Posts Tagged “launches”
The move will speed up access for people using the site via iPhones or AndroidMobile users in the UK, Europe and Middle East can now access an HTML5 version of Google’s YouTube video site, speeding up access for those accessing it via iPhones, Android or other mobile devices with browsers able to render HTML5 video content.The launch comes as mobile use of the web is growing rapidly: Google says that YouTube’s mobile site, m.youtube.com, gets more than 100m video playbacks a day – roughly the number of daily views youtube.com was getting when being acquired by Google in 2006 – and every minute an hour of video is uploaded to the site from a mobile device. Mobile video playback also grew by 160% in 2009 on the previous year, along with an increase in adoption of devices able to stream video.The US version of the HTML5 site for mobiles was launched last month.Across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the UK consumes the most YouTube videos on mobile devices, followed by France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland.The original mobile version of YouTube launched in 2007, but relied on versions of Adobe’s Flash for playback – which was too taxing for most devices. Since then, the development of the HTML5 web standard, and of mobile browsers – notably WebKit, used by Apple in the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, and by Google in Android – able to play back embedded video content using the H.264 codec, rather than Flash’s usual Sorensen or VP6 codecs, has meant that HTML5 video use has become feasible.Google says the decision has been driven by the dramatic growth in mobile access to YouTube, which is more than doubling every year.Several short-form video sites are building players in HTML5: Vimeo brought out a hybrid HTML5 version of its player earlier this month, designed for better mobile playback. But when US-only TV and movie streaming site Hulu unveiled a major revamp of its display earlier this year, it did so using Adobe Flash, saying HTML5 “doesn’t meet our customers’ needs”.The use of HTML5 does not mean that Flash is shut out of YouTube’s mobile version: Adobe’s product can encode video in H.264 as well. But the growing use of desktop browsers such as Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari, which can render H.264 video – and with the forthcoming Internet Explorer 9 also offering it – poses a long-term question about Flash’s continued widespread use.Brightcove, the video hosting service for many media organisations, began offering an HTML5 version of its site in March this year. The New York Times and Time Inc were among the first media outlets to integrate it – allowing playback on Apple’s popular mobile devices, which do not use Flash.Closer to home, Erik Huggers, director of BBC future media & technology, recently defended the corporation from accusations that its widespread use of Flash – on the iPlayer, in particular – betrayed a commitment to open standards.”Our use of Flash is not a case of BBC favouritism, rather it currently happens to be the most efficient way to deliver a high quality experience to the broadest possible audience,” Huggers said, adding: “The fact is that there’s still a lot of work to be done on HTML5 before we can integrate it fully into our products. As things stand I have concerns about HTML5′s ability to deliver on the vision of a single open browser standard which goes beyond the whole debate around video playback.”Though the BBC does deliver H.264-encoded video to Apple mobile devices, it does not do that for Android devices, citing concerns about copying of content via the Android platform, and instead serves Flash-based video to them.However YouTube has said that HTML5 is still some way from becoming the new standard for streaming long-form video content, such as BBC iPlayer content. “While HTML5′s video support enables us to bring most of the content and features of YouTube to computers and other devices that don’t support Flash Player, it does not yet meet all of our needs,” said John Hardin, software engineer at YouTube, in a blogpost published in June. “Today, Adobe Flash provides the best platform for YouTube’s video distribution requirements, which is why our primary video player is built with it.”Microsoft has put its eggs in the HTML5 basket with next year’s release of its internet Explorer 9 browser. Ryan Gavin, Microsoft’s senior director of internet Explorer, said in May this year: “We’re all in on HTML5. We’ve been co-chairing the HTML5 working group, and we’re actually leading the HTML5 testing group.”YouTubeHTML5Mobile phonesSoftwareComputingTelecomsInternetJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions Read Original Story…
Xbox Live on the go Microsoft has listed the Xbox Live games that will run on Windows Phone 7 handsets when the smartphone platform launches later this year. Among them, some well known titles.… Read Full Story…
