zevWorks

The Samsung Galaxy S is known to be coming to all four major carriers in one variant or another, with T-Mobile (Vibrant) and AT&T (Captivate) having already released their versions. Sprint’s Epic 4G will be the first 4G version of the device, and it will have a slide-out keyboard and front-facing camera as well, missing from all the other versions. What we don’t have is a solid launch date.

However, recent history, in terms of Samsung product videos, has revealed a possible date.

First, AT&T’s Captivate was released on July 18th. The Samsung product video showed up on the next business day, July 19th. The T-Mobile Vibrant’s video appeared on July 21st, which would appear to be late, as the device shipped on July 15th, but if you remember it was originally set to release on July 21st, it makes sense.

Looking at Samsung’s video schedule, it now says the Epic 4G’s video is set for August 20th.

If the theory holds up, that’s the date for the launch of the Sprint Epic 4G. A more vague clue also comes in the form of a tweet from Samsung, in which they said the Epic 4G was coming in a “few weeks.”

With the exception of the slide-out keyboard and a front-facing camera, the Epic 4G is pretty much a clone of the other Galaxy S devices coming to U.S. carriers. It has a 4″ Super AMOLED screen, 1 GHz Hummingbird CPU, a 5 MP camera, 802.11n wi-fi, a 1500 mAH battery and a 6-axis accelerometer, in addition to the keyboard and F-F camera. It’s unclear if we will see Android 2.1 or 2.2 at launch.

With complaints flooding in about the new iPhone 4G, from dropped calls on the AT&T network to the unavailability of apps, it seems a good time to question the future of the platform. Especially now that its main competitor Android is building up momentum.

Without question one of the most appealing factors about smartphones is the applications which can be added to them, whether they are for playful or practical purposes.

In the past the Android OS has not attracted the same number of app developers, largely because it has not been as profitable to make them as for the iPhone, but now there are unmistakable signs that Google could be ready to outmanoeuvre Apple.
Firstly the controlling nature of Apple does not sit well with all developers and consumers. Yes Apple says that it can guarantee a higher quality of app because of its stricter policing of the markets. But many customers will not care about the quality and will be happy to have apps that do a good enough job at a lower price. Google holds all the cards in this respect as it can give away the Android OS for nothing, such is the size and heft of the company.
In June 2010 alone, 60,000 more android devices in the UK were activated than in May, when 100,000 people had tapped into the Android OS system. An even more significant figure shows that for the first time there are now more Android app developers than there are iPhone app developers.
This will be particularly relevant over the next decade as emerging markets come into play. In places such as India and China where the iPhone may be unaffordable, Google is looking to offer customers the full smartphone experience at a lower price.
By next year the Android may be outselling the iPhone. Apple may say that it aims to do what it has always done – offer a higher quality experience in niche markets. But it is clear that their latest problems will have the company sweating.

An Android developers site has posted the make up of the Android consumer base.
It suggests that the Nexus One, which is the smartphone running Froyo 2.2, has only 3% of the market share. However the Nexus One is about to be discontinued.

By far most users are on Android 2.1 making up 55.5% of the market, followed by 22.1% on version 1.6 and 18.9% on 1.5.

XA tiny fraction (0.3%) of OS systems are running on obsolete versions according to the data which was collected over a period of two weeks at the beginning of July.
There is also a table of how many versions the various API’s are compatible with. Versions 1.5 and 1.6 are compatible with most APIs while the 2.1 share is growing.

The site states: “Notice that the platform versions are stacked on top of each other with the oldest active version at the top.
“This format indicates the total percent of active devices that are compatible with a given version of Android.

“For example, if you develop your application for the version that is at the very top of the chart, then your application is compatible with 100% of active devices (and all future versions), because all Android APIs are forward compatible.”
However this can lead to a problem of fragmentation as picked up in a Guardian article. This is because old versions of the Android OS can’t run applications that target more recent versions.

The Guardian says that we don’t really know how the Android OS is running because Google won’t tell us. Available data on Android market transactions would make the whole picture that much clearer.

Various publications have picked up the decision of the search giant to kill its own progeny – the Nexus One. The Nexus One was one of the first Android smartphones that were released. Crave, the gadget blog from CNET UK wrote in tragic terms about the discontinuation of the Android Nexus One: “Google is taking the Nexus One out into the woods and putting a bullet through the back of its touch screen.”

They called the Nexus One a blog experiment in online sales of smartphones and said that the Vodafone Nexus One would surely be the last of a dying breed. Why had Google not taken a lesson from Apple in terms of marketing a smartphone? The Nexus One has sadly become just another casualty of ever moving technology.

The online portal for Britain’s Telegraph newspaper focused on the company closing of the online store. Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Telegraph that the idea of moving the phone platform hardware business forward was so successful that Google did not have to do a second one.

Now that the last shipment of Nexus One has been received they will no longer need to be sold online. The Nexus One blog also said that the web store had remained a niche market.

Meanwhile the Mobile Business Briefing said that Google was ‘keen’ to attract developers to the Android based device.’ It added that Google was quick to deny that poor sales were responsible for the closure of the online Nexus One sales portal.