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Tag: iphone

  • Sky Takes Mobile TV to iPhone and iPod touch

    UK’s largest mobile TV service is now available for iPhone and iPod touch.

    Sky announced the availability of the Sky Mobile TV App on the App Store. The company has created a dedicated app for the service specifically for iPhone and iPod touch.

    The app allows users to stream live TV via WiFi and the channels available include all Sky Sports channels, Sky Sports News, Sky News, ESPN and At The Races.

    The app also allows to browse the Sky Mobile TV electronic programme guide for free and see what’s on over the next 24 hours. To view live TV, customers will need to subscribe to the Sky Mobile TV service for £6 a month and register for a Sky customer ID. The app is available for free.

    Sky Mobile TV was launched in 2005, and is the largest 3G mobile TV service in the UK, allowing customers to receive over 20 mobile TV channels. The service is currently available to 3G subscribers on 3, Vodafone, Orange, and T Mobile.

    Sky’s sports package already includes live matches from the Barclays Premier League, Scottish Premier League and Football League as well as European Tour Golf, Premiership Rugby and cricket.

    David Gibbs, General Manager for Mobile at Sky, said: “In less than a year we’ve already seen millions of downloads of Sky’s Apps from the App Store. Our new Sky Mobile TV App combines the demand for great live TV on the move with the high quality viewing experience offered by iPhone and iPod touch”

    “Sky Mobile TV offers more choice, control and flexibility for customers ensuring they can access the content they want, at a time that’s convenient to them, on the screen of their choosing,” he added.

    Other iPhone and iPod touch apps from Sky incluye Sky+ Remote Record, Sky News, Sky Sports Cricket Score Centre and Sky Sports Football Score Centre. According to the company, there have been 2 million downloads of Sky apps to date.

  • Sipera SLiC Makes Smartphone VoIP and UC Secure and “Business Ready”

    After demonstrating how easy it was to eavesdrop and record VoIP calls made over an unsecured WiFi network on the iPhone using open source software called UCSniff, Sipera Systems, which offers real-time Unified Communications (UC) security, released the Sipera Secure Live Communications (SLiC) mobility solution.

    As the smartphone market has exploded, hundreds of communication applications have been introduced that take advantage of WiFi and data services such as 3G, GPRS and other technologies.

    But these applications do not natively integrate into the enterprise security infrastructure, making it difficult for communications security managers to ensure communications privacy, data integrity, and other critical security requirements.

    As a result, employees are using unauthorized VoIP or other UC applications on their smartphones and violating privacy mandates and confidentiality rules, exposing themselves to eavesdropping, and increasing information security risks.

    Sipera claims SLiC solves the smartphone security challenge by “integrating the smartphone into the enterprise communications security infrastructure”.

    “The solution automatically authenticates the smartphone back into the enterprise PBX or call manager, ensures encryption of IP-based communications, enforces security policies in real-time and blocks threats or blacklisted callers,” the company says.

    According to Sipera, “delivering breakthrough enterprise-class communications privacy and security for Voice-over-IP and UC on smartphones, Sipera SLiC makes smartphone VoIP and UC >business ready<.”

    The company states SLiC is the industry’s first security solution enabling enterprises to “tame” the smartphone, permitting employees to use VoIP, UC, cloud telephony, and other low-cost and feature-rich communications applications on mobile devices with complete security and privacy.

    Sipera SLiC enables smartphone VoIP to include smart-card card authentication for accessing enterprise resources, providing unparalleled access control and communications privacy. It uses two-factor authentication with smartphone VoIP for enhanced access control.

    “Secure unified communications on the smartphone will revolutionize enterprise communications, dramatically improving company agility and employee responsiveness,” said John Lochow, President and CEO of Sipera Systems.

  • Nokia Sues Apple for Infringement of Nokia GSM, UMTS and WLAN Patents

    Nokia announced that it has today filed a complaint against Apple with the Federal District Court in Delaware, alleging that Apple’s iPhone infringes Nokia patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards.

    Nokia says the ten patents in suit relate to technologies “fundamental” to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards.

    “The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007,” according to press release.

    There ware no more details given to the public.

    "The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for," said Ilkka Rahnasto, Vice President, Legal & Intellectual Property at Nokia.

    "Apple is also expected to follow this principle. By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia’s intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation."

    Nokia informed the company has already entered into license agreements including the patents in suit with approximately 40 companies, “including virtually all the leading mobile device vendors, allowing the industry to benefit from Nokia’s innovation.”

  • What Do Consumers Do With Their Phones?

    A recent Canalys consumer study, which surveyed over 3.000 people across France, Germany and theUK, looked at what features consumers are using on their phones.

    The first conclusion is that the use of data services is limited outside of smart phone owners and that customers on SIM-only contracts consume more data than their pre-paid counterparts. “The results go some way to quashing the expectations that SIMonly customers will only use voice and text,” says Canalys.