Tesco undercuts competitors with £6 deal for unlimited texts and 100 minutesTesco has launched what it believes is the UK’s cheapest sim-only mobile phone tariff, providing unlimited texts and 100 minutes for £6 a month.The deal, which is available online and over the phone, is based on a one month sim-only contract, so customers can switch easily to other providers should they choose. Customers will also earn Tesco Clubcard points with their monthly bill.Lance Batchelor from Tesco Mobile and Tesco Telecoms said: “This deal is ideal for a younger market or any text addict out there who doesn’t want to have to fork out a large amount each month but still wants to use their mobile to their hearts content.”We’ve seen a big increase in sim-only mobile tariffs as savvy spenders hang on to their handsets and shop around for the best tariffs available.”Recent research conducted by Tesco Mobile showed that 16- to 24-year-olds – who are the most prolific texters – are the highest spending age group for mobile contracts, with just under a third (31.6%) spending more than £30 a month on their mobile bills.Ernest Doku, communications expert with comparison website uSwitch, said: “I’m very impressed that Tesco’s pay monthly offering is so competitive. Their deals including handsets and longer contracts are not particularly attractive, but this undercuts their competitiors offering similar sim-only deals – it is great value for money.”Tesco already offers a £10 Pay monthly sim deal, which provides 400 minutes or 800 texts to your five favourite numbers.Internet, phones & broadbandConsumer affairsMobile phonesTescoJill Insleyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions Read Original Story…
RIM continues portfolio growth with announcement of entry-level BlackBerry Curve 3G Read Full Story…
Tesco has Read Full Story…
VoIP company Vonage launches app that lets Facebook friends call each other for free Heaven forbid, you forget your phone. You need to make a urgent call, but all you have with you is an iPod Touch. Well, now you can use your iPod to call your Facebook friends. A new mobile application enabling Facebook friends to call each other for free is being released today, and an app for the iPad is thought to be only weeks away. The app – produced by internet telephony company Vonage and available for iPhone, Android devices, and the iPod Touch (the latter only allowing outbound calls) – lets users call Facebook friends using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), providing both parties have downloaded the app. Users will eventually be able to make calls (both incoming and outgoing) through the iPad. Vonage Mobile for Facebook is free to download, free to use and works on Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G connections. Later versions of the app are expected to include premium functions and cater for the iPad, as well as encompassing instant messaging, SMS and the ability to make calls to mobile numbers directly from the application. But the release of this new app provokes an unavoidable question: how many of your Facebook friends would you feel comfortable being able to call your mobile phone? Facebook friends: an app to make you reimagine your “friendships”?
At launch, there is no way to block selected Facebook friends from calling your mobile – so, theoretically, anyone you’ve decided to accept as a friend on Facebook can call your phone. As we know, plenty of people accept Facebook friend requests from relative strangers, or people to whom they wouldn’t necessarily divulge their phone number. Michael Tempora, senior vice president of programme management and strategic initiatives at Vonage, said: “I expect that’s the case [that people don't want every one of their Facebook friends being able to call their mobile phone]. Certainly you always have ability to decline a call. Incoming calls will ring your phone and users still have the option to decline or accept. “Future releases will also add a call block capability. A consumer can always choose not to download the application or de-friend someone on Facebook. This app adheres to all Facebook’s rights and responsibilities.” In other words, your downloading of the app and accepting of Facebook friend requests are taken as double confirmation that the people you befriend online are the people you’d be happy calling your phone. Online social networking, however, isn’t as straightforward. That is, of course, unless you’ve adopted a personal Facebook policy readying for the day when your friends would be able to call your phone. Or preparing for a day when your child’s Facebook friends can call their mobile phone. I suspect we’ve not heard the last of this, though VoIP telephony companies moving towards social networks is not a new thing. Usurping mobile networks?
And what of the mobile networks we largely rely on to make calls to our friends? Is Vonage expecting a backlash? “It’s hard for me to speculate,” Tempora said. “Our customers will be delighted, Facebook users and iPhone users and Android users will be delighted. “It’s a paradigm changer for the consumer, and one that takes advantage of broadband networks. It’s exciting for consumers and another step for us in using VoIP technology to deliver great value for consumers.” Vonage advises users who don’t have an unlimited data tariff to contact their provider to see what charges apply. Making a call using the app uses approximately 250kb a minute, a Vonage spokesman said, adding that the number of minutes sold on contract mobiles is going down while the amount of data sold and used is on the rise – this new app potentially warranting a data upgrade depending on usage. It’s all about timing: a good day to bury bad news?
