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Category: smartphone

  • G1 Cheaper to Run Than iPhone


    T-Mobile has introduced the first Google Phone, the HTC-made G1, which the company hopes will rival Apple’s iPhone.

    The much-anticipated G1, formerly known as the HTC Dream, is the first open-source Android-based smartphone.

    The handset touts touchscreen functionality, a QWERTY keyboard, and a Google-centric mobile Web experience.

    Inevitably, comparisons with the iPhone were going to be made and the price – both of the handset and monthly contract charges – was going to be an area of key interest.

    The G1 will be available for USD $179 in the US from 22 October where it will be SIM-locked to T-Mobile’s network.

    It will be offered with either a USD $25 data plan with unlimited Web access but limited messaging, or users can opt for true unlimited data for USD $35.

    T-Mobile’s voice plans start at USD $30, meaning a total cost of USD $55 for unlimited Internet access.

    Wired has done an interesting price comparison which estimates that, based on a two-year contract period, the G1 is around USD $380 cheaper than the 3G iPhone.

    While the initial reaction to the USD $179 price tag for the G1 was positive, there have been complaints that it doesn’t apply to existing T-Mobile subscribers who have been reportedly been offered an unsubsidized price of USD $399 and a USD $100 online discount.

    This ends up giving the G1 a USD $344 total cost – although this would still make it cheaper using the Wired calculations.

    In terms of the spec, “solid but not spectacular” would probably sum up reviews of the handset, which is to be launched in the UK in November and elsewhere in Europe in early 2009.

    As would be expected, the G1 comes loaded with Google Search, Google Maps Street View, Gmail, YouTube and other popular Google software that PC users are familiar with.

    A full HTML Web browser lets users see any Web page the way it was designed to be seen, and then zoom in to expand any section by tapping on the screen.

    Importantly, the G1 builds on the promise of the Google mobile operating system, which gives users access to the Android Market.
    Customers can find and download applications from there to expand and personalize the HTC-made handset.

    However, while the G1 has generally been greeted with praise, there has been some criticism of its styling and design – with complaints that it’s thicker and heavier than the iPhone and lacks features such as video playback.

    A major grumble is that instead of standard headphone and USB ports, it has a proprietary combination port, meaning that regular headphones won’t work unless you add a special dongle.

    There has also been some questioning of how “open” the G1 really is, since T-Mobile will be restricting voice over internet protocol (VoIP) applications.

  • Microsoft Delays Windows Mobile 7


    Microsoft is not expected to complete a final build of its Windows Mobile 7 operating system until the second half of 2009.

    ZD Net Asia said the software maker has informed some of its partners that it has had to delay the much anticipated update to its cell phone operating system.

    The report describes the delay is a significant blow for Microsoft, which has been counting on the next version of WinMo to enable devices that better rival Apple’s iPhone.

    It points out that the delay also comes as competition steps up in the smartphone market.

    Google is preparing to launch the G1, first phone running its Android operating system, while Apple has its updated iPhone 3G, and new models are also debuting from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.

    While no major update to its core operating system is expected ahead of Windows Mobile 7 other improvements are likely to take place before then, including an improved browser that brings the rendering engine of Internet Explorer 6 onto Windows Mobile.

    That update should allow Windows Mobile phones to display rich Web pages, including those that are home to Flash content and Ajax applications.

  • Web Sites Must Adapt For Mobile Access


    The rising popularity of smartphones and their increasing use to access the internet means web sites must be prepared for effective handheld viewing.

    With the launch of new phones from the likes of Apple, RIM and now HTC, with Google’s Android-based G1, that trend is set to accelerate.

    Chuck Sacco, CEO of mobile marketing experts PhindMe.net, said the G1 represented another step toward complete Web access for people on the go.

    “What we’ve seen with the BlackBerry and the iPhone is a shift away from cell phones to smart phones and the G1 is going to further spur that shift,” he said.

    “With Google’s Android technology also available to other cell phone manufacturers who want to develop smart phones, we anticipate a spike in the number of people using handhelds for the kind of online information they used to access while tethered to the home or office computer.”

    Sacco said most businesses had yet to investigate whether their Web site was accessible to handheld users.

    But an M:Metrics survey showed that 85 per cent of iPhone users accessed the Web for information and were 10 times more likely to search the mobile Web than cell phone owners.

    Jon Cooper, CMO of PhindMe.net, said companies spentd a lot of resources on intricate Web sites that simply didn’t translate to the small screen.

    He said that with the market transitioning toward smart phones, businesses were missing an important opportunity if they didn’t create streamlined versions of their sites that were both accessible to handheld phones and provided information that people on-the-go actually need.

    “Someone looking for lunch isn’t going to care about the history of your restaurant –they need timely information such as where you are and how to get there, what’s on your menu and what’s on special,” he said.

