Internet Report 2016

The "Queen of the Internet" Mary Meeker's Internet Trends report released today at the 2016 General Assembly in the US.

Below is the quick summary of the report with the highlights:

The number of Internet users worldwide exceeded 3 billion, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year, the global Internet penetration rate reached 42%. 

India's Internet users reached 277 million, up 40% over last year which makes India the second largest Internet market, after China.

The global smart phone users increased by 21% over the previous year, an increase of 31 percent last year, the growth rate slowed down; after a 5-year high growth in 2015 global smart phone shipments up 10%, up 28% last year.

Smartphone users in Asia Pacific grew 23% last year up 35%.

Global mobile phone operating system share, iOS share in 2015 was 16%, Android share reached 81%.

To benefit from the rapid growth of mobile advertising (66%), 2015 US online advertising grew by 20% last year to 16% in 2015 increased by only 5% of the desktop ads.

Google and Facebook, the two companies together to eat 76 percent of the US online advertising market.

Desktop ad blocking users has reached 220 million mobile ad blocker users reached 420 million, mainly concentrated in China, India and Indonesia.

E-commerce share of the US retail distribution channels, from less than 2% in 2000, increased to more than 10% in 2015, reached more than $ 340 billion.

Message type applications continue its rapid growth, industry leaders including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat.

Voice is becoming a computing interface is the most efficient form of computer input, the machine accuracy of the speech recognition from about 70% in 2010, increased to about 90% by 2016.

IPhone sales in 2015 may have reached its peak, the next Amazon Echo equipment sales will begin to take off?

China Internet Report:

From more than one measure, China has become the market leader in the Internet, the number of Chinese Internet users reached 668 million.

Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu three companies are China's mobile Internet market leader, they accounted for 71% of Chinese users of mobile consumer long time.

2015, China's online advertising market has more than television advertising.

2016, There were 31% of the micro-channel micro-channel shopping users, while in 2015 the figure was 15%.

Global Internet market leader: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Tencent, Alibaba and other companies, flush with cash.

What do you think about this report & is this what you expect to be coming by?

Link to the complete video

Google IO – Day 2 Keynote

Google IO second day was about the web and thus to Chrome and Chrome HTML5 OS.

Web GL: It brings graphics and animations in the browser display and accelerates all hardware. Impressive demos showcased: Thousands rendered sprites, 3d landscapes and even editors to create 3D content on the Web.
Best part of this technology - Angry Birds now on web for free in Chrome Webstore. http://bit.ly/meXXVB Have fun, but don’t play in office!
Speech to text on the Web: Using only a single attribute, it is possible for speech to text in web applications. We shall soon see many text boxes on the Internet with Speech logo. It’s a big step towards web accessibility!

Payment API for Chrome Webstore: The new payment method for the webstore will be easier for users and developers. Easy shopping with "one click" in the webapp. For developers, it is only a single line of code (Java Script) and this payment method is also possible in webapps in-app Purchases. Developers have to share 5% of their sales to Google.

Chromebook: Chrome OS with perfect combination of Google's Cloud OS was the big new. Samsung and Acer will be launching Chromebook based on chrome OS having unbelievable boot up in 8 seconds, costing $499. Its impressive to see how many activities which were done with a native client will soon be available on the Web. Working the same way and can still be made available offline. Google has open API for Web application development with the opportunity to be so well integrated into the system.

Google IO this year was not about any new innovative products like Wave or Buzz, but many new features and enhancements of existing products. Let wait to watch where Android and Chrome OS fit well in.

How the year 2010 had been for Android

Jan:
-Year started off with the release of Android SDK 2.1
-Google launched its first phone Nexus One on 2.1 running Flash 10.1
-Motorola Backflip with Yahoo as a default search page, LG GT450 Android Phones got launched
-20,000 units of Nexus1 were sold out in the opening week

Feb:
-With the introduction of live wallpapers in Éclair version, users started enjoying richer, animated, interactive backgrounds on their home screen.
-There were many edge cases in the service lifecycle that made it very easy to accidentally leave a service running; new APIs in 2.0 make this much easier to deal with.
-Android SDK introduced a new UI for end users to monitor and manage the running services on their device.

