1. 2014 YEAR IN REVIEW:
MOBILE
NO. 1
The most important deals, releases, figures, moments and trends
of the passing year.
2. AT&T PURCHASES
DIRECTV
NO. 1
The total purchase price is $48.5 billion.
Acquisition creates a powerhouse for services
in the home, allowing AT&T to pair its own
wireless network with DirecTV's satellite TV
service, which is available nationwide.
The combined company will be a content
distribution leader across mobile, video and
broadband platforms.
3. GOOGLE SELLS
MOTOROLA UNIT TO
LENOVO
NO. 2
The total purchase price at close is $2.91
billion.
Lenovo gets the Motorola brand, as well as its
portfolio of devices and more than 2,000
patent assets.
A deal instantly gives Lenovo an established
global brand. Google, meanwhile, will shed a
business that has continually dragged down
its profits (in 2012, Google completed its
acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $12.5
billion).
4. FACEBOOK PURCHASES
WHATSAPP
NO. 3
Facebook closes $19 billion WhatsApp deal.
WhatsApp continues to run its operation
completely independently.
The closing of the deal marks the start of a
gradual integration as Facebook gives the
world’s biggest mobile messaging service
legal and administrative support and —
eventually — finds new ways to monetize the
company.
This year Facebook also purchased virtual
reality technology maker Oculus VR.
5. MICROSOFT LUMIA
WITHOUT NOKIA
NO. 4
Microsoft Lumia is the new brand name that
will take the place of Nokia for the software
maker.
Nokia continues as a separate company
without its phones business, and now focuses
on mapping and network infrastructure. It
owns and manages the Nokia brand and only
licenses it to Microsoft.
Microsoft has managed yet to unveil first
Lumia smartphone without Nokia name,
Lumia 535.
Holiday ads have already pushed Lumia
instead of Nokia.
6. YAHOO MAKES ITSELF
RELEVANT IN MOBILE
NO. 5
Yahoo reported its mobile revenues for the
first time in Q3 2014.
Yahoo is expected to end 2014 with about
3.2% of the nearly $19 billion mobile
advertising market, according to eMarketer.
Based on their calculations, in 2015 Yahoo is
expected to take 3.74% of the market share,
bypassing Twitter’s expected 3.69% share.
Surpassing Twitter will put Yahoo in third place
overall for mobile ad sales in search and
display, still trailing enormously behind
Google and Facebook, which currently have
37.66% and 14.36% shares, respectively.
Yahoo’s mobile audience has almost tripled
since the end of 2012, going from around 200
million to over 550 million as of Q3 of this
year.
ADAM CAHAN, YAHOO’S HEAD OF MOBILE, CES 2014
7. FACEBOOK IS SO
MOBILE
NO. 6
Mobile daily active users were 703 million on
average for September 2014, an increase of
39% year-over-year. This is 81,4% of all
DAUs.
Monthly active users were 1.12 billion, which is
83% of all MAUs.
Mobile-only visitors are 24% of total audience.
Mobile advertising revenue represented
approximately 66% of advertising revenue for
Q3 2014, up from approximately 49% of
advertising revenue in Q3 2013.
8. IPHONE 6 AND 6 PLUS
NO. 7
Apple launches two new iPhones, the 4.7-inch
iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus.
Along with larger screens and a completely
new iPad-style design with a thinner body and
rounded corners, the new phones offer faster
processors, better cameras, and Apple's new
Apple Pay payment system.
Apple’s latest device broke a few records; with
10 million units sold in three days the iPhone 6
became the manufacturer’s best performer at
release.
The larger-screened iPhones cannibalize iPad
sales. Worldwide tablet growth is expected to
slow to 7.2% in 2014 along with first year of
iPad decline, according to IDC.
9. YOSEMITE + IOS 8
= CONTINUITY
NO. 8
Mac and iOS devices become connected like
never before.
OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 enable new features
that let devices work together in even smarter
ways. The Handoff functionality allows the
operating system to integrate with iOS 8
devices over Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi; users
can place and answer phone calls using their
iPhone as a conduit, send and receive text
messages, activate personal hotspots, or load
items being worked on in a mobile app
directly into their desktop equivalent.
