Google’s annual conference, Google I/O, is charging full steam ahead in San Francisco.

Hot topics in the schedule: the future of Android, Google Glass, and Chrome, among others.

In his opening keynote at the MosconeCenter, Larry Page, Google co-founder and CEO, didn’t announce new hardware or Android versions – to the surprise of many.

Instead, the focus was largely divided between the tools that will enable developers to build better apps and improvements to core web services such as Search, Maps and Google+.

There wasn’t a complete absence of new products. Google did reveal its Play Music All Access, a competitor to the likes of Rdio and Spotify, and a number of other consumer-facing tidbits.

However, the takeaway from the conference so far is that Google is focused on building upon existing products, rather than capturing headlines with fancy new offerings.

What’s New in Android Land

Consumer experience has been much less of a focus at the 2013 conference that during previous outings. Instead, Google is honing in on better enabling developers.

Techies will soon have the ability to offer beta tests of their apps, viewing them across numerous screen sizes. The announcement was enthusiastically met by attendees.

Has your business been crying out for tablet-optimized apps within Google Play Store? Ask and ye shall receive; it’s on its way, stat.

In fact, apps and the tools developers need to build them appear to be a priority for Google, rather than an afterthought. This is likely to spell rapid growth for the platform.

The Elephant[s] in the Google Room

Products that are yet to gain a market toehold, or have actively flopped, were sidestepped during the keynote.

Both Glass and Google TV were noticeable in their absence, while the ongoing Android fragmentation pickle was, for all intents and purposes, a figment of developers’ imaginations.

GoMobile Solutions’ Take on the Google I/O Conference

GoMobile Solutions’ Chief Technical Officer, Jeremy Shapiro, was excited to learn about Google’s plans to support future app development.

“Google continues to support the developer community,” he said.

“Their latest announcements about beta testing and the ability to preview apps on the vast assortment of screen sizes that are in the market today is excellent news for app developers.”

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According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the worldwide mobile phone market grew 4% year over year in Q1, while smartphones outshipped feature phones for the first time.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker found that vendors shipped 418.6 million mobile phones in total in 1Q13, compared to 402.4 million units in 1Q12.

Vendors moved 216.2 million smartphones, or 51.6% of total phone shipments, in 1Q13 – a 41.6% increase on the 152.7 million units shipped in 1Q12.

IDC senior analyst Kevin Restivo said: “Phone users want computers in their pockets. The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away.”

“As a result, the balance of smartphone power has shifted to phone makers that are most dependent on smartphones.”

IDC also predicted that Chinese smartphone vendors would continue to make inroads in the market. Research manager Ramon Llamas said: “A year ago, it was common to see previous market leaders Nokia, BlackBerry (then Research In Motion), and HTC among the top five.”

“While those companies have been in various stages of transformation since, Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE as well as Coolpad and Lenovo, have made significant strides to capture new users with their respective Android smartphones.”

But Samsung’s still the undisputed smartphone leader

Samsung’s stronghold on the smartphone market remained unchallenged in 1Q13. In fact, by the close of the first quarter it moved more smartphones than the combined efforts of the next four vendors. The company’s hotly-anticipated Samsung Galaxy S4 is expected to further drive sales.

While lagging behind Samsung, Apple enjoyed a Q1 shipment high due, in part, to the iPhone 5 release, growing 6.6% year on year.

Following a two-quarter absence, LG regained its footing in the smartphone top five. Its L series and Nexus 4 LTE-enabled devices, including the Optimus G series, drove the renewed growth.

Meanwhile Huawei and ZTE rounded out the best-sellers list. Thanks to concerted efforts Huawei almost doubled its smartphone unit shipments outside of Asia-Pacific compared to 1Q12. ZTE, one the other hand, continued to grow its presence in Asia-Pacific and North America while making few inroads in EMEA and Latin America.

“The trends continue for smartphones,” GoMobile Solutions CEO Damien Zamora said.

“More and more businesses are recognizing the need for a mobile presence.”

He added: “Any type of business can benefit from mobile marketing because that’s where all of the people are spending their time.”

The post The global smartphone tipping point is nigh, analysts claim [and Samsung’s way ahead of Apple…] appeared first on GoMobile Solutions.

Mobile analytics and advertising company, Apsalar, studied data from over 500 million unique users on both iOS and Android platforms. What it uncovered was a marked difference in how men and women purchase and use apps.

