mobile market

As it usually does, Apple got the tech world excited this week when it introduced its new iPhone 5.

The magically, magnificent device will be an experience like no other and will provide consumers a 4-inch display and 4G LTE connectivity. In other words, stuff that Android phones have enjoyed for the better part of two years. That is, of course, unless you get a Sprint or Verizon iPhone 5 and want to use simultaneous voice and data.

In all seriousness, though, the new iPhone will be a good step forward for Apple as it does improve upon the existing … Read more

Android has taken a more commanding lead over iOS in the U.S., research firm ComScore is reporting.

According to the company, Android secured 43.7 percent of the U.S. smartphone OS market during the three-month period ended August 2011, jumping 5.6 percentage points from the 38.1 percent market share it had at the end of May. Apple's iOS platform came in second place with 27.3 percent market share at the end of August, ComScore said. In the three-month period ended May, Apple's operating system secured 26.6 percent of the U.S. smartphone … Read more

A new report from analyst ComScore says that the Verizon iPhone was the "most acquired" handset during the month of February.

ComScore's sampling, which consisted of more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers, notes that the surge of handset buyers responding to the phone's launch earlier this year helped give Apple the strongest gain of market share in the OEM category. That gain amounts to an additional 0.9 percent between November 2010 and the end of February 2011.

Nonetheless, Apple remains below competitors at 7.5 percent overall in terms of OEM market share. … Read more

Android 2.2 Froyo is far and away the most used version of the mobile operating system, a developer page has revealed.

According to data that Google compiled over the 14-day period ended March 15, Froyo was running on 61.3 percent of all the devices that accessed the Android Market. It was followed by Android 2.1 Eclair with 29.0 percent share. Android 1.6 Donut and Android 1.5 Cupcake accounted for 4.8 percent and 3.0 percent of the market, respectively. The recently released Android 3.0 Honeycomb nabbed just 0.2 percent market share.… Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Fred Campbell's bio below.

Although it's running late, the Federal Communications Commission is on the brink of releasing its yearly report to Congress on the state of competition in the mobile wireless market. For nearly a decade, the FCC has found the wireless market in the United States to be effectively competitive.

Last year, however, the FCC shocked the industry by refusing to even make a finding regarding competition in the mobile wireless market. The FCC instead said that "because no single definition of effective competition" would be … Read more

While Microsoft has already let us in on the number of Windows Phone 7 handsets it's sold to carriers and OEMs worldwide, the bigger picture--as in how many consumers have actually made purchases--has been left up to research firms and retailer surveys. New numbers released by the NPD Group bring that picture into focus.

Windows Phone 7 gained 2 percent of the U.S. smartphone market during the last three months of 2010, NPD said in a research report that covers unit sales during that time. That's compared to Android's 9 percent growth over the previous quarter, … Read more

Apple is being sued for allegedly letting mobile apps on the iPhone and iPad send personal information to ad networks without the consent of users.

Jonathan Lalo, who filed the lawsuit on Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., alleges that Apple's iPhones and iPads let ad networks track which applications people download, how often they're used, and for how long, according to a Bloomberg article published today.

Specifically, the suit alleges that the ad networks are able to trace an iPhone or iPad using the unique device identifier, or UDID, which is a number … Read more

A trade group for the mobile-phone industry is calling for new privacy guidelines to help address consumer complaints over how and what information is gathered through mobile apps.

Made up of mobile advertisers, publishers, and media companies, the Mobile Marketing Association said yesterday that it's working on a new set of privacy guidelines to supplement its current Global Code of Conduct. Created in 2008, the Code of Conduct established that mobile marketers must ensure that consumers can opt in and out of ads and that information gathered through ads be used responsibly.

But with ongoing concerns about online privacy, … Read more

Nokia and Intuit are teaming up to offer small businesses a new service designed to grab more customers through mobile marketing.

Unveiled at Nokia World 2010 on Wednesday, the new service will target mobile subscribers with a series of ads and personalized offers for products and services that they can buy in their own neighborhoods. The goal is to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) better reach and communicate with their local customers.

To push out its ads precisely, the service will tap into such mobile technologies as location-based awareness and mapping, according to the companies.

In order to build … Read more