In Depth Survey : Highs and Lows for Google in 2012

Beautiful devices and the best Android ever. Just don't mention UK tax It's been an interesting year for Google. Android stormed the smartphone charts but didn't do so well in tablets, so Google stepped in and made arguably the best non-Apple tablets around. Google's given huge sums to charity while avoiding huge amounts of UK tax, and when Apple booted its Maps off iOS it was Apple, not Google, that ended up getting hurt.

Google's highs in 2012

1. Android smartphone sales
Google's smartphone OS has been a
huge success, helped considerably by partners such as Samsung: we reckon the. Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is the best phone in the world today. Android isn't just a huge success in the consumer market, though. It's big in businesses too.
By November, Android had booted
BlackBerry into third place among
business smartphone users.

2. Google Glass
Google Glass's appearance at Google IO 2012 was hilarious: Sergey Brin's presentation began with a Glass-wearing Googler throwing himself out of a plane,
and ended with a bunch of BMX bike stunts. Nobody knows if Google Glass is the future or just a daft-looking gimmick, but
everybody's heard of it.

3. The Nexus 7
Google's Android world domination plan hit a hurdle with small tablets: they were crap. Google rather wisely decided to take matters into its own hands, and the resulting device - the Nexus 7 - was, and is, brilliant. It's as cheap as a Kindle Fire but considerably more powerful.

4. The Nexus 10
Buoyed by the success of the Nexus 7, Google gave it a big brother: the Nexus 10. It's not quite as good as the latest iPad - there isn't a 3G or 4G version, and Apple's screen is nicer - but it's still very good and very keenly priced. If it doesn't
massively outsell Microsoft's Surface, people are crazy.

5. Jelly Bean
Google has done great things with its Android OS, and this year's version, 4.1 Jelly Bean, is the greatest version yet. People started to use the phrase "silky-smooth" without snickering - and we went as far as to call it "a thing of
beauty".

6. Apple Maps
When Apple decided to kick Google Mapsoff iOS, they probably didn't expect to become a laughing stock - but their half-baked offering showed just how good Google Maps is, and probably sold a fair
few Android phones at the expense of iPhones too. It certainly hasn't stopped iOS users from going to Google.

7. Google Play
Google didn't just sort out Android
hardware: it brought new focus to the Android Market, too, rebranding it as Google Play . It now matches Apple in terms of
available app numbers, and according to analysis by App Annie, Google Play revenues are up 311% since January.

Google's lows in 2012

1. The Nexus Q
Google's Nexus Q promised easy mediastreaming, but its price tag and lack of features led to howls of derision. It isn't officially dead, but Google isn't selling it and doesn't have "anything to share at this time" about it.

2. The Nexus 4
Not the hardware - we reckon Google's latest phone, the Nexus 4, offers 'beautiful, elegant design' at an 'unbelievable price' - but the
'unfathomably long' shipping delays that suggest Google isn't on top of the logistical side of things .
You've more chance of riding through town on a unicorn made of cheese than getting a Nexus 4 in time for Christmas.

3. UK Tax
Google's mission is to organise all the world's information, but this year it looked like it also wanted to organise all the world's money and hide it from the tax man: a parliamentary committee called Google's UK tax arrangements "immoral" . The government is apparently considering a crackdown on such schemes.

4. Chromebooks
Maybe this year's enormous advertising campaign, the presence of new 'Google Zones' in PC Worlds and the possible arrival of a Nexus-branded Chromebook will finally persuade the general public to
care about Chromebooks in 2013.
And maybe we'll all live in a castle made of pies.

5. The EU and the FTC
Last year, Google was preparing for an EU investigation into whether it abused its power to harm competitors; this year, it's waiting for that investigation to conclude.
The US FTC is running its own
investigation along similar lines, and may publish its verdict - and announce any penalties - before Christmas.

6. Fragmentation
Android suffers from one big problem: fragmentation.
More than 50% of Android devices still run Gingerbread, and the latest version is only on 6.7% of devices.
That's a pain for app developers, who have to support lots of versions or massively limit potential sales, and it's a pain for people stuck with old versions of the OS.

7. European newspapers
Google News may get a lot less
interesting in France and Germany: in September, French newspaper publishers urged the government to pass a bill that would force search engines to pay each time a user reads an article they find
through a search, while German
regulators debated similar legislation in November. Google says it'll stop linking to those
countries' media firms if the regulators stick to their guns.

Sources: techradar.com

Jelly Bean is the latest, greatest version of Android... But Gingerbread still dominates Android devices...

PayPal Co-Founder Max Levchin Joins Yahoo!'s Board of Directors

‘Serial entrepreneur’ says Marissa Mayer’s “ballsy” decision convinced him to join

 

Internet giant Yahoo! has appointed PayPal co-founder, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and computer scientist Max Levchin to its board of directors, effective immediately. David Kenny and Brad Smith have stepped down from the board to focus on their respective companies.

There are now 11 directors on the Yahoo! board.

