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August 25 Going Mobile #27In this issue
World Mobile Phone Throwing ChampionshipsWe’ve all had an urge at one time or another to give that little device the old heave-ho. But there is actually a world championship competition to see who can chuck it the farthest. For the first time in its nine-year history, this year the competition was moved outside of Finland (where there are 7 million mobile subscribers) to Narva, Estonia. The home team took the gold when Timmo Lilium recorded an 85 meter throw in the men’s traditional competition. Estonian Valeria Kadorova won the women’s division with a throw of 41 meters, and 12-year-old Finish youth Riku Kankkunen won the Junior division with an astounding toss of 55 meters. Honors in the Freestyle division for most unique costume or novelty in throwing the phone went to Estonian dog Cara who spat a mobile phone 30 centimeters. The competition was originally organized to draw attention to the problems of high tech waste and to encourage recycling of mobile devices. Phones are collected at the competitions to be recycled and reused. It also enabled people to “take out their frustrations” with devices, although no one is allowed to throw their own phones. Mobile phone throwing competitions will make their way to the Microsoft Campus in Redmond in October as part of the company’s Giving Campaign. Video at http://tinyurl.com/gomo01f and full story at http://tinyurl.com/gomo020. Google updates Android SDKFollowing last week’s petition by Android developers asking Google to provide more information and more frequent SDK updates, Google responded this week with version 0.9 of the Android SDK. According to Dan Morrill, developer advocate at Google, the new SDK fixes “tons of bugs” and includes a “ton” of user interface changes. It also includes a ton of new applications such as alarm clock, camera, calculator, music player, picture viewer, and messaging application. The news, however, that the SDK no longer included a Bluetooth API hit like a ton of bricks. No explanation was given for the omission, but developers saw it as a critical component for business applications. Nonetheless, response to the new SDK was generally positive and with the recent FCC go-ahead on the platform, they feel confident that Android is for real and not just vaporware. http://tinyurl.com/gomo021 The first Android phone was cleared for launch in September by the FCC last week. As expected, the phone is manufactured by HTC and will be deployed over the T-Mobile network. The formal name is Dream, DREA100. According to the FCC filing, the model comes with a WiFi interoperability certificate touting 802.11b/g WiFi. It also appears to comply with Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR in testing conducted on the GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/1900 and WCDMA 1700 bands (T-Mobile's 3G frequency). http://tinyurl.com/gomo022 New flip phone takes advantage of AWS bandwidth
What makes this phone unique is that it is one of the first that takes advantage of the new Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum that was auctioned off nearly two years ago. AWS functions in the 1.7 and 2.1 GHz frequencies. Metro PCS has built out its AWS CDMA service in Las Vegas, joining T-Mobile and Leap Wireless. AT&T and Verizon both bought sizable portions of the AWS bandwidth during the auction two years ago, saying they were holding it for their 4G LTE spectrum needs. However, since the more recent auction of the 700 GHz spectrum, the hold on the AWS spectrum might simply be to hold the line against the three smaller operators who would need the bandwidth in order to increase their coverage. http://tinyurl.com/gomo024
Intel CTO sees humans and computers coming closer together by 2050Reminiscent of Ray Kurzweil’s book “The Singularity is Near,” Intel CTO Justin Rattner predicted big changes ahead in human/computer social interaction when he addressed the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. “There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not so distant future,” Rattner said in his keynote address. Rattner explored several new technologies in his talk. For example, imagine your laptop or cell phone charging itself when you walk into an airport. Intel researchers have been working on a Wireless Resonant Energy Link (WREL) that will wirelessly charge device batteries within proximity of the resonator. He projected that computers would be able to change shape with programmable matter. A device might be small in your pocket, convert to an earbud when you are using the mobile phone, and be a full-size laptop with keyboard when placed on a desk. In addition to robots becoming more human-like, Rattner said he believes more innovation will emerge to make human and machine interaction more robust. Randy Breen, chief product officer of Emotiv Systems, joined Rattner onstage to demonstrate the company’s EPOC1 headset. The Emotiv EPOC identifies brainwave patterns, processes them in real time and