes it had previously made in its standard Android operating system could actually be what locks it out of the wearables market, when all is said and done.

Samsung has previously battled it out with Google over the degree to which Google has attepted to control the implementation of the Android OS. As TouchWiz UI is used by Samsung to differentiate the version of Android that it uses from that of other devices, Google wasn’t pleased that Samsung had chosen to move some of its apps around.

This demand for control and failure to open up the Android platform was what drove Samsung to use the open source version of the Android OS to develop Tizen and steer away from the limitations it faced from Google.