Category: Technology News

New Google Clock mobile app hits the Play Store

| June 25, 2015

The new version of the application provides Android device users with an alternative to the default on their devices.

Google has now launched a brand new mobile app for the Play store that will offer users of Android devices another option other than the default clock application that comes with devices based on that operating system.

There are several mobile applications that have been developed by Google that users can now download.

This new Google Clock Application is considered to be a stock mobile app that users can obtain for free. It provides a broader spectrum of services such as location, to pinpoint one or several spots that the user wants to have displayed on his or her device home screen. Also notable about this particular version of the mobile application is that a new update is put out with each official rollout of the Android operating system.

The mobile app doesn’t demand too much space and combines features often contained in several common apps.

This mobile application requires a device to run on at least Android 4.4 KitKat and needs about 6.6 MB of disk space to operate. It not only offers the current time to the user, but it also provides a number of additional features such as weather attributes and animations such as sunrise, sunset, sunshine, and rain.

The app has been designed to match the color schemes and themes of the device upon which it is running and is a stock app for users of Nexus devices. While there has been some criticism of the Google Clock application because it doesn’t have different face changes available and the color changing opportunity isn’t there, it has still managed to bring in some rather healthy ratings of nearly 4 (3.8) out of 5 stars, so far, from nearly 9,000 ratings.

Other frustrations that have been mentioned about this mobile app is that while it is helpful to be able to have several cities displayed on the home screen, there doesn’t appear to be any way to sort them. The user needs to settle for the way that they are automatically displayed. While this wouldn’t be problematic with two or three cities, more than that could cause a bit of a challenge to users.

Indian mobile phone market share belonging to LG set to rise

| June 25, 2015

The South Korean electronics company is expecting to double its share in the country in 2015.

LG Electronics has announced that it now expects that its mobile phone market share will double in size by the end of the year when it comes to the penetration that it has achieved within India.

This will allow the company’s share of the smartphone market to reach 10 percent by the close of the year.

According to Deepak Jasrotia, the head of LG Electronics’ India business, “Our target is to double the market share in the mobile phone segment to 10 percent from the current four to five percent.” This, following the launch of the LG G4 high end smartphone in Mumbai, last week. At that time, it also said that it has every expectation that it will be able to meet those projected targets, particularly upon examining the rapid rise of smartphone adoption within India, at the moment.

India is the only mobile phone market where smartphone shipments are expected to increase over the next few years.

Mobile Phone Market - India & LG ElectronicsThis, according to the Worldwide Quarterly mobile Phone Tracker results from the International Data Corporation (IDC). Clearly, India is an extremely important marketplace for this type of mobile technology, at the moment, as the rest of the world is expecting its smartphone shipments to level off or even reduce in their growth figures.

At the moment, it is estimated that the smartphone shipments in India will be rising to 13.29 percent by 2019. This, in comparison with the 2015 figures, which is forecasted to be 7.61 percent.

On LG’s side of things, the company believes that it will be selling more than 100,000 units of its LG G4 in India alone, this year, said Jasrotia. The launch price of that particular device is Rs. 51,000 (approx US $800). That said, the electronics manufacturer offers devices that start at a much lower rate of Rs 10,000 (about US $155), which will be an important factor in growing its mobile phone market share. Of all of the devices that LG sells in India, Jasrotia pointed out that mobile is currently making up about 10 percent of its total revenues, there.