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Ban still looms despite temporary truce after BlackBerry maker RIM grants authorities access to ‘secure’ data passed between devicesAfter weeks of standoff between south Asia and North America, the Indian authorities yesterday won limited access to data from BlackBerry smartphones. The 800,000 users of the devices in the country had been threatened with a blackout because of the Delhi government’s growing fear that militants could use the BlackBerry’s secure network to plot terror attacks without fear of being monitored.The authorities can now get access to some data. The arrangement will be evaluated for 60 days, but the prospect of a ban still looms large for Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian company behind the smartphones.India has also opened up a front against Google and Skype. The home secretary, GK Pillai, said the internet companies were being asked to set up servers in India so that the authorities there could monitor data.India’s moves underline the anxieties of emerging governments about the reach of western communications groups, and particularly the BlackBerry.The United Arab Emirates is threatening to block BlackBerry services by 11 October if it does not get access to encrypted messages. Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon are also reviewing the future of BlackBerry services in their countries; all cite security fears over the level of encryption afforded to communication sent between devices.However, this strategy risks alienating the very global businesses such countries are trying to attract, because the employees of multinationals increasingly rely upon BlackBerrys to conduct their day-to-day work.RIM’s problems – its shares have fallen to a 17-month low – lie in the way BlackBerry devices get access to the internet and email through secure centres around the world using specialist encryption.BlackBerry’s Messenger instant-messaging service and its email service have different levels of security, and email security depends on the server being used. Since the BlackBerry was launched 11 years ago, it has been the mobile phone of choice for business users and governments across the world. But RIM’s reputation for producing apparently impenetrable security for high-profile customers is at risk of being irreparably damaged by these new demands.Last Thursday, RIM said it would lead an industry forum on how to allow law-enforcement agencies to get access to communication networks while not encroaching on the security needs of private enterprises. That was all well and good, Indian government sources told Reuters, but the country wanted a technical solution – and quickly. “The government’s position does not change,” the source said. “We are hopeful [RIM] will come up with some solution.”Risk that RIM will lose users’ trustThe problem for RIM is that if it gains governments’ trust by giving them the means to see messages, it will probably lose the trust – and perhaps the business – of users who have previously relied on its security as a way of avoiding the government’s gaze.A university professor in UAE, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Guardian: “The issue has received a lot of coverage in the UAE, but nothing compared to the conversation ‘on the ground’. Since virtually every Emirati aged 17 to 40 owns a BlackBerry and uses the messenger feature constantly, this has been of great concern to them.”I’d guess that around 30% accept this is for security reasons, while the rest believe it to be, at the least, intrusive. The latter believe it to be a response to a number of fairly high-profile Emiratis being attacked, derided, vilified via the messenger broadcast service. Emiratis send many broadcasts daily, and gossip runs through the community like wildfire.”One of the biggest issues for the countries concerned is this messenger broadcast function. Allowing users to send one-to-many messages to everyone in their contacts book has proved an effective and galvanising way of spreading comment, and is often used as a vehicle for anti-establishment opinion – something UAE authorities are sensitive about. “The government walks a very thin line between appearing liberal and modern to the west, and traditional and Islamic at home,” the professor said. “This issue cuts to the heart of the impossibility of doing both at once.The professor, who has owned a BlackBerry for more than a year, said he would have no qualms in switching to another device if RIM’s concessions infringed his right to communicate without fear of government interception. “I can only presume RIM is aware of this and is treading carefully,” he said. “I have faith in the company, as it clearly does little for them to give up what makes the device so valuable – its security.”He added: “This has been called another public relations disaster for the UAE, and I fail to see how someone will not point this out to the rulers – and they are exceptionally concerned with remaining attractive in the eyes of western governments,” he added. “This has done them no favours with the business community internationally nor with the majority of locals and expats domestically.”Falling foul of authorityBeing on the wrong side of officialdom is not new to the Canadian manufacturer. Ironically, given the more recent bout of security concerns, three years ago the French government banned its officials from using BlackBerry devices, citing fears that communication could be intercepted by countries hosting the enterprise servers – namely Canada, the US and the UK. When Barack Obama took office in January 2009, the BlackBerry he had used on the campaign trail was replaced with one with extra security, approved by the US National Security Agency, which was concerned about people trying to tap it.Further east, security demands meant negotiations to take the BlackBerry to China and Russia took two years to resolve in both countries.Unlike Indian officials, who have slipped anonymous tidbits and soundbites to the news agencies, RIM has remained tight-lipped about its negotiations. In a rare public statement addressed to customers earlier this month, the Canadian manufacturer said it co-operated with all governments to a consistent level: “Any claims that we provide, or have ever provided, something unique to the government of one country that we have not offered to the governments of all countries, are unfounded.”The complexity and range of security solutions offered by RIM may be the source of the company’s friction with governments, said Leif-Olof Wallin, vice-president of the IT research company Gartner. “What seems to be the big challenge is that lots of BlackBerry service and infrastructure is not very well understood by the regulatory authorities or by its users,” Wallin said. “Although physically it is the same device, it can be used in lots of different scenarios.”Financially, Wallin said, a ban in India would have negligible impact on RIM’s global business, although the country was the second-largest mobile phone market in the world behind China. And RIM would emerge less tarnished than the countries involved.Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that there will be more than 600,000 BlackBerry sales in India this year and that India’s smartphone market will have reached approximately 12m – a figure forecast to grow to 40m by the end of 2015.”At the very last minute there will be an agreement in place,” Wallin predicted. “Banning BlackBerry devices in the country has significant implications affecting foreign diplomats, foreign enterprise executives. It would be a major inconvenience to lots of important allies.”Monitoring messages on a case-by case basisThat is not to say that the Indian or UAE governments will be given free rein to tap emails or messenger messages. “Our interpretation of RIM’s public statements is that the company is willing to facilitate mobile operators to lawfully intercept some messages,” said Wallin.”And BlackBerry will – on a case-by-case basis – be assisting network operators to decrypt BlackBerry Messenger, we think. With email between the BlackBerry and BlackBerry Enterprise Server, RIM simply does not have the capabilities to decrypt it, and the encryption key is unique to each user.”Though some of our clients are worried about what to do in case a ban is put in place, it looks like BlackBerry [manufacturer RIM] is benefiting from this as they’re not caving in – they’re being perceived as an honest secure company.”Gail Thompson, owner of a landscaping company based in Dubai and a BlackBerry owner, said the ill thought-out warnings were not atypical of Emirates officials. “I’m expecting them to backpedal on it,” Thompson said. “I’m anticipating that [the authorities will] issue a blanket mandate, then realise that it’s unworkable – that’s what I’m I’m hoping. I think they’ve had a kneejerk reaction to things.”They need to take into account that business people are coming into the country and [the UAE doesn't] need another hurdle in the economy,” Thompson said. “People are thinking that it’s ludicrous – we all understand that our emails and calls are monitored, it’s just part of our lives. I just think it’s a cultural thing out there.”But that thinking is not shared by all of UAE’s half a million BlackBerry users.A teacher who has lived in the region for 10 years and wished to remain anonymous said she would blame RIM “for caving into demands that compromise people’s privacy” if the manufacturer facilitated greater access to their emails.”There is no alternative but switching to another device,” she said. “If [RIM] allowed the government to intercept messages, I wouldn’t be sending you this email.”BlackBerryData and computer securityMobile phonesIndiaJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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16 to 24-year-olds particularly adept at juggling act, cramming nine and a half hours of media into six and a half hours of actual timeBritons are juggling several types of media at the same time to sate their appetite and leave enough time for everything else in their lives, the Ofcom study reveals.The average media consumer’s digital day is seven hours and five minutes. From breakfast radio to peaktime evening TV, via surfing and texting at home or at our desks, media takes up 45% of our time.The actual amount being consumed is even higher, Ofcom believes, with the boom in mobile computing helping Britons to multitask. “The ability of people to surf the web on their laptop while also watching TV has given people a licence to roam while staying connected,” said Peter Phillips, Ofcom’s strategy and market developments partner. A fifth of our media time is this kind of “simultaneous” consumption.Those aged between 16 and 24 are particularly adept at this juggling act, and are mopping up more media than any other age group. They cram nine and a half hours worth of media into six and a half hours of actual time – data that suggests the cliche of the youngster loafing in the lounge is an unfair one.”Sixteen-to-24-year-olds go out more, and spend less time watching TV,” Phillips commented. He also acknowledged that this multitasking can mean we devote less attention to any one media source, although this was more pronounced when using new technology. It appears we are simply better at combining reading, landline calls or TV watching with another activity without our attention drifting.Discovering that teenagers are happier than their parents to combine web surfing, phone calls, tweeting and TV is not exactly a revelation, and Ofcom’s research does show that some other truisms also still apply. The over 55s are still wedded to their TVs and radios (67% of all the media they consume), while computers, mobile phones and handheld gadgets make up 58% of 16- to 24-year olds’ media diet.But there are also plenty of surprises in this latest snapshot of the UK marketplace. The gap between the way different generations use old and new media is closing fast. For the first time, more than 50% of over-55s have broadband at home, and a third are sending and reading emails each day.There have also been some interesting changes in the importance people give to different media activities. Half of all adults said they would miss TV the most, up from 44% in 2005, followed by 15% who