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Takeaways from mobile’s second quarter

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 06:55:19 +0000

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Windows Phone 8 features leak, look like a sales booster

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:43:08 +0000

Microsoft’s Windows Phone devices aren’t yet selling in the tens of millions, but the platform is maturing in ways that could boost sales. Alleged details of Windows Phone 8 emerged on Thursday in a leaked video intended for Microsoft’s partners. Information from the video was written up by PocketNow and upon first glance, all the details seem feasible. More importantly, they’re what Microsoft needs to improve sales.

Windows Phone initially didn’t impress me, but after its first software update, called Mango, I began to see promise. Next up for the platform reportedly is Tango and then Apollo; it’s Apollo that will be dubbed Windows Phone 8, with the following additions that can fill current gaps in the platform:

Support for multi-core processors and four different screen sizes (presumably with different resolutions)
Addition of removable microSD memory cards
NFC, or near-field communications, support for wireless payments and other implementations
Shared software components with Windows 8, Microsoft’s next iteration of its platform for desktops, laptops and tablets
An updated method for synchronizing data and media between handset and computer
Skype integration in the core operating system, making it a native app that can interact directly with contacts and other personal data.
A proxy server feature for the web browser to help compress data usage by up to 30 percent.

When comparing the specs and features of today’s Windows Phone devices, many are put off by the support for single-core processors and fixed resolution. But Apollo should eliminate that problem, which I find to be an overstated issue. The dual-core A5 chip in Apple’s iPhone 4S runs at 800 MHz and keeps the phone moving because the platform is optimized for that clock speed. In my experience the same can be said of Windows Phone: Mine is just as fast as my iPhone for many tasks.

Still, the improved hardware potential will be welcome and should make a fast operating system even faster. Add in support for Skype, which Microsoft bought last year, NFC radios and a code link to Windows 8 and Microsoft should see more people thinking twice before leaving a store with the iPhone or an Android device once Apollo hits.

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2012: Data, spectrum and the race to LTE

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:01:37 +0000

The past year in mobile has been even more eventful than most of us would have predicted. Our appetite for mobile data grew dramatically; Google’s Android continued its march to worldwide dominance; Amazon joined the tablet bandwagon; and AT&T tried and failed to acquire T-Mobile USA, among many other things. All of that activity lays the groundwork for a very promising — and very challenging — 2012. This research note serves both as a review of the major trends and events of 2011 as well as a forecast for the coming year. Companies mentioned in this report include Millennial Media, Quattro Wireless and Samsung. For a full list of companies, and to read the full research note, sign up for a free trial.

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Uh oh. Nokia Windows Phone sales estimates slashed.

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:14:51 +0000

Nokia’s sales of Windows Phone handsets aren’t impressing at least one analyst, who has drastically cut estimates, says Forbes. Instead of 2 million sales for this quarter, Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette is dropping expectations down to just 500,000 units. This follows a report last Friday from Bernstein Research analyst Pierre Ferragu, who noted that Google Trends data suggests as much “buzz” for the Nokia Lumia 800 as the company’s N8 Symbian phone.

Nokia’s Lumia 710 and 800 phones have only been available in limited markets for about a month. The company just began transitioning away from its Symbian operating system, and these are the first handsets powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. As a result, it could take time for Nokia sales to start ramping up. The timing is right though; Microsoft recently improved its mobile platform with the Mango software update, which I find to be impressive.

Equally impressive is the hardware Nokia paired with Windows Phones 7.5. The new Lumia 800 may be one of the nicest, most well-designed smartphones I’ve ever held. I’ll have a full review of the phone shortly, but suffice it say: It’s the best Windows Phone I’ve used yet. But maybe that’s part of the problem.

Consumers have essentially witnessed a two-horse smartphone race since 2008, and Microsoft wasn’t one of those horses. Google Android and Apple iOS phones have taken the lion’s share of market growth, while phones running on Palm, BlackBerry and Symbian have either lost ground or been treading water. It’s going to take time for any Microsoft-powered handset to build momentum, even if the software and platform ecosystem are improving.

