Galaxy Nexus With Ice Cream Sandwich

Is it a pure coincidence that my first gen Android phone (htc dream / g1) is experiencing battery issues right now? I mean, I love this phone and while I know it's a bit old school right now, it has been 'old faithful'. Even given the opportunity to upgrade I choose to pass the Samsung Galaxy on to my wife while I hung on to my dream. Of late however, I've been experiencing some battery issues that have caused me to think that in the world of mobile 2+ years is a long time. And now this:





Coming to Rogers I hope!

Open Comes At A Price For Google And Android In China

Here is an interesting little article that I came across this morning. It seems that 80% of all Android based smart phones in China will be shipped with Baidu, and not Google, as their default search engine. Fact is that being an open platform allows manufacturers to make changes and in China that means no Google for you!

China is a huge market as we all know but it is also one that Google has had it's challenges with as government censorship and heavy handed policies have not been kind to the search giant. In fact, in March of 2010 Google.cn (China) started to redirect all of it's search queries to Google.com.hk (Hong Kong) after much debate over the blockage of YouTube and allegations of Chinese hacking. See Wikipedia's Google China page.

I wonder just how much business Apple does in China and what that represents when comparing authentic Apple product to counterfeits or knock-offs? 

Tipping Point In US Mobile Phone Usage.

This does not really surprise me seeing as how many feature rich mobile phones and smartphones are out there, but 2009 marked the first year where data usage surpassed voice data usage on cellular networks in the US. I was admittedly late to the game when it comes to smartphones and even text messaging for that matter, but over the last 12 months I've gradually replaced much of the time I would have normally spent in front of my PC with time spent tapping away at my HTC's tiny keyboard. 

Still, even the telephone design industry has taken note. Ross Rubin, a telecommunications analyst with the NPD Group, said cellphones outfitted with numerical keyboards — easiest for quickly dialing a phone number — were no longer in vogue. Touch screens, or quick messaging devices with full “qwerty” keyboards, on the other hand, are. On the newest phones, users must press several buttons or swipe through several screens to get to the application that allows them to make calls."

“Handset design has become far less cheek-friendly,” Mr. Rubin said. Mr. Hesse of Sprint said he expected that within the next couple of years, cellphone users would be charged by the data they used, not by their voice minutes, a prediction echoed by other industry executives.

 More info at the NYTimes

Study Expects Mobile App Boom... Realy?

I don't think you have to be a genius to predict that mobile app development is going through the roof! It does however take some amount of thought to predict the magnitude of the explosive growth, but on the other hand the study quoted here was commissioned by an app store so take these numbers with a grain of salt...

According to the BBC:

"A study done for Getjar, the world's second biggest app store, said the market will grow to $17.5bn (£12bn) in the next two years. 

The study claimed downloads would climb from 7bn last year to 50bn by 2012 - a 92% year-on-year increase."

Big numbers!!!

Palm Sales Flatter Than Expected - Carriers Put Hold On Orders

According to the Wall Street Journal Blog, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has sent a memo to employees regarding lower than forecast sales and as the result a freeze on orders from some of it's carrier partners. This is apparently the memo:

Team,

This morning we announced preliminary results for our 2010 third quarter. Since the quarter has not yet closed, it is too soon to offer exact numbers, but we stated that we expect to report revenues for Q3 between $300 and $320 million. We also announced that we expect our revenue for this fiscal year to fall below the guidance we gave to Wall Street, which ranged from $1.6 to $1.8 billion. As we mentioned in our press release, our softer than expected performance is due to slower than expected customer adoption of our products, which in turn has prompted our U.S. carrier partners to put additional orders on hold for the time being. On a positive note, we expect to exit the quarter with over $500 million in cash on our balance sheet. We’re scheduled to announce our full financial results in March.

I realize this news is difficult to swallow. We made this announcement today to prevent a surprise for Wall Street when we announce quarterly earnings in March. In the meantime, the entire executive team has been working extremely hard to improve product performance, and have implemented a number of initiatives to increase awareness and drive sales.

Dave Whalen and I just returned from a very successful meeting with Verizon Wireless, where they acknowledged that their execution of our launch was below expectations and recommitted to working with us to improve sales. To accelerate sales, we initiated Project JumpStart nearly three weeks ago. Since then, nearly two hundred Palm Brand Ambassadors, supplemented by Palm employees from Sunnyvale, have been training Verizon sales reps across the U.S. on our products. Early results from the stores have already shown improvement on product knowledge and sales week over week. You may have also seen a growing number of Palm ads on billboards, bus shelters, buses, and subway stations—all getting the word out about Palm.

All of these efforts are examples of how we are working to accelerate adoption and grow distribution of webOS. In the next few weeks, your management will work with you to make sure your priorities are laser-focused, primarily on helping to increase sales, improve product quality and differentiate the Palm product experience.

Our goals are taking longer than expected to achieve, but I am still confident that our talented team has what it takes to get the job done.

We’ll schedule an all-hands meeting after our earnings announcement in March, and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

Go team!!!

jon

While I've heard good things about the Palm Pre, and a friend who uses one is quite smitten with his, I've been wary of recommending it to those inclined to ask my opinion. The reason being that this appears to be a last ditch effort for Palm, one that may or may not bring the company out of the shadow of the larger players. If it were unsuccessful, as it appears may be the case, where does that leave the consumer and for that matter the developers of apps. Secondly Palm is late to the game, a one time leader in the market, Palm has much time to make up and apps are slow to appear, again perhaps because of lack of consumer interest and therefore lack of developer interest. Competition is a good thing, and I hope that Palm is able to turn sales around, the question is can it be done soon enough to grab enough interest and make Palm a player again? 

