Android share doubles iPhone in U.S., Samsung most popular vendor

Google’s share of the smartphone market in the United States is now nearly double that of Apple’s iPhone according to new data published Friday. A new report from market research firm iGR states that 47% of U.S. smartphone owners have Android devices while 24% own Apple’s iPhone. The company also found that Samsung is the most popular brand among Android users in the U.S. followed by Motorola, HTC and LG. Less than half of Android users researched the mobile OS before purchasing their smartphones according to the study, and 27% said Google’s reputation was a key factor when they made the decision to purchase an Android phone. ”Understanding why consumers select specific brands and certain smartphones is critical to the success of OEMs in the highly competitive U.S. handset market,” iGR Research Analyst Sarah Thoman said in a statement. “While a user’s current handset brand influences the selection of a new Android smartphone, many other factors also come into play. For example, handset display quality and functionality also highly influenced the smartphone purchase decision.” IGR’s press release follows below.

New iGR Research Shows Samsung as Most Preferred Android Device Brand Among Consumers

Consumer Surveys Also Show That 45 Percent of Android Users Researched the OS Prior to Purchase and Specifically Wanted an Android Device

AUSTIN, TX, Jan 20, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — The popularity of the Google Android smartphone operating system (OS) has increased significantly in the last few years. New iGR research shows that, at present, 47 percent of U.S. smartphone users have an Android device, followed by 24 percent who own/use an Apple iPhone. Of the major brands supporting Android, Samsung has the highest brand preference among consumers, followed by Motorola, HTC and LG. ZTE and Huawei ranked toward the bottom of the brands studied, although note that these brands currently sell comparatively lower volumes in the U.S. market.

iGR’s new research also shows that 45 percent of Android users researched the OS prior to purchase and specifically selected an Android device when they bought a new smartphone. It also appears that Google’s reputation is driving Android sales — 27 percent of Android users said that they selected an Android smartphone because they believed that Google was a “reputable company” and therefore inferred that Android must also be reputable.

These findings, as well as others relating to consumers’ Android brand preferences and impressions, are presented in iGR’s new market study Android Brand Preferences: U.S. Consumers, published in January 2012.

“Understanding why consumers select specific brands and certain smartphones is critical to the success of OEMs in the highly competitive U.S. handset market,” says iGR Research Analyst, Sarah Thoman, who authored the study. “While a user’s current handset brand influences the selection of a new Android smartphone, many other factors also come into play. For example, handset display quality and functionality also highly influenced the smartphone purchase decision.”

iGR’s new study, Android Brand Preferences: U.S. Consumers, addresses several key topics:

• The number of Android smartphones sold in the U.S. in 2011 (by quarter)
• Why consumers buy Android smartphones
• The profile of the typical Android smartphone user
• The handset features users like on Android smartphones
• How consumers rank Android OEM brands and why
• How the user’s current device brand impacts that user’s Android smartphone purchase
• Which Android OEM brands are associated with the major mobile operators

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U.S. Cellular: We’ll take the iPhone when Apple gives us LTE

www.apple.com/tr/iphone/

It’s a common misconception that Apple is picking winners and losers among the wireless operators by bestowing or withholding the iPhone, but U.S. Cellular and its parent company TDS prove otherwise. TDS CEO Ted Carlson told attendees of a UBS analyst conferenceMonday that U.S. Cellular is waiting for Apple to offer a more “cutting edge” iPhone before U.S. Cellular would be willing to take the risk of selling it, FierceWireless reported. By cutting edge, U.S. Cellular means LTE.

In November, U.S. Cellular revealed that Apple had offered it the CDMA variant of the iPhone, but it declined, saying it couldn’t make the economics work. That makes a lot of sense in this case: selling the iPhone requires enormous upfront subsidies from wireless operators, leading U.S. Cellular to question the model’s profitability. In addition, the smartphone takes a tremendous toll on operators’ data networks.

