Motorola posts Android 2.1 upgrade timeline for its smartphones

via Unwired View by Ilinca Nita on 4/13/10

Unlike other manufacturers (i.e. HTC or Samsung), Motorola has posted a timeline with details on future software upgrades for its Android smartpohnes.

As you may already know, Android 2.1 updates for the Verizon Droid and for the Milestone are already rolling out.

Next, Motorola is planning to bring Android 2.1 to the Cliq and Cliq XT, sometime this quarter (meaning in June the latest).

In Q3, the Motorola BackFlip (for AT&T) and the Motorola Dext (for Asia-Pacific) will also be upgraded to Android 2.1.

Upgrades for the Motorola Devour (pictured above) and the Dext for Europe and Latin America are currently under evaluation.

Via Motorola

Similar Posts:

• Motorola BackFlip with Android announced for Italy
• 20 to 30 Motorola Android smartphones coming this year?
• Motorola Dext / Cliq previewed. Low price apparently confirmed
• #CES2010: Motorola Announces Long-Awaited Backflip Android Device
• Motorola Dext to bring Android to Orange UK in October

Posted via email from dvdand’s posterous

There are scores of startups that are addressing this space including Obopay, mFoundry, MPayment, to name a few. Even established companies like PayPal, Sybase and Google have ventured into this arena. But where are the banks? Why aren’t any of them providing these options or partnering with the carriers to provide this service.

There is a common belief that carriers and banks are at loggerheads about mobile payments. There is a reason for that. Banks and carriers cannot agree on who owns the transaction. Carriers say they own the transaction as it happens on their network and they bill the customers. But the bank say they own the customers as the banks have the customers’ money and they provide the secure transaction processing. Neither wants to encroach on the other’s turf especially since regulatory oversight for carriers and technology investments for the banks would be killer. So, they are at an impasse and until it is resolved, banks will be shut out of a market that is forecasted to be worth $25.2 billion in 2013 by Research & Markets.

Banks  are not giving up easy. They are introducing m-wallets and other options to garner a share of this market. But those efforts are not going to take off in the face of a simple solution like charging to the cell phone. Clearly, banks need to change their tactics in order to get a larger piece of the pie. They need to take a back seat to the carriers by letting them own the customers and bill them, while the banks provide solutions to process the transaction and get a cut. Banks will have to think “Powered by Intel” model for them to be successful otherwise they are going to miss the boat.

Smartphone Sales Up 24 Percent, iPhone’s Share Nearly Doubled Last Year (Gartner)

via TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld on 2/23/10

Last year, Apple’s iPhone nearly doubled its worldwide market share of smartphone sales to 14.4 percent, up 6.2 points from the year before, according to the latest market share figures put out by Gartner.  The iPhone still trails behind Nokia’s Symbian-powered smartphones (No. 1), which saw their share decline 5.5 points to 46.9 percent, and RIM Blackberries (No. 2), which gained 3.3 points to end the year with a 19.9 percent share.

Remember, these are worldwide estimates.  In the U.S., both Blackberry and Apple are much larger than Symbian.  And when it comes to mobile Web traffic, Apple and Android dominate with 81 percent share.  According to Gartner, Android phone sales jumped 3.4 points (to 3.9 percent), but Android is still smaller than WIndows Mobile or Linux.  Those mobile OSes, however, saw their market share drop  3.1 and 2.9 percent, respectively.  Palm’s WebOS barely made a mark with 0.7 percent share.

So when you tally everything up, Symbian lost the most share (5.5 percent), followed by Windows Mobile and Linux.  The iPhone saw the biggest gain (6.2 percent), compared to smaller but roughly equal jumps by Blackberry and Android (up 3.3 and 3.4 percent, respectively).

All together, Gartner estimates 172 million smartphones were sold last year, up 24 percent.  In contrast, total mobile phone sales were flat at 1.2 billion.  Smartphones represented 14 percent of total mobile handset sales last year, up from 11 percent in 2008.  The iPhone, for all of its growth, made up only 2 percent of all mobile phone sales last year. Below are the market share tables from Gartner:

Table 2
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2009 (Thousands of Units)

Company	2009 Units	2009 Market Share (%)	2008 Units	2008 Market Share (%)
Symbian	80,878.6	46.9	72,933.5	52.4
Research In Motion	34,346.6	19.9	23,149.0	16.6
iPhone OS	24,889.8	14.4	11,417.5	8.2
Microsoft Windows Mobile	15,027.6	8.7	16,498.1	11.8
Linux	8,126.5	4.7	10,622.4	7.6
Android	6,798.4	3.9	640.5	0.5
WebOS	1,193.2	0.7	NA	NA
Other OSs	1,112.4	0.6	4,026.9	2.9
Total	172,373.1	100.0	139,287.9	100.0