tells a game what conscious or non-conscious thoughts the user has had, like facial expressions, conscious actions or emotions. A user with the headset could think about smiling or lifting an object, and an avatar in a game would execute it. EPOC can currently identify more than 30 different “detections” through the 16 sensors on the headset. http://tinyurl.com/gomo025 Can you see me now?A group at the University of Washington (UW) has developed software that for the first time enables hearing impaired Americans to use sign language over a mobile phone. This is the first time two-way real-time video communication has been demonstrated over cell phones in the United States. Video is much better than text-messaging because it’s faster and it’s better at conveying emotion, said Jessica DeWitt, a UW undergraduate in psychology who is deaf and is a collaborator on the MobileASL project. She says a large part of her communication is with facial expressions, which are transmitted over the video phones. Low data transmission rates on U.S. cellular networks, combined with limited processing power on handsets, have so far prevented real-time video transmission with enough frames per second that it could be used to transmit sign language. The data rates in the U.S. are about one-tenth of the rates in Europe and Asia. Sign language over cell phones is already possible in Sweden and Japan. Story at http://tinyurl.com/gomo026 and YouTube video at http://tinyurl.com/gomo027. Palm Treo Pro comes to light
It signals a willingness on the part of Palm to shake things up with major design changes - an attitude it lacked in the past few years. “It's a positive benchmark,” said Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney. “They had real form-factor problems. With this product, they correct those issues.” The company appears to be making progress in its efforts to catch up with its competitors. Palm recently passed the two-million mark on unit sales of its consumer-focused smartphone Centro. The Treo Pro will be released through various European carriers in September. An unlocked version for the U.S. will hit the market this autumn. “It's a significant step for us,” said Brodie Keast, senior vice president of marketing for Palm. “You can expect every product to be an improvement over the last one.” http://tinyurl.com/gomo02a Mobile HCI 2008Next week will be the 10th Annual Conference on Human Computer Interface for Mobile Devices in Amsterdam. http://tinyurl.com/gomo02b. I will be attending the four-day session and in addition to the weekly installment of Going Mobile, will be blogging the latest, greatest and newest insights from the industry’s far-thinkers at http://goingmobile.spaces.live.com. The program looks to be one of the best I’ve attended in the past four years. I’ll post multiple times each day, so check back often! MastheadThis is issue #27 of Going Mobile. The stories that I refer to are all among the 200+ publicly published articles I scan each week, but the commentary is entirely my own and does not represent the views, opinions, or official position of Microsoft or the Windows Mobile management team or any of the sites or companies referenced herein. You can refer stories to me or make other comments below. I'd like to make this better each week. Thnx, Nathan Everett August 18 Going Mobile # 26In this issue
Apps & servicesOracle proudly reported that there have been 23,055 downloads of its Oracle Business Indicators software for the Apple iPhone since the Apple App Store opened a month ago. The business software allows users to get information sent to their iPhones on finance, sales, and manufacturing for their companies based on predefined business metrics, such as if sales goals are met or shipment levels dip. About 5,000 organizations, some with thousands of employees, use Oracle BI apps at the desktop. The mobile apps are free to Oracle BI customers and data can be viewed in graphical or tabular format. http://tinyurl.com/gomo00e But Oracle was a tiny drop in the old Apple bucket this month as CEO Steve Jobs reported users have downloaded more than 60 million programs for the iPhone in the first month of the App Store. While most of those applications, like Oracle Business Indicators, are free, Apple sold an average of $1 million a day in applications for a total of about $30 million in sales over the month. If sales stay at the current pace, Apple stands to reap at least $350 million a year in new revenue from the App Store. Application developers, of course, stand to reap a fraction of those rewards as well. http://tinyurl.com/gomo00f Mobile operatorsThe J.D. Power & Associates Customer Care Performance Study released this week showed that Verizon had surpassed T-Mobile for the first time since the survey began in 2004. T-Mobile’s customer service has repeatedly been lauded as one of the best, even outside of the wireless industry. Verizon received a score of 103, followed by Alltel with 102, and T-Mobile with a score of 100. Power was quick to note that statistical noise may also play a