The borders between different devices are
blurring and cross-usage is becoming a lot
more easier.
10. NEW NOTICEABLE
PLAYER: XIAOMI
NO. 9
Smaller vendors, including China's Xiaomi and
India's Micromax, rise quickly thanks to a
strategy of selling low-cost devices with
decent specifications and designs.
Xiaomi, a privately owned Chinese electronics
company headquartered in Beijing, China, has
been valued at $46 billion. It’s worth more in
the eyes of investors than even over-
performing Uber (currently valued at $41
billion) and is now the most valuable venture-
backed tech startup in the world. Sales are up
by 300 percent year on year. It produced a
profit of $56 million.
According to IDC, Xiaomi is now the third
largest smartphone maker in the world
followed by Lenovo and LG at fourth and fifth
place respectively. Samsung remains at the
first place despite declining shipment volume,
followed by Apple at second place.
11. MATERIAL DESIGN
NO. 10
Google unveils Android 5.0 “Lollipop”.
One of the most prominent changes in this
release is a redesigned user interface built
around a responsive design language referred
to as "Material Design”.
It's Google's first design manifesto, and within
it lies a message about how the company sees
its users interacting with everything from
computers, tablets, smartphones, watches to
cars.
Material Design is about a systematic
approach to how its products interact with
millions of users.
12. ANDROID WEAR
NO. 11
Google launches Android Wear,
a version of Android operating system
designed for wearables.
Android Wear is starting with smartwatches.
Motorola and LG were first out of the gate,
announcing the Motorola Moto 360 and the
LG G Watch.
Meanwhile, companies like Pinterest, Airbnb,
and Groupon designed apps for the small
screens.
13. APPLE WATCH
NO. 12
Apple Watch is announced. Prices for the
device, which will be available in early 2015,
start at $349.
The Apple Watch is capable of receiving
phone calls, iMessages and SMS Texts. It can
track fitness, run third-party apps, work with
Apple Pay, and use an Apple feature called
"Handoff". It can control the Apple TV, as well
as act as a walkie-talkie and a viewfinder for an
iPhone camera.
Apple also released its WatchKit Software
Tools for developers.
14. APPLE PAY
NO. 13
Apple launches Apple Pay, which is a mobile
payment and digital wallet service, that lets
users make payments at retail and online
checkout, using the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus,
Apple Watch-compatible devices (iPhone 5
and later models), iPad Air 2, and iPad Mini 3.
Apple Pay does not require Apple-specific
contactless payment terminals and works with
Visa's PayWave, MasterCard's PayPass, and
American Express's ExpressPay terminals.
The service has begun initially only for use at
more than 200,000 storefronts in the US, with
international roll-out planned for the future.
Owners of the iPhone 6 registered more than
1 million credit cards on Apple Pay in the first
3 days of availability.
15. SNAPCASH IN SNAPCHAT
NO. 14
One-to-one messaging app Snapchat
announces a mobile payments feature, called
Snapcash.
Once user's entered their debit card into
Snapchat, they'll be able to start sending a
friend money through the normal messaging
screen, just by entering in the amount they
want to send and beginning it with a dollar
sign. For now, the service is only available in
the US for users age 18 and over.
Snapcash is created in partnership with
Square, which handles storing card numbers
and processing payments.
This move pushes Snapchat beyond just a
photo-sharing and chatting application and
into competition with mobile payment
services like PayPal and Venmo. Beyond peer-
to-peer payments, the app could one day
open e-commerce to brands on the platform.
16. GOOGLE’S NEW
ATTEMPT AT SMART TV
NO.
This year Google comes up with two offerings:
Chromecast and Android TV.
Chromecast is a HDMI dongle that plugs into
the back of TV and connects via Wi-Fi with an
Android device. User also needs the
Chromecast app on their phone to stream the
smartphone's screen to their television or play
content through a bunch of native apps for
Chromecast.
