by Jason Wilk on March 9, 2009
HTC Magic Powered By Android
- The iPhone’s lead over Google’s open source mobile operating system, Android, may end as early as 2012. The first phone to be powered by Android, the HTC G1, already accounts for 20 percent of T-Mobiles contract sales. The second HTC phone with Android, the Magic (pictured), is supposed to be an even bigger hit and is set to release this month (in the UK first) with Vodafone. Although the G1 and Magic together won’t outsell the iPhone, the Android platform could be on as many as 90 devices by 2010, giving it a big push ahead of the iPhone as the top running contender to take over current king, Symbian. Android was once thought to be an inferior product due to being open-source, but since its recent success, even Symbian is switching to an open-source model to fend off the upcoming competitor.
- The mobile game is getting increasingly larger, fast. Nearly 162 million smartphones were sold last year, surpassing laptop sales for the first time, according to Informa. Smartphone penetration will reach 13.5 percent of new handsets sold this year and that figure will reach 38 percent by 2013. Smartphone sales are not exepcted to slow down whatsoever in the conomic downturn. Estimated figures show a 35.3% growth rate year over year, with no end in sight.
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by Jason Wilk on December 19, 2008
- Samsung will release its version of the Google phone in the second quarter of 09′. The company is interested in testing out different open source platforms over the next few years and first on its list is Android.
- Samsung is currently in the development process of its new Google phone. To speed up the process, they have hired 30 additional Linux and Java experts to customize the Android platform in order to function well with the sleek touch screen. The team now contains 80 members.
- This will be a big test for Google. As Symbian prepares to roll out their latest open source platform, users heavily adopting the latest Samsung/Android offering may enable Google to get its foot in the door. Although sales have been strong with HTC’s G1, it still was not enough to win the support of companies like AT&T.
- The phone will be available through Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA in North America. Sprint is a surprising addition considering their CEO Dan Hesse recently said that the Android platform is not ready yet.
by Jason Wilk on December 5, 2008
- Speaking at the Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco yesterday, an AT&T executive made some bold claims as to what the companies strategy is going to be for the next 5 years.
- Roger Smith, director of next generation services for AT&T discussed how the company will move forward with their smart phone strategy. The company wants to standardize their smart phones on a single operating system as part of their “dramatic consolidation” of mobile platforms initiative taking place throughout the next few years.
- Smart phones, by 2014, will make up the majority of phones connecting to AT&T’s network, and they want to make sure that they have a ubiquitious platform (aside from the iPhone) that will cut down on technical issues and increase third party involvement in developing applications.
- What’s interesting here? AT&T wants to go with an open-source mobile platform and it’s not Google’s Android. Smith said that Symbian is “a very credible and likely candidate” to become that one operating system.
- Nokia just completed its acquisition of Symbian, the largest mobile operating platform provider, which plans to go entirely open-source. Over 77 million phones were sold usig Symbian last year.
- This is a surprising move for a big carrier to want to shift to an entire open platform, since in the past they have been notorious for wanting to stay in full control and lock up the decks.
- This could have been a huge get for Google if they could have convinced AT&T to jump on board with their own Android platform, which so far has only been embraced by one carrier and one manufacturer (supposedly two now); T-Mobile and HTC. Android has been poorly recieved thus far, despite 1 million phones projected to be shipped through its first quarter. Besides AT&T, Sprint’s CEO, Dan Hesse has publicly said that ‘he doesn’t think Android is ready yet’.
- With the pace at which smart phones are growing and the time frame the big carriers are placing on choosing what the future of their phone platforms will be, Google may be missing out hugely. Their whole idea of a mobile OS being open is a success in some sense considering the carriers are looking to move in that direction, however Google is not going to be the one getting credit for it.
- Whether or not Google is at the healm, this is a good day for the mobile industry. Nokia, Symbian and AT&T are doing their part to raise te bar for mobile standards. Once open everywhere, major strides can be made.
by David Heyerman on December 2, 2008
- Nokia just announced their new smart phone handset, the N97.
- Although not as thin as most of it’s competitors, the N97 boasts a 3.5″ tilting touch screen along with a QWERTY keyboard, and 32GB of memory.
- Jonas Geust, the VP heading up the Nokia Nseries line claims that “the Nokia N97 is the most powerful, multi-sensory mobile computer in existence.” …sounds routine.
- Scoble, who got a chance to play around with the phone claims the Facebook experience on the Nokia to be far superior to the iPhone. Depending on how you feel about Scoble, you can take the statement for truth or with a grain of salt. I’ll take extra salt.
- In other news today, Nokia announced that they’ve acquired software company, Symbian Limited, who they’ve been working with since back when the S60 was being developed. This isn’t a huge surprise as they already owned a decent portion of Symbian’s shares…..now they own them all.
- I’m near positive the N97 won’t come close to the iPhone, but will it give the G1 or the Storm a run for it’s money?
Nokia, Mash, CG, Scbl, E, EM
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