Google May Have The Most Used Mobile OS, But at What Cost?

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We all love Google, for one reason or another, Google is our preferred search engine, our preferred mobile operating system provider, and soon our preferred wearable provider. It is also no secret where Google makes most of their money, advertising. However Google may be facing a big issue that they may have caused on their own. The issue is the amount of money they get for advertising on mobile devices. Since most of the information we are usually searching for can be provided by an app, Google is missing out on the money provided by advertising that we otherwise would have seen if we had to search the web for the answers.

There are apps for weather, traffic, banking, movies and just about anything under the sun, that we would want to search for, there is an app for that. This is where Google will lose money. Instead of using the web, we can just use our apps, and in doing so, advertising provided by Google is seen by far fewer people than before. Recently, Nielsen data, shows us exactly how much time is spent on mobile apps rather than mobile browsing. According to the report, 89% of our time is spent on mobile apps, and only 11% on mobile browsing. Rolfe Winkler from the Wall Street Journal, points out that “Google spiders can’t freely crawl apps,” So what will GOogle do to keep earning money?



One way Google has attacked this issue in the past, is by the use of “deep links” which makes in app information discoverable to Google. However, with so many app developers and permissions that need to be granted to Google in order for them to access the information, Google will have to strike deals with each individual app developer. That is no easy task since there are over 1 million apps, and each app will need a deal, that’s a lot of deals. There could be a saving grace for Google though, and it is HTML5.

If developers used HTML5,even if they used a hybrid version that combines HTML5 with native coding, than Google will have better discoverability. HTML5 has been getting lots of praise from Google for quite some time now. Google has webpages dedicated to showing the benefits to using HTML5. Basically, the use of HTML5 makes inapp data searchable, which benefits Google, as well as developers. However, the benefits are clouded by the disadvantages to developers, which may be the reason HTML5 isn’t being used.

Using HTML5 from a developer’s standpoint, could mean lower performance compared to using native coding. This may be true for full HTML5 apps, but there is a hybrid version that is not getting much love either. This could be due to the fact that it is lesser known, a hybrid HTML5 and native coded app. This is where Google could start seeing an increase in cash made by mobile apps and mobile web. Google just needs to be more vocal about the issue.

Are you a developer, if so what is keeping you away from HTML5 or HTML5 native hybrids?

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Sungale’s Stackable Power Bank is the Best thing Since Sliced Bread

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Here at Android Headlines, we love a good power bank. Because we are always using our phone or tablet, and always need more power. We’ve reviewed many power banks already, but today we’re taking a look at a new power bank from Sungale which is plain and simple, just awesome.

Basically, the Stackable Power bank is a small battery pack that is 2000mAh in size, which is pretty small. But the great thing about these is that they are stackable – which I’m sure you noticed from the name. So you can add a second one to make it 4000mAh, and so on until you max out at 10,000mAh. Now that is pretty darn cool if you ask me.

According to Sungale, these are high efficiency power conversion power banks and can charge your smartphone, tablet, or any iOS device. It can even charge the new HP Chromebook 11. It’s slim, round and humanized housing design, and has an easy way to charge. you can use one cable to charge all of these at once. Of course the more you stack, the longer it’ll take to charge them. But that’s just common sense there. The whole power bank is a unique, superposition design, easy to assemble or part by the middle black magnet. The capacity is up to you, obviously since they are stackable.

As far as the specs go, it’s a capacity of 2000mAh. Input is DC 5V-1000mA, Output is DC 5V-1000mA. Efficiency is >=85%, Input port is a microUSB connector, output is a standard USB 2.0 connector, and dimensions are 2.95 x 2.95 x 0.51 inches.

The Stackable Power Bank is not yet available, but we’ll be sure to let everyone know when it’s available and where you can pick it up from. In the mean time, let us know in the comments below what you think about the Stackable Power Bank in the comments below.

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Nokia X Pre-Orders Hit 1 Million in Just Four Days in China

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We recently heard that the HTC Desire 816 scored a ton of pre-orders in China in just a few days, and now we’re hearing the same for the Nokia X, which has hit 1 million in just four days. The Nokia X is Nokia’s low-end smartphone that runs a forked version of Android, it was announced at Mobile World Congress last month, and many Nokia fans were disappointed. As they were hoping for a nice high-end Nokia Android smartphone, and they didn’t really get that. It is a very low-end – 512MB of RAM low – with a forked version of Android. Kind of like what Amazon does on their Kindle lineup.

The Nokia X is supposed to be coming to China on March 25th, so we still have roughly two weeks before it officially launches, but so far it’s looking good for Nokia, at least in China. The Nokia X isn’t expected to be widely available in the US, but I’m sure it’ll be available from our favorite unlocked smartphone companies like Expansys, Amazon, and Negri Electronics, for a pretty cheap price tag.