Android TV is a software system that will be
built into future generations of Smart TVs as
well as being the platform behind streaming
devices and set-top boxes. An official price on
Android TV is unknown yet. The first device to
employ Android TV is the Nexus Player.
15
17. CONSUMER VERSION OF
GLASS STILL UNAVAILABLE
NO.
The consumer version of Google glass was
promised to go on sale to the general public
towards the end of 2014.
The year’s about to end and Google Glass still
hasn't gone on sale as a finished consumer
product. The release date remains unknown.
Google ”decided to move to a more open
beta" in the device's development.
Despite this, details of Google Glass 2 are
emerging…
16
18. WORLD’S FIRST BEACON-
BASED URBAN
NAVIGATION SYSTEM
NO.
Warsaw, the capital of Poland, is about to
place thousands of beacons around the city
that communicate with users through mobile
apps.
The project ‘Virtual Warsaw’ places second
in the Bloomberg Mayors Challenge 2014
contest (has been chosen amongst 155
European participating cities), acquiring
funding of €1 million.
Virtual Warsaw is referred to as the world’s first
navigation system to serve all of the city’s
inhabitants, including those with vision
impairment.
17
19. SAMSUNG LAUNCHES
PLACEDGE
NO.
Samsung stepps into the proximity beacons
market with its own offering, Placedge and cut
out the need for a brand to have its own
app to detect beacons.
Samsung Placedge Platform is a scalable
beacon-based service platform that provides
users with dynamic, location-based
information and enables partners to create
targeted and dynamic marketing campaigns
and deliver them to users via their own apps.
It consists of Placedge beacon advertising
data specification, Placedge Mobile SDK, and
Placedge Server API.
18
20. MOBILE E-DRIVING
LICENSE
NO.
The Iowa Department of Transportation builds
the nation’s first smartphone driver’s license
with an app that can co-exist with the
traditional plastic card.
The digital license, which would be free,
would be acceptable to use at traffic stops,
airport screeners, bars and so on.
The app is in currently development for iOS
and Android phones and is expected to be
released in 2015. Iowa DOT is not sure the
exact timing of publishing to the app stores,
because of unsolved concerns about privacy
and security.
19
XXX
21. GOOGLE UPDATES LOCAL
SEARCH ALGORITHM
NO. 20
Google releases a new algorithm aimed to
provide more accurate and relevant local
search results by tying them more closely to
web search ranking signals.
One of the most significant changes with this
update is the boost in rankings given to local
directory sites, like Yellow Pages. Oftentimes
these local directories outrank the actual
websites of local businesses.
22. GOOGLE EMPHASIZES
MOBILE-FRIENDLY SITES
IN SEARCH RESULTS
NO. 21
Google releases a set of criteria for what it
considers to be a mobile-friendly site. The
criteria are:
• Avoids software that is not common on
mobile devices, like Flash.
• Uses text that is readable without zooming.
• Sizes content to the screen so users don’t
have to scroll horizontally or zoom.
• Places links far enough apart so that the
correct one can be easily tapped.
Sites that pass the criteria will get a “mobile-
friendly” label in mobile search results. Google
may use the criteria when ranking mobile
search results in the future.
23. HOLIDAY MOBILE
SHOPPING ON AMAZON
APPROACH 60%
OF TOTAL VOLUME
NO. 22
Nearly 60% of Amazon.com customers
shopped using a mobile device this holiday.
Mobile shopping accelerated as customers
got later into the shopping season.
Cyber Monday continues to be Amazon.com’s
peak mobile shopping day. Black Friday had
the most rapid growth in mobile shopping.
Total holiday sales from the Amazon app for
smartphones doubled in 2014 in the US.
On Cyber Monday, Amazon customers
worldwide ordered more than 18 toys per
second from a mobile device.
24. NEW 14-DAY RETURN
POLICY FOR DIGITAL
PURCHASES IN EU
COUNTRIES
NO. 23
Apple now allows European customers up to
14 days to return a digital purchase in the Mac
App Store, iOS App Store, iBooks Store and
iTunes Store, and request a full refund of it,
’Without Giving Any Reason’.
