2011 saw the biggest boom in personal computing since the Apple II invaded homes and offices across the world. This time around it was not a desktop computer, or even some fancy new laptop. The smartphone has penetrated society with such speed and to such depth that basic human interaction with information has yet to adapt to the change. Enterprises are scrambling to handle the era of "bring-your-own-device" and it is, at times, a painful process.
There is no possible way that the boom could continue, right? It will. Mobile is on a vertical trajectory through the rest of the decade. What will happen in 2012? We make a stab with our best educated guesses below.
Google+ just announced that feature phone users can now create a Google account. Googler Mohamed Fouad describes this as an effort to enable the hundreds of millions of people with feature phones but no computer access to create an account.
By visiting plus.google.com from a feature phone browser, users can now create a Gmail and Google+ account. This month, Google has extended features of the Web versions of Gmail and Google+ to allow free voice calls to any phone number. Building features for basic mobile phones helps Google extend its reach to a huge, untapped market for Web services.
Android is truly going everywhere. Leading that charge is Myriad Group from Switzerland, the company that brought Android to the iPad through its Alien Davlik technology. Davlik is bringing Android apps to a TV near you with a new release to be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January called Alien Vue.
Alien Vue is being positioned by Myriad as a way for cable operators to ward off the over-the-top content offerings from companies like Google, Apple, Roku and others. Cut the cord? You may not have to if Alien Vue can spread its wings into the market.
The Kindle Fire has been released to great fanfare, mixed reviews and millions of devices sold. The device's growth trajectory has already outpaced that of any other tablet introduced to the market. Secondary statistics show that the growth of the Kindle Fire rivals even that of the original iPad when it was unleashed on the world in the beginning of 2010.
Advertising network Millennial Media notes in its monthly report MobileMix device index report that ad impressions on the Fire have grown at a daily rate of 19% since its launch in the middle of November. Millennial is seeing run rates of hundreds of millions of impressions from the Fire, putting it in the upper echelon of devices on the market.
The nightmare is over. Or, hopes and dreams have been crushed. Really, it depends on what side of the argument you fell on but, as of now, it is moot: AT&T and T-Mobile have dropped their $39 billion merger bid and will remain two separate, unaffiliated companies.
The competition will rejoice. Sprint, in particular, comes off as a big winner and CEO Dan Hesse will be vindicated for his crusade against the merger all year. Verizon, which took a "don't look at us, we are just watching the circus" approach, probably does not benefit from its failure. AT&T had set aside $4 billion in breakup fees that it now needs to pay Deutsche Telecom, the owners of T-Mobile. So, the biggest loser here is AT&T. The company would also like consumers to believe they are the losers as well.
AppData.com revealed that daily average use on Facebook for Android has, for the first time ever, surpassed Facebook for iPhone. The Android Facebook app now has 58.8 million daily average users, while Facebook for iPhone has only 57.6 million daily average users. This new data also coincides with the worldwide rollout of Facebook Timeline, which finally happened on December 15, 2011.
Tablet maker Fusion Garage is on the ropes. One of the first companies to try and make tablet computing commercially viable, has been embroiled in a legal battle with its partners and this weekend lost its legal council after it failed to pay him. The JooJoo, once called the CrunchPad, could have been exciting. Now, it is likely to go down as an unremarkable footnote in history.
Fusion Garage is also the maker of the Grid 10 tablet, an Android slate that was released to terrible reviews and poor sales. As of Monday morning, a Grid 10 tablet was not available through the company's website. Fusion Garage appears to be on its way to a shallow grave, its path to demise lined with broken promises and bad products.
On the heights, all the paths are paved with daggers - Robert Jordan
The Apple rumor cycle is gearing back up. It is always exciting when the mass of Web pundits get on their high horses and start making prognostications about who, when, what, how the new iDevice will be. With all the attention that new versions of the iPad and iPhone receive, it begs a question: what happens when/if Apple releases a complete flop? You know, something along the lines of a BlackBerry Storm-like disaster. The driving force of Steve Jobs is gone and, one way or another, that is going to affect Apple's products. What happens to the Cult of Apple and its iDevice line if the next iteration is widely disgusted?
Today Adobe released Flash Player 11.1 into the Android Market, fulfilling its promise to support Flash on Ice Cream Sandwich. Adobe is finally burying mobile Flash, a standard that has had one foot in the grave since Steve Jobs passed a death sentence on it when the original iPhone came to market.
As of now, the Flash Player update will only be available to users with Ice Cream Sandwich devices. Basically, that means anybody with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which was released through Verizon this week and has already sold out at most stores.
In days of yore, kids wanted to be policemen, kung fu experts or jet fighters when they grew up. They saw what was being glorified on television and in the movies and said, "Daddy, that is what I want to do!" These days, kids may want to grow up to be great mobile developers. It could happen.
Google is making that easier than ever to learn to develop for Android. Last night it introduced a new beta program, Android Training, a collection of classes designed to help mobile developers make better Android apps. Google realizes that in the realm of public opinion Android apps are perceived to be inferior to iOS. Hence, Android Training is targeted to help developers make slicker, sexier, more functional apps.