factor as the top three were separated by only 3 points. AT&T took the fourth spot with a score of 97, and Sprint lagged far behind any of its competitors, scoring a 79—only nine points above the minimum score of 70. Data showed that across the board customer service is falling. Wireless customers spent an average of 4.4 minutes on hold this year, up one-third since 2003. That is just about 3.4 minutes after I usually hang up. In fact, this could be a problem for carriers who let the hold times get longer for customers. “Switching levels are 83 percent higher among customers who are put on hold, compared with those who are not,” according to J.D. Power & Associates. http://tinyurl.com/gomo010 T-Mobile, USA, has launched the latest stage of its 3G network in Las Vegas. The firm is expected to have networks live in 20 additional markets by the end of this year after it launched its first 3G services in New York in May. T-Mobile has reportedly invested $37.5 million to deploy its W-CDMA network in Las Vegas. http://tinyurl.com/gomo011 PlatformsThank you for your thoughtful response, Google. After 219 developers signed a petition asking for more information about Android’s progress, Google offered a two-sentence reply saying thanks. Developers building applications on Android, Google’s mobile phone software that is still in the making, have been venting their frustration at what they say is a slow pace of updates released for the SDK and a general lack of information about the development schedule for the software. “We appreciate the enthusiasm of our developers and we’re excited that you’re so passionate about the Android platform. Thanks for taking the time to send this,” reads the note from Google signed by someone identified simply as David. Now that’s how to build a developer community! http://tinyurl.com/gomo012 The U.S. handset market remained healthy in the second quarter of 2008 with Motorola still holding its number one position. According to Strategy analytics, there are three things you need to know about the handset market in the U.S.
In the lucrative smartphone segment of the market, however, there was strong double-digit growth in Q2’08, according to the Wireless Federation. Apple led with 125.6% growth. RIM came in second with 92.1% yearly growth, and Sony Ericsson came in third. Motorola lagged far behind in the fast-growing U.S. smartphone business and was the only vendor posting double-digit drops for both sequential and annual growth in Q2. RIM continues to lead the U.S. smartphone market with 46% marketshare in H1 with Apple now at 15%. http://tinyurl.com/gomo014 Industry and technologyNew technology continues to drive the wireless industry with convergence, advanced chips, and energy-savings leading the way. According to Network World, there are nine companies that should be on every network manager’s radar. Here’s the skinny:
There you have it—the nine new wireless companies to watch. There’s lots of detail in this story. http://tinyurl.com/gomo015 Samsung Electronics announced that it has introduced new software designed to optimize features of its proprietary embedded flash memories in smartphones using Windows Mobile, Symbian, Linux, and real-time operating systems. The new flash-embedded software optimizes data transactions within its memory chips as they interact with the operating system. http://tinyurl.com/gomo016 As adoption of the wireless Web grows, so too does the Holy Grail of advertising: targeted, timely, contextualized ads delivered directly into the hands of engaged consumers. So say Julie Ask and Seth fowler of Jupiter Research in an analyst article on RCR Wireless. The short summary is that mobile ad units are not just miniature versions of their online counterparts. Mobile advertising is growing at a pace of 6% month over month with the U.S. as the largest mobile ad market by far. Marketers hope to directly drive sales through their mobile ad campaigns, but so far lack an effective means of driving or measuring impact. They are unclear, however, as to whether there is a solution that doesn’t involve the iPhone. http://tinyurl.com/gomo017 Mobile societyOur mobile society is learning new things about its technology every day. Microblogging and social networking tool Twitter, learned a few of the facts of life this week and pulled the plug on delivery of outbound text messages via its dedicated UK number. The feature was available to users who wanted to receive Twitter updates directly to their mobile devices. But it looks like Twitter’s UK number was servicing all of Europe, leaving the firm with a “whale” of a bill. As an interim measure, Twitter said it will be introducing several local numbers to do a similar job, but on a smaller scale. http://tinyurl.com/gomo018 Meanwhile, the BBC World Service Trust, funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has launched the distribution of a novel ringtone in India designed to break down the social taboo of using condoms. The new ringtone features a cappella singers singing the word “condom” repeatedly. The