Google's Schmidt Declares "...the principle of mobile first"

Google's Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has declared that mobile has come of age, speaking at Mobile World Congress. 

 

“It's like magic. All of a sudden there are things that you can do that didn't really occur to you... because of this convergence point,” he said.

“That time is upon us -- right now, right here, for this year and at least the next many years.”

Do you think so Eric?

Source: The Globe and Mail

Google's Got A Phone For That!

The technology world is not very good at keeping secrets, and much to nobody's surprise Google announced it's very own smartphone yesterday. The Nexus One Phone will of course be running on it's Android operating system and will incorporate features that didn't exist in previous versions of Android phones, such as pinch functionality.

According to the Official Google Blog: "Manufactured by HTC, the Nexus One features dynamic noise suppression from Audience, Inc., a large 3.7" OLED display for deep contrast and brilliant colors and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ chipset for blazing speeds. Running on Android 2.1, the newest version of Eclair, the software includes innovations like a voice-enabled keyboard so you can speak into any text field, fun Live Wallpapers, a 3D photo gallery for richer media experiences and lots more. Of course, it also comes with a host of popular Google applications, including Gmail, Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation."

You can have a closer look at the features of the device by visiting Google's online store for the Nexus One at www.google.com/phone. Unfortunately for many of us the phone is limited to a few markets at the moment, Canada is not one of them... sigh!

Google Going Mano a Mano With iPhone

There are plenty of reports out there that say that Google is testing it's own branded Android phone that it hopes will go head to head with Apple's iPhone and RIM's Blackberry devices. A new Google branded phone, being dubbed Nexus one by some sites, has apparently been handed out to Google employees around the globe for trials. The Nexus one was produced, according to the Globe and Mail, by HTC the maker of the Dream, Magic, and G1 android phones but will contain no HTC branding and will be sold directly by Google independent of cellphone carriers.

“If subscribers can get a cutting-edge handset from Google, shop for the best plan, and take that handset to another provider as soon as a better service offer comes out, carriers will have to rethink what loyalty means,” Forrester analyst Charles Golvin said in a Web note. “Such disruptions would clearly be good for customers, since few actually want to make a long-term contract commitment and more choice in service will promote competition and more price options.”

I still love my HTC Dream, hopefully the Nexus one will not hit the market here for a year or so when it's getting close to time for an upgrade.

Motorola's Android Offerings A Challenge To iPhone?

Motorola has been long rumoured to be releasing a couple of android powered smartphones for the last quarter of '09. Now an android fan site, Android and Me, is reporting specifications on two devices that they say were obtained from a trusted insider. The phones codenamed Morrison and Sholes, if they indeed come as speculated here, will be serious iPhone challengers.

Unconfirmed Morrison Specs:

CPU: Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz

Memory: 256MB RAM

Flash Rom: 512 MB

Memory Card Type: microSDHC, Class 6, 32 GB supported (max)

Display: 320×480 (HVGA)

Accelerometer: 3-axis, Four-way screen rotation

Magnetometer; Proximity Sensor; Ambient Light Sensor

Voice Bands: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, W-CDMA 900/(1700 or 1900)/2100

Wireless: 802.11 b/g, WEP, WPA, 802.11i (WPA2)

Bluetooth Version: 2.0 + EDR

Bluetooth Profiles: A2DP, AVRCP, GAP, HFP 1.5, HSP, SDAP, SPP

USB: USB 2.0 High Speed, Micro USB connector

Headset Jack: 3.5mm, Stereo out, Mic

Camera Resolution: 5 megapixels

Image Capture Resolution (max): 2560×1920

Camera Features: Autofocus, White Balance, Geotagging, Color Effects

Camera Digital Zoom (max): 5.4x

Video Recording Resolution: 320×240 (QVGA)

Video Recording Frame Rate: 25 fps

Location Services: Standalone GPS w/ internal antenna, Assisted GPS, E-Compass

Unconfirmed Sholes Specs:

CPU: OMAP3430 - 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 + PowerVR SGX 530 GPU + 430MHz C64x+ DSP + ISP (Image Signal Processor)

Dimensions: 60.00 x 115.80 x 13.70 mm

Weight: 169 g

Battery: Li-ion 1400 mAh.

Standby 450 hours, talk time 420 minutes

3.7-inch touch-sensitive display with a resolution of 854×480 pixels, 16 million color depth. Physical screen size is 45.72 mm by 81.34 mm.

512MB/256MB ROM/RAM

microSD / microSDHC expansion slot

Camera: 5.0 megapixel with autofocus and video recorder

Connectivity: USB2.0, 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, Wi-Fi

Supported audio formats: AMR-NB/WB, MP3, PCM / WAV, AAC, AAC +, eAAC +, WMA

Supported video formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, WMV

GPS navigation

Rise Of The Smart Phone

According to Samsung Mobile Display, a Samsung Electronics company, the global smart phone market is anticipated to grow to 500 million units in 2012 up from 170 million in expected this year. The display maker also expects touchscreens to be used in about 50 per cent of major portable devices – mobile phones, digital cameras, navigations and digital media players – to be sold in 2013. This despite an overall slowing of the mobile market globally.

Source: The Globe and Mail.