Jun
21
2010
Posts Tagged “o2”
Jun
19
2010
O2 admits iPhone 4 stock is ‘extremely limited’Posted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Jun
17
2010
O2 iPhone 4 pricing causes widespread confusionPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Jun
17
2010
O2 releases iPhone 4 pricing – apparently to stop people signing upPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Having lost its exclusive rights to sell Apple’s new phone, the mobile network now seems to have an inverse pricing at its low end to discourage 24-month contracts O2 has announced the pricing for its iPhone 4 handsets – and seems to be trying to push people away from buying longer-term contracts. Under the 24-month contracts, the phones are more expensive than the 18-month contracts, by between £70 (for the white 16GB version priced at £209 for 18 months, or £279 for 24 months) and £24 (for the black 32GB version, costing £299 for 18 months and £323 for 24 months). Even though the price plans at that tariff differ by £5 per month, over 18 months the 16GB handset works out cheaper on the lowest tariff by £10. Pricing plans for Vodafone’s iPhone 4 leaked out earlier this week, although the company has not formally announced them and is only letting people indicate interest in ordering it. Orange’s charges start at £169 for a 16GB phone on a £30-per month 24-month contract (£229 on £30 for 18 months) O2′s pricing decision has puzzled people on Twitter: “O2 seems to have forgotten the idea is to lure people onto longer contract by *lowering* upfront costs. Duh.,” commented journalist Scott Colvey. The decision – tied to O2′s decision to introduce strict caps on data downloads per month, varying between 500MB and 1GB, replacing its previous “unlimited” data contracts that many are still using – may mean a migration of former iPhone customers away from the company, which until last Christmas had the monopoly on iPhone sales in the UK. Now the phone is sold by Orange, Vodafone and 3 – though only Orange and Vodafone have announced prices. Many iPhone owners who bought the second-generation iPhone in 2008 on 18- or 24-month contracts will be eligible to upgrade with O2 – or possibly to shift to another carrier. Apple has apologised to would-be customers after overwhelming demand meant that its own and AT&T’s servers crashed when the phone went on sale in five countries on Tuesday. It says that 600,000 phones were ordered on the day – which suggests that it has tapped into huge pent-up demand from owners of older versions, as well as new buyers seeking to join the smartphone bandwagon.
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Jun
16
2010
Demand for Apple’s iPhone 4 crashes ordering websites in US and UKPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Apple sees sales of 600,000 units on Tuesday, with demand in Germany 10 times ahead of that for last year’s model Apple has reported overwhelming demand for its new iPhone 4 model, selling more than 600,000 in a single day on Tuesday which saw ordering websites crash in the US and UK. In Germany, demand for the new model, which was only unveiled by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs at the start of the month, is running 10 times ahead of that for last year’s model, the iPhone 3GS, reported Deutsche Telekom. By comparison, when the iPhone 3GS went on sale last year, 1m were sold in its first three days. But that debuted in eight countries, whereas the iPhone 4 has gone on sale only in five. Apple has apologised to people who tried to order the phone and gave up in frustration, saying demand was far higher than it expected. “We hope that they will try again.. once the iPhone 4 is in stock.” Since its debut in June 2007, Apple’s smartphone has taken a huge chunk of the smartphone market and forced companies such as RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, and Nokia, which has the lion’s share of smartphone sales, to play catchup. Nokia issued another profits warning on Wednesday, and its share of the smartphone market is falling every quarter. In the UK, where Apple is offering the phone without a contract through its online store, Apple’s website crashed as people tried to order it. And in the US, where it is only available with a contract from AT&T, the telephone company’s website froze as it tried to cope with an avalanche of orders each of which had to be verified on its own servers. That also led to problems in which some customers saw details of other peoples’ accounts – a reminder of the flaw exposed by a security group last week in which hundreds of thousands of Apple iPad users’ emails were stolen via weak security on AT&T’s site. As a result of the heavy demand Apple has had to push back the delivery date for phones ordered online, and on Wednesday AT&T suspended orders, citing “unexpectedly high demand”. Apple said “it was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions.” Last year in the UK O2 had exclusive rights to sell the new iPhone, and said then that more of those handsets were sold in the first two hours of trading than all handsets in an average day. This year Apple is selling the iPhone 4 without a contract – at £499 for the cheapest version – and O2, Vodafone, Orange and 3 are competing to offer it on contract terms. However neither O2 or 3 have yet announced prices, or allowed customers to pre-order the phone. However the new contracts being offered for the phones have sparked anger among web users, who say that the carriers’ use of the word “unlimited” for the amount of data that can be downloaded through the smartphone is misleading. The companies impose a “fair use” cap, while describing the service as “unlimited”. Now, a formal review by the advertising regulator could be about to put a cap on the practice. This could mean that fixed-line and mobile operators will not be able to use the term “unlimited broadband” unless they are offering a genuinely unlimited service – and that means nothing in the small print that lets the provider send warnings to customers if they reach a certain threshold. The review is being led by the Advertising Standards Authority, reports New Media Age, which will work with two ad industry bodies to make a comprehensive assessment of industry claims and consumer complaints on both broadband speeds and “unlimited” tariff penalties.
