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Pew Survey: Half Of U.S. Mobile Consumers Use Cell Phones For Realtime Info Retrieval

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Mobile computing is more realtime than desktop computing. That’s just obvious. Typically when you are on the go, you want to know what is going on right now around you. The Pew Internet research project put out a new survey today that quantifies how many people rely on their mobile phones for realtime information. In the past month, 51 percent of U.S. adult cell phone owners have used their phones to get just-in-time info “they needed right away.”

Another 40 percent used their phones for emergencies. While about as many, 42 percent, use their phones to “stave off boredom.” For 18-29 year-olds, that percentage is 70 percent.

So mobile phones seem to be good for at least two things: realtime information consumption (stop looking at your Facebook feed) and entertainment (mostly games would be my guess). They are also good for avoiding personal contact with other humans. A full 13 percent of survey respondents admitted they have “pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.”

The survey also dives into smartphone usage specifically. Pew esimates that 35 percent of Americans now own a smartphone. The most popular activities are text messaging and taking pictures (both are tied, with 92 percent of smartphone users saying they do each activity). More smartphone owners send photos (80 percent) than email (76 percent) from their phones. And 84 percent access the Internet. Social networking sites in general are accessed by 59 percent, while 15 percent check Twitter alone.


Google’s Motorola deal: What exactly is Google buying?

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As we reported earlier, in a surprise move today, Google has announced its intention to purchase Motorola Mobility, the handset manufacturing side of Motorola’s business. So, what is Motorola Mobility and what does the acquisition give Google?

Following several years of huge losses and significant drops in market share, the Mobile Devices division of Motorola was spun out of Motorola as a separate company in January this year. Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. has of late focused its mobile handset business exclusively on the Android market. With the deal, Motorola will continue to operate as a separate business, but what exactly is Google buying?

Mobile devices

Motorola Mobility produces a range of Android-powered handsets including the high-end Droid and ATRIX brands and cheaper handsets like the Citrus and Flipout. Meanwhile, its Xoom is regarded as one of the best Android tablets on the market.

In the US market, Motorola’s Droid brand of Android phones has had a significant impact, helping Motorola regain market share as well as giving Google’s OS a certain amount a ‘cool’ it was previously lacking via campaigns like Verizon’s ‘Droid Does‘, which has since expanded to cover devices from a range of manufacturers, but began with the original Motorola Droid.

Google has its own ‘Nexus’ brand of phone, built by other manufacturers, which tend to be the first to sport the latest version of Android, along with hardware features Google particularly wants to push (see NFC in the Nexus S, for example). With this deal, Google now has the ability to build its own ‘Google Phones’ under the Nexus, Droid, or whatever other new brand it may choose – and it doesn’t need to deal with other manufacturers to do so.

This cleans up a sticking point in the Android ecosystem, whereby Google would update its OS, only for other manufacturers to modify the user interface significantly, shattering any chance of a unified user experience across devices. While Google may have seen that as a benefit of Android at first, it leads to delays in OS updates to users as manufacturers have to rework their own skins and widgets to fit the new features. Now Google has the ability to push out significantly more ‘official Google phones’ that offer the company’s own vision of what Android should be.

Set-top boxes – ideal for Google TV

Google TV may not have got off to a strong start, but Google still has a real interest in making a play for the living room as it becomes Internet connected through set-top boxes. Being a strong service and advertising provider in this market is too big an opportunity for Google to pass up on.

Having a set-top box manufacturer on board will help the company finely tune its hardware and software offering for Google TV – something it’s definitely lacked to date.

It’s not just the TV either, Motorola Mobility’s current range of video-focused devices includes Televation, a service it sells to third-party companies. It streams live broadcast TV content to a wide range of devices in and around the home via a similarly branded app.

Other hardware

Motorola Mobility also produces broadband routers, networking equipment and hardware for digital security. While these may not be immediately a good fit with Google’s own operations, having a manufacturer of such devices on hand is certainly no bad thing.

Patents – Protection for Android

Probably the most important reason that Google is prepared to shell out $12.5bn for Motorola Mobility is that it has a significantly large patent portfolio helping to shield it against the growing threats Android faces from its rivals who look to increase the price manufacturers pay to release handsets using Google’s mobile OS, using patent licensing fees.

Motorola Mobility has over 17,000 patents and 7,500 more pending, a huge boost to the ‘shield’ Android has against its rivals when it comes to lawsuits and countersuits.

Google said on today’s conference call that the deal was about “Protecting and extending” Android. While the ‘extending’ part is important, the ‘protecting’ is essential. For more on the importance of the patents to today’s deal, see our analysis here.

Lawsuits – A potential headache?

