Mobile

Things that aren’t static

Apple Sued Over Scratchy iPod Nanos, Motorola Miffed
More details about Jason Tomczak’s class action against Apple for releasing defective iPod Nanos have emerged on The Inquirer’s site.
In the action, started in a San Jose district court, Tomczak alleges that the iPod Nano’s easily-scratched screen renders the display unreadable and thus breaches state consumer protection statutes.
Tomczak alleges that Apple kept on shifting the Nanos even when they knew that there were problems with the design and by failing to recall the MP3 players, the company “passed the expense, hassle and frustration of replacing the defectively designed Nanos along to class members”.
The plaintiff alleges that with Steve Jobs whipping the Nano out of his pocket in a TV advert, Apple led consumers to believe the machine was durable.
Tomczak argues that even this simple act could lead to a scratched screen, claiming that the resin used in the product was not as thick and strong as in previous iPods.
The plaintiff wraps up his case by alleging that Apple knew about the dodgy quality problems before release but, “fierce competition on the digital music industry” compelled them to release it anyway.
Motorola miffed at Nanos
Things aren’t looking too happy-clappy for the Motorola’s iTunes music phone either, with analysts Bloomberg reporting that it may not be performing as expected.
American Technology Research analyst Albert Lin noted that as many as six times more customers are returning the Rokr phones than is normal for new handsets, and Motorola Chief Executive Officer Ed Zander said he is disappointed with the phone’s marketing and plans to fix it.
“We got off to a little bit of a rough start”, Zander said last week, “People were looking for an iPod and that’s not what it is. We may have missed the marketing message there”.
Ironically, things haven’t been helped by the iPod nano appearing on the scene straight after the phone’s launch, with the ultra-small pocket rocket holding 10 times the amount of songs for half the price
You can’t blame Zander for being a bit miffed after Apple invited his company to be the first to launch an iTunes phone and the immediately stole their thunder with the Nano announcement.
Pocket-lint.co.uk reported that he exclaimed “Screw the nano!” in a previous statement which was later receded.
Motorola is reported to be launching a new series of phones to tailored around music in the future.
Pocket Lint
The Inquirer
24 October, 2005
Portable Games To Exceed $2 Bn In 5 Years: Yankee
The portable game business will be worth a thumping great $2.3 billion in four years, according to a report released today by research firm, The Yankee Group.
Their ‘US Portable Entertainment Forecast’ report also found that half of all portable music players will be phone hybrids by 2009, yet mobile MP3 players will only account for only one-third of the portable music service revenue.
The Yankee Group predicts that dedicated digital audio devices like iPods and Walkmans will continue to be used more exclusively for their single purpose, while gaming hand-held devices and phone hybrids are both expected to grab revenue around the $2.3 billion mark by 2009.
With the line between wireless handsets and portable CE devices continuing to blur, the Yankee Group used data from both their Video Capable Device Survey and the Mobile User Survey to come up with what they describe as “the most comprehensive view into the portable device market.”
The US Portable Entertainment Forecast discovered that the convergence of wireless handsets and CE devices will force mobile manufacturers to both compete and partner with consumer electronics manufacturers.
“Within this new market dynamic, it will be crucial for companies to have a firm grasp of consumer behaviour and the competitive landscape,” said Mike Goodman, Yankee Group, senior analyst, Media and Entertainment Strategies.
“The major players must understand who will lead and who will follow in order to successfully plan future strategy and appropriately target their investments,” he added.
Yankee Group
24 October, 2005
Nokia Unveils L’Amour Collection
Mobile phone giants Nokia have announced three new phone models aimed at the “style-conscious” market.
The new models, the 7360, 7370 and 7380, are to form part of Nokia’s ludicrously named “L’Amour Collection,” expected on the market in the first quarter of 2006.
Alastair Curtis, Vice President of Design at Nokia’s Mobile Phones division was on hand to trot out the airy-fairy waffle, “For many consumers, the mobile phone has truly become an extension of their personal style – it is a fashion statement as well as an advanced communications device.”
Like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen on steroids, Curtis continued, “Every detail of these products, from the nature-inspired graphics to the velvet-lined pouches, has been carefully considered with the style-conscious individual in mind. We are very confident that consumers who appreciate design and attention to detail will fall in love with the L’Amour Collection.”
The PR team were clearly caught up in the general arty-fartiness, trotting out a load of tosh about how the Nokia 7380 was a “reflection of discerning taste”, the Nokia 7370 “designed to make heads ‘turn’ and the Nokia 7360 somehow managing to exhibit “charming, graceful and compact” qualities.
Trying our best to avoid the loud klaxon noise emanating from our nearby BS Detector, here’s the phones in more detail:
Nokia 7380
Desperately described as a phone for “trend-setting men and women who enjoy being the centre of attention,” the highly distinctive 7380 looks like it’s come from the same bonkers design studio as the 7280.
Sporting a keypad-less form and clad in leather with a mirrored display, the slimline fashion phone packs in a 2-megapixel camera with 4x zoom, an MP3 player and intuitive voice dialing.