For starters, men aren’t the ones driving app consumption, Apsalar says. Women install 40% more than the hairier sex, and buy 17% more paid-for apps. Even more promising for app developers’ hip pocket, women will pay 87% more for the apps they do consume.

Despite this, men spend, on average, 42% more on in-app purchases.

Interestingly, there’s zero crossover when it comes to his and her top five app categories. Womenfolk prefer Social Media, News, Productivity, Lifestyle and Books, while gents can be found perusing Business, Games, Navigation, Travel and Health & Fitness.

Men download Business apps a cool 85% more than women, while Social Media apps are consumed some 600% more by women than men, News apps 90% more and Productivity apps 89% more.

Despite men’s much-lauded ability to know the right direction at any given time, they still use Navigation apps some 40% more than females. Unsurprisingly, they also play Game apps 61% more.

“This is big news for businesses that target women,” says GoMobile Solutions CEO Damien Zamora.

“We’ve already proven the power that mobile apps have in driving customer loyalty and what this latest research reveals is that businesses that develop app content that caters to women will definitely get some attention.”

Brave Heart Women Chapter App by GoMobile Solutions

The Brave Heart Women Chapter App, available on both the iPhone and Android, is created just for women.

Teaming science, intuition and entrepreneurship, the app guides users through methods and exercises to enable the Soul’s Highest Expression.

Is your default survival pattern stopping you from thriving in life? The Brave Heart App will help you to identify your imprints and prevent them from sabotaging your future happiness and success.

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Mobile App Analytics – part of the hugely-popular Analytics web suite – has enabled app owners to monitor the all-important downloads, as well as how much of their daily web traffic originates from mobile devices, special campaigns, in-app traffic and specific mobile platforms.

Whether you’re ‘mobile-ready’ or not, your customers continue the mass migration from personal computers to tablets and other devices. Fail to consider how this alters the way they interact with your business and customers will let their clicking finger do the talking.

Measure the success of your Android and iOS apps

Google Analytics is already utilized by almost a quarter of Internet Retailer’s Top 500 online retailers and over 50% of its Second 500. With the new mobile app metrics added to the mix, they can also carefully monitor acquisition, engagement and in-app purchases.

What’s more, tweak your metrics to gain real-time analytics, in-depth segmentation, and the ability to track custom dimensions and metrics. Plus, unlike with other analytics tools, you won’t have to learn a new interface; with the Mobile App Analytics dashboard everything’s just where you left it. Simple.

Are you new to Google Analytics? The tweaked sign-up process means you can choose from the outset whether you’re measuring a website or mobile app. In as little as three clicks register your account and download the SDK.

Understanding your mobile users

Failing to understand how you’ve acquired your favorite app users makes it nigh on impossible to duplicate those successes in an optimal way.

Easy-to-use tools like the New Users report and the Google Play Sources report enable you to identify characteristics of the user groups adopting your app and flag which channels should be optimized to attract more downloads and launches.

Want to learn even more about the journey your users take before downloading your app? The Mobile App Analytics custom campaigns tool allows you to do just that.

Engagement: still key

Knowledge is power. If unbeknown to you users are launching your app once then losing interest, you’re missing a trick, not to mention monetization opportunities.

According to GoMobile Solutions CTO Jeremy Shapiro: “With the right metrics about your app downloads and usage, you can not only tailor your marketing but can also hone in on building an app that provides the functionality your audience wants most”

Recognizing that the app event that matters to one business may be of little value to another, Mobile App Analytics also allows you to apply the specialized events tracking system. In addition to monitoring loyalty, frequency and engagement, crash trends can also be flagged early, by device and operating system.

The post Mobile metrics 101 appeared first on GoMobile Solutions.

Latest number crunching out of the ABI Research camp forecast that 1.4 billion HTML5-capable mobile devices will be available by 2013’s end.

Following an installed base annual increase of 87%, HTML5 is still very much on developers’ radars, however, native apps remain a firm favorite.

ABI Research senior analyst Aapo Markkanen stated: “HTML5 is making strides, but mainly through developers that take advantage of increasingly capable cross-platform development tools. Meanwhile, there aren’t many signs of full-blown web apps effectively challenging the native way.”

“While some two years ago it still looked like 2013 could be the Year of Web App, it’s now looking like that this will prove more like the Year of Hybrid,” Markkanen said.

So how can you amp up your app or mobile website with HTML5?

