At an event earlier today Motorola, a Google company unveiled its latest ‘budget’ smartphone called “Moto G”. The theme of the entire event and the ideology behind the product was to make premium features available at a non-premium price.

While announcing the new Moto G product Motorola executives mentioned Apple’s iPhone 5s, Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and HTC a few times. Moto G features 4.5 inch high resolution screen with 329 ppi and 720p. The executives were quick to point out that the screen has better quality than Apple’s flagship iPhone 5s. Moto G runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 clocked at 1.2 GHz, 1GB RAM, and offers “all-day” battery life with around 14 hours of talk time on 3G networks. In comparison, iPhone 5s according to Apple offers 10 hours of battery life on 3G.

After unveiling the hardware features and sharing the idea behind creating a budget phone Punit Soni who is responsible for software product management for Moto G took the stage to talk about software. Soni mentioned the three main tenets of their software strategy for Moto G. The first being build on pure foundation of Android, second build experiences that compliment Google services and not compete with them and lastly ensure that the software can give value back to the users.

If you’ve ever seen any Android device in the market manufactured by Samsung, HTC or Sony among many others you will immediately realise that all these companies have two things in common. They add a layer of their own software to the stock OS and bundle services that compete with Google’s software services.

Soni began to elaborate on the three main tenets by saying:

In today’s ecosystem mobile manufactures have a very confused relationship with Android they build on top of it but then they add all of these custom skins which detract from the user experience and hogs resources then they go ahead and put duplicative software on top of it which basically compete with Google services.

He goes on to mention that devices bundled with multiple mail apps, app stores, video players and music players results in “non-intuitive” and “cluttered” user interface.

At the time of purchase of Motorola by Google for a record  $12.5 billion the search giant claimed that they bought the company to secure Android’s position in future by acquiring key patents. Even though Google claims to treat all Android partners equally, at today’s event Soni was sending an indirect yet strong message to ‘other’ Android device manufacturers.

While referencing to the custom skins the slide Soni used had TouchWiz, Sense UI and Xperia UI. Clearly, targeting the top three Android manufacturers to convey that Moto G’s software strategy is superior to other Android partners. So, in essence Motorola a company owned by Google called Samsung, Sony and HTC “confused”.

Soni then goes on to advocate the use of “pure Android” in mobile devices and says:

A device that’s built on pure Android with minor optimisations is gonna have an incredible high performance

Here again Soni is sending out a clear message that any device with custom UI layers may be missing out on high performance as other non-stock apps and skins may hog more resources than required.

This could have a long term effect on customer mindset when they buy Android devices. Users could soon start associating “real” Android experience with Motorola (since Google owns Motorola) and “spinoff” experience with other smartphone manufacturers.

When it comes to smartphones most devices are beginning to look quite similar in terms of hardware so ultimately manufacturers try to differentiate their products with custom skins and other software services. However, at today’s event it appears that Google might have used the announcement of Moto G as an opportunity to convey Google’s stand on device manufacturers trying to add custom layers.

If this wasn’t enough, Motorola went on to compare performance of Moto G in terms of answering calls, making calls, launching browser, returning home and booting to Samsung Galaxy S4 to show how stock Android OS was clearly the winner.

This is the best validation of a strategy which involves disciplined software which focuses on optimisation that creates value for the user

In his attempt to bring attention to stock Android experience Soni suggests that software strategy being followed by other Android device manufacturers is rather indisciplined.

So, in conclusion on one hand Google’s Motorola tried to highlight the features of its new low-priced smartphone but on the other it clearly didn’t fall short of ridiculing Google’s Android partners.

It will be interesting to see how Samsung, HTC and Sony respond to Motorola claiming that their devices are non-intuitive, have cluttered interface and custom skins that hog resources.

The mobile research firm revealed that 320,000 smartphone and tablet users in six countries participated in the poll. In the U.S Motorola Atrix HD came in at first followed by Motorola Droid Razr, HTC Rezound 4G, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and then iPhone 5.