cited the internet (up from 8%) and 11% who would pine for their mobile phone (up from 10%). Hi-fi equipment and CD players have fallen most sharply in our affections with a mere 2% of people saying they would miss them the most, down from 13% four years ago. For the 16 to 24 age group, though, the mobile phone would be missed nearly as much as the telly.But the death of television as the dominant media platform appears to be far away as ever. TV continues to take centre stage in the evenings, partly due to the success of talent shows. However the box in the corner of the room is increasingly likely to be a high-definition flatscreen. More than five million households now have a HD set, up from 1.9 million in March 2009.”Television still has a central role in our lives. We are watching more TV than at any time in the last five years,” said James Thickett, Ofcom’s research director.While Simon Cowell can take some credit for maintaining the nation’s TV fix (measured at three hours and 45 minutes per day), another factor is the growing demand for time-shifted viewing, thanks to digital video recorders as well as catch-up TV services such as the BBC iPlayer or ITV Player.”The ability to watch what we want when we want it is bringing people back into the living room, said Phillips. Commercial broadcasters should not rejoice too much, though, as DVR owners have the option to skip through the adverts.While TV appears to have maintained its ability to hold our attention, 17% of viewing is still taking place alongside another media format – typically a computer or mobile phone.Smartphone sales have risen rapidly in the UK in recent years, up 81% in the 12 months to May. The research shows this led to much more media consumption “on the go”, although in many cases people appear to be heading straight for Facebook and staying there.The social networking site makes up 45% of the total time spent online on mobile phones during December 2009, Ofcom said. This may have been skewed by a surge of family photos or amusing Christmas party pictures, although the regulator also cited more recent data that illustrates Facebook’s remarkable “stickiness”.”The average user spent around six hours and 30 minutes on Facebook in May 2010, compared with nearly one hour 30 minutes for users of Google, and nearly two hours for users of MSN [Microsoft] services,” said the regulator. Twitter holds second place on the social networking ladder ahead of MySpace and LinkedIn, with traffic to its website up 56% in the past year.Increased adoption of high-powered mobile phones also means that more young people are abandoning their fixed broadband line.Ofcom’s research also shows the impact of the recession. Revenues in the telecoms industry were badly hit in 2009, falling for the first time since the regulator started tracking this data in the early 1990s. Ofcom said this was also due to increased price pressure as operators try to lure customers to take a bundle of services, and a tailing-off in the boom in mobile phone and broadband connections.With TV revenues contracting, it was little surprise that the amount consumers spend on communications fell again to £91.24 per month. Five years ago we spent an average of £100.71 per month. “Consumers are using communications services more – including phone calls, texting and the internet. Yet they are paying less despite getting more, partly through buying in bundles,” said Ofcom.Digital mediaSocial mediaSocial trendsOfcomInternetMobile phonesGadgetsGraeme Weardenguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Ever find yourself texting someone in the same house? I admit texting a dinner-time alert to save walking up three flights of stairs (it’s not a big house, just a tall one) and I’m not alone.Photo by katielips on Flickr. Some rights reserved.A survey by Best Buy (the US retailer started opening UK stores in the spring, don’t you know?) found 50% of us – and 69% of under 25s – have texted or emailed someone in the same house. (Which could mean young people use their phones more reflexively, are lazier or live in bigger houses.) Women are more likely to do this than men – 53% compared to 46% of men. Apparently calling out for meals is a regular message, so clearly women are still not emancipated from the kitchen. Digital storage space is now 40% more likely to cause family arguments than hogging the landline (do people still have landlines?), with 50% of us admitting to accidentally deleting stuff and 25% losing photos or contacts. (I lost 12 years worth of files, photos, artwork, emails – phone stolen, laptop died, back-up died, online backup expired. What are the chances?)Best Buy says 52% of us would chose to keep our internet access compared to 19% of us who’d prefer our washing machine, and for 38% of the under 35s, the laptop is the first device we go to when we get home. There’s a generational split between the under 35s and over 35s. Under 35s store most of their music and photographs digitally, but over 35s still have most content on hard copy. I copied all my CDs to an external hard drive and sold them on Amazon, but still have the vinyl, Lionel.Social networkingDigital mediaMobile phonesInternetJemima Kissguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Apple’s iPad is a ‘game changer’, says Rupert Murdoch – but Samsung is about to become its first serious competitor and others will not be far behindWhen Rupert Murdoch announced last week that Apple’s iPad was a “game changer” and would lead to hundreds of millions of so-called tablet computers being sold globally, it was not just the media world that nodded sagely in agreement. The technology industry is also gearing up for a world in which the desktop PC, laptop computer and smartphone are joined by a fourth member of the home computing family.With the same market foresight and cutting edge design that enabled it to revolutionise the smartphone market with the iPhone, Apple has given itself a commanding lead in this new market. But the iPad is about to have several new competitors, some of which will be made by companies that have scores to settle with Apple boss Steve Jobs, having seen him usurp their place in the mobile phone market.It is the very success that Apple had in the smartphone market and the reaction it has produced – especially from Google – that means Jobs will not enjoy the sort of lengthy market lead with the iPad that he has enjoyed with the iPhone.It is three years since the iPhone first appeared and only in recent months have serious competitors arrived. But with one of the first real alternatives to the iPad expected to be unveiled tomorrow in New York by Samsung, there will soon be devices able to compete with and perhaps even better Apple’s product.Speaking to Wall Street analysts as his News Corp empire announced its financial results on Wednesday, Murdoch said: “I think we’re going to see, around the world, hundreds and hundreds of millions of these [tablet] devices” and they are going to change the way that people consume the content created by his media businesses.”Murdoch himself reckons Apple will sell about 15m iPads this year and more than 40m by 2012, with more being made by other manufacturers. But estimates for the potential size of the market vary wildly. One thing is certain, these estimates will be wrong.A couple of months before the iPad launched, ABI Research estimated that 4m could be shipped this year, rising to 57m a year by 2015. But on the run-rate reached since the device launched in the US in April, Apple should exceed 4m this month. At the start of the year, research house Gartner reckoned 4m tablets would be sold this year – including the iPad. After the iPad’s success that estimate is now 14m.To put this into perspective, the tablet market is still small compared with the PC and the mobile phone markets. Sticking with Gartner’s figures, the 14m tablets in 2010 compares with an estimate of 1.4bn mobile phones and 366m personal computers.In financial terms, Generator Research reckons by 2014 Apple’s iPad business will be worth more than $17bn (£11bn), while the worldwide smartphone market will be worth $65bn and the laptop market $195bn.But while the figures for tablet computers may be comparatively small, the technology industry reckons tablets will fundamentally shape the way that consumers interact with digital content in the future. Getting in on the ground floor, so to speak, is crucial.As with so many technology fads, the industry has been here before. A decade ago, Bill Gates unveiled the Tablet PC and the following year told the Microsoft faithful that the new device would become the most popular form of PC within five years. Five years later, Microsoft was still trying. It teamed up with Intel and Samsung for Project Origami to work on smaller handheld digital media and gaming devices. They also failed to capture the public’s imagination.Apple, however, has got its timing right. Whether by luck or judgment, the iPad has emerged during a confluence of events. The ubiquity of broadband internet access in the developed world has created a generation of web users who want instant access and interactivity with media, from music and film to books and newspapers. The media industry, meanwhile, is desperate to move away from the mere “digitisation” of its traditional product so it fits on a PC screen and is ready to experiment with new formats. As the media industry explores new ways of creating content in order to generate new revenues, a tablet represents a perfect half-way house between the sit-forward world of the keyboard-based PC – where online advertising has so patently failed to deliver revenues – and the passive sit-back world of traditional circulation and display advertising-based print media.The iPhone and its host of imitators, meanwhile, have got consumers accustomed to the idea of using touch as their main point of interaction with content, rather than a keyboard and a mouse. Finally, the arrival of operating systems designed specifically for touch-based smartphones means manufacturers have something ready to use, rather than having to shoehorn into their tablet computers pared-down but still bulky “mobile” versions of PC operating systems.After the arrival of Apple’s iOS, when the first iPhone appeared, Google realised the mobile phone industry could not be relied on to create a viable competing software platform on its own. So it created its own operating system, Android.This year, sales of Android devices have already overtaken sales of iPhones in the US and sales in the UK are already up more than 300% as the result of just one new device, the HTC Desire. Worldwide, Android is expected to overtake iOS in terms of global smartphone shipments during 2012, according to forecasts from iSuppli. The company reckons Android will be used in 75m smartphones at this point, up from 5m last year, while iOS usage will be 62m units, up from 25m.Now Android is headed for the tablet market. The two biggest names in communications and software are both still lagging behind. Microsoft is unclear whether tablets should use its Windows 7 software – which does support touch – or base devices on its Windows Phone software, while Nokia has turned to Intel for help in creating new tablet software under the MeeGo brand.BlackBerry, meanwhile, has upgraded its software for touch and looks ready to explore tablets, while Hewlett-Packard recently bought Palm, which will provide it with a solid software base for the next generation of smartphones and tablets.”How long did it take for competitors to compete with the iPhone?” asks Carolina Milanesi, from Gartner’s mobile devices team. “You are talking three years. But with the tablet I really do not think that is going to be the case. A lot of the things that took time in the smartphone market are already there in tablets. We continue to see Apple dominating the segment for the next three years or so but you will see devices that are very close to the iPad very quickly.”iPadTablet computersAppleTechnology sectoriPhoneMobile phonesRichard Wrayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Back in May, Rupert Murdoch told investment analysts he would use a press conference “in about three to four weeks” to announce “an innovative subscription model” together with “a number of publishers, device makers and technology companies”.