Fashionistas can expect to fork out around €500 (~£340, ~$600) for the 7380 and should be able to start strutting around and making dramatic mobile fashion statements in Q1, 2006.
Nokia 7370
Employing a sliding keypad, the Nokia 7370 comes with a 2-inch QVGA colour screen (320 x 240 pixels), stereo speakers with 3D sound effects and a 1.3 megapixel camera (8x zoom) onboard.
The designers have gone to town on the fascia, emblazoning it with “beautiful patterns, etched into the elegant metal trims” which are contrasted by “leather-inspired faceplates” which, somehow, add a “romantic appeal and an element of the exotic.”
To be honest, we’d be a bit worried if we met someone who found their mobile phone romantic, but I guess it takes all sorts.
The Nokia 7370 comes in two colour schemes, coffee brown and warm amber, each with matching graphics and screensavers.
The phone should be knocking out for around €300 and available in Q1, 2006.
Nokia 7360
Looking somewhat more conventional but still, apparently, a phone for “trend-conscious men and women” (albeit cheapskate ones), the bottom of the range Nokia 7360 comes with an integrated VGA camera, stereo FM radio and MP3 ring tones.
It also sports the same silly ‘designer tag’ sticking out the side of the phone as the rest of the range, and is available in the two “signature L’Amour Collection colour schemes”, i.e. brown and amber.
The phone will cost around €200 and gyrating down the nearest catwalk in Q1, 2006.
Nokia
20 October, 2005
The Genius of eBay Buying Skype
Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay appears to be justifying eBay’s decision to purchase Skype.
There’s been much talk that eBay overpaid for Skype, at $4.1Bn if they hit earnings targets.
My view is that they actually got a bargain.
Meg Whitman is right that “in the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the ‘Net will trend toward zero,” and she sees that happening “in the next three to six years.” I’m assuming that she means all phone calls, as Net-based calls are currently free and it would be very worrying if she didn’t know that already.
With Skype, they’ve bought the biggest name in VoIP. Not just software-based VoIP (which Skype currently is), but all VoIP.
Whitman’s view? “Our belief is that the winner in this space will be those that have the largest ecosystem. What I mean by that is: the largest number of registered users, the largest number of voice minutes, the largest number of developers who develop the platform, the best product … that users are willing and want to pay for.”
I’ve always admired the genius of Skype, building a telecoms company, the equivalent of BT’s or AT&T’s retail business, but with a near-zero infrastructure cost to them – certainly zero compared with either of the previously named giants. Skype simply piggy-backed on their expenditure.
When I put this to Niklas Zennstrom, Skype’s CEO, as I interviewed him in the build-up VON in Stockholm, he smiled wryly. He’s good at that.
While Vonage went the route of building IBM, needing hardware where it was installed, Skype went the Microsoft route, software. We all know who won there.
Skype knew that the hardware would follow as their user numbers became irresistible. Cleverly they would take license fees from the hardware producer, while making their service more attractive.
___What does eBay add?
Well there’s the obvious reasons …
They’ve got huge amounts of cash, as eBay is so profitable, clearly useful, but in the grand scheme of things, so what?
More interestingly they’ve got 168.1m registered users, ideal to grow Skype’s currently 57m registered users.
As I commented at the start of September, eBay’s interest
reflects the company’s quest for new product categories and international markets, or they could integrate Skype into the service, offering purchaser and seller to talk to each other. Another option could be to use Skype’s ability to host group discussions as a way of strengthening communities with the same interests.
This is all good for the short to middle term, growing Skype’s acceptance.
__The killer
I think the killer is slightly further out.
To set the scene – keep in your mind Vodafone, but more abstracted.
eBay own the ‘network’ through Skype.
Skype is a strong brand, with people already talking about Skyping each other. OK, currently it’s not global like Vodafone, but add a bucket-load of eBay cash and that’ll change.
That in itself is strong.
Here comes the interesting part. Search on eBay today for ‘Skype‘ and it brings up 1215 1310 items, mostly USB handsets.
We’ve been watching the market in these add-ons, and have even reviewed a few of them. This market is at a very early stage, but already, we’re seeing design applied to some of these.
When Skype goes beyond being implemented on PocketPC’s it will work without the underlying Operating System. Becomes embedded and significantly cheaper.
What pops out of the end of this is a low-cost mobile handset that speaks a number of wireless protocols and when combined with paid for or free WiFi access (which will be everywhere by then), gives you a serious competitor to a mobile phone.
Hell, eBay/Skype could even create a reference designs or two.
eBay will be in a fantastic position of sitting between the handset makers and the public. Like a global ‘phone shop’ for these devices – collecting a commission for each handset sold – without the shop, stock, support or after-sales care.
It may be that eBay haven’t thinking along these lines, but I’d you’d have to doubt it given the amount of money they’d spent on it.
