Biggest Android news of 2013

Android has enjoyed a very big year. The platform has
been growing faster than the competition. A flurry of
new smartphones and tablets has been launched. New
form factors and innovations, from voice controls to
curved displays, point the way to a brighter smartphone
future. Our favorite mobile OS has achieved a number of
milestones in 2013 and we’re here today to cast an eye
back over the year that was.
Let’s kick off with some statistics. In the third quarter of
this year, IDC revealed that 81% of all smartphone
shipments were Android. In terms of total market share,
Android overtook iOS back in May 2012 and it now
accounts for 42.68% of all the mobile phones worldwide,
with iOS in second at 21.97%, according to StatCounter’s
Global Stats. That’s a big lead and it’s still growing.
How is Android dominating? Part of the story can be
found in the biggest Android news stories of the year.
Let’s take a look.
January
We can always rely on CES to start the year with a bang
and it certainly did in 2013. One of the first surprises
was Nvidia’s Project Shield, a handheld gaming system
running Android. It wasn’t to meet with much success,
but it did signal a new gaming focus for the platform, as
interest in producing an Android device for gamers
gathered steam (more on that later).
Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 800 and 600 chips
at CES. The 600 would be used in devices like the HTC
One and the Nexus 7 (2013), while the 800 would go on
to be the processor of choice for everything from the
Nexus 5 to the Galaxy Note 3.
Sony was the manufacturer to grab the headlines at CES,
as it unleashed the year’s first broadside at the Android
competition with the flagship Xperia Z . Cutting edge
specs, beautiful design, and the waterproof USP made it
clear that Sony was back on form. It also announced the
Xperia Tablet Z in Japan towards the end of the month,
but it wouldn’t land until the summer.
February
HTC chose to unveil its next flagship before MWC, and
so we first set eyes on the HTC One on February 19; it
was definitely love at first sight. Our HTC One review
followed with the phone’s release in March. Widely
regarded as one of the best looking premium
smartphones ever, the One also brought dual front-
facing speakers to the market and a new optimism for
the beleaguered Taiwanese manufacturer.
There were too many new products to mention at MWC
at the end of February. Asus confused Barcelona with
the Padfone and the Fonepad , blurring the line between
tablet and smartphone. HP announced the Slate 7 to try
and compete in the small Android tablet category. We
also saw the Huawei Ascend P2 , and LG showed off the
Optimus G Pro. There were a lot of other devices from
manufacturers like ZTE, Lenovo, and Fujitsu, but
Samsung held fire with its big announcements,
choosing to show just the Galaxy Note 8.
March
Anticipation about Samsung’s next Galaxy S was
reaching fever pitch by the time it was unveiled at a
special event on March 13. Eschewing any break with
the series usual design language, the S4 was definitely
more evolutionary than revolutionary. But if Samsung
took an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude with the
exterior, on the inside, the South Korean manufacturer
threw everything but the kitchen sink at it. The S4 is
packed with features and it provoked a real divide in
opinions, with some crying bloatware and others wowed
by the sheer range of innovation on offer. It was released
in April and so was our full Galaxy S4 review .
Amid the excitement about the S4, Google quietly pulled
ad blocking apps from the Play Store. As a company
deriving most of its revenue from advertising, we were
surprised that it had taken them that long to do. There
was also a warning for Facebook as Google blocked
developers trying to circumvent the Play Store by
pushing updates directly to users.
April
The Google Play Store was updated with a new look, but
it was mostly an aesthetic change. We also began to
hear a bit more about how wearable technology might be
coming very soon, as some of the first Google Glass
users shared their experiences .
Big news in April focused on the long rumored Facebook
phone — a device that had already had a few false dawns
was about to have another one. In the end, Facebook
Home was basically a launcher for Android. The Chat
Heads feature, enabling you to carry on conversations
while doing other things, did spark a little bit of
interest, but the phone that launched with it, the HTC
First, was far from inspiring. The Facebook Home app
was a blatant land grab as Facebook tried to figure out a
way of securing all those mobile users for itself. If
Facebook is the main thing you do on your smartphone,
then Home is for you, but the average 2.5 rating on
Google Play tells its own story.