While early buzz around HTML5 was that it would be a rapid game-changer, the reality is more tortoise than hare.

GoMobile Solutions CEO Damien Zamora said: “The best option for businesses today is to have both a mobilized website for new customers that are searching and want a good experience in their search as well as a mobile app that creates brand loyalty by providing specials and an ongoing push notification relationship.”

Web apps are becoming faster and more responsive as HTML5 features and browsers are integrated with operating systems, however, it’s the slow and steady approach that’s winning fans.

That said, when Android and Chrome eventually converge all this could change, according to ABI Research. And fast.

Markkanen emphasizes hardware vendors’ role in HTML5 take up, citing chip manufacturer Intel, handset giant Samsung, and browser bigwigs Mozilla as early adopters. Servo – the Samsung-Mozilla collaboration – is one to watch according to Markkanen.

“A truly ground-up mobile browser could certainly ease the bottleneck that currently holds back the mobile web,” he said.

What is a hybrid app?

Want the best of both worlds? Many developers choose to wrap HTML5 apps inside a native container.

A well-constructed hybrid app boasts all your favorite native capabilities further enhanced with optimized JavaScript and beautiful layouts. Hybrid apps can be implemented either locally or server side.

GoMobile Solution’s Bradley Real Estate NorCal app successfully integrates a HTML mobile website into the native experience. The HTML-based listings enable the app to pull the relevant data in real time.

Find out how a hybrid app can benefit your business; contact your GoMobile reseller today. Already a reseller? Get in touch with our in-house design team.

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From February 2012 to February 2013 Apple reportedly grew its slice of the smartphone pie by 8.7% to 38.9%. Meanwhile, Android remains the market leader at 51.7%, but gained only 1.6% market share over the 13 months.

Surprise! Strongest growth in months following iPhone 5 release

If you’re one of those folks who can’t resist new technology, chances are you contributed to Apple’s impressive market share growth in the four months following the iPhone 5’s release.

According to comScore, between November 2012 and February 2013 the smartphone gained up to 1.5% a month.

Expansion of the U.S. smartphone market’s showing no sign of abating. In the three months ending February 2013, penetration grew 8% to 133.7 million, or 51%.

While Apple claimed the title of the dominant OEM, it’s no one-horse race. Samsung came in second with 21.3% market share, and HTC followed with a respectable 9.3%.

Motorola and LG rounded out the top five with 8.4% and 6.8% market share respectively. Meanwhile, both BlackBerry and Microsoft continued to struggle to capture consumer interest. BlackBerry’s share declined from 7.3% to 5.4%, at the same time that Microsoft’s Windows Phone grew from 3% to 3.2%.

Wherever they sit in the food chain, many of the smartphone bigwigs are falling over themselves to release new flagship handsets. BlackBerry recently debuted the Z10, which sports the overhauled BlackBerry 10 OS. Following the trend, Samsung and HTC will release flagship phones within weeks.

The rumor mill is also working overtime regarding multiple iPhone releases as early as summer.

What the smartphone boom means for your business

According to GoMobile Solution CEO, Damien Zamora, business owners continue to revise their mobile marketing strategy as a result of the smartphone marketplace explosion.

“We’ve experienced a real surge in new apps to help businesses better compete,” he said.

Savvy businesses are customizing smartphone apps according to how they want their customers to interact with their brand. Rich features include GPS directions, push notifications, coupons, easy sharing, events calendars, and app analytics.

The post Apple Gains U.S. Market Share According to comScore Survey appeared first on GoMobile Solutions.

NEWPORT BEACH, CA (APRIL 15, 2013) – Damien Zamora was a featured guest on the Plan B Lifestyles Radio Show carried on the Overseas Radio Network. The show is targeted to expats that live in different parts of the world and share a common desire to be able to earn income regardless of where they call home. GoMobile Solutions currently creates apps in 27 different countries from Afghanistan to the United Kingdom. “Damien really opened my eyes to the vast opportunity to capitalize on the growing mobile apps category.” Says program host Brian Thomas. He added: “I never realized there were such good margins in selling mobile apps. My listeners really got an education from Damien.” The program reaches thousands of people in different parts of the world that are seeking to start or expand a home-based business that is portable. Damien’s interview can be heard by going to www.overseasradio.com/plan-b-lifestyles/ where the show can be downloaded.