    “You should make that information accessible on their phone to maximize your marketing opportunities.”

  • Apple Clamps Down On Rejected iPhone Apps


    Apple is to block developers’ abilities to distribute iPhone applications outside of its iTunes App Store.

    Developers were previously allowed to distribute apps directly to users by binding the software to the serial number of their iPhone.

    The move is certain to add to the growing disquiet from application developers unhappy with Apple’s unclear and seemingly arbitrary approvals policy.

    A number of apps, including Podcaster, NetShare, Murderdrome and MailWrangler, have received rejection letters from Apple despite following official guidelines.

    Among those affected by the latest decision is Almerica, the creator of a podcast download and playback tool known as Podcaster.

    It was initially rejected by Apple because the application duplicated the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.

    So it began using a method that created ad hoc licenses for the utility as an impromptu distribution tactic, an approach that left out the App Store entirely and consequently left Apple out of its 30 per cent revenue from each sale.

    The new restriction is being seen as a risky precedent and one that could lead to legal activity if Apple’s attempts to control any and all sales channels of software to iPhone and iPod touch owners falls foul of monopoly legislation.

    Apple is also trying to prevent developers whose applications are rejected from discussing the reasons by issuing a non-disclosure agreement with the refusal notice.

    The situation is in stark contrast to T-Mobile’s G1, which as the first official Google Android phone operates an open source policy for applications and OS development/modification.

  • New Mobile TV Channel for Nokia Smartphone


    Nokia is to start a mobile TV channel in the UK specifically for its new N96 smartphone.

    Users of the new handset, which was launched earlier this month, will be able to access a service called Capsule N96 from the beginning of October.

    This will allow users to download ‘mobisodes’ of exclusive entertainment and lifestyle programming for free.

    Lasting 96 seconds, the mobisodes will cover a variety of subject areas, including motoring, fashion, comedy and technology.
    Capsule N96 will initially run until the end of November, at which point Nokia will review the service.

    While the channel will be optimised for the N96, the service is to accessible via any Nokia phone capable of supporting the content.

    Although mobile TV has never really taken off outside of Asia, this could change with the increasing use of high-quality screens on smartphones.

    Earlier this month, Nokia announced that the BBC’s iPlayer application was to be available on the N96 – the first time it has been available via mobile.

    Also scheduled for an October, it allows N96 users to download BBC television programmes for up to seven days after being broadcast.

  • Android Smartphone To Sell 400k By Year-end


    You might expect sales to be intitially sluggish for a new smartphone with an unproven mobile operating system.

    But that was never going to be the case with the hotly anticipated first Google Android handset from T-Mobile and HTC, which is expected to be officially announced Tuesday.

    Research from Strategy Analytics suggests that the Android operating system will sell 400,000 units by the year-end.

    If accurate, that represents 4 per cent of all smartphones sold in the US during the fourth quarter of 2008.

    Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics, said Android was a relatively late entrant and it will join an increasingly crowded smartphone market alongside Blackberry, Microsoft, Apple, Palm, Symbian and LiMo.

    But he added: "We forecast 10.5 million smartphones to be sold in the United States during Q4 2008.

    “We estimate smartphones with Google’s Android operating system, led by HTC of Taiwan, will reach 0.4 million units in the quarter, for a 4 per cent marketshare.”

    Chris Ambrosio, executive director at Strategy Analytics, said Google had the brand power in the US to make a big impact at launch.
    He said the main issue would be operator subsidies. The HTC handset is expected to have a USD $199 price tag.

    “As seen with the iPhone and smart devices in general, retail prices need to be well below USD $200 to be competitive,” he said.

    “Longer-term success will, of course, rest on Android vendor ability to create designs with wow factor and an intuitive user-interface.”

    Ambrosio said Google would do its part to drive growth, and he expected Android to eventually offer a compelling range of mobile applications emphasizing Google’s online assets, such as advertising, mapping and search.

  • Mobile TV To Become Standard Feature of Smartphones

    Mobile TV has really only achieved great popularity in nations such as Japan and Korea.

    But the market is expected to expand rapidly over the next few years, spurred on by the smartphone which is driving improvements in screen quality, microchips and antennas.

    Smartphone.biz-news.com spoke to David Srodzinski, chief executive of fledgling semiconductor firm Elonics, about his expectations for the future of mobile TV.

    Mobile TV will soon become as accepted a feature of mobile handsets as the camera.

    That is the prediction of David Srodzinski, founder and chief executive of Elonics, a semiconductor company that has designed a silicon radio frequency (RF) tuner used to convert signals into sound and pictures.

    “We do see mobile TV as going to take off just like the camera phone has taken off,” he said.