    When comparing the usage habits of respondents with pre-paid contracts versus those with SIM-only contracts, usage was higher in every category for individuals with SIM-only packages.

    For example, 27% of SIM-only users regularly browsed web sites on their handsets compared with just 14% of pre-paid users. Equally, the number of customers accessing social networking services on their mobile phones was considerably higher among SIM-only users (16%) when compared with pre-paid users (7%). The use of e-mail was also greater among those who subscribed to SIM-only deals (23%) versus consumers on pre-paid tariffs (16%).

    According to Canalys, operators will hope that the uptake of data services will steadily increase across their subscriber bases. “The major challenge that operators face is ensuring there is a sufficient penetration of handsets that are capable of accessing connected services, a questionable factor, especially looking at the difference in usage between handset brands across data services,” the report says.

    The other conclusion is that social networking on mobile phones remains a relatively small, but growing service. The research shows that despite the large usage figures quoted by companies such as Facebook, usage of social networking in the mass market remains limited.

    Only 10% of end users regularly accessed this type of service from their mobile phones. iPhone users were by far the most active, with almost half regularly accessing social networking services. Figures for BlackBerry (27%) and HTC (23%) users were lower than those for Apple, but were still significantly above the average.

    “These results show that usage of social networking services is higher among smart phone users, and as the market leader in the smart phone market, it is fair to assume that usage on Nokia’s flagship products would be similar. Usage of social networking services across all of its products, however, was only 7%,” says Canalys.

    When looking at e-mail usage on mobile phones, BlackBerry owners were the most active with 68% regularly using e-mail on their handsets. Owners of handsets from Apple (67%) and HTC (53%) also used e-mail far more regularly than those who owned handsets from the leading vendors, where on average only 15% of end users were regularly using e-mail on their phones.

    Web site browsing also revealed contrasting usage patterns: 73% of iPhone users regularly browsed web sites on their handsets; 60% of BlackBerry owners and 56% of HTC owners had similar habits.

    Conversely, just 8% of Motorola owners regularly browsed web sites on their phones and, though web browsing was higher on phones from LG (18%), Samsung (17%), Nokia (16%) and Sony Ericsson (16%), it was still significantly below that of iPhone users.

    Navigation services were cited by 36% of end users as a feature that they wanted on their next mobile phone that they did not have today. The majority of respondents were keen to have an in-car turn-by-turn solution on their next phone.

    “But as many navigation solution providers are now discovering, it is not good enough just to supply the software. For in-car navigation to be successful on mobile phones the experience of portable navigation devices (PNDs) needs to be matched or exceeded. This means that car kits or cradles need to be supplied alongside the software at the time of purchase. In addition, events such as incoming calls and other alerts need to be handled in a way that provides minimal disruption to the navigation experience,” analysts conclude.

  • HD LCD TV with Integrated iPhone/iPod Docking Station Coming in November

    While looking for some nice gadgets at this year’s IFA, Biz-New.com came across Vestel’s LCD TV with integrated iPhone/iPod docking station. Barış Altinkay, Product Manager for Vestel, gave us a demonstration on the product as well as a short introduction to the company.

    Vestel Group is comprised of 24 companies operating in manufacturing, technology development, marketing, and distribution fields in the consumer electronics,digital technologies, IT and household appliances, with € 3.7 billion turnover.

    According to the company, they account for 21% of the total TV, 10% of the TLC TV, 25% of the digital set-top boxes, and 10% of the household appliances markets in Europe.

  • Internet On The Go: Interview with Deb Hall, Managing Director at Web2Mobile

    Web2Mobile is a company that specializes in making your content mobile ready for ease of use for your customers on the go.

    In the last 12 months we seen a lot change in the mobile market with a huge transition of users putting their mobile devices ahead of their laptops and desktop computers.

    Web2Mobile works with companies to strategize efforts to make the transition as easy as possible for both the company and the users will access that content.

    When asked whether companies understand the need to transition to mobile technology, Deb Hall states, “there is confusion on the term mobile marketing and what it entails and the opportunities it can offer.” To ease some of the misunderstanding, Web2Mobile specializes in creating a suite of tools that help to erase that confusion and make the client feel comfortable changing the format of their content.

    The tools created by Web2Mobile apparently make it easier for marketers or publishers to upload their content into Web2Mobile’s self serve system and convert it, making it mobile friendly. Being a service oriented business, it looks to reduce the costs based on consultants helping companies make the change and puts the power of the transition into the hands of the client themselves.

    “We’ve all seen content not formatted for mobility, such as bad email newsletters, unformatted websites, and this content just does not transition to the world of mobility,” says Deb Hall when asked about companies that think they can do it on their own. She made it a point to stress that there is a definite need to understand the difference between the normal web and the mobile browsers and that development for the two is very different.

