Nielsen has come out with some new data that shows that about 29% of smart phone owners turn to their phones for shopping. 71% of percent of app users said they would rather use their phone to pay at registers. In the third quarter of 2011 38% of smartphone users used their cell phone for price comparison and purchasing. 75% of iPhone owners have expressed interest in paying by iPhone and then 39% said they would be very interested in an for the purpose of making purchases at the register. A lot of these numbers favor companies like Google and PayPal which have been working on large opportunities to capitalize on consumers’ mobile payments desires. These numbers show that things are changing in this world, who knows maybe in the future you won’t need a physical credit card you will only need your phone.
It has been reported that Amazon has placed an order with the company Foxconn to build 10 inch versions of the Kindle Fire which by all accounts should be released this summer. DigiTimes had reported that Foxconn received orders for the new device from Amazon and that it could be shipped by the second quarter of this year. It would seem that Amazon has had some success with the Fire, seeing as though they are considering making an upgrade to the Fire so soon. The Apple iPad has sold more than 55 million since 2010 and Amazon hasn’t released any numbers but they did report that they had the best holiday ever for the Kindle devices, including the Fire which was launched in November. Although some estimates have the Kindle Fire selling around 6 million units in the fourth quarter which is quite an achievement since 15 million iPads were sold in the fourth quarter.
Nuance the company that has brought you Dragon Naturally Speaking has added support for Android 4.0 otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich. The Swype feature that many people are using these days now includes the Dragon Go! software that is a free app in the Android Marketplace. It adds what has been called a Siri-like voice search functionality. You can just tap and hold the Dragon Go! button on the screen and ask a question like you do with Siri. Based upon reports I have read the Dragon Go! addition is very accurate just like Siri. It does pull the answers for you questions from different places like Google search, Yelp, Fandango and many more.
As you have read in some of my past blogs, Apple is setting up an event in the first week of March to announce the next iPad. The date has been set for March 7th. The speculation is running wild on what will be included in the iPad 3 but the rumblings are a quad-core A6, a 2048×1536 Retina display and there is also speculation with 4G LTE networking. They are putting 4G LTE into the iPhone 5 which is set for October of this year. So the fact that the iPad 3 would get 4G LTE earlier would be nice since it is a tablet and not a phone and having those types of speeds on a tablet would be tremendous. The other speculation is going to be on the camera which is going to be a 5 or 8 megapixel camera for the rear and a FaceTime HD front camera. The starting price for the entry level model is being speculated at around $499. So far this is all just speculation and we will know what exactly the iPad 3 will have on March 7th but I must say if these rumors are true I might actually think about getting one finally.
So we have been awaiting the major release of Ice Cream Sandwich on more devices. Well it seems like it isn’t the software that is holding up this being on more phones but the hardware. The senior vice president and GM of Motorola’s Enterprise Unit, Christy Wyatt, stated that writing code to support hardware other than Google’s Nexus model has become a tall order for many smartphone makers. The problems with this is that upgrades to phones are more difficult and it takes forever for a person with an Android smartphone to enjoy an major upgrade. They do understand that people want upgrades sooner rather than later but the process is very complicated. Although they will be working hard to make sure that phones can upgraded as fast as possible, it’s just people with Androids will just have to be patient but most people’s patience is getting thinner.
So if you read my blog you know that Apple is planning an event in San Francisco to announce the iPad 3. Well apparently now the company is in crunch mode and is trying to line up all of the apps for both on stage demos and also show off some advertisements for the new iPad. Apple has been known to be very picky about what apps it will show off on its hardware, on the iPad 2 they showed iMovie and also Photo Booth. This time around my money is going to be on apps that show off the display. With everyone clamoring about the Retina display, you would think they will show off apps that are visually stunning. Now this is still not all confirmed but All Things D reported this and I must say they have been spot on with speculating Apple announcements and I am sure this one will be no different.
