CompareMobiles.com

Report for app store GetJar forecasts number of downloads will rise from 7bn in 2009 to almost 50bn in 2012

Mobile app downloads are expected to increase from more than 7bn downloads in 2009 to almost 50bn in 2012, according to a report.

The independent study, carried out by Chetan Sharma Consulting for Getjar, the world’s second biggest app store, forecasts that the global mobile application economy will be worth $17.5bn in 2012, more than CD sales, which it predicts will be $13.83bn.

It says that market will continue to grow exponentially as mobile devices become as powerful as computers, and wireless networks deliver consistently higher bandwidths. “With the consumer appetite for mobile apps rocketing, the opportunities for developers are huge,” says the CEO and founder of GetJar, Ilja Laurs.

The study says that initially the focus of making revenue from apps was based entirely on paid downloads or subscription-based models, but this is going to change. Today, advertising-based revenue accounts for about 12% of app revenue, but by 2012 this figure is expected to rise to 28%. For some platforms such as Google’s Android, advertising revenue is predicted to be even bigger than revenues from paid downloads.

The price of mobile applications ranges from $0.99 to $999 but the average selling price in 2009 was about $1.90, the study says. Over the next three years this is predicted to decrease by 29% and apps will get cheaper; however, advertising revenue derived from apps is likely to stay relatively flat.

By 2012, so-called “offdeck” apps that are offered independently from a carrier will be the biggest revenue generator, accounting for almost 50% of all app revenue. By comparison, in 2009, apps available from mobile operators still accounted for more than 60% of all app revenue, but this will fall to just under 23% by 2012.

As the WSJ Digits blogger Jennifer Valentino-DeVries points out, the study will by no means be the last word on the subject, but it provides at least a look at why so many companies are excited about mobile.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, App Store, blog, cheaper, compare, comparemobiles.com, comparison, consumer, global, google, growth, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, phone, phones, sol, three, uk, world

MS says everything’s in. Just not in this release

Mix10  “In this release, our focus is on phones purchased by consumers,” said Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel, describing the Windows Phone 7 developer platform to attendees at the Mix conference in Las Vegas on Monday.…

What is your recession sales strategy?

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, phones, sol, source the register, uk

Setbacks with the internet group’s first handset will see competing products arrive on the market first

Google’s attempt to break into the mobile phone market has hit serious problems in Britain with the launch of its flagship Nexus One device understood to have been delayed until the middle of next month.

The setback means that by the time Google’s first own-branded foray into the market this side of the Atlantic is available to consumers, its local network partner Vodafone will have launched a competing product, which analysts say is better, called the HTC Legend.

While Google has been working with the industry on the Android mobile phone software for several years, the Nexus One, made by Taiwan’s HTC, is the first handset over which the search engine group has had complete control. But launching a new phone has proved more difficult than Google expected.

It was released in the US in January, but Google’s decision to sell it solely through its website immediately came in for criticism as buyers struggled to get help with technical problems, and Google, which has traditionally relied on email for consumer contact, was forced to introduce telephone helplinessupport and the problems it has experienced in the US has given it reason to pause over the phone’s launch outside the US, to make sure it has its customer service operations in place. Last week Goldman Sachs slashed its estimate for Nexus One sales this year from 3.5m units to 1m worldwide.

In the UK, Google will not only sell the phone at full price to any customer who wants to put their existing sim card into it, but it has also teamed up with Vodafone, which will offer the device free to anyone willing to sign a £35 monthly contract.

But the delay in the launch of the Nexus One, which under Google’s original plan would have been available earlier this month, means that it will come after the launch of rival Android devices that analysts reckon are at least as good, if not better. Vodafone, for instance, will be offering the HTC Legend in April which has the same operating system as the Nexus One but is more stylish: being built from a single piece of milled aluminium. Orange and T-Mobile, meanwhile, will both be stocking the HTC Desire – which is exactly the same as the Nexus One, but has an optical trackpad instead of a trackball – from next month.

The delay also means the Google device will be available in the UK only weeks before another hotly anticipated gadget, Apple’s iPad. Several of the UK’s mobile phone companies are finalising deals with Apple to sell the tablet computer to British consumers. Unlike its last mobile device, the iPhone, which was offered through just one exclusive partner for the first two years, the iPad is expected to be available through multiple network operators from the start.

Apple will ship two versions of the iPad in the UK, one that can access the internet using short-range wi-fi networks and one that can also access 3G mobile phone networks. But Apple needs to sign deals with at least one UK mobile network, because the iPad makes use of micro-sims, meaning that buyers cannot just put the sim card from their existing handsets into it. In fact, it will be the first device launched in the UK that uses micro-sims.

Apple said earlier this month that the device will go on sale in the UK towards the end of April but the mobile phone companies believe that the 3G version of the iPad will not be available until May. Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and Vodafone all expect to be selling the iPad to customers and they are all locked in talks with the Californian company. Apple, however, has made it plain that it does not want iPad users to be tied to long-term contracts with any mobile phone operator. Instead it wants users to be able to pay for mobile network access on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, card, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, gadget, google, HTC, iphone, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, released, sam, service, sim, Sim Card, sol, t-mobile, talks, uk, vodafone, world

Government commission says more needs to be done to help young people stay in rural areas

The lack of mobile phone reception and broadband coverage in rural areas has become the No 1 issue in dissuading young people from staying on in the countryside, the chair of the Commission for Rural Communities has said.

