In retrospect, 2011 was a year of enormous change in the computing and internet industry – although it was one in which the ground was laid, rather than coming immediately to fruition.
What changes?
• the ascendance of the ARM chip architecture, and Microsoft's
• the ascendance of Android, and smartphones
• Samsung's rise to prominence
• the humbling of Nokia and the crushing of RIM
• the destruction of security and online trust
• the death of Flash and the rise of HMTL5
• the (continued) erosion of privacy
• the intrusion of patents
And finally...
Into Microsoft's ARMs
It opened with the Consumer Electronics Show, and on everyone's lips was just one question: which of the dozens of tablets being announced (and in some cases shown off) would overtake Apple in this intriguing, fast-growing market? "Honeycomb", the 3.0 version of Android, was wafted under our noses by Motorola (and promised but not shown by Asus), while RIM briefly showed the PlayBook, with its promise of Flash playback – the place the iPad would never go.
Then Microsoft leapt into CES and dropped a stone whose ripples will spread for years to come. The next version of Windows wouldn't only run on Intel chips; it would also run on the ARM architecture used in smartphones, as well as in the iPad and every other non-Windows tablet out there. The idea of tablets running Windows Phone (then only three months old) was simply not countenanced: Microsoft was going to get Windows onto tablets. Why ARM? Because its low-power characteristics mean that you get better battery life. Try as it might – and it has tried plenty – Intel's performance per watt has simply never matched ARM's.
For Microsoft, seeing the way that the market is shifting – with PC sales shrinking in the west, its traditional market – tablets are an important bridge to the future. The demonstration at CES laid the groundwork for the next version of Windows, which we'll see in 2012.
Microsoft then has a thin line to tread: if Windows 8 on the traditional Intel desktop form factor is like Windows 7, why upgrade? If Windows 8 on a tablet has both the same licence price as Windows on the desktop and a curated app store (the former is unknown, the latter has been announced) then will people want it? And how will tablet makers be able to undercut Apple with comparable equipment if they're paying a Windows licence fee?
Despite everything we saw at CES (where Apple didn't exhibit), the iPad is finishing the year with about 60% of the market, with some Chinese companies withdrawing from the tablet market altogether because it just isn't profitable if you're not selling iPads.
Android soaring
Taken together, 2010 and 2011 have been the years of fastest growth ever in the smartphone market, at 72% and 50% respectively. In a world where people have 8.1bn mobile phones, and mobile connections are outnumbering fixed ones, having a significant share of the mobile market is important.
During those two years, Android went from being 9.6% of smartphones sold to 52% – while the volume of smartphones being sold tripled. That means it was far more dominant at the end of the period than the beginning; Andy Rubin of Google tweeted that activations were now running at 700,000 per day (though an analysis by Horace Dediu of Asymco suggests that Google cherrypicks the activation numbers for peak periods). But still, there seem to be between 224m and 253m Android devices out there.
The reality is that it's Android which is driving the smartphone revolution. Be in no doubt that that revolution is a good thing: bringing the internet to everyone across the globe, so that they can tell their stories, or get help, can only be positive. Look no further than the Arab Spring, and the way that Syrian activists are able to get their story out by filming and uploading from their phones, for the proof.
Among the rivals, while Apple has had blowout quarters (becoming the largest smartphone vendor both in revenues and shipment in the second quarter, only to be overtaken by Samsung in the third), the sheer tide of Android phones is overwhelming it along with all other competitors. So far Apple has shown no sign of wanting to compete directly on price at the low end, letting older models such as the iPhone 3GS serve to fill gaps in its offering.
It's nothing like its approach to the music player market, when it constantly refreshed the iPod lineup, in different sizes and prices. But the smartphone market is not like the iPod market (or the tablet market): it's divided among many players, and none has more than about 25% of the sector. That makes it prone to sudden shifts when one company or another gets a competitive advantage.
Hello, Samsung
The Korean company has grasped the opportunity offered by Android with both hands and made the most of it. It was the first to react to the iPad with an Android tablet, the 7in Galaxy Tab (remember?). That didn't sell, so it ditched it and moved to a larger version, while its smartphone division worked overtime to produce more and better phones.