Levchin has extensive experience building internet companies. He had also served as CTO of PayPal and vice-president of engineering at Google, and not only incubated Yelp but is its first investor. He also serves as chairman of the board at Kaggle and Yelp, and is a director at Evernote.

His latest venture, HVF, is ‘focused on solving problems and improving lives by extracting insights from the vast quantities of data around us,’ Yahoo! said in a statement.

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer said Levchin is someone she has admired throughout her career for “his phenomenal sense for great products and keen focus on user experiences.

“I’m confident that his strong product and technology expertise will be a tremendous asset to Yahoo! as we work to transform the world’s daily habits,” Mayer added.

Facebook for Android to get a lot faster with an upcoming major update [UPDATE: It's live]

The Facebook Android app was updated on Thursday, bringing with it major speed improvements that make the app 200 percent faster than the previous version.
To drastically increase app speeds, the team at Facebook reworked the program from the ground up, removing HTML 5 support and instead focusing on native code found through the Google Android SDK (Software Development Kit).

Along with faster Non-HTML 5 speeds, SocialNewsDaily lists the following new additions:

• News feed and your Timeline load faster
• Photos open with a tap so you can quickly like and comment
• New Stories bar lets you see more stories without refreshing

Facebook’s biggest additions are faster load times and faster scrolling capabilities. However, the new app also features a New Stories bar, which only displays when new updates from your friends or pages are posted. The new bar shows users new updates as they scroll to catch up while reader older updates. Users can find the News Stories bar just below the navigation section on their mobile app.
Clicking the News Update bar will also bring the user back to the top of their Facebook app page.
The Facebook Android app is already being praised for its “neat and clean UI” and its “much faster” load times.
Facebook photo fans will particularly like the near instant access they receive for photo viewing, a feature that caused loading headaches on Facebook’s previous versions of its mobile OS.
You can use your Android smartphones update feature to receive the new Facebook Android app or you can download it from the Play Store.

Google’s sync changes are going to screw Gmail users on Windows Phone

Google on Friday announced it is shutting down a slew of features and services as part of its latest “winter cleaning.” The biggest news was dropping consumer support of Google Sync, meaning the Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol, on January 30, 2013, and instead recommending CalDAV for calendar, CardDAV for contacts, as well as IMAP for email. In essence, this is really all just another attack on Microsoft. At first glance it would appear Google wants to avoid paying licensing fees to Microsoft for EAS, but since the company plans to keep Google Sync fully supported for Google Apps for Business, Government, and Education, that’s not the real story here. No, Google is really going after Windows Phone users.
EAS provides push mail as well as the synchronization of contacts and calendars to three big mobile platforms: iOS, Symbian, and Windows Phone. Symbian is essentially dead, so we can skip that.
Apple and Google both support CalDAV and CardDAV natively, but Microsoft doesn’t support either. With EAS dead, Windows Phone users will be left out in the cold. Putting calendar and contacts aside, Windows Phone users can choose to set up IMAP for Gmail, but this won’t support push mail. That renders the connection useless.
What about iPhone users though? Surely they are affected by this change too? They are, but Google offers a Gmail app for iPhone, offsetting the problem of ending EAS support. Google doesn’t offer a Gmail app for Windows Phone, however, and it has no plans to change that.
Those who rely on Google’s services can currently enable EAS support on their devices but after January 30, only existing users will continue to be able to use EAS. Android and iOS users will have to use IMAP for their mail, CalDAV for calendar sync, and CardDAV for contact sync, or the corresponding Gmail apps. Google is essentially saying that if you want buy a Windows Phone 8 device, don’t expect to use its consumer services.
Maybe this is Google’s way of getting back at Microsoft for making so much money off of Android while still attacking the platform repeatedly. Yet the two companies have been at each other’s throats for years, so this is really just yet another episode in their massive war.
So, what can Microsoft do? The company has 47 days, today included, to figure something out. It’s entirely possible that Microsoft has already considered the possibility of Google dropping EAS support and has an action plan. Yet the company still has to scramble.
The way we see it, Microsoft has two options. It could decide to disregard calendar and contacts sync for Gmail users on Windows Phone 8. That’s not the best move given that Google’s consumer userbase is huge and this would make Microsoft’s mobile operating system useless for anyone who relies on Google’s services.
Alternatively, Microsoft could provide CalDAV and CardDAV support to sync calendar and contacts, but this will have to be in the form of a patch for Windows Phone 8. That will require a huge amount of effort to roll out, not to mention testing. Having a limited amount of time to do all that will not be pleasant.
That’s the consumer side of things, but there is of course always a business angle. As already mentioned, Google isn’t getting rid of EAS entirely: Google Apps for Business, Education, and Government customers will continue to be able to use it after January 30.
Last week, Google stopped offering Google Apps for free, and started encouraging users to instead sign up for Gmail, storage service Google Drive and its other consumer-facing products. The premium version still costs $50 per user, per year. That will look more attractive to organizations next month when EAS will no longer be available for free.