In a report to the prime minister, Stuart Burgess, the government’s rural advocate, said that the long-term future of the countryside is in jeopardy because so many young people are being forced out of rural areas to find homes, jobs and support.

In what was described as a “snapshot” of the state of the countryside, Burgess found that almost 60% of urban areas are able to receive a cable-based broadband service, while in villages and hamlets this drops to 1.5%. The report said that lack of internet access was a major issue for children who live in rural areas. “With social networking such a feature of youth culture, lack of access can lead to frustration and exclusion.”

The issue was one for both parents and children. In an interview with the Guardian, Burgess said that “the No 1 issue is broadband access and mobile phone networks for young people thinking of buying houses in rural areas. For children there’s an expectation that they will be able to use the internet for homework. Yet we have seen schools’ internet network close down at 4pm in rural areas and there’s no internet at home.” He called on the government to introduce a scheme nationally modelled on a successful pilot in remote Cumbria, which now has the highest penetration of broadband in any rural area in England. Burgess said that for adults phone reception was becoming essential and that he wanted mobile phone companies to treat the countryside as a foreign country allowing customers to “roam for a network to connect to. When you go abroad mobile phones roam for a network to connect to. Yet in rural areas, where you may only have one provider, if your phone is from another company you cannot access the signal.”

The recession had thrown into sharp relief the historic advantages of towns in Britain. At the end of June 2009, 40% of 16- 24-year-olds in rural areas were unemployed or economically inactive, but the report pointed out that of the 573 Job Centre Plus outlets in England, only 23 are in more rural areas. “Government-approved training schemes, accessed largely through Job Centre Plus, are not a viable option in rural areas.”

The report says that even recent government initiatives have been unequally distributed. Of the 3,000 Sure Start Children’s Centres in England only 80 are in villages and hamlets and on average these each have to provide for 2,500 children, more than double the average for urban centres.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, government, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, phone, phones, service, sol, uk

People are buying increasing numbers of smartphones, but are they living up to the media hype? Fanfare thinks not….

Smartphone sales are growing fast, but “57% of smartphone users are disappointed with handset and application performance,” claims a report from Fanfare (PDF: registration required). However, the results reflect a very small sample: “155 members of the public” and “the survey was conducted online and filled in anonymously,” so don’t bet your lunch on its applicability to the Great British Public.

Most of the issues appear to be internet related, with streaming media, web browsers and social networking applications causing the most problems. And then there’s the part that could be important to Fanfare, which offers automated testing services:

“55% of respondents cannot tell whether individual problems stem from the handset or the mobile network and, as a result, 53% instinctively blame the smartphone manufacturer whenever an issue arises.”

Dissatisfied smartphone users typically tell their friends and family (57%) and social networking sites (58%), which could have a negative effect on sales. Indeed, it makes social networks much more of an influence on purchasing than “traditional media” (by 64% to 40%).

Fanfare marketing man David Gehringer says: “The Apple App Store and Android Market have served up billions of app downloads, giving smartphone owners the ability to use their phones in new and exciting ways. But now that the novelty is wearing off, users want their applications to be more reliable.”

The report says:

“Looking ahead, three quarters of respondents (74%) believed that handsets will become less reliable and that this is unacceptable. The vast majority (88%) said that they are happy to wait until handsets have proven reliability before purchasing – suggesting consumers are becoming more cautious as a result of negative experiences.”

I’d like this to be true, but I can’t really see much evidence. It seems to me there’s a big fashion element to smartphone sales and (based on a much smaller sample than 155) people like being one of the first to own a sexy new gadget. How well they can make it work it is another matter.

Nor is this a criticism of media darlings such as Apple’s iPhone, HTC and Google Android phones, various BlackBerry handsets and the odd Palm. All of these seem more reliable and usable than what I remember of the Nokia 7110 or 8110 (The Matrixphone), while disappointed iPhone owners seem to be a very rare breed indeed.

So, are you happy with your smartphone, and if not, is the backlash about to start?

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, App Store, apple, Blackberry, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, gadget, google, HTC, iphone, line, marketing, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, nokia, palm, phone, phones, sam, service, sol, survey, test, three, uk

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Nokia unveiled a new C5 smartphone model on Tuesday, hoping to benefit from a booming demand for cheap smartphones and from rising consumer appetite for mobile social networking.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, nokia, phone, phones, sol, uk

Pioneering smartphone manufacturer predicts substantial shortfall in three-month revenue, sparking precipitous drop in its stock as it battles Apple and BlackBerry

The pioneering smartphone manufacturer Palm, originally renowned for its breakthrough Palm Pilot models, saw its shares plummet 17% on a profits warning as it revealed that its sales are struggling in the face of competition from BlackBerrys and Apple iPhones.