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Jun
16
2010
Broadband providers may have to cap those ‘unlimited’ broadband claimsPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Claims about misleading “unlimited” broadband promotions have been brewing for years, but a formal review by the advertising regulator could be about to put a cap on the practice. This is likely to mean two things. Firstly, that fixed-line and mobile operators will not be able to use the term “unlimited broadband” unless they are offering a genuinely unlimited service – and that means nothing in the small print that lets the provider send warnings to customers if they reach a certain threshhold. A Which? study last year found that had happened to 11% of a base of 11,000 broadband users. Which? also found that increased consuer use of multimedia services is making it harder for providers to keep up with demand. The second implication is for smartphone tariffs, which are now starting to specify data caps. O2 is ditching “unlimited” data plans with the launch of the iPhone 4 in the UK on 24 June, while Vodafone ditched the term last December, based on feedback ahead of its introductory iPhone tariff. O2 have insisted that only 3% of the heaviest data users will notice the “limited” tariffs and will have to pay a data charge top-up for usage over their tariff allowance. The review is being led by the Advertising Standards Authority, reports New Media Age, which will work with two ad industry bodies to make a comprehensive assessment of industry claims and consumer complaints on both broadband speeds and “unlimited” tariff penalties.
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O2, Orange and Three have confirmed that they will accept pre-orders for the Read Full Story…
UK mobile operator O2 is scrapping its unlimited mobile broadband data Read Full Story…
Jun
11
2010
Why file-sharing has killed ‘unlimited’ mobile data contractsPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Only a tiny number of people use huge amounts of data – which means that many more have seen ‘unlimited’ contracts killed off. It’s a tragedy of the commons for mobile data So the free lunch – otherwise known as the unlimited data tariff – is over. O2 said on Thursday that it will no longer be offering new or upgrading customers its “unlimited” tariff for smartphone users – principally, it’s believed, the iPhone users, whose numbers connected to O2 have grown from 1m to 2m in a year. O2 isn’t the first: Vodafone ended its “unlimited” offering last month, and Steve Jobs had barely sat down after delivering his WWDC speech before AT&T announced that it too was ending its “unlimited” offering, replacing it with a tiered set – $15/month for 200MB, $25/month for 2GB. Orange is expected to follow suit in the next few weeks, though when asked the company simply says that it “constantly reviews its pricing”. However the noises we’re hearing from parts of the company suggest that a review will see it follow O2 to dump the “unlimited” offering. Why? Because a tiny number of users are slurping huge amounts of data. And because the mass of users are demanding more and more data (though lots less than the real slurpers). There’s all sorts of interesting information that we can pull out of this – especially with the help of O2′s chief executive Ronan Dunne, who signed a lengthy post at the company’s blog with a tortuous justification for why the company has changed its rules. The strange thing is why he hasn’t come out with the simple reason – because it would make O2 a lot more popular at a stroke. He goes over the points that were made in yesterday – that 97% of O2 smartphone users use less than 500MB, and that only a tiny number use more than 1GB. (Interesting to note that Apple-watcher John Gruber, someone who I’d expect to be a heavy user, says he uses about 500MB per month. So he’s clearly just one of the 97%, even if an outlier there.) Even so, smartphone users are a problem:
Well, yes, but nobody made you offer the iPhone, Mr Dunne. You were the ones who wanted it so much. This makes it sound as though you like getting peoples’ money, but don’t like offering them a concomitant service to go with it. However it’s more complicated than O2 getting a bit whiney. What we’re hearing here at the Guardian though is that Apple itself helped to kill off the “unlimited” tag, because it doesn’t like it being used with services that call it “unlimited*” and then explain further down the page in tiny print that that actually * means “subject to ‘fair usage’”. (We understand that Apple vetoed Vodafone’s initial pricing for the iPad data plans for just that reason.) It seems that just as broadband ISPs became addicted, when the race to sign up customers was on a few years ago, to the phrase “up to…” for their line speeds, so mobile data networks have gotten too comfy with the “unlimited*” word – where the asterisk is all-important. You could even call it Unlimited™ – which has quite a different meaning from unlimited. Apple’s weight isn’t the real reason for the change, though. Stay with us. There’s