The press conference never came. But that doesn’t mean News Corp (NSDQ: NWS) isn’t convinced enough of the chances online content subscriptions can work to make them a central pillar of its own business all by itself.


Photo by AMagill on Flickr. Some rights reserved

• About the same time, News Corp should have unveiled the subscription project, it made an alternative announcement… it acquired the IP to the Skiff e-reader platform…

• … And it took a stake in Journalism Online, the Steve Brill-Gordon Crovitz startup helping newspapers charge online. At the same time, John Houseman was appointed as president of News Corp’s digital journalism initiative, responsible for driving and managing new business efforts in “premium digital journalism”.

• The Times and Sunday Times newspapers websites relaunched and have become the first News Corp consumer titles to start charging. (News Corp acquired one of the most famed news subscription offerings in WSJ.com as part of Dow Jones and is expanding paid access to multiple devices.)

• iPad editions debuted for The Times (£9.99 a month) and The Australian, (AUS$4.99 a month) through iTunes in-app payments, each making a big splash initially and satisfying Murdoch’s big belief in mobility. The Times app has had some rocky moments with those in-app payments, with an unknown number of subs getting free months as a result.

• Hulu, in which News Corp has a stake together with Disney (NYSE: DIS) and NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), also launched its long-expected $9.99-a-month premium service for online, iOS and consoles.

• Fox Mobile offered up Bitbop, an unrelated subscription effort compared to Hulu for mobile.

• BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) took its iPhone TV app on to iPad, but at a premium – the same price as a satellite subscription.

• News Corp’s UK newspapers have been blocking the Meltwater search crawler for not paying one of two new licenses required for the privilege.

• And now MySpace Music is apparently considering adding a subscription music service.

There was no industry-wide consensus working together with News Corp, nor even any big joined-up News Corp-wide project apparent – no Times delivery bundled with a Sky TV subscription (as some folks speculated), for example. One partnership that News Corp is taking part in – Next Issue Media, often described as (what else) Hulu for magazines, finally appointed a chief executive but has yet to make any public progress toward an online subscription newsstand or advertising model.

But each of these developments reeks of “innovative subscription model”, just without the “number of publishers, device makers and technology companies” Murdoch described.

Murdoch’s suggestion did succeed in firing up a News Corp that already has ample experience building its own content businesses with continuous, multiple income streams. BSkyB is one of the most successful pay-TV businesses in the world, with average annual revenue per customer now at £503 ($769) a year, and Fox is well used to getting subscription revenue, albeit in the form of license fees from cable operators.

There’s little which links together any of these initiatives as far as consumers are concerned, and the model is often delivered in executed in different ways across the corporation’s many distinct media brands. But, inside News Corp, there’s an increasingly firm belief it can go on validating the recurring paid content model in its own image.

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Ofcom’s new code of practice will require providers to include information on all paper bills regarding consumer access to dispute resolution services

Mobile phone and broadband providers must notify customers that they can take their complaints to a free independent resolution service, under plans outlined by communications regulator Ofcom.

An Ofcom-approved resolution service has been available to consumers from two approved providers – the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS), and the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman (Otelo) – but last year 77% of consumers who failed to resolve complaints with their phone and broadband provider after 12 weeks did not know they existed.

From next year, communications providers will have to include information of the relevant dispute resolution service on all paper bills. They will also have to write to consumers whose complaints have not been resolved within eight weeks to inform them of their right to take their complaint to a dispute resolution service.

Nick Hutton, telecoms expert at Consumer Focus, said: “Each year, millions of customers experience problems resolving their complaints about phone and broadband services. Making it easier for consumers to find out about the help available to resolve their complaints is a positive step.

“A further welcome move would be for phone and internet providers’ complaints data to be published. If consumers could compare performance on complaints handling it would allow them to factor this into their choice of provider and act as a spur to companies to improve help for customers who have cause to complain.”

Ofcom research shows that dispute resolution services improve the outcome for consumers. Where complaints about mobile providers were not resolved within 12 weeks, 91% of complaints were subsequently resolved when taken to a dispute resolution service compared with 51% where the consumer did not go to a dispute resolution service.

Ofcom will also establish a code of practice with minimum standards for how providers must handle consumer complaints. The idea is that the code will provide consistency in standards and will give Ofcom powers to take action against providers who don’t treat complainants fairly.

The code will require providers to make sure the fair and timely resolution of complaints, and have procedures that are transparent and accessible so consumers can easily find out how to make a complaint.

Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards, said: “We want to make sure that when something goes wrong, consumers are able to find out easily how to make a complaint and can be assured that their provider will be able to handle their complaint effectively.”

The code of practice will come into force on 22 January 2011. The requirements to improve awareness of dispute resolution services will come into force on 22 July 2011.

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• Quarterly figures show steep like-for-like decline
• Underlying profits also down 27%
• Sales rise 1% but handset prices are cut

Profits at Nokia have plunged over the last three months as the company continues to struggle against rivals such as Apple and RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, in the smartphone market.

The Finnish handset maker reported today that profits fell 40% in the second quarter of 2010 compared with a year ago. Underlying profits were down 27%.

Although net sales were 1% higher at just over €10bn (£8.4bn), the profitability of its handset and service division slipped as the company cut the prices of its higher-end phones to make them more attractive to consumers.

Nokia’s failure to compete better against Apple’s iPhone and the growing number of handsets running Google’s Android platform has put chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo in the firing line. The company is reportedly looking for a replacement, with analysts warning that Nokia needs to get its hands on a “European Steve Jobs” if it is to regain its dominant position in the mobile market.

Kallasvuo called for an end to speculation over his future, telling the US television station CNBC that it is damaging the company. “There has been a lot of speculation on my position, on myself, during the last couple of weeks and that is not good for Nokia and must be brought to an end one way or another,” Kallasvuo said. “At the same time, I’m not in a position here and now to really shed any more light on the topic so I guess this is a no comment. I really concentrate now on the task at hand.”

Kallasvuo also insisted today that Nokia, which makes roughly four out of every 10 phones sold worldwide, had reasons to be optimistic, although the company is only aiming to maintain its share of the mobile device market this year. “The global handset market has continued to grow at a healthy pace, led by some of the less mature markets where Nokia is strong,” he said.

Kallasvuo added that solid sales of cheaper phones to developing markets had boosted the overall performance of Nokia’s handset business.

The average selling price of a Nokia handset dropped to €61 (£52), from €62 in the previous quarter. For smartphones, average prices fell 8% quarter-on-quarter to €143, and are down 21% over the last year.

Today’s figures suggest that Nokia is having to cut smartphone prices to maintain market share at the expense of profitability. Its smartphone shipments were up by 12% quarter-on-quarter at 24m units, in line with Nokia’s estimate for the overall growth of the market.

The company is now pinning its fortunes on the new Nokia N8 smartphone, although its release has already been delayed until later in the year.

Nokia also maintained its prediction that the global handset market volume would grow by 10% this year.

Earlier this week, Apple reported its best ever quarter, partly due to strong demand for the iPhone.

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Nokia has published its second-quarter results, revealing a 40 per cent slump
in profits compared to the same period last year.

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Industry experts have heavily criticised the decision to delay the rollout of
universal broadband by three years, likening it to giving the UK no more than
dial-up technology compared with its global competitors.

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Early experiences by various testers show growing interest in new interface experience from Microsoft – but excitement is restrained

The early previews of Windows Phone 7 – for which reference hardware has started shipping to developers – are in. What to make of them? I think the best way to describe them would be a crouching ovation: people who’ve tried it like the fact that Microsoft is trying something different with the mobile experience, but they really can’t decide if it’s going to be a success or not.

Engadget’s in-depth preview (an intriguing concept) is sort of positive: “Microsoft still has a few months before it intends to get the first volley of Windows Phone 7-based products to the marketplace, but we’ve recently been provided with reference hardware — a not-for-retail Samsung called “Taylor” that’s closely modeled on the Symbian-based i8910HD — to get a feel for where they’re at as the clock ticks down.”

Quick briefs: “We were extremely surprised and impressed by the software’s touch responsiveness and speed. In fact, this is probably the most accurate and nuanced touch response this side of iOS4. It’s kind of stunning how much work Microsoft has done on the user experience since we first saw this interface — everything now comes off as a tight, cohesive whole. It really put one of our major fears about Windows Phone 7 to rest. We haven’t seen any substantial lag while using the device, and the short transitions between applications or pages are well suited to the overall experience.”

Although: “the controversial cut-off text is still present, and while we happen to like the way it looks, it’s definitely an acquired taste, and there are times when it just doesn’t work, like in the Office hub where PowerPoint looks like it reads “PowerPoir.” And two other things: “There are two big omissions here, in our opinion. The device won’t support copy and paste, and won’t support third-party multitasking of apps. We knew this would be the case given what we heard at MIX10, but it doesn’t stink any less now. The former really doesn’t make any sense to us, especially since Microsoft did a good job of nailing text editing and selection (at least in Word, and really… you guys make Word), and it looks like it would only be a short walk to a contextual pop-over for copy and paste functions. The latter is practically inexcusable in this day and age — even Apple (which has been a complete laggard in this area) now supports basic multitasking.”

But they like the keyboard (“the keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is really, really good. We’re talking nearly as good as the iPhone keyboard, and definitely better than the stock Android option. It’s one of the best and most accurate virtual keyboards we’ve used on any platform — and that’s saying a lot”) and screen resolution (“the Windows Phone 7 standard 480 x 800″).

