Floqr Mobile News

The U.S. added 31 million smartphone subscribers in the past four quarters. That represents a reacceleration of growth in U.S. smartphone penetration.
For comparison, the U.S. smartphone market had added 28 million subscribers in the four quarters leading up to the end 2012.
However, this quarter's 12-month growth rate is still below the rate reached in the third quarter of 2012. At that point in time, the U.S. had added 32 million subscribers in the preceding 12 months.

It has a built-in infrared blaster that can be used as a universal remote to control your TV. (The IR blaster is that little black dot at the top of the phone.) The phone also has a special app that pulls in data from your cable or satellite provider and can suggest shows you may like to watch.

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Groupon is once again expanding its portfolio of mobile payment services, putting it in closer competition with the likes of Square and PayPal’s here targeting local merchants: today it has released Groupon POS, which appears to be an iPad-specific version of its mobile payments service aimed at local merchants, working as a dashboard to make and track payments.

De techniek leek een eeuwige belofte, maar vindt eindelijk brede toepassing buiten mobiel betalen om. Die strategie zou de huidige kip-ei-impasse, waarbij partijen te veel van elkaar afhankelijk zijn, kunnen doorbreken. Met name de NFC-simkaart zou alle vervoers- en bankkaarten kunnen vervangen. 

Amazon, de grootste online retailer van de wereld, heeft een aantal jaren geleden een applicatiewinkel beschikbaar gesteld, waaruit duizenden Android-applicaties te downloaden zijn.

Deze week heeft Amazon aangekondigd de Appstore binnekort uit te breiden naar 200 landen, waaronder ook Nederland en België. Eerder werd de Amazon Appstore al per ongeluk opengezet voor Nederlandse gebruikers, maar dat werd toen weer snel hersteld.

De Amazon Appstore werkt volgens hetzelfde principe als de Play Store, maar er staan (soms) andere applicaties in en deze worden op een andere manier gepresenteerd.

In de tweede helft van 2012 hebben 1,7 miljoen consumenten via internet een aankoop gedaan met een mobiel apparaat. Dat is een groei van het aantal mobiele kopers van 73 procent ten opzichte van de tweede helft van 2011. De totale omzet van m-commerce stijgt in de tweede helft van 2012 naar 310 miljoen. Dit blijkt uit de M-commerce Monitor 2012-2, het halfjaarlijkse onderzoek naar mobiele consumentenbestedingen van Blauw Research.

The growth in smartphone usage — supported by ever-faster mobile network speeds — is also giving rise to a much more competitive landscape among carriers, handset makers and other phone retailers targeting consumers on the hunt for new devices. Google today is releasing a report it compiled in partnership with Compete to show how that is playing out in one market in particular, the U.S. It shows that while carriers may still hold the key to making a call or getting online with a smartphone, when it comes to buying one, carriers are taking a backseat as users seek out brands and best prices first, with carriers as the follow-up to that.

Kmart is giving Shop Your Way members a way to check-in via the loyalty program’s mobile application at an upcoming event in New York’s Grand Central Terminal to access special offers and content.

As the Shop Your Way loyalty program evolves into a social shopping membership platform for all of Sears Holdings’ brands, enabling check-ins outside of Sears and Kmart locations gives the retailer a way to drive member engagement. The first 100 members who check-in at Sandra Lee’s World’s Largest Bake Sale at Grand Central on May 1 will also receive a free copy of the TV personality’s new book.

Away from the fickle eyes of consumers, deep in the basement of app stores, enterprise mobile apps are fighting each other for the attention of business users.

Given the restrictions of their target audience, business app developers simply cannot utilize the same techniques that consumer app companies leverage. Why is that? And more importantly, how can mobile business apps efficiently speed up user acquisition?

As more consumers shop bricks-and-mortar stores with a smartphone in hand, retailers are looking to offer location services such as indoor mapping tied to local inventory and, ultimately, their own in-store mobile advertising networks.

In the short-term, retailers will look to leverage indoor location technology to find out more about their customers. However, indoor location marketing faces a couple of challenges, including a lack of consensus on whether to leverage Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, phone sensors or some other technology to enable these services.

Outdoor gear and apparel retailer Moosejaw Mountaineering is seeing up to 70 percent of in-store transactions taking place via iPod touch devices used by store associates to interact with customers in the aisle.

In addition to leveraging iPod touches for mobile POS, Moosejaw also has iPads in stores to support its endless aisle strategy. Going forward, the retailer is looking to replace both types of devices with iPad minis that can function as both a POS and online showcase tool.

Koopjessite Groupon heeft dinsdag zijn betaalsysteem gelanceerd voor de Amerikaanse markt. Dat dankzij de overname van de startup Breadcrumb, die een betaalmethode voor de iPad heeft ontwikkeld.

With smartphone owners using their device both before and during physical retail shopping trips, mobile can be used to get customers to the store and help keep them there, according to a new report from Google.

Key findings from the 'How In-Store Shoppers Are Using Mobile Devices' report include that eight in ten smartphone owners use mobile in-store to help with shopping. Additionally, frequent mobile shoppers spend 25 percent more in-store than people who only occasionally use a mobile phone when they are shopping.

Mobile commerce is growing, with 68 percent of smartphone and tablet owners having attempted to make purchases on their devices. However, problems during the payment process have forced 66 percent to abandon their transactions, according to a new report from Jumio.

Accepting mobile payments —whether by accepting credit cards in the field or by letting users pay on-site with smartphones —is a must for businesses of all types. Figuring out which mobile payment technology is right for your business can be a challenge.

Here are the pros and cons of 14 different mobile payment services to help you sort through your options for accepting mobile payments.

Distimo’s latest report takes a deep dive into the Amazon Appstore, taking a look at the top apps and publishers in terms of estimated daily downloads and one-off revenues in the app store. The report also takes a look at the differences and similarities between the Amazon Appstore, a third-party app store for the Android platform, and Google Play.

Apple verkocht wereldwijd 37,4 miljoen iPhones, tegen 35,1 miljoen vorig jaar. De iPad werd 19,5 miljoen keer verkocht, in vergelijking met 11,8 miljoen stuks in het eerste kwartaal van 2012. De totale omzet van Apple over het afgelopen kwartaal bedroeg 43,6 miljard dollar (33,5 miljard euro).

Travelers are a more affluent subset of the digital population, and they’re more likely than internet users in general to own tablets and smartphones. Now marketers have the opportunity to reach their customers almost constantly during the travel journey, according to a new eMarketer report

An HTML5 app is housed on the Web and runs inside a mobile browser. Unlike apps built specifically for Apple devices or Google's Android operating system, it does not need to be built from scratch for each OS. The promise is that it can be "write once, run anywhere."
It's true: In many cases, HTML5 can work just as well as a native approach. But it is not the silver bullet it is often made out to be, for several reasons. HTML5 faces a fragmentation issue of its own, since there are gaps in the range of HTML5 app features supported by the different mobile browsers.

Mobile ad spend grew 111% compared to 2011, the second year of triple-digit growth,  accounting for 9% of total internet advertising revenue at $3.4 billion. Digital video revenue increased 29% to $2.3 billion, up from $1.8 billion in 2011. Total online ad spend for the year was $36.6 billion.

At the time the iPhone was introduced, its 3.5-inch screen was considered huge. Samsung upped the ante with the 4.5-inch Infuse smartphone in January 2011.

On the tablet side, screens were getting smaller, shrinking the distance between phone and tablet display sizes. There were many 7-inch tablets introduced, including the original Galaxy Tab, and less expensive successors, including the Kindle Fire, Nook Color, and Google Nexus 7.