Other regional operators like C Spire have risen to the challenge, but C Spire doesn’t have what U.S. Cellular has: a big, dense, data-hungry market like Chicago. U.S. Cellular only has 20 MHz of PCS spectrum in Chicago, with which it serves a tightly packed population of more than 13 million. U.S. Cellular doesn’t have that many 1X voice and EV-DO data carriers to go around. The iPhone’s enormous data impact likely would force U.S. Cellular to shift more voice channels to EV-DO, which might upset the delicate balance between voice and data services it has in Chicago.

The smarter thing to do, from U.S. Cellular’s perspective, is wait until Apple births an LTE smartphone, presumably the iPhone 5. U.S. Cellular plans to launch its own LTE network within the month, starting in smaller markets across its regional footprint.

But if U.S. Cellular does plan to support the LTE iPhone, it won’t launch it in Chicago – at least not with its current spectrum holdings. The operator failed to pick up any 700 MHz spectrum at auction in its flagship market, though it picked up licenses in all of the surrounding regions. U.S. Cellular and Verizon Wireless have filed a petition with the FCC to swap some of the former’s PCS spectrum throughout the country for some of the latter’s 700 MHz spectrum in Illinois and Indiana. If Chicago is part of that deal – and Verizon is flush with Windy City frequencies – then U.S. Cellular can build a complete iPhone-worthy 4G network.

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Bringing self-driving cars to NASCAR

Ever since mankind could go fast, we have longed to go faster. And ever since we’ve done work, we have longed to have someone else, or something else, do that work for us. You might already be familiar with our self-driving car project. We’ve spent years working on a tough engineering problem—how to create a hardware and software system capable of gathering and interpreting massive amounts of real-time data and acting on that knowledge swiftly and surely enough to navigate innumerable varieties of crowded thoroughfares without ever once (among other human frailties) exploding in a fit of road rage at the guy who just cut hard left across your lane without even bothering to flash his blinker. 

Well, our autonomous cars have now been test-driven (or rather, test-ridden) for more than 200,000 miles without a single machine-caused mishap. And today we're moving the project one great leap forward with Google Racing, a groundbreaking partnership with NASCAR to help self-driving vehicles compete in the world of stock car racing. We think the most important thing computers can do in the next decade is to drive cars—and that the most important thing Google Racing can do in the next decade is drive them, if possible, more quickly than anyone else. Or anything else. 

Find more photos on our Google+ page

The program remains in its infancy; we’ll surely face numerous testing and competitive hurdles before our first car peels out into a NASCAR race. But I couldn’t be more excited about the possibilities. NASCAR’s ambitious technology investments—from driver safety to green initiatives—and the sport’s spirit of challenge, effort and execution all beautifully embody our most deeply held values as a company. Having skidded around a parking lot last week myself, I’m pretty sure that none of those test miles were as hard as it will be for one of our cars to hold its own in a field of 43 jacked-up, 800-horsepower beasts screaming down a straightaway within inches of each other at upwards of 200 miles per hour. I can't imagine a more exciting challenge for our team than to race our autonomous vehicles against their carbon-based competitors. 

Find more photos on our Google+ page

Larry and I have always believed in tackling big problems that matter, and we’re surer than ever that self-driving cars are one of them, capable of changing the world in all kinds of truly important ways, like reducing traffic and accidents by driving more efficiently, making correct split-second decisions and never shifting their focus off the road to check a map, text a friend, apply rear-view mirror mascara or dip a piece of tekka maki into a lid of soy sauce jostling over on the passenger seat. I hope that today’s announcement of Google Racing will mark another step along this path, and spur innovations that improve the daily lives of people all over the world. Or at the very least offer us a few cool new thrills on hot weekend afternoons. 

Update Apr 1, 10:05 a.m.: As you probably guessed—no, Google Racing isn’t real. We were really happy to work with NASCAR on this April Fools' joke. The technological advancements this sport has made in the last decade are impressive and while we won’t be providing self-driving cars to compete in the races, we look forward to working together with NASCAR in the future on projects like their YouTube channel. What better way to drive change? 