Source: Gartner (February 2010)

Table 1
Worldwide Mobile Terminal Sales to End Users in 2009 (Thousands of Units)

Company	2009 Sales	2009 Market Share (%)	2008 Sales	2008 Market Share (%)
Nokia	440,881.6	36.4	472,314.9	38.6
Samsung	235,772.0	19.5	199,324.3	16.3
LG	122,055.3	10.1	102,789.1	8.4
Motorola	58,475.2	4.8	106,522.4	8.7
Sony Ericsson	54,873.4	4.5	93,106.1	7.6
Others	299,179.2	24.7	248,196.1	20.3
Total	1,211,236.6	100.0	1,222,252.9	100.0

Note* This table includes iDEN shipments, but excludes ODM to OEM shipments.
Source: Gartner (February 2010)

CrunchBase Information

iPhone 3G

Android

Research In Motion

Information provided by CrunchBase

Posted via email from dvdand’s posterous

This page was sent to you by:  leodnardo@yahoo.com TECHNOLOGY   | February 15, 2010 Microsoft Starts Over in Phone Software By ASHLEE VANCE Microsoft unveiled a new version of its flagship smartphone software on Monday, now called Windows Phone. Copyright 2010  The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy

Posted via email from dvdand’s posterous

This is first in a series of posts discussing the mobility needs of an enterprise. In this post, we will discuss some of the requirements as they relate to the devices. In future posts, we will talk about the network requirements and enterprise readiness.

Let’s talk about devices. Smartphones are becoming ubiquitous in the consumer market and have been for a while in the enterprise market thanks to RIM’s Blackberry devices and also Windows Mobile based devices. However, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platforms have opened up new avenues in both the consumer and enterprise market. Both these companies entered the mobile market with consumer centric devices. Hence their consumer offerings are strong, especially in the case of Apple. Android is also catching up thanks to the many partners Google has signed up in the Open Handset Alliance, who are offering several devices on that platform.

In the enterprise market both these device platforms have been slow in gaining traction. Here is what I believe needs to happen in order for these platforms to crack the enterprise market:

- Dual Profiles – The enterprise end users would like to use a single device for both personal and business purpose. They are loathe to carrying multiple devices if they don’t have to. Devices that can support dual profiles to segragate the personal and business use would find a welcoming market. Android seems to have taken a step in that direction by allowing different home screens based on the profile selected, whether it is work related, social, fun, etc. Howerver, this is very superficial in that it only customizes the apps available on the home screen. What is needed is true segregation whereby the data is also protected and also some specific features are enabled based on the profile.

- Data Security – Enterprises are leary about allowing users access to its data while they are away from office or not on a secure network. Devices need to support not only  data encryption, but also ability to connect securely to the enterprise network. Part of this connectivity is network and enterprise dependent and I will talk about this in future posts. However, from the device perspective, data encryption is absolute must.

- Remote Device Management – This goes hand-in-hand with Data Security. Enterprises want the ability to manage devices remotely so that they can push updates to the devices to ensure data security and also be able to remotely wipe the device in case it is lost or stolen. A lot of companies are working on this for both the Apple and Android platforms, however, they are still in early stages and have not gained enough traction yet.

- Private Application Market – Enterprises would like to control what applications users can install on devices owned by the enterprises. Currently, Apple controls the iPhone App Store and only it can decide which applications can go into the store. Google too has its own Android Market, however, so far it has been relaxed in its control over the applications and also lets developers host applications on their own servers. Apple will have to allow for private app stores if it wants to crack the enterprise market. Both will also have to rethink their pricing strategies for the private app stores because enterprises would not want to pay 30% to Apple or Google for every application a user downloads.

While this is not a complete list, I believe these are the top priorities for consumer devices manufactures like Apple or HTC or others to penetrate the enterprise market.

It runs on Android version 1.5 (Cupcake) and above and has been extensively tested on the Droid Eris. It is available right now, absolutely free in the Android Market. So, go ahead, download and make a preschooler or kindergartner in your life a SmarToucan.

Note: If you do download, drop me a comment here letting me know which phone you are using and also I would appreciate any feedback.

The first Google Nexus One review shows up

via Unwired View by Ilinca Nita on 1/4/10

Google’s Nexus One Android smartphone is, of course, not yet officially announced, but the first review of it has already appeared on the Web.