The other factor here is Nokia’s implementation of a Windows Phone. As I mentioned, the hardware is well done. But there are very few software advantages gained from a Nokia Windows Phone over one from LG, Samsung or HTC. Nokia devices do come with Nokia Drive — a great free navigation app — and Music Mix, but little else in the way of differentiation.

Regardless of Lumia sales, Nokia has to keep pushing the platform in ways its peers aren’t. Microsoft may grab the third spot in the smartphone hierarchy, but unless it continues to grab the attention of consumers, that No. 3 slot may end up being insignificant.

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How to get multiple Gmail calendars on Windows Phone

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:08:59 +0000

While I like many aspects of the new Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5, or Mango, software, one key issue I have is lack of support for showing multiple calendars from a single Gmail account. As it stands now, my HTC HD7 phone is running WP 7.5 with two Gmail accounts: one for personal use and one for work. So I do get the main calendars for each of those accounts on my Microsoft-powered smartphone. But there’s a problem: I don’t have access to all of the shared Gmail calendars that my wife and kids use.

It’s actually not too difficult of a workaround to get multiple Gmail calendars on a Windows Phone device, and the solution is nearly identical to the one I found when the first Apple iPad was launched. Back then, I had to do a similar little trick. Normally, you can configure Google Sync, a service that sends mail, calendar and contact information to non-Google devices, right on your handset. In the case of a Microsoft Windows Phone device, that standard method doesn’t work. Here’s the step-by-step process to get multiple Gmail calendars on a Windows Phone by using Safari on the desktop.

1. Open Safari, then view its Preferences pane. In Preferences, go to the Advanced tab and check “Show Develop menu in menu bar.” If you already have this checked, you can skip this step. Close the Preferences.

2. In the Safari menu bar, you should now see a Develop menu option. Select it, choose the User Agent option and pick “Mobile Safari 4.3.3 — iPhone”. This tells web sites that you’re using the iPhone’s browser. You need to do this to open up the mobile site for the Google Sync service.

In Safari, browse to http://m.google.com/sync, and sign in if needed.

3. Now go to the Develop menu in Safari and choose to Disable JavaScript as shown by the check mark below.

4. Still in Safari, choose to manage your Windows Phone.

5. In the next window, you’ll see that Google says you can sync up to one calendar to your device. Ignore that message because the workaround allows multiple calendar selections. For instance, I chose the calendars for my wife and children.

6. Once you’ve made your selections, click the Save button. That should do it, so don’t forget to undo the User Agent change and re-enable JavaScript in Safari. On the Windows Phone handse,t you may not see results immediately. To speed up the process and see the new calendars, just go into Settings, Email + Accounts, and tap/hold on your GMail account. Choose the Sync option.

Here’s a before and after look on my own phone: All the shared Gmail calendars I need are on my Windows Phone.

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Nokia’s Lumia phones: The good, the bad and no ugly

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:42:25 +0000

During the Wednesday keynote speech at the annual Nokia World conference in London, Nokia unveiled six new handsets that will help define the company going forward. Four devices are low-cost, but feature-packed, phones running the S40 platform, which are targeted at emerging markets. The remaining two run Windows Phone, the direct result of Nokia’s long-term partnership with Microsoft.

Grading the news

Overall, the handset news was mostly expected and generally what I foreshadowed one day before the event. That’s both good and bad, however. One one hand, it shows Nokia is again capable of doing what it planned to do. In eight months, the company has made excellent progress on its shift from Symbian to Windows Phone, and it will deliver the new devices to a few markets in time for the holiday season; specifically the Europe and Asia-Pacific markets, as predicted. From this perspective, I have to give Nokia an “A.”

On the other hand — and maybe this is because of leaked information during the transition — there weren’t many surprises in the news. I’d even take it a step further and say there was no “wow” factor, but again, that could be due to prior leaks on the hardware. Additionally, we’ve seen the Mango software version of Windows Phone for at least three months, so from a software perspective, it’s mostly old news. In this respect, I’ll give Nokia a “B-.”