Mar
-With the help of Voice-enabled keyboard feature in 2.1, one could dictate message instead of typing it.
-Android NDK r3 version released
-Google Labs released Gesture Search App for android

April
-Google started working on Android Tablet
-Google confirmed Android 2.1 downgrades Image Quality 2.0
-Android twitter app from google was made available in the app store, this app brought in an evolving Android UI design patterns.

May
-Google Developers day – Google IO was hosted and it got an awesome response and support, for the first time the keynotes were live streamed.
-Android 2.2 (Froyo) was introduced with features: Cloud to Device Messaging, Dalvik JIT etc
-Through the new app market feature, users could report bug and developers were able to receive crash and freeze reports from their users.
-Google Latitude API were made public

June:
-Android 2.2 SDK and NDK R4 both were available for download
-An application which violations Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or Content Policy or any malicious application that poses a threat, google developed technologies and processes to remotely remove an installed application from devices.
-Logitech brought Android iPhone apps for Google TV
-This was beyond imagination, but it came true: iPhone 3G was running Android 2.2
-French, German, Italian and Spanish speakers started enjoying using Google Voice Search

July
-As android 2.2 supports application installation on SD card, this gave users room for many more apps, and benefits to apps from games categorie.
-Swype came to Android virtual keyboard
-Android Market welcomed Korea
-Google announced the release simple and free service provides a secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications. At run time, application can query the Android Market licensing server to determine the license status of your users. It returns information on whether your users are authorized to use the app based on stored sales records.

Aug:
-It was interesting to see new players like Spice Mobility, Dell, Micromax launching Android devices
-Samsung Galaxy S got launched, which till today is sold like hot cake.
-Google Android overtook Windows Mobile

Sep:
-Android 2.2 started to see wide adoption
-2007 when Google announced Android, Andy Rubin said “We hope thousands of different phones will be powered by Android.” But at this stage was growing beyond phones to new kinds of devices.
-Samsung Galaxy Tab was announced and it was said to be a wake-up call for Android developers. It was scary for the developers as they had never seen a screen like this on an Android device before.
-Launched Voice-Action in the new Google Voice Search for Android — an awesome new way to search faster.
-Developers from 20 more countries were now able to sell paid apps on Android Market.
18 additional countries were now able to purchase paid apps from Android Market.

Oct:
-There was lot of buzz happening around about Google TV and Galaxy Tab
-Android was quickly moving to hardware that are increasingly different from the smartphone devices, having lack of features like GPS, accelerometers, and video cameras
-Google announced the mobile editing capabilities for Google docs on android and iPad
-Adobe AIR 2.5 cross platform runtime environment for android released

Nov
-Showing content ratings for all applications on Android Market. This provided users with additional information to help them select the best applications for them.
-U.S Military people favored Android and they all owned an Android phone
-Google Map 4.6 with new features in its Location Based Services was released for android

Dec
-Google with partnership of Samsung launched Nexus S with 2.3 android sdk with support for NFC
-Google Map 5.0 was released which was faster, supported offline & -iIn 3D look
-Android Market Client Update; more payment options in android market
-Skyfire the popular mobile browser released 3.0.1 for Android
-Google launched a new eBook store to read digital books optimized for android devices running 2.1
-Andy confirms google activating 300,000 Android devices per day

Conclude:
When google launched the Nexus One, they thought this would be the flagship mobile device for their new Android operating system. The Nexus One served as the blueprint for Android devices, which exploded across most major mobile carriers. With their open approach and flexibility in what carriers and manufacturers can do with the OS, Android’s numbers grew. Android began to surpass the iPhone

As android became more popular, there was talk of fragmentation of the apps ecosystem and the operating system itself. With frequent updates from Google, but carriers dragging their feet on sending updates to their customers, the problem seemed serious for developers and Android fans. Fragmentation may soon become less of an issue as more handsets are updated to the latest Android OS, but still its wait and watch.

If you need a phone or a tablet with an advanced OS but are turned off by Apple’s “closed” nature of premium pricing, Android is the device for you.

Droidcon London 2010 – Day Two 29th Oct 2010

It was more of traditional conference the second day. Main topics were User Experience, Android development in general and a little about marketing.

Excellence in the Android User Experience: Romain Nurik from Google

Presented on how to create applications with great UX and great UI, Extended his talk with Android Design Tips with some additional info on giving users great first impressions, and some new prototyping and asset generation tools that have become available.

