Tag Archives: Industry News

The latest Gartner figures show few surprises in terms of smartphone industry trends, but they will still be of interest to those who want to know what the next big thing will be.

• Android up from 9.6% to 36% market share
• Symbian down from 44.2% to 27.4% market share
• iOS up from 15.3% to 16.8% market share
• BlackBerry down from 19.7% to 12.9%

Microsoft has dropped from 6.8% to 3.6% (Windows Mobile to Windows Phone transformation) and the others make up a mere 3.3% (down from 4.4% last year.

None of this means a lot because the huge Android jump distorts the other figures greatly. iOS’s modest jump is impressive when Android is considered and RIM’s drop is maybe not a bad as it looks.

Sony really isn’t having the best of times at the moment and it looks as though it is going from bad to worse. It seems as though the password reset system has now been exploited by those who had the original details from the previous hack. I love my Nintendo Wii…

From Euro Gamer- “Eurogamer has seen video evidence that verifies reports that Sony’s PlayStation Network password reset system suffers from an exploit that allows attackers to change your password using only your PSN account email and your date of birth – information compromised in the PSN hack of 20th April.

Sony today made PSN sign-in unavailable for a number of its websites, including PlayStation.com and the PlayStation forums. All PlayStation game titles are also unavailable.

Crucially, the website users are directed to by password reset emails is now down.”

MGI has produced a report about big data which sounds like quite a dull subject, but a look at the PDF attached to this article is well worth it. There are some fascinating facts such as the fact it costs a mere $600 to buy a hard disk that can store all of the world’s music, 5 billion mobile phones were in use in 2010 and 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook every month.

Apple has proposed a new standardised SIM format that is even smaller than the current micro SIM that it uses in the iPhone 4 and iPad. I can understand why this might be needed considering that phones are getting smaller all of the time, but am wary of the next step which could well be towards embedding SIM cards. Not an idea I am fond of.

From Reuters- “The move by Apple to work with operators is symptomatic of warming relations as Apple, no longer a new market entrant, depends on mobile carrier subsidies to help it maintain high volumes of iPhone sales.

A spokesman for European telecoms standards body (ETSI) confirmed Apple had made the proposal for the new standard for SIM cards, but decision on starting the standardization work, which can take more than a year, was not yet made.”

Asda (for those of you in the US, think of Walmart) has started up a trade-in service for mobile electronics. The main interesting will come from the fact that Asda is promising to beat the prices offered by Mazuma, Envirofone, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Boots. However, at times eBay may still be the most profitable way to dispose of your old phone or MP3 player.

“Research conducted for the retailer indicates that Britons could be clogging up their cupboards and drawers with gadgets worth billions of pounds. The poll suggests there could be 35m old mobile phones, 11m digital cameras, 9m PCs, 5.5m laptops, 12m outdated games consoles and more than a million redundant satnavs lying around our houses. The trade-in value of mobile phones alone is thought to be in the region of £700m.”

2560×1600 pixels is a lot of pixels and even on a 10.1″ tablet will produce 300ppi. Samsung, who of course works closely with Apple, should be announcing such a display next week and who knows when we will see an iPad with the same type of display.

From Phone Arena- “The Society for Information displays (SID) show is opening up on Monday in Los Angeles for the whole of next week. Both Korean rivals Samsung and LG will be there, and Samsung already issued a stunner press release that it will be demonstrating “Retina Display”-like 10.1″ LCD screens with 300ppi, scheduled for production this year.”

Researchers in Switzerland have concluded that mobile phones kill bees. There are two problems with this story; how many times do people make and receive calls next to beehives and it is published in the Daily Mail.

“The noise produced by the bees increased more than ten-fold whenever a phone made or received a call – the noise dropped to normal level when the phone was off or on standby.

Mr Favre explained: ‘The bees’ noise drastically increases as soon as the phone rings – the rays from the phone and the noise clearly disturbs the bees.