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Google+ Hangout with the UN Secretary-General

We’re passionate about changing the world. But there’s another organization that’s equally passionate—and has been doing it a lot longer. For more than 60 years, the United Nations has worked to advance a global agenda on ending war and poverty, promoting human rights, protecting the environment and dealing with humanitarian crises—critical issues that will determine the quality of life for future generations to come.

So we’re delighted that on Tuesday, April 10, some of the voices of the next generation will have the chance to participate in an exclusive global conversation with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon via a Google+ Hangout from the United Nations headquarters in New York. Six young people, selected in consultation with partners in civil society, academia and United Nations offices in the field, will join from the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, and have the opportunity to ask questions on the issues that matter to them.

The Google+ Hangout with the UN Secretary-General will be streamed live at 3:30pm ET on April 10 at youtube.com/unitednations. David C. Drummond, Google’s SVP of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, will moderate.



Technology has given us the chance to advance the important work of the UN, while ensuring that global politics is made more accountable to citizens. We’re thrilled that Google can help play a small part in this.

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Toward a simpler, more beautiful Google

Update 5:49pm: for our international readers, this post is also available in French,German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish (Latin America, Spain). - Ed.

More than 170 million people have upgraded to Google+, enjoying new ways to share in Search, Gmail, YouTube and lots of other places. It's still early days, and there’s plenty left to do, but we're more excited than ever to build a seamless social experience, all across Google.

A critical piece of this social layer is a design that grows alongside our aspirations. So today we’re introducing a more functional and flexible version of Google+. We think you’ll find it easier to use and nicer to look at, but most importantly, it accelerates our efforts to create a simpler, more beautiful Google.



Navigation you can make your own
One of the first things you’ll notice is a new way to get around the stream. Instead of static icons at the top, there’s a dynamic ribbon of applications on the left. This approach comes with lots of perks, but some of our favorites include:

• You can drag apps up or down to create the order you want
• You can hover over certain apps to reveal a set of quick actions
• You can show or hide apps by moving them in and out of “More”

Taken together, these powers make it easier to access your favorites, and to adjust your preferences over time. We've also built the ribbon with the future in mind, giving us an obvious (and clutter-free) space for The Next Big Feature, and The Feature After That. So stay tuned.

Conversations you’ll really care about
Once you’ve upgraded to Google+, it’s easy to share with your circles from just about anywhere. We’re dreaming bigger, though. We're aiming for an experience that fuses utility with beauty—one that inspires you to connect with others, and cherish the conversations that unfold. Today’s update is an important step in this direction, including:

• Full bleed photos and videos that'll make you really proud to post
• A stream of conversation "cards" that make it easier to scan and join discussions
• An activity drawer that highlights the community around your content

Simply put, we're hoping to make sharing more awesome by making it more evocative. You know that feeling you get when a piece of art takes your breath away, or when a friend stops by with unexpected gifts? We want sharing to feel like that, every single time.

A new home for hanging out
Google+ Hangouts uses live video to bring people together, and the results range from heartwarming to breathtaking to music-making. Today we're adding a dedicated Hangouts page that creates even more opportunities to connect in person, including:

• An always-updated list of invitations from the people in your circles
• Quick access to every public and On Air hangout, for those times when you want to meet someone new, or watch a live broadcast
• A rotating billboard of popular hangouts, pro tips and other items you don’t want to miss

By highlighting all the hangouts you can join, all over the world, it’s now easier to spend time together—even be there for each other. And with efforts like hangout apps already underway, you can expect more hangouts in more places in the future.

Getting there from here
Today's Google+ update extends beyond navigation, the stream and hangouts. For instance: there's a new Explore page that shows what's interesting and trending across the network. And a new profile with much bigger photos. And a new chat list that puts your friends front and center. And a whole lot more.

We're rolling out all of these improvements over the next few days, so please check back if you don't see them yet. In the meantime, you can visit this overview to learn more.