other interesting stuff in that blogpost: O2 says there that the average user uses 200MB per month; that FaceTime, the video calling offering introduced by Apple with the iPhone 4, will only be available on Wi-Fi (at least from O2); and there will be regular texts to let you know how you’re doing on your data allowance. And if you go over it without buying more, you’ll see your data speed slow down. Given those numbers, let’s make some assumptions. There are 2m iPhone users (and even more if you add in Android users). That’s a large enough population that you can treat it as a random sample. I’m told by one of the networks that data use follows the normal distribution (aka the bell curve – that mathematical prediction of where the members of a random population will be: it applies for things like height, for example). It’s probably not a perfect normal distribution – there will be a low-end cutoff, because any device connected to the network will use a least a little data. But for modelling, it’s a start. So: 200MB average; 97% use less than 500MB. Plus those numbers into a normal distribution calculator and you discover that those 0.1% who are annoying O2 so much consume more than 690MB of data per month. That’s about 23MB per day – roughly a megabyte every single hour. What, you think, are those folks doing? In fact, one network tells me that those people are downloading many gigabytes per month. That’s quite hard to do on a smartphone. Is it because of music streaming services like Spotify or We7 or (in the US) Pandora? The networks say no: audio doesn’t take up that much bandwidth (certainly compared to video), and they haven’t seen much takeup. So those gigabyte users aren’t listening to streams. (The iPlayer is only available via Wi-Fi on most networks.) Yet O2 says that while it has doubled the number of iPhone users, mobile data use is doubling every 4 months, equivalent to an eightfold growth every year. So: lots of growth, but some real extremes. What is causing it? Closer investigation suggests that this is a sort of collateral damage from the rumblings that preceded the Digital Economy Act – that it’s caused by peer-to-peer users who were perhaps worried about the “three strikes” talk, and figured that their landlines (if they have them) might be monitored or throttled if they download a lot of P2P data; or they might be surcharged. For as we’ve pointed out before, “unlimited” doesn’t mean unlimited on landline broadband. So those wary folk – put by one network as numbering “in the few hundreds” out of millions – have signed up on “unlimited” plans, taken the SIM out of the phone, and then use it in a 3G dongle to download stuff. Because it’s unlimited, they can get what they want. And as they don’t mind how quickly it arrives, the speed isn’t a particular issue; they’re just after volume. O2 says that 0.1% of its smartphone users – that’s about 2,000 people – are consuming 36% of its data. Other networks indicate the same. It’s also a bit foolish on the part of the downloaders, because the Digital Economy Act does actually allow for measures to be taken over illicit filesharing over mobile networks. But possibly the people doing it don’t think they’ll be noticed. Here’s news: the mobile networks have noticed. So it’s not really down to the iPhone or Android phones, which are more of an annoyance to the networks, because they make multiple, frequent requests to the network – but those are small amounts; those aren’t the reason why O2 is ending the unlimited package. It’s because some people took it at its word when it said data access was unlimited. At this point, your – and our – reaction is “so tell that 0.1% to stop being data hogs – shape their bandwidth, send them letters, that sort of thing. Because obviously you’re not going to want to burden yourself with having to set up new billing for millions of customers just because you’ve got 0.1% who are a bit annoying. No, that would be silly.” It’s certainly puzzling that O2 isn’t being clearer about the reasons. But the networks say they don’t want to annoy those big downloaders. That’s because they want to keep them as customers; but as paying customers. Yet the unlimited contracts aren’t being withdrawn; they’ll simply not be renewed. “At some stage, people will want a new handset or a new contract,” an O2 spokesperson said yesterday. I wouldn’t be so sure: someone who’s using their iPhone SIM as a dongle really isn’t worried about upgrading; they’ve probably got a PAYG SIM stuffed into their iPhone for their phone calls. They’re not stupid. Unless O2 – and the other networks – start taking some aggressive action, such as throttling their connections, then the faux-iPhoners will carry on. It’s a tragedy of the commons, mobile data-style. Just like spam and comment bots, the tiny number of P2P mobile downloaders are screwing it up for everyone else. It’s odd that internet evolution is going in reverse here: I thought that ISPs had learnt that offering broadband was far better for retaining customers than the penny-per-minute dialup nightmare of 1990s internet connectivity (yes, children, we used to have dialup modems, and paid per minute we were connected. And you couldn’t use make a phone call while you did). It’s a retrograde move – and even though the networks insist that most people won’t be affected, the fact is that we’re data-hungry. Eventually, we’ll all be over the limit. Will the P2P donglers still be on their unlimited contracts even then? One feels that it’s time for the networks, if they’re really serious about offering a good service to all their customers, to have a think about that “fair use” clause. Meanwhile, the 97% get a little inconvenienced, plus the constant worry that they’ll go over their limit. That’s actually the worst thing about what’s happening here: that the confidence that you can use the mobile internet anywhere is suddenly gone, replaced by a nagging worry that this page or that service will land you with a big bill. The mobile internet shouldn’t be like that: it should be like the landline version, where you don’t worry about the megabytes. It’s not a free lunch – but it’s not a system where the person in front is treating the buffet as an all-you-can-eat either.
Read Original Story…
Jun
10
2010
O2 signals end of unlimited data tariffs for iPhone customersPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Network operator says that most customers will see no difference – but that 1% of users consume 36% of data O2 is telling its smartphone customers – notably including users of Apple’s iPhone – that it is ending its “unlimited” data plans, and that those who use a lot of data will have to pay up in time. Unveiling its new data tariffs ahead of the launch of the iPhone 4 on 24 June, the mobile operator insisted that 97% of users will not notice the difference – and that its changes were really aimed at about 2,000 users who use extraordinarily high amounts of data every month. Instead, it said that a tiny number – just 1% of smartphone users – are using 36% of its total mobile data traffic, and that they needed to be encouraged to change their behaviour. The new tariffs replace the “unlimited” data tariffs offered with the iPhone on O2 in 2007 with a new tiered set, including 500MB, 750MB and 1GB data packages, along with unlimited Wi-Fi time via The Cloud and BT’s OpenZone services. However existing users with iPhone contracts will still be able to use “unlimited” amounts of data, O2 said. “97% of our smartphone users use less than 500MB per month, so they won’t notice a difference,” said a spokeswoman for O2. Existing O2 customers can find out their data consumption on the O2 site. She said that O2 was seeing dramatic growth in the number of smartphone users, especially iPhone users, but even more rapid growth in mobile data usage. “Total mobile data consumption on our network is doubling every four months,” she said. “And the number of iPhone users on O2 has grown in a year from 1m to 2m.” That suggests that individual smartphone users’ data consumption is growing rapidly and that O2 is now trying to slow it down by putting up barriers to greater use. “At the moment the tap is running all the time and we don’t know where,” suggested the spokeswoman. “The model for data provision is broken, and data consumption is growing. We’re looking at ways of how to charge people for data.” O2′s spokeswoman said that rebalancing the tariffs would mean that the company could plan its network capacity: “as soon as people know how much data they’re consuming, they can make a decision about whether to use their phone.” But that is not borne out if 97% of users will see no change – because their surfing habits will persist as before. Some have suggested that O2 is worried about the growth of music streaming services such as Spotify, which is now available for the iPhone and other smartphones: if more people adopt it, that will put a heavier load on the phone network, yet O2 receives no money from Spotify for providing the service. O2 denied this, though. “If people have a phone, they can use it for whatever they like,” said the spokeswoman. Instead, O2 suggested, it is trying to change the behaviour of a tiny number of users – reckoned to be just 1% of iPhone users – who use very large amounts of data. “There’s only 3% [of smartphone users] who use more than 1GB of mobile data per month. But actually it’s just 1% [of smartphone users] who use about one third – to be precise, 36% – of the network data traffic. I suppose they must be streaming all the time or something.” Asked whether the move away from the unlimited to new data tariffs for all forthcoming iPhone 4 users would have been more simply managed by contacting that 1% – about 2,000 people – and asking them to change their behaviour, rather than introducing entirely new billing systems for all future owners, O2′s spokeswoman said: “It’s about educating people. We have 24m customers. But this change doesn’t affect any existing customers.” Asked what O2 will do if those data-hungry 2,000 do not upgrade to the new limited tariffs, the spokeswoman said: “Eventually they will come to the end of their contract, or they will want a new handset.”
