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Wireless Archive

Android, iOS continue to dominate smartphone shipments

"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.

Nokia unveils Lumia 925

"Following reports, Nokia's own teaser campaign, and a last-minute leaked image, the Lumia 925 is official today. The Finnish smartphone maker is taking the wraps off its latest flagship Windows Phone, and there's a slight twist: it's made from aluminum. Nokia's latest smartphone is trading a full polycarbonate unibody for an aluminum casing. It's not fully metal - the rear of the device will be polycarbonate, and the front is naturally made of glass - but it marks a new shift for Nokia's Windows Phone design." This will be the Lumia that turns it all... Nevermind.

BlackBerry Messenger coming to Android, iOS this summer

"If you're already a fan of BlackBerry Messenger, we've got some exciting news designed to make it easier for you to connect with your entire mobile social network. BlackBerry plans to make BBM, our wildly popular mobile messaging service, available for the first time to iOS and Android users this summer (subject to approval by Google Play and the Apple App Store, as applicable). This means that, once available, you can welcome your friends and family using these other mobile platforms to connect over BBM and share in the Team BlackBerry love." Another inevitability. Love the note about the application stores.

Report: HTC First to be discontinued

"The HTC First, or 'Facebook phone' as many prefer to call it, is officially a flop. It certainly wasn't a good sign when AT&T dropped the price of HTC's First to $0.99 just one month after its debut, and now BGR has confirmed that HTC and Facebook's little experiment is nearing its end. BGR has learned from a trusted source that sales of the HTC First have been shockingly bad. So bad, in fact, that AT&T has already decided to discontinue the phone. Our source at AT&T has confirmed that the HTC First, which is the first smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed, will soon be discontinued and unsold inventory will be returned to HTC." Wow. That's pretty bad - but not unexpected.

The Facebook Home disaster

"The reviews are in: Facebook Home, Mark Zuckerberg's grandiose stab at totally controlling our mobile experience, is an unmitigated disaster. On Wednesday, AT&T announced that it was dropping the price of the HTC First smartphone, which comes with Facebook Home built in, from $99 to 99 cents. Think about that: a new smartphone, priced to jump off the shelves at Dollar General. It's a great deal, but it is also hugely embarrassing for Zuckerberg. For confirmation we need only look at the Google Play store, where the Facebook Home app, which can be installed on select Android phones, has now fallen to the No. 338 ranking in the category of free apps. That's 200 spots lower than it ranked just two weeks ago." Totally did not see this coming whatsoever.

One year of Nokia’s 808

"We're almost exactly a year on from our first hands-on with the Nokia 808 PureView, hailed by me, somewhat tongue in cheek, as Nokia's custom design for me, from my own personal checklist. Insane camera, Xenon flash, replaceable battery, FM transmitter, large OLED screen, deafening speaker, and so on. All present and correct. One year on and, thanks to a brace of updates and third party additions, I find myself just as in love with the 808 now as when I first popped my microSIM card in." I'm back to my HTC 8X by now, since the Nokia E7's battery was terrible - 4-6 hours of mild use, tops, even with a brand new, official Nokia battery. My 8X gives me three days on the same usage pattern.

BlackBerry CEO questions future of tablets

CEO of Blackberry Thorsten Heins said yesterday that he doesn't believe the tablet computer market is long for this world. "In five years I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet anymore," he tells Bloomberg News, "Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model." If the dream of one device wirelessly interacting with all sorts of displays and peripherals comes to fruition, he may actually have a point.

The BlackBerry Q10’s hardware keyboard

The Verge reviews the BlackBerry Q10: "Maybe you're here for the keyboard. As superb as the Q10's physical keyboard is, I keep thinking about the six-year evolution of the soft keyboard since the introduction of the original iPhone. They've gotten so good on every platform - iOS, Windows Phone, Android, even BlackBerry's own Z10. The argument used to be that physical keyboards were for serious users who needed to burn through email, and I just don't think that holds water anymore. Yes, this is the best of a dying breed, but for the life of me, I don't know why someone who's accustomed to a full-touch phone would come back to this." I disagree. Touchscreen keyboards have not improved considerably at all - in fact, I find them just as terrible and unpleasant to use as when they were first introduced on Palm OS and Windows Mobile. A properly designed hardware keyboard - preferably landscape (like on the E7), but portrait will do too - will always run circles around those frustrating software keyboards. Major respect to BlackBerry for sticking to their guns. To anyone making a quality phone with a landscape hardware keyboard (rebadge an E7 for all I care) running Android or Windows Phone: please, take my money. Please.

The reviews are in: the Samsung Galaxy S4

They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.

The WindsorNot: the webOS slate phone that never was

"With limited funding available to get the work done, tough decisions have to be made in the webOS Global Business Unit. Sitting after the all-but-done TouchPad Go but before the fancier next-generation TouchPads is a curious webOS smartphone. It shares much of its internals with the HP Pre3 and bears the hallmarks of the clean and simple webOS hardware design language, but it's an entirely different beast. This is the WindsorNot, the webOS slate smartphone that never was." Woah.

Nokia shuts down public access to firmware servers

When I got my Nokia E7, Nokia's own updating software bricked the device - incredibly frustrating, since Nokia doesn't care about The Netherlands anymore and has closed all Nokia Care Points in the country. This meant I had to send it in for repairs, which, as experience with companies has taught me, usually takes weeks. Luckily, Nokia made it possible to download firmware straight from their servers using third party tools, and thanks to a technique called dead phone flashing, it was incredibly easy to bring bricked (Symbian) Nokia phones back to life. Now that Nokia ships Windows Phone, however, such public access is no longer welcome, and as such, it has blocked third party access to its servers. Understandable, but major suckage for enthousiasts. On a related note, Accenture (the company managing Symbian development) has released an update for Nokia Belle FP1/2 devices. Yep.

AOSP for Sony Xperia Z now available

"Open-sourced Android code for the Sony Xperia Z has recently been released on GitHub to enable developers and partners to get knee-deep into the device. Though the promise of vanilla Android is tantalizing, Sony is quick to remind folks that the Android build they're posting isn't meant for everyday use. As you can see from the video, all of the important stuff is working, but there are a few apps and services missing - after all, they don't have the rights to open source everything." This should be mandatory for being allowed to carry the Android trademark. Unlikely, but alas, even cynics such as myself may dream.

Nokia’s quarterly results paint a dreary picture for Windows Phone

Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.

First impressions: Nokia E7 with Symbian Belle

As I'm working on a long and detailed article about Psion and Symbian (similar in setup to the Palm article), I need to dive into a number of devices that I have never personally owned. One of the devices that was atop my list was what I think is the ultimate Symbian device: the Nokia E7 - the last of the long line of Communicators, released in early 2011. While more detailed information about it will find its way into the Psion/Symbian article, I figured it'd be interesting to give a few first impressions.