The importance of this product for a company with a history of financial losses can be inferred from the launch date: the same date it will announce second quarter financial results. That said, Vonage posted a sharp increase in net income in its first quarter results, recording a jump of $8.7m (£5.4m) year-on-year to $14m. Though the short-term forecast underlying these headline figures would no doubt prove disconcerting to company bosses, recruitment of new subscribers to the Vonage World plan was expected to continue dropping, and loss of existing subscribers was also expected to continue. “It’s certainly very important to us,” Tempora said. “But it’s absolutely consistent with our vision that people should be able to call from anywhere they are using any broadband device that’s convenient. This is an important first step for us but it’s just the start, we expect in future to provide a wide range of apps. “Going forward, we will expand on the launch to add additional communities – some already existing online – or social communities like family. We will also add device platforms – other mobile devices, PCs, Macs and premium services like the ability to call from Facebook to phone numbers as well as instant messaging components.”
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Touchscreen BlackBerry seen as RIM’s ‘iPhone killer’ The Canadian manufacturer of BlackBerry smartphones today took the wraps off the Torch, which combines touchscreen capability with a slide-out keyboard, in an attempt to snatch back momentum lost to the popularity of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating system. At a hi-tech launch event in New York, Research In Motion offered a first public demonstration of the long awaited device, which is powered by a new software platform, called BlackBerry 6, and boasts a variety of innovations to combine information feeds from email, text messaging and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. The Torch, which has been under development for 18 months, has been described by technology commentators as RIM’s attempt at an ‘iPhone killer’. It will go on sale for $199 (£125) in the US in partnership with AT&T on 12 August, with a roll-out in Britain later this year. RIM’s chief technology officer, David Yach, told the Guardian that he viewed RIM’s phones as much more orientated towards communication, while rivals’ devices are for having fun. “People want great communication devices and I see our phones as more about ‘us’ – they’re for communicating with others – while other phones are more about ‘me’.” He rejected suggestions that RIM was simply reacting to the success of Apple’s touchscreen phones: “We’ve always viewed ourselves as going our own way. It seems like every device is viewed as an ‘iPhone killer’.” Among the Torch’s features is a “universal feed” whereby users get a combined stream of updates from email, text messaging and social networking. Users can search all these sources at one stroke through a “universal search”. The phone has a new podcast application and an improved zoom function for viewing websites with small text. RIM billed the new phone as one of its most important launches since the first BlackBerry went on sale in 1999. Users of the firm’s devices include president Barack Obama, who has a special super-encrypted handset. The queen was given a BlackBerry when she visited a RIM factory during a tour of Canada last month. Once virtually unrivalled in smartphones, the BlackBerry is facing fierce competition, particularly in the US. Recent figures from research firm Nielsen gave RIM a US market share of 35% in the second quarter, ahead of Apple’s 28%, while a variety of phones using Google’s Android system captured 13% of sales. “In the North American market they’ve certainly lost some momentum but we should recognise that they’re really a force to be reckoned with,” said Ben Wood, a mobile phones analyst at CCS Insight, who said the Touch’s web browser appeared a significant improvement which offers a smoother user experience than previous “functional” BlackBerrys. Another analyst, Carolina Milanesi of Gartner Research, said the vertical slide-out keyboard meant the BlackBerry emphasis remained on email: “It’s about RIM not seeing more churn in their enterprise [business] customers to Android and the iPhone. It’s more of a defensive move than offensive.” RIM prides itself on the security of devices – an attribute that has led to trouble in the Middle East, where the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are threatening to block certain functions unless law enforcement authorities are allowed access to encrypted messaging.