message is that people who accept the use of condoms are responsible and cool. You’ve really got to see this one! http://tinyurl.com/gomo019 and http://tinyurl.com/gomo01a Finally, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who has effectively employed both Internet and mobile technology in his campaign so far, is sending notes to potential voters asking them to sign up to receive e-mail or text alerts notifying them of his choice for vice president. Obama has been swift to embrace “the third screen” as a way to expand his grassroots network and organize volunteers. David Plouffe, campaign manager of Obama for America, sent an email saying “Sign up today to be the first to know. No other campaign has done this before. You can be part of this important moment.” Will television crews and bloggers be able to break the news from their text messages before they actually hear the announcement? We’ll see later this week. http://tinyurl.com/gomo01b New DeviceOops. Did I say finally? Well, here’s a bonus. China’s Qiao Xing Mobile has sold 100,000 of its VEVA S60 mobile handsets since its release in May 2008. What, you might say, is so amazing about that? Apple sold a million iPhone 3Gs in the first weekend. Well, let’s see. For $199 you can get the iPhone in Black or White. Or for $290 you can get the S60 in 18 carat gold plate with a 129 Swarovski crystal mosaic. Now, you tell me: Safari Web browser or a lovely sparkly accessory that also makes phone calls. Qiao Xing Mobile is so pleased with the reception of the designer phone that they will release the S70 in September and the S80 and S90 later in the year. What? Platinum? http://tinyurl.com/gomo01c and http://tinyurl.com/gomo01d MastheadThis is issue #26 of Going Mobile. The stories that I refer to are all among the 200+ publicly published articles I scan each week, but the commentary is entirely my own and does not represent the views, opinions, or official position of Microsoft or the Windows Mobile management team or any of the sites or companies referenced herein. You can refer stories to me or make other comments below. I'd like to make this better each week. Thnx, Nathan Everett August 11 Going Mobile #25
In this issue· 5.2 billion mobile subscribers by 2011 · New devices on the way or way away · New idea from an old name · Changing its ways · Masthead 5.2 billion mobile subscribers by 2011Communications market research firm Infonetics Research reports there were 3 times more mobile subscribers than access line subscribers worldwide in 2007. That’s 3.3 billion vs. 1.1 billion. Continued strong growth will be driven by basic voice services needs in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Infonetics Research also projected that mobile subscribers would reach 5.2 billion by 2011 and that WiMAX is emerging as both a 3G and a broadband wireline alternative. http://tinyurl.com/gomo001 What is driving this growth? According to Gartner Research, worldwide smartphone sales are expected to reach 1.28 billion units this year. Gartner has identified the top five specific trends spurring device evolution and growth.
The cost of the growth in the smartphone market is that traditional PDA sales are steadily declining. Communication products, according to a market research report from BCC Research, have the largest share of the $443.2 billion portable battery-powered products market. Valued at an estimated $135.2 billion in 2008, this segment is expected to decline to $120 billion in 2013 due to a convergence of function seen in PDAs and smartphones that causes individual markets to shrink as the new converged markets grow. The key technology that enables these portable products is the $72 billion worth of batteries used to provide power. http://tinyurl.com/gomo003 New devices on the way or way away
Motorola announced the introduction of three mid- to low-end phones in their ROKR range. The candybar design handset has Motorola’s ModeShift technology that enables the handset to switch from red in music mode to blue in phone mode, which helps users to change from talk to text to music with the click of a button, says the company. Some of its additional features are high-fidelity audio, MP3 playback, and Radio Data System technology. http://tinyurl.com/gomo006 Openmoko has opened its architecture even further than the already available CAD files for its products by publishing the schematics for its Neo devices. Engineers now have free reign to modify the devices and add or remove features as they see fit. “One of the freedoms we value the most is the freedom to explore. To fully understand the details of complex systems, to adapt and enhance them,” said Openmoko architect, Werner Almesberger. “We now take our commitment to openness to the next level by releasing our schematics to the public, allowing anyone to find out how the system works and how to improve it.” http://tinyurl.com/gomo007
