Wireless Archive

A recent Retrevo Gadgetology survey suggests that users are unclear on what exactly 4G means, don't know whether their current mobile service is 4G or not, and even if they do know, are unsure of the benefit. It also seems that mobile device owners' loyalty to their chosen platform is more important to them than higher network speeds.

There's no question Research In Motion is in the midst of a major transitional period. The company is planning to launch a brand new product line based on a brand new operating system within the next 12 months, and even though the first device born out of RIM's new QNX OS was impressive in some ways, it was incomplete. There still is a chance for RIM to deliver some really interesting competitive products, but time is quickly running out, as we have written time and time again. Update: RIM's response.

Google is activating half a million Android devices a day, a big jump in just the last couple months, a sign of growing momentum for the platform. While SymbianOS appears to be hanging on in the mobile arena, trends indicate that the iOS share is slipping slightly, losing ground to Android. The pure marketshare numbers don't tell the whole story, since the entire segment is growing rapidly, so even platforms that are in declining share might be adding new users. But if the upsurge in Android activations continues, Android may overtake iOS in a few months and move into second place behind SymbianOS. Blackberry is in a slow decline, while WP7 does not have enough market share to appear in the statistics.

Make no mistake, Microsoft isn't playing coy in the smartphone market any longer. The folks in Redmond are making a significant jump forward in the mobile arena, announcing that the upcoming version of Windows Phone, codenamed "Mango," will be heading to a device near you in time for the holidays. As its competitors have raised the bar of expectations to a much higher level, Microsoft followed suit by adding at least 500 features to its mobile investment, which the company hopes will plug all of the gaping holes the first two versions left open.

Nokia may have gone with Windows Phone 7 for its future smartphone operating system, but until then, we now have the Nokia N9 to look at. Yes, a beautiful, top-of-the-line Nokia smartphone which runs MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan - but isn't this thing kind of a dead end? Also announced: the even prettier Nokia N950 Meego 1.2 developer device - only available to a limited number of developers. Sure to become a collectors' item.

Daily time spent in mobile apps has now surpassed web consumption. The average user now spends 9% more time using mobile apps than the Internet. In June users spent an average of 81 minutes daily on mobile apps, compared to 74 minutes on the web.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Palm HP has finally officially announced the release of the TouchPad! Sadly though, it will only see a phased roll-out over the remainder of the year, and the number of countries actually getting the TouchPad is remarkably limited. Somewhat of a downer, really.

"In an attempt to woo its Android developer base, Samsung recently shipped a number of its smartphones to members of a highly popular phone modification group. On Monday, four members of the CyanogenMod software team received Galaxy S II smartphones in the mail, direct from the company at no charge." Step by step, hardware makers are getting the message.

Well, this is some good news on this fine morning. After Sony Ericsson announcing official support for bootloader unlocking on their Android phones, HTC has just stepped it up a notch: the company's CEO (no less) has announced on Facebook that going forward, HTC will no longer lock down any of their phones' bootloaders.

On a recent recent visit to Beijing, Anna Shipley of Nokia Conversations - China, caught up with Stephen Elop for a short interview. In the interview, Elop illiterates once again the importance of the partnership with Microsoft, their new strategy, roll out, renewal and challenges faced ahead - in his own words "Nokia has to move forward faster and more aggressively now, than we have ever done before because of the competition". He talks about the importance of creating a great environment for developers of applications so that they can be effective, especially with the new Windows platform on Nokia devices. He also mentions that investment in Symbian will continue with support and updates way into 2016, with new apps, customer service and all of the elements that Symbian customers are currently experiencing.

Are Microsoft, Apple and Google quietly preparing for war with mobile carriers? I think so. With all the advancements in mobile phones in the past 10 years, the part that’s been woefully slow to advance is the phone part. Making calls, placing calls, searching for signal and scrimping minutes hasn’t changed much since the phone came out, because carriers have little motivation for innovation.

"There's no doubt Android Market will at some point offer more applications for download and/or purchase than Apple's App Store, as the latter's growth has been slowing down of late, while the Android application store's growth rate has been accelerating. In a recent report, app store analytics company Distimo forecasted that Android would surpass the App Store in size before the end of July 2011. Another research firm, Germany-based research2guidance, corroborates Distimo's findings; the firm forecasts Android to blow past Apple's App Store by August 2011."

Well, this is a bit surprising. Research In Motion, which isn't exactly doing well at this point, has just launched version 7.0 of the BlackBerry OS. Curiously enough, this release has nothing to do with the QNX-based operating system of the PlayBook.

Nokia announced yesterday that they will transfer the Symbian Developers to Accenture. Regardless of what one feels about the merits of Symbian, this does seem like the end of the road. The proverbial selling of the horse to the glue factory.