Apple Jumps Into Second Place in India's Smartphone Market

CNN reported Wednesday on new figures out from technology market research firm IDC showing that Apple in the fourth quarter of 2012 grabbed 15.6 percent of smartphone revenue in India.

Apple rival Samsung remained the top brand in the market, with 38.8 percent market share. Sony (9.4 percent) and Nokia (7.3 percent) rounded out the top four.

The research firm estimated in its Asia Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report that smartphone shipments in India were at about five million units for the quarter, up 38 percent from the quarter previous. Smartphone penetration rates in India are estimated to be lower than 10 percent.

IDC's estimates jibe with prior reports from the firm that Apple's sales in the country had quadrupled.

The sales boom is due to increased efforts on Apple's part to make its premium-priced smartphone offerings available to Indian consumers. Using lessons learned in China, Apple has begun offering installment-based payments for Indian customers. An iPhone in India used to cost nearly a third more than in the United States, with delivery times ranging up to a year. Installment plans make the device more affordable, and Apple has also been selling iPhones on the open market and not through carriers subsidizing the cost of the device with high-margin service contracts.

Growth in the Indian market can likely only go so far, though, with Apple's current pricing structure. To better address India, China, and other developing markets, the company is expected to release a lower-cost iPhone some time over the next several months. [AppleInsider]

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Google Has Completed a £1bn Property Deal to Move its UK Headquarters to The Kings Cross Area Of London

Google has completed a £1bn property deal to move its UK headquarters to a brownfield site in London's King's Cross area.

The US technology giant has purchased a 2.4 acre site between King's Cross and St Pancras stations and plans to build a seven and 11 storey complex due to be complete in 2016.

Google already has two central London offices – one in Victoria and one in off St Giles High Street – from where staff are expected to be relocated.

The move forms part of the regeneration of the King's Cross area following the opening of the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras in 2007. Organisations that have moved into the area since then include Guardian News & Media, publisher of MediaGuardian, and art college Central St Martin's.

Google's purchase mirrors its property strategy in Dublin, where it bought a building outright for 2,000 staff in 2011. [GuardianTech]

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Surface Teardown Surprises

The Surface slate is a marvellous piece of kit, manufactured by the Redmond based company Microsoft and created to blend a laptop and a tablet together so we can get the best of both worlds. It has just been released to the market, and iFixit has acquired its own unit to perform one of their trademark teardowns. Most of the device's specifications were already well known, but iFixit gives us a deeper look at the Nvidia Tegra 3 CPU the 31.5Wh Samsung-built battery that offers more watt-hours than the iPad 2 but less than the third generation's 42.5Wh battery and dual Wi-Fi antennas. Samsung is also the provider of the flash used for storage and the screen.

By design, tablets aren't repair friendly, so it comes as no surprise that the tablet's digitiser and LCD screen are one unit, getting access to some of the components is not an easy task. Many parts are a module or held together by removable screws, iFixit states that it is significantly more repairable than the competition's tablets, namely the Apple iPad — or the recent MacBook Apple computers with the Retina display — iFixit writes that it does not beat the Nexus 7 though. Regardless of your knowledge in IT or you interest in the latest devices, make your way to the iFixit website, it's very interesting to see the guts of one of the first devices to employ the new Windows RT.

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