Prior to Huawei’s CES scheduled press event on Monday, the company took a shot at high-end handset makers with the Ascend P1 S. Just 6.68 millimeters thin, the phone runs Android 4.0 on a Texas Instruments dual-core OMAP chip and 4.3-inch high-resolution Super AMOLED display. Read more »
A new survey of 4,000 North American consumers finds that even though the iPhone 4S has been out for a couple of months, consumers still have a strong appetite for the Apple smartphone. It’s the strongest demand seen yet for an iPhone following its initial launch. Read more »
Sony remains one of the most important brands in the world, synonymous with quality rich media and the devices that present it. The problem is that, despite a tagline that states “make.believe,” the company is, in a sense, simply playing make-believe with its business. However, the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Increasingly, websites and services are getting a bigger chunk of their traffic through mobile with some pushing past the 50 percent mark. That’s setting up a world in which developers and publishers have to think mobile first as consumption shifts to smaller devices. Read more »
I just took delivery of Samsung’s $40 spare battery charging station for my Galaxy Nexus. The second battery will give me peace of mind in case I run through my first one, but the included dock, or stand, is mediocre at best: take a close look. Read more »
Apple’s iPad is far and away the high water mark when it comes to tablet applications, and a new report Wednesday says it just passed an impressive milestone. Users of Apple’s 9.7-inch touchscreen device are said to have downloaded approximately 3 billion apps in total. Read more »
Android Market has topped the 400,000 app mark, doubling the software available for the smartphone platform in just eight months, according to app analytics firm Distimo. Android Market is still shy of the 500,000-app milestone the App Store hit recently, but it’s catching up. Read more »
The last four years have shown remarkable growth in smartphone ownership, changing the mobile landscape as the phone becomes central to our lives. This year I’ll be looking for cross-platform apps, centralized notification services and solutions that intelligently handle more mundane tasks around my smart home. Read more »
After the year RIM has had, it appears co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie may be losing their co-chairmen titles, according to a report in the Financial Post. But will such a move be enough to right RIM’s ship? Read more »
2011 wasn’t really a year in which we saw a lot of big changes on the hardware front from Apple, even though iOS 5 and iCloud made big splashes in software. But I think we can expect a lot of device changes in 2012. Read more »
Verizon’s LTE network has had a hell of a month. After a year of smooth performance, interrupted only by one major glitch in April, the new ultra-fast 4G network has experienced a string of three outages in a single month. Verizon’s network head explains why. Read more »
Delivering on a promise, HTC is offering a software tool to unlock its Android devices that launched after Sept. 2011, allowing users to install custom software. The supported phone list doesn’t include AT&T or Verizon models, but the tool is working on some from these carriers. Read more »
Apple’s App Store is doing well thanks to the successful launch of the iPhone 4S. For the second month in a row, it posted record downloads among the top 200 free apps, with around 5.6 million per day, according to mobile app marketing firm Fiksu. Read more »
Sandvine has some interesting New Year’s predictions about how tablets will intersect with the wacky world of mobile broadband. While new family data plans will encourage more consumers to connect their tablets to 3G and 4G networks, they will be awfully careful with their usage. Read more »
As 2011 comes to a close, I’m thinking ahead to what mobile technology trends I expect to see in 2012. While I formulate those thoughts for a post later this week, now is a good time to see how I did with my 2011 predictions. Read more »
Samsung is reportedly in discussions to offer Android 4.0 software upgrades to its Galaxy S smartphones and Galaxy Tab slates. Perhaps Samsung’s TouchWiz software is slimmed down or eliminated, which may not be a problem. Getting carriers to support such an upgrade, however, may be. Read more »
Next year millions of consumers use fitness devices and apps designed to help them count their steps, calories, sleep and other personal metrics. But in the emerging world of connected wellness tools will newly aware consumers be using apps or devices? Read more »
Good news for fans of streaming media who also like low-cost tablets: Plex has ben approved for sale in the Barnes & Noble Nook Store. The app should be downloadable for Nook Tablet and Nook Color users sometime within the next 24 hours, according to Plex. Read more »
The Samsung Galaxy S smartphone and Tab slate won’t see an upgrade to Android 4.0, leaving owners to decide between buying a newer device, sticking with Android 2.3 or installing a custom build of Google’s latest mobile operating system. Here’s a suggestion to make everyone happy. Read more »
f people are buying through online retail sites on mobile, they’re most likely doing so on Apple devices, according to a new report. iPads and iPhones accounted for over 92 percent of online retail not originating from a desktop device in December, according to the study. Read more »
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone, aimed at mobile gamers, has a new twist that could add more appeal: OnLive’s cloud gaming service now supports the slide-out gaming controls on the Android smartphone. Touchscreens certainly work for games, but button-mashing is best done on…. buttons. Read more »
