Shout About Mobiles

The use of mobile internet data services including the search facility; has steadily increased, with US mobile internet search usage rising by 14 percent in 2008.

The increase in mobile searching is nearly double the increase in users who said they accessed mobile websites generally.

According to surveys conducted by ABI Research in 2007 and 2008, 70 percent of respondents used their mobile phones to access information through Internet search engines last year.

Senior ABI analyst Jeff Orr said:

“Mobile search represents a utility for information anytime and anywhere.

“With a few keywords, one can quickly identify movie times, the discography of a musical artist, recommendations for a local eatery and so much more.”

News, game downloads, music downloads, and video downloads accessed via mobile phones rose in popularity from 2007 to 2008.

Nokia is “looking very actively” into joining the laptop market, according to the company’s chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

The world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer is looking to branch out, Kallasvuo said in an interview with Finnish television station YLE. He said that the move was the natural progression of the increasing blurring of the lines between the mobile and PC industries.

Kallasvuo explained:

“We don’t have to look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a mobile phone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging.

“Today we have hundreds of millions of people who are having their first Internet experience on the phone. This is a good indication.”

Kallasvuo didn’t specify whether the company would be producing a full-featured laptop or a slimmed down netbook.

O2, which is owned by Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica, has reported that it has sold more than one million iPhones in Britain since the exclusive partnership with Apple began in November 2007.

Chairman and chief executive of Telefónica Europe, Matthew Key said that O2 had gained 1.1 million mobile customers in 2008 taking its subscriber base to 19.5 million.

Mr Key said the network is attracting customers from all its rivals and the number of customers leaving the network is the lowest in the market.

“We have significantly outperformed Vodafone across 2008,” he added.

However, it has noticed a significant number of customers are looking for short term contracts such as rolling monthly tariffs or pay-as-you-go deals rather than 18-month fixed term contracts.
Key does not see this as a problem when he explains:

“In the middle-market, some have traded down but some have traded up… And frankly if you look at the iPhone there has not been anything as compelling before in the market for people to trade up to.”

There has been an announcement from Samsung about their new design handset – it’s called the ‘Samsung Blue Earth’, designed to be an eco-friendly phone as it comes with its own built in solar panels
in the back!

LG are also releasing one as well, however they have not yet gotten round to a naming it yet! LG have already finished the packaging design (which looks like an egg carton – boo!).

These phones are a huge step up from Nokia’s new eco-phone, the N73, which only tries to save the
environment by dropping the charger from the box. Which is okay if your old handset was a
Nokia and you have a spare charger from that, but if not then unlucky – no charger for you!

It is great to see that manufactures are thinking about more than just profit, the environment matters too. However, whether or not we will find any use for these phones in the rain soaked shores of the UK (they do come with normal travel chargers though) is anyone’s guess.

At the moment I can only really see a small selection of people going for these products (except for those people lucky enough to be going on a long holiday in the sun).

As the Mobile World Conference comes to an end, we have a new mobile of the year!

This year instead of being a super-dooper, all-doing all-star handset, we have the INQ1 – which has been

rewarded for its adaption to social networking.

As myspace and facebook become more and more popular plus all the other hordes of social sites, this handset has decided to be designed to work perfectly with these websites.

And it has paid off!

The seven judges choose this phone over other ground breaking and brilliant phones such as the Nokia E71, the Blackberry Storm and the Google G1.

These are all brilliant phones which have brought somehting new to the market, ranging from new style touch screen or new operating systems or in the case of the nokia e71, a split personaility phone (you have a whole menu

style for personal and buisness modes).

Well done to the INQ.

Vodafone is axing around 500 of its staff in a bid to save a massive £1bn in costs, it announced today.
The world’s biggest mobile phone company said handset sales had been hit here and abroad by the deepening recession.

Vodafone, which employs 10,000 workers in the UK, has call centres and offices in London, Hayes, Newark, Banbury, Theale, Trowbridge, Warrington and Stoke-on-Trent.

The job losses will include 170 back-office posts at the head office in Newbury, Berkshire. However, all the group’s operations are set to be affected, including a reorganisation of its call centres.

The move is the result of rising raw material prices and increasing competition as the group looks to make £1bn of cost savings worldwide by March 2011.