By focusing on you, the people you care about, and the stuff you’re into, we’re going to continue upgrading all the features you already know and love—from Search and Maps to Gmail and YouTube. With today’s foundational changes we can move even faster—toward a simpler, more beautiful Google.

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Celebrating the Google Photography Prize Finalists

Back in November we announced the Google Photography Prize 2012, a competition offering student photographers a chance to share their best photographs with the world. 

Groundbreaking photographer Ansel Adams once said, “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs,” so we left the themes for submission suitably broad, with 10 categories that combined classic photography genres with online photography trends including “Night,” “Travel,” “Sound/Silence” and “Me.” 

We were thrilled by the interest in the contest: nearly 20,000 students from 146 countries took part, of which 100 were shortlisted. You can see these in the gallery on our website.

Our judging panel of seven leading photography experts chose the 10 finalists whose work will be shown in our exhibition in the Saatchi Gallery. Today we’re announcing the finalists: Collin Avery (U.S.), Viktor Johansson (Sweden), Kyrre Lien (Norway),Alexandra Claudia Manta (Romania), Balázs Maté (Hungary), Adi Sason (Israel),Oliver Seary (UK), Dana Stirling (Israel), Sasha Tamarin (Israel), Zhao Yi (China). Here are examples of the finalists' work—you can see their full albums on their Google+ profiles.



If you’re in London, come to the Saatchi Gallery to see the work of our finalists displayed alongside a new exhibition of international photography, Out of Focus, starting April 25. The overall winner of the Google Photography Prize will be announced on April 24, and will go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to a location of their choice with a professional photographer as their mentor.

We hope you enjoy these fantastic photos as much as we did.

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Google World Inside view on ads review

This is the first in a series of posts that will provide greater transparency about how we make our ads safer by detecting and removing scam ads. -Ed.

A few weeks ago, we posted here about our efforts in fighting bad ads, and we shared a video with the basics of how we do it. Today I wanted to delve a little deeper and give some insight into the systems we use to help prevent bad ads from showing. Ourads policies are designed with safety and trust in mind—we don’t allow ads formalicious downloads, counterfeit goods, or ads with unclear billing practices, to name a few examples. In order to help prevent these kinds of ads from showing, we use a combination of automated systems and human input to review the billions of ads submitted to Google each year. I’m one of many engineers whose job is to help make sure that Google doesn’t show bad ads to users.

We’ve designed our approach based on a three-pronged strategy, each focused on a different dimension of the problem: ads, sites, and advertiser accounts. These systems are complementary, sharing signals among each other so that we can comprehensively attack bad ads.

For example, in the case of a site that is selling counterfeit goods, this three-pronged approach aims to look for patterns that would flag such a site and help prevent ads from showing. Ad review notices patterns in the ads and keywords selected by the advertiser. Site review analyzes the entire site to determine if it is selling counterfeit goods. Account review aims to determine if a new advertiser is truly new, or is simply a repeat offender trying to abuse Google’s advertising system. Here’s more detail on how we review each of these three components.

Ad Review
An ad is the snippet of information presented to a user, along with a link to a specific webpage, or landing page. The ads review system inspects individual ads and landing pages, and is probably the system most familiar to advertisers. When an advertiser submits an ad, our system immediately performs a preliminary examination. If there’s nothing in the ad that flags a need for further review, we tell the advertiser the ad is “Eligible” and show the ad only on google.com to users who have SafeSearch turned off. If the ad is flagged for further review, in most cases we refer to the ad as “Under Review” and don’t show the ad at all. From there, the ad enters our automated pipeline, where we employ machine learning models, a rules engine and landing page analysis to perform a more extensive examination. If our automated system determines an outcome with a high degree of confidence, we will either approve the ad to run on Google and all of our partners (“Approved”), approve the ad to show for appropriate users in specific locations (“Approved - Limited”) or reject the ad (“Disapproved”). If our automated system isn’t able to determine the outcome, we send the ad to a real person to make a final decision.