Sure enough, we’ve seen many leaked photos, videos and previews of the handset, but this is the first time when an actual review is published (at the NexusOne blog) – although it’s missing some important parts.

As you’ve probably heard before, the Google Nexus One is thinner than the iPhone and you have to actually touch it and hold it in your hands to see that it feels “incredible”.

Also incredible is the Nexus One’s 3.7 inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen display when it comes to image quality and crispness. Unfortunately, for some reason Google didn’t include multitouch into this phone.

The Nexus One comes with 10 Live Wallpapers – which you can choose to put on the homescreen. They don’t actually do anything useful, but they’re animated and that’s why they’re cool. Even with an animated wallpaper, the phone is very fast – thanks to the 1GHz Snapdragon processor and the 512MB of RAM.

The handset obviously features a 3.5mm headset jack. It was tested with several headsets, and it looks like “the sound quality is on par with the iPhone” – thus “average.” The Nexus One’s speaker (located on the back) is also “pretty good.”

The Nexus One’s battery is on par with the iPhone’s – it died after 12 hours of heavy usage.

According to the reviewer, the 5MP camera featured by the Google Nexus One is not as good as the iPhone 3GS’ camera, because it doesn’t use “natural colors” and you “have to play around with the settings more to get the perfect picture”.

Even so, the Google Nexus One is probably the best Android smartphone until now. And speaking of which, here’s a benchmark test with the Nexus One vs. Motorola Droid (graphics, CPU, Memory and Filesystem):

A downside of the Nexus One would be the fact that the Android Market still hasn’t got great games – like the App Store has. Anyway, I’m sure that there will soon be lots of iPhone-like games for Android, especially after more awesome hardware like the Nexus One has will be launched.

There are many other nice things included in the Nexus one, like the voice to text option, proximity sensor, and the Car Home app – read about them in the full review found at the NexusOne blog.

And remember, Google is hosting an Android event tomorrow, January 5, 2010, and it’s likely that it will officially announce the Nexus One then.

Similar Posts:

• Google Phone (Nexus One) appears in lots of photos
• Google schedules Android event for January 5 while new Nexus One preview shows up
• Google’s Nexus One to be sold starting January 5?
• Lengthy Google Nexus One video, Nexus vs iPhone photos show up
• Google Nexus One pricing: $180 with contract, $530 without

Posted via email from dvdand’s posterous

Motorola's shiny XT800 shows off its Android

via Engadget Mobile by Chris Ziegler on 12/15/09

Could this end up being the prettiest Android device to date? We don’t want to call it before we have it in our own two hands, but China Telecom’s likely entrant from Motorola — the XT800 — is looking better than ever in these live action shots unearthed by Chinese site tgbus. What’s interesting here is that Moto’s reusing the font first seen on the Droid’s dock standby screen for a new home screen date / time widget, but the old-school Power Control widget below it has us believing that we’re looking at an older Android 2.0 build (or heck, who knows, 1.5 or 1.6). It’ll apparently have a 3.7-inch WVGA display with 720p playback and, as we’ve mentioned before, an HDMI-out for some serious multimedia street cred. It’s still unclear whether this is being thrown around internally as the Titanium, Zeppelin, or something else entirely, but whatever — Verizon, Sprint, bring it on over, alright?

Motorola’s shiny XT800 shows off its Android originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Posted via email from dvdand’s posterous

This page was sent to you by:  leodnardo@yahoo.com Message from sender: This is the beginning of data limitation on smartphones. AT&T has signalled that it is going to put some sort of curbs on data-hogs. Let's hope it only impacts the data-hogs not the average user. BUSINESS   | December 09, 2009 AT&T: Tighter Control of Cell Data Usage Ahead By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T says wireless data hogs who jam up the airwaves by watching video on their iPhones will be put on tighter leashes.

Advertisement Crazy Heart – starring four-time Academy Award nominee Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall. In Select Theaters December 16. Click here to view trailer

Copyright 2009  The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy

Posted via email from dvdand’s posterous

One key feature that InStat survey respondents would like in their future smartphones is accelerometer. According to InStat, of the 412 million shipped in 2014, 340 million smartphones will have accelerometer in them.

Another observation in the report is that 52% of the cost of building a smartphone goes towards the display, baseband and app processors, and software & licensing. Though one pecularity about this observation is that InStat feels it is unjustified. However, to me, that is the cost of developing a smartphone, in other words, that is the cost of putting “smart” in the smartphone.