Google also brings on board Motorola Mobility’s current lawsuits. Apple is suing Motorola in Germany over the design of the Xoom, claiming that it is to similar to the iPad. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Motorola are embroiled in a legal battle over patents. If the Google deal goes through, such lawsuits will still be faced by Motorola (it remains a separate company after all) but Motorola could well benefit from the added weight of Google’s legal team.Image source


Developers look to Google+ and Apple’s iCloud for new mobile opportunities

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A new report from mobile cloud platform providers Appcelerator and industry-leading analyst form IDC shows that new mobile platforms and cloud developments by Apple and Google are tempting developers to their services, redefining mobile app engagement, loyalty and cloud connectivity thanks to the new Google+ and iCloud services.

The survey, which polled 2,012 respondents, indicates that developers believe Google+ and iCloud will impact the growth and adoption of mobile the most, accounting for 25% and 22% of developer votes respectively. Developers also believe that Near-Field Communication will play an important part in driving mobile innovation, but with widespread adoption still a while off, it may have lost ground to services that have launched or are due to launch soon.

Scott Ellison, IDC VP Mobile & Consumer Connected Platforms adds insight:

Google and Apple are pushing mobile competition beyond OS platforms into the cloud and into social integration.

This means even broader battles with major players like Amazon and Facebook, creating new competitive complexities and opportunities going forward for everyone in the mobile ecosystem.

Of the two thousand respondents surveyed, 68% believe that Google’s suite of tools including Search, YouTube, Maps and its social network provide more opportunities that Facebook’s social graph, currently the dominant social player. Nearly half of respondents believed Google shows more innovation than Facebook with its new Google+ featureset, including Circles, Sparks and Hangouts.

However, developers aren’t ready to abandon Facebook’s platform, with 83% saying that they will use the world’s most popular social network’s tools and services in their apps this year. Twitter ranked second with 73%, followed by Google+ with 72%. Google+ has yet to announce a public or developer API, although this is said to be coming – especially after it was revealed Games were coming to Google+.

Apple’s upcoming iOS 5 release has the mobile community excited, with improved notifications (58%) and iCloud (51%) provoking the most interested from developers. This was followed by integrated Twitter support (40%), reminders (36%), and iMessage (32%). With iCloud offering space to backup music, files and documents in online, 50% of developer intend to incorporate iCloud support in their services.

It won’t come as a surprise to learn that iOS devices dominate mobile application development, with 91% of developers saying they are “very interested” in developing for the iPhone and 88% interested in creating apps for the iPad. Interest in Android rose from 85% yo 87% over the last quarter, with Android tablets rising to 74%. With HTML 5 development starting to gain momentum, 66% of developers say they are interested in HTML 5 development.

Google and Apple’s new platforms will help challenge more establish players like Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook but the battle is far from over. With consumers more aware of their devices and what opportunities are available to them, it is up to these companies to offer services that are easy to use and do not take away from their daily lives.

The full report is available here.Image Credit


Cell phone market bigger than we thought

The researchers at Deutsche Bank are throwing out old estimates of the worldwide mobile phone market because they say we’re still underestimating its size. The reason? They’re still trying to grasp how many cell phones are made and sold in China. As a result, Deutsche Bank is increasing its 2011 forecast of the worldwide market to 1.68 billion phones, up from 1.57 billion earlier this year.

“The bulk of this change comes from an additional 115 million GSM 2G units going into emerging markets,” a research note from the firm says.The problem with counting the phones sold in China is that a sizable chunk of them are “Shanzhai” phones, or knock-off phones that are cheap to make and popular in China and in neighboring emerging markets. The manufacturers of these handsets don’t have official licenses to build phones from the Chinese government and typically do not sell them through what we might think of as traditional retail channels.

DB phone forecast 2011

But even though Deutsche Bank has talked to contacts in the country to get a better feel for the true number of phones being made and sold, it says it’s still difficult to know the true size.

“It’s also worth pointing out that we could still be missing some number of shanzhai phones…In a note following our recent China trip, we pointed out that many of the China handset makers sell $20 phones. These go to emerging markets prepaid customers, and we know no data source capable of tracking these units,” Deutsche Bank said.

Zeroing in on the true size of that market is not the only factor increasing this year’s forecast though. Phones using LTE technology are rolling out faster than anticipated in the U.S. Previously, Deutsche Bank was expecting 3 million LTE phones this year, now it’s doubling that number.

In addition to the worldwide numbers in basic handsets growing, consumers still just can’t get enough of smartphones. Smartphones shipments will grow by 30 percent this year over 2010 levels to a total of 423 million units, with Android phones accounting for 220 million of those, Apple iOS phones for 80 million, Nokia 70 million, and Research in Motion selling 50 million BlackBerry handsets, according to Deutsche Bank.

This year’s growth isn’t expected to slow any time soon either. DB is upping its estimate for smartphone growth in 2012 too. Anticipating smartphone prices to drop below $150 next year, the group is expecting overall unit sales growth to hit 36 percent.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user Wesley Fryer

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