A Vodafone spokesperson commented:

“As customers look for best value in their mobile services, Vodafone intends to reduce its cost base whilst continuing to invest in new products and services to meet changing customer needs.”

Microsoft has attempted to challenge the dominance of Apple’s iPhone with the launch of a range of mobile phone services.

The technology corporation announced it was setting up Windows Marketplace, a rival to Apple’s leading iTunes Application service at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Mobile phone users will be able to visit Marketplace in order to download games, tools and programmes.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, also announced that it was launching a new version of Windows Mobile operating system, with more efficient ways for users to transfer music, pictures and texts between their phone and computer.

Windows Mobile is a compact operating system combined with a suite of basic applications for mobile devices. Devices that run Windows Mobile include pocket PCs, smartphones and portable media centres.

Ballmer explained:

“We’re working with partners across the industry to deliver a new generation of Windows phones that break down the barriers between people, information and applications, and provide great end-to-end experiences that span your entire life, at work and at home.”

“We do so much better with a clear competitor in the space,” said Aaron Woodman, director of Windows Mobile consumer experiences at Microsoft.

He added:

“We recognise that consumers buy a phone, they don’t buy the software. For us, that’s very important, because it’s a recognition of a shift in our business. It marks a shift in our strategy.”

In addition to Windows Marketplace, Microsoft has outlined plans for a new version of its Windows Mobile operating system, which is used on millions of handsets worldwide.

Codenamed “Photon”, Windows Mobile 7 is a major upgrade that may be planned for release in 2010, with a beta is planned to be released to testers during November this year.

Windows 6.5 has raised its head at this year’s MWC, and questions everyone has been asking, have been answered!
I’m afraid the answer just is not what we have been hoping for…

Windows Mobile is a popular operation platform, but it is starting to lag behind the other OS’s out there, and it seems that all Microsoft are willing to do is to cover it up with shiny gadgets.

True, it is great knowing that if you have a Windows mobile device, you have an worryingly large sample
of applications to download and play with.
But it does take the edge of getting a new phone when you know that it has the same inards as the last one, it’s just wrapped up in a new colour.

With the release of Android and Mac OS, customers are seeing that there are simple and easy to use phones out there; when comparing these toys to Windows mobile, the results are just not going to help Windows Mobile’s little corner.

The G2 is on its way!
(although it is arriving under the name “Magic”)

The handset has again been made by HTC; Google’s first phone, the G1, was made by HTC and Google has seen no reason to go elsewhere.

The G2 is rumoured to be relased by Vodafone, as one of Vodafone’s exclusive devices. However, the rumours that are circling the internet says that T-mobile will be the network supplying the G1, as well as having their own version as well. We’re wondering whether there will be any differences between the devices? Hmm…
As to who will actually get the G2, we’ll find out soon enough.

The G2, (aka the HTC Magic) is going to be very similar to the G1, but it will not have a physical keyboard, although it will have the cupcake keyboard that has been denied to current Android users, and of course an increase in ROM. In fact the ROM has been doubled! which nicely implies that Google are expecting a bigger amount of applications to be available for the open source platform – this will be great, as the G2 is currently lacking in major apps when compared to its main rival the Apple iPhone. But the design of the G2 does look good and the count down for its release is now starting.

At this years MWC (Mobile World Congress), Nokia has confirmed rumours and announced the upcoming release of their new super phone – the Nokia N86.

This phone is in the same style as all of Nokia’s new devices. It’s similar specs to the N96 but now with improved camera capabilities.
The N86 comes with 8mp camera on the back, a 28mm wide angel lens and an improved Carl Zeiss lens, all nicely finished with a mechanical shutter that has only been seen in the Samsung Innov8.

The only worrying thing is that the 8mp camera has been on the phone market for a while now, with quite a few phones available. Ffirst released by Sony Ericsson and is now being led by LG and Samsung both with two decent 8mp camera phones each.

We have to ask – is Nokia falling behind?

With Sony Ericsson already whispering info about their new phone, the 12.1mp Idou phone, it seems that as Nokia hit the benchmark set by other manufactures, a new and better mark is being achieved. The company that used to lead the way, is now left following…