Samsung's advantage isn't just that it's big: it's also inventive, and can get a lot of what it wants done in-house because it makes everything from NAND flash and DRAM chips to touchscreen panels to flatscreen TVs. The only thing it doesn't make is the software (apart from its Bada mobile OS, which is being quietly deemphasised.)
2011 was the year that Samsung discovered it could rule in the way that it wants to: it is reckoned to have become the largest smartphone vendor by shipments and revenue in the third quarter. I say "reckoned", because it didn't release any precise figures for revenues or shipments. (Contrast that to Apple, RIM or Nokia, which provide hefty amounts of detail about where their business comes from.)
Will analysts start querying its financial and shipment figures (which presently they have to guess at)? Will Samsung provide more clarity about its financial workings, or does that go against the rules of the chaebol?
Crushed by circumstance: Nokia and RIM
On arriving at Nokia from Microsoft in September 2010, Stephen Elop found a company whose strategy was in tatters. Symbian, the mobile OS that apparently dominated the world smartphone market, was making no impression in the US, the biggest smartphone market, and dwindling in Europe. Worse, it wasn't suitable for the touchscreen operation that people were demanding.
Elop decided that Symbian had to go; it wasn't future-proof. But the parachute that the Nokia team had been relying on, Meego, wasn't ready either, and he could see it wouldn't be ready in time. After some rapid negotiations with Google and Microsoft, he convinced his former employers to hand over $1bn for marketing and let Nokia tweak Windows Phone to its taste. The announcement came in February, and had been expected (helped by a tweet from Google's Vic Gundotra – who'd been in on the negotiations – that "two turkeys don't make an eagle".
Nokia didn't do well as a result. Its travails have been well-reported: Symbian's market share has gone from Android-ish levels to an also-ran. Its Lumia 800 may or may not have sold well (the lack of any hard figures suggests there's nothing stunning happening). A company that once ruled the mobile world is now under attack on all fronts – in China, its former stronghold (where cheap white-label phones are taking off) and in Europe.
Yet Nokia has determination; there's a sort of corporate culture that drives the company onwards towards the light. Elop made tough decisions which have killed projects and moved thousands of jobs out of the company, but Nokia has snapped to it: the Lumia is a wonderful piece of hardware, as nice to hold as any phone produced in the entire year.
One can't help but contrast that with RIM, which began the year promising that it would have a 4G version of the PlayBook which would connect to the Sprint network, yet when it arrived it underwhelmed: there was no inbuilt email or calendar functionality, and its lack of apps made Android's Honeycomb look well-stocked – which it wasn't.
RIM wasn't helped by the late arrival of new phones, and the fact that it had completely overestimated how the PlayBook would sell: it ordered something like 2m, and shipped about 850,000. Overconfidence is a continuing trait of the public pronouncements of RIM's chiefs.
The company has serious problems. The co-chief executives don't seem to be able to figure out a strategy that will keep them ahead of the rivals. The situation was bad enough when it was just Apple and Android; but now that Microsoft and Nokia have teamed up, adding their heft to the Windows Phone platform, RIM is beginning to look like the runt of the pack. In December, when RIM announced its quarterly financial results, Mike Lazaridis – or was it Jim Balsillie? – said that they were in a strong financial position, given that they have a billion dollars in cash.
True. But six months earlier, they had two billion dollars in cash. Like Nokia, but about a year later, RIM is discovering that its existing operating system isn't up to the challenges of present competition. However, Nokia has survived multiple existential threats, and adapted to them. RIM has never had to go through that.
You haven't seen us
The hacking of Sony's PlayStation Network in April is claimed to have revealed tens of millions of credit card details. It's impossible to know how many were actually stolen, or used. Nor do we know – even now, seven months later – what Sony has found out, or who was behind it. The loose hacking collective Anonymous was blamed, though no definite proof has been provided.
Then came the hacking of the business owned by Aaron Barr, who had been promising that he could get inside Anonymous and identify – in real life – its "leaders". He got turned over himself, and the results weren't pretty – although it's worth noting that by the end of the year Barr was back, and appeared mostly unscathed.