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O2 has announced that it will allow customers to buy out their existing Read Full Story…
Jun
09
2010
What’s the carbon footprint of … using a mobile phone?Posted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Mobile phones don’t consume much power – but the networks they rely on do. • More carbon footprints: nuclear war, a pint of beer, more The carbon footprint of using a mobile phone:
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Pre-orders open June 15, but no carrier exclusive
Vodafone, O2 and Phones 4U have all said they’ll be selling Apple’s new baby by the end of the month, but no-one is talking pricing just yet.…
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(Source The Register)
Jun
08
2010
iPhone 4 arriving in just two weeks
Posted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News, New Deals, New MobilesNew Mobile & Latest Deal News!
Suddenly two and a bit weeks seems like a lifetime but that’s how long we have to wait for the new iPhone 4, arriving June 24th on Orange and O2. Guaranteed to be one of the hottest smartphones for 2010 the iPhone 4 boasts a 3.5 inch Retina display with a resolution 960×640 pixels, which is four times as many pixels as previous iPhones, over 100,000 pixels per square inch and the highest resolution in any mobile phone. It’s so detailed that the human eye cannot distinguish individual pixels and the fingerprint resistant coating ensures images stay bright and vivid.
The design is as cool as the list of features with flat surfaces and a stainless steel band. The iPhone 4 measure just 9.3mm and will be available in 16GB or 32GB form, with a colour choice of black or white. Video calling is now capable and users can switch between the front facing self-portrait camera and back facing scenic camera during a call. But Apple couldn’t leave the built-in optics there, the 5 megapixel camera promises excellent photographs and comes with LED flash, geo-tagging and touch-to-focus whilst the HD video recorder captures 720p video at 30fps. Budding film enthusiasts can not only create their own movies but also edit them and add transitional effects with the iMovie application.
The iOS4 operating system brings true multitasking to the iPhone without degradation to the battery life. Applications can be moved into separate folders and voice activated commands provide a more fun way to access your latest app download. A unified inbox keeps incoming messages in one place whilst the Safari Web browser lets you go everywhere.
The impressive feature set continues with 3D movement controlled gaming, iBooks and a built-in iPod for playing the latest music and video downloads from iTunes. The good news here is that enjoying these features to the fullest doesn’t cause the battery any problems with its performance boosted by 40% compared to previous models. When time comes to step away from the virtual world provided by the iPhone 4, A-GPS, maps and a digital compass ensure the iPhone is still your best friend.
If you find it hard to decide what phone you should purchase next then you will simply love Apple for creating another masterpiece, the Apple iPhone 4.
Compare iPhone 4 deals (coming soon)
Tags: 10, 3, all, apple, apple iphone, best, compare, compared, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, HD, iphone, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobile phone, mobiles, new, new mobile, o2, orange, phone, phones, sim, sol, test, Touch, world |
It’s the fourth iPhone launch in three years, and this one comes with the added bonus of all that juicy stolen-phone leakage back in April. So unusually, we know what this phone looks like before Steve’s Big Reveal at 6pm tonight.
If you’re too busy for the full colour prelude to Apple’s announcements, here’s the condensed guide to what you can probably expect.
• It looks like this:
• Though the working title, at least for the press, has been iPhone 4G (as in fourth generation) this will probably be called iPhone HD.
• A smaller, lighter, slimmer handset.
• A five-megapixel camera with flash.
• A glass back that improves reception.
• Micro-Sim cards, like iPad.
• The same A4 processor as the iPad (that means a much faster phone).
• A larger, sharper screen at 960 x 640 pixels – increasing screen resolution by four times.
• Improved battery life.