May
Google I/O, the annual developer conference, took place
this month and there were lots of interesting
announcements about the Android platform. We learned
that 900 million Android devices had been activated, 48
billion Android apps had been downloaded, and that 2.5
billion apps were being installed every month.
The most exciting development was the raft of new
features for Play Music . The cloud music service, All
Access, would open up a world of albums for a monthly
subscription fee of $10, signaling Google’s entry into the
increasingly competitive music streaming market. There
were also major updates for the Maps app, Play Games,
and Hangouts as the new Android messenger for Google
purists.
We also learned there would be a Google Edition of the
S4 with an unlocked bootloader and no TouchWiz or
Samsung software onboard, but the direct sale $649
price tag would ensure low sales. This is how AA
reacted to Google I/O 2013.
June
After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Ouya
Android game console hit the open market in June. We
saw some potential in our Ouya review , but despite a low
price tag by console standards, the lack of compelling
games was to sink the console, which received generally
poor reviews across the tech world.
The excitement about wearable tech continued to gather
pace with a number of rumors about forthcoming smart
watches. One of the few manufacturers to have already
entered the space, albeit without much success,
announced a new version of its device, the Sony
SmartWatch 2. It didn’t generate a great deal of buzz, but
Sony was already making headlines in June because of
its Xperia Tablet Z . The sexiest premium tablet to run
Android was waterproof just like its smartphone brother,
and the impossibly thin design was really eye-catching.
With a dearth of good 10-inch Android tablets, the
Xperia Z emerged as one of the first viable iPad
competitors and the best large tablet on the platform
since the Nexus 10.
July
At the beginning of the month, Samsung moved to
quash rumors of a disappointing S4 release by
announcing that 20 million S4s had been sold in two
months . That made it the fastest-selling Android device
to date, but it didn’t end the debate about whether it
deserves the top spot or owes it to brand loyalty and
powerful marketing.
In the first update since the Android 4.2 release in
November, Google released “An even sweeter Jelly
Bean”, Android 4.3 on July 24, and it rolled out to Nexus
devices within the week. We got a sneak peek a day
early after a build leaked, and brought you the news on
what’s new in Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. There was a new
camera UI, a T9 dialer, Bluetooth LE (Low Energy)
support, and a host of other small tweaks and
improvements, including seven security features .
The Nexus 7 (2013) was the first device to ship with 4.3,
as it went on sale in the U.S. at the end of July. This
refresh of Google’s popular 7-inch tablet proved to be a
fitting successor for the small tablet crown and it’s
easily one of the best small tablets around, as we
suggested in our Nexus 7 (2013) review . We also learned
that the Play Store had reached 1 million apps .
Another small and unassuming device was released by
Google at the end of July, in the shape of Chromecast .
Looking like a USB thumb drive, it actually plugs into an
HDMI port on a TV and allows you to stream Netflix,
YouTube, and other content from your Android devices
to your big screen. At $35 it’s the cheapest device of its
kind and it quickly sold out. It could prove to be an
important release in the battle for the living room.
Sneaking in at the end of the month was the Nvidia
Shield, and, despite costing three times as much as the
Ouya, it garnered some favorable reviews. The lack of
market impact hasn’t stopped the company starting work
on the Nvidia Shield 2 . The quest for the first successful
Android gaming device continues.
August
The rumors about the Motorola X Phone had been
churning for months by the time it was officially
unveiled. Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside teased the
AllThingsD conference about it in May. Even with
various leaked details, the Moto X proved to be one of
the surprises of the year. The first real fruit of Google
and Motorola’s union turned its back on the hardware
specs race and introduced a new level for voice controls
by enabling users to talk to their phone from across the
room and bring the fast-improving Google Now service
to life.
