We haven't heard too much from Jolicloud in the past few months, but the company has apparently been working quite diligently on what's next: the "new Jolicloud platform." According to a mildly vague blog post from the outfit, the next edition of the OS will introduce "the personal cloud," enabling users to access the information stored there from "your iPhone, your Android phone, your tablet, your computer and pretty much any connected device with its API." In related news, Joli OS has been open sourced and is now available to the community.
It's hard to believe that it was ten years ago today that Windows XP first hit retail shelves. It's even more astonishing when you realize that it was still the most popular operating system in the world until the beginning of this month. The sun may finally be setting on the stalwart OS that has powered countless home and business PCs (it crossed the 400 million mark way back in 2006), but it's still number two -- right behind it's youngest brother Windows 7 and well ahead of the black sheep, Vista. Sure, our relationship with Microsoft's OS has had its ups and downs, but it's clear we've developed an attachment to the ol' bird. After all, consumer demand kept it shipping on PCs until late 2010 and Redmond has pledged to support it until April 8th of 2014.
According to Nielsen, Google’s Android platform gained once again during the three-month period ending in July, increasing it’s share by 1% over second-quarter totals to grab 40% of the U.S. smartphone market. Apple’s iOS stayed flat at 28% and RIM’s BlackBerry OS lost one point from June-quarter figures to fall to 19%. Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined to take 8% of the market — with Windows Phone responsible for just 1% on its own — and the ghost of smartphone operating systems past is now buried somewhere in the “Other” category.
Nielsen also notes that 40% of mobile phone users between May and July of this year owned smartphones, and Android topped iOS in the firm’s survey of which smartphone platform users intend to buy next. From “innovators” to “late adopters,” each consumer group Nielsen polled but one — “early adopters” — found Android to be the most appealing OS for their next purchases.
ComScore issued its May report on mobile subscriber market share in the U.S. last week, as usual, Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iOS grew more popular in the month, mostly at RIM’s expense. Perhaps equally as troubling as RIM’s continued slide, however, is Microsoft’s position with Windows Phone. As noted by Winrumors, Microsoft’s share of the U.S. smartphone market has dropped a whopping 35% since it released its next-generation smartphone platform in November of last year. At that time, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile accounted for an estimated 9% of smartphones sold in the U.S. In May, Microsoft’s combined share was just 5.8%.
The lack of carrier attention has left the OS as something of an afterthought thus far. With Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” devices due later this year and Nokia set to launch its first Windows Phone before 2012, Microsoft is well-positioned globally. Here in the U.S. however, the Redmond-based tech giant needs far more carrier support if it hopes to make a dent in an already crowded smartphone market.
During an interview with Bloomberg recently, HP’s CEO Leo Apokether said that his company is in talks to license its webOS software to other manufacturers. “We are talking to a number of companies,” he said.”I can share with you that a number of companies have expressed interest. We are continuing our conversations.” Apotheker said there’s no specific time frame for when another company may announce that it’s using webOS and noted that “there is no time pressure.”
However, Bloomberg said that Samsung has been named as one of the potential licensees, but that information is still being kept private. “Samsung will continue to strengthen its relationship with Google to provide ultimate values to customers,” Jason Kim, a Samsung spokesperson, said — hinting at the firm’s commitment to Android. HP’s first webOS tablet, the TouchPad, will make its debut later this week on July 1st for $499.99.
Earlier rumors placed the release to manufacturers (RTM) of Microsoft's Windows 8 OS as Q2/Q3 2012, but new sources are saying that timeline has moved up and the release will include Windows 8 x86, ARM/SoC and Server all at the same time.
Sources are saying Microsoft will release the RTM in April 2012 with a beta (not pre-beta) coming around the time of Build in mid-September. If this turns out to be true, expect the release candidate in early January.
We do know from various leaks the Windows 8 team has finished milestone 3 and is well on their way to the next one. We also know from previous Office and Windows disclosure patterns that if/when the team does offer a target delivery date, there will likely be several months of padding built in to make sure there will be no publicly measurable slippage. As a result, I’m betting that summer 2012 RTM target we originally heard about might have included that padding, giving more credence to a real internal April 2012 RTM date.