Palm conceded todaythat its latest phones, including the critically acclaimed Pre and the cut-price Pixi, have failed to take off as quickly as it had hoped. “­Driving broad consumer adoption of Palm products is taking longer than we anticipated,” said Palm’s chief executive, Jon Rubinstein.

A trading update from the Californian company forecast revenue for the three months to February of $300m-$320m (£195m-£210m), far short of analysts’ predictions of about $425m.

The warning is a serious setback for Palm, which has been fighting an uphill battle to challenge bigger players such as Apple and the Canadian company Research in Motion, which makes the BlackBerry smartphone. By early afternoon on Wall Street, Palm’s shares had slumped by $1.45 to an 11-month low of $6.64.

Although it broke ground early in handheld devices with its Pilot models in the 1990s and later its web-compatible Treo phones, Palm has fallen behind in the race to capture the imagination of ­consumers.

Its Pre phone, released last year, runs on a new operating system called WebOS and incorporates a phone, a GPS system, wireless internet and a slide-out keyboard. It has won several industry awards but has lagged in other areas – for example, few third-party applications are available for the Pre in comparison to the hundreds of thousands written for Apple’s iPhone.

Experts have become increasingly dubious about Palm’s growth prospects. Ehud Gelblum, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, was initially positive but said in a research note that his optimism had waned, blaming Palm’s US network provider: “Verizon has puzzlingly refrained from providing the marketing muscle behind the products that we had expected.”

In the US, Palm has recently launched the budget-model Pixi, priced at $99, in an effort to attract younger customers.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, apple, apple iphone, Blackberry, compare, comparemobiles.com, comparison, consumer, growth, iphone, latest, marketing, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, palm, phone, phones, released, sol, test, three, uk, update

Adam Elgar hopes a mobile broadband dongle will do for his daughter, who is moving into a house with no fixed line internet access.

My daughter is moving into a house with no fixed line internet access, and she’s sceptical about going down the dongle route with her laptop. Her mobile phone signal will be adequate, but not great. How could she best achieve the bandwith needed for (for example) watching TV online? Your 8 October 2009 answer — Can 3G replace a landline? — suggests that only a landline will do. But are there now other solutions that you’d recommend?
Adam Elgar

I would love to be able to recommend WiMax (IEEE 802.16), which is much like a long-range version of Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11), but it’s very unlikely that your daughter is living in an area where it’s available. Given the UK government’s/Ofcom’s lack of interest in WiMax, I don’t see that changing. I would also love to be able to recommend LTE (Long Term Evolution), which is the 4G service of choice among phone network suppliers, but it is probably still a couple of years from common use.

Since I can’t do either, I’d suggest your daughter either looks into the cost of a landline or tries to find a friendly neighbour who will share an existing Wi-Fi network. Or, particularly in a rural area, considers two-way satellite services like Astra2Connect.

While I wasn’t very keen on mobile 3G dongles last October, I’m even less keen on them today. I had been using my 3 dongle inside the M25 for email and Twitter but I’ve stopped because it’s often not worth the effort — and 3’s HSPDA seemed to me to be the best service!

Even with a dongle, you’re not connected the whole time, so it’s not really “mobile broadband”: it’s more like “mobile dial-up”. And because of line drops/tunnels/tall buildings/whatever, you can spend more time connecting and disconnecting (and downloading 3’s pointless home page) than you do tweeting. I wouldn’t usually try to watch a YouTube video or iPlayer programme via 3G, though it might be possible.

The actual throughput your daughter will get will depend on exactly where she lives: results can vary on the same street, or even inside the same house. However, I’d be a touch surprised if she got much more than 2.2 Mbps, regardless of the “headline speed”. I wouldn’t be shocked if she got 1 Mbps, or even less. By contrast, a fixed phone line or cable connection should normally be able to deliver 3 Mbps to 7 Mbps for a lower cost. (You would also have to include the cost of installing and renting the phone line, but sometimes this can be shared between four or five people.)

You can perhaps get some idea of the likely performance and the deals on offer by entering your daughter’s post code in the “Speed in my area” page at Broadband Speedchecker. This takes users’ speed test results from the past six months and plots them on a Google map. There are a few pins for mobile broadband services, though it could do with more.

In the end, I’d guess that mobile broadband is now worse than it used to be because many more people are using it. The market has grown with the arrival of better smartphones (BlackBerry, iPhone, Android etc) and the cheaper deals for dongles and bandwidth taken up by mobile netbook and notebook users, me included.

Are the network providers going to expand capacity (which costs money) faster than required by the number of new users? Maybe, but I wouldn’t bank on it.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, best, Blackberry, blog, cheaper, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, deal, Deals, email, google, government, iphone, lg, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, phone, phones, sam, service, sol, test, Touch, tweeting, twitter, uk

As the battle between Apple and Google hots up at the Mobile World Congress, the smartphone boom signals good times for media firms

Richard Wray

Announcing the BBC’s move into the mobile phone market with its own news, sport and video applications for the iPhone last week, Erik Huggers, the director of future media and technology, said the new generation of so-called smartphones are a “great conduit to our audience”.