But that was the start of a hacking spree, by a "crew" calling themselves LulzSec ("lulz" for the laughs, sec for the security, or lack of it) who broke in to various sites. The lesson was obvious, and has been known among security circles for a long time: many websites aren't that secure, because they use slightly outdated software (for the web server, or PHP, or database). LulzSec simply brought that into the open, most notably in breaking into the News International servers to put up spoof pages.
It couldn't last – principally because they had attacked the US Congress website and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) site. "If they had just stayed with the commercial ones, nothing would have happened apart from some folks would have had meetings and consumed huge amounts of coffee and biscuits and resolved to improve their security," one expert told me. A number of people are awaiting trial in 2012 in relation to attacks on a number of sites.
Those, however, were just a sideshow. Elsewhere, the entire web of trust surrounding secure sites was unravelling. In March, a certificate authority called Comodo was hacked, and used by a self-proclaimed Iranian hacker to issue "legitimate" SSL certificates for a number of sites – including Google, Skype, Mozilla, Live.com and Yahoo.
Certificate authorities are to SSL-based security (when you see the padlock in your browser bar) what domain name servers are to web navigation – you have to trust that they're correct, because otherwise everything falls apart.
SSL certificates confirm that a secure site really is what it says it is; your computer (or smartphone) has a list inside it of certificate authorities that it trusts, so when you visit an SSL site it checks the certificate against the issuer. If the issuer isn't on the list, you get a warning.
But what if a hacker has created a fake certificate from the real authority? Then any site is, as far as your computer or phone knows, legitimate if it presents that certificate. The implications for shopping or other interaction are huge: you become vulnerable to a "man-in-the-middle" (MITM) attack, where someone operates a site using the "new" certificate between you and the real site. From your end, it's a legitimate SSL site. For the person running it, they can see everything passing between you and the real site. Comodo's certificates were revoked, but it depended on whether people accepted a browser update whether they would be protected.
That wasn't the end. In July, a Dutch SSL certificate authority Diginotar – which provided the SSL certificates for sites including the Dutch government – was hacked, and a number of certificates, including one for Google, issued. That was used for a MITM attack on Iranian users of Google Mail – another indication that web security really does have human consequences.
Nobody quite knows what the next step for the certificate authority system is. But those in the know agree that it's broken. This is, potentially, one of the most important things to have happened to the web in 2011 – and how it is dealt with in 2012 may be crucial.
Flash in the pan
You'll probably have noticed that Apple hasn't exactly been in love with Adobe's Flash platform since the launch of the iPhone, but that intensified with the iPad's arrival in spring 2010. So what was Adobe going to do about it? Initially, fight. During the Mobile World Congress in March, Adobe put out some forecasts (go to 11.45) about how many mobile devices would have Flash on them by year-end: 132m, including 50 tablets. However, in the context of an expected 450m smartphones to be sold this year (which is on target; 324m in the first three quarters), that was less than one-third.
Apple didn't support Flash, RIM didn't support Flash on its BlackBerry (though confusingly it did on the PlayBook), Microsoft didn't on Windows Phone 7; in fact, only Android handset makers did. Of course, they're rather important, but Adobe could see that it was more important to be pervasive – as Flash is on the desktop, with 95%-plus penetration – than a "nice to have".
And so in November, in a rather mealy-mouthed blogpost, said – as if happy – that "HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this."
Flash for the desktop will continue, it suggested, but it's hard to imagine that it will have any energy poured into it: the share of browsers capable of showing HTML5-specific content is growing rapidly. Flash was necessary once, but that was then, and HTML5 is now – or at least will be in 2012. Especially given the way that smartphones have outsold PCs in every single quarter, and that tablets (of all sorts) are going to be equivalent to 25% of PC sales for the fourth quarter.
Privacy? Why?
In 2011 both Facebook and Google were told that they would have to submit to oversight from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US for the next 20 years. Google was pulled up over Buzz, which opted you in whether you wanted it or not; Facebook over its continual changing of privacy settings. Facebook's approach to privacy seems to be to suggest that you don't really want it. Just when you think you're comfortable, it changes again.
