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| Image from money-for-nothing.nl |
During the fight, Yahoo was king of the search engines, then because of its hugeness (or arrogance, if you like) in all means, came Google to the challenge, which brought down Yahoo (not completely yet, but almost).
Nokia was once the king of mobile phone, and in terms of the feature phone market, probably it is still the leader, but up came the challenge from Apple with smartphones and Nokia is now much less of a choice for mobile phones in people's mouth across the globe.
At the same time, or on 5 November 2007 to be precise, Google saw Apple going in strong in the smartphone market and launched Android as the iOS challenger, and since the Google style is collaboration as oppose to Apple's one-man show, Google formed the Open Handset Alliance to gather 34 mobile handset manufacturers such as HTC, LG, Sony, Motorola, NEC, Lenovo, Acer, Dell, Toshiba, ASUSTek and Samsung to compete against Apple. The fight is still on but without Steve Jobs, the soul of Apple, it is not hard to see in which way the war will end should the situation remains unchanged.
Nothing is too big to fail.
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| Android is still winning Image from pocketgamer.biz |
"The future is droid. " -- Justin Mauldin
The battlefield is not only on the phone itself, but also on the apps -- Android Market VS Apple App Store.
It has long been said that Apple App Store leads the Android Market with the total number of apps available, but this gap is closing fast! When I was writing my paper, Smartphones for Teaching and Learning, Angels or Demons? I found that Android Market has already overtaken App Store in the number of apps available.
In the future, Android Market is expected to continue to grow faster than App Store. No surprise, since there are more player in the Android world.
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| Image from androidauthority.com |
Breaking it Down for Developers: Android vs Apple iOS vs Windows Phone vs Blackberry from Innovators Network on Vimeo.
Moving onto the battlefield of Instant Messaging (IM), Whatsapp has been around for quite a few years now and it seems pretty unbeatable in terms of its development maturity. Other than a big security loophole which has not been solved, this product of 2 ex-Yahoo! Inc. geeks is still winning the hearts of many, particularly in Hong Kong.
However, to be able to Whatsapp with someone you will first need to offer your own phone number and that is real personal information which could cause more troubles than benefits (which has been voiced out by this forum, for instance), owing to this, there came other IM apps which need not have the other party's phone number and yet can still be connected, such as Naver's LINE, which focuses on the weaknesses of Whatsapp and offers a lot more fun than its counterpart.
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Friends of mine were arguing which is better, for now, I would say Whatsapp will have just a tiny edge over LINE because of it allows users to start from the unread messages, but that is nothing LINE can't copy and fun wise, LINE is winning by a long way with the stickers and icons, not to mention the free stable overseas call it offers. Potentially speaking, LINE is definitely going to be the next big thing.
Vocabulary:
one-man show -- (n)[C] often referred to comedian,[citation needed] who would stand on stage and entertain an audience. With the advent of feminism, words and phrases such as one-woman show and comedienne have entered the modern-day lexicon.
geek -- (n)[C] informal a person, especially a man, who is boring and not fashionable
owing to -- preposition because of
edge -- (n)[S] an advantage over other people
Resources:
Theory of the Second Best @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_second_best
Open Handset Alliance @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance
Academic Research (Literature Review): Smartphones for Teaching and Learning, Angels or Demons? @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2012/02/academic-research-literature-review.html
In the battle of the app markets, Android has the winning numbers, says Papaya's Justin Mauldin @ Pocket Gamer.biz
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/PapayaMobile+news/feature.asp?c=34824
Google Android Market VS Apple iTunes App Store @ Android Authority
http://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-market-vs-apple-itunes-app-store-26281/
Canadian Mobile Subscriptions to Climb 20% by 2014 @ eMarketer
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007747
The Mobile Phone Landscape @ ASYMCO
http://www.asymco.com/2011/11/01/the-mobile-phone-landscape/
Whatsapp @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whatsapp#Security_concerns
Whatsapp Official Website
http://www.whatsapp.com/about/
LINE by Naver
http://line.naver.jp/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-person_show
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/geek?q=geek
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/owing-to
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/edge_4 >br/>
