Apple vs. Android: Which OS Outpaces the Other?

Apple has just reached its 10,000th native iPad application, doubling the size of the iPad App Store in just over six weeks. The milestone itself comes just two months after the release of the tablet device, though it's but a fraction of the total number of applications available for both Apple's iPad and iPhone: more than 200,000, as of Memorial Day last month.

As well, the company has started accepting contributions for iOS 4-compatible applications—the next iteration of the iPhone and iPad operating system is currently scheduled for a June 21 release, hitting devices but three days before the launch of Apple's newest product, the iPhone 4.

However, this call to arms comes with a catch: According to TechCrunch, developers of non-iOS-4 applications are allegedly experiencing longer approval times to get their products into Apple's App Store to begin with.

Elsewhere, Google's Android market has surged up to approximately 72,000 total applications, according to figures by AndroLib.com. There's been a steady increase of new applications as far back as the site records information, with 1,669 new apps hitting in July of 2009 compared to the 14,294 new applications arriving in May 2010.

According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, speaking at this week's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple receives more than 15,000 new application submissions each week. If accurate, Apple is generating roughly four times the amount of applications on a monthly basis over the competing Android platform.

Apple and the various Android manufacturers are shipping roughly the same amount of handheld devices, even though the sheer number of different Android-based phones on today's market trumps Apple's available iPhone offerings. According to Google's latest numbers from it's i/o conference, the company is activating approximately 100,000 new Android-based phones per day, or 9 million devices per quarter. Apple, by contrast, shipped 8.75 million iPhones last quarter.

NPD data released in early may indicated that Android has taken second-place spot behind RIM's OS in terms of smartphone operating systems used. Apple allegedly trails seven percent behind Android at 21 percent, though Jobs disagreed with the assessment in his WWDC keynote.

"There have been a lot of stats floating around, market research, studies. Some are okay, some are questionable," said Jobs, before showcasing a new report from The Neilson Company suggesting that the iPhone is actually second-place in the U.S. smartphone market

Benchmarks: Safari 5 Shows JavaScript Boost

When Safari 5 was released Monday, Apple claimed that the "world's fastest" Web browser is now faster. Macworld Lab ran a performance test on the new Safari, and our results confirm that Safari 5 provides a boost over its predecessor--at least when it comes to the browser's JavaScript engine.

We used the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, which focuses on Safari's Nitro JavaScript engine. Apple claims (on the Safari website) that Safari 5 is "up to 30 percent faster than Safari 4, 3 percent faster than Chrome 5.0, and over twice as fast as Firefox 3.6." Apple also uses the SunSpider test.

In our testing, Safari 5's JavaScript performance was 19.2 percent faster than Safari 4's. That's nowhere near "up to 30 percent" claimed by Apple, but there are a lot of variables that come into play affecting the results. The most important factor is the Internet connection--conditions can vary based on traffic and routing. Still, a boost of nearly 20 percent is significant.

As for the other browsers in Apple's claim: compared to Chrome 5.0, Safari 5 was 3.5 percent faster in our test. Safari 5 was well over twice as fast as FireFox 3.6. Our results actually find Safari 5 faster than what Apple claimed--again, Internet connectivity can influence test results.

Apple didn't mention Opera in its speed claims, but we tested Opera 10.53. We found that Safari 5 was 11.5 percent faster.

One thing to keep in mind is that the differences are measured in milliseconds, so you may not be able to sense a difference between Safari 4 and Safari 5.

A full review of Safari 5 is in the works and coming soon.

Inside the iPhone 4--courtesy of Steve Jobs

The iPhone 4 got a preemptive teardown on Monday courtesy of CEO Steve Jobs at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference.

Though a pre-commercial version of the iPhone 4 was notoriously taken apart by Gizmodo--and no doubt other meticulous teardowns will follow--there's nothing like an official peek inside by Jobs to set the record straight.

So, what's going on inside? Not surprisingly, one of the key goals is to pack more features and functionality into a smaller space: at 9.3mm thick, the device will be 24 percent thinner than its predecessor. And to make this point, an Apple video released Monday shows an animation of the Apple A4 chip package shrinking to accommodate a wider battery. This thin-and-wide battery motif can be seen across a number of larger Apple products, including the MacBook Air and the iPad.

And what about that A4 chip? Like the iPad, the A4 uses an ARM central processing unit, or CPU, designed by Intrinsity and manufactured by Samsung . The extra horsepower of the A4--compared with its slower cousin in the iPhone 3GS--and the accompanying graphics engine will help push around all of the additional pixels in the screen's high-density 940x640-pixel "Retina Display" --which has, incredibly, four times more pixels than previous iPhone models and boasts a 800:1 contrast ratio. The A4 will also be more adept at multitasking and video processing than prior Apple silicon.

Other notable internal features itemized in the photo include a Micro-SIM (not to be confused with Micro-SD), like the iPad, and 16GB or 32GB of Flash memory.