• iChat software will enable video chat with other iPhones and desktop Macs.
• Two models: 32GB and 64GB.
• Available through the existing retailers: Orange, Vodafone and O2.
• iPhone HD will become as the premium phone in what will become a range of iPhones with iPhone 3GS repackaged as a cheaper, less featured handset with 8GB of memory.
• Other rumours for tonight’s announcement at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference include an anticipated cloud-based music streaming service for iTunes, a new and improved Apple TV (that would be one with a clearer, more sellable consumer proposition), new version of Mac’s operating system Mac OS X 10.7 (OS X Lion, perhaps?)
The latest iPhone 4.0 operating system – a reminder
iPhone 4.0 was announced in April and released in beta format for developers. Here’s the quick guide to the new features:
• Multitasking: the oft-requested feature has finally been added after Apple worked on how to balance multi-tasking without sucking battery life or performance. Multitasking has been organised through seven types of service, so music apps would be able to play while you make a VOIP call, for example.
• Folders: Something similar to that pretty stacking feature for folders on the latest OS for desktop Macs will be added, which will make it easier for those of us with loads of apps to organise them in folders.
• iBooks: The feature launched with the iPad will now work across iPhones an iPod Touch too.
• iAd: Apple’s fledgling mobile ads system is designed to deliver ads without taking the user away from the app or game they are using, and will give developers a 60% revenue share.
• Mail: Apple’s email client gets a unified inbox, so anyone with multiple accounts can see all the main in one view. Messages will be organised by thread and attachments open in third-party apps.
• Business: Apple has added email encryption and encryption for other apps to increase support for enterprise users, as well as improving mobile device management features, support for SSL VPN and wireless app distribution.
• Gaming: A major step-up in Apple’s competition to portable games consoles, like Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, Apple is adding a layer that unifies players’ social profiles across all games.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
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It’s the fourth iPhone launch in three years, and this one comes with the added bonus of all that juicy stolen-phone leakage back in April. So unusually, we know what this phone looks like before Steve’s Big Reveal at 6pm tonight.
If you’re too busy for the full colour prelude to Apple’s announcements, here’s the condensed guide to what you can probably expect.
• It looks like this:
• Though the working title, at least for the press, has been iPhone 4G (as in fourth generation) this will probably be called iPhone HD.
• A smaller, lighter, slimmer handset.
• A five-megapixel camera with flash.
• A glass back that improves reception.
• Micro-Sim cards, like iPad.
• The same A4 processor as the iPad (that means a much faster phone).
• A larger, sharper screen at 960 x 640 pixels – increasing screen resolution by four times.
• Improved battery life.
• iChat software will enable video chat with other iPhones and desktop Macs.
• Two models: 32GB and 64GB.
• Available through the existing retailers: Orange, Vodafone and O2.
• iPhone HD will become as the premium phone in what will become a range of iPhones with iPhone 3GS repackaged as a cheaper, less featured handset with 8GB of memory.
• Other rumours for tonight’s announcement at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference include an anticipated cloud-based music streaming service for iTunes, a new and improved Apple TV (that would be one with a clearer, more sellable consumer proposition), new version of Mac’s operating system Mac OS X 10.7 (OS X Lion, perhaps?)
The latest iPhone 4.0 operating system – a reminder
iPhone 4.0 was announced in April and released in beta format for developers. Here’s the quick guide to the new features:
• Multitasking: the oft-requested feature has finally been added after Apple worked on how to balance multi-tasking without sucking battery life or performance. Multitasking has been organised through seven types of service, so music apps would be able to play while you make a VOIP call, for example.
• Folders: Something similar to that pretty stacking feature for folders on the latest OS for desktop Macs will be added, which will make it easier for those of us with loads of apps to organise them in folders.
• iBooks: The feature launched with the iPad will now work across iPhones an iPod Touch too.
• iAd: Apple’s fledgling mobile ads system is designed to deliver ads without taking the user away from the app or game they are using, and will give developers a 60% revenue share.
• Mail: Apple’s email client gets a unified inbox, so anyone with multiple accounts can see all the main in one view. Messages will be organised by thread and attachments open in third-party apps.
• Business: Apple has added email encryption and encryption for other apps to increase support for enterprise users, as well as improving mobile device management features, support for SSL VPN and wireless app distribution.