This is the result of the EU's new policy for
apps and digital games, which went into effect
earlier this year.
25. THE GREAT APP
UNBUNDLING TREND
NO. 24
In 2014, Facebook “unbundled" its popular
mobile app as a series of apps, i.e. Messenger,
Slingshot, Paper, Rooms, Facebook Mentions,
Facebook Groups.
Others have followed in footsteps. E.g.
Foursquare unbundled its app into two
separate products: Swarm and Foursquare.
Swarm is for keeping up and meeting up with
your friends. Foursquare is now geared
towards personal search and discovery of
nearby places.
The unbundling trend may seem as a natural
evolution of the behavioral shift in the app
economy.
26. APPLE AND GOOGLE
INTENSIFY MHEALTH
TREND
NO. 25
Apple and Google releases their health-
tracking platforms for their operating
systems, iOS 8 HealthKit and Google Fit,
respectively.
HealthKit is the accompanying developer
application programming interface (API)
included in the iOS SDK, which should be
used by software developers to design
applications that have extensibility and that
can interact with the Health app, which is
available on iOS 8.
Google Fit is an application for Android 4.0 or
above.
mHealth trend continues to turn healthcare on
its head.
27. MOBILE VIDEO
ON THE RISE
NO. 26
The increasing number of video-capable
devices with larger screen-size, fast
connectivity, improved picture quality and
availability of TV services via streaming are
the major driving forces behind increasing
mobile video traffic growth.
Video generates around 42% of daily data
traffic volume on any given mobile network,
compared to 10% for social networking, 9%
for adult content, 6% for news and
information, and 1% for shopping, according
to Citrix’s Mobile Analytics Report.
47% of social networking data can be
attributed to video.
28. ANONYMOUS SOCIAL
APPS
NO. 27
Secret hits the app stores this year and along
with Whisper (released 2 years ago) gains
millions of users.
Both apps are part of a growing trend towards
anonymous and quasi-anonymous sharing, a
pushback against Facebook's successful push
to encourage real name use throughout the
internet.
29. FLAPPY BIRD’S
REMOVAL
NO. 28
Flappy Bird was initially released in May 2013
as a free-to-download game for iOS and
Android. A few months later became very
popular and saw massive success - the app
was generating a reported $50,000 per day in
advertising revenue.
However, in February 2014 the author of the
app, Vietnamese Dong Nguyen took the
game down suddenly. He explained himself,
he ‘cannot take this [the success] anymore’.
Regardless of the real reason, the app’s
audible removal has led a huge number of
clones to suddenly appear in the app stores,
looking to capitalise on Flappy Birds success.
Any copycat app never succeed.
XXX
30. THE SELFIE OF THE YEAR
NO. 29
Posted on Twitter, Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars
Selfie is the most retweeted tweet of all time
and the most popular selfie ever.
It breaks 100,000 retweets in just a few
minutes. Within a few hours it breaks 2 million
retweets. Today it has more than 3,3 mln
retweets.
The selfie was taken with a Samsung
smartphone as part of ad deal with ABC,
which included Samsung device product
placement.
31. THE FAPPENING
NO. 30
A collection of hundreds private pictures of
various celebrities, mostly women, and with
many containing nudity, is posted on the
image sharing site 4chan, and later
disseminated by other users on websites and
social networks.
The images are believed to have been
obtained via a breach of Apple's cloud
services suite iCloud. Apple claims that the
hackers responsible for the leak had obtained
the images using a "very targeted attack" on
account information, such as passwords,
rather than any specific security vulnerability in
the iCloud service itself.
However, a heated discussion about privacy
and security of cloud storages is still ongoing.
MENA SUVARI
32. FORCING U2 ALBUM ON
ITUNES USERS
NO. 31
Meant as a gift to iTunes customers, Apple
negotiated first rights to U2's latest album and
attaches it to iTunes accounts.
That caused unexpected downloads for users
using the iOS or Mac automatic music
download feature. Customers got angry and
were unable to delete or unlink "Songs of
Innocence" from their online profiles.