Then again, there are points where Engadget’s not so happy, which tallies with some of the doubts I expressed earlier (though I must point out that I’ve not held a WP7 phone, nor seen it demoed): “Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have “contacts,” per se — it has a People app, and there’s quite a difference. This is a thoroughly social platform, and it doesn’t really seek to make any sort of differentiation between people you talk to / text / email, those you just casually observe, and those with whom you’re “friends” in name only. If that kind of philosophy reeks of Motorola Blur or Palm Synergy, you’re on the right track; as soon as you add a Windows Live, Exchange, or Facebook account, it pulls in every contact associated with that account and disperses associated content throughout your entire phone — there’s nothing you can do about it. That means, for example, that your Pictures app could have a bunch of shots of your ex’s aunt’s new boyfriend’s dog in it (more on that in a bit), and there’s not a whole lot you can do to stop that behavior without completely removing your Facebook account from the phone.

“With Exchange, this strategy is probably fine in most cases — contact sync is one of the main reasons you use Exchange ActiveSync, really — but seriously, Facebook is another matter altogether. If you’ve got a lot of Facebook friends, this renders your People app all but useless as a traditional phone contact list.”

Over at ZDNet UK, there’s another preview which goes (like Engadget) into plenty of detail: “Microsoft has stripped away all unnecessary information (almost too much, actually — the status bar displaying battery life, signal strength, and so forth goes into hiding after a couple of seconds) and soft buttons, and created a Start screen that consists of ‘live tiles’, which are essentially dynamic widgets to your favorite apps, contacts and hubs, and also display alerts, such as new email and missed calls. You can rearrange the order of the tiles and remove them by doing a long press on the screen. You can also ‘pin’ new tiles, but to do so, you must first navigate to the list of apps or the People hub, find the item that you want to add and then pin it to the Start screen.”

OK, and those hubs… “The names of the hubs are pretty self-explanatory. For example, the People hub merges contact information from your various accounts and then displays them in one long list. A swipe to the right will show you Facebook status updates (unfortunately, Windows Phone 7 will not have Twitter or MySpace integration at launch) and lets you add comments, while another swipe will brings up the people you’ve contacted most recently.”

“This type of panoramic UI runs across all the various hubs with bold, attractive text splashed across the top to identify different subsections (a.k.a. Pivots) and in some cases, a small contextual toolbar along the bottom of the screen to help you perform app-specific tasks.”

“Some might complain that this type of navigation requires too much scrolling and can be overly complicated. Admittedly, this is true when compared to Apple’s iOS 4 and Google’s Android, and may be a turn-off for consumers. On the other hand, we appreciate the ability to do so many things from one place without having to launch several different apps, so we have to give Microsoft kudos for thinking of this kind of organisation. We also like the consistent UI, which makes it easy to work the other hubs.”

Another point which has been made elsewhere: “What’s interesting about Windows Phone 7, though, is that at times it feels as though you’re getting two completely different experiences on one phone. The Start screen/menu list and some apps — such as the phone dialer, email inbox and calendar — are completely minimalistic, while other aspects of the phone, including the aforementioned hubs and multimedia features, are more sophisticated and elegant. It doesn’t hurt the navigation, as such, but is doesn’t make the phone feel like a cohesive unit either.”

And the big question: “Will this resonate with users? Frankly, we think it’ll be a hard sell initially. Despite all the improvements made to the UI, it’s still more involved than other operating systems. That said, we’d also caution you not to dismiss it completely, simply because it’s different. Change is scary, but it can also be a good thing.”

It’s a long review, which you’re urged to read in detail.

Meanwhile the Wired Gadgetlab has put its sticky fingers all over the screen: here’s the video. Their principal comment: “Still the lack of any kind of real app store is a major hindrance. Also, Microsoft just will not give up on the Zune marketplace. It’s admirable, but maybe they should re-examine their reasoning for keeping it.” But surely the Zune Marketplace is Microsoft’s leg up to an App Store? Abandoning it would look weird.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, all, android, App Store, apple, best, comments, compare, compared, consumer, email, gadget, google, HD, iphone, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, moto, motorola, new, palm, phone, phones, review, reviews, sam, samsung, sim, sol, test, tmobile, Touch, twitter, uk, update

Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer, certainly thought so. So we thought it might be worth a point-by-point comparison

Comparisons are odious. That’s why it’s usually journalists and marketing people who indulge in them. So indulge me while I pick some apart.

Quoth Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer – the man who makes sure that the money is coming in right, who makes sure that the wheels of the company’s bank accounts are turning fast enough to satisfy shareholders – earlier this week: “One of the things that I want to make sure that you know today is that you’re going to be able to use the Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you’re holding it to make a phone call.” He said it at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, adding: “It looks like iPhone 4 might be their Vista.”

Though Turner wasn’t to know it, Apple was even then preparing its press conference to explain what (if anything) it was going to do about the whole iPhone 4 reception issue. 22 days after the release of the iPhone, Jobs led a press conference explaining that anyone who’d bought an iPhone 4 could have a free “bumper”. (The office joke: 1 day to diagnose the problem, 21 days to prepare and rehearse the presentation.) Those reception problems? Common to all phones, insisted Jobs, who deflected lots of questions in his customary expert way.

That leaves the “PR experts” who earlier this week told Cult of Mac that Apple would have to recall the iPhone 4 looking pretty stupid. Because they were stupid. Pause for a moment and remind yourself: on what grounds are items recalled? Oh yes, when they cause injury or death, or pose a hazard to the public. Losing your data reception because you (avoidably) covered the exposed antenna definitely likes in the category that Twitter calls #firstworldproblems. The idea that Apple would recall a device on that basis is simply laughable. In every newsroom, there’s a point early in the day when your news edior asks you what’s going to happen over some scheduled story: on Friday morning (UK time, before Cupertino was yawning and turning the alarm off) I was asked what would come out of the Apple press conference, and I said that Apple would portray problems with antennas as common to the entire industry, that it would offer free bumpers or cash refunds, or a full refund for anyone who wanted them, and that there was no chance of a recall. Do you think I qualify as a PR expert on that basis?

But let’s go back to the eminently sane and reasonable Kevin Turner. In his speech, he acknowledged that in the areas both of Vista and mobile phones, Microsoft had a bad patch. He’s happy now to praise Windows 7, and is full of expectation for Windows Phone 7. (Others differ, of course, but we have to wait and see.)

However, the idea that the iPhone 4 might be Apple’s “Vista”? Let’s try the comparisons.

Vista: fell seriously behind schedule, requiring Jim Allchin to take the project through a “reset“.
iPhone 4: released on the schedule everyone expected, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Vista: dropped much-promised features including WinFS as part of the “reset”.
iPhone 4: we don’t know what features were planned for it; we only know what we got, which is a ceramic case to (try to) improve signal reception, and a screen with a remarkable pixel density.

Vista: met enormous resistance from consumers, who couldn’t understand why it looked and ran so differently from its well-received and hugely popular (if insecure) predecessor, Windows XP.
iPhone 4: sold 1.7m in first three days, of whom 75% were owners of the previous version, according to data on both sides of the Atlantic from Bloomberg and AQA.

Vista: met even greater resistance from Microsoft’s main customers in enterprises, who didn’t like the fact that it didn’t run a lot of the software that ran on Windows XP.
iPhone 4: ran any and all apps that ran on previous iPhones and/or iPod Touches.

Vista: offered substantially greater security and reliability than predecessor.
iPhone 4: offered the same security and reliability as predecessor, plus cooperative multitasking.

Vista: was the subject of a court battle which exposed internal emails from Microsoft, revealing disquiet inside the company over OEM PCs which described themselves as “Vista-ready” even though they would not be able to run any but the lowest-specified versions of Vista.
iPhone 4: is the subject of a claim by the Wall Street Journal that people within Apple knew about problems with the antenna, but that Jobs nixed their criticisms because he liked the design. At the press event on Friday, Jobs called this “total bullshit”. Decide for yourself who’s telling the truth.

Vista: Microsoft never “apologised” for Vista, since it didn’t feel the need to.
iPhone 4: Jobs admitted that “we’re not perfect” but then added that nobody is. You’d be hard-pressed to really call it an apology.

Vista: Wouldn’t run on some Microsoft execs’ machines when they tried to upgrade them.
iPhone 4: Worked OK – though some people updating older phones have had problems with the latest (iOS 4.0.1) update “bricking” them.

So on balance, is the iPhone 4 really like Vista? It’s hard to overstate how monumental a screwup the development of Vista was. The entire development had to jettison key elements, such as WinFS (for search), and try to focus on getting the operating system out of the door. And as soon as it was released, people started complaining about its weird user interface experience; which led a Chinese Australian to set up a site where people could unload about it. (He was snowed under within days.) It’s still worth looking at that site, and seeing whether the points that people have made there have been fixed in Windows 7.

In short, the iPhone 4 antenna issue isn’t Apple’s “Vista moment” – despite what Turner might wish. It’s an annoyance to people who’ve spent that money, but Jobs’s numbers about the low level of returns (1.7%) compared to the 3GS (6%) – which will be pored over by analysts, and will have the force of a financial statement, meaning that if Jobs has fibbed then he’s theoretically liable to be hauled in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission – indicates that unlike Vista, users are actually very happy with it. (That’s also the anecdotal response I’ve had on Twitter.)

Sure, you might be annoyed, if you queued overnight or for hours in the baking sun, that the phone isn’t perfect. But there are lots of phones; personally I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad, because presently I think they’re too expensive for what they offer. You could easily choose another. The snark on view on Twitter indicates, to me, a strange sort of envy on the part of many people; a desire to see a company brought down because of its hubris, rather than its failings.

