Global smart phone shipments rise 28%
Nokia Continues To Lose Smartphone Market!!

In a report published yesterday, market research firm Canalys said that Nokia as well as Symbian continues to lose Smartphone market share to both, Apple and RIM!

Although Nokia still leads the way in smart mobile market, the success of Apple and RIM, as well as fifth-placed HTC with its Windows Mobile devices, has eaten into Nokia’s share of the smart phone market – a market it has led consistently for several years.

Nokia's share has fallen from 51.4 percent for the Q3 2007 to 38.9 percent for the Q3 this year while the Symbian software lose market share from 68.1 percent to 46.6 percent from last year!

Nokia’s broad portfolio of models, and the wider audience it attracts, does leave it more exposed to the trends affecting the overall handset market. Year-on-year its smart phone shipments fell in Q3 for the first time. “Nokia is also transitioning from some very successful volume drivers, like the Nokia N95 and Nokia E65, to a number of successors, such as the flagship N96, and shipments of these new models have not yet ramped up,” noted Canalys analyst Tim Shepherd.

“And Nokia has taken time to bring a touch screen product to market in the wake of the iPhone’s success, despite having had the experience of producing the Series 90-based 7710 four years ago. Conversely, vendors such as HTC with its Touch Diamond have capitalised on customer demand for this type of product.”

Through its Consumer Mobility Analysis service Canalys has surveyed over 13,000 European mobile phone users on a wide range of mobility topics. Having identified strong underlying acceptance of using touch screens on phones back in April 2007, another survey in early 2008 revealed that three-quarters of consumers in countries where the iPhone had launched expressed interest in having a touch screen on their phone.



Touch screens also proved to be the most popular device design when users considered their future mobile usage of applications such as playing music, using maps and web browsing. Nokia is focusing on these applications, for example through Nokia Maps and Ovi, and has led in including technologies such as GPS, but other vendors are doing a good job of conveying the impression of having innovative devices optimised for such usage.

“With competition in the smart phone space heating up, being able to introduce technology and user interface enhancements quickly is critical,” added Shepherd. “You also need to be able to integrate them seamlessly into the device to provide a great total user experience. And that means having sufficient control of development of the operating system, which Apple and RIM clearly have already. Nokia’s acquisition of Symbian should help it in this regard, regardless of what other Symbian Foundation members choose to do.”


Despite the gloomy economic picture and the problems being experienced by some of the leading mobile handset vendors, global shipments of smart phones hit a new peak of just under 40 million units in Q3 2008, according to the latest estimates from leading analyst firm Canalys. This means smart phones now represent around 13% of the total mobile phone market, up from 11% last quarter.

The introduction of the iPhone 3G in July and Apple’s expansion into many more countries helped propel the vendor to second place globally, taking it above RIM in the quarter and resulting in higher shipments than for all the Microsoft-based smart phones combined.

“It was expected that Apple would figure among the smart phone leaders this quarter, with that huge initial new product shipment, it was just a question of how high up it would be – and this is impressive,” commented Pete Cunningham, Canalys senior analyst. Despite RIM being nudged into third place, its growth of over 80% shouldn’t be overlooked either.

“This is also a tremendous performance, especially considering the delays it experienced in rolling out the Blackberry Bold,” Cunningham added. “Some customers will also have been waiting for the Storm to arrive. With these new products and the clamshell Pearl 8220 available in Q4, it is quite feasible that RIM will return to the number two position.”

Izvor

iriver's wave touchphone hits Korea on March 9th



After teasing us with a touchscreen phone way back at CES this January, iriver has been decidedly mum on the subject ever since, calling what we saw more of a "proof of concept" than a ready-for-market product. Well, that veil has been lifted and we're finally staring at the iriver wave, a touchphone that iriver plans to start shipping in Korea on March 9th of next year with KT, and with other major carriers to follow. Other than a touchscreen, the phone packs WiFi and the traditional kitchen sink approach of Korean PMPs, with multimedia playback, FM radio, e-books and an electronic dictionary. There's miniSD expansion, access to the Bugs Music Service for online music and we're sure a few other perks hidden under layers of Korean spec sheets. Overall the physical design hasn't really changed much from what we saw at the start of the year (looks like that 3-inch, 480 x 272 touchscreen is quite intact), but the software has certainly been refined, and is devoid of many of its original, erm, iPhone-inspired touches.