China has the biggest smartphone market right now, even larger than the US. Which means it’s no real surprise to see both the Nokia X and the HTC Desire 816 become very popular over there. Both phones look really great and are for two different markets. The Nokia X line is for the really low-end and the HTC Desire 816 is for the mid-range market. Nonetheless, it’s great to see two struggling OEMs actually making a dent in some sales, even though it is in the low-end and mid-range market, and in China.

We’ve heard rumors of a higher-end Nokia phone coming with Android soon. So hopefully that comes out before Microsoft officially takes over the company, or else we may never see it, unfortunately.

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Sprint Launches new Prepaid Options Including a $60 Plan with 2.5GB of Data

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This morning, Sprint unveiled some new prepaid plans for their network. Now they aren’t as flexible as some other carriers prepaid plans, but they are still quite good. There’s the $45 Smart plan and the $60 Smart Plus plan. Let’s start with the $45 Smart plan, which gives you unlimited talk and text, but you are limited to only WiFi. No Sprint data connections at all. Which kind of sucks, but if you’re like me and you work from home, the $45 plan is probably a pretty good idea.

Then there’s the $60 Smart Plus plan. Which gives you unlimited everything, except you only get 2.5GB of high-speed data then you are throttled. Similar to what T-Mobile does on their $60 postpaid and prepaid plans. So if you’re one who doesn’t use much data, say 2GB of less per month, the $60 plan is definitely a great option.

The $45 Smart plan, is a $5 drop over the plan they announced last year, so it’s great to see prices going down. That’s something we can all get behind right? Right now, these two plans are compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, Samsung Galaxy S3, Motorola Moto G and the Apple iPhone 4S (Certified Pre-Owned). Sprint also has a few other plans on their site which I believe is for feature phones, which are the Basic and Basic Plus plans. The Basic plan is a $35/month plan with 500 minutes and unlimited text and data, and the Basic Plus $50/month plan is unlimited everything. So you can see why I believe these are for feature phones right? As far as compatible phones, Sprint only lists “Coming Soon…” so we’ll have to wait for more on that front.

It’s great to see more and better Prepaid plans coming, as I’m a big supporter of Prepaid now. Even though I’m not on Prepaid. But the ability to buy a phone, like the Moto G and be able to use it on a cheaper plan with your carrier and not have the subsidy built into your monthly bill is a great thing.

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We Now Sort of Know what the OnePlus One Looks Like

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There’s been a lot of hype over the OnePlus One which should be announced and released this summer. For those that don’t know, OnePlus is made up of a few executives that left OPPO last year and they are working with CyanogenMod who is making the software. Their plan is to release one phone per year, and up until this point we’ve only seen them really making fun of their competitors. We haven’t seen anything about their actual phone, until today.

Thanks to the folks at BGR, we now have a picture of the OnePlus One which shows the device from various angles. This is a sketch, so we may call it a picture, we might not. The annotations on the picture above further reinforce the OnePlus’ desire to offer buyers a high-end smartphone when it comes to design lines and build quality. The handset will have an aluminum unibody, with some polycarbonate elements. Which explains why the 3100mAh battery will not be removable. Additionally the sketches also show us that the power button will be placed on the side, similar to how Sony does it with their phones.

While the main camera will have a dual flash, but a front-facing camera is not specifically highlighted on the front-side of the device. However, they do mention a “TP Lens” on the front, but we are unsure of what that means. What’s also missing from the sketches are places for the volume rocker, microUSB charging port, and SIM card slot. We also don’t know if the OnePlus One will have a microSD card slot, which would be on top of the 16GB and 64GB models.

What we do know is that the OnePlus One will have a 5.5-inch display in the same footprint as Sony’s Xperia Z1′s display. Which is pretty crazy. That means they’ve got some crazy thin bezels going on. Hopefully OnePlus will announce this device fairly soon, as I know a lot of people are excited about it.

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Say Hello to Samsung’s New S Band Fitness Tracker

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If we were in any doubt that the wearable business was going to take off this year, CES and Mobile World Congress have seen to those doubts. With pretty much everyone releasing some sort of wearable tracking device to tell you how you sleep, monitor your heart rate and feed data back to our smartphones, it’s no wonder that Samsung has one more wearable to announce for this year. As if the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and the Gear Fit weren’t enough, here comes Samsung’s latest S Band.

