In Q4 2014, 43.6 percent of U.S. consumers with a smartphone owned an Apple iPhone, according to a survey by Nielsen. Samsung followed with 31 percent, LG at 7.6 percent, Motorola at 5.8 percent and HTC at 3.9 percent, all from the Android community. Windows Phone-based Nokia phones had 2.2 percent, and BlackBerry smartphones were 1.2 percent of the U.S. smartphone population, said Nielsen. Android was the leading operating system among U.S. smartphone owners, at 49.5 percent of users, it said. Sixteen percent of smartphone owners said they had acquired their handset within the past three months, bringing smartphone penetration to 77 percent of mobile phone owners in the U.S., said Nielsen. Among those who had recently acquired a phone, 91 percent chose a smartphone, compared with 82 percent in the year-ago quarter. Overall, smartphone penetration grew 8 percentage points over Q4 2013, it said. Nielsen’s Mobile Insights is a monthly survey of 30,000-plus mobile subscribers aged 13-plus in the U.S.
Amped Wireless announced a high-power plug-in Wi-Fi range extender said to boost Wi-Fi coverage by up to 10,000 feet, depending on operating environment. The REC33A ($159) is said to eliminate dead spots and improve Wi-Fi connections at speeds not previously achievable by a plug-in range extender. Powering the extender are a dozen amplifiers, an external high-gain dual antenna and a gigabit wired port to deliver speeds up to 450 Mbps in the 2.4GHz band and 1300 Mbps in the 5 GHz band, said the company.
Five new channels were added to Verizon’s FiOS Mobile App -- FX, FXX, FXM, Nat Geo Wild and National Geographic Channel -- increasing the number of live, outside-the-home channels available on devices to 93, said Verizon in a news release Wednesday. It said TV consumption across devices grew 388 percent year over year, according to Adobe.
Quickplay bought Roundbox, which will enable it to monetize viewing experiences on any device or network by using multicast or unicast technologies that leverage 4G LTE Broadcast, said the acquirer in a news release Wednesday. It said Roundbox’s cloud-enabled software makes it possible for Quickplay to deliver a range of new capabilities and mobile media experiences, as well as optimized video and data delivery and spectrum utilization.
SAP joined the Industrial Internet Consortium, which aims to accelerate and promote the business use of the Internet of Things, the company said in a news release at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Wednesday.
Sling TV launched a "Best of Live TV" core package for $20 a month, it said in a news release Wednesday, adding AMC and IFC to its programming. Sling has programming rights for BBC America, BBC World News and WE tv, it said. Sling added a Hollywood Extra add-on pack, which offers movies from Epix, Epix2, Epix3, Epix Drive-In and SundanceTV, for an additional $5 per month, it said in a news release Wednesday. The Hollywood Extra pack has a replay feature, so customers can watch up to seven days of previously televised content, it said. Sling will add video on demand content from AMC, IFC and SundanceTV, it said.
Yahoo is introducing contact cards that show a photo or logo, phone number, job title and links to social media profiles with each email, it said in a news release Wednesday. It said the data is gathered by Xobni, and will display information only according to the contact’s privacy settings.
Smartphone ownership in the U.S. increased from 8 percent in 2005 to more than 80 percent in 2014, but consumers continue to use the same eight apps on their mobile devices, said smartphone and tablet research from market researcher Parks Associates. Social networking apps were the most commonly used, followed by gaming and music apps. “The average app use among smartphone users has held relatively constant," said Harry Wange, Parks director-health and mobile product research. "This leaves an increasingly wide variety of apps competing for the finite attention span of the consumer." A similar trend was discovered with tablets. Despite use increasing from about 30 percent in 2012 to 60 percent in 2014, consumers continue to use the same seven apps on their tablets, it said.
Time Warner Cable is bringing its TWC TV app to the Xbox One video game system, in an agreement with Microsoft, the cable operator said in a news release emailed Wednesday. TWC video subscribers who have an Xbox Live account can access 7,000 free and subscription on-demand titles, it said. Customers can download the TWC TV app at no additional cost from the Xbox Live Apps, it said. The app also is available on Xbox 360, it said. The app uses the OneGuide program guide and voice commands through Kinect, it said.
Hyundai's Blue Link smart watch "companion app" is available for download from Google Play and will be available for the Apple Watch soon after its April release, the automaker said Wednesday. The Blue Link platform allows features like remote start and service information to be quickly accessed through devices like smart watches and smartphones, Hyundai said. To work the app on a smart watch, the wearer taps an icon or uses voice commands to activate remote functions, it said. The Blue Link smart watch app must be paired via Bluetooth to an owner's smartphone that contains the Blue Link mobile app, it said. "Remote functions can then be executed from almost anywhere in the U.S. as long as the user's smartphone has a Bluetooth and cellular or Internet connection." The app will work with first- and next-generation Blue Link-equipped Hyundai models, said Hyundai.