Android User views: Ilicco Elia from Reuters Mobile

The App Store is not about the app, it’s about people, it’s about the edge that people believe they will get from the app. In-app purchasing is seriously lacking.

Growing the value of the application network: Christophe Francois form Orange

It was great to see Orange committing so many people and so much time to Android. Orange focusing apps: Orange TV with premium events, Connectivity & customer care, News, radio, Orange Map.

Creating Killer Location apps: Alex Housley from Rummble

Location is not a feature: it’s now one element of context. Friend finders have been done to death, similarly, there will be opportunities working with existing big players in location “Where there’s a number

there’s a game…”. Rummble API are available for finding people, places, reviews, check-ins.

Android & CouchDB: Aaron Miller from CouchOne

CouchDB is a non-relational database (NoSQL) that stores JSON documents. Instead of queries, create “views” that allow fast lookup by keys. DB is highly durable. Good at multi-master replication and can easily write to any server. Its really powerful on a phone as it can sync with a server or with another phone and can have multiple DBs on net syncd to a single DB on phone.

Monetize your apps in emerging markets: by Chua Zi Yong from MoVend

He discussed the concept of marketing your apps to emerging markets. For a lot of people in emerging markets the phone is the only access to the internet, social networking, and gaming/entertainment device.

He had some interesting statistics on mobile phone payments. Asia Pacific accounts for $62.8 million in mobile phone payments and the rest of the world only accounts for $45.8 million. The market for mobile app revenue is estimated at $135million for 2009 and at $4 billion for 2010.

Market is extremely fragmented; android market does not exist in certain countries. Tip: Try to get your application pre-loaded onto a phone and target what specific users like.

Android has a “dude” problem: by Belinda Parmar from Lady Geek TV

When surveyed only 5% of women said Android for their next phone, 57% said an iPhon

e. BUT… more women than men bought smartphone in the last 6 months and more female gamers 25-35 than men. Forrester did some market segmentation on women gadget owners:

• 37% self sufficient, tech savvy
• 35% neutral, little engagement, low willingness
• 28% opportunity

Women feel overwhelmed and confused by choice of Android devices. They are twice as likely to have never downloaded a single app as it don’t see most of the apps as relevant to their lives. They want apps to solve a problem, to answer a question. Recommendations: solve a problem, entertain, don’t educate.

Turn good ideas into great apps: by Reto Meier

Shared more details on deadly sins & glorious virtues for android applications. Same Goog

le IO 2010 talk

& slides were repeated.

Android beyond the phone; Tablets, eReaders, and more: by Karl- Johan

Dell Streak uses

mDPI resources but has much bigger screen. Android dual scr

een displays and e-Ink displays behave completely differently. Custom device manufacturers are really keen to have apps on their devices. They’ll expect a 20-50% markdown, but no need to pay app store fees. ViewSonic ViewPad 7 now available in the UK for £399: Having 800x400px display and runs Android 2.2 and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRS & 3G.

The Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform: by Qualcomm

Qualcomm is taking on a new role of being the link in the ecosystem, ensuring that there are great apps for the ecosystem. They want to make sure that apps work well. Snapdragon is a system on a chip for ARM-based CPU, GPU, rich multimedia, GPS, 3G, Camera, power management.

Android reuse models: by Mark Murphey

He discussed some of the ways in which we can reduce lots of

android developers reinventing the wheel everytime we need something. There are a few methods that a developer can use for distributional: Souce Code, As an Application, as a jar or Library.

Libraries can be used to solve problems for people who want free and paid versions of the app, and don’t want to maintain two versions of the code. He went on to discuss that we need a place to collect code to reuse and mentioned building a community website for this purpose, also saying “I can’t write a website to save my soul, I ain’t doing it!”

Future of Android Panel

Ewan MacLeod moderated the panel:

Questions faced by the panel:

• We’re still on the dream phase for Android: consumers “only buy one Android device”… Will consumers retreat to “something familiar”?
• Nokia is still a big player but no longer in mobile developed countries
• Android has challenges with fragmentation
• One challenge for Android is capturing lower end, but high end phones will trickle down
• Breadth of Google’s web services provides a very strong disincentive to leave
• Google is encouraging OEMs & operators to fight amongst themselves to get great user experience

• If I was your fairy godmother, what would you wish to change in Android?
• A decent automated testing framework on a range of devices
• A working billing infrastructure
• Developers making sure that their app manifests include clearly defined API access and permission
• Google to be a little more open about what they’re aiming at and what they’re not, to provide some reassurance
• Better way of getting hardware acceleration support.

