World Mobile News

This month's numbers for iOS distribution are in and the current iOS8 claims 72%, Apple reports. The information is based on App Store access statistics and is current as of February 2. iOS8 is up a notch from last month's 68% while iOS7 surrenders 4% of its share and is at 25% this month. iOS6 and earlier versions retain their marginal 3% of market share. Even so, the iOS8 rate of adoption falls behind the iOS7 from a year ago, which commanded an 80% percent adoption in the same period. The latest 8.1.3 update featured stability improvements and the perceived maturity iOS8 has reached after initial issues has provided enough incentive for users to upgrade. Either way, the number of devices, booting the latest version of iOS is massive, compared to its Android counterpart. As we reported, Lollipop only just made it to the distribution chart, with the huge variety of devices by numerous manufacturers being the culprit. Source View the original article here

There are two rumors about the LG G4 ? one claims a 3K display, another claims a QHD one (what some might call 2.5K). A third piece of evidence swings the vote in favor of QHD, this comes from a leaked XML file extracted from a Lollipop ROM. The file lists the LG F500 as "G4 (QHD)." It has three versions (S, K and L), which correspond to the three major carriers in South Korea. The LG G3 is F400 with the same three versions. To clear up initialism "QHD" stands for 1,440 x 2,560px while "3K" is 1,62 x 2,880px. This entry is surrounded by the LG F490 (LG G3 Screen) and LG F510 (LG G Flex 2), both with FullHD resolution, which corresponds to the official specs. A fourth, unknown device "LG F540" will have an HD screen (that's 720p). It's not clear what this is, it doesn?t correspond to LG G mini numbers, but the LG Aka has a model number of F520, which has a 5" 720p screen. Anyway, this leaves the question of the 3K screen on the LG V...

Oppo's brief world record holder for thinnest smartphone has shown up on Amazon's UK site and is now available for pre-order. The precious units are set to start shipping as early as February 20. The Oppo R5 is a stylish midrange offering, packing a 5.2-inch FullHD display in a slender 4.85mm body. That wasn't thin enough, the competition deemed, and the R5 is now in third place behind the Ivvi K1 Mini and the Vivo X5Max. That shouldn't make it any less desireable, though, as the two-tone aluminum body is a true stunner. The rest of the Oppo R5 specs are not too shabby either. A Snapdragon 615 chipset is on board, featuring an octa-core processor, Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB of RAM. Where the R5 falls short is battery capacity, which at 2000mAh proves barely adequate for the screen size, but that's the trade-off for the super-thin profile. The SIM-free Oppo R5 is listed at ?296.99 but you can also claim a free Oppo powerbank with it to address the battery capacity issue...

Motorola has had a pretty nice track record when it comes to updating their devices. Moto smartphones generally run an almost stock version of Android are usually next in line after Nexus devices for OS updates. Sadly this was not the case with Android 5 Lollipop. Progress has been slow and most of the Moto line is still waiting on a mass update. India seems to be the venue of choice when it comes to soak tests, as we have already seen a few, namely for the Moto G and later the Moto G 2014 and Moto X. Now the budget-friendly Moto E is joining the ranks as Motorola Feedback Network members are already receiving email invitations for the soak test. So if you are among the subscribers of the feedback program and happen to be using a Moto E handset in India you are in luck. The soak test is expected to run for about two weeks and if all goes well the Moto E should see a openly distributed OTA, at least in India and join the ranks of the Moto G on the same market, which is already enjoyin...

Xiaomi may be the world's third-biggest smartphone maker, but most of its products never leave China. The company is reportedly looking to open up shop in India, but now the company is taking a trip to the US. There, in San Francisco specifically, the company will hold an event on February 12. It's not clear what the topic will be though ? opening a store, recruiting employees or just visiting? The company has already unveiled two new devices this year ? Redmi 2 and Mi Note (with a Mi Note Pro version), so it's probably soon for a new announcement Whatever the reason, the event is a big deal ? San Francisco is the home of many startups and tech giants are a stone's throw away, with both Apple and Google campuses not far from there (Xiaomi's VP of International Hugo Barra is a former Googler). The location can't be a coincidence and sends clear message, especially to the former giants that Xiaomi leapfrogged to get into the Top 3. Source | Via View the original...

If you needed more proof about how successful Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been, especially in the US market, then this is going to be it. According to the analysts at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, iOS has managed to take the lead from Android in the US smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2014 (so between October and December). Granted, Apple's managed to sell only slightly more iOS devices than all Android makers combined - the difference is just 0.1%. Still, it's interesting because the last time something like this happened was in Q4 of 2012. For the last three months of last year, Kantar says 47.7% of smartphones sold in the US were iPhones, while 47.6% ran Android. Windows Phone accounted for 3.8% of the market, while BlackBerry had to make do with just 0.3%. Throughout the holiday quarter, the iPhone 6 was the best selling smartphone in the US, as well as the most popular handset to be given as a gift. Samsung's Galaxy S5 was the second best. When ...

Sony revealed that it expects the annual loss for its financial year 2014 (which ends on March 31) to be smaller than expected by analysts and the revenue to be bigger. The buoys are the PlayStation and the image sensor divisions, while the Xperia smartphone business is still struggling. Smartphone sales in China are slowing down and Sony cut its forecast for the full-year sales from 41 million smartphones to 39.2 million. This means the company expects to sell just 8 million phones in the three months ending in March, that would make it the lowest quarter of the financial year (it went 9.4M ? 9.9M ? 11.9M). Despite smaller unit sales, the division will return a small profit of JPY 9.3 billion ($79 million), better than expected. Still, for the full 2014 Sony expects the mobile division to lose JPY 215 billion ($1.83 billion), up from JPY 204 billion ($1.74 billion) predicted in October. That's on an estimated revenue of JPY 1,320 billion ($11.3 billion). Sony had already cut 1,0...