‘This gives the bees the signal to leave the hive. But often they are so confused they fly to their death.”

The Daily Beast has summed up what appears to be a grubby attempt by Facebook to smear Google. Here’s the link.

“For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.”

HBO Go is proving to be mightily popular and has already been downloaded more than 1 million times by Android and iOS users. By all accounts it is working very well for most users.

From mocoNews- “HBO’s best production this year may not be a program. I had a few doubts at times with the browser version but HBO Go as an app is everything Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes promised with TV Everywhere and then some. Premium programming that might start to look like it costs too much when it’s locked in a TV looks like a much better deal when it’s available anywhere you are in a way that’s worth watching.

Trying to break some of my usual clicker patterns, the other night I downloaded the iPad version. In a matter of minutes I went from download to authentication through my DirectTV log in and into the first episode of Treme’s second season. I stopped a couple of times, opened the app again and was right back in. It’s not magic (sorry, Steve) but it is the kind of elegant solution users expect, especially for premium programs. Because it is SVOD, not linear, it also offers library programming on demand.”

For those of you who like to know what’s going on in the wider smartphone world, IDC has released the latest bundle of stats. Shipments are way up, but the market shares are changing dramatically.

Nokia, despite announcing its intentions to move from Symbian to Windows Phone as its primary smartphone operating system, maintained its leadership position in the smartphone market. Demand for Symbian-powered smartphones remained strong within its traditionally strongest markets of EMEA and Asia/Pacific, and the company continues to announce more devices running on Symbian, including the E6 and the X7. Still, as Nokia transitions from Symbian to Windows Phone, it may find itself in danger of ceding market share as the competition ramps up smartphone production.

Apple reached a new record shipment volume in a single quarter, and inched closer to market leader Nokia with fewer than six million units separating the two companies. The company posted market-beating year-over-year growth and recorded triple-digit growth in two key markets: the United States, with the release of its CDMA-enabled iPhone, and Greater China. Additionally, the company enlisted South Korean Telecom and Saudi Telecom as carrier providers of the iPhone.

Research In Motion remained solidly in third place from the previous quarter, as the company grew its presence outside of its home territory of North America. RIM has launched several 3G devices to the market, and recently announced two new BlackBerry smartphones running on its new BlackBerry 7 OS. Still, the majority of RIM’s shipment volumes have been comprised of older, lower-cost devices. The company expects this trend to continue into the following quarter.

Samsung posted the largest year-over-year gain of any other vendor on the list. With a multiple operating system strategy in place, Samsung has been able to grow its smartphone portfolio to meet the needs of a diverse market. Accounting for the majority of its smartphones and driving shipment volumes higher was the continued success of its Android-based smartphones, including the high-end Galaxy S devices and mass-market Galaxy Ace and Galaxy mini devices. Meanwhile, its bada-powered Wave devices and Windows Phone 7 devices continued to gain traction.

HTC posted yet another record shipment volume, nearly surpassing the ten million unit mark for the first time. Like other vendors, HTC announced multiple new devices, including the Facebook-optimized Salsa and ChaCha. In addition, the company launched several new devices, including its Inspire 4G, WiMAX-enabled EVO Shift 4G, and LTE-enabled Thunderbolt. These, along with its investment and developments on hardware, displays, and its HTC Sense layer have helped HTC differentiate itself further in an increasingly crowded market.

Vodafone customers will soon be able to pay for a cab with their mobile phone. The idea is very clever, and potentially very convenient, but I would be slightly wary of the resultant charges. Not that I am suggesting cabbies ever rip people off:)

From The Guardian- “You can navigate with it and do your shopping with it. But now you can add paying for a cab to the things you can do with your phone. Vodafone is introducing a scheme that allows customers of London black cabs who find themselves short of cash for the ride home to send a text with the vehicle’s licence number to a central code and the amount owed is charged to their phone account.”