What’s included and what’s missing

Along the lines of software, there are three Windows Phone exclusives to the pair of new Nokia devices; the Lumia 710 and 800. These includes Nokia Drive, a navigation app with turn-by-turn directions and offline maps. Also on the phone is Nokia Music with a feature called Mix Radio that provides pre-set music mixes. Lastly is ESPN Sports Hub, a multi-sport news center exclusive to Nokia.

While this trio of software features adds appeal to Nokia’s new smartphones, I had expected a greater level of Nokia feature integration in Windows Phone. That impression came from the Nokia-Microsoft deal as both companies alluded to deeper software collaboration. Perhaps this will change in time, but from a software perspective, other Windows Phone makers should still compete well with the new Lumias, even without the Nokia software exclusives.

On the hardware front, however, Nokia does have an advantage over competing Windows Phone devices. As I’ve said many times before, Nokia has always made stunning, well-designed, high quality hardware. I haven’t seen the Lumia 710 yet, but the Lumia 800 is essentially the same hardware as the Nokia N9, which I have used. It’s arguably one of the most stylish and well-built phones I’ve ever used. The N9, however, has something the new 800 doesn’t: a front-facing camera.

I think that’s a glaring oversight, mainly from a philosophical standpoint, for two reasons. First, Nokia has a long history of engineering front-facing cameras in its phones, having done so for several years. The second reason revolves around Microsoft’s recent purchase of Skype. Here too, Nokia has expertise; the N900 handset with Maemo offered excellent Skype integration at the platform level when I used it in late 2009.

I expected Nokia would have lent that expertise to Microsoft so the new devices would be further differentiated with a front camera and Skype integration. The lack of a camera isn’t likely to hurt sales in a meaningful way. However, it’s a symbolic gap and could cause some to think Nokia isn’t leading the pack in terms of mobile technology. According to Mary Jo Foley, Nokia says there wasn’t enough time to add the camera. Given that the N9 is nearly identical to the 800, it sounds less like a hardware constraint and more of a software challenge.

Which comes out better: Microsoft or Nokia?

Overall, Nokia has made great progress this year as it migrates to a new platform. The work isn’t done yet, and we’ll see how sales go as the distribution channels widen over the next six months. Based on the news, however, it seems that Microsoft is getting the better end of the bargain with Nokia. With Nokia’s distribution channel, the new Lumia phones can help Microsoft pick up market share as Research In Motion’s is flagging. More Windows Phone sales could entice more third-party developers to build apps for the platform.

Additionally, the debut of well-built Nokia hardware running Microsoft’s platform could raise the bar for other Microsoft handset partners such as Samsung, LG, HTC and others. If that happens, the entire platform of devices could become more attractive to consumers and Microsoft again has the potential to gain market share. Certainly Nokia has much to gain here — it basically bet the future of the company on Microsoft’s platform — but for now, at least, the “Micro-kia” deal looks even better for Microsoft.

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Can Lumia really light up Nokia’s future?

Bobbie Johnson — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:52:45 +0000

In just a few moments on stage in London this morning, Stephen Elop summed up Nokia’s big, existential crisis:

“People like Nokia,” he said. “We’re reliable. We’re durable.”

“We comb our hair each morning. We pick you up from school. We would always send you a birthday card.”

“But it’s not enough.”

In order to get where it needs to be, Elop said that Nokia needs to be adored. It needs to be exciting. That’s why the company unveiled a slate of new devices, spearheaded by the Lumia 800 and 710 — a pair of shiny Windows phones that it hopes can be enough to turn the company’s flagging fortunes around.

Elop called Lumia “the first real Windows Phone”, presumably a slap at HTC, and then handed over to Kevin Shields — a former Windows Phone engineering executive hired by Nokia to help it get shipped — who ran through the product.

By and large, the announcements seemed to be roughly in line with what was expected. And visually it wasn’t a shock either: the Lumia 800 seems pretty close — almost identical — to the previously seen N9, which our own Kevin Tofel said is “among the nicest and well-designed smartphone hardware I’ve ever used”. The specs, too, are familiar: the Lumia 800 has an 3.7 inch AMOLED screen, 1.4 GHz processor, Carl Zeiss lens camera, 16GB memory and 25GB free cloud storage.

