bruceb news

The most successful smartphone manufacturer in the world sold more than twice as many phones as its nearest competitor in the second quarter of 2012. In fact, it increased its lead last quarter, when the second-place manufacturer saw sales start to slip.

Quick! Without looking, who finished first?

It was Samsung, of course – by any measure, the world’s largest maker of smartphones.

Surprised? It’s hard to resist Apple’s reality distortion field. Apple shipped 26 million phones in the second quarter. It’s no slouch. But Samsung’s share of the market is steadily increasing, whether measured by number of units sold (52 million last quarter), by market share (35% vs. […] continued

Previously:
LastPass 2.0: An Upgraded Version Of An Essential Program
LastPass 2.0 And Secure Notes

LASTPASS PREMIUM

Almost all of the important functions of LastPass are available for free, but you should consider paying $12/year for LastPass Premium. Although there are other Premium features, most of you will be paying that dollar a month for a LastPass app to run on your smartphone and iPad.

There is a mobile version of LastPass for every device – Android, iPhone/iPad, Windows phone, and more. You can view, add, edit, and delete all of your sites and secure notes from the app. That’s valuable by itself, especially if you begin keeping all of your personal information in LastPass Secure Notes as I suggested yesterday – you’ll have convenient, secure access to your driver’s license number and credit card numbers, all in one place. […] continued

Previously:
LastPass 2.0: An Updated Version Of An Essential Program

The upgrade to LastPass 2.0 includes a meaningful improvement in “Secure Notes” to help you use LastPass to store all of your private information, not just Internet passwords.

Secure Notes allow you to store any kind of information securely – a digital encrypted notepad. You can save bank account numbers, credit card information, Social Security numbers, locker combinations, and anything else you need to remember.

The information is stored in your LastPass Vault in a folder named Secure Notes. You can create subfolders to keep the notes organized. A Secure Note can be created from the LastPass toolbar or from the LastPass Vault in your web browser. […] continued

“Ice Cream Sandwich” was Google’s internal name during development of the latest version of its Android operating system for phones and tablets. It’s now known more formally as Android 4.0.

You don’t have it yet. There’s an interesting story about that.

Let’s start with the competitors so you can see the contrast with Google’s fumbling efforts.

Apple has released an update to its iOS operating system every year since its introduction in 2007. Some have been big upgrades, some have been minor, but iOS 6 will appear later this year and it will be installed promptly on almost all Apple iPhones and iPads, just like the previous versions. […] continued

A few days ago the New York Times ran two articles that might be helpful to you if you feel like you’re adrift in the technology sea.

A Guide to Deciphering the Language of Smartphones covers the most important (and confusing) acronyms and concepts in the phone world. There are explanations in plain English of basic terms like “wi-fi” and “apps”, as well as some recent jargon introduced by the carriers – “tiered plan,” “CDMA vs. GSM.”

Here’s a sample:

“3G, 4G, WIMAX, HSPA+ These may be the most confusing terms because there is a lot of marketing mystery around them.

[…] continued

Previously:
Syncing Contacts And Appointments With Smartphones

Apple introduced the iCloud service last summer. It is a brilliant, intuitive way to move photos from iPhones to iPads and computers, and it’s the engine to transfer information about your music library so you can play music from an iTunes collection on your iPhone and iPad.

iCloud is also capable of syncing contacts, appointments, and mail, but that turns out to have some strange quirks. Make sure you have some idea about what to expect before you throw those switches!

As I wrote in the last article, there are a lot of places where you might have contacts and appointments. […] continued

Syncing your data among your computers and mobile devices is going to be the source of much frustration and gnashing of teeth over the next couple of years. You’re going to want to set things up very carefully to avoid nasty side effects.

Your digital life is getting more complicated. iPhones and iPads and Android phones want to be helpful by syncing everything in all directions. That turns out to be a complex thing to do.

Let’s say you have a single email address. Perhaps it’s your business address, run by Office 365 or your office Exchange Server, and you use it for all purposes. […] continued

New toys are coming on the market, just as promised. As you look at them, keep in mind that this is only the beginning. This is a transition year that will be filled with new products, each one looking better/cheaper/shinier than the one before it.

ULTRABOOKS

By summer the shelves will be full of 13” ultra-thin, ultra-lightweight notebook computers. They will begin at $800 but prices will go up from there for a variety of reasons – usually for more style but sometimes just for a larger SSD.

In the market? These are the current standouts:

• HP Folio 13
• Dell XPS 13
• Asus Zenbook UX31
• Lenovo IdeaPad U300e

If you’re willing to pay more for visual flair or a bigger screen, these are turning heads right now:

• Samsung Series 9 (available with 13” and 15” screens)
• HP Envy Spectre 14

Intel has an improved chipset for Ultrabooks arriving soon, possibly by the end of April. […] continued

Sonoma County is a rural county. We look at Santa Rosa and our chests swell at our bustling urban metropolis (population 167,000), but make no mistake: to cell phone carriers, we are small-fry. In 2012 that has a very precise and painful meaning for your mobile devices.

We are inundated with ads touting the wonders of 4G Internet connections. One of the important selling points of the new iPad is its 4G capability. The cell phone carriers are touting 4G phones and advertising the superiority of their 4G networks. It sounds exciting.

If you live in a rural area like Sonoma County, there is no 4G service and there is no accurate estimate of when any carrier will first deliver it. […] continued

Previously:
Walled Gardens, Part 1: Apple
Walled Gardens, Part 2: Google

MICROSOFT

Set your clock ahead by eight months. It’s the holiday shopping season in late 2012.

Make two assumptions.

• Microsoft has delivered Windows 8. In its final form, the design is solid and well accepted. The app store is lively and the cloud components work as planned.
• You personally have gotten through the initial Windows 8 learning curve, or the news coverage has at least convinced you to give it a fair chance.

Those are huge assumptions. We will spend much time this year coming back to them again and again. […] continued