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Parks Associates's latest report on the sate of the US mobile market reveals a few interesting facts. Perhaps most intriguing is the reduced gap between the two titans in the realm - Apple and Samsung. The former currently controls 40% of the local mobile market, but the Korean giant is quickly catching up with 31%.
Samsung's US expansion is definitely impressive, but other foreign OEM's are exhibiting the same trend, although on a much smaller scale. Third place on the list goes to LG, with 10% market share and other major brand names, like Motorola and HTC have about 5% reach, combined.
On a global scale, Samsung still led the race in 2015, with a total of 324.8 million units shipped, leaving Cupertino at second place with about 231.5 million sales.
Another interesting trend, unearthed in the Parks Associates's research concerns smartphone upgrade cycles. The numbers show that about a third of iOS users still own a handset that is more than two years old, while only 30% of Samsung users are on a device as dated. This could be interpreted as a testament to the futureproofing of Apple handsets, but it might also have to do with carrier efforts to shorten hardware upgrade cycles as much as possible and encourage more frequent sales.
Operators are pulling out all the tricks to encourage phone upgrades... The once-familiar two-year contract, which tied consumers to a two-year phone upgrade cycle, is gradually fading. U.S. carriers started to do away with two-year contracts in 2012, and by the third quarter of 2015, only 51% of mobile consumers had a contract, down from almost 70% at the end 2011.


A few other curious statistic from the report state that:
  • More than 70% of smartphone users now watch short streaming video clips, and more than 40% watch long streaming videos on their device.
  • Almost 40% of smartphone users use the voice recognition function; among iPhone users, more than half have used Siri.
  • 36% use Wi-Fi calling
  • 35% stream music from the phone to speakers
  • 26% use a payment app for purchases at a retail location
  • 24% stream video from the phone to a second screen (e.g., TV, PC, etc.)
Source | Via
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Just a few days ago, Instagram revealed that all its users would get to use multiple accounts inside its apps starting later this week. And today the Facebook-owned photography-focused social network is at it again, with yet another new feature being announced.
It's something much simpler this time around, but should prove very useful for the content creators using Instagram. "Over the next few weeks", view counts for videos will be shown underneath them, as portrayed in the screenshots below. A view is registered once a video has been watched for at least three seconds.
This introduction comes as apparently "views are the most widely expected form of feedback on video". The information about how many times a video was viewed will replace that about how many likes it's received. To get to the number of likes, you'll need to tap on the word "views".
Instagram promises that this is only the first of many ways in which it plans to improve its handling of video content this year.
Source | Via
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Not too long ago, WhatsApp decided to drop the $1 a year subscription fee. And since WhatsApp has promised to never show ads for the sake of their own users, it only leaves us wondering how the messaging platform is planning to make money.
Well, just around the time that WhatsApp dropped its subscriber fee, it had reported that it had over 900 million subscribers.
Thanks to making the messaging platform free to use, WhatsApp now has passed 1 billion users according to a post that WhatsApp made today.
WhatsApp now joins Facebook and more recently Gmail in the 1 billion+ club. Way to go WhatsApp!
Source | Via
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Either a genuine mistake, or part of the pre-launch teasing process (our money is on the latter), a Samsung website now lists the Galaxy S7 Edge in a table detailing the different uses of the curved screen. Keeping the Galaxy S6 edge and S6 edge+ company, the yet-to-be-released model (announcement confirmed for February 21) will be able to do the exact same stuff as its older brethren.
With the screen on, the trio can display either the narrow type strips available since the S6 edge's inception, or the wide one-third of the screen type introduced with the Marshmallow update. With the screen off it's the usual clock and notifications feed.
And if we were hoping to get something else out of the slip-up, like the name for example, tough luck - it's a bit of a naming mess. The existing Galaxy S6 edge is officially spelled with a small 'e', and the S6 edge+ formally gets a symbol instead of a 'Plus'. So that remains to be settled, for those that care.
Source | Via
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If you keep an old Bob Marley compilation in your glovebox, just in case you crave some reggae on the way home, you may want to reconsider.
The Jamaican singer, along with Britney Spears, AC/DC and DJ Calvin Harris, are among the most dangerous artists to listen to while driving, according to new research.

One in ten young drivers admitted to crashing or having a near-miss because of songs by such artists, while the pace of these tracks was linked to faster driving and more traffic violations.
Psychologist Dr Simon Moore, commissioned by insurance company More Than, surveyed drivers between 17 and 25.
In an experiment that included brain imaging and cognitive safety analysis, the subjects were asked to complete a series of laps in driving simulators while listening to various kinds of music.
Fast-paced music - at 130 beats per minute or more - was linked to faster driving and more traffic violations, because it hampered reaction times and decision-making capabilities.
Music that was too slow, however, was  linked to poor performances and underestimating time.
One in ten young drivers has had a crash or a near-miss because of the music they were listening to while 90 per cent of subjects admitted they sing and dance along the song while driving (stock image)
One in ten young drivers has had a crash or a near-miss because of the music they were listening to while 90 per cent of subjects admitted they sing and dance along the song while driving (stock image)
The best performances were observed when the driver was listening to music at around 50-80 beats per minute.

MUSIC TO AVOID WHILE DRIVING

  • Fast-paced music (over 130 bpm) can make you drive faster and more recklessly
  • Slow-paced music worsens your driving performance and makes you underestimate time
  • Instrumental tracks are better than actual songs because lyrics are distracting
  • Volume levels should be kept below 107 decibels to avoid being distracted 
This is considered a 'golden mean' that resembles the rhythm of a human heartbeat.
Interviews with the motorists revealed that a third who had crashed while being distracted by music were listening to rock, followed by 33 per cent listening to pop, and 19 per cent playing dance music.
They also named a list of artists whose songs they blamed for their bad driving. 
Besides Bob Marley, Britney Spears and Calvin Harris, other singers labelled as too distracting were AC/DC, and the groups Linkin Park and Pendulum.
The particular songs listed by the respondents included Back in Black by AC/DC, Linkin Park's Numb, Toxic by Britney Spears, Calvin Harris' We Found Love, and Bob Marley's This Is Love.  
In addition, Dr Moore found that reggae listeners were more prone to near-misses and hazardous decisions, while the fans of heavy metal, hard rock, garage and some hip hop generally drove faster.
Other factors highlighted as negative influences on driving were the presence of lyrics and the volume. Similarly, a driver didn't like a song they could lose concentration. 
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