Mobile

Mobile growth is about to be staggering

It's the biggest shift in technology since the advent of the Internet, and mobile is still only just beginning.

By Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE -- "I remember traffic lights before smartphones," sighed a friend as we sat in traffic behind a car that remained still after the light had turned green. Sure enough, the driver's head was tilted downward as if lost in solemn prayer -- or, more likely, a texting/map/music app MORE

Mobile apps are increasingly fleeting

A generation of popular apps is being defined by how brief their use cases are.

FORTUNE -- New apps are pushing the boundaries of brevity. Not Angry Birds-esque, which could eat up five minutes of time, but far less. The question is, if mobile apps increasingly are all about "snacking" -- using them in even shorter bursts -- just how brief can their functionality get?

I first encountered this trend last Thanksgiving, MORE

Apple took home 72% of all handset profits last quarter

Samsung had 29%, according to Canaccord Genuity. The rest got nothing.

FORTUNE -- Can you spot the problem with the pie chart at right? If you noticed that the two slices add up to more than 100%, you're on the right track.

Last quarter, Apple (AAPL) and Samsung so dominated the worldwide market for mobile phones (smart and dumb) that the rest of the manufacturers -- including Nokia (NOK), Motorola (GOOG), BlackBerry MORE

The supercomputer will see you now

Two of tech's hottest trends - powerful analytics and mobile gadgets - are making their way into hospitals. They could soon be saving lives.

FORTUNE -- Fans of television medical dramas are probably aware of the grim condition known as septic shock. But few people know that sepsis, a disease that causes the body to attack itself in an attempt to fight off infection, kills 258,000 Americans each year. Though easy MORE

Charts of the day: Samsung vs. Apple vs. Google

Not only has Samsung overtaken Apple in smartphones, it's overtaken Google in income

FORTUNE -- The chart at right, from Asymco's Horace Dediu, shows Samsung's "spectacular" success in smartphone shipments -- success that Dediu attributes to the company's 2010 decision to shift its mobile portfolio to Android smartphones and to build a large variety of them.

In two years Samsung has gone from shipping almost no smartphones to shipping 50 million per MORE

Apple's website now has the iPhone 5 shipping in 2-3 weeks

Down from 3-4 weeks, as supplies begin to catch up to demand

FORTUNE -- The difficulties Apple (AAPL) has had from day 1 keeping up with the extraordinary demand for the iPhone 5 finally seem to be close to a resolution.

On Friday BTIG Research's Walter Piecyk reported that shipping times were down to one week at all three U.S. carriers -- AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and Sprint (S) -- although on Apple's MORE

Why the stock market is so often wrong about Apple

An analysis of 13 bear markets reveals an astonishing disconnect

FORTUNE -- Asymco's Horace Dediu, one of the smartest analysts following Apple (AAPL), has often confessed that the relationship between the company's performance and the price of its stock is beyond his understanding.

But in a post published Monday morning he may have found the key.

He's made a study of 13 bear markets -- periods where Apple's stock price suffered extended declines MORE

What were the terms of the Apple-HTC settlement?

The two sides aren't saying, but we can make some educated guesses

FORTUNE -- In Oct. 2010, Apple (AAPL) offered to license its portfolio of smartphone patents to a major Android phone manufacturer for $30 per unit -- a figure it said it was willing to reduce to $24 as part of a patent cross-licensing deal.

On Saturday, Apple announced that it had signed a 10-year cross-licensing deal -- the terms of which MORE

Apple's iPhone 5 may be coming early to China

Two of the three biggest carriers expect to have it in late November or early December

FORTUNE -- In remarks made Friday on the sidelines of the Chinese Communist Party's 18th Party Congress in Beijing the chairmen of two of the country's leading mobile carriers indicated that they may be selling Apple's (AAPL) iPhone 5 even earlier than expected.

China Telecom's (CHA) Wang Xiaochu told the Wall Street Journal that the phone MORE

Analyst: iPhone 5 supply no longer appears to be an issue

Shipping times are down to one week at all three U.S. carriers

FORTUNE -- Despite Foxconn chairman Terry Gou's comment this week that his assembly plants were falling short of meeting the "huge demand." Despite the 3-4 week shipping delays listed on Apple's website. Despite the customers that still queue up every morning seven weeks after launch.

Despite all this, BTIG Research's Walter Piecyk believes that supply and demand for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone MORE