Smart versus Feature Phones

UK firm Coda Research Consultancyforecasts that in the U.S. alone mobile handset data traffic will grow from 8 petabytes/month this year to 327 petabytes/month in 2015. That amounts to a 117 percent compound annual growth rate.

A lot of that data will come in the form of mobile Web browsing, with the biggest contributor expected to be mobile video. By 2015, mobile video will account for 68.5 percent of all mobile data usage in the U.S. (or 224 petabytes/month). Coda estimates that 95 million mobile handset subscribers in the U.S. will be watching video on their phones in five years out of a total of 158 million mobile internet users.

Mobile data revenues (not including SMS charges) are forecast to make up 87 percent of all data revenue for the carriers by 2015. But they will have a hard time keeping up with demand unless they adopt tiered pricing, predicts Coda co-founder Steve Smith. Consumers used to all-you-can-eat data access from their phones will find that unappealing. But carriers will have to figure out a way to pay for massive network upgrades. Coda estimates that if the carrier’s froze their networks today, they would reach 100 percent utilization at peak capacity by 2012, when 40 percent of phones will be smartphones.

The table below shows some more forecasts from Coda on the number of U.S. mobile Internet users and the percentage of mobile data traffic coming from smartphones versus feature phones:

Android - the OS of selection???

Appcelerator.com - Mobile Developer Survey March 2010

When Appcelerator initially surveyed its developer base prior to Apple‟s announcement in January, interest in the platform was overwhelmingly high. At that time, 90% of developers said they were very interested in building an iPad app within the year. Fast forward two months to an updated developer poll taken March 23 - March 25 and we see sustained interest in the platform, but within an increasingly competitive platform landscape. Below is a comparison of iPad developer interest that compares interest pre-announcement in January vs. pre-launch in March. As well, we‟ll look at how the iPad‟s popularity compares against other development platforms that have had their own share of news – good and bad - since January.

Here are the top-level findings:

- Interest in iPad remains strong, but off the wild enthusiasm in January. 80% of developers are very interested in building an iPad app within the first year vs. 90% in January. When asked about overall interest in iPad as a development platform, 53% responded that they were „very interested‟ – third behind iPhone and Android. As a point of reference, Amazon Kindle, surveyed for the first time, has only 12% of developers claiming a similar level of interest in its recently announced SDK.

- Increased competition among mobile platforms shows that Android (81% very interested in the platform) is closing in on iPhone (87%), while Blackberry (43%) and Windows Phone (34%) have doubled and nearly tripled their developer interest numbers, respectively, in just two months.

- At only 14% claiming that they are very interested in WebOS, Palm is clearly seeing waning interest among developers. Symbian clocks in at 16%, while Meego – the recently combined Maemo/Moblin effort by Nokia and Intel – comes in last at just 12%.

- Developers cited eBooks, entertainment/media applications, business applications, medical applications, and education applications as likely candidates for the iPad, consistent with January.

The findings below were taken as Appcelerator‟s iPad beta concludes with a Titanium Tablet SDK officially rolling out on April 5, 2010. Titanium Tablet will enable web developers to build 100% native iPad applications using the skills they have today. These findings show that now, more than ever, companies considering mobile apps need to have a robust cross-platform strategy.

Google Android Continues to Transform...

Android doing a Tap-Dance on iPhone 

By Jean Crumrine and Paul Carton
ChangeWave March 31, 2010

ChangeWave’s latest consumer smart phone survey shows the Google (GOOG) Android mobile operating system is continuing to have a massive and transformational impact on the smart phone market.

The March 9-23 survey of 4,040 consumers provides an up-close look at the meteoric rise of the Android OS and the resulting pressure it’s putting on smart phone competitors in general, and Palm (PALM) and Research In Motion (RIMM) in particular.

The Rise of the Android OS

The Google Android OS has nearly doubled its market share in the three months since our previous survey in December. Among respondents who currently own a smart phone, 7% say it uses an Android mobile operating system compared with just 4% three months ago.

