iOS Devices Dominate Mobile Online Shopping

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

The holiday season came a little early for Apple this year, but it's not as if the company didn't already know what it was getting. New statistics released this week from retail analysis firm RichRelevance indicate that iPads and iPhones are the top mobile devices that consumers use to make retail purchases.

By just how much, you ask? According to RichRelevance, 92 percent of all "online non-desktop sales" came from an iOS-friendly device during December. Better still (for retailers), those using their iPhones, iPads, and other iOS devices to shop online spent more, on average, than those shopping via other mobile platforms like Android: $123 for iOS devices versus $101 for Android devices. Even though desktop-based sales crushed mobile-based purchases in volume, the average order value of these purchases only reached $87.

"The numbers across our retailing partners sites demonstrate just how powerful the iOS platform is enabling mobile web shopping and, while still below 5 percent in total conversion, mobile traffic's doubling in eight months is a trend we only see accelerating," said David Selinger, RichRelevance CEO, in a statement.

In total, mobile device-based shopping hit around 3 percent of all online sales analyzed by RichRelevance—more than 3.4 billion sales in total, stretched across the months of April to mid-December. Translated out to raw dollars, mobile-based sales jumped from 1.87 percent of all U.S. online retail spending in April to 3.74 percent in December.

As mentioned, this news should come as little surprise to Apple, as the company has already seen snapshots of iOS mobile shopping dominance. Take, for example, Black Friday: According to IBM, the iPhone and iPad ranked first and second for consumer shopping on mobile devices on Black Friday itself (5.4 percent and 4.8 percent, with Android-based devices taking up third at 4.1 percent). That totals just over 10 percent of the mobile shopping market for Apple's flagship products.

IBM also indicated that the specific Black Friday conversion rates for the iPad—a comparison of online visits versus purchases made—were double those of the mobile device category as a whole (4.6 percent to 2.8 percent.)

Even though Android enjoys a healthy lead in overall global market share for smartphones versus the iPhone—no doubt a result of Android's ability to exist on multiple devices versus the single iOS smartphone product line—it seems that iOS users continue to carry the day for mobile shopping.

For more, see PCMag's Year in Review for Google and Apple.

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Apple App Store faces issues with the interface on iOS 3.1.3 devices, fixes itself automatically

Last week people started reporting a strange problem with the Apple App Store program installed on their iPhone and iPod touches. This made it nearly unusable because it would hide the buttons to download the apps, along with the screenshot and other app information.

The interesting thing about this issue though was that only those running iOS 3.1.3 were reporting it and as you may know that was the latest update that the first generation iPhone and iPod touch is capable of running. However, it seems now though that the issue has been fixed.

Engadget is reporting that things are now back to normal, with the App Store program working just fine. Whether it was a temporary glitch or something Apple remotely fixed is not yet known. From the user-end though you don’t have to do anything as it sorts itself out on its own.

The screenshot above shows a slightly different texture to the top and bottom bar, which is unlike the glossy finish you usually see. Perhaps Apple was in the process of revamping the interface of the App Store when this happened, although it still does not explain why it only affected devices running iOS 3.1.3.

ITC Bans Import of HTC Android Devices in Apple Patent Fight

The International Trade Commission (ITC) on Monday ruled in favor of Apple in its patent battle against HTC, ordering an import ban on certain HTC devices starting April 19, 2012.

HTC will be allowed to import refurbished devices with the infringing patent until Dec. 19, 2013 for replacement purposes, but the company cannot refer to new devices as refurbished, the ITC said in its ruling.

As patent blogger Florian Mueller explained in a blog post, Apple's victory is a "narrow" one. The ban applies to Android-based devices that include a "data tapping patent." One example of this technology is a phone number within an email that you can tap to bring up the phone dialer and place a call automatically.

"If Google can implement this popular feature, which users of modern-day smartphones really expect, without infringing on the two patent claims found infringed, this import ban won't have any effect whatsoever," Mueller wrote. "Otherwise HTC will have to remove this feature, which would put HTC at a competitive disadvantage as compared to other smartphone makers, including other Android device makers."

Mueller noted that the ITC found that HTC does not infringe on a "much broader and potentially more impactful patent on realtime signal processing." That, he said, "could have had much more impact on HTC and, more generally, Android than the data tapping patent."

In a statement, an HTC spokesman said the company was "gratified" that the ITC did not rule in favor of Apple on all the patents in question and pledged to alter the infringing technology.

"We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the [data tapping] patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon."

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In July, an ITC judge found that HTC infringed on two of 10 Apple patents. HTC and Apple both requested reviews in that decision, prolonging the process.

"Apple would have preferred for the Commission to adopt the [administrative law judge's] recommendation, but in the event that a review would take place (as it did), Apple also wanted to raise some questions of its own and asked for another look at the two patents the ALJ did not deem infringed," Mueller wrote today. "But as I expected, the review focused on the two patents the ALJ deemed infringed."

Regardless, the ITC ruling is "progress" for Apple, Mueller said. If Cupertino can challenge handset makers on other data-tapping-esque patents, it could "really have competitive impact with its many litigations targeting Android," Mueller concluded.

In addition to the ITC, Apple and HTC are also battling over patents in several courts throughout the world.

Today's decision was twice-delayed. The D.C-based ITC was first scheduled to rule on Dec. 6, but that got pushed to Dec 14 and then today.

Earlier this month, PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan suggested that an Apple win is also a victory for Microsoft. For more, see An HTC Android Ban is Microsoft's Dream.

Today's ruling comes several weeks after the ITC ruled that Apple's products don't infringe on patents held by S3 Graphics, a company in the process of being acquired by HTC.

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 6:20pm Eastern with a revised statement from HTC.

For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.

Kindle Fire is Amazon’s bestselling product 11 weeks in a row, over a million Kindle devices sold a week for 21 days straight

The Kindle lineup has made Amazon proud – over a million Kindle devices are flying off their virtual shelves every week, three weeks in a row now. That includes the eInk readers, of course, but the droid tablet, the Kindle Fire, is doing very well too.

Amazon didn’t give any specific numbers, but said that the Kindle Fire was the bestselling product on all of Amazon for the 11 weeks during which it has been on sale. It’s also the most gifted and most wished for product on Amazon’s lists.

While it’s not clear how many of the million plus Kindle devices per week are Fires, the sales numbers for the Fire have gone up over the last three weeks. The Kindle Fire was already the most popular Android tablet in the US (second worldwide), so it would be interesting to see where it stands after the holiday drive.

Interestingly, Amazon said that they’re seeing people buy two Kindles – a Kindle Fire and an eInk Kindle. Customers prefer the eInk models for reading (unsurprisingly), which doesn’t bode well for LCD-based e-readers.

The Kindle Fire however has a huge library of multimedia over it’s eInk siblings though – millions of movies, TV shows, music and so on.

What about you? Are you okay with an LCD e-reader because it offers multimedia and apps or do you have two separate devices – one for reading and one for everything else?