It is a conduit that until recently has been, if not closed, then certainly constricted for media companies. But the explosion of downloadable applications, rapid rise in mobile broadband take-up and, crucially, the weakening of network operators’ stranglehold on the market have opened up a massive opportunity.

The attraction is easy to see: there are already four times as many mobile phones in the world as there are PCs, and those phones are getting cleverer. In the run-up to Christmas, one in four of the phones sold by Vodafone across the world was a smartphone – that is, a phone with the same computing power as a laptop you could buy a few years ago. Within a couple of years there will be more smartphones than PCs on the planet.

Even the mobile phone operators’ reaction to the weakening of their position, banding together in order to mount a fightback in the apps world, should benefit media companies. Then there is Google, which has not only provided the industry with a serious, and more importantly open, competitor to the iPhone, but looks increasingly likely to usher in a new era of mobile advertising.

Huggers made his announcement in Barcelona at the mobile phone industry’s biggest annual get-together, Mobile World Congress, which showed that while the iPhone began the boom in the smartphone market, the rest of the industry is catching up and a range of devices are set to hit the shops that will help media players get to a mobile audience.

The iPhone drove a wedge between customers and the mobile phone networks. Other players had tried it, such as Nokia, but Apple succeeded. For years the mobile phone companies acted as gatekeepers to their customers. Content companies had to strike deals with each operator, jostling for position on the “portals” created by the networks. Consumers, however, did not want their phone company picking what content they could view on their phones and portal usage was minimal.

So the networks knocked down their walled gardens. As consumers ventured into the mobile web, many media companies – including the BBC – created mobile versions of their websites that could be easily viewed on a phone’s small screen. But usage remained low because even the mobile web, on many devices, was a pale imitation of the “real” internet.

The iPhone was different and when it switched to 3G technology a year and a half ago the mobile web came of age. It has weakened the networks and given media companies the chance to bypass them. The relationship an iPhone customer has is with Apple first and their network provider second. The network is merely paid for providing access – Apple gets paid for content. It is an aggregator for media companies worldwide, and what started with music has become a wide variety of content, thanks to its App store.

But Apple does not have the market to itself. Already more than 20 phones with Google’s rival Android operating system have been produced, which have a crucial advantage over the Apple device: Android supports Flash, which should help advertisers realise the potential of the mobile web. “Crucially, Apple does not and will not support Adobe Flash on its iPhone or iPad products,” explains Brad Rees, chief executive of Mediacells Limited, the mobile market experts. “From an advertising creative perspective, this has meant iPhone application specialists win most of the pitches for mobile microsites. In the online world, the language of big-budget agency creatives is Adobe Flash, and this is precisely where Android hits the sweet spot. Even though Nokia has been offering full internet phones for a while, it’s the Google proposition which resonates.”

In his keynote speech in Barcelona, Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, promised the search engine giant is “not trying to run roughshod” over the mobile phone companies or turn them into “dumb pipes” in the air. The companies, however, are not so sure. Two dozen of the world’s biggest announced during the congress that they are getting together to produce a completely open apps platform – allowing consumers to take their applications with them when they change handsets.

In return for this portability, the networks would start to get a slice of revenues – although exactly how is still unclear. This is potentially big news for media companies as it raises the possibility that they will be able eventually to develop their apps just once, and put them on a massive array of handsets straight away. And it’s another indication that at long last the mobile floodgates are open.

Full coverage of Mobile World Congress including galleries and analysis at guardian.co.uk/business/ mobileworld congress

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, App Store, apple, bbc, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, deal, Deals, google, HTC, iphone, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, nokia, phone, phones, sam, sol, twitter, uk, venture, vodafone, world

BT could be breaking the law by failing to adhere to UK distance selling regulations, a consumer group has said.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk

• European commission set to approve plan to create UK’s largest mobile phone company
• Proposed merger could still face a challenge from Vodafone and O2

The merger of Orange and T-Mobile looks set to get the go-ahead from the European commission after a last-minute deal was thrashed out over the weekend to secure the future of 3, the UK’s smallest mobile phone network.

The merged business would be the UK’s largest mobile phone company, with almost 30 million customers, and Orange and T-Mobile have agreed to hand back some of the mobile phone spectrum it would own in order to allow this to be used by rivals to run super-fast wireless broadband services.

The commission has yet to inform the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) about its decision, and the merger could still face a challenge from Vodafone and O₂, which are understood to be “lukewarm” about the concessions made over spectrum.

The commission’s decision is a blow to consumer groups that had been campaigning for authorities in the UK to investigate the deal.

This month the OFT formally requested jurisdiction to investigate the merger from the commission, which had until 1 March to give a decision. The OFT will tomorrow publish the reasons why it had asked to be allowed to run its own investigation, although the commission now believes it has dealt with any concerns. It was the OFT’s request that spurred Orange and T-Mobile into action.

Fears that the merger, announced last September, would become clogged up in the UK’s lengthy competition procedure led both companies to come up with a solution that met the concerns of the commission about the deal. The OFT and Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, were extensively consulted by the commission during the process.