Steve Ballmer revealed the Windows Phone 7 'Mango' update will have "over 500 new features" in a speech over in Japan today, where he also said that additional information about "who's going to be building Windows Phones" will be forthcoming at tomorrow's preview event as well. Combine that with an otherwise unsubstantiated rumor about Microsoft showing nine new Windows Phone handsets tomorrow, and it does seem like there'll be fresh hardware to go with the ripening software.
Neither the Mango release nor any devices on show will be coming to market any time soon, mind you, but it's nice to think we'll get to see what the future of Windows Phone will look like in physical as well as digital form.
Google has officially released the first update to it's Android tablet OS, Honeycomb. Version 3.1 includes UI refinements, support for a number of USB devices, expanded recent apps list, resizable home screen widgets, support for joysticks and gamepads, improved wi-fi and updated standard apps. For the full list and descriptions head over to the Android developers site.
Android’s U.S. market share is continuing to grow at the expense of RIM, Microsoft, and Palm, according to a new report from comScore that took a snapshot of the mobile phone market during the March quarter. The report found that Android powered 34.7% of all U.S. smartphones, up 6% from December 2010. RIM’s BlackBerry OS market share fell 4.5 points to a 27.1% share of the market, while Microsoft’s Windows and Palm’s webOS each saw a 0.9 percentage point decrease. Apple’s iOS market share jumped 0.5 points to a 25.5% share of the market, just behind RIM’s 27.1% grasp. Samsung remained the most popular mobile phone brand with a 24.5% share of the market, followed by LG (20.9%), Motorola (15.8%), RIM (8.4%), and Apple (7.9%). The report also found that 234 million Americans above the age of 13 used mobile devices.
According to several forum posters over at mydigitallife, Microsoft has started issuing Windows 8 to computer manufacturers via its Connect internal testing system — also known as the “Windows 8 and Server vNext Pre-Release Program.” Reportedly, Windows 8 sports a “fully dynamic” 3D user interface, which allows the operating system to adapt to user habits and make OS interactions more efficient. A rumored “fast hibernation” feature will put the system in a saved-state in 3 to 6 seconds, and Windows 8 may also include a new “Mosh” tile-based user interface (no doubt inspired by the MetroUI found on Windows Phone handsets).
Windows 8 beta could land as soon as next September, but rumors from earlier this month suggest that Microsoft could start showing off a Windows 8 tablet as early as June. Business Insider reports that the Redmond company is taking a “more Apple-like approach to interface design” with this iteration of Windows. Microsoft has yet to publicly announce when it will demo all of the new features of Windows 8.
Despite its success with Android, Motorola Mobility has reportedly hired a number of engineers, some from Adobe and Apple, to work on a brand new web-based operating system. “I know they’re working on it,” Jonathan Goldberg, an analyst with Deutsche Bank told Information Week. “I think the company recognizes that they need to differentiate and they need options, just in case.
Nobody wants to rely on a single supplier.” Sources speaking to Goldberg and Information Week suggested that Motorola Mobility was building the OS as a possible alternative to Android, and while Motorola Mobility didn’t deny that it might be working on something, it has reaffirmed that it’s committed to the platform.
It all sounds a bit strange, especially since Motorola helped kick off the Android craze in the United States with the DROID, DROID 2 and DROID X on Verizon Wireless, among others. It seems more likely that Motorola Mobility is working on a Web-based operating system to compliment Android, instead of one to compete with it, but we’ll have to see.
Google has sent out all 60,000 of the CR-48 netbooks it ordered to testers. The CR-48 is a test netbook Google had manufactured to test their cloud Chrome OS. With 60,000 potential testers the OS should be solid when it arrives this summer.
It is rumored that Google will be releasing the master to its manufacturing partners mid-summer for an early fall release on devices. This comes just in time for some publicity for the important holiday shopping season.
Microsoft is on the verge of finishing its second Milestone build of Windows 8, WinRumorshas learned. The software giant has compiled a number of Milestone 2 builds recently ready for the final M2 build that will be distributed internally and externally to the company’s closest partners for testing.
The software giant finalized the M1 build in early December after four months of development. M2 builds began in early December and are expected to be finalized in the next two weeks. Milestone 3 development is expected to last until early June. The current schedule could mean we’ll see a Windows 8 beta in the Summer.