Certainly, Apple has never wanted for hubris, but it does try to live up to its own aims.

But what about the company that made Vista? There are still challenges ahead for Microsoft: the fact that Google is winning Office customers over to its much cheaper Google Apps products (something that Turner alluded to in his speech – search for the first mention of ‘Google’); the fact that it is only managing to grow its Bing search engine share by spending $1 for every $1 of business it brings in; the fact that Windows Phone 7 remains an unknown quantity which the company has all but staked its reputation in the mobile market on. (Sales of Windows Mobile licences, the previous generation, are dwindling; it would be interesting to see what the licensing revenue is for them. Apparently HTC, once – possibly still – the biggest licensee of Windows Mobile is going to go with Windows Phone 7 – though it seems to be doing rather nicely out of Android at present.)

Lastly, the point that so many people overlook about Apple relates to its ambitions for the iPhone. These are rarely stated. When Steve Jobs launched it in 2007, he said the ambition was a 1% share of the entire phone market: “10 million units and we’ll go from there.”

That’s not the sort of barnstorming that you expect from most companies; they talk about capturing huge chunks. Apple wasn’t looking to get huge share. But you can bet that, being Apple, the plan was to make a lot more than 1% of the profit out there. Apple doesn’t necessarily want to dominate the market for smartphones (though it would certainly be happy to do that, just like the market for digital music players, where it effectively has a monopoly). It just wants to dominate all the profit. The cost of issuing these free bumpers to iPhone owners is going to be about $50m at the most (assuming 5m buyers and a $10 cost to Apple for the whole transaction.) The issue might have cost it more – but you can bet it’s not going to stop it rolling on. That’s perhaps the only way in which the iPhone 4 is really like Vista: it’s not going to stop the next stage of its ambitions.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, 3gs, all, android, apple, cheaper, compare, compared, comparison, consumer, email, free, google, HTC, iphone, latest, lg, marketing, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, released, returns, room, sam, sim, sol, storm, test, three, Touch, twitter, uk, update, world

Firm offers free covers to owners and new buyers after signal problems sparked demands for recall

Apple’s iPhone 4 conference – as it happened

Apple is offering a free rubber “bumper” to owners of the iPhone 4 to head off criticism over problems with its signal reception but dismissed suggestions that the device should be recalled.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said the problems had affected only “a small batch” of phones, and that it was due to an “inherent problem” with smartphones. “We’re not perfect,” he said at a press conference at Apple’s HQ in Cupertino, California. “We haven’t figured out a way around the laws of physics yet.”

Nevertheless Apple will offer the “bumpers”, which cover the sides of the phone, around the exposed metal antenna which receives the mobile signal. When users have held the phones by the bottom and left sides it has led to a loss of signal. People who have already bought a case are entitled to a free cash refund.

Jobs headed off the suggestion that Apple would have to recall the phone, following a media storm which had seen some compare the problems to those faced by Toyota, whose cars suffered problems with the accelerators and brakes. However the iPhone has not met any of the usual criteria for a product recall, such as spontaneously combusting or causing harm through heat or emission.

Jobs revealed that Apple has sold 3m of the iPhone 4 since its launch on 24 June. That indicates that the rate of sales has slowed dramatically, after 1.7m were sold in the first three days. But he insisted customer satisfaction was higher than with previous versions: the return rate was just 1.7%, he said, compared to 6% for the previous model, the iPhone 3GS released last summer.

The company said it cannot make enough bumpers to satisfy demand, but will keep the offer of the free case open until September.

Jobs admitted that there had been complaints about the phone losing signal when held by the left and bottom sides – but said that they were natural for any phone. He acknowledged they were not perfect but insisted that every phone manufacturer had problems with antenna design and interaction with the body’s tendency to absorb the phone signal. Apple’s stock rebounded as Jobs began speaking at 6pm UK time last night.

Apple’s share price fell by 4% overnight on Tuesday, knocking $9.9bn (£6.5bn) off the company’s $230bn value, as speculation grew that the phone might have to be recalled.

Since the iPhone 4′s launch, there have been many complaints about the way that the signal appears to drop off dramatically when it is held with a hand wrapped around its left and bottom sides (a problem dubbed the “iPhone Death Grip”).

Apple this week said that it had made a “simple and surprising” error in the software that displayed the strength of the signal, and on Thursday night issued a software update which changes how many bars are displayed when the signal becomes weaker.

The iPhone problems now feature in dozens of jokes. Earlier this week Kevin Turner, the chief operating officer of Microsoft, spoke at a conference about its Windows Phone 7 software.

“One of the things that I want to make sure that you know today,” he said, “is that you’re going to be able to use the Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you’re holding it to make a call.”

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, 3gs, all, apple, apple iphone, Apples, compare, compared, free, iphone, iphone 3gs, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, released, sim, sol, storm, three, uk, update

Plus development of “motoring masterclass” iPhone app costs only slightly less than brand new Audi TT Roadster, and you might be closer to Kevin Spacey online than you think

Enjoy the latest smattering of links, as picked by the Technology team

Dev aims to get Frash running on iPad >> CNET News
Canny developer brings out Frash – an application for jailbroken iPads allowing use of Flash in Safari. We await the tests on battery life etc.


Photo by mikealex on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Government spends thousands on iPhone apps >> BBC News
Freedom of Information request reveals iPhone app development costs ranging from £10,000 to £40,000 – a proposed DVLA “motoring masterclass” app (still in development) costing £40k.

On Twitter, a close-knit network >> New York TimesTell all of your friends: 98% of Twitter users are within six degrees of connection from each other.

Sony drops eBook reader prices – but UK still sky high >> PC Pro
No comment from Sony on why, despite UK price cut, we’re still getting a bum deal compared to our Stateside friends.

Everything you need to know about the fragmented mobile developer ecosystem >> TechCrunchVision Mobile’s extensive Developer Economics research report has some interesting findings, worth bookmarking for later reference. Interesting findings, for example, like app stores having reduced the average time-to-shelf by two thirds, and reduced the average time-to-payment by more than half.

Chrome OS gets ready for gaming >> ReadWriteWeb“Web browsers, like IE, Chrome, Safari and Firefox, haven’t traditionally been able to detect which way is up. That may soon change for Google Chrome”

The unstoppable “tech support” scam >> PC Pro
PC Pro investigate a cold-calling scam reportedly affecting UK PC owners.

Strong sales lift HTC profit 33% >> Wall Street Journal
Second-quarter unaudited net profit for the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer was $268m, up 33% year-on-year.

Facebook, Twitter, web enrich social lives, says Pew >> eWeek
“A survey by Pew and Elon found that 85 percent of 895 “technology stakeholders” and pundits agreed that the Internet has mostly been a positive force in peoples’ social lives.”

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, App Store, bbc, compare, compared, deal, free, google, government, HTC, iphone, latest, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, moto, new, phone, phones, prices, sony, survey, test, twitter, uk

Subscribers to discount website Groupola can pick up handset for £400 less than Apple charges – if they are quick enough

A discount website specialising in ‘city deals’ is offering users the chance to purchase the new Apple iPhone 4 on 1 July for just £99, compared to the £499 Apple charges . Groupola.com only has a limited number of handsets available and is offering them exclusively to its email subscribers.

It says it is able to offer such low prices because it relies on group-buying to regularly offer discounts of up to 90% on events and products across the UK’s major cities and tourist attractions.

O2 is selling the 16GB iPhone 4 for £209 if you sign up to an 18-month contract and spend £30 a month, while Vodafone wants £219 for the 16GB version if you also spend £30 a month for 18 months. You can compare packages here.

Mark Pearson, managing director of Groupola, says: “Given that the iPhone 4 sold out through pre-orders alone in just 48 hours through the Apple store, we thought it was only right to offer loyal Groupola.com discount hunters another bite of the cherry. We’ve proved that the concept of group buying can work within the UK.”

To purchase the iPhone for £99 you need to be an email subscriber, so you’ll need to visit the site and sign up to receive daily alerts. You will be sent a link on 1 July which will allow you to purchase the phone on 2 July on a first come, first served basis.

“My advice is to open the link the second the clock ticks over at 9.30am – by 9.31am you may already have been too late,” adds Pearson.

The firm has admitted that the deal is a loss-leader and there is only a limited number of phones available. It has also said that people can easily unsubscribe from the daily alerts should they wish to.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, apple, apple iphone, charges, compare, compared, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, email, iphone, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, new, o2, phone, phones, prices, sol, uk, vodafone

The transcript of the phone call earlier this week with Google’s chief reveals the real signals he’s sending out: Android wants to be the Windows of mobile phones

Android is getting too big to ignore. Photo by mathrock on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Below is a transcript (taken with shorthand, contemporaneously) of a conference call with Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, on 23 June. There may be some inaccuracies. After that, there is an analysis of what Schmidt said – and where the mobile market is.

Also on the conference call were journalists from Germany, the UK and Brazil. I won’t indicate here who asked what questions; see if you can work it out.

Call begins

Eric Schmidt: Verizon is just announcing the Droid X made by Motorola, its fourth Android phone. We have seen a tremendous increase in the adoption of Android. This is one of the best phones ever made, on the very fastest network.

We’ve now got 160,000 new users per day. That’s a 60% increase per month [compared to the 100,000 figure per day that was given at the Google I/O conference in May]. If you get an increase like that going on, well, I’ve done the maths, and it looks like an incredible trajectory.