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As London’s Barclays Cycle Hire scheme launches, there’s already a third-party Android app to go with it As sure as night follows day, mobile applications follow location-based public pronouncements. It should come as no surprise then that canny Android developers Little Fluffy Toys have knocked up a widget to follow on the heels of London mayor Boris Johnson’s launch of the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme. Cycle Hire Widget, a free application, uses a mixture of live Transport for London data and crowdsourcing to display the availability of bicycles at the nearest docking stations. Because TfL doesn’t currently share details about the availability of bikes at specific locations, the application screen scrapes TfL’s data and repurposes it for the app. (From my chair at Kings Place, you’re probably not interested to know, the nearest docking station is 506m south west, with apparently only two bikes taken from nine slots.) We spoke to Kenton Price, director of Little Fluffy Toys, to find out more about what’s behind the app:
“Many of the cycle apps that existed for other cities already, and to be honest a bunch of the new London ones, are really not much more than a Google Maps mashup of a bunch of locations superimposed on a map. TfL relaxed its terms and conditions (find them here) in preparation for the cycle scheme launch, with the aim of encouraging third-party developers to create “innovative” apps based on “reliable and accurate information”. But Price claims his attempts to access TfL’s live data have been met with a wall of silence – TfL, on the other hand, said they have been in conversation with third-party developers from early on. Price says: “We wrote to them the day they announced the locations were free-for-all, asking for free/busy status. They replied saying [there were] no plans. And that’s the last we heard from them. This £100m+ scheme that said it was reaching out to developers – and we haven’t had any replies at all to our emails since. We’ve done the best we can – the BarclaysCycle Twitter tag appears to be publish-only, no one gets responses from them. “It’s very disappointing that we’ve basically filled in the blatant holes in their massively expensive scheme and we’ve had no thanks or even acknowledgement that we exist – although Boris started following us on Twitter the other day.” A TfL spokesperson refused to comment on particular developers, but told the Guardian third-party developers will have access to more data in time. For the time being, TfL said, the “fundamental information [being used by developers] has to be right.” “The up-to-date information listing all docking stations that are live in London is available on the developers’ area and must be used,” the spokesperson said. “The first thing is to get that information correct and have up-to-date information about where the docking stations are. It might sound slightly dull but the first port of call is that we know where they are and that the information is correct.” There is no timeframe for the next bout of data rollouts, TfL said, but they are “forthcoming”. For now, Price is happy. As he concludes: “It’s been a riot, I’ve loved it. My favourite moment so far was when CNet said we had all that geeky goodness with our crowdsourcing stuff – I practically burst with pride.”
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Network operator Orange launches ‘smartnumbers’ service to give patients access to the correct healthcare staff and services, and the healthcare profession better management of patient time Read Full Story…
Satnav launches an on-the-ropes, ninth-round-style counteroffensive against greatly exaggerated reports of its death
Reports of satnav’s death are greatly exaggerated – and retailer Garmin has launched an inspired marketing fightback to prove just that. The arrival of Google Maps Navigation was touted by many – including the Guardian’s own Jemima Kiss – as a “satnav killer.” Google Maps Navigation is free (at the point of sale), familiar, and feature-rich. But don’t count on traditional satnav retailers to give up the ghost just yet. Seeking to capitalise on customer (and industry?) confusion surrounding mobile data charges – not to mention what happens when you dare to venture outside of the UK – satellite navigation specialists Garmin have embarked on a Top Gear-esque experiment. Using Google Maps on an O2 Pay As You Go tariff, the company set out to see how much a summer tour of France would cost with only an Android phone for company. Twenty pence per mile is the (approximate) answer. A return Calais-to-Paris (185 miles) trip by car notched up £74 of data roaming charges, using 12-13 megabytes of data. Here’s what return trips further afield cost: • Avignon, 614 miles: £245.60 • Saint-Tropez, 730 miles: £292 • Grenoble, 540 miles: £216 • Marseille, 667 miles: £266.80 • Lyon, 474 miles: £189.60 • Cannes, 747 miles: £298.80 • Bordeaux, 540 miles: £216 • Valence, 539 miles: £215.60 • Saint-Etienne, 510 miles: £204 And the eye-watering bill you could find on your doorstep isn’t the only reason you should spurn Google’s advances and stick with traditional satnavs, says Garmin head of communications Anthony Chmarny: “Using free satellite navigation isn’t as free as it would like to make out, especially when you are using your mobile phone abroad. “Many of the well known navigation products use the mobile phone network to download maps as they go, meaning people could end up with a nasty shock when their mobile phone bills arrive – the costs could be double that of the fuel used for the journey they were navigating. “For someone using so called ‘free’ navigation abroad this could leave them in the absurd position that they get half way through a journey and no longer have access to navigation to complete it.” Convinced?
