US Smartphone Marketshare Numbers For February Dominated By Android

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We already knew that Android grabbed the biggest slice of pie when it came to US smartphone marketshare, but according to these new numbers from ComScore for the numbers from February, Android not only holds the biggest slice yet again, but it grew from last November when the numbers were previously put out. The ComScore numbers show that Android’s gain went from 51.9 percent to 52.1 percent. It’s a small gain, but a gain is a gain. Apple’s iOS holds its number two spot of course ahead of Windows Phone 8 and Blackberry with a score of 41.3 percent, which is actually a gain of 0.1 percent. Windows Phone rose a little to grab up 3.4 percent marketshare, and Blackbery actually fell some and now only holds 2.9 percent marketshare. Interestingly enough, Symbian still has a place on this list, and still holds 0.2 percent marketshare.

While the three major smartphone operating systems all grew their marketshare for users on their platforms, Android clearly has the dominant lead and continues to do so. When it comes to hardware sales though things take a little bit of a different turn as Apple holds the top spot here, with 41.3 percent of the US smartphones sold. This puts Samsung in second place, with only 27 percent marketshare for smartphones sold, and finishing out the top five of ComScores list for smartphone OEMs are LG with 6.8 percent marketshare, Motorola with 6.3 percent marketshare, and HTC with only 5.4 percent marketshare. Both Apple and Samsung grew their percentage numbers here, with Apple seeing another 0.1 percent gain, and Samsung gained a flat 1 percent. LG also grew their numbers as they saw a 0.3 percent gain in marketshare. Both Motorola and HTC lost numbers, and saw a decrease of 0.4 percent and a flat 1 percent respectively.

It probably wasn’t any surprise to learn that Android once again holds the number one spot for smartphone OS marketshare in the US, but it might have surprised some to see Apple take the lead of actual smartphones sold over Samsung. Especially since Samsung devices run Android which is holds the largest amount of marketshare for the different OS platforms. It was also disappointing to see HTC get a decline, but hopefully their numbers will turn around once they start selling the MTC One M8 in more places.

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ASUS Chromebook Pictures Leak Out

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We’ve known that ASUS is working on a Chromebook that should be coming out this year. Now we have some pictures of their Chromebook, which appears to be the C200. From the pictures it looks like another 11.6-inch Chromebook, and we also have no idea what specs are inside. However, you can see an Intel sticker on the laptop, so it’s likely we’ll have the same SoC that we had in the Acer C720 and a few of HP’s Chromebooks late last year. Which is a Haswell chip, and provides a ton of battery life. Yes, Intel has a newer chip for Chromebooks that they announced this week but I don’t think it’s quite ready for mainstream just yet.

Looking at the ASUS Chromebook here, it looks just like a regular ASUS laptop, which we all know and love their build quality for laptops. ASUS is the one that a lot of us had been waiting on to get our hands on. It’s also hard to tell what kind of ports it has, but we do know it has a HDMI port as well as probably a couple of USB ports. Likely 2.0, but I’d love to see USB 3.0 on-board. It also comes with 100GB of Google Drive for free for 2 years. Which is standard with Chromebooks these days.

There’s still no release date on the ASUS Chromebook C200 yet, but it looks like we’re getting close to an announcement and possible release. Which I’m excited to check out ASUS’ Chromebook, as I love the build of their PC laptops and even their tablets. In my opinion, they are right up there with HTC and Apple as far as build quality goes on their devices. How many of our readers are interested in an ASUS Chromebook? Let us know in the comments down below.

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Featured Review: Incipio’s Watson Case for the HTC One M8

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The HTC One M8 is out, well it’s on Verizon right now but will be hitting other carriers next week. And many case manufacturers have already announced their own cases and have them ready for purchase. Among those are Incipio, who are pretty big fans of Android Headlines. They’ve sent us a few of their cases to review – and giveaway. The first one we’ll be reviewing is the Watson case from Incipio. this is a wallet Folio case for the HTC One, which seems to be a pretty popular style of cases as of late. The Watson case is available in White/Teal as well as black. Obviously, I have the black on here that I’m reviewing.