Sarah Quinn, marketing manager for OnDevice Research commented on the report and said, “although Apple created one of the most revolutionary devices of the past decade, other manufactures have caught up, with some Android powered devices now commanding higher levels of user satisfaction,”.

In the UK Apple comparatively did better where HTC One X came first, iPhone 5 second followed by Samsung Galaxy Note 2, Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini and Samsung Galaxy S3.

Perhaps the most interesting result of the poll was that among the rankings for overall mobile device satisfaction Apple came in first followed by Google, Motorola, HTC, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and then Samsung. The survey reached out to mobile users in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, and Indonesia and was conducted via the mobile Web.

The report does give an interesting perspective of users satisfaction however, it’s unclear how a device can rank low while the company selling the device rank higher in overall satisfaction.

{via CNET}

According to the latest Nielsen report, Android and iPhone make up majority of the U.S smartphone market. Both Android phones and iPhone did not exist or were not popular about 5 years ago, and were introduced into a Nokia and Blackberry dominated market. Since then Google and Apple have become fierce competitors and the data proves that they are in fact, at the top of the smartphone market. According to the report, Android’s increase in market share was a whopping 53% from January to October, up from a solid 42%. Apple’s iOS, although trailing behind Android also experienced an increase, from 21% to 29%.

With Android and Apple leading the pack, Blackberry’s RIM has been seeing a steady decline in shares, holding on to only 11.6 percent of the smartphone market, which is substantially less than both Android and Apple. Other smartphone companies, such as Motorola once held over 36% of the smartphone market but have since dropped to below 1%, as of March 2009. This is due in large part to Apple’s massive success with the iPhone’s adoption, selling more of the device each quarter and the widespread adoption of Android OS in a number of smartphones, including Motorola’s Droid line.

Nielsen’s report also mentioned new smartphone purchases, where 48 percent of users surveyed in February said they purchased an Android phone and 43% said they purchased an iPhone. These are staggering numbers, especially since both of these companies have not faltered with their takeover of the U.S smartphone market and have increased their annual revenue with each passing year.

Earlier today a German court ordered two patent rulings which involved Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Samsung. In Mannheim Regional Court Judge Andreas Voss tossed the third lawsuit in a row in which Samsung claimed that AAPL infringed on 3G/UTMS patent.

Samsung has already announced that it will appeal the dismissal of its case. In addition to the ruling in Apple’s favor the German court, according to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, tossed one of two suits filed by Apple against Samsung over slide-to-unlock.

Apple has seen some success in its legal battle against Android as the Cupertino, Calif. based company won preliminary injunctions against Samsung, however most of them were subsequently lifted.

Samsung still hasn’t been able to enforce any intellectual property right anywhere on this planet against Apple

Mueller on his blog explains that today’s decision does not reduce chances of Apple’s success in other slide-to-unlock lawsuits.

[T]he whole issue here that made Apple lose, for the time being, the slide-to-unlock patent case against Samsung is just the interpretation of certain key terms (“predefined”, “displayed”, “path”). The slide-to-unlock utility model has a large number of claims, and some of those are much broader and don’t have the related limitations.

This week turned out to be great for Apple as the company scored significant victories in German courts. In one of the lawsuits the court ordered that Motorola Mobility cannot enforce standard-essential patent injunction against Apple during its appeal. This suggests that Apple has strong chances in succeeding. We recently reported that in another lawsuit against Motorola, Apple won German injunction over its Photo Gallery patent which enables Apple to enforce the ruling and ask for any infringing product to be destroyed.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) earlier today won an injunction against Motorola in Germany over the photo gallery patent. The judgement was pronounced on Thursday at the Munich I Regional Court by Judge Dr. Peter Guntz.

AAPL and Motorola have been involved in a number of lawsuits and this recent victory over yet another patent allows Apple to enforce the ruling which could force Motorola to destroy any infringing products. Motorola could very well continue to sell its smartphones and tablet by seeding a software update to resolve the infringing feature.

