Android

Brief of the day: Apple on Google as a 'friend of the court'

Apple to Google: If you've got something to say about Samsung, join the damned suit.

FORTUNE -- Following its $1.05 billion patent infringement victory last summer, Apple (AAPL) appealed the district court judge's decision not to ban the sale of the Samsung devices that the jury determined had infringed multiple Apple patents.

Google (GOOG) and several other companies now want to file an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief to the MORE

Chart of the day: Whose lunch has Android been eating?

In the U.S., it's everybody's but Apple's according to comScore.

FORTUNE -- It's often been said that Android's share of the U.S. smartphone market has come chiefly out of the hides of Research in Motion's (BBRY) BlackBerry and Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Phone, but nothing shows this quite as clearly as Horace Dediu's charts at Asymco.com.

Not that Apple (AAPL) hasn't been hurt by the success of Google's (GOOG) mobile platform. Some of MORE

Apple's lead over Samsung in the U.S. widened in April

But Samsung isn't falling behind the iPhone as fast as it was in February or March.

FORTUNE -- Google's (GOOG) Android, at 52%, took the largest share of U.S. smartphone sales in the three month period (Jan. - Mar.) covered by comScore's report Friday. But it managed to lose 1.4 percentage points sequentially, while Apple (AAPL), at 39%, gained 2.7.

In the Apple vs. Samsung competition, Apple widened its U.S. lead, which MORE

B&N turns to Google to save the Nook

Barnes & Noble's tablet business is struggling mightily. So what's the book chain to do? Let Google in.

FORTUNE -- Ask Stephane Maes, Barnes and Noble VP of Product, why holiday sales of its Nook tablets were weaker than expected, and he'll tell you it wasn't due to lack of interest. When shoppers looked at the Nook HD, one of the first things they asked was whether apps bought for their MORE

A bad month for Android: April brought 7 major patent setbacks

April was the cruelest month yet for Google and Motorola on the patent front.

FORTUNE -- It was Google (GOOG) against the world last month, as it fought and lost patent battles directly or by proxy with Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Nokia (NOK), HTC and ZTE. "Google shoot blanks in smartphone patent wars," wrote Thomson Reuters' Reynolds Holding. Or as The Verge's Nilay Patel put it: "Does anyone know why Google bought Motorola?"

FOSS MORE

5 ways to make Google Glass better

Some early reviews call Google Glass the future of computing. But even they say that future remains a little rough around the edges.

FORTUNE -- When I ask people outside Silicon Valley about Google Glass, the company's big play on wearable computing, I get a similar response: Sounds cool. Looks geeky.

"Ugh, I won't even think about wearing that thing until they ditch the god-awful Back to the Future look," a friend and MORE

Report: Android's share of Web traffic is up 35% from last year

Apple's iOS is down 6.6%, but the iPhone and iPad still account for 59% of Web usage.

FORTUNE -- Netapplications' April report, released Wednesday, shows Android's share of Web traffic recovering from its November pause and picking up its slow but steady growth.

Google's (GOOG) mobile operating platform now accounts for 26% of Web usage -- up 35% year over year -- as measured by visits to the sites of Netapplication's 40,000 MORE

Chart of the day: The mobile world according to Kantar

Android took 64% of smartphone sales in 10 countries polled. iPhone led only in Japan.

FORTUNE -- According to a report issued Monday by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Google's (GOOG) Android gained market share in all 10 countries surveyed to achieve an average 64% share of smartphone sales.

Android's strongest showing was in Spain, where its market share measured 93.5%. Its tightest race was in the U.S., where according to Kantar Android holds MORE

Google's best app now on the iPhone

The Siri rival from the search giant is available for Apple's iOS devices.

By Matt Vella, senior editor

FORTUNE -- Google Now, arguably the search giant's most promising mobile feature, is now available on Apple's iOS platform. An update to the Google Search app for Apple iPhones and iPads includes features found on the company's own Android operating system.

What's Google Now? Somewhat similar to Siri, the software is a digital personal assistant MORE

Forecast: Android has peaked, Apple's iPhone still growing

The Yankee Group has seen the future of the smartphone and it belongs to Apple's iOS

FORTUNE -- "Samsung's Radio City Music Hall launch of its Galaxy S IV smartphone made good headlines, but consumer buying data shows that at the checkout counter, Apple continues to eat Samsung's lunch."

So writes the Yankee Group's Carl Howe, in defiance of conventional wisdom, summarizing the findings of a survey of 16,000 U.S. smartphone customers.

Howe's MORE