The Apple iPhone OS (32%) is the only other operating system showing increased market share since December, up 3-pts. While the RIM OS (37%) remains the leader of the consumer market, since December it's down 1-pt.

Looking ahead, the explosive demand for the Android OS is likely to continue – with 30% of those planning to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days saying they’d prefer to have the Android OS on their new phone. That’s a huge 9-pt jump since December and a five-fold increase from just six months ago.

Here's a close-up look at the change in mobile OS preferences among future smart phone buyers. Note the 9-pt Google Android surge since December is by far the biggest increase.

150 Million GPS handset shipped in 2009

EETimes

LONDON — Global shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets increased 92 percent in 2009 to 150 million units, according to analysis firm Berg Insight AB (Gothenburg, Sweden). With growth set to continue at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.7 percent, shipments are forecasted to reach 770 million units in 2014.

Adoption of GPS technology in mobile phones started in the smartphone segment where it is now essentially a standard feature on all new models. Berg Insight now anticipates GPS penetration in low-cost smartphones about to enter the market. GPS will also become more common in mid-range featurephone models during 2010. Starting in 2011, users can also expect gradual improvements in location performance in handsets.

Receivers compatible with GPS, Glonass and later also Galileo will not be enough to enable reliable positioning indoors. Performance increases will come from hybrid location technologies that fuse signal measurements from multiple satellite systems, cellular networks and Wi-Fi, together with data from various forms of sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and altimeters.

"Chipset developers and handset vendors are already working on next-generation location technologies that will address the limitations of GPS when using handsets in urban canyons and indoors," said Andre Malm, a senior analyst with Berg Insight, in a statement. "Multi-mode receivers that also support the Russian Glonass satellite system will appear in handsets in 2011. By combining the two systems, more visible satellites will increase the chance to receive sufficiently strong signals to get a fix in more locations."

Android stealing RIM and iPHONE Growth

North American smart phone shipments to exceed 65 million units in 2010

- Android will grow strongly but RIM will retain its market leadership position

Palo Alto, Singapore and Reading (UK) – Wednesday, 17 March 2010

For immediate release  

• The North American smart phone market is forecast to grow 38% year on year in 2010
• Android device shipments in North America will grow quickly, surpassing 12.3 million units this year
• BlackBerry, iPhone and Android devices will account for over 80% of smart phones shipped in the region this year
• The Latin American market will also experience solid growth this year, up 30% on 2009

 

Canalys research highlights

Smart phone shipments in North America totalled 47.2 million units in 2009, an increase of 27% over the volume seen in 2008, helped by a strong fourth quarter. This healthy growth is forecast to accelerate to 38% in 2010, bringing total shipments in the region to 65.1 million units.

Nokia Feature Dashboard

Nokia allowing the community to vote on a handset design

from Mobilewhack.com by Jeff

Nokia is at it again with their unique marketing techniques. This time they have opened up what they are calling the Design by Community. This website allows you to move various sliders to create your ideal handset. Once done you can submit the design to Nokia and they will presumably take what the community wants the most and then make a handset based on that information.

There is a catch, however. When you are creating your ideal set up you’re going to have to stay within the boundaries of what Nokia thinks is possible.

Would this mean I have a collector's item?

Google may have to find another name for its flagship Android device, the Nexus One. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has reportedly rejected Google's application for the name Nexus One.

Nexus One Trademark a No Go
Wireless Week 3/18/2010

The USPTO said in a filing that an Oregon company, Integra Telecom, owns the "Nexus" trademark and Google's smartphone might lead to confusion. A Google spokeswoman was not available for comment by press time but told Market Watch that the company will stand by the name.

Timing for the rejection was less than ideal. In the past 48 hours, both Sprint and AT&T announced availability of the Nexus One, which means the device is now available on every major carrier in the United States, as well as with Rogers in Canada.