[That equates to 58m per month, a 60% increase month-on-month would mean that by the end of the year there would be about 16m Android phones being activated every day, or 480m per month - which doesn't really sounds feasible. Obviously it is going to tail off or even slow down at some stage.]

Counting the number of apps, there are 65,000, compared to 50,000 a month ago. So the growth is accelerating. OK, questions?

Q: How large is Android in the US market and European market compared to the iPhone, because it hasn’t done too well in Europe?

ES: I prefer not to talk about the iPhone as a competitor. The growth rate is very very strong, but I don’t think it’s really appropriate to make claims about market share.

Q: What’s driving that acceleration?

ES: having multiple hardware partners – LG, Samsung, HTC, Motorola. The thing is it’s a totally open platorm, so open that the source is available too. Any application can run on Android as long as it doesn’t damage the network.

Q: Android is lagging in Europe compared to the US – why do you think that is?

ES: I don’t know that it’s lagging; I would have to look at the numbers. It was launched first in the US but we have enough European partners. The Droid phone was a big driver.

Q: Have you made any contacts with Nokia to discuss Android on Nokia?

ES: We have talked to everybody… I don’t want to talk about any specific companies. [A rather odd response which tailed off amid expectation.]

Q: What sort of revenues are you seeing from Android?

ES: We make zero from it. Because it’s free. (Q: but you get advertising revenue from it…) We don’t break out what our mobile advertising revenues are… [in general] we make money when people have powerful broadband devices so we invest in Android so that people can invest in it. But our mobile revenue growth is very very quick.

We know that there will be a great deal of money made in ads from the mobile industry.

Q: Do you think Android can become for mobile what Windows was for the PC?

ES: well, the thing about Android is that anybody can use it.. Android in many ways is better than Windows because it’s free, rather than Windows which had an ever-increasing price point. So anybody can build on Android, and it’s free.

Also Android has GPS and a full media stack [possibly misheard], so it can do things that even the ordinary PC doesn’t have and might never have.

Q: Who is your biggest competitor in this fight – Apple, Nokia, who?

ES: I try to spend time not focussing on those questions. Nokia has the largest market share, certainly. Apple, I was a proud board member there, I respect them. Nokia and Apple are both highly organised to be competitive.

Q: Isn’t a problem with Android that of fragmentation of the platform – that some handsets can’t update from earlier versions either because of the networks or the phones, so people are stuck on older versions which means you’re trying to cope with a broad range of versions?

ES: That’s a very good question. The first thing to say is that the networks are quite interoperable. Some phones shipped a year ago can’t be upgraded. But most can be, to 2.2, though it might take some months to roll out.

The argument about fragmentation has been used by competitors of open source for years. But we agree to support compatibility at the platform level. It’s important to understand this. Android apps will work on the current generation; any Android app written for one version will run on any phone with that version. That prevents fragmentation. Apps are written on a per-OS basis. But of course not every app written for any version will run on every version of Android – otherwise the platform couldn’t evolve.

Q: A team at Larva Labs estimated that while Apple has paid developers $1bn from App Store revenues, the comparable figure for the Android Marketplace is about $200m. Is enough money going to developers to make Android attractive?

ES: Well, I haven’t seen those figures, so I can’t talk to them. The thing is, developers go where the volume is. That’s the most important lesson from platform economics. It’s about scale and volume. It’s very important that developers get to a scale where they can see the ability to get to a very large audience. We believe we have done so.

Q: We’ve seen other companies talking about Android-based tablets – does Google intend to produce a tablet running Android?

ES: We’ve seen a number of announcements from other companies about tablets running Android. It’s a reasonably obvious product extension that people have announced. We haven’t announced any form of Google tablet.

[end of interview]

Analysis: the timing of this announcement – on 23 June, just as Apple’s iPhone 4 was reaching its first customers – was clearly aimed at taking some of the shine off the iPhone announcement by implying that even if Apple activates 1m iPhones in the first sales burst, Android will almost match that in a working week. (Do the maths.)

That of course leaves out all sorts of maybes, gotchas and provisionals: are the activation figures volatile? What’s the churn like – how many of the activations are new customers, and how many are renewing customers? An interesting calculation from the analysts Piper Jaffray, via Fortune suggests that (in the US, at least) 77% of iPhone 4 customers were existing iPhone users.

You can look at that two ways: what an enormous number of renewals! Or you could look at it from the other end: wow, Apple grew its customer base for first-day iPhones by 23% – among people who had to wait in enormously long lines. What’s the last consumer product you recall people queueing through the day for? I recall how Microsoft managed the hype machine perfectly for Windows 95, with midnight store openings; rather less so for every subsequent OS release. The Xbox 360 got some dedicated queuers too.

But in truth, Schmidt really isn’t looking at iPhone sales; he’s not trying here to court buyers dithering between iPhone and Android. This was actually a piece of dog-whistle PR aimed at mobile developers.

Unfamiliar with dog-whistle PR? It’s like dog-whistle politics: aimed at a particular group, couched in terms which don’t say a lot to the average person, but which zero in on that target group and make them sit up. The people who Schmidt wanted to hear this latest bit of PR are mobile developers. He wants them to multiply 160,000 by 5 (working days – perhaps 6), and then by 4, to reach about 4m Android phones being activated per month, and to get them to think that this is a really good platform to be building for.

That’s the point of his “platform economics” answer. Google can only capitalise on mobile advertising once it gets Android to a specific market share. It seems like that it has already crossed it, since it’s by all accounts bigger than Apple in smartphone share in the US (and may even be challenging RIM, though still some way behind Nokia). What the numbers are like for Europe – well, we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for the end of the quarter for all those numbers.

The interesting challenge though will be whether the Android platform will indeed become the Windows of mobile. That could cut both ways: sure, the handset makers don’t have to pay a levy to use Android (as PC makers do to Microsoft). But when they go to the networks (who are the equivalent, in this scenario, of PC purchasers) they may find that they’re forced to bid down, and that their margins get eroded as more rivals pile into the market.

Apple, meanwhile, can be entirely happy with not having the lion’s share of the market, yet making a colossal profit from both the hardware sales (because nobody else can make an iPhone) and the app sales. It does exactly the same in the computer market: it has about 5% market share worldwide, yet makes a stonking profit on every computer sold. PC manufacturers, by contrast, have long since reached the point where price-cutting to win share simply opens a vein in their profits.

Android could thus win – and for Nokia, the idea of using Android must look ever more enticing, since it would cut costs and let it use its heft with the networks to win back share – and yet the hardware makers would lose. That’s a great danger – not imminent, but it exists – for Schmidt, Android and Google. By creating a flourishing ecosystem of app developers, Android could make life better for the handset makers.

Oh, and the company we haven’t mentioned here at all, except in passing? Microsoft. If you look at what the Android and iPhone platforms are now doing, you have to ask how on earth Windows Phone – which will have a paid-for licence – is ever going to attract any handset makers. Schmidt’s Android dog whistle might be loud for iPhone developers annoyed at the company’s capricious treatment of their apps, but it must be loudest for developers considering whether the shrinking, forwards-incompatible pool of Windows Mobile phones is really worth bothering with.

Between the handset makers pondering the economics of paying for a Windows Phone licence, and developers wondering why they should write code for a platform, Windows Phone, that’s presently activating zero phones a day – because it hasn’t been released – versus one doing 160,000 per day, Microsoft has a real problem with Windows Phone. Apple can survive Android because it has that 77% base of loyal customers. Android has an expanding customer base.

But what on earth has Microsoft got?

* I asked the questions about fragmentation and Larva Labs.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

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Chief executive Eric Schmidt says both takeup of operating system and number of apps are growing rapidly

Google is now activating 160,000 mobile phones using its Android software a day, equivalent to 4.8m a month, according to the company’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt.

The number is also accelerating, having been put at 100,000 a day in the third week of May during Google’s annual I/O conference, Schmidt said – indicating sales growth of 60% per month.

“We have seen a tremendous increase in adoption,” Schmidt said in an interview exclusive to the Guardian in the UK. “We’ve also seen a growth in the number of apps available for Android – there are now approximately 65,000 compared to only 50,000 a month ago.” He believes that that means Android could have reached the volume necessary to become an essential mobile operating system – and perhaps the equivalent of Windows on PCs.

At those numbers, roughly 15m Android smartphones would be sold every quarter, compared with a worldwide total of 54m sold in the first quarter of 2010, according to the research company Gartner.

Though Schmidt’s announcement was clearly timed to steal some of the thunder of Apple’s launch in five countries of the iPhone 4 on Thursday, Schmidt declined to compare the Android platform’s market position against its better-known rival. Apple has said that it had orders of 600,000 in a single day for the iPhone 4 last week, and was unable to keep up with demand.

Google is notified whenever a smartphone using the Android operating system is activated by a mobile network. In the US, a number of different models are sold on different networks from different manufacturers, including Motorola, which on Wednesday unveiled its latest Droid X phone on the Verizon network. “It’s the best phone ever made on the fastest network,” Schmidt said – which could be seen as a dig at AT&T, which has the exclusive contract to sell the iPhone in the US but has struggled to satisfy users’ demands for mobile data bandwidth.

Asked whether he saw Apple or Nokia – which has the largest market share of smartphones – as Android’s biggest competitor, Schmidt said: “I try to spend my time not focusing on those questions.”

Android is a free mobile operating system which any handset maker can use and alter to produce a new version, while developers are able to write apps which will work on any specific version of the system.