Google tried again with Google+ in June. My own first experience wasn't great (it improved) but – like almost everyone, I suspect – nobody could work out was Google+ was for, except to be "something that will divert some people away from Facebook". The idea of "Circles" into which you put people, and then tell them things specific to them, is classic Google – the engineering solution to a people problem. In a way, it's the flipside of Buzz, where everyone got connected whether or not they wanted to be.
The trouble with Circles is that nobody who has anything resembling a job has time for them. Should that thoughtful insight about Strictly Come Dancing go to everyone? Just your family? The workmates who you might see on Monday, so they can enjoy your wit? Hell, who knows? As for Sparks, its source of "highly contagious content from across the internet", that seems to have been killed. (If it's there, it's well hidden.
Details of the number of users have been well-hidden, but the real problem with Google+ is that its approach to privacy works against what we've gotten used to over the past decade. We're used to putting our stuff on the net, and then desperately rowing back; the European Commission's forthcoming data privacy principles are expected to allow us to wipe out embarrassing or unwanted data from the past – an interesting idea.
Nevertheless, privacy is starting to look very ill indeed. All a private investigator needs these days is a couple of pages where you've left a pseudonymous comment, and they can follow you around the web and unearth your real name, family connections and probably phone number. No subterfuge required; it's all there if you join the dots.
Patently obvious
Patents. Oh, what a year. Apple's war on Android (more specifically, what Steve Jobs saw as Android's copying of iPhone features – something which Google's lead designer declined to comment on) spawned dozens of lawsuits. Microsoft pitched in, extracting per-handset licence fees from Samsung, HTC and a number of other Android manufacturers. Google huffed that: "Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others' achievements and hinder the pace of innovation."
The response of Frank Shaw, Microsoft's head of PR: "Let me boil down the Google statement … from 48 words to one: Waaaah." Android is set to do better business for Microsoft then Windows Phone at the moment. And it's all profit.
Then there were the ones by Lodsys on app developers, despite the fact that both Apple and Google had licensed its in-app purchasing patents.
Yes, yes, you can argue about whether those should be patentable. But they have been, and the US does have a patent system, and that's how it works. Grumbling really isn't going to change it – although the protestations of large companies with powerful lobbyists might. That, and the fact that non-American app developers began moving out of the US, because they worried about its effects.
Finally
Overall, it was a remarkable year: Android's rise means that there's a new ruler in the smartphone market, rather as Microsoft used to be with Windows Mobile. The hard question now is whether it can hang on to it.
Meanwhile, the mobile web is growing faster than the desktop one, and becoming the focus. But the far, far bigger question is about what will replace certificate authorities and rebuild a trust system on the web. That's far more important than the ups and downs of the smartphone world.
Comments
29 December 2011 11:06AM
According to your article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/31/seven-billionth-baby-born-philippines?intcmp=122
there aren't many more than 7 billion people on earth, unless a billion have been born in the past two months.
29 December 2011 11:06AM
1.1 billion illegal immigrants from Mars?
29 December 2011 11:11AM
"In a world where 8.1 billion people have mobile phones,"
Ummmm.....there are only roughly 6.9 to 7 billion people in the world that I live in. :)
29 December 2011 11:21AM
Until they come up with a standard for HTML5 video Flash isn't going away no matter how much Apple wants it too. Don't see a replacement for interactive flash appearing either..... unfortunately.
29 December 2011 11:22AM
and finally you haven't mentioned the millions who can't get online, and the amazing initiatives to help them. What about B4RN, the cooperative laying fibre? Or Rutland, taking connectivity to rural villages? They should have got a mention, some great work being done by rurals where telcos fear to tread. The JFDI brigade will be top of your list next year. Watch this space.
Until everyone can get a fit for purpose connection we will never have a digital britain and will remain a laughing stock on our old copper phone lines for infinity.
29 December 2011 11:43AM
People have been saying Flash is dead for a few years but how come they are still saying it and the video player on the Guardian home page is in Flash when using the HTML5 compatible Chrome browser? Likewise banner adverts.