A new idea from an old name?Well, a company whose first fresh idea in recent memory was the Lenovo advertising campaign on the Olympics is introducing a new services offering to help customers deploy mobile technologies, which officially brings IBM into the mobile communications age. The service is accompanied by software that makes it easier to monitor business activities and access mainframe applications on a smartphone. I’d forgotten there were still mainframe computers that needed to be accessed from mobile devices, but IBM’s Rational Host Access Transformation Services, or HATS, is now optimized for mobile devices. This allows mobile users to access mainframe applications from a phone, PDA or other device in a secure manner. http://tinyurl.com/gomo009 And in the enterprise space, analyst firm Gartner Inc. softened its earlier endorsement of the iPhone 3G for use in large businesses. After three weeks of testing and reviewing the device, Gartner said it can be supported by IT shops, but only for a narrow set of uses, such as voice, e-mail, Web browsing and the storage of personal information. Gartner expressed security concerns for other enterprise use. The newest iPhone “does not deliver sufficient security for running custom applications” commonly used on handhelds in enterprise settings, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney wrote in a nine-page research note. http://tinyurl.com/gomo00a That iPhone 3G will, however, be available in 20 more countries on August 22. Ten of those countries are in Latin America with the rest including Eastern Europe and India. It is predicted that SingTel will also join the mix, but the reports are yet to be confirmed. http://tinyurl.com/gomo00b And by the way, if you are an Olympics addict like me, you will have seen those Lenovo ads I mentioned above at least a hundred times. But you can get the Lenovo buzz with Olympics news on your Windows Mobile or Blackberry smartphone. Get the Olympic Games edition of Zumobi at http://www.zumobi.com. It’s a great little app that displays four tiles on your device screen, giving you updated access to photos, news, athlete info, and athlete blogs. The design is fresh, even if the information isn’t always updated quickly enough for my tastes. My only other complaint was the 10mb it took to install and run. Had to quit all other applications to fire it up, but since haven’t had a hitch with it. Changing its waysFinally, according to analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates, “Microsoft is going to have to change the way it does business.” Gold sites the sudden rush to open source software this past year. “Having all that stuff available to phone companies for free, from a licensing perspective, puts tremdous pressure on Microsoft to reduce or eliminate what it charges for its operating system. If I’m Motorola paying, let’s say $10 per phone to Microsoft for ten million phones when there’s a free alternative, I’d have to look hard at that.” Of course, that’s assuming that either of those assumptions are true. Analyst Sean Ryan of IDC, however, said “IDC expects Windows Mobile to experience five year compound annual growth of over 54% in the enterprise and around 33 percent in the consumer space for the forecast period. Ryan said Microsoft is particularly well-positioned in the enterprise where its more immediate challenge is RIM’s popular, business-friendly line of BlackBerry’s. http://tinyurl.com/gomo00c Just to show that now two analysts ever agree on anything, Stuart Carlaw, Allied Business Intelligence’s research director took a turn on his projections for mobile Internet devices, or MIDs. Mobile Linux will outsell Microsoft Windows Mobile and other rival OS makers in the mobile Internet device market by 2013, according to ABI Research. The MID market is relatively small now—only 305,000 MID unites are expected to ship in 2008—but it is expected to grow to 39.6 million units in 2012. According to Carlaw, Linux will dominate that growth. http://tinyurl.com/gomo00d MastheadThis is issue #25 of Going Mobile. The stories that I refer to are all among the 200+ publicly published articles I scan each week, but the commentary is entirely my own and does not represent the views, opinions, or official position of Microsoft or the Windows Mobile management team or any of the sites or companies referenced herein. You can refer stories to me or make other comments below. I'd like to make this better each week. Thnx, Nathan Everett August 04 Going Mobile #24In this issue