However, while Apple has maintained a tight focus on its App Store, which has roughly 250,000 free and paid-for apps available, Google offers them via a “Marketplace”, and allows any app to run on Android “as long as it does not harm the network,” Schmidt said.

But calculations by a company called Larva Labs, which develops for Android, suggest that iPhone developers may be faring better financially than those on the Android Marketplace. Steve Jobs said earlier this month that Apple has paid out $1bn to developers through a revenue split (which has earned Apple roughly $420m).

By contrast, Larva Labs reckons that Android developers have only earned $20m in total from the Marketplace. Schmidt said he had not seen the figures, but added: “Developers go where the volume is. That’s the most important lesson of platform economics: it’s all about scale and volume. It’s very important that developers get to a scale where they can see the ability to get to a very large audience. We believe we have done so.”

Asked whether Android could become the equivalent of Windows for PCs – the dominant operating system – Schmidt said: “The advantage with Android is that anybody can use it. In many ways it is better than Windows because it’s free, rather than Windows which had an ever-increasing price point.”

He declined to say whether Google has been talking to Nokia about the possibility of an Android-driven Nokia phone, or whether Google would release its own tablet computer similar to Apple’s iPad, which has sold 3m units in 90 days.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

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A study published in the BMJ on 23 June found no link between childhood cancer and mobile phone masts. Over the coming days and weeks we will publish updates on this story and links to sources of further information

• The BMJ has made this research paper freely available
• Email us an update or other useful links

Expert comment

2:00pm: Some comments on the BMJ study courtesy of the Science Media Centre in London.

Eileen Rubery, former head of the public health prevention department at the UK government’s department of health, said: “This is a carefully done study by a highly reputable group … the size of the sample is large and the approach appropriate. It is reassuring that no adverse effects have been found and this fits with the anticipated and known biological effects from such sites and so is consistent with the physiology and biology.”

Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, said: “This study seems exemplary in its approach. The findings are well concluded and the methodology is thorough. The findings are generally in support of both the current understanding of tissue interactions and also in support of the work done by other similar research groups. The data is complex and requires some interpretation but the abstract and conclusions are well considered and easy to follow.”

1.30pm: If you only have time to read two things related to the analysis of this story, here they are.

NHS Choices cuts through all the complexity with a superb article on its Behind the Headlines pages. It explains how the study was carried out, what the results are and what caveats there might be on the work.

One of the limitations to this study design is that the exposures being assessed occurred in the past, and therefore it can be difficult to assess them accurately, particularly if researchers rely only on people’s recall of events. However, in this study, researchers did not have to rely on people remembering or estimating their exposure to mobile phone masts, instead they used data on where individuals lived and known locations of mobile phone masts. This increases the reliability of the information about exposure.

Despite any perceived limitations, NHS Choices concludes that the BMJ study “appears well conducted”.

Funding

As well as elucidating the way the research was carried out, Ed Yong’s post at the Cancer Research UK blog addresses the issue of funding:

It’s also worth talking about sources of funding. This study was funded by an independent body called the UK Mobile Telecommunications Health Research Programme (MTHR). The MTHR was set up in 2001 to fund research into any possible health effects of mobile phones, following a recommendation by an independent expert group called the Stewart Committee.

The group is jointly funded by the UK Department of Health and the mobile telecommunications industry. It says, “In order to ensure that none of the funding bodies can influence the outcome of the MTHR Programme, it is run by an independent programme management committee.” This is a common theme in this area of research – industry funding has always been mediated by an independent third party, such as the International Union for Cancer Control.

In addition, CRUK have posted data showing that the rates of malignant brain tumours in the UK have remained stable over the past 10 years.

12.40pm: An article in the British Medical Journal today reports a study looking at whether there are any links between children developing leukaemia or a tumour of the brain and whether their mothers lived near mobile phone masts at the time of their birth.

Sarah Boseley’s write-up in the Guardian makes it clear that “Pregnant women who live close to mobile phone masts do not need to move house”. She continues:

Researchers from Imperial College London identified 1,397 children under five who were diagnosed with leukaemia or a tumour of the brain or central nervous system between 1999 and 2001. They compared each child with four children of the same gender who were born on the same day but had not developed cancer.

The researchers studied the distance of the mother’s home at the time of the birth from a phone mast, the total power output for base stations within 700 metres and the power density for base stations within 1,400 metres.

“We found no pattern to suggest that the children of mums living near a base station during pregnancy had a greater risk of developing cancer than those who lived elsewhere,” said Professor Paul Elliott, one of the report’s authors and director of the MRC-HPA centre for environment and health at Imperial.

Press roundup

In the Independent, health editor Jeremy Laurance gives some context for the study:

The increase in mobile phone use – from 9 million handsets in 1997 to 74 million in 2007 – has raised worries about the effects of exposure to low-frequency radiation. Several studies, including the Interphone study involving more than 10,000 people from 13 countries that was published last month, have found no damaging health effects from mobile phones themselves.

Public anxiety about transmitters has grown despite the level of individual exposure from transmitters being much lower than from mobile phones.

The LA Times Booster Shots blog reports some of the ways the researchers thought they might have improved their study:

The mothers whose children were diagnosed with cancer lived an average of 1,173 yards from a cellphone tower while they were pregnant – statistically indistinguishable from the 1,211 yards that separated the other pregnant women from their nearest cellphone towers. Tallying up the total power output of all cellphone towers within 766 yards of each pregnant woman’s home, they found that both groups had nearly the same exposure – 2.89 kilowatts for the mothers of cancer victims and 3.00 kilowatts for the other mothers.

Only one of their models revealed a difference that was statistically significant, though just barely. In that case, higher radio-frequency exposure was associated with a reduced risk of cancer of the brain or central nervous system. (This result calls to mind a mouse study from last year that found that electromagnetic radiation from cellphones actually protected mice from Alzheimer’s.) The results were published online Tuesday by the British Medical Journal.

The British researchers admitted their study would have been stronger if there had been some way to determine the actual radiation exposure for each pregnant woman instead of relying on mathematical models. They also would have liked to have tracked the exposure of babies after they were born, but the necessary data weren’t available. Still, they said that if the cellphone towers had doubled the risk for these childhood cancers, the odds that their study would have picked up on it were greater than 90%.

The Press Associaton, Associated Press, Bloomberg Business Week and Irish Times, and the Washington Post’s The Checkup blog also have reports.

Story summary

12.31pm: Pregnant women who live close to mobile phone masts do not need to move house, scientists said today, following the publication of a study which found no link to early childhood cancers.

There has been public concern over the possibility that living near phone masts could raise the cancer risk of small children and clusters of cases around masts have been reported. But a study published in the British Medical Journal – the first to examine possible links between phone masts and childhood cancer across Britain – found no cause for concern.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

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Imperial College London researchers dismiss link between living near mobile phone masts while pregnant and risk of cancer among children

Pregnant women who live close to mobile phone masts do not need to move house, scientists said today, following the publication of a study which found no link to early childhood cancers.

There has been public concern over the possibility that living near phone masts could raise the cancer risk of small children and clusters of cases around masts have been reported. But a study published in the British Medical Journal – the first to examine possible links between phone masts and childhood cancer across Britain – found no cause for concern.

Researchers from Imperial College London identified 1,397 children under five who were diagnosed with leukaemia or a tumour of the brain or central nervous system between 1999 and 2001. They compared each child with four children of the same gender who were born on the same day but had not developed cancer.

The researchers studied the distance of the mother’s home at the time of the birth from a phone mast, the total power output for base stations within 700 metres and the power density for base stations within 1,400 metres.

“We found no pattern to suggest that the children of mums living near a base station during pregnancy had a greater risk of developing cancer than those who lived elsewhere,” said Professor Paul Elliott, one of the report’s authors and director of the MRC-HPA centre for environment and health at Imperial.

The authors said they would like to investigate the exposure of the children to mobile phone base stations, which this study did not cover.

In a commentary published with the study, John Bithell of the childhood cancer research group at Oxford University said the risks of cancer from mobile phone masts were dwarfed by those from driving while using mobile phones – even in hands-free mode. Doctors, he said “should reassure patients not to worry about proximity to mobile phone masts. Moving away from a mast, with all its stresses and costs, cannot be justified on health grounds in the light of current evidence.”

The use of mobile phones has soared in recent years, the report said, from just under 9m connections in 1997 to almost 74m in 2007. There are 4bn connections worldwide.

However, health fears have grown in parallel. Questions have been raised not only about a possible raised incidence of brain and other cancers but also a suggested increased risk of neurological conditions such as migraine and vertigo.

The few reports there have been of cancer clusters near a mobile phone base station “are difficult to interpret because of small numbers and possible selection and reporting biases”, the authors wrote. They added that there is no known radiobiological explanation – although they said it is possible cumulative exposure is important – and the rise in the use of mobiles has not been matched by an upward trend in the numbers of brain tumours.

Dr Eileen Rubery, former head of the public health prevention department at the Department of Health, said: “It is reassuring that no adverse affects have been found and this fits with the anticipated and known biological affects from such sites, and so is consistent with the physiology and biology.”

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

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Only a tiny number of people use huge amounts of data – which means that many more have seen ‘unlimited’ contracts killed off. It’s a tragedy of the commons for mobile data

So the free lunch – otherwise known as the unlimited data tariff – is over. O2 said on Thursday that it will no longer be offering new or upgrading customers its “unlimited” tariff for smartphone users – principally, it’s believed, the iPhone users, whose numbers connected to O2 have grown from 1m to 2m in a year.