“I’m always excited to be able to share the possibilities of owning a business with people. They don’t realize how easy, portable and profitable it is.” Says Damien Zamora, GoMobile Solutions CEO. “We have thousands of resellers following their entrepreneurial spirit around the world and regardless of where they are, they get the training and support they need to succeed. “ Says Zamora, He adds: “With GoMobile Solutions, you can get there from here.”

The post Damien Zamora, GoMobile Solutions CEO, Explains How To Make Money Selling Mobiles Apps On Plan B Lifestyles Radio Show appeared first on GoMobile Solutions.

Damien Zamora, CEO, GoMobile Solutions

NEWPORT BEACH, CA (MARCH 26, 2013) – Damien Zamora will be interviewed on the Plan B Lifestyles Radio Show to discuss the mobile revolution and how building and selling apps for business continues to skyrocket. The program reaches thousands of people in different parts of the world that are seeking to start or expand a home-based business that is portable. “My show reaches a large number of expats that want to have a mobile lifestyle and still generate a comfortable income.” Says program host Brian Thomas. He added: “I’m interested in getting Damien’s insights especially because GoMobile Solutions reaches so many different countries.” The show can be heard live by going to www.planblifestyles.com and clicking on the “On the Air” tab. USA listeners are asked to call the Toll-free call in line (888) 741-7472. Listeners outside the USA may call the Skype line: overseas.radio.

“I’m very excited to be able to reach so many new people that want to take advantage of the continued growth of mobile and tap into how it’s influencing how all of us shop and interact.” Says Damien Zamora, GoMobile Solutions CEO. “Theses are great times for following one’s entrepreneurial spirit to take charge.” Says Zamora, “And with our extensive training program, they don’t have to go it alone.” The show will also be recorded and available on the Plan B Lifestyles website.

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Damien Zamora, CEO, GoMobile Solutions

WASHINGTON D.C. — GoMobile Solutions CEO Damien Zamora shared his thoughts with thirteen scholarship winning young entrepreneurs on team building and what drives him personally.

Thirteen scholarship winning entrepreneurs attended the 5th annual awards luncheon at Underground 2013 and were treated to speeches from successful business leaders such as Damien Zamora on the subject of growing a new business.

CEO Damien Zamora of GoMobile Solutions shared his thoughts on team building and what drives him personally. “I think more than anything else that has helped me fuel myself and my team is passion; I always started every new venture by absolutely convincing myself that what I was doing was right.”

Zamora added: “My conviction turned into passion and passion is infectious and that’s what helps bind the team together.” One of the attending young entrepreneurs, Lukas G Resheske from Boulder Colorado has success working with GoMobile Solutions and can vouch for Damien’s passion. “Damien makes you believe in yourself and from there, anything is possible.” Lukas also runs a successful e-book publishing company.

Underground 2013 is sponsored by Maverick Business Adventures®. Their invitation only members are successful business professionals who believe in abundance instead of scarcity and are eager to share their time, treasure and talents.

Every year scholarships are awarded to aspiring individuals giving them a chance to attend the Washington D.C. event for free. “These young bright stars are our future.” Says Zamora, “They need our help and I’m just excited to be a part of it.”

Listen to an interview with Damien here:

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Damien Zamora, CEO, GoMobile Solutions

NEWPORT BEACH, CA (FEBRUARY 1, 2013) – GoMobile Solutions (GMS) the leader in creating mobile apps for businesses, today announced that the company had 92 apps approved for the Apple app store in the month of January, exceeding the previous high month total of 77 in April of 2012.

The GoMobile App Development Team insures that apps meet the rigorous technical specifications that Apple requires and assists GMS resellers in app design and creation. “Apple has some very high standards, but our team has been up for the challenge and we’ve been improving our success rate for quite some time.” Says Chris Mulson, Director of Operations for GoMobile Solutions. He adds: “We oversee every single app that comes in from our network of global resellers and we attribute the training and education we provide to them for our high success rate.”

The types of apps that are submitted each month to Apple and Android app stores is varied and includes a wide range of categories from restaurants and local merchants to schools, churches and amusement parks. According to Development Team Leader Scott Comeaux, it’s the diversity that makes it fun and challenging. “Our team consist of a dozen expert app designers and developers who are committed to making our clients’ apps the best and most effective they can be,” says Comeaux. He adds, “It’s exciting to see these apps get into the marketplace because our resellers and their business clients depend on our mobile apps to stay connected with their customers.”

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