Indian smartphone market grew 5.2% in 2016; Samsung tops

INDIA.COM

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2017 12:38 PM Samsung continued to lead the smartphone market with 25.1 percent share, followed by Xiaomi with 10.7 percent share and at 17.4 percent.

India registered 109.1 million units of smartphone shipments with a marginal 5.2 per cent annual growth in 2016, market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) said on Monday. Chinese players led the pack. In the fourth quarter of 2016, smartphone shipments clocked 25.8 million units — registering similar volumes as that of 2015 but declining sharply by 20.3 percent over the previous quarter.

This was mainly due to a seasonal decline after an all-time high festival quarter and demonetisation in November, which led to relatively lower consumer sales in November and December.

“Feature phone to smartphone migration has slowed down as prices of smartphones are still quite high for a feature phone user,” said Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC.

The share of China-based vendors touched a whopping 46 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016. Their shipments doubled over the same period last year while the share of homegrown vendors slipped to 19 percent. Samsung continued to lead the smartphone market with 25.1 percent share despite a 13.1 percent sequential decline in the fourth quarter of 2016. But Samsung's annual shipments grew 3.2 percent in 2016, driven majorly by the J-series. ALSO READ: OPPO ruled smartphone market in China in 2016; Apple beats Xiaomi for 4th place: IDC

Xiaomi climbed up to second spot with 10.7 percent share against 3.3 percent share in the same period last year. Year-on-year shipments grew threefold while sequential growth was 15.3 percent. Lenovo (including Motorola) slipped to third place as shipments declined 17.4 percent sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2016 and 14.5 percent over same quarter of previous year, the report noted.

OPPO made it to the top five list with 8.6 percent share.

Download YouTube Go for Android APK to download, share videos By Gizmo Times Staff - Feb 10, 2017

YouTube developers have always been working to offer the users with options to save videos so that they don’t have to worry about the times when the phone is not connected, and they are trying to make it ethical by giving the offline options. Now, a new app makes it even better with a lighter app offering the users with easier choices to save and share the videos on YouTube.

Named as YouTube Go, the app itself is about 8MB in size, giving an indication of what the developers have in mind. But it is the features that makes the app different from the official YouTube app.
Control Your Data by choosing to download or stream and even preview videos before you download or watch. Sharing the videos is one of the other major features where you won’t be using data while sharing your videos with friends nearby. Google says that only a 15kb security check will be done before the person can watch the video that you shared.

Downloading the videos is another advantage and that can be done either to the internal storage of the phone or to the SD card. Also, when it comes to Android version compatibility, this will be running well in any phone that runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and later.

For now, this is still an unreleased app but you can download and use it as usual, only with some expected bugs and errors, though we haven’t faced any while using it. Also, since the early access function is now disabled by Google Play, you can download the APK and try it out. [Download Link]
<  this version beta >
https://goo.gl/ovCHZB 

Google May Soon Remove Millions of Apps From Google Play Store

Google May Soon Remove Millions of Apps From Google Play Store

FEB 11, 2017 by NAVNI BAJ

Google is sending notices to all those developers that are handling private or sensitive data without an appropriate privacy policy. The company has informed that it is removing all those apps, which violate the terms of User Data policy, from Google Play. Google has given the concerned developers a warning to fix the issue by 15 March, after which administrative action will be taken, and the visibility of their app will be limited.

The Next Web reported that a number of developers have received a warning from Google stating that their app violates the policy. The move by Google might be a big blow to those half-developed apps that have made it to Google Play but lack a proper privacy policy.

Google’s User Data policy states that the developers have to be clear about how they handle user data (information provided by a user, collected about a user, and collected about a user’s use of the app or device). It also adds that the app is required to follow additional restrictions or procedures if required by applicable law.

Google describes the “Privacy Policy and Secure Transmission” in User Data policy. “If your app handles personal or sensitive user data (including personally identifiable information, financial and payment information, authentication information, phonebook or contact data, microphone and camera sensor data, and sensitive device data) then your app must: 1) Post a privacy policy in both the designated field in the Play Developer Console and from within the Play distributed app itself. 2) Handle the user data securely, including transmitting it using modern cryptography (for example, over HTTPS).”

As per the notice that was shared by Next Web, Google has warned the developers that if their app doesn’t fix the issue then their visibility will be limited or the app might even be removed. The developers have two options, they can either link to a proper privacy policy or stop requesting for sensitive user data.

This move might boost the confidence of the users in Android which had been shaken up a bit due to the presence of too many fake apps.

WhatsApp rolls out 'Two-Step Verification' for everyone; Here is why it is important

Finally, WhatsApp is rolling out an update that adds Two-Step Authentication to your WhatsApp account. This feature is an essential method to ensure the safety of your WhatsApp account. WhatsApp had been internally testing this feature since the last few months to finalise the exact implementation of the security countermeasure with reports going back to July last year. This feature was previously only limited to beta users on Android but the company is now rolling out this feature for all the users on Android. One thing to note is that iOS devices in our office have not received the update at the time of writing.