Apple is also touting the stainless steel enclosure and glass, which protects its precious internals. "A new grade of stainless steel that after machining is incredibly strong," Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of Industrial Design at Apple, said in the video cited above. "The steel frame functions as the antenna and primary structure, giving us more internal volume," he said. The screen's glass is "comparable in strength to sapphire crystal (and) about thirty times harder than plastic," according to Ive. Note that the glass is also used on the back of the iPhone 4, a testimony to its strength.

Apple s iPhone vs. Google s Android: Battle may set computing future

Windows vs. the Mac OS. Internet Explorer vs. Netscape Navigator. The iPhone vs. Android.

The first two of those battles have defined computing over the past 25 years, shaping how consumers use their PCs and how they surf the Internet. Now many tech observers are predicting that the third battle will dominate the coming era, determining how consumers use whole classes of new devices from smartphones to tablet computers to Internet-connected televisions.

While many people still cling to their BlackBerrys, and a few to Windows Mobile devices, Google's Android in little more than 20 months has surged to become the strongest rival to Apple's iPhone and its companion iPad, outselling the iPhone in the U.S. for the first time in the first quarter of this year.

Apple will seek to bolster its position Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference, where CEO Steve Jobs is expected to unveil the next version of the iPhone, with new features that may help it regain its advantage. Many also see the event as an opportunity for Apple to fire back at Google, whose representatives made a number of verbal gibes at Apple during its own developer conference last month.

Talking smack may be good fun, but both companies are well aware of the stakes. In recent months they've also engaged in dueling acquisitions, each purchasing startups specializing in mobile advertising and streaming media.

"It's probably going to be an even bloodier battle this

time around," said Tim Bajarin, a principal analyst at Creative Strategies, a consulting firm.

The two companies weren't always at odds. As recently as last summer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt still sat on Apple's board, and when Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, Schmidt was on stage to praise Apple's achievement.

But the battle started brewing not long after Google's move in fall 2007 to unveil Android, its smartphone operating system. Jobs and Apple were reportedly blindsided by the move.

As Jobs put it last week at the D: All Things Digital Conference, put on by a unit of Dow Jones, in describing how the two companies' formerly friendly relationship had soured, "They decided to compete with us (in mobile phones). And it got more and more serious."

But the magnitude of the budding rivalry started to become clear only in recent months, as the market for Android phones exploded. Google has rapidly polished the software, and phone manufacturers have responded: More than 50 phones made by more than 20 manufacturers in 48 countries now run the operating system, up from just three models a year ago. In the U.S., Android phones are on all four of the major carriers.

Consumers are starting to respond, too: According to the latest report from Gartner, an industry research firm, Android-based phones outsold iPhones in North America for the first time in the first quarter of this year. Compared with the year-earlier period, Android phone sales grew an eye-popping 707 percent.

And analysts think that Android is only getting started.

"In a couple of short years, they are going to be the No. 2 operating system in the world — with virtually no marketing," Will Stofega, a smartphone analyst with research firm IDC, said of Android, putting it ahead of the BlackBerry OS and Apple iPhone.

For many observers, it seems a familiar story, similar to what happened in personal computer operating systems in the 1980s. Apple's software was elegant, Microsoft's clunky. Many observers make the same comparison between the iPhone OS and Android's "rough edges."

But Microsoft allowed any personal computer maker to license and install DOS, then Windows, while Apple kept Mac OS to itself. Microsoft's strategy so trounced Apple's that by the mid-1990s, Windows was on the vast majority of personal computers in the world — and Apple was nearly bankrupt.

For its part, Google has been eager to play up the parallels, emphasizing how Android is "open" and the iPhone is "closed" and asserting that openness will eventually win.

At its recent developers conference, Google executive Vic Gundotra even brought his daughter into the fray, saying that she couldn't watch her favorite Nickelodeon videos on her family's new iPad because the site uses Adobe's Flash, and that she had to use Gundotra's Android phone.

"That's what openness means," Gundotra said, in a reference to Apple's shunning of Flash. "It's much nicer than just saying no."

But it's not at all clear yet whether the smartphone market — much less the emerging markets for tablets or smart TVs or other, new "smart" devices — will play out the same way as the personal computer market did. In fact, many analysts believe that while personal computers eventually boiled down to two primary operating systems, with one hugely dominant, the smartphone market is big and diverse enough to sustain four or five.

Apple still has its strengths. The more than 200,000 applications in its Apps Store outnumbers by far the number of applications available for Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones combined. And Apple has sold 85 million iPhone OS-based devices in the past three years, representing a sizable user base that Android has yet to approach.

Still, as much interest as the Android-iPhone battle is drawing, it's important to note that neither yet ranks among the top two smartphone operating systems worldwide. Symbian — largely linked to cell phone giant Nokia — still owns a commanding 44 percent share of the global market for smartphone operating systems. Research In Motion's BlackBerry operating system still leads among smartphones in North America and is No. 2 worldwide.