Google Awarded Location Patent

Google Awarded Location Patent

March 17, 2010  By: Janice Partyka GPSWorld

Google was awarded a killer patent for the use of location information in advertising. The search giant can leverage the patent to control the use of location information in ads, one of the most targeted and hence, lucrative, parameters of mobile and web-based advertising. The patent covers all the good stuff: using location for targeting ads, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad. It enables advertisers to enter location data to improve targeting, and track ad performance according to location metrics and analytics.

In the patent, Google describes using location information as an attribute to determine ad placement, tracking performance in different geographic areas and, perhaps most importantly, targeting potential customers based on their location. "The usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by allowing businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience," states Google. 

How will Google use the patent? Sometimes large companies obtain patents as a benign and simple defensive action to ensure their rights are not challenged, and not as a ploy to collect licensing fees or stop other company’s operations. In the case of Google, I’m putting my money on a Darth Vader scenario. It would hurt a Silicon Valley nemesis, Apple, who, like Google, recently purchased a mobile advertising company.

Android Rules?

Electonista

In spite of early fanfare, Google has sold just 135,000 Nexus One phones in the past 2.5 months, according to a Flurry estimate. Having tracked sales since the early January launch, the analysts believe the Android "superphone" in 74 days has had just a fraction of the sales the original iPhone managed over a similar timeframe in 2007, when it cracked 1 million. Motorola has also landed an ironic blow as the Droid is believed to have outsold both with 1.05 million passing through Verizon.

The research doesn't directly explain the Nexus One's shortfall, but its presence on the considerably smaller T-Mobile network and the refusal to sell the phone directly through T-Mobile or its resellers has contributed to much of the poor performance. A lack of marketing, even at Google's website, has also hurt publicity.

Verizon's lead with the Droid is almost exclusively attributed to time and, inadvertently, Apple. About 2.5 years passed between June 2007 and November 2009 that not only saw subscriber bases grow, especially after Verizon's buyout of Alltel, but a conditioning of the market to accept smartphones. The iPhone not only taught the US public to embrace smartphones but created a glut of demand for a Verizon equivalent, which was heavily marketed when it shipped.

The Droid also had the benefit of launching during the holiday season where both the iPhone and Nexus One launched during relatively cool sales periods, and unlike either, were sold only through first-party channels where the Droid was already being sold at Best Buy and other retailers.

>> Whow!  I thought Motorola was dead?  The tone of this article is that Google is failing?  I don't think so... doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, Android is catching mice!  Otherwise why would APple be attempting to tackel HTC?

30,000 Android Apps?

Google Says There Are Now 30,000 Apps In Android Market

from TechCrunch by Robin Wauters

At the most recent Mobile World Congress, Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed that the company's partners are now selling over 60,000 Android handsets on a daily basis. With that kind of growth rate, it's no wonder that the size of the Android Market is increasing in its slipstream. While Google doesn't publicly show how many apps there are in Android Market, a Google rep this morning informed me that the store now serves approx. 30,000 apps in total. 

Microsoft Silverlight for Symbian – B...

Microsoft Silverlight for Symbian – Beta now available

from Nokia Beta Labs blog by markow76

Written by Microsoft Silverlight for Symbian Team

We are pleased to announce the public availability of Microsoft Silverlight for Symbian – Beta. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform implementation of the .NET Framework for creating media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web on desktop computers and mobile phones. Silverlight beta contains an installer for Symbian^1 devices and developer tools for developing Silverlight applications on Nokia Symbian^1 (S60 5th Edition) mobile devices. 

With this release, we have come one more step closer to bringing Silverlight to the Symbian platform that holds single largest market share in the Smartphone market and hence extend Silverlight reach to mobile devices. While Microsoft has done cross-platform work for Silverlight on the desktop, this is the first time Silverlight cross-platform work has been achieved on a non-Microsoft mobile platform. 