Under the hood, the handsets run Windows Phone Mango and from the outside appear smartly done and really usable. On top of what you already get with Mango, the devices come with added extras such as satnav; music and radio player; and a partnership with ESPN to deliver sports content.

Availability

More to the point though, it’s coming soon — perhaps very soon, depending on where you live. The Lumia 800 is being made available in the main European markets first, rolling out across Germany, France, the U.K., Spain, Italy and the Netherlands in November. Russia, India and (along with Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan) will see the Lumia 800 before the end of the year. North America, on the other hand, won’t get it until early 2012, shortly followed by mainland China.

Pricewise? Well, on launch, an unsubsidized Lumia 800 will cost €420; the 710 is priced at €270.

Success?

Make no bones about it, this was a big deal for Nokia. You could almost hear the tension, the eagerness that sometimes slipped toward hysteria. And for good reason, the presentation was an attempt to make a big point: the future for Nokia has arrived. The N9, based on MeeGo, was a place marker — a way of showing that Nokia can actually get products out — and the Lumia is where they’re going.

Still Symbian

The biggest surprise for me, though, was the amount of emphasis put on another range of devices being launched today. Kevin had suggested Symbian would get sidelined entirely, but before the Lumia was shown, Elop spent a long time pushing another line called Asha — featurephones that incorporate both a touchscreen and keyboard… and run ~~Symbian~~ S40.

This is clearly an attempt to push from both ends of the market, and the company is trying to capitalize on its hard-fought reputation in fast-growing markets. But it’s also worth remembering that Nokia is far from unassailable in those countries — it’s under threat there, just like it is everywhere else.

Look at India, where revenues are flat and (perhaps more importantly) its share in the feature phone and smartphone market — precisely where Asha is targeted — has dropped from 49 percent in 2010 to 37.5 percent in the first half of 2011.

Whether or not the burning platform is on fire any more remains to be answered. But even if the flames have been quenched, there’s still been a vast amount of damage done. Can Asha turn that around? Can Lumia?

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What to expect from Nokia World

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:01:17 +0000

On Wednesday morning in London, Nokia will kick off its anual Nokia World event with a keynote by Stephen Elop, the former Microsoft executive that took the CEO role at Nokia in September of last year. The overall agenda for the two-day event is filled with discussions and forums on a wide range of mobile topics such as location services, handset design, the next billion mobile web users and more. But make no mistake: Elop’s keynote is the crown jewel; both his speech and the Nokia smartphones he’ll introduce will define the company’s next few years.

Goodbye Symbian, hello Windows Phone

Much of this year’s Nokia World was set in motion by events that took place in February. At the time, facing smartphone sales that weren’t keeping pace with the overall market, Nokia announced it would use Microsoft’s Windows Phone as the primary platform for smartphones going forward. Since then, Nokia has taken the risk of transitioning its device lineup to support Windows Phone, yet no hardware has been officially announced.

That’s set to change tomorrow, with at least three Windows Phone handsets built by Nokia. A few designs and details have leaked out in advance, with the WinRumors site showing pictures of the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800. The rounded-corner 710 has been reported prior with the code-name Sabre while the 800 is known as Sea Ray. The Nokia Blog, an enthusiast site, also has an alleged early spec sheet on the Nokia 900, which based on that appears to have higher-performing hardware over the other handsets.

The Lumia 800 looks extremely similar to, if not the same as, the Nokia N9 hardware. I had a chance to use an N9 for short time — with MeeGo, not Windows Phone — and walked away with the opinion that its among the nicest and well-designed smartphone hardware I’ve ever used. Nokia’s issue has never been one of hardware; the company was slow to mature its software and Microsoft’s platform resolves that problem, based on my usage of Windows Phone.

Nokia’s Symbian phones will see support from the company for a few years yet and the operating system has seen updates in the form of Anna and, more recently, Belle. I don’t expect Nokia to show off any brand new Symbian-powered hardware, however. I think it would actually be a mistake to take the focus off of Nokia’s long-term smartphone strategy with Microsoft as a partner.

