iPhone may Not have this Smartphone in the Bag...

Whow, that did not take long... comparison of the Smartphone OS's: iPhone OS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, S60. What I personally find interesting is that the comparison is quite US orientated in that in that the dominate Smartphone OS, Symbian, trails in sort of last on the list. Why? Well the US absolutley lags in application of 3G.. heck Australia has already moved their nation to 3.5G. Nokia has more 3G phones out there by some will suggest a factor of 10. What is really going on here?

IMHO Nokia remains a one-handed smartphone solution where as the other smartphones rely on two handed control. Is a two-handed smartphone really any smarter or is simply larger.
So if you are in your car with a two-handed solution, well, be aware! iPhone lifted the game for everyone in the smartphone play but Android also offers something of pending interest. Symbian remains lurking... Nokia what are they doing?



Engadget Reveiws Six Smartphone Oper5ating Systems

As soon as Apple rolled out its preview of iPhone OS 3.0, the comparisons to existing (and forthcoming) mobile OSs started flying. While the major update isn't exactly a done deal, it's pretty far along, and we've been able to glean quite a bit from our time with the developer beta we've been checking out. iPhone OS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, S60; if you're in the market for a new smartphone, your choices have been getting exponentially more complicated lately, and 3.0 won't make the selection any easier. Luckily for you, Engadget is here to make sense of a frightening and uncertain landscape. Read on for an in-depth look at the similarities -- and differences -- between modern mobile operating systems.

Global Smartphone Sales Growth Slows ...

Global Smartphone Sales Growth Slows To 3.7% In 4Q - Gartner

Wednesday March 11st, 2009 / 11h04

STOCKHOLM -(Dow Jones)- Worldwide smartphone sales grew 3.7% on the year to 38.1 million units in the fourth quarter 2008, research firm Gartner said Wednesday.
Gartner research director Roberta Cozza said growth slowed in the fourth quarter due to fewer compelling new products and the worsened economic climate.
As a proportion of all mobile device sales, smartphones remained relatively stable at 12% in the fourth quarter, compared to 11% a year earlier.
Nokia Corp. (NOK) maintained its market-leading position in the quarter. However, its market share fell to 40.8% from 50.9%, and its smartphone sales declined 17% to 15.6 million units.
Research In Motion (RIMM), the maker of Blackberry smartphones, increased its market share to 19.5% from 10.9%, as its sales grew 85% to 7.4 million units.
Apple's (AAPL) market share increased to 10.7% from 5.2%, as its sales more than doubled, to 4.1 million units from 1.9 million.
HTC's (2498.TW) market share grew to 4.3% from 3.7%. Its sales were up 20% at 1.6 million units.
Samsung (005930.SE) had a market share of 4.2% in the fourth quarter, up from 1.8% a year earlier, as its sales increased 138% to 1.6 million units.
Company Web site: www.gartner.com

3G - Success yet?

3G - the power of the Ethernet....
Available for Consulting
Alan Moore

If we measure how high is the 3G penetration rate per capita, not the 3G migration per total subscrber base - then we get a very different view... Italy has already 48% 3G phones per capita. So there is a 3G phone for almost half of all Italians. Now 3G is clearly a success. Note this is higher as a penetration rate for Italy, than personal computer penetration, or fixed internet penetration (per capita, not per household).
So, I wanted to give our readers a look at how 3G is doing. Here are the world's leading countries, not by how many of their subscribers have upgraded to 3G, but rather, by national penetration rate of 3G per capita, ie per all human beings:

South Korea 67%
Japan 67%
Singapore 61%
Australia 53%
Italy 48%
Austria 47%
Sweden 43%
Taiwan 43%
Finland 42%
Portugal 41%
Israel 39%
Norway 38%
Spain 38%

Thats the baker's dozen leading countries. All around the world. 13 countries where there is a 3G phone subscription for over a third of the population and very smoothly up the curve up to two thirds of the population. Is there any doubt that 3G is happening? That 3G is a success? That 3G will happen everywhere? (for those looking for the USA, it is at 20% - remember this is per capita, and USA lags the Industrialized World still so much, that they have not even reached the 100% national mobile phone penetration rates yet. Germany is ahead at 23%, the UK is at 32%).