This beta release is primarily focused towards the developer community so they can start building great experiences on mobile devices. If you’re an existing Silverlight developer or you’re new to Silverlight and would like to get started, the resources below will help you:

• Learn about Silverlight – http://silverlight.net
• Download Silverlight for Symbian – Beta Developer Tools
• Download Silverlight for Symbian – Beta (device installer)

What to expect?
Since this is still a beta release you may run into issues or bugs. Please share your feedback, comments, brick bats, flowers and whatever that comes to your mind that’ll help us improve the overall quality of the product.

http://www.broadband.gov/

Test Your Broadband - Keep them honest?
Overview Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act Of 2009 (Recovery Act)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th, 2009. The FCC is currently working in coordination with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to perform the FCC’s role under the Recovery Act. Specifically, in conjunction with the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program established by the Act, the FCC has been tasked with creating a National Broadband Plan by February 17, 2010. The Recovery Act states that the National Broadband Plan shall seek to ensure all people of the United States have access to broadband capability and shall establish benchmarks for meeting that goal.

Microsoft loses second Word patent ap...

Microsoft loses second Word patent appeal, on the hook for $240 million in damages

from Engadget by Vladislav Savov

17 people liked this

And the intellectual property rollercoaster continues. The BBC is reporting that Microsoft's second appeal against a judgmentgranting $240 million in damages due to content in Word that infringed on patents held by i4i was today rejected, leaving the Redmond giant with a huge fine to pay atop its undoubtedly sky-high lawyer bills. In the latest ruling, the judges state their belief that Microsoft was explicitly aware of i4i's patents before implementing the relevant XML code into Word, which is about as damning as these things can get. Still, Microsoft might be able to appeal yet again, depending on a panel ruling on the matter, and if all else fails, this can be taken all the way to the Supreme Court. Crazy or what?

>> Wow!  I guess when you knowingly abridge someone's patent you can really get slammed?  Its odd though that there seems to be an endless remorse when a large company has a patent that frustrates and even sometime hinders a whole industry but when the shoe shifts to the small outfit with a patent that over comes a the big corp, that is great?  IP issues are complex and having a patent or two looks like that is part of the game?

Smartphone Platform Market Share - Android 150 Pecent Growth!

Use of Social Media via Mobile Sees Considerable Gains in Past Three Months

RESTON, VA, March 10, 2010 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month period between October 2009 and January 2010. The report ranked the leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the U.S. according to their share of current mobile subscribers age 13 and older, as well as popular activities and content accessed via the subscriber’s primary mobile phone. The January report found Motorola to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 22.9 percent market share, while RIM led among smartphone platforms with 43.0 percent market share.

Smartphone Platform Market Share

42.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in an average month during the November to January period, up 18 percent from the August through October period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 43.0 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, rising 1.7 percentage points versus three months earlier. Apple ranked second with 25.1 percent share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft at 15.7 percent, Google at 7.1 percent (up 4.3 percentage points), and Palm at 5.7 percent. Google’s Android platform continues to see rapid gains in market share.

Cisco router could give up to 322Tbps...

Cisco router could give up to 322Tbps to AT&T, others

from Electronista | The Macintosh News Network

Cisco as part of a self-proclaimed "revolutionary" event today launched a new router system meant for the very highest levels of Internet and cellular carriers. The CRS-3 is roughly three times faster than the previous Cisco best and theoretically provides as much as 322 terabits per second (Tbps) when it's attached to a suitable network. With that much bandwidth, a carrier could serve 1 billion videos at the same time or serve the entire population of San Francisco with 1Gbps Internet access....

>> Wow!  One GB each - I want MORE !!!

Entelligence: Will Android fragmentat...