Microsoft has so far been extremely quiet on the Windows 8 front. Windows Chief, Steven Sinofsky, took to the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January to introduce a technology preview of Microsoft’s Windows ARM support and show off an early build of Windows 8. Microsoft is partnering with ARM-based manufactures NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments to produce new Tablet devices. Rumors suggest that Microsoft will create a dual-UI for Windows 8. A tile-based user interface codenamed “Mosh” will reportedly be included.
Steve Ballmer has described the next release of Windows as the company’s “riskiest product bet”. It is understood that Microsoft will feature deep cloud integration into the future OS to realise its vision of “three screens and a cloud”.
Canalys is reporting Google's Android has surpassed Symbian as the world's best selling smartphone OS. Android rose to 33 million units sold in Q4 2010, while Symbian made it to 31 million. For comparison Apple's iPhone only sold around 17 million units for the same time period.
Android increased their sales by around 13 million over the previous quarter while Symbian grew by only 1.1 million.
At an event last week in Boston, RIM VP Pete Devenyi said the company is exploring the possibility of introducing cross-platform solutions that would allow IT professionals to manage smartphones made by companies other than RIM. “BlackBerry is and will continue to be dominant in most corporations,” Devenyi said in an interview. “It’s not going to be the only device, given the fact that consumers have the choice to bring in their own devices, and IT departments are often letting them in. So there’s a question there: do those corporations have to manage those devices differently or is there the possibility that RIM might extend capabilities to make it easier for those corporations to manage those devices as well?” This is hardly the first time RIM has explored its competitors’ platforms as a possible way to widen its net. For years, RIM has been experimenting with a variety of cross-platform tools that might help the company develop new revenue channels. The most well-known example is likely RIM’s BlackBerry Application Suite, which we showed off exclusively two years ago. BAS would have allowed BlackBerry software to be installed on platforms like Windows Mobile and Symbian so that companies could deploy BlackBerry services on a variety of popular smartphone operating systems. The current state of RIM’s BAS software solution is unknown. [BGR]
Word out of CES is that Intel execs revealed their true feelings about Windows 7 on tablets at an event last night. Apparently, they lobbied for Microsoft to make a more tablet-friendly OS. Microsoft said no.
In addition to pushing for a new tablet os from the Redmond, Wa company, he also expressed sentiments that Microsoft is taking too long to release a tablet optimized version of Windows. According to Cnet, here's what Tom Kilroy, Senior Vice President of Marketing, had to say:
Hey, we tried to get [Microsoft] to do a tablet OS (operating system) for a long time. Us, and others like Dell," said Tom Kilroy, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Sales and Marketing Group, speaking to CNET at an Intel function last night.
Looks like we're not the only ones who think full-blown Win 7 on a tablet is a bad idea. [CNet]
It has only been 3 months since Google announced they were working on a new operating system dubbed Chrome OS. The new OS would be based on their extremely popular browser Chrome. Google has now released a Release Candidate (RC). RCs are generally released as one of the last steps to the product being finalized.
In recent weeks Google has said that Android was not optimized for tablet or netbook use, now we know why. Google released a statement "We are very happy with the progress of Google Chrome OS and expect devices will be available later this year. We’ll have more details to share at launch.” [TechCrunch]
RIM has announced they will be launching a tablet computer, called the BlackBerry Playbook, early 2011 running a new BlackBerry Tablet OS. It will be able to connect to BlackBerry Enterprise Servers out of the box via Bluetooth secure pairing to BlackBerry. Key features and specs include:
• 7” LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
• BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
• 1 GHz dual-core processor
• 1 GB RAM
• Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
• Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi - 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
• Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
• Ultra thin and portable:
o Measures 5.1”x7.6”x0.4” (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
o Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
• RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.
[BGR] [RIM Press Release]
Windows Phone 7 (WP7) recently went gold and there are a ton of devices ready to debut, so the official launch of WP7 is just around the corner. According to Pocket-Lint sources, "senior figures within the industry", Microsoft's newest mobile OS will debut on October 11th, with phones launching later that month. Microsoft will hold a special New York launch event to announce their highly anticipated mobile OS. [Engadget]
Is your computer running slow? Getting weird errors? Trouble doing the simplest tasks? Tried everything you can think of to fix the problem? The simplest answer may be to start all over and re-install your OS. Lifehacker has a great step-by-step guide, with software suggestions, to do just that. From cloning to backup to re-install it's all here in an easy to follow guide. [Lifehacker]
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