Google will start to charge Android smartphone and tablet producers a licensing fee to include the Google Play Store and other essential apps on devices sold in Europe, as a way to comply with the European Commission's antitrust decision.
Five years ago, I described how Google was distancing itself from Android and increasingly pursuing a new strategy around Chrome OS. While that was a controversial idea at the time, Google's latest announcements show that's exactly what the company had been doing.
Apple's iOS is catching up to Google's Android in terms of customer loyalty, continuing a three-year trend that has seen both operating systems enjoy extremely high retention rates, according to a research report published Thursday.
Most smartphone buyers tend to stick with the platform they're familiar with. However, new data from Merrill Lynch indicates that a large percentage of top Android brand users now intend to switch to an iPhone in their next purchase.
Firing its latest salvos at Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, Google on Tuesday announced several new devices, led by its Pixel 3 and 3 XL Android smartphones.
Since iPad launched in 2010, International Data Corporation has dutifully crafted various media narratives that belittled as it as a toy, dismissed it as merely a "media consumption" device in a world that needed Windows, and disparaged it as inconsequential in a vast sea of cheap Android tablets (some of which were literally children's toys). But they were wrong, here's why.
This summer, Samsung Electronics reported a 22 percent drop in mobile revenues and a 34 percent collapse in year-on-year profits in its IM division, which includes smartphones, tablets, PCs, watches, and other products comparable to Apple's business. Over the same three months, Apple reported a greater than 17 percent increase in both its revenues and profits. Why is the world's largest phone maker by unit volume performing so poorly?
Apple on Wednesday updated the Android version of its Apple Music streaming app, introducing support for Android Auto and song search by lyrics, the latter being a feature just introduced with iOS 12.
After Apple confirmed iPhone X to be the top-selling iPhone in both the first and second quarters of 2018, fresh data from Mixpanel suggests the premium-priced handset also acted as a halo device to prop up sales of iPhone 8 Plus.
Subscribers of Apple Music may soon get the chance to listen to music through the streaming service via Android Auto, after the discovery that a beta for the Android version of the app enables support for Google's competitor to Apple's CarPlay.
There are countless reasons users may opt to jump from one mobile operating system to another, but the results of a recent poll suggest hardware pricing and user experience are key factors in making such decisions.
Adding to an ongoing location-tracking scandal, a research paper claims that idle Android devices are sending nearly ten times as much data to Google as iOS devices do to Apple's servers.
Potentially creating an even bigger gap with Apple in the smartspeaker market, Google is looking to ship its own smart display in time for the holiday shopping season, a report claimed on Friday.
Early benchmark testing of Samsung's just released Galaxy Note 9 shows the flagship phablet is unable to top Apple's iPhone X with A11 Bionic processor despite hitting market nearly 11 months later.
Lenovo's product makes a surprisingly solid case for why a smartspeaker should have a touchscreen, moreso than the Amazon Echo Show or Spot.
Google has formally released Android 9, the latest iteration of the mobile operating system, with the company's Pixel line among the first smartphones to be able to install the new software, with Google also revealing the Android version's name: Pie.
Once controlled exclusively by Amazon, competition is beginning to accelerate in the smart speaker space. The latest shot across the bow is the first one with Google's Android Things, the Lenovo Smart Display.
Although most media attention has been focused on the state-of-the-art iPhone X, it's the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus that have helped push Apple to 38.7 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, according to June-quarter estimates published this week.
Ten years ago, Google offered Taiwan's HTC a lifeline of sorts in the form of an Android partnership for the original HTC Dream, followed by Nexus One. However, the former Windows Mobile contract manufacturer hasn't fared so well since. Google's last two years of HTC-built Pixels have done nothing to help the struggling company.
Apple can tell the folks at Alphabet just how long these cases can drag on, as it has its own experience in such matters.
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Malcolm Owen
Daniel Eran Dilger
Mikey Campbell
Roger Fingas
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