Site Review
A site has many different pages, each of which could be pointed to by different ads, often known as a domain. Our site review system identifies policy issues which apply to the whole site. It aggregates sites across all ads from all advertisers and regularly crawls them, building a repository of information that’s constantly improving as new scams and new sites are examined. We store the content of advertised sites and use both machine learning models and a rules engine to analyze the sites. The magic of the site review system is it understands the structure of language on webpages in order to classify the content of sites. Site review will determine whether or not an entire site should be disabled, which would prevent any ads leading to that site showing from any account. When the automated system isn’t able to determine the outcome with a high degree of confidence, we send it to a real person to make a decision. When a site is disabled, we tell the advertiser that it’s in violation of “Site Policy.”

Account Review
An account is one particular advertiser’s collection of ads, plus the advertiser’s selections for targeting and bidding on those ads. An account may have many ads which may point to several different sites, for example. The account review system constantly evaluates individual advertiser accounts to determine if the whole account should be inspected and shut down for policy violations. This system “listens” to a variety of signals, such as ads and keywords submitted by the advertiser, budget changes, the advertiser’s address and phone number, the advertiser’s IP address, disabled sites connected to this account, and disapproved ads. The system constantly re-evaluates all accounts, incorporating new data. For example, if an advertiser logs in from a new IP address, the account is re-evaluated to determine if that new signal suggests we should take a closer look at the content of the advertiser’s account. If the account review system determines that there is something suspect about a particular account with a high degree of confidence, it automatically suspends the account. If the system isn’t sure, it stops the account from showing any ads at all and asks a real person to decide if the account should be suspended.

Even with all these systems and people working to stop bad ads, there still can be times when an ad slips through that we don’t want. There are many malicious players who are very persistent—they seek to abuse Google’s advertising system in order to take advantage of our users. When we shut down a thousand accounts, they create two thousand more using different patterns. It’s a never-ending game of cat and mouse.

We’ve put a great deal of effort and expense into building these systems because Google’s long-term success is based on the trust of people who use our products. I’ve focused my time and energy in this area for many years. I find it inspiring to fight the good fight, to focus on the user, and do everything we can to help prevent bad ads from running. I’ll continue to post here from time to time with additional thoughts and greater information about how we make ads safer by detecting and removing scam ads.

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Exploring Jerusalem’s Old City streets with Street View

Every year, 3.5 million people come to Israel to visit ancient sites that are holy to billions of people, to walk among the unique stone of Jerusalem, or to relax on the beaches of the Mediterranean. 

Inside Jerusalem's Old City

To help you explore Israel’s history and present, we’ve launched imagery of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Haifa on Street View. You can explore the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City and each of its four quarters, walk along the Via Dolorosa and see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, visit the Western Wall and theMount of Olives. You can stop by the Biblical Zoo, then visit the Israel Museum and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum—and explore more with the Art Project and the Yad Vashem photo archive. Or you can stroll through Tel Aviv’s bohemian Neve Tzedek neighborhood and the ancient port of Jaffa, and take a virtual trip to some of Tel Aviv’s scenic beaches or to Haifa’s Baha’i Gardens. 



We hope you’ll use Street View to discover, explore and more. Some are already using the new imagery to help others—for example, Access Israel, an organization working to make Israel more accessible for people with disabilities, has embedded Street View in its accessibility mapping project of Israeli cities (note: in Hebrew). 

We’ll be adding more Street View coverage of sites and streets in the coming months, and are hoping to bring Street View to more places around the region soon.

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Google World explain to people how to use google for perfectly

googleworld-tr blogspot | izlesene.com

Google world-tr still going on to explain eveything about google. if you dont know how to use google perfectly you should watch this video.

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More Options for Google+ Badges

UPDATE (2/2/12): The new Google+ badge is now out of preview and available to all users on all sites.

When we launched Google+ pages in November, we also released Google+ badges to promote your Google+ presence right on your site. Starting today in developer preview (and soon available to all your users), we're adding more options for integrating the Google+ badge into your website. You can configure a badge with a width that fits your site design and choose a version that works better on darker sites. You'll also see that Google+ badges now include the unified +1 and circle count that we added to Pages last month.