Availability dates and distribution

There’s little doubt these new Windows Phone handsets will be the stars of the show, but how long before they shine? Nokia has repeatedly exercised the bad habit of publicly showing off new phones but taking months to get them on store shelves. Nokia’s N8, the first with a much-improved version of Symbian, was introduced in April 2010, but didn’t arrive until October of that year.

And once the N8 arrived, my review found the device was two steps forward but one step back due to software features that weren’t optimized. It took another few months before these were addressed in a software update, but by then the market had moved on. So too did Nokia, because it was around this time that it abandoned a future with Symbian.

Elop has recognized this issue of market timing between announcements and product delivery, so many will be interested to hear when the new Windows Phones will ship. There are rumors of Nokia missing the holiday season with its new phones, and if that does happen, it would be a huge disappointment given the cyclical nature of the handset market. Would it doom the company? No, because there is still plenty of opportunity in a market where not even one-quarter of the world’s population owns a smartphone. But missing the important holiday season would likely flatten morale during Nokia’s comeback.

Distribution channels are equally as important as availability dates, if not more so. Yes, there are always consumers who consider switching mobile device platforms, but it’s easier to get new customers when they’re buying their first smartphone. Why? There are platform lock-in costs associated with existing handsets. Put another way: Which is more likely to buy a new Windows Mobile phone; someone that’s already spent a few hundred dollars on iOS or Android apps, or someone that hasn’t yet invested in a mobile platform?

That could mean Nokia first targets areas where smartphone adoption isn’t yet high and therefore put a country like the U.S. on the back burner for availability since we’re nearing a 50 percent adoption rate here. I’m sure Microsoft doesn’t want to the U.S. to be passed over for Nokia-designed Windows Mobile phones, so this will be an interesting scenario as we see how Nokia handles it. My guess? Nokia focuses first on regions that have reasonably mature mobile broadband infrastructure and areas where it has high brand awareness like Europe and Asia.

Will Micro-kia pay off?

Obviously, this is a question that time will answer, but even before the official Nokia World event takes place, I think the bet on Windows Phone will pay off for Nokia. The Symbian platform was years ahead back in its day, but was leapfrogged by more intuitive, touch-driven interfaces. It was simply taking Nokia too long to have a viable software competitor. By adopting Windows Phone, Nokia “re-enters” the smartphone game with a mature mobile platform and a solid ecosystem.

Likewise, Microsoft gained a huge manufacturing partner with global reach to help showcase its platform on well designed hardware. In its first iteration, Windows Phone was lacking some key features, but with the new Mango software update, it’s actually fun and effective. Given the right hardware to show it off, Microsoft looks to gain important market share, which in turn makes the platform more appealing to third-party developers.

If all goes as planned — in a timely fashion — this hardware/software combination will be a win for both companies. It allows Microsoft to shed the stigma of stodginess from its Windows Phone days, which were effectively ended by Apple’s iPhone. And it lets Nokia dust itself off from the fall it’s taking from the top smartphone maker to be surpassed by Apple and Samsung. “Micro-kia” products were such a radical idea when first announced in February, but come tomorrow, we’ll see for sure if the teamwork brings smartphone synergy.

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Microsoft to arm itself with Mango for smartphone wars

Ryan Kim — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:00:30 +0000

Windows Phone 7 will get the long awaited update to Mango 7.5 today, in time to celebrate the one year anniversary of the platform. The software update will roll out to existing Windows Phone 7 devices starting today and should get to all handsets within a matter of weeks.

The update is packed with improvements including more intelligent live tiles, multitasking and a new web marketplace for buying apps from a computer. There’s also better app integration into Bing searches so searches will pull up relevant apps, both on the phone and available in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Also promised is better communication across multiple channels and groups for contacts. My colleague Kevin had a good, early review of the software last month.

I talked with Greg Sullivan, senior product manager of Windows Phone 7, about Mango and what it means for the platform as it heads into Year 2. He said Microsoft knew it would struggle through a slow first year with fewer devices in fewer languages on a small number of carriers. But he said with Mango’s release, Microsoft is building toward long-term success.