Shortly after the debacle, Apple released a
Web tool to help users remove the album
from their account history.
Despite its troubles, U2's 'Songs of Innocence'
is seen as a success after clocking 26 million
downloads after one month of availability.
TIM COOK & U2
33. PHOTO’S SOURCES AND COPYRIGHTS:
• AT&T - http://www.marketsmithinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/att-buys-directv.jpg
• Motorola - https://www.motorola.com/us/motomaker?pid=FLEXR2
• Whatsapp - http://cdn.iphoneincanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/whatsapp.png
• Microsoft - http://i.webapps.microsoft.com/r/image/view/-/4679704/extraHighRes/2/-/Lumia-535-hero1-jpg.jpg
• Adam Cahan, Yahoo - http://www.cesweb.org/News/Photo-Gallery/Yahoo!-Keynote-5
• Facebook - https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t39.2365-6/851568_209350242603126_25189882_n.jpg
• iPhone 6 - http://images.apple.com/v/iphone-6/a/images/design/seamless_xlarge.jpg
• Mac - http://images.apple.com/v/osx/c/images/continuity/messages_hero_large.jpg
• XIAOMI - http://global.mifile.cn/webfile/globalimg/my/2014/goods/mi1s/9.jpg?130809
• Android Wear - https://lh3.ggpht.com/5pGH51CaP1QRZrRFMs-g2VFm_kXsneGOdiHVjNaffnAoveG4PByc8GA5SwBEX8Ay_Rc=h1350
• Apple Watch - http://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch-edition/
• Apple Pay - https://www.apple.com/apple-pay/
• Snapcash - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwjxBmMszQ
• Android TV - https://www.google.com/nexus/player
• Google Glass - https://www.google.com/glass/start
• ifinity beacons - http://getifinity.com/press
• Samsung Placedge - https://proximity-web.s3.amazonaws.com/images/main/bg/bg_main_fix01.png
• Mobile e-ID - http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzEyLzEwLzEwL3NtYXJ0cGhvbmVpLmM3OGY4LmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTk1MHg1MzQjCmUJanBn/5dbbfb4c/317/
smartphone-id.jpg (Mashable Composite)
• Google Algorithm - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3ao7QXMhC4
• Mobile shopping - http://thenextweb.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/11/mobile-shopping.jpg
• Mobile video - http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02480/phone_2480505b.jpg (Alamy)
• Selfie of the year - https://twitter.com/TheEllenShow/status/440322224407314432
• Men Suvari - http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/celebrity-4chan-shock-naked-picture-4395155
• U2 & Tim Cook - http://www.thenewscommenter.com/images/uploads/upload141332826366614_thumb.png
34. DATA’S SOURCES AND MORE INFO:
• AT&T purchases DirecTV - https://gigaom.com/2014/05/18/its-official-att-will-buy-directv-for-48-5b/
• Google sells Motorola to Lenovo - http://www.cnet.com/news/google-sells-motorola-unit-to-lenovo-for-2-9b/
• Facebook purchases WhatsApp - http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/10/06/facebook-closes-19-billion-whatsapp-deal/
• Yahoo’s results - http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Yahoo-Poised-Pass-Twitter-US-Mobile-Ad-Share-by-2015/1011663/1
• Facebook’s results - http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=878726
• iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Changing Users' Habits - http://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/26/iphone-6-ipad-reading-pocket/
• First year of iPad decline - http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25267314
• Xiaomi’s results - http://www.wsj.com/articles/xiaomi-becomes-worlds-most-valuable-tech-startup-1419843430
• Apple Pay - http://www.businessinsider.com/number-of-apple-pay-users-2014-10
• Amazon’s results - http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2002024
• Mobile video growth - http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/citrix-mobile-analytics-report-september-2014.pdf
• Mobile data traffic growth - http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson-mobility-report
• Wearables shipments totals 19 million in 2014 - http://www.wareable.com/wearable-tech/wearables-168-million-shipments-apple-popular-brand-606