The main concern was about the merger’s effect on the future of 3, which has driven price competition in recent years. However, over the weekend, 3, which is owned by the Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, signed a new deal with T-Mobile and Orange, which will give it access to 3,000 more mast sites across the UK over the next few years, bringing the total to 16,000, the largest 3G network in the country.

Second, the UK authorities and Brussels were concerned about the level of control that the merged company would have over the scarce resource that is wireless spectrum. Specifically the merged group would have the vast majority of the spectrum granted in the 1990s, when Orange and One2One were launched, at 1800MHz. As reported by the Observer a week ago, T-Mobile and Orange have agreed to hand back a quarter of the spectrum the merged group would hold.

Neither 3, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, O₂ nor the OFT would comment.

The OFT will tomorrow give its reasons for asking the commission whether it could have jurisdiction over the case, in a stock exchange announcement.

A copy of its reasoning, seen by the Guardian, makes it clear that the OFT’s main concern about any deal was also the future of 3. “The OFT considers that any weakening/elimination of Hutchison 3G would effectively result in a reduction of vertically integrated competitors from five to three and cause significant detriment to competition in mobile retail telephony,” the document reads.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, deal, drive, largest, merger, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, new deal, o2, orange, phone, phones, service, sol, t-mobile, three, uk, vodafone

Despite Google’s protests, its entry into the mobile phone market will change the game – and makes operators ‘dumb pipes’

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, tried to reassure operators this week that the search engine’s direct entry into mobile phones through its Android platform was designed to make telcos money, not to turn them into “dumb pipes”.

He told anxious operators at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that Google had no intention of building broad infrastructure to compete with the operators. Google’s protests that it is helping others to make money will be taken with a pinch of salt by other businesses such as newspapers and sat-nav operators (who have been undermined by Google’s free alternative) but welcomed by consumers.

Of course Google isn’t going to build a rival infrastructure. It is going to bypass it altogether by using Wi-Fi as it becomes increasingly available and letting users choose which operator they might use in conjunction. A week ago I bought Google’s new Nexus mobile device from its US website as my main phone.

Make no mistake, it is game-changing in two important ways. First, it turns the operators from arbiters of how you can use your phone into the equivalent of finance companies. I paid $529 (£338) for a SIM-free phone. I could have left it at that and just used it at the increasing number of Wi-Fi hotspots around town – but that would deprive me of incoming calls and the ability to use services such as mapping in places where there is no Wi-Fi. So I signed up with O2 for a pay-as-you go Sim plus an “unlimited” data package for a very reasonable £7.50 a month. If that isn’t turning the operator into a “dumb pipe” then I don’t know what is.

Others have offered Sim-free phones in the past. What makes this different is that it comes with Google’s integrated suite of services, giving an easy user experience. One click and my Gmail comes up, another one and the day’s calendar, or Twitter or whatever – appears to fill the ample 3.7in screen.

The game-changing part is the way Google is bringing voice back to the telephone in a way that hasn’t happened before. A few months ago I tried the company’s voice search out by speaking an inquiry instead of typing it in and was amazed that it got it right the first three times. Now, on a more extensive test, while well under 100%, it is highly impressive and I intend to use it as my default method of searching for standard queries. It beats the otherwise impressive Vlingo (on my BlackBerry) for speed and accuracy.

Google could have another killer app in the rollout – starting in the US – of its own internet telephone system for mobiles. When that is seamlessly integrated into all the other features that 150m Gmail users enjoy then Google could become a major international telephone operator in its own right. And if Wi-Fi ever becomes ubiquitous, then the sky’s the limit. All this will provide competition for Skype and the up-and-coming UK based Truphone, which I use for all my long-distance calls via a downloaded web app from my iPod Touch. Truphone has its own killer app that neither Skype nor Google has – you can get through to a real human being when things go wrong. Miracles can happen.

If the existing operators come under siege in a few year’s time as a result of web telephony, then they have only themselves to blame for the often contemptuous way they have treated consumers. Sure, they have, commendably, invested billions in much-needed infrastructure, but that is no excuse for what they have done.

They have made three major errors of business strategy and are about to make a fourth. First, they built walled gardens around their phones – depriving users of the universality of the web. One early Vodafone smartphone didn’t even have Google on it. When I inquired why, I was told there was no demand for it. As a consequence of their walled gardens of selected products they paid pathetic revenue shares to content providers thereby strangling an embryonic industry at birth until Apple resuscitated it. Had they opened their walls and given developers a fair return they could have created an app revolution long before Apple.

Second, by milking their customers for exorbitant amounts every time they used their phones to access websites, they delayed the mobile data revolution by several years. It was only when Apple insisted on adopting a fixed tariff – though it wasn’t the first – that web access from phones soared.

Third, by treating promiscuous customers more favourably than loyal ones they abandoned the basis of trust that all good brands need. And the next mistake? They are pushing for abandonment of “net neutrality” whereby all customers are treated more or less equally. They hope to make more money by giving bandwidth preference to content they get money from. You can imagine how popular that will be if some customers get slow broadband or none at all to make way for other people to watch Sky or Virgin videos.