“We knew the most important thing was to build a phone that people loved,” Sullivan said. “We needed a progression of events that cumulatively would lead to success. We hesitate to predict the future but the things that need to happen are happening.”

Sullivan said Mango improves the user experience and the Marketplace now fields more than 30,000 apps with 90 percent of the most desired iOS and Android apps now available on Windows Phone 7. The number of supported languages is up to 21 and talks with manufacturers and carriers are going well.

We recently mentioned the growth opportunities for Windows Phone 7 with 44 percent of NPD survey respondents saying they were open to buying a WP7 device. One of the challenges, NPD noted, was “app lock-in”, in which smartphone users are reluctant to switch platforms because of their investment in apps on Android or iOS. Sullivan said there’s still a lot of opportunity in reaching out to new smartphone users who haven’t invested in a lot of apps. The notion that users are completely wedded to a set of apps on one platform is overstated, he added. Also, with Windows Phone 7′s integration with apps, which are integrated into Bing search, apps are more valuable on WP7, Sullivan said.

Though Android still outsells Windows Phone 7 by a wide margin, Sullivan said Google’s operating system is increasingly challenged by battery concerns, malware and fragmentation while WP7 looks better each day. The relatively quick planned roll out of Mango across all devices, compared to the often slow and incomplete update process on Android, also shows that Microsoft is working hard to ensure a consistent experience across devices, Sullivan said. He said Windows Phone 7 is now an “obvious choice” over Android, something that was harder to say before.

“Android has a set of challenges that will get worse as time goes and we have a set of advantages that get more obvious,” Sullivan.

It’s hard to say that Android will immediately suffer in the face of a new Windows Phone 7 update considering it’s been on fire this past summer, accounting for 56 percent of recent smartphone sales in the U.S. But WP7 now feels more polished, speedy and robust with many gaps filled. It will take time and a lot of work for Microsoft to inject itself into the competition between the iPhone and Android. But the time is now for Microsoft to move.

It wasn’t until Year 2 that Android started taking off. And while Google’s platform is a world beater and stands in the way of WP7 success, it’s a hopeful sign for Microsoft that with hard work in the first year, good things can come. Microsoft has to execute almost perfectly across the board but if it does, some of the bravado and tough talk might actually prove true.

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Why the Windows Phone browser has no tabs. Should it?

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:21:23 +0000

Microsoft’s newest Windows Phone browser (coming soon via the Mango software update) shows improvements, but tabs aren’t part of the redesign. According to the official Windows Phone blog, by way of Gotta Be Mobile, Microsoft’s research shows that an overwhelming number of smartphone users type out web URLs in the address bar, and that tabs and favorites are barely used at all. Both are still available through the browser’s menus in Mango, however.

With a relatively small screen to work with, I can understand the design trade-off to some degree, but it still feels like an omission to me. Perhaps I’m outside the normal user base of mobile devices, but my go-to browser on Android devices, Dolphin HD, does support traditional tabbed browsing, just like a desktop browser. I use the tabs feature extensively — as well as the favorites – even on the small screen of a smartphone. It’s support for tabs that first drew me to this third-party browser, although there are a number of other reasons I think every Android owner should try it.

While the IE9 browser in the newest version of Windows Phone has impressed me, it’s a little disappointing that Microsoft didn’t go further with the redesign. There’s a number of design options that would have allowed for tabs, favorites or other features in way that doesn’t require a menu button. We’ve seen this with Firefox Mobile, for example; swiping the screen left or right shows open tabs, favorites and settings through the clever use of virtual screen space, similar to Dolphin HD. Even a user-configurable option for tabs would be nice. Instead, IE9 in Mango replicates much of Safari’s look and feel on Apple’s iOS platform.

Again, maybe I’m in the minority. Perhaps most mobile users prefer to type their website addresses in or would rather have the small screen of a smartphone focus mainly on web content as opposed to tabs or on-screen menu options.

It likely depends on the display size on a device: A larger or higher-resolution screen — which new handsets are generally trending toward — may provide enough “room” for tabs and such. What’s your take? Do you want tabs in your mobile browser, or are you happy with tapping a menu option to switch between open sites?

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