The above stats from several sources including the Netsize Guide 2009, the ITU 2008 and Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009. But yes, its been a long time coming, but the world's biggest infrastrructure investment, - and the world's biggest economic gamble - have panned out. 3G is well on its way to being a major success. But of who will end up winners and losers?

It is no longer a technology game. Like I've said for years already, the winners in 3G will be determined by services and marketing. Some of the past giants have been very slow to grasp that... And for anyone who would like to read a 2 page summary of the major stats on this industry, remember I have my free Thought Piece on Mobile in 2009. I'll be happy to send it to you, if you send me an email to tomi (at) tomiahonen (dot) com.

Smartphones killing PDNs?

RIM beats Microsoft Mobile - Symbian looses 10 percent

Mobilewack

Isn’t this some good news? RIM surpasses Windows Mobile in market share for the second quarter of the year. RIM comes second after Symbian which dropped significantly from the same time last year. Amazingly Windows Mobile lost the second position although they have about the same market share they did last year.

BlackBerry is up to 17.4% from last year’s 8.9%. They have almost doubled their market share in a year. Apple went from 1% to almost 3% during the same period. The biggest looser seems to be Symbian which has lost about 10% from 65.6% to 57.1%.

What is a SMARTPHONE?

I have tried and tried to better understand the GPS chip count but the " industry pundits " used as sources are not much more that soggy cow-chips .

I have even gone to the horses’ mouths to try to sort out not the finite count but the magnitudes of growth. Too sensitive - fortunes and futures are at stake!

And my absolute biggest gripe is the speculation as related to so called smart-phones, the Mother-of-all-GPS uses, evolution into PDNs (or is it really PDNs/PDAs into smart phones?) for which there seems to be a rather dynamic definition that so crumbles the statistical edges that nothing or very little can be determined… with the result of FUD.

Personally I see the one-handed smart-phones versus enlightened PDAs and PDNs (also know as "I want-2-b-a-phone too!" devices) as key to really understanding what may or may not be really happening…

My personal bet is where ever you have a good digital camera the chances of having a GPS location will soon be the norm - so just count the great cameras? Too easy.. just point me in the direction of great cameras - Nokia, Nikon, Cannon, Kodak, and Apple or Google?

Smart Phones Must Have's:

• Provide voice communication via a carrier
• Provide Internet connectivity via carrier and WiFI/WAN (I don’t need no stupid carrier!)
• Can be programmed by third-parties
• Organize internally around a directory tree structures for programs and data
• Provide removable data storage/chips
• Include the Bluetooth halo
• Have a good camera – better than 3mp IMHO and VGA MPEG video
• Have good GPS – CEP less than 30m

Now the statistical chaff starts when “form/size” is included. There are two types based on size – candy-bar origami and ham-sandwiches both now exhibiting an evolving form identified as finger-fud:

One-handed – small, fits in your pocket including origami designs (which reveal a hidden keyboard) but can be and best operated with one hand and thumb – billions sold

One Hand vs Origami

Two-handed – needs two hands to operate either with touch/micro-keyboards or finger/stylus.

ham-sandwiches (size factor) like most Palm, RIM, and Microsoft OSed devices – keyboards not hidden but sometimes can be virtual – tens of millions to be sold soon

Ham Sandwiches

Both forms are evolving features I identify as finger-fud – best example is iPHONE and like derivatives (Ham-sandwich with crusts trimmed?).

So if you or your group can help normalize all of this noise we, at least this MidNight Mapper, will all appreciate your skills and clarity of purpose. Heck you might even be called over to DC to alert our government that things are happening in the GPS domain.