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Jun
29
2010
 
Cable & Wireless launches early adopters cloud computing schemePosted by in Mobile News
Telecoms giant Cable & Wireless has announced the start of an early Read Full Story…
Authors such as Iain Banks and Martina Cole are increasingly supplementing book releases with apps full of bonus material The way the books industry is interacting with digital media is developing faster than many had foreseen, with the latest example an attempt to offer fans of author Iain M Banks exclusive unseen chapters, his original notes and commentary for his latest novel. Mobile software company TradeMobile has worked with Banks’s publisher Little, Brown to develop the free application for the iPhone, which launches this Thursday (1 July). Readers who have bought the paperback of Banks’s latest novel, Transition, will be able to scan a unique barcode on their edition with their iPhone, and companion features for the novel will be transmitted to their screen. A best-selling author, the publishers also hope the new app may entice readers uninitiated into his complicated universe of difference worlds and civilisations. “For something as complicated as Transition it makes sense,” said Banks. “It’s very much like a DVD extras.” The app also includes character biographies; after a “slightly anguished” email from his German translator, Banks realised that a character called Bisquitine might need her language and cultural references explaining. “She appears toward the end of the novel and has an important part to play, and a very eccentric way of expressing herself,” says the author. “It took half a day to write and three to explain.” Kirk Bowe at TradeMobile says: “You’re able to tap in a page number and get back all the characters, scenes and locations which may be relevant to that page.” Beyond the iPhone TradeMobile is currently in talks with Little, Brown about extending the application to other handsets as well as the iPhone. “This helps people who aren’t particularly familiar with an author, especially an author like Iain whom they might not have approached before … it will fill in the blanks that may sometimes scare people away.” In March the number of books available as iPhone apps passed the number of games for the first time (www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/09/books-overtake-games-iphone-apps). “It was a tipping point,” says digital editor Dan Franklin at rival publisher Canongate. “The plan is now to be creating something you can only experience digitally” — something which, he admits, defies the instincts of a publisher. “It’s our next challenge [but] it’s difficult,” he says. TradeMobile’s Bowe feels the “companion” approach works particularly well for fiction. “Tolkien for example would be amazing,” he says. “Really for authors with rich, detailed characters and locations it’s great.” Banks agrees. “It works well for science fiction, especially when you have a universe or place you go back to. These places gradually build up. “It’s there if you want it – and that’s the beauty of it, it’s an opt-in thing. It’s not being forced down your neck; if you just want the story, you can have it,” says the author. “We’ll see how it does with the science-fiction stuff – if it’s successful it’s the obvious thing to do to extend it to my other novels.” Added value Little, Brown is part of the UK’s largest publishing conglomerate, Hachette UK, which has already launched a similar app for popular crime novelist Martina Cole, and has apps in development for authors including Stephenie Meyer, Patrick Holford and Ian Rankin. “Anyone can replicate the experience of reading a physical book in an app. Our feeling is that just isn’t very exciting,” says head of digital George Walkley. “With Iain Banks and Martina Cole we’ve tried to provide added value and extra material for authors who have very passionate followings.” At Canongate, Franklin is impressed with Little, Brown’s new app. “What is cool is that they’re getting it to directly interact with a print edition,” he says. “It’s very clever and something we’re looking to do.” Canongate is no slouch in the digital department itself, however, launching a (paid-for) enhanced iPhone app for Nick Cave’s novel The Death of Bunny Munro in September, complete with videos of Cave and an audio version synched to the text of the book, scored by Cave himself. The app won second place in MediaGuardian’s own innovation awards, the Megas, earlier this year. And in May, it brought out an enhanced app for David Eagleman’s short story collection Sum: Tales from the Afterlives, featuring videos of Eagleman discussing the book, and a synched audio version read by the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Stephen Fry and Noel Fielding. Like Walkley, Eagleman believes it is important for an app to be more than just an electronic version of a book. “An electronic version of a book merely grants portability. But a thoughtful app can open new inroads to explore the material, as well as ways to keep the material updated and fresh,” he says. “By having the option to explore a book beyond the original text — by dint of videos, living links, and so on — it becomes a living, breathing, updating organism, just like the rest of our technology.” Banks adds: “Everyone’s feeling around – no one knows what’s going to work. It’s quite a nervous time to be a publisher. They’re trying to do what they can to keep books interesting. We will just see how it goes.” Eagleman agrees. “We’re at an exploratory period now, and no one knows where it’s going. If you imagine yourself 100 years from now looking back, it’s clear that apps are in their infancy and just learning how to crawl. Once they become adults, they might offer such a different experience of the material that they will speciate into an entirely different storytelling animal — as has happened, for example, with movies.”