    “It’s not something you will use all the time, but it’s a part of the phone that will be such a ‘nice to have’ feature that all phones will simply have to have them.”

    David Srodzinski CEO Elonics

    Based in Livingston, Scotland, Elonics recently announced that David Milne, the founder and former chief executive of chip maker Wolfson Microelectronics, was joining its board as non-executive chairman.

    Milne was credited with taking Wolfson from a university spinout to the FTSE 250 and the company made its name as a key supplier of microchips to the iPod.

    Founded in 2003, Elonics has developed RF architecture called DigitalTune that is the foundation for a family of re-configurable CMOS RF front end products.

    Its E4000 device is designed for reception of all major world-wide fixed and handheld terrestrial digital multi-media broadcast standards within UHF to L-Band ranges (76MHz to 1.70GHz).

    It allows designers to implement front ends capable of cost effectively supporting multiple TV and radio broadcast standards and enabling smaller, lighter, cheaper and lower power consumer electronics.

    Elonics has finished market sampling its products and is about to begin mass-production.

    Srodzinski said the immediate focus for the broadcast receiver technology was the traditional TV market, ranging from digital TVs, set-top boxes and PC TVs to multi-media devices.

    But he believed the biggest opportunities lay in the mobile TV market, with analysts forecasting sales of mobile TV enabled handsets rising to 100 millionin 2010.

    “All future potential growth is coming from the cell phone side of the market,” he said. “Smartphones are increasingly a sizeable part of that market.”

    Screen size and quality a key factor influencing the adoption of mobile TV on cell phones

    Srodzinski said that with QVGA screens appearing on increasing numbers of handsets, a barrier to mobile TV was being removed.

    He said that prior to the introduction of QVGA screens, adding mobile TV to a cell phone meant additional costs for the screen, the graphic processors and mobile TV chip set.

    “With the advent of QVGA offerings, such as on the new HTC phones and the iPhone, which have them as standard, the cost add of mobile TV is minimal now,” he said.

    For the screens alone, Srodzinski estimated that the cost add had dropped by a tenth, from USD $50 to $5.
    “All that has to be added now is the mobile TV chip set,” he said.

    But if cost and technological issues were no longer an impediment to widespread uptake of mobile TV, what about users’ appetite for the service?

    Srodzinski expected mobile TV to be something people would use once or twice a week for five to 10 minutes, most probably as a free-to-view service.

    “That user experience will be such a good feature and such a compelling reason, that people will want mobile TV on their cell phones in a similar way to how they want to have camera phones too,” he said.

    “We believe that if mobile TV works and takes off in that way, it will be a major opportunity that will grow out of the smartphone and into middle layer cell phones.”

    The great success of mobile TV in Japan and Korea, where penetration rates now reach 40 per cent, owes a great deal to government intervention promoting the services, according to Srodzinski.

    He said this had created revenue opportunities and lifted technological barriers to entry.

    “What’s holding back other parts of the world has more to do with the infrastructure roll-out and the cost of doing that,” he said. “That and the lack of clear government support.”

    However, Srodzinski insisted that the growth of mobile TV in territories outwith Japan and Korea would accelerate as more people experienced it and saw the quality of the services and content.

    “I think other regions will catch on,” he said. “This is not a technological push situation – it has to be a consumer-led requirement., especially if it’s free-to-air that takes off.”

    While content may be free, any explosion in mobile TV will also have to offer opportunities for revenue to the industry.
    As Srodzinski said: “The question has to be: who makes any money out of it? There’s no particular economic benefit to operators.”

    Undoubtedly an answer to that conundrum will be found, but will mobile TV really take off?
    Please let us know your thoughts on the matter.

  • Smartphones Fuelling Mobile Search Growth


    The increasing numbers of smartphones on flat-rate data plans, coupled with ever-improving handsets, is leading to a surge in mobile search, according to comScore.

    It has published the results of a survey which show that searching the internet from a mobile phone is gaining in popularity in the United States and Western Europe.

    In June, 20.8 million US wireless customers and 4.5 million European subscribers searched from their mobile handset – an increase of 68 per cent and 38 per cent from the year before.

    comScore said Google was the dominant mobile search provider, with an estimated 60 per cent share in all countries measured.
    Recognising the potential yields from mobile searching, Google has attempted to build up its presence in cell phones.

    As a result, the search company is the default search provider for Sprint handsets, the iPhone, and is reportedly in talks to provide mobile search and advertising for Verizon Wireless.

    With the first smartphone using Android, the company’s mobile OS, due to be launched shortly, Google’s share of mobile search revenue is certain to increase.

    In the US, Yahoo has around 35 per cent of the market and is second to Google in most countries.

    The UK tops the penetration rate table for mobile subscribers using search, with 9.5 per cent, followed by the US at 9.2 per cent.
    Industry analysts expect penetration to grow in all markets, particularly with US subscribers.