Lastly, there are two phone-GPS pieces really missing IMHO –

• really cool "integrated" usability (a review of third-party GPS utilities not just maps!), and
• accuracy of the GPS since LBS and its certain 2-come ad-$$ can be as bad as phantom clicks if the revenue models think 100m CEP versus 3m CEP is the smarter choice to deliver and charge 4 an ad?

Open Symbian...

This is going to be talked and blogged about... The very quick story is that Nokia will buy out all of Symbian and turn that into the Symbian Foundation which will provide the Symbian OS to all interested players as Open Source. This targets both Microsoft and Research in Motion's closed mobile operating systems as well as emerging challenges from Google's Android Open OS just now delayed till sometime next year. The move to Symbian Open Source will also create lots of comparison to Apple's apparently closed code and business model.

Symbian to go Open Source

To compete with Google and LiMo on an equal footing, Symbian will also become an open-source based platform. The Symbian Foundation will make some parts of the operating system available as open-source code at launch. More code from the project will be made available over the next two years under the Eclipse Public License, according to a statement.

During the first quarter of 2008 Symbian had a smartphone market share of 57.1 percent, followed by Research in Motion and Microsoft, at 13.4 percent and 12.0 percent respectively. Linux was the fourth largest platform with a market share at 9.1 percent, according to Gartner.

Also announced on Tuesday was the formation of the Symbian Foundation, which will come into being during the first half of next year with members including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and Vodafone Group. All will get access to the Symbian operating system under a royalty-free license.

The deal will unite Symbian's OS and S60, UIQ (which is run as a separate company, but owned by Sony Ericsson and Motorola), and MOAP, the software platform for NTT DoCoMo's FOMA service, to create one open mobile software platform and a stronger competitor in the battle with other platforms.

iPhone takes Third Place

Apple Insider helps with some insider data from Gartner who reports on Apple's emerging position in smart-phones... the table below is World Wide market share... 14.5 m for Nokia, RIM increases to 4.3m and Apple's single entry grabs 1.7 million units in the first quarter. And rumor is that the next version of the iPHONE is going to be first available in Australia via Telstra and its Next-G system exclusinvely as well as in Asia. Some pundits are suggesting that Apple will grab upto 25 per cent of the smart-phone market share in 2008 - assuming neither Nokia nor RIM nor Microsoft does anything.

Apple no doubt is doing a great job leading competition to do more. I started with an Apple II, then a Lisa, followed by a Mac but as way leads on to way I now use Windows and Vista - need software and clients that mac I like Nokia equipment historically but if given a chance I think I will jump to an iPHONE just to better understand what will be possible. Like I suggest in the blog item below the internet connection is important but all smart phones connect. It is widely rumored that the next iPHONE will have a 3 megapixel camera not all that exciting but how they implement it will likely be. Most of Nokia's newest smart phones have increasing better features in the camea as well as 5 megapixel resolutions. And lastly the GPS function, nothing really exciting I will expect for the pending iPHONE there either.

But it will be the iPHONE zen and Jobbs magical presentations that hook our interest and pocketbooks... I will be getting one but I will not loose sleep on the street just to carry one!

And soon we will see Android devices show up... thisn is getting exciting! I just hope my SIM card shifts around without issue?

And some recent news from Symbian and Smart Phones....

With analysts predicting smartphone shipments to reach approximately 30% of all mobile phone sales by 2013 (ABI Research, March 2008) and with 2007 estimates of around 4 million navigation solutions sales based on GPS-enabled smartphones - the majority of which were based on Symbian OS – we also announced the most advanced mobile OS LBS architecture at CTIA. With this new technology, handset manufacturers do not need to invest separately in developing location support, dramatically reducing the time it takes to create GPS-enabled devices, while developers can cost-effectively target their LBS applications across multiple Symbian OS platforms. Mobile phones featuring Symbian’s LBS offering were recently launched in Japan.