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Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt today laid down government thinking on rural Read Full Story…
Jun
06
2010
The new iPhone is coming. But it’s the old one that rivals should fearPosted by in Mobile News
Apple’s ’4G’ device is out this month. Will Steve Jobs also cut the price of the current model and challenge Nokia head-on? Steve Jobs will appear before the Apple faithful tomorrow to reveal the latest version of the Californian technology group’s mobile phone. Nicknamed the iPhone “4G” – on the basis that the last one was the 3GS, with the “S” standing for speed – it will be the summer’s must-have gadget, hitting the UK this month. But it is also seen as being in the vanguard of an all-out assault on the mobile market. In the three years since it launched its first handset, Apple has grabbed the headlines and, more importantly, snatched a lucrative share of the more mature mobile phone markets of the US and Europe, where consumers are willing to pay upwards of £30 a month to get an iPhone. Now, speculation is rising that the company is approaching a so-called “iPod moment” in mobiles: the point at which it will decide that it can capture a much larger slice of the market by producing more than one device. The success of the App Store, which has seen iPhone users download billions of applications, coupled with the pressure to have a wide market to attract advertisers to its embryonic iAd platform, is pushing Apple towards diversifying, just as it did with the iPod six years ago when it introduced the iPod mini. There is also increasing competition from Google’s Android platform. After two and a half years, handset manufacturers are finally producing compelling Android phones – such as the HTC Desire – and more are slated for release this year, including the mass-market HTC Wildfire. But rather than unveil a new, cheaper version of the iPhone, Apple is expected to position the iPhone 4G at the top of the smartphone market and reorganise the existing range. The company is likely to halt production of the iPhone 3G – which cannot cope with Apple’s new multi-tasking software – and scrap both existing versions of the iPhone 3GS, which have 16GB and 32GB of memory. It will replace them with a new 8GB version of the 3GS, which is expected to be aimed at the wider market. The iPhone 4G – according to mobile industry insiders who have seen one and confirmed widespread web leaks – will be available in two versions: 32GB and 64GB. These will put “clear blue water” between it and the mass-market 3GS, as one industry executive puts it. The 4G is slightly smaller and slimmer than the current 3GS. It has an improved 5-megapixel camera with flash and uses micro-sim cards, as seen in the iPad. It also has a glass back, which greatly assists phone reception. In the UK, it is expected to be sold by the same mobile phone networks that have the current iPhone: O2, Orange and Vodafone. It is unclear whether Tesco Mobile will have the 4G when it is launched in the last week of this month. The parallels between Apple’s current position in the mobile phone market and the place it held in the digital music market when it introduced the iPod mini are revealing. The first iPod appeared in late 2001, but it was not until 2003 that Apple launched the iTunes store. One million tracks were sold in the first five days and 70m in the first year. That showed Apple there was a real mass market for digital music and was a spur for the creation of the first variant of the iPod line, the iPod mini, the following year. At the time, Apple was lodged firmly in the high end of the market for digital music players. The iPod was the benchmark by which all others were measured and Apple had a share of about 30%. The iPod mini – replaced at the end of 2005 by the Nano – was designed to grab a large part of the next third down. In similar fashion, the iPhone has become the handset by which other mobiles are measured, and in markets including the UK it has made Apple the third-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Nokia and Samsung. It is now a question of how much of the rest of the market – chock full of me-too touchscreen devices from the likes of Nokia, LG and Samsung – Apple wants. “I would argue that they may already have reached the tipping point,” Ben Wood at CCS Insight – a long-time follower of the mobile market – says. “The iPhone has become a ubiquitous product in the markets where its pricing is acceptable.” He