The Watson case is a very nice looking case from Incipio, but then again so are all of their cases. It’s kind of like the Dot View case, or the S View Case in the fact that it flips around the front. Which inside the front are about 3 pockets for you to add your own cards, like your ID, credit cards, etc. Now the back of the case is actually two parts. There’s a hard plastic case then there’s the leather-like case that goes around the entire thing. This is because the Wallet Folio acts as a stand. So you can stand it up to watch a video on YouTube, etc. Which is definitely a nice feature to have, especially given how amazing this display is and the Boomsound front-facing speakers on the HTC One M8.

This case is available now from Incipio’s website for $44.99, or Amazon for $39.09. So you can take your pick. It’s a really nice case, even though I’m not a fan of the wallet cases on my devices, I’d still use it everyday on the HTC One M8, it looks amazing. We’ve got a few more cases from Incipio that we need to review, so make sure you stay locked on Android Headlines.

Video Review

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gallery

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Verizon HTC One Max Getting Android 4.4.2 on Monday, April 7th

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Some good news for HTC One Max users on Verizon today. According to @moversi, who is the executive director of Product Management at HTC, so he does know what he’s talking about. He took to Twitter today to let us know that they have received technical approval from Verizon for the Sense 5.5/Android 4.4.2 KitKat update. And that the update is expected to roll out on Monday afternoon, which is April 7th. The update should be pretty large, I’d guess around 300MB in size. Of course, the update will be rolling out via a staged rollout. So not everyone will get the update on Monday, some might be a few days later, which sucks but that’s how these updates roll out these days. There is a technical reason behind the staged roll out, which is to be sure the update isn’t bricking devices, because that can turn into a huge problem for HTC.

So far there’s no change log, but we should see the same changes as we saw in the Android 4.4.2 update for the HTC One. Which means on the Sense side there’s mostly only changes in the camera app. Otherwise it’s just minor UI fixes. However, the HTC One Max launched with Sense 5.5 on board, so the update may be even smaller than that. On the Android side, we’re looking at immersive mode and plenty of other great features coming to the HTC One Max.

Unfortunately the HTC One Max isn’t getting Sense 6 just yet, which is definitely a huge update over Sense 5.5 and I’m really liking it so far. But you should see the Sense 6 update later this year, which should make the HTC One Max fly even more, which will be amazing. How many of our readers are sporting the HTC One Max on Verizon Wireless? Are you excited to get the update to Android 4.4.2 on your Verizon HTC One Max? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.

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T-Mobile CEO Mocking Sprint Over their Framily Plans and ETF Pay Offs – Big Surprise?

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Sprint announced their Framily plans back in January at CES. Which is actually a pretty innovative plan. It’s kind of like a family plan except everyone gets billed individually and you can add up to 10 people on your Framily plan. Additionally, the more people you add, the more your bill drops. So it’s a bit confusing to explain to people but once they understand how it works, it’s actually a pretty cool plan. Especially if you know a lot of your friends and family are on Sprint. Last night, Sprint announced that they will pay up to $650 for your friends and family to leave a carrier and come to Sprint and join the Framily plans. Of course this got John Legere’s brain going thinking that it sounded familiar.