It’s interesting to note that Apple has won this injunction against all accused products which include two smartphones and the Xoom tablet. If Motorola decides to issue a software update to avoid infringing on Apple’s patent then it could possibly impact the user experience who are used to certain behavior when they scroll lists or manage / browse photo galleries.

Florian Mueller, an intellectual property activist-turned-analyst, on his blog FOSS Patents reports that:

The glass is clearly more than half-full for Apple in this case (and even more so when considering that Apple also won the drastic remedies of destruction and recall).

Apple continues to be aggressive in its approach to fight against the Android platform which the Cupertino, Calif. based company claims to infringe on its many patents. In Steve Jobs’ biography it was revealed that Jobs considered Android a “stolen product” and that he would “spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong.”

Today’s ruling is the second injunction Apple has won against MMI in Germany so far. Those are the first two Apple v. Motorola casees that came to judgment in Germany.

In August last year Google announced that it would acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion and the move was largely seen as an attempt to acquire a stronger patent portfolio. However, with Apple winning injunction in recent lawsuits it remains to be seen if Google’s decision of acquiring Motorola would play out well when the deal finally comes through.

It is worth noting that due a Motorola patent ruling which is under appeal forced Apple to discontinue the “push” feature in iCloud and MobileMe email service within Germany. Users can still receive and send emails however, they would have to manually “fetch” the emails. Apple is appealing the decision and believes “this patent is invalid”.

Google is developing a new wireless home entertainment system, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal which could compete with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). The report, published on Thursday suggests that the new platform would be marketed under Google’s brand and will be based off their Android operating system, which also runs mobile phones, and parts of Chrome OS. The hardware for the entertainment system is expected to manufactured by Google Inc., something that is new to the company, as they usually include a third party in that process.

For example, Google branded and sold the Nexus smartphone, but it was manufactured by HTC. This allows Google to stay focused on the OS as opposed to hardware solutions. This is the first time that Google would handle both hardware and software, putting them directly in competition with AAPL.

Google’s Android unit has led a multi-year effort to develop the new entertainment device, which may possibly stream other digital media besides music and is expected to be unveiled later this year, people familiar with the matter said.

The new device, along with Google’s pending purchase of device maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., shows how serious the Internet giant is about wanting to control both the software and hardware process, a formula used by rival Apple Inc.

The system is expected to allow users to download music and stream it to Google-branded wireless speakers and other devices, putting it in a competitive market with other devices such as the Sonos home entertainment system, and even Apple’s own AirPort Express, AirPlay, and Apple TV, while not a full entertainment system in itself, it would include many of the features.

WSJ did not report as to when Google is planning to announce, let alone release the system, however, it is very likely that users will see it sometime this year. Streaming is becoming an increasingly competitive market, and Google, being pros in online services, will not give up an opportunity to dominate.

{via MacRumors}

The latest suit was mentioned in Apple’s complaint against Samsung and later discovered by FOSS Patents. Apple filed a complaint with the same court over the design of the Motorola XOOM. However, it’s worth noting that the filing doesn’t state whether it includes a request for preliminary injunction.

There isn’t a clear statutory limit, but German lawyers usually discourage such motions unless they are filed within one month of finding out about an infringement. It’s possible to get permanent injunctions even against older products, but for preliminary ones there must be a particular sense of urgency. It’s possible that Apple has also been aware of the Xoom for too long to file for a preliminary injunction at this stage.

Apple is potentially making it difficult for Android smartphone manufactures to sell their devices as patent infringement, if proven, could result in high licensing fees.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out between Apple and Motorola.

With media and fanboy hype at an all-time high just 24 hours before the iPad 2 goes on sale in the UK, Motorola suggests buyers would be better off going for a swift pint and ordering their shiny new tablet online instead – so long as it’s a Xoom of course.

Not keen to waste the finest weather we’ve had in ages waiting in a queue? Idea of surviving overnight on mundane take-away with some frankly questionable queue buddies leave you cold? Fear not friends, ditch the winter coat, head out for a pint and pre-order your Motorola Xoom online instead!