believes that a real driver behind Apple’s growth will be the iAd platform, which Jobs announced this year alongside the new version of the iPhone software – which is also in the iPad. The new mobile advertising platform is designed to allow iPhone app developers to create in-app advertising. Currently, anyone who clicks on an advert in a downloadable app is bounced out of it and on to the advertiser’s webpage. As a result, many users are put off clicking on adverts. In contrast, iAd will allow full-screen video and interactive advertising content to be served within an application. Crucially, Apple will sell and serve the adverts, and developers will receive 60% of their iAd revenue. “With iAd, which could be as significant to Apple as the iPod franchise itself, Apple has a tremendous opportunity. It will provide a further chance to lock in their leading position in application development,” Wood says. “If iAd becomes the kind of phenomenon that Apple appears to be able to create, and becomes as big as it could, then potentially Apple could really disrupt the market by subsidising the iPhone from their iAd revenues.” But whether iAd means that Apple needs to go all the way into the low end of the market is doubtful. “IPhone users are a segment of the population that has affinity with technology and disposable income, and that is a marketeer’s dream already,” Wood says. And Carolina Milanesi, research vice-president at rival analysts Gartner, is not convinced that this is the right time for Apple to go mass market, citing price constraints on the iPhone’s most important feature – its large touchscreen. “On the iPod touch and the iPhone, the screen is very important,” she says. “Music is easier [to do in a mass-market device] because it is just [data] storage, and with the price of storage coming down you can experiment with design. But when you have applications running on the device, how much dumber can your device become before it is useless? And that is where they are going to struggle. What else do you cut?” Apple could cut its own profits, but it has shown little desire to do that in the past: the switch from the 3G to the 3GS actually reduced the manufacturing cost of the phone, analysts reckon. “Yes, of course, they can expand their addressable market so much quicker, but do they want that?” says Milanesi. “Just as Jobs says Apple does not want to be the Dell of the PC market, [so] Apple does not want to be the Nokia of the mobile market.” How true that is will be revealed tomorrow. Focus on Apple’s factory
While Apple fans will drool over the new iPhone this week, tragic events in China have thrown a spotlight on the human cost of the west’s obsession with shiny toys. A spate of suicides at the massive Chinese plant run by Taiwanese contract electronics manufacturer Foxconn has called into question working conditions at one of Apple’s largest suppliers. The Californian company has dispatched a team of investigators to discover why 10 people have killed themselves so far this year. Management at the Shenzhen facility, which stretches across three square kilometers and employs more than 250,000 people, are trying to solve the problem by hiring counsellors, playing soothing music on production lines, increasing wages and asking new recruits to sign a ‘”no-suicide” contract. They are also taking more direct action, installing netting around outdoor stairwells of the dormitory buildings, where workers sleep eight to a room. Speaking last week, Steve Jobs said Apple was “diligent” when it came to understanding the working conditions in the supply chain, auditing its direct suppliers as well as tertiary suppliers. “We are over there trying to understand what is happening and more importantly trying to understand how we can help because it is a difficult situation,” he told the D8 conference organised by All Things Digital. He said many young workers came from poor rural areas and were away from home for the first time. “They are probably less prepared to leave home than your typical High School student going to college in this country. I think there are some real issues there,” he said. But he stressed: “Foxconn is not a sweatshop. They have got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it is a pretty nice factory.” Some of Foxconn’s workers disagree, complaining the monotonous workload causes depression. “I do the same thing every day,” Xiao Qi, a college graduate who works at Foxconn in product development told Bloomberg Businessweek. “I have no future.”