As a phone, Google’s Nexus is the usual mixture of pluses and minuses. It has got a great 5 megapixel camera as can be seen here and a much better screen resolution than the iPhone, but the touchscreen itself is less reliable. Although it has over 20,000 apps in its store – and growing – they are not yet near the quality of the iPhone’s archive. Surprisingly, I have been very disappointed so far with Google’s mapping which ought to be its biggest strength. On a cloudy country walk it failed to make any connection with a satellite for a longitude/latitude fix and as mobile reception was flaky it didn’t download complete maps.

Unlike Nokia’s maps, which can be embedded in your phone Google has to rely on a web connection to download them each time. The other thing about it – and most other similar – phones which doesn’t get reported much is that it is actually difficult to read the screen when you most need to – walking in daylight. But one has to admit for all these occasional quibbles the new generation of smartphones offers awesome yet affordable technology. I would not have dreamed it possible 20 years ago.

twitter.com/vickeegan

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, Blackberry, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, free, google, iphone, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, nokia, o sim, o2, phone, phones, service, sim, sol, tariff, test, three, Touch, twitter, uk, virgin, vodafone, world

• Google’s domination of search market ’should be looked at’
• Colao also calls for greater portability of apps

Vodafone boss Vittorio Colao has warned mobile phone executives about Google’s growing power in the online advertising and search market, which he claims could damage consumer choice.

Delivering his keynote speech at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Colao showed a slide setting out the communications market, with just Google and Yahoo under the heading “Advertising and search”.

Without naming either firm, he said the “70%, 80% maybe even more” concentration of power in just a few hands, “from a public policy perspective is something that should be looked at”.

While stopping short of asking for direct regulatory intervention, Colao warned that there is a risk such concentration of power will hamper choice and something needs to be done “before it’s too late”.

He also called for greater openness in the booming market for mobile phone applications, saying that people should be able to freely ‘transfer their apps between devices, regardless of the operating system.

“If today I buy a book in London I can freely bring it to another country and do anything I want with it,” he said. “Portability of personal data is going to be a very important point.”

Earlier this week two dozen of the world’s largest operators got together to try and create an open apps platform. Google, though, has questioned whether this ambitious move will be successful, pointing to the technical challenges of writing applications that can run on a range of different handsets.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, free, google, iphone, largest, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, sol, uk, vodafone, world

Microsoft made a splash by pre-announcing the Windows Phone 7 Series phone yesterday, but it might all be forgotten by the time phones appear for the (Christmas) holiday sales season

Microsoft’s launch of its Windows Phone 7 Series phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday was a huge success if you judge it by the amount of press and blog coverage. But it also provided very few details, including when phones would go on sale. Microsoft says they’ll be out before Christmas, but so will a lot of other new phones.

Microsoft’s list of Windows Phone 7 partners includes Asus, Dell, HP, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba, and it expects to have phones on most networks, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone. In other words, Windows Phone 7 is still a platform. Microsoft hasn’t followed Apple’s proprietary route, though whether phone makers will still have access to the phone’s source code and the right to change it remains to be seen.

The demos showed the Windows Phone 7’s roots in the attractive user interface developed for Windows Media Center PCs and reworked for the Zune HD and the free Zune 4.0 software for Windows*. They also showed the phone’s extensive integration with Windows Live and Facebook, though at the moment, it looks as though Twitter is supported via Windows Live.

Email support includes Microsoft Exchange synchronisation, Live Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and other services.

But it’s not clear where Microsoft stands on supporting Silverlight, Adobe Flash, or the still-emerging HTML5 standard.

Silverlight support would be welcomed by companies who want to put their business applications on the phone, and it would answer the objection that — apart from Microsoft Office — Windows Phone 7 phones are aimed much more at consumers than at businesses.

Adobe Flash would be welcomed by many users and web developers, and would give Microsoft a selling point against Apple, which refuses to support Flash. However, the question is still open. The Seattle Times managed to get a quote from Karen Wong Duncan, a Microsoft product manager: “We do not support Flash. We are partnering closely with Adobe. As Steve Ballmer said earlier, we are not opposed to having Flash on the platform.”

HTML5 support would be welcomed by everybody, especially if Microsoft included an expensive H.264 video codec for playing YouTube and other videos without using Flash. But we don’t know what sort of browser will be included in Windows Phone 7 phones, or what its capabilities might be.

Windows Phone 7 also has an Xbox Live connection, and users will be able to score points in multi-player games, but Microsoft didn’t provide details. Apparently we’ll learn more at the Mix 2010 conference in March.

Finally, there has been no mention of what has sometimes been called Pink: the code-name for putative next generation versions of the old Sidekick device. (Microsoft bought the company.)

The lack of detail makes it look as though Microsoft has announced too early. Presumably it couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a splash at WMC, and there’s only one a year. Next year’s congress would be too late….