And Google has its vulnerabilities. While Apple is closely tuned to consumer demand, Google has had a tough time reaching smartphone customers. Google is soon to introduce the latest version of Android with many new features, but its effort to sell the Nexus One smartphone through the Internet was a self-acknowledged flop.

Google and its manufacturing partners "have done a great job, they've got a lot of fundamental advantages over Apple. The hardware has now eclipsed Apple's," Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said. "But Apple continues to be successful because their message to the end user is clear and singular and very easy to understand."

The battle might not result in a clear winner and loser. After Jobs' return to Apple, the company figured out a way to succeed in the personal computer business without being the dominant player. Today, while still having a minor share of the business, the company's profits on its Macs are the envy of the industry and it is a leader in adopting new technologies and making more environmentally friendly machines.

Apple could end up playing a similar role in smartphones.

"We want to make better products than them," Jobs said at the D conference. "What I love about the marketplace is that we do our products, we tell people about them, and if they like them, we get to come to work tomorrow."

Intel PlanningThinnest Netbook, Dual-Core Netbook Atom

At the Computex show in Taiwan, Intel disclosed that it was in production of a dual-core Atom chip for netbooks. Intel also revealed "Canoe Lake," a reference design for a 14-mm thick netbook, the world's thinnest.

Intel's Computex announcements are also expected to include Asus, with whom Intel will launch a pre-installed version of its AppUp app store, first running on Windows and later on the MeeGo operating system.

"Acer will be ready with MeeGo-based mobile devices," said Gianfranco Lanci, Acer's chief executive, in a statement. "MeeGo's open software platform will present our customers with another choice of a friendly, easy-to-use operating system. We are pleased to collaborate with Intel in our continuous drive to provide effortless technologies that empower people at work, home - anytime, anywhere."

But thus year's Computex will be about Atom, Intel's embedded processor.

Intel launched and began shipping four Atom microprocessors at Computex: the N455 and N475 for netbooks, and the D425 and D525 for so-called "net-top" desktop PCs.

While all four of the cores support DDR-3 memory, just one of the new chips is a dual-core offering: the D525, a 1.8-GHz chip. Unfortunately, however, Intel did not disclose the model number or clock speed of the new dual-core netbook Atom, part of the "Pine Trail" family; both the N455 and N475 are single-core chips. The chip, rumored to be called the N550, is in production, however, executives said, with products slated to ship by the 2010 holiday season. (An Intel spokeswoman said that the N550 was a "rumored number".)

A new platform for tablets and netbooks, known as "Oak Trail," will also be launched in early 2011, building upon the "Moorestown" platform for PCs with support for Windows 7, MeeGo, and Google operating systems (including Chrome OS and Android) with a 40 percent lower thermal design power.

The "Canoe Lake," "Oak Trail," and new Atom chip launches are part of Intel's "Atom Everywhere" strategy, according to Anil Naudauri, the markting director for netbooks and tablets for the PC client group. In May, Intel announced the "Lincroft" or Atom Z6 platform for smartphones. A month earlier, Intel said its "Tunnel Creek" platform would allow third-party IP designers to bolt on third-party cores with their own custom silicon. And then, of course, there is Google TV, the Atom-powered fusion of the TV and the Web that will be powered by Atom silicon.

The addition of a dual-core Atom for netbooks will be significant, since the company's dual-core efforts have so far been confined to the net-top space. Both the D525 and D425 run at 1.8-GHz; in addition to the extra core, however, the D525 also runs at 8.5 watts of TDP, versus 6.5 watts for the D425. The N455 runs at 1.66-GHz and consumes 6.5 watts; oddly, that's the same rated power consumption as the N475, which runs at 1.83-GHz.

Intel's Oak Trail, platform, builds on the Moorestwon platform Intel has previously designed for the smartphone market, pairing the Atom Z6 chip with the Whitney Point platform with the integrated Langwell platform controller hub. Although there's the expected array of legacy I/O (plus SATA, HD audio, and HDMI) the real push will be enabling a "port of choice," allowing OEMs to choose whichever operating system best suits them, Nanduri said.

In addition to the 40 percent reduction in thermal design power, Oak Trail will be 40 percent smaller and 35 percent thinner, Nanduri said.

Intel devoted very little detail to Canoe Lake, its prototype for a 14-mm netbook, which will apparently be licensed to OEMs. The prototype form factor will incorporate the Pine Trail dual-core Atom, and will be used as the Atom answer to other thin notebooks and laptops, such as the MacBook Air and Dell Adamo XPS.

Nanduri said that there's still quite a bit of interest in ultrathin mobile computing devices, including netbooks. "Clearly there's a market for it," he said. "We were motivated to cater to the market's needs. We've been talking to partners about the technology, and we expect to see very positive momentum for using this."

Both David (Dadi) Perlmutter, executive vice president and co-general manager, Intel Architecture Group, and Renee James, senior vice president of the Software and Services Group, are expected to make speeches tonight at the Computex show, introducing the new products and partnerships.