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As well as churning out millions of electronics devices for sale under upscale brand names like Apple’s, China’s manufacturers have a tendency to produce lookalikes at low prices, mainly for the Asian markets. The iPed is one of the first to target the “media tablet” market…. If anyone’s coming back from China, I hope they’re bringing back an iPed, as reported on Japanese TV news. This looks like the first iPadalike to go on sale, and a large part of its appeal is the low price ($105). However, I expect some rather more expensive devices will be shown at this week’s Computex trade show in Taiwan, starting with MSI’s Wind Pad 110, which has an ARM processor running Google’s Android mobile phone operating system. Acer, Dell and Lenovo are also tipped to enter the market at some point. According to The Wall Street Journal: “Bob Morris, ARM’s director of mobile computing, says his company is tracking about 40 tablet-style devices being designed with ARM-based chips, plus about 10 more e-reader devices for electronic books. He estimated that ‘upwards of half’ are based on Android.” Apple’s iPad is basically an iPod Touch XL, so I don’t see any reason why Google’s mobile phone software should not be similarly upscaled for the mid-sized tablet format. It might not have the polish of Apple’s software, but polish isn’t everything. There are other things in life, including diversity and freedom of choice, as well as price. The point is that where Apple’s system is proprietary and closed, Google’s is based on open source Linux, and you can license it. Instead of users being limited to one basic tablet from one supplier, and a single censored marketplace for approved apps, Android will enable thousands of manufacturers and software developers to compete for sales. Some people find freedom of choice is just too hard for them to handle, of course, but the (relatively) more open system could eventually triumph, as Microsoft MS DOS (aka IBM PC DOS) and Windows did over Apple’s Mac OS in the 1980s and 1990s. And while no one knows if this will actually happen, it already seems likely that Android phones will outsell Apple iPhones. Either way, as the FT’s Tech blog says: “Everyone’s eager to capitalise on the iPad’s technological shortcomings.” Well, Apple has left lots of room for competition. For a start, there’s the chance to provide cloud-based systems that don’t demand to be attached to a personal computer running Apple’s iTunes for synchronisation. The first version of the iPad also has lots of hardware and software limitations, including the annoying lack of multi-tasking for third-party apps, lack of Adobe Flash (not even as a user-selected option), the mysteriously missing webcam for Skype, the lack of a USB port or an SD card slot, and so on. Apple has probably left out some of these useful features in order to create a market for an upgraded iPad to be released in 18-24 months, but it means rivals can easily offer these things first. There are, of course, lots of alternatives to Android in the slate market. Some manufacturers already sell, or might sell, tablets that run different versions of Linux (including Nokia and Intel’s MeeGo), Windows CE Embedded or Windows 7, or even Palm’s WebOS, now owned by HP. Also, some tablets will be based on ARM chips such as Snapdragon or Tegra, and some on Intel Atom chips, depending on whether they’re small versions of laptop computers or big versions of mobile phones. However, Google has already singled out Apple as the dictatorial 1984-style enemy of freedom in the smartphone market (an amusing twist on Apple’s attack on IBM), and this war looks likely to be continued in the “overgrown smartphone” part of the tablet market. One key problem is that Google specified Android for screens up to about 7 inches, presumably thinking that the stripped-down web-oriented Chrome OS would be used on devices with bigger screens. But if Google isn’t hammering out a new tablet “device profile” based on XGA (1024 x 768 pixel) screens, I’ll be very disappointed.
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Mobile recycling company Mazuma launches new television advertising campaign featuring Britain’s Got Talent stars Stavros Flatley Read Full Story…
Paper links up with Handmark for application for iPhone, Nokia S60, BlackBerry, Google Android and Windows Mobile The London Evening Standard is today launching a smartphone news application created in partnership with US mobile apps developer Handmark. Users will be available to download the Evening Standard app free on mobile web devices and operating systems including the iPhone, Nokia S60, BlackBerry, Google Android and Windows Mobile. Evening Standard content can be saved for later reading and shared via email and social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook. The Evening Standard app uses Handmark’s proprietary mobile publishing platform technology. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”.
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