izvor

LG's concept phone contest winners should please art house gadgetphiles



When we see alluring phone concepts that'll never leave the lab, we end up wishing there was a little more innovation in the handsets out in the wild. There was a wealth of eyebrow-raising examples of that principle when LG Japan exhibited top entries to its Mobile Design Contest last weekend. We're keen on the fbt, a phone designed for braille text messaging, and the Tap, which is shaped like a light switch and functions like one too -- when you tap it, the phone turns off so you can live once again in peace. The winner, though, was the above-pictured Planet Phone, the surface of which is dotted with LEDs representing your friends; if you don't talk to someone for a while, their light gradually moves out to the edge. It's supposed to remind you to keep in touch, but it has darker connotations -- if you become angry with someone, you can revel in the pleasure of watching them slowly tick away into oblivion. That's absolutely a feature we want to see added to the Storm.

izvor

Windows Mobile 6.5 screenshots have a little Zune in 'em



Windows Mobile 6.5 was just a whisper on a Motorola phone chief Sanjay Jha's lips week, but now that Ballmer himself has confirmed that there's at least one more rev of WinMo 6 en route before Windows Mobile 7 hits it looks like the floodgates have opened -- check out these hot screenshots, one of which seems to have been liberally dipped in Zune sauce. We're hoping that means we'll see some Zune integration with this next generation of handsets, but we're not going to get too worked up yet (cough, Xbox). It does look quite nice, though, and we've got our fingers crossed that this revamp is more than just a pretty new home screen and app launcher -- you're way late to that party, Microsoft. No telling on when 6.5 will actually get here, but Ballms said it'll be sometime next year, so we're guessing we don't have too long to wait.

izvor

Sony announces new CMOS sensors, 12+ megapixel cameraphones coming soon



If you've enjoyed the point-and-shoot megapixel race, which has pushed sensor resolutions in your average 3X zoom compact cam well into the teens -- leaving a sad trail of dark and noisy holiday pictures in its wake -- you're going to just love the mobile phone megapixel race. Samsung's 10 megapixel SCH-B600 currently holds the lead, but Sony's got a ringer chomping at the bit with the Exmor IMX060PQ CMOS sensor, which, paired with its matching auto-focus lens module, will turn some lucky handset into a 12.25 megapixel shooter when it enters the race in March. Sony has also announced 5.15 and 8.11 megapixel sensors, but really, anything not in double digits is so last year.

izvor

Samsung's SPH-W6050 is the perfect excuse to visit Korea



There's no need in reiterating, but South Korea has some drool-worthy handsets. Take the minty fresh Samsung SPH-W6050 for instance, with its magnificent 5-megapixel camera (with AutoFocus), OMNIA front design and 3-inch LCD with WVGA (800 x 480) resolution -- isn't that something worth grabbing a napkin over? Furthermore, it boasts a mobile TV tuner (DMB), haptic user interface and a microSD card slot. If only trips to Seoul were cheap and ₩800,000 ($575) was a drop in the bucket...

izvor

ARM and Ubuntu team up to deliver a new mobile platform



ARM and Ubuntu announced on today that they are working together to develop a new version of Ubuntu custom made for the ARMv7 architecture, including the new Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 processors. The new ARM version of Ubuntu will leverage the low-power consumption and integrated graphics of the ARM chipset with its own user-friendly UI to create a new platform for mobile devices. We’re not talking cell phones here, folks. Think of the new Archos Internet Tablet with Ubuntu instead of the proprietary Archos OS or a netbook that delivers all day usage on a single battery charge. Now you can see the reason why this announcement is so exciting. The Ubuntu ARM distribution is expected to be available starting April 2009 and may finally mark the start of Ubuntu as a competitive mobile platform. Bring it on!

izvor

Toshiba G450: USB memory stick, mp3 player, mobile broadband dongle, and phone!

Recently I was lucky enough to get my hands on the Toshiba G450 – a diminutive little device that is multi-functional – which is a bit of an understatement!

The G450 works as a USB memory stick, an mp3 player, a mobile broadband modem, and a phone! Of these, might I suggest that the primary uses would be the modem, followed by the phone (as a backup). Not that the mp3 player is bad per se, just that virtually everyone has one already.

So, how does it all work? Well, unboxing is quick process, where you need to insert the battery, and then add an appropriate SIM (which by the way should have unlimited 3G access associated with it, or at least a high-ish monthly allowance). After charging for a while, you are ready to go!

The G450 is larger than your average modem-only USB dongle, as there is a dual rotary-layout keypad on one side – plus a screen. The two-line display could have been a disaster, but Toshiba has made good use of the available screen estate, and once you work out the power switch/rocker and volume rocker are the navigation keys, things are really quite simple.



I set up the device as a modem first of all, because that’s the primary use I would have for this product. Unfortunately I ran in to some errors whilst installing the software, which is a shame – but I should mention that I believe these to be related to my PC, because on trying a second PC, things went without issue. At this point I should also note the installation files are drawn from on-board the device, meaning CDs etc are not needed – a nice touch.

