Android smartphones will quickly dominate as home media hubs, beating out Apple’s AirPlay, one market research firm predicts.
Within a few years most media hubs in the living room won’t be set-top boxes or DVRs, but Android smartphones, according to a newly-published study, “Video Content Distribution in the Smart Home,” by IMS Research.
These Android phones will send media to TVs and game consoles, just like Apple’s Airplay sends video to an Apple TV or other Airplay-enabled device.
The reason Android will dominate? Because Android manufacturers are quickly adding DLNA — The Digital Living Network Alliance’s open-standard media sharing protocol. It’s the fastest, cheapest way they can differentiate themselves from Apple’s iPhone, the report says.
“The consequence of Android smartphone manufacturers’ decision to include DLNA video servers in their handsets is very significant,” says Stephen Froehlich, a senior analyst at IMS Research. “Outside of the established North America and Japanese markets, this decision by smartphone manufacturers to push out DLNA video servers is very likely to create awareness of these functions.”
By 2015, 70 percent of DLNA devices shipped outside of Japan and North America will be wi-fi-enabled smartphones.
“The vast majority of those are expected to be Android-based handsets, as Apple is not expected to embrace open-standard media services on its iPhones, relying instead on AirPlay,” says the report.
DLNA video is already extremely widely adopted in Japan thanks to its inclusion in the country’s ARIB TV broadcast standards. In North America, lots of service providers are using DLNA to create open-standard multi-room DVR systems.
According to IMS, the trend will be most prevalent overseas.
“We also expect to see a new culture of video portability emerge from that awareness,” says Froehlich. “In these regions, the smartphone essentially becomes a personal ID key that unlocks a consumer’s access to his or her content library and then serves it to any DLNA video client in a home. This culture of media portability may lead to more aggressive cord-cutting in these regions than is anticipated in North America and Japan.”
35 responses to “Android Phones Will Dominate iPads As Home Media Hub, Analysts Predict”
excellent! zero mention about iCloud…
.my best friend’s mom makes $77 an hour on the computer. she has been out of job for 9 moths but last month her check was $7487 USD just working on the computer for a few hours. read about it http://CashDone.com
.my best friend’s mom makes $77 an hour on the computer. she has been out of job for 9 moths but last month her check was $7487 USD just working on the computer for a few hours. read about it http://CashDone.com
How is iCloud relevant here?
It would be a big benefit to consumers if Apple’s devices were DLNA compliant. That way you could send that AirPlay video to your PS3 or other device. I understand why Apple wants to keep everything proprietary but allowing DLNA would really help with home media streaming and people would be more likely to buy more media off of iTunes.
How is DLNA going to help on devices that can barley function as phones to start with? Even if it did work reasonably well, the battery would die 5 minutes into the video stream…
iCloud is relevant everywhere!
This is a ridiculous, pathetic fantasy piece.
There, there, Mr. cultofandroid. Time for your meds. Be a good boy now…
if anything was going to take over iPads as the Home Media Hub, it would clearly be the iPhone, genius… Noone willingly chooses to control a Media Hub with a 4″ or less screen when there is such a thing as the iPad
analysts, should put all future parameters on the table, and one from these parameters is iCloud. Or not?
iCloud is a backup and synchronization service. It actually has little to do with streaming video to devices around the home. At least not how it was introduced and what has been said about it. I think the only exception to this is that you might be able to stream television shows to AppleTV without synching them to another device first.
Would be nice if iCloud let you stream anything to any device but I haven’t heard anywhere that it will have those capabilities.
This will only happen if Apple quits the industry and shuts down, and we all know that wind happen for a while.
This will only happen if Apple quits the industry and shuts down, and we all know that wind happen for a while.
i’ve used DLNA. DLNA is no AirPlay. and Screen Mirroring is a whole other level beyond both.
Big assumption: that Android survives the onslaught of Oracle & Apple.
Big assumption: that Apple doesn’t fatigue the whole smartphone market by it’s huge iPad success, iCloud and cheap phones.
You sound uninformed.
It may be, but I love Apple toys.
Wow what a poorly written and researched article not sure who IMS is but their assumptions are fundamentally and historically flawed. There has yet to be any consumer technology that was not adopted world wide and not first sucessful “Outside of the established North America and Japanese markets”.
The entire DVR market they refer to has died in the US years ago (along with Tivo).
This looks like the research firms that predicted that MSFT’s Windows Media Connect would win out over iTunes due to it’s open nature and support amount all non apple CE companies. It didn’t happen and the fact that there are more than 9,000 products with DLNA since Sony started the DLNA in June 2003 and it still has virtually zero visibility to consumers shows that it will not be a major player in audio / video content delivery.
Nokia’s Weapon against android: Nokia windows phone 7 release date http://morldtechgossips.blogsp…