* This is worth a download if you want something to manage an MP3 player: it’s much nicer than Windows Media Player. However, you won’t be able to use the Zune Marketplace outside the US.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, apple, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, email, free, HD, HTC, lg, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, orange, phone, phones, pink, sam, samsung, service, sol, sony, sony ericsson, t-mobile, twitter, uk, vodafone, world

In rich countries, the consumer buzz around mobile phones is all about iPhones and data and internet. But for cellcos, rich countries equal saturated markets, fierce competition and stand-still sales. They rely on the developing world for just about all their growth.…

The power of collaboration within unified communications

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, growth, iphone, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, sol, source the register, uk, vodafone, world

O2 and Orange are to join more than a dozen mobile groups in a project to pool resources and create ‘app’-style services across their range of handsets

More than a dozen of the world’s biggest mobile phone companies, including O₂ and Orange, are hoping to strike back against the success of Apple in persuading people to download and use mobile applications – or “apps” – by building their own competing open platform which can be used by developers of games and other services.

The mobile networks hope that by pooling their resources, creating technology that would allow services to be developed that will work across a huge range of handsets, they can claw back some of the ground they have lost to companies such as Apple and Google and generate additional revenues from third-party developers.

The mobile phone networks fear that at the moment they are in danger of becoming little more than “dumb pipes in the air”, with all the revenues created by applications going to software developers and the companies that operate the stores that supply them.

Apple has already seen over 3bn apps downloaded from its App Store by users of the iPhone and iPod touch. Google, meanwhile, has an application marketplace as part of its Android mobile phone platform, and several devices sporting the software will be unveiled at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the industry’s biggest trade show, which starts today.

But it is not just Google and Apple that are profiting from the “apps explosion”. Steve Ballmer will this afternoon use the Mobile World Congress to unveil Microsoft’s latest attempt to break into the mobile phone industry. Windows Mobile 7 – or Windows Phone, as Microsoft has dubbed it – includes an application store that allows users of Microsoft devices to download a host of games and other applications. Even phone manufacturers such as Samsung and RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, are getting in on the app act, while Nokia already has its Ovi store open for business.

Several of the world’s biggest operators are part of the Open API initiative, which allows application developers access to some of the core information contained within their networks, such as location and billing. Essentially an API (application programming interface) allows a developer to integrate its application with another piece of software. The Open API plan, for instance, allows software developers to create programmes that can be paid for by consumers on their mobile phone bills.

But the new consortium, which will be announced by industry trade body the GSM Association at the Mobile World Congress today, is designed to go even further. The recent explosion in mobile phone software – from Apple’s iPhone to Nokia’s Symbian platform, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone – means the “apps” market is becoming increasingly fragmented. Also, consumers who switch from one device to another will soon find themselves having to download – and pay again – for all the applications they had on their old phone just because their new phone uses different software. The operators fear that they will be at the receiving end of the subsequent consumer backlash.

Orange, Telefonica – which owns O₂ in the UK – T-Mobile and several other operators are already signed up to the GSMA plan. Vodafone, however, is ambivalent as it is engaged in an open platform alliance called the Joint Innovation Lab with China Mobile, Japan’s Softbank and Verizon Wireless of the US.

In fact, applications are likely to be a highlight of this year’s Mobile World Congress, with developer workshops taking place throughout the show, helping programmers create for Android, BlackBerry and Vodafone’s recently announced Vodafone 360 platform.

Several companies will also announce their own app developments. Today, for instance, British digital music group Omnifone will announce that it has created a version of its mobile music service that runs on Android phones. Omnifone, which has access to a catalogue of more than 6.5m tracks, is looking for network or handset partners who want to launch an unlimited download or streaming music service on Android devices using its platform. It already, for instance, powers Vodafone’s unlimited music service in the UK and recently clinched a deal to have its MusicStation service pre-installed on Hewlett-Packard laptops and computers. Omnifone is currently developing apps for both the iPhone and Windows Mobile devices.

Skype, meanwhile, will today announce that it has created a version of its popular free internet telephony service for Nokia’s Symbian operating system, which is already used by more than 200m mobile phones worldwide. Skype is now available as a free iPhone app, which has been downloaded more than 12m times since its launch in April last year.

The Symbian version will initially be available as a download from the Skype website but will appear on Nokia’s Ovi store in the next few weeks. The company, which was sold by owner eBay last year, is planning an Android version for later in the year. Skype, which allows people to call other Skype users anywhere in the world for free, is also expected to announce a partnership with Verizon Wireless, which is likely to raise some eyebrows as in the past the American network’s joint owner, Vodafone, has blocked internet telephony services from its own networks.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, App Store, apple, Blackberry, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, deal, free, google, gsm, iphone, latest, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, nokia, o2, orange, phone, phones, sam, samsung, service, sol, station, t-mobile, test, Touch, uk, vodafone, world

The annual showcase of the latest games, marketing wheezes and software updates for the mobile telecoms industry is opening in Barcelona

From tiny start-ups looking to get their games and gizmos in front of Google, Vodafone and Microsoft to veterans of the telecoms industry who will be glad-handing old contacts, this week’s Mobile World Congress will host a clutch of British technology firms hoping to turn back the tide sweeping in from the US and far east. UK Trade & Investment, the government body that supports British firms overseas, is helping out 120 companies at the show and part-funding the attendance of 50.