• Gaming: A major step-up in Apple’s competition to portable games consoles, like Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, Apple is adding a layer that unifies players’ social profiles across all games.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Jun
06
2010
The new iPhone is coming. But it’s the old one that rivals should fear
Posted by CompareMobiles.com 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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(Source The Guardian)
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Bada or Gooda?
The Samsung Wave, the first handset based on the company’s much hyped Bada platform, hit the UK today, available on Virgin Media, O2 and Vodafone.…
Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)
Jun
04
2010
Dell Streak free on O2 monthly contract
Posted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News, New Deals, New MobilesNew Mobile & Latest Deal News!
A whole new standard has been set with the Dell Streak that is certainly capable of matching the functionality of a laptop, with the added benefit of phone calling, and surpassing the experience given by smartphones with its 5 inch capacitive touch-screen and super slim 10mm design. Four customisable home screens, multi-touch capabilities, a 1Ghz processor and pinch and zoom ensure that all the applications and features run smoothly.
The graphical qualities are amazing with a resolution of 800×480 pixels providing high-definition video playback. Your own videos can be uploaded to YouTube within a few easy clicks and social networking integration makes uploading pictures a breeze. The 5 megapixel camera has the functionality of a dedicated device with auto-focus, dual LED flash, geo-tagging, an editor and face/smile detection. A secondary camera is also provided to allow video calling.
Access to the Internet is granted with a 3G HSDPA connection that rivals the experience obtained via broadband and with portrait or landscape viewing web pages can be enjoyed with ease. The Android OS v1.6 can be upgraded to v2.2. The connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, quad-band roaming and a HDMI port is provided for connecting to a TV. The Dell Streak offers the best of both worlds and with a GPS receiver, digital compass and Google Maps the package is rounded off nicely.
Compare all Dell Streak deals
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May
30
2010
England fans face high mobile bills at World Cup
Posted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News |
• Mobile internet use as much as £8 to view 20 pages
• Fans urged to check with phone operators before travelling
Football fans lucky enough to be travelling to the football World Cup this summer are being warned that they could face huge mobile phone bills if they call, text, tweet or surf the web while in South Africa.
Many mobile phone companies count the country in their most expensive bracket when calculating the cost of mobile phone calls and texts, while accessing the web costs as much as £8 per megabyte with some operators. Football fans will run up that much data usage after accessing as few as 20 web pages, while any that download an “app” while abroad could run up far higher data charges.
Mobile phone operator 3 will this week slash its prices for customers going to the tournament, which starts on 11 June, while Vodafone has already announced it will extend its Passport cheap calls package to include the country.
But with more and more mobile phone users carrying smartphones that can access the internet, use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and send emails, the tournament could turn out to be very expensive for football fans who do not check first with their mobile operator.
“The rise of smartphones, like the iPhone, means that all it takes is a bit of browsing or a downloaded app and you are going to get absolutely stung if you don’t know what you are paying for,” warned Mike Wilson, broadband and mobiles manager at moneysupermarket.com. “The high cost of roaming is always an issue in the summer but the fact that the World Cup is being held in South Africa has upped the ante.
“The first thing that anyone considering travelling this summer should do is speak to their existing provider and find out what they are going to charge and whether there are any special deals that will reduce that amount. Don’t forget to also shop around for better deals.”
This week 3 will announce that it is dropping its data roaming prices by more than 50% during June and July. It will charge £1.25 per megabyte of data, which compares with as much as £8 per megabyte with Orange.
Owned by Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, 3 is also dropping its call charges for South Africa – making calls from the country to anywhere else in the world will be charged at £1.40 per minute, while receiving calls will be 99p per minute and texts 25p.
While 3′s data roaming charges are cheaper than its rivals, its voice prices are still relatively high. Both O2 and Vodafone charge less, while all four rival networks offer discounts to customers who sign up for special international calling promotions.
Vodafone, for instance, has extended its free Passport service to include South Africa for June and July, meaning football fans who register before they travel can make calls from their existing bundles, after an initial 75p connection charge.
Vodafone has also dropped its data costs but only from 15 June, which is four days after kick-off in the first game. It currently charges £14.99 for 25MB of data a day in South Africa, but from 15 June it will charge £3 per megabyte for the first 5MB used by customers and £15 for every subsequent 5MB.
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(Source The Guardian)
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