Visit Youtube without Flash. You see a big strip asking you to install flash as advertisers, the ones who help keep the massive losses as the guardian down, prefer animated content and there are no serious tools yet to do this in html5
The mobile web is different from the desktop web. If you need 3d graphics and games then your still using Flash as WebGL is not cross platform.
29 December 2011 11:54AM
2012 will be the year of Linux on the desktop...cough..
29 December 2011 11:59AM
If Flash is dead, how the hell can I uninstall it and the bloody irritating updater?
29 December 2011 12:51PM
The war on Android is certainly a war on both pricing realism and against general feature rich ARM computers.
The war on Flash was to diminish the real web thus enhancing APPs for more control of advertising whilst also hiding the deficiencies of the original iPad graphics.
29 December 2011 12:52PM
This sounds like the trailer for the most boring movie ever made.
29 December 2011 1:20PM
I think he means people have multiple phones. In a family, there could be several mobile phones but registered to one person.
29 December 2011 1:30PM
2012 is the year Windows finally gets a really really slick phone out. That should shake Apple up :-)
29 December 2011 1:53PM
@Charles
An excellent summary and commentary on some of the big tech issues of 2011. I believe you are right to consider security and a trust system on the web as critical. I wonder if you actually have the answer in front of you, so to speak. If web proprietors work out security and the move towards personal names rather than handles were to spread, I believe more civility, honesty and trust of the web will ensue. Rude behaviour and prying is encouraged with anonymity. While I can understand the need for anonymity in Communist China or Iran, when will the Guardian change its policy?
In this regard, although controversial and although they have backed off somewhat, Google+ requirement to publish in your real name is a step forward. Most users of Google services trust Google with important data and although the occasional breach has happened, the confidence in Google security seems well placed. This is not a comment about them sending timely and/or targeted ads your way, just on security of your private data. OK, so someone might be able to trace a handle/moniker to a person and a phone number, but abusers can be named and shamed and dealt with.
Some other comments:
1. Android global market share of smartphones: I have seen a number of researchers "confidently" predict Android market share will reach 57% by mid 2012. So the freight train that is Android seems unstoppable at this time. Few see any traction at Research in Motion (Blackberry) or Microkia. As you say, Microsoft currently makes more money from its patent tactics with Android OEMs than from its efforts with its Windows phone. But its secret negotiations with handset manufacturers run the risk of being blown open with the current lawsuit brought against it by Barnes and Nobles (maker of the Nook) in the US which must be hugely embarrassing to Microsoft as the impression from reading the legal documentation on Groklaw casts Microsoft into the role of an abusive bully over-reaching in its patent protection. It is hoped in many quarters that Nook will prevail and put an end to Microsoft's efforts in acting as a gate-keeper of patents rather than putting its efforts into innovation. Microkia is late to the party and has a huge mountain to climb. Blackberry appears to look more and more like Nokia and Yahoo every day.
2. Microsoft's apparent lack of innovation was also exposed in its search efforts when it was caught copying Google answers on its own search site. This charade was made all the more laughable when Google created fictitious words which Microsoft copied and replicated as part of its service to its customers. No wonder Google is the preferred source for information on most searches.
3. It is in your comments about Google + that you appear inconsistent with your final paragraph about security and re-establishing trust on the web. You paint G+ as a personal lukewarm experience and state that its problem is that it goes against how internet users are now "rowing back" on what they put on the web. This seems a strange contradiction of what G+ users are doing in increasing numbers. Namely, putting personal opinion and comment on G+ without attempting to row back anything. I have been using G+ for months and I have never seen someone complain that they regret their earlier post and want Google to remove it. Whenever you write a comment, you have the ability to edit or cancel it. In case you missed the recent unofficial stats, it is currently estimated that G+, after less than 6 months of existence, has more than 62 million users. Facebook took a year to gain its first 10 million. G+ is expected to pass 100 million users by March 2012 and some expect it to finish 2012 with 400 million users. This must be the fastest growth in internet history. But still, G+ is used by many early adopters of tech, sometimes described as geeks. Most geeks commenting on G+ say they greatly appreciate Circles. Early adopters are critical to success and geeks started using Twitter and cloud computing for example well before they became mainstream. G+ is really useful for folks who lead normal lives in business or social situations. Many early adopters have found, G+ to be easy and useful. Increasingly it ties in to other free Google services. In a stroke of genius, Google links G+ to Google search and directs users to it, but because Facebook does not allow Google to search Facebook content, it does not get linked from Google search. And the applications for social and business of video conferencing up to 9 users at a time on Google Hangouts is a killer app itself. I fully expect G+ momentum to build.
