The Stock Android Galaxy S IV Announced at Google I/O is The Talk of The Town

Google had a great deal going on at the I/O  conference a couple of days ago, included was a three hour keynote to explain the plans they have for the following year. On the list of all the news was the announcement of a Samsung Galaxy S IV running pure stock Android. You heard right, you will soon be able to buy a GS4 without the Samsung Touch Wiz UI sitting on the surface, and you will have the goodness of the pure untouched Android experience.

Google stated that the Galaxy S IV running stock Android will undoubtedly be sold unlocked at the Google Play Store for $649 around June. It will be the  GSM LTE version, meaning it's only AT&T and T-Mobile compatible so Verizon users must consider switching if they want to use the device on their network. It will come with Android 4.2 pre-loaded and, just like the Google's Nexus line, updates will arrive directly from Google. It will even have a completely unlocked boot-loader.

The Galaxy S IV launched about a month ago and features a 5-inch Full HD Super AMOLED PenTile screen, either an octa-core Exynos 5 or quad-core Snapdragon processor (depending on the country where you're purchasing the phone), 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel shooter, a 2-megapixel camera front facing camera, 16GB or 32GB of storage, and a large 2,600mAh battery.

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iOS And Android Remain The Dominant Forces in The SmartPhone Market Although Windows Phone Shows Some Movement

Following through to its April report splitting down smartphone shipments by company for the initial quarter of 2013, the research folks at IDC today released a new report taking a look at shipments from an OS perspective. The new report brings no surprises and it demonstrates iOS and Android remain dominant in the smartphone market with above 92% of shipments through the quarter, with Android's wide availability driving it to represent 75% of shipments.

"Apple iOS marked its largest ever first quarter volume on the strength of its iPhone shipment volumes, yet the operating system posted a year-over-year decline in market share and lower year-over-year shipment growth than the overall market. Although demand remains strong worldwide, the iOS experience has remained largely the same since the first iPhone debuted in 2007. That appears ready to change as online rumours and speculation predict a massive overhaul of the user interface when iOS 7 debuts."

The advantages by Android and iOS throughout the last years proved to be at the cost of all other OS's, but IDC's figures demonstrate that Windows Phone is just starting to see signs of a movement with shipments significantly more than doubling year after year, although its share of industry is staying at a low 3.2%. 



Nevertheless, Windows Phone was the sole minor competitor to achieve share over the last year, with BlackBerry making it's way down to 2.9%, although IDC shows the introduction of BB10 may bring up BlackBerry's numbers moving forward. 

Symbian and Linux also had significant share losses as their last supporters have moved focus to Windows Phone and Android.

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