When I got the modem up and running, I connected to O2’s network, at a very respectable 2.7Mbps. I browsed the InterWeb, and did a VPN dial-up, all of which the G450 handled admirably. The status monitor SW on the PC reported back and allowed a manual disconnect, which is exactly the kind of minimal interference I would want from any management software. The G450 PC software also runs in the system tray as a process (on Windows PCs) which is kind of useful given you might be using the dongle extensively.

As for the phone capability, it’s pretty decent – I checked out some texting (manageable, although they key layout hurt my head!), and also did a couple of calls. As a backup phone, this device is superb, due to it’s small size and good battery life. Oh, and on the note of battery life, the G450 charges each time it is connected to the PC – another excellent design cue.

Overall then, this device is excellent – I was impressed that it serves the main function I would want, along with providing a backup in case my phone fails for whatever reason. I didn’t really use the memory function of the device, since apparently it doesn’t have too much capacity (160Mb) – and mp3 player was redundant for me since I having Apple providing my on-the-move music! By the way, formats handled for the music player actually extend to MP3, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+.

For those of you out there not wanting to go for an operator specific dongle, and wanting something well-engineered, I’d recommend this device – it’s out in the UK for about £140, which I think is very reasonable considering it’s multiple functionalities.

izvor

Pomegranate NS08 Phone a Hoax: Part of $300,000 Ad Campaign for Nova Scotia



So here I was this morning, reading the news checking my usual favorite blogs, when I came across another story about the Pomegranate NS08. You remember the device right? Looked kind of cool, it opened up into 3 distinct sections and offered some interesting ‘lifestyle’ features.

Having been suspicious of it just a tad, I wandered on over to the official Pomegranate site where I knew something was up. Upon exploring the site, I noticed the device offered a built in coffee brewer, a shaver, and a harmonica. ‘OK, what’s going on here?’ I thought… ‘This has to be a joke or some sort of wacky PR campaign!’

Looks like the latter was a correct assumption.

After some quick research it looks like the Pomegranate concept phone is part of a $300,000 ad campaign put together by the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. That’s right… Nova Scotia, that beautiful little province on the Atlantic coast of Canada. The campaign is part of the new Nova Scotian ‘Come to Life’ ad campaign, which hopes to build interest in the province through non-traditional means (you’re kidding!?).

‘Come to Life’ rep Stacey Jones-Oxner said in an email:

    “We needed to find a unique way to get people focused on our province…Since there is so much buzz out there around the newest and latest smartphones, we thought this was a good device to use. This is especially true when you consider that the people who are interested in the latest technology are often people involved in business and tend to be key influencers.”

The website built for the make-believe device is now roughly a month old, and was built entirely by folks from Nova Scotia. The hosting is even setup in the province. To date, the site has received somewhere in the realm of 150,000/200,000 hits (no details on if the numbers are ‘hits’ or actual ‘unique visitors), which seems to be a surprisingly and stunningly low number for me. If I had spent $300,000 of my own coin on an ad campaign, you could bet I would want more eyeballs than that… And more importantly, I’d want 100% of them to know what is actually going on… I bet you half of the people that left the site still thought the device was for real!

At any rate, I simply thought this was uber-interesting, especially for a Saturday morning. You can go ahead and check out the official Pomegranate site here. Explore it long enough and you’ll eventually hit some promo materials for the province of Nova Scotia. Oh, and make sure to sound-off in the comments, would ya?

izvor

 News from the metrics maid

The boys at Krusell’s have just provided me with their “top-seller” list for October. In case anyone of you is new to the concept: Krusell is a big case manufacturer who tracks customer purchases in an anonymized (and thus legal) fashion. This data is then used to generate a list of phones sorted by the amount of produce they move - it can be found below:

   1. iPhone 3G (1)
   2. Sony Ericsson C702 (4)
   3. Nokia 3109 (5)
   4. HTC Diamond (2)
   5. Samsung i-900 Omnia (not in list)
   6. Nokia E51 (3)
   7. Nokia 6300 (6)
   8. Nokia E71 (10)
   9. Nokia N95 8GB (7)
  10. Nokia 6220 (8 )

As usual, the numbers in the brackets are the previous month’s placement. At a first glance, we immediately see that Nokia dominates the top-10 heavily. There are four S60 devices, three dumbphones, two WM devices and one Apple IOS phone in the top-10.

However: the low amount of dumbphones does not prove the “commonly-known fact” that smartphone owners care more about their devices (so much about J2ME). Instead, it shows that smartphones are now wooing fashion-sensitive clients…there is not a single real businessphone in there except for the E71…

P.S. I am fully aware that these numbers are not too reliable when it comes to assuming how many devices were actually sold. However, customers who purchase a case usually care about their phone a lot…which is what makes these figures truly interesting.


izvor