The worldwide smartphone market is growing at a near meteoric rate. Are you prepared or preparing to capitalize on this trend? IDC’s research finds that smartphone vendors will ship around 450 million units this year… that’s 49% more than in 2010.
This is four times faster than the overall mobile phone market. The Android operating system is still predicted to continue its rapid growth and be the top operating system, with an expected 39.5% of the market by the end of the year and 45% by 2015. Much of this growth is fueled by consumer desire to have the additional functionality offered by smartphones. This creates a massive opportunity for forward thinking individuals and businesses.
iPhone applications developers and Android application developers worldwide are booked for months in advance to meet the growing demand for application software for these systems. And its not hard to see why, consumer demand is high and these applications offer an all new way to engage consumers. Savvy business owners are looking to mobile application developers to help them turn outdated advertising campaigns into engaging applications that interact with consumers on a personal device that is carried with them most of the day.
Already businesses are finding campaigns run via creative and practical mobile applications are paying huge dividends. There are several keys to success with mobile applications and a quality, professional application developer can help you put together a map to success that will help you translate your brand into a powerful mobile application.
Samsung has announced the second-generation Android tablet. The new Galaxy Tab offers far more firepower than its predecessor and is likely to be a much better iPad competitor.
Fortunately, Samsung has chosen to go with Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb platform on this version. Android 3.0 is properly optimized for the tablet form factor. Samsung has really stepped up to make the 10-inch Tab as a true smart media device. It has stereo speakers and packs a number of sensors such as compass, accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity. It can play full 1080HD video content.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will come in two variations, one with 16GB of storage and one with 32GB and will integrate Google’s video chat software, which was developed for Android 3.0.
The 10-inch tablet space is looking very competitive at this point, with the iPad, TouchPad from HP, and Xoom from Motorola all looking very competitive. The Galaxy Tab 10.1’s back is made of a carbon fiber looking covering that looks very nice. Samsung did a great job with design this time around on the device to set it apart from the growing set of tablets.
At this year’s consumer electronics show, Google has given us their view of the future for tablets with a sneak peek at Honeycomb – their tablet only operating system that is on the way. Honeycomb looks different than the interface you are used to but that is because Google is optimizing it for tablet use.
Widget use is clearly a focus of Google’s tablet plans and Honeycomb will be integrated with Google Maps 5 with 3D interactions and offline reliability, Google eBooks and Google Talk. Video chat will be integrated so users won’t have to go to third party vendors.
Tabbed browsing is an exciting feature that will allow tablet users to view the Internet in the same way that they do when on their laptops or desktop computers. This is certainly a big plus.
Android tablets look to be ready to make a big move in the same way that Android phones have done in the smartphone market. Custom built Android applications are very likely to start making some big noise in the marketplace very soon.