HTC One looks to redefine photography, social hub

Smartphone maker HTC is looking to breathe new life into its fortunes with its latest product. HTC One, a 4.7-inch phone with the best display in the market at 468 pixels per inch, was launched in Sydney on Thursday.

With this phone, HTC has taken a big step away from the megapixel race. The camera is rated at just four megapixels, but HTC says that doesn’t matter because it has a large sensor. The sensor is bigger than that in some compact cameras. This ensures that the picture quality is high.

HTC One is powered by Android Jelly Bean, running the firm’s custom skin — Sense 5. This version of Sense brings radical improvements to the phone. The most noticeable change is called Blinkfeed. Building on the features in Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10, HTC Blinkfeed lets users integrate all their social networks, calendar, email accounts and displays these with news updates. It’s the default homescreen on HTC One, meaning that it can be accessed by pressing the home button.

Another radical feature of Sense 5 is HTC Zoe, the new gallery app. It captures a short video, letting users choose the best frame and save it as a picture, rivalling BlackBerry Time Shift. Users can also remove unwanted objects from the picture easily. Zoe can also make a short movie by putting together all your pictures and videos, it adds background music on its own.

Other additions include a new music player app that adds new visualisations and pulls lyrics from the web, and Sense TV. The company has built an infrared transmitter into the power button, which helps it double up as a TV remote. Using the Sense TV app, users can see TV schedules and open the channel airing a particular programme.

The phone will be launched in India in March. HTC did not announce the price, but it is expected to be around Rs 42,000.

(The reporter was in Sydney on the invitation of HTC India)

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/htc-one-looks-to-redefine-photography-social-hub/1077641/0

Ranked – 4 Most Loved Operating Systems In The World

Bangalore: A study conducted by ChangeWave Research shows us which mobile Operating System is rated as the best one by the users. 4,061 people were surveyed and the results are quite amazing:

The survey looked at customer satisfaction based upon the Operating System consumers have on their Smartphones.

So here are the 4 best operating systems ranked by consumer satisfaction.

#4 RIM- BlackBerry OS: 

The BlackBerry OS which is developed by RIM (Research In Motion) was fourth. Only a quarter of its users were satisfied with its performance. A minor 26 percent of the BlackBerry users stated that they were satisfied with their phone. BB faces stiff competition in the market from Google’s android and Apple’s iOS. With the launch of its new OS “BBX,” later this month, BlackBerry can do some justice to its loyalists.

 

 
#3 Google’s Android!:

Yes, you have read it correctly Google’s Android rates third in the survey with only 48 percent of its users stating that they are very satisfied with their phone. This means that more than half the Android using population feels that the operating system is not up to the mark and needs improvement. This should raise concerns for the Tech giant as the Smartphone market has not yet tilted in their favor yet. It is not a surprise as most Smartphones roll out of production with the older version of the Android called Gingerbread even though upgrades in the software like Icecream Sandwich and Jellybean 4.1 & 4.2 have already been released.

#2 Windows Phone:

The key beneficiary here is last century’s leader in the mobile manufacturing – Nokia. The Finnish manufacturers had announced a partnership with Microsoft on February 11, 2011 making Windows Phone the primary operating system for Nokia, a partnership that they will cherish as 53 percent of the Windows Phone users have stated that they are very satisfied with their phone.

Now it seems clear why the new Nokia Lumia launched with the Windows Phone 8 has sold out. Microsoft will be very satisfied with their effort only behind another giant in this category which has been leading the domain for a long time, Apple.

#1 iOS Apple:

Apple is the clear leader here (no surprise), with 71 percent of the users saying that they are Very satisfied with their phone. As of September 12, 2012, Apple’s App Store contained more than 700,000 iOS applications, which have collectively been downloaded more than 30 billion times and as of June 2012 more than 400 million devices had been sold worldwide. That accounts for a lot of happy users but the surprise package of windows phone raises eyebrows as to how it will grasp the market in the next quarter.

 

iPhone wins 51 percent of U.S. smartphone sales, says report

Apple snared more than 50 percent of U.S. smartphone sales last quarter, says Kantar, though Android remained dominant across Europe and the world.

Apple’s iOS continues to outshine Android, at least in the United States, according to data released today by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

For the final quarter of 2012, the iPhone won 51.2 percent of all U.S. smartphone sales. In second place, Android soaked up around 44.8 percent of U.S. sales, leaving Microsoft’s Windows Phone with 2.6 percent.

Apple’s flagship platform also scored well in Japan, proving tops among two-thirds of Japanese smartphone buyers.

“Apple’s continual improvement is thanks to both the iPhone 5 and older models attracting various customer groups, from repeat Apple buyers, first-time smartphone buyers. and those coming from other smartphone brands,” Kantar analyst Mary-Ann Parlato said in a statement.

Over the past year, 36 percent of iOS sales in the U.S. came from users of other smartphones, notably Android. The percentage of Android users jumping ship to the iPhone was 19 percent in 2012, compared with 9 percent in 2011, according to Kantar.

Verizon subscribers were especially eager to hop onto iOS. A full 59 percent of iPhone-buying Verizon customers came from other brand phones, while 30 percent had used Android specifically. In comparison, 15 percent of AT&T users who bought an iPhone jumped from a different platform, while only 6 percent were former Android users.

Among other iPhone buyers, 35 percent upgraded from a previous model, while 30 percent were buying their first smartphone, Kantar said.

Android is still No. 1 throughout the world, including key countries such as the U.K., China, Spain, Australia, and Germany, according to the report. But it’s lost some of its fire.

“At the end of 2012, the global OS picture shows Android on top, but clearly the rate of growth it experienced over the past year is beginning to slow as easy wins from first-time smartphone buyers begin to reduce,” Kantar analyst Dominic Sunnebo said in a statement.

Samsung is tops in the U.K., with 35 percent of smartphone sales last quarter. But Apple is catching up with 32 percent.

Finally, Microsoft’s Windows Phone is gaining some traction in Europe. For the quarter, Windows Phone won 5.9 percent of smartphone sales in Britain, up from 2.2 percent a year ago, and 13.9 percent in Italy, up from 2.8 percent the prior year.

“It has been far slower than Microsoft would have liked, but Windows Phone is now starting to gain respectable shares in a number of key European countries,” Sunnebo said. “However, its performance in the Chinese and U.S. markets remains underwhelming. As the two largest smartphone markets in the world, these remain key challenges for Microsoft to overcome during 2013.”

The data comes from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech USA’s consumer panel, which conducts more than 250,000 interviews per year in the United States. This report focused strictly on sales rather than market share.