The Android operating system has reportedly generated $31 billion in revenues for Google since it first launched in 2008, creating $22 billion in profits largely from mobile advertising.
Despite a huge jump in Android app downloads from Google Play fueled by the company's expansion into developing markets, Apple's iOS App Store continues to bring in more money and has actually increased its lead in profitability over Android's official store.
A new kernel privilege escalation flaw discovered in the Linux kernel requires server operators to install a patch, but is not going to be fixed for the majority of Android users. After record numbers switched to iOS last quarter, Google's inability to update its user base is inciting switchers to move to iPhones even faster.
Samsung hopes to maintain its "lead by following" style of innovation for this year's Galaxy S7 launch by copying the Live Photos feature Apple developed for iPhone 6s, but the planned feature may not be done in time for the flagship's launch.
Google's ability to distribute new Android updates has always lagged far behind Apple's iOS, but the situation is even worse in China, where the "Lollipop" version 5.x, introduced in 2014 alongside iOS 8, has only reached about a fifth of all devices, two thirds the distribution it has achieved elsewhere.
Performance benchmark vendor Antutu presented iPhone 6s as the best performing smartphone of the year, despite being compared against high end Androids with more RAM and faster CPU clocks driving four times as many cores.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released data showing a significant drop in Android's share of smartphone sales in the December quarter, leaving a 33 percent gain for non-Android smartphones, a segment dominated by Apple's iPhone.
Xiaomi—a Chinese startup that aimed to push out high volumes of low cost smartphones and then make money on ecosystem-related services—has missed its volume goal for 2015 while substantial revenues from services remain a "figment," casting doubts upon its $46 billion valuation.
Apple is not, in fact, working on a migration tool to help iPhone owners switch to Android, a spokesperson said on Monday, in a rare instance of the company commenting on rumors.
Apple is reportedly in the process of developing on a new software application that would make it easier for iOS users to make the move to Android, transferring personal data more quickly from Apple's operating system to Google's.
In 2015 Apple grabbed a 94 percent share of the world's global smartphone profits, sold the only profitable tablets and smartwatch, increased its Mac unit sales,, launched a successful NFC payment platform, took a huge slice of the music streaming market and introduced a new platform for the living room. How can it possibly beat that performance in 2016?
The product mix of iPhone models in Apple's real world installed base of users shows smooth adoption of iPhone 6s models and no evidence of a decline in demand that would require unexpected production cuts. This publicly available data severely undercuts the supply chain rumors supporting a narrative of "Peak iPhone" and reactionary order slashing.
Holiday quarter online shopping revenues grew 12 percent over last year in the U.S., despite less promotional discounting. Additionally, 77 percent of orders from mobile devices were made from Apple-branded devices, compared to just 23 percent using Android.
Two years ago, Google made headlines when it acquired military robot maker Boston Dynamics. However, after receiving $42 million from the government to develop autonomous machine mules, the robotics group has failed to deliver anything the Marines can use and the Pentagon has ended further funding.
HP, the world's third largest PC and tablet maker in unit volumes behind Lenovo and Apple, is exiting the low-end tablet market to focus on smaller volumes of higher-end products priced similar to iPad.
Citing continued consumer demand for the latest models, IDC on Thursday said it expects Apple's iPhone shipments will post 17.3 percent growth across 2015 — nearly doubling the performance of the overall global smartphone market.
Apple remained the dominant platform for holiday mobile shoppers as iPad and iPhone users accounted for 78.3 percent of mobile e-commerce orders over Thanksgiving Day. Buyers using any device using some form of Android contributed only 21.5 percent of online orders.
An operations security manual developed to advise journalists and political activists on how to protect their identities is now being distributed by supporters of Islamic State terrorists. One of its recommendations is to use Apple's securely encrypted iMessage service.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that half of the communications connections established by the top free Android apps are hidden to the user, and much of the data is being transmitted for unknown purposes.
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Roger Fingas
Daniel Eran Dilger
AppleInsider Staff
Blair MacGregor