    Deb Hall

    Deb notes that even on a personal level, using mobile devices create a difference in behavior in how we use and read content and how we interact with our devices. No longer are we worried about being at a desktop, nor do we have to worry about the life of a battery on a laptop. In the last ten months she notes that this transition has become more apparent as the iPhone, specifically, has immersed itself into the general populace.

    She also notes that “the mobile browsing space has increased as much as 400% month to month,” make it apparent that companies want to make it easy for the end user to use the devices and access their content. With the increase in wifi tethering, the ability to access content anywhere, and making the technology tools easily accessible to just about anyone, it’s not surprising to see such high numbers of adopters.

    Is the Western World Ready?

    There is a distinct difference in how the West uses mobile technology compared to our counterparts in the Far East. Our Eastern counterparts are using mobile technology for entertainment, streaming TV, music, maps, directions, and just about every basic need possible. The advancement of technology in mobility is leaps and bounds ahead of the West.

    In response to our conversation Deb Hall states that when “[she] worked for Yahoo mobile she noticed distinct differences in how both side of the globe use technology. There are behaviors that are distinct to each country. Pricing models are different and that drives the behavior.” She notes an example on how fast mobile technology picked up in the UK and how it was based on the nominal fee for use compared to Western pricing.

    There is no doubt that the West is slowly catching up with our overseas counterparts, but there is still a long way to go. Web2Mobile is doing it’s part to help companies understand just how important mobile technology can be to their business and eventually their overall bottom line.

    Key Points

    At what point does a company consider going mobile? It’s a matter of strategy, and companies like Web2Mobile look to help companies develop that strategy. When Deb hears the word strategy she thinks about how they are going into battle. The goal is to get their clients in front of as many people as possible.

    “How do we know we’re implementing the right strategy? It’s very important to determine the key objective, is it sales, awareness, or creating a good user experience? It’s all about prioritising,” Deb Hall says regarding the key points that must be identified.

    In all the studies done on mobile users it’s been determined that mobile users are more than likely to act on a call to action. The key then becomes how to make the call to action easy to find. It’s vital for companies to make their sites, emails, and advertisement mobile ready and easy to use.

    Tracking Metrics

    A key factor for a company is to know how much interaction is being done with their new mobile strategy. Metrics give good insights on the success of the campaign, and having access to those metrics can determine the direction.

    “One of the first questions we get when we work with new client is which platform they should be on. Should I be on an iPhone or Blackberry,” says Deb about the confusion of entering the mobile space.

    An inside tip that Deb shares with us is that most companies can evaluate what is happening on your current website and from there determine what devices are accessing your content. Based on those metrics you can better plan your mobile strategy based on those percentages of iPhone vs Blackberry vs any other mobile device.

    An example Deb gave was their involvement with the Masters Tournament. Based on the metrics they analyzed they were able to serve up distinct content to users on various platforms. This makes the content unique to each user experience and helps to build that relationship between the company and their end user.

    Web2Mobile is very excited with the involvement in FITC and hopes to interact with marketers, developers, and agencies and introduce them to their suite of tools. They look to share with all attendees what they are doing and hope that more companies understand the importance of making their content accessible via mobile devices, especially companies serious about extending their brand online.

  • Apple Ranks Highest Among Both Consumer and Business Smartphone Owners

    Overall satisfaction among smartphone owners has increased considerably over time as manufacturers continue to improve styling, feature sets, usability and software, according to the J.D. Power and Associates studies.

    Satisfaction among consumer smartphone owners has increased by 14 index points (on a 1,000-point scale) from just six months ago, while satisfaction among business owners has increased by 43 index points from 2008 as these devices have become more stylish, customizable and user-friendly, the report says.

    Among traditional mobile phone owners, overall satisfaction has declined by six index points from April 2009, likely as a result of heightened awareness among traditional mobile phone owners of advanced features available on smartphones.

    J.D. Power and Associates studies measure customer satisfaction with traditional wireless handsets and smartphones across several key factors. In order of importance, key factors of overall satisfaction with traditional wireless handsets are operation (30%); physical design (30%); features (20%); and battery function (20%).

    For consumer smartphones, key factors are ease of operation (30%); operating system (22%); features (21%); physical design (18%); and battery function (9%). For business smartphones, key factors include ease of operation (29%); operating system (23%); physical design (21%); features (16%); and battery function (11%).

    Apple ranks highest among manufacturers of smartphones used primarily for personal reasons, with a score of 811, and performs particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design. LG (776) and RIM BlackBerry (759) follow Apple in the rankings.

    Among customers who use their smartphones primarily for business purposes, Apple ranks highest with a score of 803, followed by RIM BlackBerry (724).