It’s the economy…A new IDC report found that a sluggish economy isn’t stopping users from buying new and increasingly powerful mobile phones. Device makers shipped 306 million units during the second quarter of the year, up 15.3% over second quarter last year. Yes, that is on track to be a phone for every sixth person in the world by the end of the year. And half the world’s population is already mobile. The report is the latest testament to the staying power of mobile phones. A J.D. Power and Associates study in May found that consumers are willing to pay extra for advanced phone features, driving costs to their highest level in years. http://tinyurl.com/6e7ket But Microsoft’s news was not quite so cheery. In spite of selling more than 18 million Windows Mobile software licenses in the recently completed fiscal year, it was about 2 million short of its widely publicized 20 million-unit target. Microsoft was, however, still able to increase Windows Mobile’s overall share of the worldwide mobile phone operating system market, despite increased competition from Apple’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry and others, said Andy Lees, senior vice president of the Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft. Lees credited the shortfall to some devices shipping later than expected. Still, Lees cited IDC data indicating that Windows Mobile unit sales have grown faster than the overall market, moving from 11% to 13% share of the smartphone market. IDC data also shows Windows Mobile devices outpacing Researchin Motion’s unit sales and being more than twice as many as Apple. http://tinyurl.com/6mcjwv At the same time, Nokia cut prices for many of its handsets in July, putting further pressure on its rivals’ already thin profits. Nokia made the steepest price reductions of up to 10% for selected music and media phones, while it made smaller cuts across the portfolio. Shares in Nokia fell on the news and were 2.2% lower at 17.39 at the end of last week. Nokia increased its market share to 41% at the end of the second quarter helped by surging demand in emerging markets, research firms Strategy Analytics and CCs Insight said on Thursday. http://tinyurl.com/63vvjx Motorola surprised the industry by showing a $4m in earnings for the quarter, but compared to $28m in losses for the same period last year, the news was heralded as a turnaround. Motorola surprised and held off a challenge for third place in the handset market by LG Electronics. http://tinyurl.com/66my8f and http://tinyurl.com/59ufcj Motorola’s surprise profitability this quarter was not the only news as the company appointed Sanjay Jha as co-chief executive and head of its ailing mobile devices business. Greg Brown, who has been Motorola’s CEO will also serve as co-CEO with Jha, and was named leader of the broadband network operations. Seen as the latest step in moving toward splitting into two independent, publicly-traded companies, Jha joins Motorola from Qualcomm where he served for 14 years, most recently as chief operating officer and president of its CDMA technologies unit. Shares of Motorola jumped 7.6% on the news, while Qualcomm slid 2%. There is no regarding what role Carl Icahn’s newly appointed board members at Motorola might have had in recruiting the new talent. http://tinyurl.com/5d8d3g Continued dispute over cancer riskWhile Israel’s Ministry of Health has published guidelines for the safe use of mobile phones which call for children to be limited in how much they use their handsets, several African governments have turned to mobile telephones and computers to mitigate the effects of teacher shortage. The Israeli guidelines were drafted by Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, head of the Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. “Even though we have not yet reached the height of information on the issue, there are already answers to some of the questions that have arisen regarding the use of mobile phones,” Sadetzki said. “The public is very interested in the issue of radiation emanating from cell phones, but continues to use them as usual.” http://tinyurl.com/5hencj Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia have started ICT projects involving mobile telephone messaging and computer-generated classrooms for both primary and secondary schools. About 200 primary schools will benefit from Tanzania’s program to be launched early in October, Education and Vocational Training minister Professor Jumanne Mughembe told APA Saturday in an interview, adding that it will be rolled out mainly in districts that face acute teacher shortages. http://tinyurl.com/6rxldn In weighing the risks of cancer against the certainty of growing up in poverty and ignorance, I’d have to say the African nations have made a good choice. George Carlin may be dead, but there are still words you can’t use in your user nameFamous for his seven words you can’t use on television, deceased comedian George Carlin would have had a whole new routine out of words you can’t have in your user name at Verizon—even if they are in your real name. Dr. Herman I. Libshitz, a retired radiologist and potential Verizon customer was informed that he could not use his name in his email address or as his user name because it has s-h-i-t in it. After repeated customer service calls that were routed to the Philippines, India, and Tampa, Dr. Libshitz finally got a letter from Verizon informing him that he could not use his name as a user name because it didn’t comply with Verizon’s policy. It took calls from the Philadelphia Inquirer to get Verizon to deal with Dr. Libshitz and his questionable name. Apparently you can’t get to them unless you work for a newspaper. Ultimately, Verizon’s official response