    Alistair Hill, a comScore analyst, said that as the number of mobile search users increased so did the frequency of activity.

    “The number of people accessing mobile search at least once a week grew 50 per cent in Europe, with France and Spain leading at a rate of 69 and 63 per cent, respectively,” he said.

    “Meanwhile, the number of US users accessing mobile search has more than doubled as a result of expanded 3G penetration and smartphone adoption, as well as the proliferation of flat-rate data plans.”

    Hill said there had also been a substantial improvement to the mobile search offerings in the US market.

    "The number of US users accessing mobile search has more than doubled as a result of expanded 3G penetration and smartphone adoption, as well as the proliferation of flat-rate data plans," he said.

    "We have also seen a substantial improvement to the mobile search offerings in the U.S. market."

  • Launch Date Set for First Android-based Smartphone

    Android launch will heighten competition in a market increasingly dominated by Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerries

    Touted as Google’s answer to the iPhone, the first cell phone powered by the feverishly anticipated Android software is to be unveiled on 23 September.

    T-Mobile has announced a press conference in New York to demonstrate the touchscreen, 3G phone next week – but the handset isn’t expected to go on sale until October.

    As has been widely reported, the phone – possibly called the Dream – will be made by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC and will be the first to use the open-source mobile-phone operating system.

    Android is expected to make it easier and more enticing to surf the Internet on a handset.

    Details about the phone’s pricing have not been released but T-Mobile is expected to subsidise part of the phone’s cost for buyers who agree to subscribe to the carrier’s mobile service.

    Google is anticipating higher advertising revenues from use of the software because of increased use of its Internet search engine and other services while they are away from the office or home.

    The iPhone is currently Google’s biggest source of mobile traffic but the search giant expects hundreds of different mobile devices to run on the Android system.

    The Open Handset Alliance, a group that includes Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm and Motorola, is billing Android as the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices.

    Handset manufacturers and wireless carriers are expected to be allowed to customise the platform, possibly introducing new services, internet applications and user-friendly interfaces.

    Sprint is also planning to produce an Android phone but that is not expected to launch until early next year.

  • iPhone Downloads Top 100m – Why Isn't Everyone Happy?


    More than 100 million applications have been downloaded from the App Store since the launch of Apple’s 3G iPhone two months ago.

    This landmark was announced today to a chorus of iPhone programmers voicing their displeasure over Apple’s unclear and seemingly arbitrary “approval” policy.

    Fraser Speirs, developer of the popular Exposure program for the iPhone, even went as far as declaring he would not make any further submissions to the App Store until sweeping changes were made.

    “I will never write another iPhone application for the App Store as currently constituted,” he said on his blog.

    He added that while he isn’t pulling Exposure from the store, he isn’t “going to invest time and money into new ideas for the iPhone until this mess is resolved”.

    Apple said today that more than 3,000 applications are currently available on the App Store, with over 90 per cent priced at less than USD $10 and more than 600 offered for free.

    However, its approval policy has already left developers of completed iPhone apps with programs they are unable to distribute after getting an official rejection letter.

    Among those refused recently is Podcaster, which despite following official guidelines fell foul of Apple because it duplicated iTunes’ functionality.

    This is despite other software – calculator and weather apps – that also duplicate Apple’s being approved.

    Another reject is Pull My Finger, which was judged to be too tasteless for customers.

    Null River has also finally received an official response from Apple about its tethering app, NetShare, which was pulled from the App Store twice.

    Apple has decided it will not be allowing any tethering applications in the AppStore.

    What is angering many developers is that even following Apple’s guidelines to the letter is no guarantee their apps will be approved.

    In Speirs’ words, “writing software is a serious investment of time and energy".

    Yet he says Apple’s “current practice of rejecting certain applications at the final hurdle – submission to the App Store – is disastrous for investor confidence”.

    “Developers are investing time and resources in the App Store marketplace and, if developers aren’t confident, they won’t invest in it.

    “If developers – and serious developers at that – don’t invest, what’s the point?” he asks.

    Speirs suggests Apple perhaps wants the App Store to be a “museum of poorly-designed nibware written by dilettante Mac OS X/iPhone OS switcher-developers and hobbyist students”.

    He adds: “That’s what will happen if companies who intend to invest serious resources in bringing an original idea to the App Store are denied a reasonable level of confidence in their expectation of profit.”

    Speirs goes on to make some suggestion for improving the current situation.

    With Apple celebrating the 100 millionth download mark it may be in no mood to appease disgruntled developers, but it would do well to pay some attention to their comments.

    Whoppee cushion apps may not be to everyone’s taste but taking an approach smacking of censorship has an equally bad smell about it.

    Please let us know your thoughts on the subject.