Entelligence: Will Android fragmentation destroy the platform?

from Engadget by Michael Gartenberg

52 people liked this

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

My friend and colleague Harry McCracken recently bought a brand new Droid from Motorola. He says it's a "loaf of day old bread." He's right. The Droid and Android 2.0 were introduced with much fanfare in December, but have already been eclipsed by Android 2.1 running on Google's Nexus One, and there are some serious ramifications for being behind. For example, Google recently touted the latest mobile version of Google Earth, which is a cool app that you won't be able to use unless you're running 2.1. Sure, Google says "Google Earth will be available in Android Market on most devices that have Android 2.1 or later versions," but that's most, not every. And what does Google mean when it says "as devices like the Droid get updated..." to 2.1? When will they get updated? Is it any wonder that some Android users are starting to get pangs of buyers remorse?

When Android was announced, I wrote that if "Google can deliver, the impact could be huge," but I caveated a major issue: Google would need to prevent the market from fragmenting and allow it to succeed where other mobile and desktop Linux implementations had failed. Linux fragmentation remains one of the many reasons the open-source OS has failed to capture a meaningful share of the PC desktop market, and Android is rapidly following a similar path by fragmenting into different versions with different core feature sets, different users experiences and run different applications.

Continue reading Entelligence: Will Android fragmentation destroy the platform?

Entelligence: Will Android fragmentat...

Entelligence: Will Android fragmentation destroy the platform?

from Engadget by Michael Gartenberg

52 people liked this

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

My friend and colleague Harry McCracken recently bought a brand new Droid from Motorola. He says it's a "loaf of day old bread." He's right. The Droid and Android 2.0 were introduced with much fanfare in December, but have already been eclipsed by Android 2.1 running on Google's Nexus One, and there are some serious ramifications for being behind. For example, Google recently touted the latest mobile version of Google Earth, which is a cool app that you won't be able to use unless you're running 2.1. Sure, Google says "Google Earth will be available in Android Market on most devices that have Android 2.1 or later versions," but that's most, not every. And what does Google mean when it says "as devices like the Droid get updated..." to 2.1? When will they get updated? Is it any wonder that some Android users are starting to get pangs of buyers remorse?

When Android was announced, I wrote that if "Google can deliver, the impact could be huge," but I caveated a major issue: Google would need to prevent the market from fragmenting and allow it to succeed where other mobile and desktop Linux implementations had failed. Linux fragmentation remains one of the many reasons the open-source OS has failed to capture a meaningful share of the PC desktop market, and Android is rapidly following a similar path by fragmenting into different versions with different core feature sets, different users experiences and run different applications.

Continue reading Entelligence: Will Android fragmentation destroy the platform?

Microsoft creates first Android App w...

Microsoft creates first Android App with Tag

from Mobilewhack.com by Mark Rollins

We have covered Microsoft’s Tag reader before, and how it is able to read a special codes that will lead to certain content.

Microsoft has made the Tag reader for Android, which would be a first time that the big company has ever, and I do mean ever, made something for Android. Ah, it is nice to see that Google and Microsoft can work together, and I would imagine that the Tag reader app should be available on many a Mobile Operating System.

SMARTPHONE APPLICATION MARKET TO REAC...

SMARTPHONE APPLICATION MARKET TO REACH US$15.65 BILLION IN 2013

Research2Guidance

4 March 2010

An upswing in the market share of “smart” devices, along with an increase in application focus from OEMs, OS developers and mobile network operators will drive yearly app revenues from US$1.94 billion (2009) to US$15.65 billion in only four years, according to our most recent research findings.

The application market’s growth is driven by the widespread push of advanced handset capabilities by the mobile industry and the increasingly-connected global consumer base. This trend will continue, seeing global smartphone users numbering 970 million by the end of 2013.

Installed Base of Smartphone Application Users, 2009-2013

The audience is already poised to triple this year to about 300 million, the researchers claimed.

App development has maintained extremely rapid growth over the past two years, particularly among the Android and iPhone platforms. The latter is now estimated to have over 150,000 apps after starting with just over 500 in July 2008. Android started later and with a much smaller pool of roughly 30 apps but has since grown to over 20,000 titles in roughly a year and a half.