    LG ranks highest in overall wireless customer satisfaction with traditional handsets with a score of 723, performing well across all factors, particularly battery function, features and operation.

    The proportion of consumers who purchase more affordable smartphones (those costing less than $100) has significantly increased among most of the manufacturers included in the rankings, compared with the previous wave of the study six months ago. This indicates that wireless carriers are discounting their devices to attract new customers who are willing to pay for more costly service plans.

    "Attractive rebates or discounts offered to current smartphone owners, as well as incentives given to traditional handset owners to upgrade to smartphones, are effective ways for wireless carriers to generate revenue and increase market share," said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates.

    "It is important, however, that manufacturers meet the expectations of those taking advantage of such offers by ensuring the features are intuitive and ultimately rewarding to them in the long run. Providing an easy-to-use, yet powerful operating system with the ability to customize applications to suit owners’ individual needs is essential to providing a high-quality and rewarding wireless experience."

    The studies also find the following key wireless handset usage patterns:
    • Among consumer smartphone owners, 22 percent want Wi-Fi capability in their next handset, while 21 percent want touch-screen capabilities and 17 percent want GPS capability.
    • More than 40 percent of consumer smartphone owners report entirely replacing landline calling with mobile phone calling, while only 27 percent of traditional handset owners have done the same.
    • Among business smartphone owners, more than one-half report downloading third-party games for entertainment, while 46 percent report downloading travel software such as maps and weather applications-indicating business users are also integrating their devices into their personal lives. In addition, nearly one-half of owners (46%) report downloading business utility applications to increase productivity.

  • TomTom Presents Car Kit for iPhone

    Biz.News.com reporters navigated to TomTom’s stand at IFA 2009, where Sarah Schweiger, PR Manager for TomTom, gave them a brief introduction to the company: their main markets, competitors and challenges as well as newly released products, including long-expected car kit for iPhone scheduled to ship in the U.S. in October.

  • AT&T Enables VoIP over Its 3G Network for iPhone

    After “evaluating customers’ expectations and use of the iPhone compared to dozens of others AT&T offers,” the operator has finally taken the steps necessary so that Apple can enable VoIP applications on iPhone to run on AT&T’s wireless network.

    Previously, VoIP applications on iPhone were enabled only for Wi-Fi connectivity. At the same time, AT&T has offered a variety of other wireless devices that enable VoIP applications on 3G, 2G and Wi-Fi networks.

    In late summer, AT&T said it was taking a fresh look at VoIP capabilities on iPhone for use on AT&T’s 3G network, consistent with its regular review of device features and capabilities to “ensure attractive options for consumers.”

    In August Federal Communications Commission started the investigation asking both Apple and AT&T to clarify the reasons of the removal of Google Voice application from the App Store.

    Although we didn’t even know if the Google’s app would allow VoIP over AT&T 3G network, the company felt obligated to explain: “AT&T had no role in any decision by Apple to not accept the Google Voice application,” said Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president, external and legislative affaire.

    And the situation has changed. Dramatically changed. “iPhone is an innovative device that dramatically changed the game in wireless when it was introduced just two years ago,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets.

    iPhone users in the U.S. will now be able to use VoIP apps when they’re connected to AT&T’s 3G network.

  • Vonage Goes Mobile: Wi-Fi and Cellular Networks Low Rates Calls Available

    Vonage has launched Vonage Mobile, its first mobile calling application for smartphones. This free downloadable application provides seamless, low-cost international calling while on Wi-Fi or cellular networks.

    It’s available for download on the iPhone, BlackBerry and iPod touch.

    The app works with the existing mobile plans, what lets you keep your number, mobile device, existing contacts and mobile service provider.

    Vonage Mobile does not require any access numbers. You simply enter an international number or select a contact from the existing contacts on your iPhone or Blackberry, hit send and the app does the rest.

    When you dial an international number from your mobile device, your call is routed through the Vonage network. That way, you get their international rates and only use local minutes under your regular carrier’s plan.

    Obviously the app doesn’t support SIP calls over EDGE/HSDPA. International calls you make while being out of WiFi range but still having voice service, will be redirected to a local access number in the US – you’ll be then using your existing provider’s minutes while being charged Vonage Mobile’s discounted worldwide calling rates.

    "Our new mobile app is an important step in establishing Vonage as a software technology company that enables high-quality voice and messaging across any device in any location, providing great value over any broadband network," said Marc Lefar, CEO of Vonage.

    The company assures in the fourth quarter 2009, they will enhance the app to include the Vonage World plan that was introduced for home service in August. This enhancement extends the ability to make unlimited calls to over 60 countries for one flat monthly fee (at this moment – $25).

    According to Mike Tempora, Senior Vice President of Product Management for Vonage, when developing Vonage Mobile, the company focused on creating a more convenient alternative for customers who use calling cards or Wi-Fi only applications.