Two-Step Authentication, named as “Two-step verification” is located under the Account section on the main “Settings” menu. This adds a passcode to your WhatsApp account which is required for every time you register your contact number with WhatsApp number. The setup process is simple where you only need to tap on the option and follow the instructions. The setup asks you to enter a six-digit passcode and verifies the code. It also gives you the option to enter an email address as a backup to reset the passcode if you forget the passcode or misplace it.

You can skip entering the email address but skipping a backup method is not recommended as losing the passcode will lock you out of your WhatsApp account. Once the setup process is completed, the “Two-step Verification” gives you easy options to ‘Disable’, ‘Change passcode’ or ‘Change email address’. This security feature ensures that people won’t register using your mobile number in case you lose your SIM card. The presence of ‘Two-step verification’ will ensure that there is no chance for people to impersonate you in case you lose access to your SIM card or mobile number. You can check other interesting things that one can do while using WhatsApp.

Facebook Lite crosses 200 million monthly active users

🌍🎉🎊🎆🎏

Facebook Lite crosses 200 million monthly active users
Facebook Lite gives people access to a less-graphic News Feed, and consumes less data than the standard Facebook app
By Karthekayan Iyer Published Date 09 - Feb - 2017 | Last Updated 09 - Feb - 2017
Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime (Gold, 32GB) 8999
Facebook Lite, Facebook's lightweight social media browsing app that consumes less data and works with low-end smartphones, has crossed 200 million monthly active users. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced the app on June 4, 2015 as an alternative to the standard Facebook App. FB Lite takes less than 3MB storage space on a smartphone, and works well with slower internet connections.

Facebook Lite supports more than 50 languages, and was initially rolled out for developing nations including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines. In a press statement, Facebook says it will continue to develop the app and introduce new features considering its popularity. With over 200 million active users every month, Facebook Lite is now heading to South Korea, UAE, Italy and Israel, with plans to roll out in other countries as well.

Lava launches 4G Connect M1 feature phone with 4G VoLte at Rs........

Lava has launched the first 4G VoLTE enabled feature phone in India. Called the Lava 4G Connect M1, the phone is priced at Rs. 3,333 and the company says that it combines the experience of a smartphone, with the durability, affordability and battery backup of a feature phone. The phone is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor with 512MB of RAM. The device also comes pre-loaded with Facebook Lite and messaging applications. Other features include wireless FM, K class amplifier and VGA camera.

Xiaomi Mi TV Box 3S and 3C with AI officially launched at 199 Yuan

Xiaomi Mi Box 3S and 3C with AI officially launched at 199 Yuan

By Shuddhahnik Maity -Nov 16, 20160

Xiaomi has officially unveiled two new variants of its smart TV box. The latest Mi Box 3S and 3C are very affordable gadgets and can turn your ordinary television into a smart TV. Both the newly launched devices come with quad-core processors, AI (Artificial Intelligence), out of the box 4K support. The Mi Box 3S features a price tag of 299 Yuan ($43.50 USD or Rs. 2,949 INR approx.), while the Mi Box 3C is almost 30 percent cheaper and costs just 199 Yuan ($29 USD or Rs. 1,969 INR approx.)

Specifications

Xiaomi Mi Box 3S 

                                                                                  The Mi Box 3S is the high-end variant among the two. It sports 2 GB of DDR3 RAM along with 8 GB of eMMC 5.1 onboard storage. The 64 bit Amlogic S905X processor powers up the device. This is a quad-core processor with four ARM Cortex A53 CPUs clocked at 2.0 GHz each. The newly launched smart TV gadget supports 4K videos at up to 60 fps along with HDR (High Dynamic Range). It can fully decode the advanced H.265 codec. The Mi Box 3S supports Dolby DTS sound system. Xiaomi bundles an innovative MiTouch remote along with the new device. A notable upgrade in this is the brand new HDMI 2.0a support.

                   Xiaomi Mi Box 3C                    

                        Specifications

The Mi Box 3C is a trimmed down version of the Mi Box 3S. It features the Amlogic S905 SoC with quad-core ARM Cortex A53 CPUs running at 2.0 GHz each. There is only 1 GB of DDR3 RAM combined with 4 GB of eMMC 5.0 inbuilt memory. The Mi Box 3C supports 4K videos at 60 fps but unfortunately isn’t compatible with HDR technology. Just like its sibling, it too can decode the H.265 codec. Dolby DTS audio support is also present. Sadly, it does not come with the newer MiTouch remote. The latest HDMI 2.0a compatibility is absent too, and it only supports the traditional HDMI 2.0.

Both the Mi Box 3S and 3C comes with a USB 2.0 input, one AV port, and an HDMI output. They both rock dual-band 802.11ac (2.4 GHz + 5.0 GHz) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth v4.1 connectivity.

Xiaomi Mi Box 3S and 3C Availability and Pricing

The Xiaomi Mi Box 3S and 3C will be officially sold starting from November 22, 2016. As of now, they will be exclusively available only in China, and a global launch is expected later. The Mi Box 3S is priced at 299 Yuan ($43.50 USD or Rs. 2,949 INR approx.), and the cheaper Mi Box 3C costs 199 Yuan ($29 USD or Rs. 1,969 INR approx.). At this price points, these are no doubts some excellent offering.