4. An area you did not mention was the trend "reversal" in the fortunes of Netflix. In its attempt to move more towards video streaming and less to DVDs, it made some huge strategic errors that opened the door for competition and killed its share price.
Again, a useful summary of some of the tech issues from 2011.
29 December 2011 2:19PM
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29 December 2011 2:48PM
I wouldn't write off the humble PC just yet. There are things that you can do on a PC that still cannot be done on smartphones and will never be practical to do on smartphones. Such as heavy duty word processing, working on spreadsheets, editing photographs, etc.
29 December 2011 3:28PM
I don't think anyone is writing off the PC but to use Steve Jobs' analogy we don't all need to drive around in trucks; for many of us we can get from A to B in a car. There are going to be far more cars around in the future than trucks. And the cars will be easier to use.
29 December 2011 3:32PM
Shouldn't this actually be the
.
since no other technology gets mentioned here? It's not even representative of consumer technology.
29 December 2011 3:43PM
Can you reminds us what questions you asked? I seem to recall one that suggested Google had copied Apple's notification bar. Might be wrong though, after all that would be a daft question and might not get a favourable response.
29 December 2011 3:55PM
Not bad Charles.
Another, dare I say it, even better year end review here
29 December 2011 4:01PM
Flash enabled me to build a creative website with no need for coding and it's done wonders for the internet in terms of visual content, so people should quit mocking it like some crappy and outdated way to create content. It's going nowhere.
29 December 2011 4:05PM
Considering some sites are requiring me to update to the latest flash player (in order to play the same standard, dare I say it, rather dull videos) and that the update will not work on a Power PC processor, I for one can't wait to see the end of Flash. It may not happen, but I can at least dream (and watch content in H.264)
29 December 2011 4:07PM
@AngusTheBull and @Charles
You rightfully mention the patent system in the US as a noteworthy area for tech review of 2011 and Charles often cites Mueller as the patent consultant of choice for his research (or so it seems) who has widely reported on Oracle's strong case against Google Android in relation to breach of many patents over whether Google's Dalvik Virtual Machine violates Java. Charles appears to assume the case against Google is very strong....this is not a criticism Charles, just a statement about how your articles appear to read. Please let me know if you believe this not to be the case. Comments like AngusTheBull's imply Google copying, in his reference to Apple, is a part of your analysis in other articles too. As you know, I have questioned Florian Mueller's independence (he is being paid by Microsoft) and I do not intend any personal slur or attack, only the quality of his independence.
I wonder if the proper conclusion about US patent law is that it is complex, beyond the scope of most tech journalists and best to leave analysis to the final outcomes rather than the complex system of following each and every twist and turn that folks like Mueller report on? Charles, you may have noticed the change in Mueller's approach to the Oracle v Google case in his blog post today: http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/12/not-even-one-of-oracles-six-patents-in.html
Seems to me he is beginning to backtrack on even his assertions about the mega award that Oracle seems assured of v Google. Please refer to the USPTO re-analysis of Oracle patents and in particular Mueller's comment as follows:
"At the same time it's possible that Oracle's decision-makers were much more confident of the strength of their patents when they started this than they are now when they look at the status of the ongoing reexaminations. Throughout the industry, it's possible that the value of these kinds of patents has been overrated. The difference between patents that have been issued but never tested and patents that have withstood massive challenges becomes clearer every day."
Charles, this is a minefield and it is easy to step on the wrong spot on this turf. My own view is that Google is better placed in these lawsuits than appearances would suggest. Any view?