Good look guys, I’m not convinced many of the Apple faithful will be taking you up on that offer I’m afraid.

Now that Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, that’s a different story….

{Source: T3.co.uk}

Unfortunately sometime this month those informal chats broke down, and in a “preemptive” defensive move (if there is such a thing) Motorola filed suit against Apple to protect itself from being hit with a similar lawsuit which Apple hit HTC with a few months back. Confused yet? I haven’t even mentioned Nokia and Apple’s ongoing patent spat yet!

Unfortunately Motorola’s move has simply upped the stakes and yesterday Apple hit them with six individual patent infringement charges. All of these pertain to Multi-Touch technology. The very heart of what mobile operating systems are about these days.

At one of Apple’s quarterly financial report sessions in 2009 Tim Cook had this to say‚

We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP. And if they do, we will go after anyone who does.

It seems that Motorola has now found itself on the wrong side of Cook, and Apple’s suit attacks just about every contemporary device that Motorola makes.

Full details of the patents Apple is defending have been detailed by Patently Apple. And are as follows…

One: Apple, Inc patent titled: Ellipse Fitting for Multi-Touch Surfaces: Patent Abstract: Apparatus and methods are disclosed for simultaneously tracking multiple finger and palm contacts as hands approach, touch, and slide across a proximity-sensing, multi-touch surface. Identification and classification of intuitive hand configurations and motions enables unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting into a versatile, ergonomic computer input device.

Two: Apple, Inc patent titled: Multipoint Touchscreen: Patent Abstract: A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals representative of the location of the touches on the plane of the touch panel for each of the multiple touches is disclosed.

Three: Taligent, Inc patent titled: Object-Oriented System Locator System: Patent Abstract: A method and system for adding system components (documents, tools, fonts, libraries, etc.) to a computer system without running an installation program. A location framework is employed to locate system components whose properties match those specified in search criteria. The framework receives notification from the system when system components whose properties match the search criteria are added to or removed from the system.

Four: Apple, Inc, patent titled: Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics: Apple’s invention generally relates to electronic devices with touch screen displays, and more particularly, to electronic devices that apply heuristics to detected user gestures on a touch screen display to determine commands.

Five: Apple Computer, Inc. patent titled: Method and Apparatus for Displaying and Accessing Control and Status Information in a Computer System: Apple’s invention generally relates to the field of computer systems; particularly, the present invention relates to displaying a status and control function bar or window to enable access of user selected indicia to a computer system user.

Six: Apple Computer, Inc. patent titled: Support for Custom User-Interaction Elements in a Graphical, Event-Driven Computer System: Apple’s invention relates to graphical, event-driven computer systems, more particularly to custom interactive user-interaction elements in a computer system having a window-based graphical user interface.

It seems that the various legal wranglings between Apple, HTC (whom many see as Google’s proxy in this war), Nokia, Motorola and just about every smartphone manufacturer on the planet just got much more complex.

This will take years to sort out, and only make lawyers rich.

Do you think it’s right from companies to duke it out for ideas in this way? Have your say in the comments…

For the second quarter in a row Motorola reported shipping less mobile phones than Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). To give you an idea of how the smart phone industry has been turned on its head since the arrival of Apple, Silicon Alley Insider have produced some great statistics.

In Q2 2007, for instance — the quarter when Apple first started selling the iPhone — Motorola shipped 35.5 million units, including the 100 millionth Razr.

In June this year Apple shipped 8.4 million iPhones. Compared to the 8.3 million phones of all types that Motorola shipped.

Of those 8.3 million, only 2.7 million were Android based.

If the iPhone business fails for Apple for some reason, then they have many other arms of Apple to fall back on. All, apart from the iPod Touch, are growing exponentially. And the iPod business is only being impacted by Apple’s own iPad business. So no biggie.

Motorola’s business, however, is the phone business.

Do you see some big companies like Motorola failing in the future? Or do you think they will fight back with Android? Have your say in the comments…