Smartphone market share for Android and iOS expanded to 96.4 percent in Q2, “leaving little space for competitors,” said a report from IDC Thursday. Android was the dominant growth driver, with 255.3 million smartphones shipping in Q2, up 33 percent year-over-year, while iOS share shrank on growth of 12.7 percent, IDC said (http://bit.ly/1phRbyI). Windows Phone was down 10 percent and BlackBerry-based smartphones 78 percent, it said. The worldwide smartphone market topped 300 million unit shipments for the first time in the quarter, reaching 301.3 million units, a 25 percent jump from the 240.5 million smartphones shipped in Q1 2013, IDC said. “Android has been reaping huge gains within emerging markets,” said Ramon Llamas, research manager, saying 58 percent of worldwide Android smartphones shipped cost less than $200 off contract. Among operating systems, Windows Phone has been around since 2010 but has yet to break the 5 percent share mark, said Melissa Chau, senior research manager. Despite Samsung’s leadership position in smartphones, it hasn’t been able to push the Tizen operating system into the spotlight, she said. Stumbling blocks preventing other operating systems from gaining traction are phone makers and app developers, with the latter primarily “smaller outfits looking to minimize development efforts by sticking to the two big ecosystems,” she said. Within the Android sphere, Samsung led with 29 percent of Android-driven shipments, but its share fell from 40 percent over the past two years, while Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Xiaomi and ZTE all grew, IDC said. Based on Apple’s history, IDC expects it to receive a late-Q3 boost from next-generation iPhone sales. “Whether or not this happens again this year remains to be seen, especially with the anticipated arrival of large-screen iPhones,” IDC said.

Wireless Internet Service Providers Association Executive Director Rick Harnish fired back at comments from Cisco opposing the group’s petition for reconsideration of a March 31 FCC order that opens up the 5.1 GHz band for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use (CD Aug 15 p1). “This does not surprise me from Cisco,” Harnish said in an e-mail. “Cisco has never embraced the WISP industry. They have focused most of their ‘wireless’ energies on indoor products for schools, hospitals and other industries.” WISPs are not to blame for past interference to terminal doppler weather radar (TDWR) cited by Cisco in its comments, Harnish said. While WISPA did not file comments on the various recon petitions, in docket 13-49, Harnish did (http://bit.ly/1l8UIjM). Harnish said tight restrictions imposed by the FCC in the band will have a “disastrous” effect on rural broadband.

San Diego followed the law in denying permits to American Tower, said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision handed down Thursday. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez had ruled the city violated the state’s permit law when it didn’t act on the conditional-use permit (CUP) applications within 60 days, but otherwise had acted correctly. Nonetheless, because of the violation, Benitez granted American Tower summary judgment. There was no violation of the Telecom Act or state law, said the 9th Circuit decision written by Judge Jay Bybee, which reversed the lower court’s finding in favor of the tower company. The appeals court otherwise upheld the lower court. “The City’s decision to deny the permit applications was supported by substantial evidence, and the City did not misapply its Land Development Code,” the court held (http://1.usa.gov/1qdhOl5). “The permit denial did not constitute unreasonable discrimination among functionally equivalent service providers because the plaintiff and the City were not functionally equivalent providers."

Rules for the TV incentive auction, adopted by the commission in May (http://bit.ly/1pi25V6), formally take effect Oct. 14, after they were published in the Federal Register Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1mRDv9u). The exception is new or modified information collection requirements that are not effective until approved by the Office of Management and Budget. The FCC has indicated the auction is likely in mid-2015.

If Sprint and T-Mobile get the FCC to change spectrum aggregation rules for the TV incentive auction “it could drive up prices for what little spectrum is still available in the secondary market,” BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said Thursday in a research note. Both major carriers this week filed petitions for reconsideration seeking changes to the May 15 spectrum holdings order (CD Aug 13 p1). If the two are successful Dish Network could be the winner, with its extensive spectrum holdings, Piecyk wrote. “If not successful, Sprint and T-Mobile will be further disadvantaged to cost-effectively build network coverage, a clear positive for their dominant competitors, AT&T and Verizon."

Online Q&A site Ask.com acquired Ask.fm, a mobile-focused Q&A social network, said a Thursday news release (http://on.mktw.net/Vq3Cgi). “It’s a natural entry into a market segment and platform where Ask.com has been looking to expand, “said Ask.com CEO Doug Leeds. Ask.fm’s mobile app has been downloaded 40 million times, Ask.com said.

The global indoor location market is expected to grow from $597 million to $3.9 billion by 2019, MarketsandMarkets said in a report released Thursday. North America is expected to be the biggest market in revenue contribution, while Europe is expected to experience increased market traction, it said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1djsjOz). The major market drivers are increasing customer intimacy and venue-based marketing strategies, poor performance of GPS in indoor environments, and government initiatives in developing positioning systems for public safety and urban security segments, it said. Even though the adoption of indoor location is relatively slow due to lack of research resources, indoor location market technologies “are expected to grow steadily and generate strong traction across all the emerging venues,” it said. Major players in the market include Apple, Cisco, Ericsson and Microsoft, it said.

APCO asked the FCC to clarify as quickly as possible whether the agency will change its mandate that public safety licensees using 700 MHz narrowband spectrum convert their radio systems to 6.25 kHz operation by Dec. 31, 2016. The FCC is reportedly considering an order addressing this requirement, the group said Thursday in a letter filed in docket 13-87 (http://bit.ly/1sYUJaK). Speed is critical since related restrictions on the manufacturing, marketing and importation of equipment kick in at year’s end, the group said. “Nearly all” comments that have been filed “strongly supported the need to eliminate, or at least extend, those deadlines,” APCO said. “The immediate problem is that, absent a rapid Commission decision, many public safety agencies will be forced to begin the extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming process of replacing their existing equipment in an attempt to meet the current deadline.” Many of the radios that would have to be changed “still have many years of useful life before reaching normal equipment replacement cycles,” APCO said.

A scratch- and crack-resistant sapphire-glass screen is the feature that’s most wanted in the iPhone 6, said a survey of 1,000 smartphone owners done by uSell.com, which bills itself as the leading online marketplace for used iPhones. Of the respondents, nearly half (45.5 percent) see sapphire glass as their most desired iPhone 6 feature, followed by an infrared camera that can see in the dark (19.2 percent) and new tools for monitoring health and fitness (10.7 percent), it said. Only 9.5 percent want 3D functionality in the iPhone 6, and only 7.7 percent want smart home tools to control their home appliances, it said. The survey also asked respondents which incremental iPhone improvement they would want most in an iPhone 6. Longer battery life topped the list (37 percent), followed by a bigger screen (19.2 percent), it said: “Even though a bigger screen is a much talked about iPhone improvement, nearly twice as many people consider improved battery life to be more important."

Guess Watches will team with smart watch developer Martian Watches to develop “interactive, voice-command wrist accessories,” the companies said Wednesday. The companies envision marketing “smart wearables” combining fashion and technology that will be Guess-branded and bearing the label “powered by Martian,” they said. They expect to announce specific products by early 2015, they said. A Martian Watches engineering executive predicted in the spring that “killer apps” ultimately will determine whether smart watches succeed or fail, but conceded then that “there’s no such candidate right now” (CD March 7 p15).