O2 isn’t the first: Vodafone ended its “unlimited” offering last month, and Steve Jobs had barely sat down after delivering his WWDC speech before AT&T announced that it too was ending its “unlimited” offering, replacing it with a tiered set – $15/month for 200MB, $25/month for 2GB. Orange is expected to follow suit in the next few weeks, though when asked the company simply says that it “constantly reviews its pricing”. However the noises we’re hearing from parts of the company suggest that a review will see it follow O2 to dump the “unlimited” offering.

Why? Because a tiny number of users are slurping huge amounts of data. And because the mass of users are demanding more and more data (though lots less than the real slurpers). There’s all sorts of interesting information that we can pull out of this – especially with the help of O2′s chief executive Ronan Dunne, who signed a lengthy post at the company’s blog with a tortuous justification for why the company has changed its rules. The strange thing is why he hasn’t come out with the simple reason – because it would make O2 a lot more popular at a stroke.

He goes over the points that were made in yesterday – that 97% of O2 smartphone users use less than 500MB, and that only a tiny number use more than 1GB. (Interesting to note that Apple-watcher John Gruber, someone who I’d expect to be a heavy user, says he uses about 500MB per month. So he’s clearly just one of the 97%, even if an outlier there.) Even so, smartphone users are a problem:

“one streamed YouTube video has the same effect on the network as half a million text messages sent simultaneously, the equivalent of everybody in Newcastle sending a text at once.”

Well, yes, but nobody made you offer the iPhone, Mr Dunne. You were the ones who wanted it so much. This makes it sound as though you like getting peoples’ money, but don’t like offering them a concomitant service to go with it.

However it’s more complicated than O2 getting a bit whiney. What we’re hearing here at the Guardian though is that Apple itself helped to kill off the “unlimited” tag, because it doesn’t like it being used with services that call it “unlimited*” and then explain further down the page in tiny print that that actually * means “subject to ‘fair usage’”. (We understand that Apple vetoed Vodafone’s initial pricing for the iPad data plans for just that reason.) It seems that just as broadband ISPs became addicted, when the race to sign up customers was on a few years ago, to the phrase “up to…” for their line speeds, so mobile data networks have gotten too comfy with the “unlimited*” word – where the asterisk is all-important. You could even call it Unlimited™ – which has quite a different meaning from unlimited.

Apple’s weight isn’t the real reason for the change, though. Stay with us.

There’s other interesting stuff in that blogpost: O2 says there that the average user uses 200MB per month; that FaceTime, the video calling offering introduced by Apple with the iPhone 4, will only be available on Wi-Fi (at least from O2); and there will be regular texts to let you know how you’re doing on your data allowance. And if you go over it without buying more, you’ll see your data speed slow down.

Given those numbers, let’s make some assumptions. There are 2m iPhone users (and even more if you add in Android users). That’s a large enough population that you can treat it as a random sample. I’m told by one of the networks that data use follows the normal distribution (aka the bell curve – that mathematical prediction of where the members of a random population will be: it applies for things like height, for example). It’s probably not a perfect normal distribution – there will be a low-end cutoff, because any device connected to the network will use a least a little data. But for modelling, it’s a start.

So: 200MB average; 97% use less than 500MB. Plus those numbers into a normal distribution calculator and you discover that those 0.1% who are annoying O2 so much consume more than 690MB of data per month. That’s about 23MB per day – roughly a megabyte every single hour. What, you think, are those folks doing? In fact, one network tells me that those people are downloading many gigabytes per month. That’s quite hard to do on a smartphone.

Is it because of music streaming services like Spotify or We7 or (in the US) Pandora? The networks say no: audio doesn’t take up that much bandwidth (certainly compared to video), and they haven’t seen much takeup. So those gigabyte users aren’t listening to streams. (The iPlayer is only available via Wi-Fi on most networks.) Yet O2 says that while it has doubled the number of iPhone users, mobile data use is doubling every 4 months, equivalent to an eightfold growth every year.

So: lots of growth, but some real extremes. What is causing it? Closer investigation suggests that this is a sort of collateral damage from the rumblings that preceded the Digital Economy Act – that it’s caused by peer-to-peer users who were perhaps worried about the “three strikes” talk, and figured that their landlines (if they have them) might be monitored or throttled if they download a lot of P2P data; or they might be surcharged. For as we’ve pointed out before, “unlimited” doesn’t mean unlimited on landline broadband.

So those wary folk – put by one network as numbering “in the few hundreds” out of millions – have signed up on “unlimited” plans, taken the SIM out of the phone, and then use it in a 3G dongle to download stuff. Because it’s unlimited, they can get what they want. And as they don’t mind how quickly it arrives, the speed isn’t a particular issue; they’re just after volume. O2 says that 0.1% of its smartphone users – that’s about 2,000 people – are consuming 36% of its data. Other networks indicate the same.

It’s also a bit foolish on the part of the downloaders, because the Digital Economy Act does actually allow for measures to be taken over illicit filesharing over mobile networks. But possibly the people doing it don’t think they’ll be noticed.

Here’s news: the mobile networks have noticed.

So it’s not really down to the iPhone or Android phones, which are more of an annoyance to the networks, because they make multiple, frequent requests to the network – but those are small amounts; those aren’t the reason why O2 is ending the unlimited package. It’s because some people took it at its word when it said data access was unlimited.

At this point, your – and our – reaction is “so tell that 0.1% to stop being data hogs – shape their bandwidth, send them letters, that sort of thing. Because obviously you’re not going to want to burden yourself with having to set up new billing for millions of customers just because you’ve got 0.1% who are a bit annoying. No, that would be silly.”

It’s certainly puzzling that O2 isn’t being clearer about the reasons. But the networks say they don’t want to annoy those big downloaders. That’s because they want to keep them as customers; but as paying customers. Yet the unlimited contracts aren’t being withdrawn; they’ll simply not be renewed. “At some stage, people will want a new handset or a new contract,” an O2 spokesperson said yesterday.

I wouldn’t be so sure: someone who’s using their iPhone SIM as a dongle really isn’t worried about upgrading; they’ve probably got a PAYG SIM stuffed into their iPhone for their phone calls. They’re not stupid. Unless O2 – and the other networks – start taking some aggressive action, such as throttling their connections, then the faux-iPhoners will carry on. It’s a tragedy of the commons, mobile data-style. Just like spam and comment bots, the tiny number of P2P mobile downloaders are screwing it up for everyone else.

It’s odd that internet evolution is going in reverse here: I thought that ISPs had learnt that offering broadband was far better for retaining customers than the penny-per-minute dialup nightmare of 1990s internet connectivity (yes, children, we used to have dialup modems, and paid per minute we were connected. And you couldn’t use make a phone call while you did).

It’s a retrograde move – and even though the networks insist that most people won’t be affected, the fact is that we’re data-hungry. Eventually, we’ll all be over the limit. Will the P2P donglers still be on their unlimited contracts even then? One feels that it’s time for the networks, if they’re really serious about offering a good service to all their customers, to have a think about that “fair use” clause.

Meanwhile, the 97% get a little inconvenienced, plus the constant worry that they’ll go over their limit. That’s actually the worst thing about what’s happening here: that the confidence that you can use the mobile internet anywhere is suddenly gone, replaced by a nagging worry that this page or that service will land you with a big bill. The mobile internet shouldn’t be like that: it should be like the landline version, where you don’t worry about the megabytes. It’s not a free lunch – but it’s not a system where the person in front is treating the buffet as an all-you-can-eat either.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!

Suddenly two and a bit weeks seems like a lifetime but that’s how long we have to wait for the new iPhone 4, arriving June 24th on Orange and O2. Guaranteed to be one of the hottest smartphones for 2010 the iPhone 4 boasts a 3.5 inch Retina display with a resolution 960×640 pixels, which is four times as many pixels as previous iPhones, over 100,000 pixels per square inch and the highest resolution in any mobile phone. It’s so detailed that the human eye cannot distinguish individual pixels and the fingerprint resistant coating ensures images stay bright and vivid.

The design is as cool as the list of features with flat surfaces and a stainless steel band. The iPhone 4 measure just 9.3mm and will be available in 16GB or 32GB form, with a colour choice of black or white. Video calling is now capable and users can switch between the front facing self-portrait camera and back facing scenic camera during a call. But Apple couldn’t leave the built-in optics there, the 5 megapixel camera promises excellent photographs and comes with LED flash, geo-tagging and touch-to-focus whilst the HD video recorder captures 720p video at 30fps. Budding film enthusiasts can not only create their own movies but also edit them and add transitional effects with the iMovie application.

The iOS4 operating system brings true multitasking to the iPhone without degradation to the battery life. Applications can be moved into separate folders and voice activated commands provide a more fun way to access your latest app download. A unified inbox keeps incoming messages in one place whilst the Safari Web browser lets you go everywhere.

The impressive feature set continues with 3D movement controlled gaming, iBooks and a built-in iPod for playing the latest music and video downloads from iTunes. The good news here is that enjoying these features to the fullest doesn’t cause the battery any problems with its performance boosted by 40% compared to previous models. When time comes to step away from the virtual world provided by the iPhone 4, A-GPS, maps and a digital compass ensure the iPhone is still your best friend.

If you find it hard to decide what phone you should purchase next then you will simply love Apple for creating another masterpiece, the Apple iPhone 4.

Compare iPhone 4 deals (coming soon)

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