29 December 2011 4:19PM
Two things:
First, a very interesting straw in the wind is the Dell phone running Baidu as the front end. There is a very high spec version on the way; it looks as if there is a perception that the Chinese may end up using smartphones rather than conventional PCs. I suspect that they could get a considerable competitive advantage by bypassing the whole Wintel thing as the economy expands. Supporting Wintel for workers who actually do not need it is a major IT cost, before you even start on the destruction of economic value that is endless people writing memos in Word or conveying simple ideas with Powerpoint.
Second, the death of RIM has been announced so often that it's easy to lose sight of its growth in some markets. Most reports are based entirely on the US market.
I suspect that the delay in QNX Neutrino based phones is not due to any technical features, but due to the need to work round endless near-content-free US patents. It would be a disaster for RIM to bring out a new phone and have it blocked by Apple. This would be an example of how patents that would be awarded nowhere else in the world (except perhaps Australia) are used anti-competitively in the US.
One factor that could benefit RIM in 2012 is security. The relative security of its OS is a key feature for RIM. Many BB Playbook users were frustrated because they did not understand that the PB had to comply with the BB security model, and there are some very difficult technical issues to fix there. But a major security leak with iOS or Android is likely to happen sooner rather than later, and BB may now have acquired the marketing clout to make use of it, instead of being all low-key and Canadian. Against this is that there is apparently now a Dell Android phone with military-grade security.
Another is ROW becoming uncomfortable about a phone market based on software which is entirely dominated by US companies.
29 December 2011 4:22PM
Flash has enabled me to click 'skip intro' more times than I can count!
While it has helped create some 'cool' looking web sites it seems irrelevant technology for playing a video so while it is likely to continue for some time in web site development it is unlikely to be a factor in displaying video on the web for much longer, thankfully.
29 December 2011 4:27PM
The problem is that it needs a lot of CPU power and graphics processing and this runs batteries down fast. The BB playbook runs Flash surprisingly well but the battery makes sucking noises while it does so. The people who make all their money out of portable devices (fruit symbol) therefore rubbish it.
29 December 2011 4:45PM
Nope. That was this year with the Lumia 800. It's not everyone's cup of tea but it's butter smooth and gorgeous.
29 December 2011 4:52PM
For a moment I thought that Google's fabled PR machine might be on holiday, but see there is no rest either for the wicked (us) or even for those who are constitutionally incapable of doing evil.
29 December 2011 5:55PM
No, it'll be the year when the Amiga finally comes back and conquers all.
29 December 2011 6:07PM
I'm starting to think it must be Schmidt himself. (Page and Brin are likely too busy)
Why would anyone unconnected be so obsessed with Google services and Android activations?
29 December 2011 6:11PM
The number of 'creative' sites I don't even bother to look at once I realise Flash is involved thankfully gets smaller every year. And I doubt I'm the only one.
29 December 2011 6:12PM
It is a crappy and outdated way to create websites and that's coming from an ex Flash developer.
The "creative" use of Flash by non-coders usually resulted in utterly useless intros and animations masquerading as content. Html and CSS get the job done in a far more useful way.
Actionscript will live on in ap development, but Flash's days as a major force in website construction are quickly becoming history.
29 December 2011 6:13PM
Large touch screens will be used more and more, the big comps have been using them and consumers will be introduced to them gradually.
Multi touch for entertainment will become more accessible as well
29 December 2011 6:16PM
Windows Phone / Tablet / Windows PC / Samsung SUR40 (the new MS Surf 2) will all integrate easily, and once that pushes its way through gradually (The Nokia Lumia is only the beginning),it will become a serious player. But no before the end of this year, early next.
29 December 2011 6:26PM
Quite. The article in question was possibly the single worst story published in the tech section of the Guardian, being, as it were, the report of a real life trolling attempt. It's one of the reasons that, for me, this website now ranks behind Ars Technica and The Verge in terms of good content.
You would have though that Charles would try to play down such unbelievably shonky journalism, not highlight it in an end of year review!
29 December 2011 6:36PM
Hey, thanks for link to The Verge - looks like a good read.