The Cambridge-based Hypertag is typical of the firms being taken there. It has developed pioneering technology that makes it easy for advertisers to connect with consumers through poster sites that use short-range Bluetooth technology. Advertisers can use the technology to offer people anything from free music and game downloads to money-off vouchers direct to a phone.

After being funded by the Technology Strategy Board, set up by the government three years ago to invest in innovative technologies, Hypertag has worked for 18 months with the billboard firm JC Decaux and PSI, the airport advertising part of Aegis. Having tested its technology in Luton airport, Hypertag is looking for partners in Barcelona. “We’ve got technology which we know companies want to use and now it’s all about sales,” said director Jonathan Morgan.

UKTI is also helping Movirtu, which is targeting the billion people in developing countries who live on less than $2 a day and cannot afford a mobile phone but may spend 30% of their income on phone calls. Its MX Share service, already tested in Africa, allows people to make and receive calls and texts on someone else’s handset, without them needing their own expensive sim card, handsets or additional software.

At the show, Movirtu will launch a new service that will give users easy access to information on healthcare, education or even agriculture through mobiles. It is also looking for network partners in developing countries, said the chief executive, Nigel Waller. “We would like to move forward with a number of operator agreements to give us scale.”

Also eyeing the developing market is Synchronica, which will showcase two new low-cost MessagePhone handsets that offer all the functions of a BlackBerry, such as emails and texting, but at under $100. Other UK-listed firms include Intec, which specialises in billing systems for mobile networks, the Bluetooth-chip designer CSR, mobile marketing specialists 2ergo and mobile banking experts Monitise.

But it’s not all about gadgets. Also plying their wares will be Foof Productions, the Gateshead-based mobile phone game creators, and the Middlesbrough-based developer, Fluid Pixel. They are the creative parents of Animentals, a mobile game that takes a twisted take on the virtual pets craze spawned by Tamagotchi in the 1990s.

Already available on Nokia’s Ovi store and with an iPhone version due out soon, Animentals takes place in the hospital of Dr Foof, who must nurse a collection of crazed pets back to full mental health, partly through a series of challenges. The Animentals range from the depressed Goth penguin Pingoth to the highly unstable Furball. “What Dr Foof is offering is rehab for damaged digital pets,” says the game’s producer Andy Banks. After four days in the hothouse of the congress, it’s a need many of the attendees will recognise only too well.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, Blackberry, card, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, email, free, gadget, gadgets, google, government, iphone, latest, marketing, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, networks, new, nokia, phone, phones, service, sim, Sim Card, sol, test, three, uk, update, vodafone, world

If only briefly

Intel uncloaked a few more details on Wednesday about its line of consumer-level 32nm Westmere processors, which were previewed late last year and formally announced at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show.…

Offloading malware protection to the cloud

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, review, sol, source the register, uk

FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s consumer watchdog has asked for a say in the planned merger of the UK arms of France Telecom’s Orange and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile, raising prospects of at least a delay to any deal.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, deal, HD, merger, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, orange, sol, t-mobile, tmobile, uk

Which? campaigned for the Office of Fair Trading to scrutinise the proposed tie-up, rather than authorities in Brussels, because it was a deal that affected British consumers

Consumer groups today welcomed confirmation that UK competition authorities have asked Brussels for permission to investigate the proposed merger of Orange and T-Mobile.

A spokesman for Which? said this morning that it had campaigned for the Office of Fair Trading to scrutinise the proposed tie-up, rather than authorities in Brussels, because it was a deal that affected UK consumers.

“We have been very keen to have this looked at because T-Mobile and Orange have networks here. This merger affects British consumers and we think it should be looked at,” a Which? spokesman said.

If T-Mobile and Orange merge they would have a 37% market share of retail customers in the UK, or 40% including the virtual mobile network operators such as Virgin Mobile that use the two companies’ networks to run their services.

In December Consumer Focus and the Communications Consumer Panel wrote a joint letter to Neelie Kroes, the Brussels competition commissioner, urging a UK review of the deal, which is originally under the scope of Europe because two thirds of the turnover of the parent companies – France Télécom and Deutsche Telekom respectively – is generated outside the UK.

The OFT confirmed to the stock market this morning that it had made a request to the European commission to refer the UK aspects of the proposed joint venture between the two companies.

“The OFT’s initial view, following consultation, is that the joint venture threatens significantly to affect competition in mobile telecommunications in the UK,” the OFT said in a brief statement.

“If the request is granted, the OFT intends to examine the proposed joint venture with a view to deciding whether it should be referred to the Competition Commission for an in-depth investigation,” the OFT said.

If the OFT is handed the powers to investigate, it would delay the plans by the two mobile phone companies to consummate their deal, which was originally announced in September and slated for approval by the Brussels competition watchdogs as early as mid February. The OFT would conduct its own analysis of the situation before deciding whether to refer the tie-up to the Competition Commission for a detailed investigation that could last as long as six months.

The OFT said it had petitioned Brussels under Article 9 of the EU merger regulations.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, deal, HD, merger, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, networks, new, orange, phone, phones, review, service, sol, t-mobile, tmobile, uk, venture, virgin