Google tackled a long time criticism of Android this
month as the Android Device Manager began to roll out,
offering Android device owners a way of locating a lost
phone and remotely managing it.
September
On September 3, Google announced that it had reached
the milestone of 1 billion activated Android devices
worldwide. The following day Samsung unveiled its next
Note alongside the Galaxy Gear smart watch . There was
also a real statement of intent from Sony as it updated
its top of the line Android smartphone series with the
Xperia Z1.
There was also big news from Android competitors. We
heard that BlackBerry’s long predicted demise was finally
becoming a reality
and Apple released the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C .
The big Android release in September was the LG G2
which blew our socks off. Cutting edge specs and an
innovative design, the hardware buttons on the back,
and some useful software features make it a real
contender for the title of Android smartphone of the year
title.
Later that month, on September 23, Android turned five
years old.
October
A big month for Android kicked off with the release of
the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and it easily retained the
phablet crown for Samsung, with the S-Pen and raft of
software features combining to great effect on this
device.
Eric Schmidt made headlines after a Q and A at the
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo when he claimed Android is
more secure than the iPhone . The incredulous reaction
shows the impact of countless malware scares driven by
the security software companies and a willful ignorance
of the low incidence of threats via the official Play Store.
Third party stores and the Chinese and Russian markets
seriously inflate the stats here and exaggerate the risk
for your average Android user, but Google clearly has
work to do to convince people of that.
Everyone was waiting patiently — or impatiently if we’re
honest — for Key Lime Pie, but it never arrived. Instead
we got Android 4.4 KitKat . With a focus on optimizing
the Android experience and keeping lower specced
hardware firmly in the frame, KitKat showed a
determination to fix the fragmentation issue. It also
introduced the usual wave of new features and
improvements, but there was nothing earth-shattering,
as you might expect from an incremental release.
As expected, the Nexus 5 would be the first Android
smartphone to launch with KitKat. It also marked
Google’s continuing faith in LG as a manufacturer and
coming hot on the heels of the G2 it helped to mark LG
out as an OEM on the up. The most impressive thing
about the Nexus 5 was the affordable price tag, starting
at just $350, despite having a cutting edge Snapdragon
800 processor and a stunning 1080p display.
November
As Android 4.4 continued to roll out, there was the
Google Keyboard 2.0 update and an improved version of
Hangouts. We also saw some improvements to Google
Now which enables it to ask questions to clarify your
commands. The Nexus 5 came in for some criticism, not
least about its camera, but Google promised an update
and it didn’t stop the device from repeatedly going out
of stock as people rushed to snag one.
November was the month of the flexible display, or
perhaps more accurately the curved display. The rumors
about flexible display technology had been gathering
pace and Samsung beat LG to the punch. The Samsung
Galaxy Round and the LG G Flex are baby steps towards
our dream of truly flexible devices, but they certainly
pave the way for more interesting form factors in the
short term.
The other big announcement in November was the Moto
G. There was a collective gasp at the $179 price tag, as
the Moto G easily grabs the best bargain smartphone
title just in time for Christmas. Google’s influence on
Motorola is finally being felt and there can hardly be a
bigger indication of the change of direction than this
budget release.
December
The winter holiday is looming and as December started
Google released two minor updates to KitKat – 4.4.1 was
quickly followed by 4.4.2. Both look to be largely about
bug fixes and performance tweaks, as well as the
promised camera fix for the Nexus 5.
One of the last surprises of the year was the launch of
two new Google Play edition devices. Marrying top
notch hardware with the purest form of Android, the LG
G Pad 8.3 and Sony Z Ultra GPe are probably the best
devices in their class.
We don’t expect any other major announcements before
2014. There are plenty of tempting devices battling it out
for your affections in the holiday season, and we’ll let
you know who the big winners were early next year. It’s
been a good year for Android and we can see next year
being even bigger. It will all kick off again with CES in
January and you can rest assured we’ll keep you up to
date with all the latest news in Android right here at
Android Authority.
What was your pick of the Android news in 2013? Let us
know in the comments.

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