29 December 2011 7:01PM
Charles now we know your wish for next year: that Google disappears from the face of Earth.
You are so obsessed with it that missed quite a few things, thankfully you can read it in the excellent link provided by boringoldchelsea
29 December 2011 7:12PM
The year the Flashturbation stopped - Huzzah
29 December 2011 7:17PM
Its not just on this forum either. Wherever you go on any tech or business forum there are very lengths posts extolling the virtues of Goog. I am thinking there is more than one.
Or even more likely it's a Google search bot programmed to find any articles mentioning anything with Google, Apple, Microsoft or similar, and inserting Google PR into the comments.
After all, they are very clever people at Google.
29 December 2011 7:31PM
The pro-Google comments are clearly the forerunner to a Daedalus / Helios type AI trying to direct us towards Android in order to hack our poorly secured OS and re-program us as communists / socialists / terrorists and destroy the American dream and take over the world.
Or, alternately, the posts might come from people who are, you know, fans of Google. Conspiracy or popularity - I know which way Occam's Razor cuts.
29 December 2011 7:35PM
I've just noticed the new sort by newest/oldest. Very good.
Perhaps we could get one for agree with me / disagree with me next.
29 December 2011 7:39PM
I must have blinked an missed that. Are you talking about those horrible HP "phones" that had a battery life of 15 minutes and a horrible OS? The ones that everyone who had them ditched for a Blackberry? Windows Mobile was a complete dog's breakfast and it was that which led to RIM's success, as I recall. It is really stretching things to compare the Windows Mobile position with Android now. Smartphones as we know them today are such different beasts, its like calling PDAs Tablets, and saying that HP had the lead in tablets.
Nothing against HP by the way, they make superb servers.
29 December 2011 7:55PM
Its been a year in which i've been asked to "learn html5" but on my own time and for no reason. Because buzzwords.
29 December 2011 7:57PM
@cortex
Well said. Your reference to Occam's Razor is very appropriate.
@PaulNLondon
answer to your request: disagree.
29 December 2011 8:05PM
I find it less likely that anyone would spend what seems to be a very large part of their free time on a wide variety of forums voluntarily and without any inducements slavishly and unquestioningly extolling the virtues of a multi-billion US advertising conglomerate (or any other for that matter).
So for me Occam points to a Google bot.
29 December 2011 8:07PM
That's not proof. They didn't have broadband during The Velvet Revolution, or half a dozen others, iirc.
Step back a bit. What has the footage achieved outside of Syria, other than pricing more effective covert coverage, Hanrahan, Simpson et al, out of the game? And what has it achieved inside Syria? Maybe extended futile carnage? No one knows yet.
If the thing succeeds it won't be attributable to our new better Gestetner, just as, if it fails, the blood won't be on our smartphones. It's not about our phones, forget that narrative, it's about nasty dictators, demographic shifts (to younger populations) and increasing food prices.
29 December 2011 8:08PM
Back to Charles' comment about a feature of tech in 2011 regarding patent wars.
Can 2012 deliver a detente in these wars between Apple and Android OEMs? Interesting article from SF Chronicle (link here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/28/BU8P1MHAP9.DTL&type=business) indicates that a change of strategy at Apple may be timely with respect to market leader Android:
"Many of Apple's patents, by contrast, relate to the look and feel of devices or particular ways of using a machine, rather than a basic technology breakthrough.
The question on the minds of many patent lawyers isn't whether Apple should adapt its legal stance, but when."
Or will Apple continue a scorched earth policy in 2012?
29 December 2011 8:10PM
And the inability of any program to yet pass the Turing Test does not point you elsewhere? Hmmm....
29 December 2011 8:50PM
But if I am not fooled into thinking it's a person, it therefore proves it is just a Google bot.
29 December 2011 9:04PM
Careful!
I suggested something similar to the bot scenario and got rapped on the knuckles by the famous 'We'll have no humour here" mods
I still reckon it's Schmidt - although human he has enough of the machine about him to seem like one when communicating
29 December 2011 9:21PM
@angusthebull You can find what I asked at http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/25/google-android-copy-ios.