I say latest, because Samsung quietly announced plans for such a device with the Galaxy S4, but the device never quite made it to market, but now it looks like Samsung has gone back to the drawing board and come up with something a little better. Thanks to leaked photos acquired by the enterprising folk at SamMobile, these photos show off a device that isn’t dissimilar to Sony’s SmartBand. The S Band can either be clipped to your body somewhere or encased in the straps seen in the images. There will be multiple colors available, and while the S Band does look somewhat attractive, it looks more like a watch than either the Gear Fit or Gear 2 devices. What’s interesting here, is that this looks quite different to a recent leak that hit the FCC.

Functionality wise, we’re looking at all the regular sort of things an activity tracker is designed to do, such as monitoring your sleep, your calories and tracking your exercise. It’ll also vibrate and notify you of calls, but there doesn’t look to be a display so we’re not sure how useful that’ll end up being. According to the leaked info, the S Band will be compatible with pretty much all of Samsung’s devices, but it does require S Health 3.0, which so far only resides on the Galaxy S5, so updates to older devices will be needed. Of course, the S Band should end up being more affordable than any of the new Gear devices and should be, on the whole a lot more approachable a device for the average consumer. With the S Band going up against Sony’s SmartBand, which like the affordable SmartWatch 2, will work with all Android devices it’ll be interesting to see which one takes off.

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Facebook to Take on Google With App Marketing

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How many apps do you have on your device? Go ahead, check first, ok, now how many of those apps are paid apps? More than likely you have at least one paid app on your device. Now where did you get that app? More than likely it was downloaded from the Google Play Store, it is however possible that you downloaded and paid for it from Facebook’s own app store. If Mark Zuckerberg has anything to say about it, we will all be using his app store to buy our apps.

That’s right people, Facebook may be trying to flank an unguarded side of Google’s front in the mobile app market. We know that many people are using Android devices, in fact they make up 80% of the mobile market currently. The part that Zuckerberg sees as an opportunity, is the paid app market from Google, and it’s lack of marketing.

The Google Play Store, at any given time, has many apps to choose from, some paid and some unpaid, but one thing you won’t see a lot of, is promoting of these paid apps. It is mainly up to developers to promote their own product, even if Google is taking a cut from each paid download. Though Google is not the only company leaving their guard down. Apple is as well, with the numbers being over one million apps and only 200 apps displayed on App Store charts. Though it is possible to search for apps on Apple’s App Store, but this may be one of many reasons we switched to the great Android OS. Searching for an app in the App Store may not give you exactly what you are searching for, in fact, only 0.02% of apps are displayed in the Apple App Store at one time. Of course, you could spend an hour scrolling through to find what you want, but is any app really worth searching for an hour? This is where Google learned a lesson.

When you search an app on the Play Store, you will be presented with 500 apps in reach. Still, with a better search option, which Google, a search engine company better be good at, those 500 apps only amount to 0.04% of the total number of apps available on the Play Store. With this weakness from both Google and Apple, Facebook is aiming to show of their own app store, which has existed for some time now, just not really given attention.

So in an attempt to get that attention from developers, Facebook is hosting a conference called “F8” on April 30th. At this conference, an argument will be made by Facebook’s chief app developer, Ilya Sukhar. The argument will be that Facebook can give your app the attention, you as a developer, want to achieve. Reports point out some interesting points that Sukhar may be planning to make. Firstly, the biggest attraction, is that Facebook has over 1.2 billion users on Facebook, and for the most part, they are accessing the site on their mobile device. Talk about mobile advertising opportunities.

Next your attention may be moved to how Facebook knows your struggles as a developer. Look at the many apps Facebook has tried to make a thing, and just didn’t succeed. This means Facebook knows your pain, and wants to help cure that pain, though, have they done a great job healing their own wounds in the past? You be the judge on that one. Facebook also knows what it is like to own apps, like Whatsapp and Instagram. Back to how Facebook plans to make money where Google and Apple both are falling behind.

Facebook feels the way to make money, is to sell ads on Facebook, and any other apps Facebook decides to purchase, that link back to the Play Store. Since Facebook is slightly similar to Google in the fact that 53% of their income is from ads, this option will mend in nicely with Facebook’s structure. How will this affect Google?

Well technically it wont. In fact, it may help Google make money without spending money. To compare, we will be using a recent Discovery Channel segment that is fresh in our minds. There are fish that have bacteria on them, and without a way to clean themselves off, these fish could die due to that bacteria. Luckily for them, there is fish that are smaller, and feed on that bacteria. So, the smaller fish, attach themselves to the bigger fish, eating the bacteria and helping the big fish survive. Google makes money on each paid app sale, and if their product is getting advertised at no cost to them, well then that’s just money coming in, and none going out. Google is the big fish, and Mark Zuckerberg, (imagine how hard it was not to type suckerberg), is the little fish.

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