BlackBerry App World, the Palm App Catalog and Windows Marketplace have also had a limited amount of success, although the latter may experience a "reboot" as Windows Phone 7's incompatibility will force many to rewrite apps to support the new OS.

Unlimited has Limits - AT&T Will Soon Charge by the MB?

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson on Tuesday said wireless customers who are heavy Internet users will eventually pay more than those who use less.

Yikes!  Unlimited does not look to be unlimited anymore?

I recently purchased a Nexus to replace my long term use of Nokia mobile phones. I can not say my experience is totally awesome but I am getting used to dealing with something that is more of a personal computing device that has a phone and TXTing built in - kind of a weird turn IMHO.   So that said, in the last few days I have been increasingly parinoid of my first real bill from the Cingular systems upon which I rely. Why?  I simply swapped by SIM card from my Nokia over to my Nexus; I am not on a $30 unlimited data plan.

I know more or less what I should expect bill-wise for my voice minutes and TXTs but I don't have a clue what my data "add-on" will show. I have enjoyed loading a number of free apps like Google Earth, Car Finder, and the like as well as one paid-for alarm clock that I would like to get my 1.65 euros back on..  What I am learning about these uber-smartphones is that you need to understand that they seem to constantly be trading info... that little white light thumb cursor... blinks, blinks and blinks at how much per blink once AT&T shifts over to a metered billing?  

I have delayed my reliance on my Nexus for emails as I wanted to better understand if I could actually become one of the airport email junkies... sort of slide into this from a TXT addiction? I am not really ready with my Nexus to fully shilf as I can tell you that I really think Andorid needs a major re-think on their virtural keyboard. But a rotten keyboard might simply be a crafty fox? Why? Its related to my ever increasing use of the voice to TXT feature of Android's/Nexus keyboard. 

Because I have concluded that the Android/Nexus keyboard simply sucks, I have increasingly relied on the cool voice to TXT  function you can access from the keyboard.  It has worked dam good replacing my fat-thumbs. My MB freak-out is the result that a few days ago I discovered that the voice to TXT conversion does not occur on the phone but in the Google-sphere... suddenly how many MBs had I consumed sending a voice file to the cloud only to send along short texts of under 40 bytes because the keyboard sucks?

FCC Proposes Increasing Spectrum for ...

FCC Proposes Increasing Spectrum for Wireless Broadband

from Between the Poles by Geoff

According to Gartner mobile application stores’ worldwide download revenue exceeded $4.2 billion in 2009, up from zero a few of years ago, and will grow to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013.  The revenue forecast includes paid-for apps and advertising-sponsored free apps.

                       2009      2010      2013

Downloads       2.5 B     4.5 B    21.6 B

Total revenue  $4.2 B   $6.8 B   $29.5 B

In a recent address entitled "Mobile Broadband: A 21st Century Plan for U.S. Competitiveness, Innovation and Job Creation", Chairman Julius Genachowski of the FCC referred to a report by Cisco that North American wireless networks carried 17 petabytes per month in 2009 and forecasting that by 2014, they will carry 740 petabytes per month.   Worldwide Cisco is forecasting that mobile data traffic will more than double annually, increasing from 90 petabytes per month in 2009 to 3.6 exabytes per month in 2014.

According to Chairman Genachowski the FCC received a letter from over a hundred companies including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, and Verizon requesting more spectrum for mobile broadband.  As part of a National Broadband Plan to be announced next month, the FCC is planning to open more spectrum for mobile broadband by freeing up to 500 Megahertz of spectrum over the next decade by means of a “Mobile Future Auction”.  The auction will permit existing spectrum licensees, such as television broadcasters, to voluntarily sell spectrum to mobile wireless carriers.  The proposal is supported by the Wireless Association (CTIA).