Android at Google I/O 2010

The Android intensity at Google I/O 2010 was definitely palpable. The Android presence included all of Day 2?s keynote along with a full session track, office hours, an Android device display of over 50 phones, and (many people?s favorite) the Developer Sandbox.

Vic Gundotra kicked off the Day 2 keynote with over 20 demos of the new features from Android release 2.2, internally called ?Froyo? (see this summary on the Android Developers? Blog). The second half of the keynote was devoted to Google TV. For more details on that announcement, you can read The Google TV Story.

During the conference, there were ten in-depth sessions dedicated to Android, two fireside chats (including one with OEMs), and one session that combined discussion of Android and iPhone issues. The sessions were:

• A beginner?s guide to Android, by Reto Meier - This one featured an amazingly packed, wall-to-wall, no-standing-room-left crowd, and once it became apparent that the crowd was already quite Android-savvy, the session turned into a Best and Worst Practices talk.

• Writing real-time games for Android, redux, by Chris Pruett - A crash course in Android game development: everything you need to know to get started writing 2D and 3D games, as well as tips, tricks, and benchmarks to help your code reach optimal performance. The crowd in this session?s room showed that games are one of the hottest Android application areas.

• The world of ListView, by Romain Guy and Adam Powell - It might seem a bit odd to dedicate an entire session to one UI widget, but Android?s ListView is large, reasonably complex, and very widely used. Romain and Adam had to work hard to fit their material into just one talk.

• Casting a wide net: how to target all Android devices, by Justin Mattson - This session covered an increasingly important subject now that there are over 60 Android devices, with significant variations in their size, shape, and capabilities.

• Developing Android REST client applications, by Virgil Dobjanschi - Virgil discussed the meat and potatoes of fitting Android clients into an increasingly-RESTful Web ecosystem. No user-interface flash here, but totally essential back-end plumbing guidance.

• A JIT Compiler for Android's Dalvik VM, by Ben Cheng and Bill Buzbee - JIT stands for ?Just In Time?, and it?s a technique for making compute-heavy Android programs run faster; maybe as much as four times faster. Definitely behind-the-scenes stuff, but a subject nearly everyone cares about.

• Writing zippy Android apps, by Brad Fitzpatrick - Making your code run fast requires combining good design with a large grab-bag of hard-won best practices. For any serious Android developer: this is a must-see session, so I hope you make use of the session video and slides!

• Advanced Android audio techniques, by Dave Sparks - Integrating audio into your apps involves a lot of choices and trade-offs at a bunch of levels. Furthermore, there are new media framework APIs in Android 2.2. Lots of good, detailed drill-down in this session.

• Building push applications for Android, by Debajit Ghosh - What was called ?push? while it was being built is now called Cloud To Device Messaging (C2DM), and it?s very nicely integrated into the SDK; we anticipate that a lot of developers will want to use this.

• Android UI design patterns, by Chris Nesladek et al. - The Android User Experience team shared their insights on how to design great Android apps.

There were also two Fireside chats. One with a panel of Android handset manufacturers, and another with a stage full of leading engineers from the Android team. The panelists took questions from the people in the room and from over the Web via Google Moderator and Google Wave.

On Thursday afternoon, a gaggle of Android engineers held office hours; the area was absolutely jam-packed with developers full of questions about everything from low-level hardware interfaces to telephony chips up through the finer points of Live Wallpapers. Everyone had fun and went home tired.

On both days of the conference, there was a large (bright green, of course) display case full of Android devices, surrounded by the app developers and handset manufacturers participating in the Developer Sandbox. This area was crowded from the start of I/O until the security folks eventually chased out the stragglers after closing. Hereis quick video of a slow walk past the big display case.

Videos and slides for each session are linked from the titles above, and you can find all the Android session videos from Google I/O 2010 in this YouTube playlist.

The Android team had an amazing time meeting the developer community at this year?s I/O, and we hope you?ll stay up-to-date on Android news by following us on the Android Developers Blog!

By Android Developer Relations