It’s not really out of Legere’s character to bash Sprint, which he has been doing for months about their Framily plan. Saying how Sprint can’t spell and stuff like that. But now he’s going after them paying off ETFs for a few weeks. Here’s his latest tweet on the subject – I’ll admit I got a laugh out of the hashtags:

Hey @Sprint- Paying off ETFs 2 get people 2 switch is a great idea (I should know) but for just a couple wks? That’s #FruckedUp #Cheapskates

I do like how Legere played Sprint’s game on the first hashtag there, #FruckedUp. Because Sprint likes to say Framily a lot. So it’s a bit funny, but then again maybe Legere should be working on his network a bit more? Now if any of you have been following me for a few months, you’ll know I’m a big T-Mobile fan. But I’m also the first to admit that their network isn’t the best everywhere, and that Legere does go over the line sometimes with his antics. But he is doing good things over at T-Mobile, this time last year, we had only a handful of LTE markets, and still had contracts. Now look at us, Contract-free – sort of – and we can upgrade every 6 months. Plus we have LTE in a lot of markets now. I know Legere and T-Mobile say they cover 400 million Americans, but I don’t really believe that. That’s close to Verizon’s number.

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Driving Assistant App Automatic Can Help To Improve Your Driving Habits

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Android users can now have the pleasure of using a cool driving assistant app called Automatic, that can help them improve their driving habits. The app has actually been on iOS for a while now and it has finally made the jump to the play store, and the app combos together with a tiny little dongle called the Automatic link that you plug into your cars data port, and the dongle easily connects to your phone through Bluetooth. The mission of the team at automatic is as they say, to unlock our cars potential and redefine people’s relationship to driving. Alongside the safety features of Automatic and how it can help you improve the way you drive, it also has efficiency benefits, and can make driving more fun by making it easier to do certain things.

Like seamless car sharing for instance. If you have a friend or family member that you want to let borrow your car, but they don’t know where you parked it, they can simply find it on the map using the Automatic app, which is able to track your vehicle by finding the Automatic link. This can also serve as a great way to always know yourself where you parked, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost. The Automatic link/app pair can also help you with auto efficiency as we stated above, by helping you to save on gas just by adjusting your driving habits a little bit. For example, it learns from the way you drive, and when you do things that might waste gas it’ll notify with a light audio tone. You can then track your drive score from the app which receives data from the Automatic link, and narrow down where you need to improve.

Automatic can also help you with safety. Since it’s connected to your car, if the check engine light comes on it will alert you on your phone with a description of the problem and possible solutions to on how to fix it. If it’s an issue that you can take care of yourself, you can avoid having to take your car in to get serviced to fix a minor problem. In the event of a crash, it can also help to alert 911 with your location so they know were to find you, and notify family or friends so that they know your safe and help is on the way. The Automatic app itself is free, while the Automatic link dongle is $99. If you have been looking for an easy way to manage your driving habits, Automatic is the way to do it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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HTC: “We’re Happy with HTC One M8 Sales So Far”

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Last night, a report came out that the HTC One M8 was already seeing pretty bad sales. But what that report failed to mention – or maybe forgot – is that the HTC One M8 actually launches next week. Yes the device has been out for a week, but only on Verizon in the US and at Carphone Warehouse in the UK. So obviously sale numbers won’t be that high. But on April 11th, the HTC One M8 will be available at T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T and various other countries around the world. Around 100 other countries. So like I’ve said before, don’t believe those “early reports” as they are usually wrong, and/or biased. Now these numbers in this report weren’t necessarily wrong. As it’s coming from Chitika, which is measuring the web traffic of devices. And the HTC One M8 is sitting at 0.1%, while it’s not the best, it’s not the worst either.

Sure the HTC One M8 isn’t seeing the same success as the Galaxy S5 would see if it were in just Verizon stores and Carphone Warehouse, but that’s a whole other story, since Samsung spends a ton on marketing every year. That’s a ton of money that HTC doesn’t have. HTC America’s President, Jason Mackenzie went to Twitter last night to say that these reports coming out last night were wrong and that HTC is pleased with the initial sales of the HTC One M8.

Now if the web traffic from the HTC One M8 is still under 1% after a week of it being available on every carrier, I’d be worried, but at this point I’m not. HTC has an amazing device here. While the camera is somewhat controversial, it’s still an amazing camera – more on that later though. How many of our readers have picked up the HTC One M8 or have pre-ordered it? Let us know in the comments below.

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