Versatile Amphibian

It seems that the new iPhone is getting a larger screen - a bump in size from 3.7" to 4" to bring it a little closer to the mammoth devices being launched by Samsung, HTC et al. 4.8" is the norm for these manufacturers at the pinnacles of their phone ranges. If the rumour mill is to be believed, then Apple will also launch a 7" version of the iPad to address an untapped market in (a) poorer people (!), (b) commuters & other mobile users. So what I wonder is whether we've reached an apogee in phone screen size. As one of my colleagues likes to point out, you'd need giant hands to find a 4.8" screen device comfortable to use . And the benefits for media consumption are marginal when judged relative to even a 7" tablet. Part of the reason why I'm more convinced than ever about 7" tablets is that people are becoming more comfortable with the benefits of the tablet for consumption (as opposed to creation). But the 10" tablet ...

Since Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility finally went ahead this week, I thought this might be a timely moment to share some data that a colleague sent me regarding Android shipments. It throws into sharp relief the way in which a combination of Samsung at the mid and top end, and Chinese manufacturers at the low end, have reduced Motorola, LG and even formerly mighty HTC to also-rans. Motorola’s market share has fallen from about 11% in the 1st quarter of 2011, to less than 6% in the same quarter this year. HTC is even worse. They were neck and neck with Samsung at the start of the period, selling 22.5% of all Android devices. Now they are only 8.9% of the market and falling fast. Samsung, on the other hand, now represent 41.7% of Android shipments. This looks like a dominant position, but it should be remembered that one or two failed launches could easily lead to a rapid decline. What they need to do, in my opinion, is push much harder to create a credible ecosystem th...

I must admit that I’m a bit of a Sony-phile and still reminisce about the glory days of mini-disc and Trinitron. They’ve fallen on hard times recently, which made my visit to their MWC stand all the more encouraging. I liked 3 products in particular, ranging in price from EUR15 to EUR300. NFC tags At the lower end of that spectrum were a set of four NFC tags. These are delightfully simple one inch diameter circles that you can hang off a rear view mirror or leave on a table. When you place your NFC enabled phone on them, it enables a user-defined programme of settings. For example, it could go silent and set an alarm when you put it on your bedside table, or enable Bluetooth, navigation and music when you get in the car. Simple in concept and an elegant piece of design. Smart watch At EUR129 was the LiveView Android watch, which links up to your smartphone via Bluetooth and displays four applications at a time. Flicking through menus was beautifully smooth and there was enough screen r...

Following the recent announcements that Huawei, ZTE, Fujitsu and Panasonic would (re)enter the European mobile handset markets, I spent Day 1 of the Mobile World Congress focussing on high end smartphones. My objective was to decide whether these newcomers could genuinely challenge today’s hegemony of Apple, Samsung and HTC. The answer was a clear “yes”, but the most obvious challenger was more of a surprise. I’ll give you a hint – they weren’t Japanese... Symbian is not dead, just stunned Before I could get started on this, however, there was the small matter of an 830am Nokia keynote to get out of the way. You may recall that this time last year, Stephen Elop announced his firm’s “exclusive” partnership with Microsoft. This year, despite being promised “significant industry news”, Nokia delivered more of the same. At the high end there were two new devices, the anticipated Lumia 900 and a new camera phone – the N808, featuring a 41 megapixel camera... no, that’s not a typo, it really...

Nielsen have just released this piece of analysis of smartphone ownership in the US , which shows Android pulling ahead of iOS and Blackberry. I've heard rumblings amongst commentators that this marks the point at which the open platform that is Android puts the software smackdown on evil closed ecosystems. My view is a bit different. Certainly the PC market was created by multiple software and hardware vendors being able to offer their own distinct take on a universally compatible platform, however in my view times have changed. For starters, globalisation has meant that proprietary platform providers can achieve sufficient volumes to create plenty of opportunity for developers on the platform, even if overall market share is relatively low. Second, the PC has always been and remains a somewhat complex environment for the end user. Multiple combinations of hardware and software create choice, but they make for an inherently buggier experience than that which is available in a clos...

I found this Intel press release on the use of smartphones for personal monitoring interesting as it tallies with some work we've been doing recently on application stores. The concept is that handsets can do far more than simply tell you where you are and what's around you, they can also take measurements from your body and determine your health, mood and general wellbeing. This is nothing new, of course. I understand that Apple has a number of patents that relate to extended sensing of device users. What the article misses (and perhaps Intel have too) is that handsets are already well capable of making these measurements today. A few weeks ago the istethoscope application was the top selling app on iTunes - demonstrating the growing understanding of how to exploit smartphones for health and wellbeing. Heartbeat monitoring is a basic diagnosis tool, but has many uses in personal monitoring - level of exertion being the most obvious example. Smartphones have taken off big tim...