If you’re still considering whether to add a Google+ badge on your website, consider this: We recently looked at top sites using the badge and found that, on average, the badge accounted for an additional 38% of followers. When you add the badge visitors to your website can discover your Google+ page and connect in a variety of ways: they can follow your Google+ page, +1 your site, share your site with their circles, see which of their friends have +1’d your site, and click through to visit your Google+ page.

The Google+ Badge makes it easy for your fans to find and follow you on Google+. With these additional options, we hope it's even easier to create a badge that fits your website. 

Follow the conversation on Google+.

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Improving Google+ Plugins Across the Web

Over a million websites use Google+ plugins -- like the +1 button and the badge for Pages -- to help visitors connect with their brand and share their content with others. Today we're excited to announce a number of improvements to these plugins that make sharing and connecting even easier.

Easier to share from the +1 button 
Starting today, it’ll be a little easier to share right from the +1 buttons all across the web. Now, after you +1 something, the share box will pop open right away, without an extra click. Add a comment if you want, choose the people you want to share with, and you’re done.

Easier to follow brands and businesses 
When you add Google+ pages to your circles, it's typically to follow their news and updates. That's why we're updating badges for Google+ pages to read "Follow." With just one click, this button adds a business or brand to your "Following" circle, and if you want to customize which circle they're in, you can do that too.

If you're one of the many businesses and brands with a Google+ page, we've also put together a handy style guide (pdf) which includes recommended language and images for promoting your page.

Adding a badge for people, not just pages 
We heard you! Now anyone (including Britney Spears!) can add a personal Google+ badge to their web pages, and let visitors add them to circles quickly and easily.
We’ve got lots more planned for the Google+ plugins, stay tuned!

#googleplusupdate 

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A New Look for the +1 Button

UPDATE (3/14/12): Today, we released the new +1 button from preview and it’s now rolling out to all users. You may also notice the numbers in your +1 buttons increase, as we update our plugins to better reflect social activity around your content. Our Webmaster Tools Help Center article has more details on this update.  Join the conversation on Google+.


Following in the footsteps of our new red and white Google+ icon, the +1 button is sporting a fresh coat of paint. Starting today, this update will be visible first to our Google+ Platform Preview Groupand shortly thereafter we’ll roll it out to the public.

Check out the new pixels:


Before you’ve +1’d 


 
After you’ve +1’d 


The +1 buttons you’ve already installed will automatically update; there’s nothing you need to do. Stop by the updated configuration tool to see how these changes look across all the various sizes and shapes of the +1 button.

We’ll update this post when these changes graduate to the public.

Follow the conversation on Google+. 

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Moving the Google+ Hangouts API Out of Preview

One of the most important ways we connect with others is in person. That's why we're so excited about Google+ Hangouts, and why we launched a preview of the Hangouts API a few months ago. Today we're moving this API out of preview, and enabling developers to launch and share their hangout apps with the entire Google+ community!

Hangout apps are regular web apps, running in a big window inside the Hangout UI. In addition to using shared-state APIs to give users real-time interactivity, you also have access to built-in Hangout features, such as:

• Initiate a group video chat with up to 10 people 
• Control hangout microphones, cameras, speakers and volume levels 
• Add sound effects and attach image overlays to faces 
• Set UI elements such as the video feed, chat pane, and notifications

It’s easy to get started: read the documentation, build and publish your app, and then let users know. You can easily get the word out in one of two ways: 1) post a link to it on Google+, and/or 2) add the new hangout button to your website. In either case, anyone who clicks will start a new hangout with your app running inside. It then appears in the “Recent” apps pane for future hangouts.

To get the ball rolling, we're introducing a new "Apps" pane in Google+ Hangouts, as well as some featured applications, including Aces Hangout, Cacoo, Scoot & Doodle, Slideshare, Clubhouse Challenge by Bravo, and Google Effects. We’re looking forward to seeing what you can dream up in the weeks and months ahead.

Follow the conversation on Google+, and happy building!

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