As the market for Bluetooth 4.0 health monitoring gadgets is about to kick off next year, some companies are wasting no time, announcing products now. Wahoo’s new BlueHR heart monitor will debut for $79.99 and uses the low-powered wireless protocol with several existing iPhone 4S apps. Read more »
Samsung introduced its first dual-SIM smartphones on Thursday, the Galaxy Y Duos and Galaxy Y Pro Duos. The Android 2.3 smartphones are aimed at emerging markets, but if they’re successful, Samsung could migrate the solution up the Galaxy line for the bring your own device crowd. Read more »
Apple’s iPhone 4S has propelled Cupertino’s smartphone share back to growth in many markets, including Britain, according to new data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech released Thursday. But Apple’s latest smartphone isn’t leading to runaway success everywhere, owing in part to economic concerns. Read more »
Camera-equipped smartphones are gaining on traditional cameras in the percentage of photos and videos taken with them. On Thursday, a new study out said smartphones took 27 percent of photos in 2011, up from 17 percent last year. Regular cameras account for 44 percent. Read more »
One of the biggest draws of the Galaxy Nexus is the 4.65-inch high-definition screen; literally a pocketable 720p HDTV display. But some video services still stream standard definition video. Here’s how to get HD video from Netflix on the Nexus and what it looks like. Read more »
Global mobile advertising and marketing is expected to grow from $3.4 billion in 2010 at a compound annual growth rate of 37 percent to $22.5 billion in 2016. Berg Insight said that by 2016, mobile advertising worldwide will represent 15.2 percent of all online ad spending. Read more »
According to a new report from app market research firm Distimo, the App Store, which has traditionally been dominated by U.S. downloads, is seeing another major driving force on the rise as more and more Chinese shoppers pick up iOS devices. Read more »
Apple won a victory against HTC on Monday that could signal the beginning of a long war of attrition between iOS and Google, and a new patent granted to Apple Tuesday potentially gives it more ammunition to chip away at the Android user experience. Read more »
Are Google, Yelp and Facebook scared of Siri? If they aren’t they should be, as should any mobile website, service or app that depends on advertising. Siri is the first user interface that shifts our attention away from our phones’ screens, but it won’t be the last. Read more »
The next iPod you buy could wrap around your wrist and be Siri-controlled through speech commands. That’s because Apple is actively prototyping wearable computing devices, sources told the New York Times, in an effort to stay on top of this emerging tech trend. Read more »
Early adopters with a Galaxy Nexus can add Google Wallet software without rooting their handset. Wallet is gaining the spotlight for two reasons: both the convenience factor and the debate over whether Verizon is violating open-access requirements by not including the software on its Nexus. Read more »
This infographic, courtesy of Savings.com, brings together historical datapoints showing the decreasing cost and size of mobile devices, in conjunction with more capable hardware and services. Can you imagine (or remember) buying a phone for $4,000 in 1982 just for a few voice calls? Read more »
Research in Motion announced its fiscal third quarter results on Thursday (PDF), showing quarterly growth in revenues and handset sales, but continued dismal tablet numbers. Even worse: the company is predicting lower handset sales next quarter, which make up nearly 80 percent of all revenues. Read more »
One of my favorite features in Google Android 4.0 on my Galaxy Nexus is the real-time and historical data use. I can monitor my mobile broadband usage against my monthly plan and even drill down to see which apps are using more data than others. Plus […] Read more »
In July, Samsung projected it would have a record-breaking year, selling 300 million handsets, driven by the popularity of its Galaxy smartphone line. It turns out Samsung hit that target in November and still has one traditionally very lucrative month to build on that success. Read more »
The Carrier IQ scandal is still unfolding, and all parties involved are trying to spin their side of the story pretty heavily. Meanwhile, the software, which monitors users’ keystrokes and text messages and can see passwords and other vulnerable information, is said to be on more than 141 million devices. So it’s worth looking at the various players to understand who is hurt and who is helped by the kerfuffle around surreptitious smartphone data collection. This brief research note tackles the question of what the Carrier IQ case means for consumers, device makers and, perhaps most important, the operators. Companies mentioned include AT&T, Research in Motion and Sprint. For a full list of companies, and to read the full research note, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple’s iPhone 4S is the smartphone on the tip of everyone’s tongue this holiday season, according to stats from Nielsen/McKinsey subsidiary NM Incite released Friday. The 4S captured 40 percent of online buzz around smartphones during the last six months, despite not being introduced until October. Read more »
AT&T said on Wednesday it expects to break its record for smartphones sold during a single quarter, based in part on the success of Apple’s iPhone 4S, which prompted a very high number of upgrades among its users and remains a strong seller. Read more »
How much do you love your iPhone 4S? Chances are the answer is “a lot.” New ChangeWave research data shows owner satisfaction with the iPhone 4S is much higher than that of the iPhone 4, with 96 percent approval ratings and only 2 percent reporting dissatisfaction. Read more »