was that “As a general rule since 2005, Verizon doesn’t allow questionable language in email addresses, but we can and do make exceptions based on reasonable requests. The one from Dr. and Mrs. Libshitz certainly is reasonable and we regret the inconvenience and frustration they’ve been caused.” http://tinyurl.com/5eobzz Still, I can almost hear George’s new routine on seven names you can’t have if you want Verizon service. Apple headlines… againAfter a week of relative silence, Apple zipped back into the headlines last week, but it wasn’t all with great news. The latest in a series of headaches is that Apple’s support forums are rife with complaints that the iPhone 3Gs casings are developing hairline cracks. The cracks are most commonly appearing around the headphone jack, ringer switch, and volume controls. http://tinyurl.com/5eveec But at least Apple said late Tuesday that it had restored service to all MobileMe email accounts and officially called an end to an outage that had blocked thousands from receiving and sending messages for 11 days. Fortunately, Apple’s enterprise accounts use Microsoft’s ActiveSync, so it was only consumers who were without service. Let’s see, on a rage scale for out of service consumers, you multiply “thousands” times 11 days times the number of email messages undelivered each day then divide by the fact that it’s Apple and—well, you do the math. http://tinyurl.com/6mewyf It’s just slightly more than the upset Microsoft partners who noticed that Apple packaged MobileMe software in its most recent iTunes 7.7 update. The MobileMe Preferences icon mysteriously appears in the Windows control panel, even though the user has not signed up for the service. This follows Apple having been caught in April quietly loading its Safari Web browser onto their PCs without their permission through the Software Update service. Adding insult to injury, of course, was the fact that for the larger part of the month, the software was out of service, and Apple offered customers a 30-day free extension. http://tinyurl.com/5u8sxj An $10 application appearing in Apple’s popular AppStore was abruptly pulled from the shelves on Friday when Apple discovered the application allowed users to use the iPhone to access the Internet via 3G and share the connection through its WiFi radio with a PC. It essentially turned the iPhone into a WiFi modem for the laptop. Nullriver developers of the NetShare app were at a loss regarding why the application was pulled, and were equally mystified by the lace of comment from Apple accompanying its reinstatement to the store later that day. http://tinyurl.com/5w43mo and http://tinyurl.com/5abr5x Finally, according to the ever-churning rumor mill from which the Mail on Sunday newspaper gets its news, an unnamed industry source says that Apple is planning to launch a “nano” version of the iPhone handset just before Christmas. Reportedly O2 will get the exclusive rights as they have with its big brother. http://tinyurl.com/5eo5uc So, if iPod is to iPod Nano as iPhone is to iPhone Nano, we should expect a slightly smaller version of the popular device that does all the same things as the iPhone, but differently. T-Mobile raises the bar(s)An unofficial T-Mobile user site says the company will launch a high-speed 3G Network in 27 major cities in October. If so, it has been a tightly held secret. Ever since T-Mobile spent more than $4billion on new spectrum in September 2006, its U.S. users have been waiting in vain for 3G services. T-Mobile likes to tell its subscribers that it’s upgrading its nationwide network and subscribers may see the results on October 1, according to TmoNews.com. http://tinyurl.com/6x4jzb In the meantime, T-Mobile released the new entry-level Sidekick, which duplicates many of the features of the flagship LX model and adds some fun touches for creative customers. (I think you can read that phrase as teens if you’d like.) Believe it or not, there are those among the phone-buying public who do not crave an iPhone. T-Mobile’s youn-skewing Sidekick line has been the middle ground for those who want something more text-and IM-friendly than Apple’s grope-craving gadget and aren’t ready to subside into corporate BlackBerry gathering. A svelt new Sidekick design has one almost irresistible addition: the option to personalize the phone’s exterior with shells, swappable hard-plastic cases that users can custom-order in nearly any way they like. Think jewelry for your phone, at $15 a bauble. http://tinyurl.com/6y77t8 and http://tinyurl.com/633644 MastheadThis is issue #24 of Going Mobile. The stories that I refer to are all among the 200+ publicly published articles I scan each week, but the commentary is entirely my own and does not represent the views, opinions, or official position of Microsoft or the Windows Mobile management team or any of the sites or companies referenced herein. You can refer stories to me or make other comments below. I'd like to make this better each week. Thnx, Nathan Everett |
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