Update: I’ve not had time to read all around the comments on Skype since the deal, but following writing this, I found an excellent blog on it by Mark Evans. I’d heartily recommend it.
20 October, 2005
Motorola Phone Sales And Profits Soar
Mobile phone heavyweights Motorola, have reported bumper earnings for the third quarter, with profits more than tripling after record sales.
Purring contentedly over a ‘none more black’ balance sheet, Motorola announced that the results for the three months until the end of September revealed a net profit of $1.75bn (~£1bn, ~€1.46bn), compared to $479m from the same period last year.
Handsets were up 41% year-on-year with quarterly sales soaring 26% to a new high of $9.42bn, from $7.5bn for the same period in 2004.
The world’s second largest maker of mobile phones also managed to grab a bigger share of the global mobile phone market, barging their way to a fat 19% slice – up 5.5% over the year, and up 1% since the second quarter of 2005.
Since Ed Zander took over as the company’s CEO in 2004 Motorola have been on a roll, with sales and profits heading in a stratospheric direction.
“We are very excited about our third quarter results and overall performance year-to-date… Excluding re-organisation charges, all four of Motorola’s businesses grew profitably during the quarter,” said a deeply chuffed Zander.
During the last quarter, Motorola managed to ship 38.7 million mobile phones, including 6.5 million of its fashionable slimline Razr units and a quarter of a million iTunes music phones.
The US company is now forecasting pocket-bulging fourth-quarter sales of $10.3bn.
Motorola
19 October, 2005
3 Rolls Out Its Festive UK Phone Collection
UK 3G network 3 have announced four new video mobiles to be released in time for the traditional Christmas trading bonanza.
The top-of-the-range handsets will be supplied by LG, Motorola and Nokia with a pretty pink handset for the laydees and sexuality-unchallenged geezers.
Here’s the full listing:
LG U880
The super-thin triband LG U880 will be offered in black, silver and pink with its clamshell design incorporating a 1.3 megapixel camera and expandable internal memory of 80 MB.
The main display supports 262k colours (65k for sub display) with the large 2.0″ colour screen offering a simple user interface.
There’s a built in speaker phone, Bluetooth support and Windows Media (audio and video) playback.
Nokia 6280
The first mass-market 3G Nokia handset to go on sale in the UK, the 6280 has a sliding keyboard and built-in 2 megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom and integrated flash.
There’s a QVGA 262,144 colour display, video messaging, download video clips and Quickplay video streaming in widescreen
The quadband phone supports 3’s full range of communications and entertainment content and services.
Motorola RAZR V3x
A poseur’s delight, the Motorola RAZR V3x is the high-fashion phone for the “Look at me!” crowd, with its slinky, slim-line form supporting a full range of 3G services.
The 2.2″ main display supports 262k colours, and there’s a 1.0″ colour sub display for video calls.
The phone comes with a two megapixel camera on board, with the handset being available in cosmic blue and liquorice black.
Nokia N70
Destined to be 3’s first two megapixel phone when it becomes available at the end of October, the Nokia N70 is based on the hugely successful Nokia 6680 and offers video calling, integrated flash, a built-in FM tuner, Bluetooth and support for Visual Radio.
The 2 megapixel camera phone provides up to 20x digital ‘smooth’ zoom, viewable on a large 2.1″ 262k colour screen with the handset supporting video messaging, video clips downloads and Quickplay video streaming in widescreen.
The Quadband phone works in the USA, Europe and Asia and comes with Bluetooth.
Jones the Santa
Gareth Jones, COO, 3 UK put on his Santa hat and started the “Ho Ho Ho” stuff:
“3 understands the important part handsets play in the customer experience and with our Christmas range we’re offering the best video mobiles in the UK.
All of these handsets support 3’s full range of video mobile content and services. If you’re on 3 you can enjoy music, video, games, the internet and every kind of messaging, as well as great value voice tariffs, all on state of the art devices that look good and are easy to use. If you want the widest choice of high-quality video mobiles this Christmas, then 3 is the network to choose.”
3 UK
18 October, 2005
SPH-V7900: Samsung 3Gb Hard-Disk Phone Launched
Samsung Electronics have launched the hard-disk-based SPH-V7900 mobile phone, sporting a record-breaking built-in 3GB hard disk drive.
The announcement comes nearly a year after Samsung became the first mobile-phone maker on the planet to release a hard disk drive phone, with the SPH-V5400 going on sale in December, 2004.
The new SPH-V7900 offers twice the capacity of its predecessor, with its hefty 3GB capacity giving enough space for several hundred audio files or a few hours of video and, if you’re a popular kind of guy, up to 2,400 contact details.
The SPH-V7900 phone comes stuffed full of the latest techie widgets, sporting two cameras (one with 2-megapixel resolution), dual screens and twin speakers in a twist-flip housing.
The camera offers a 2x optical zoom and TV output socket, with the main TFT LCD screen boasting QVGA (240×320 pixels) resolution.
Naturally, there’s an MP3/video player onboard, capable of playing several formats including Mpeg4/H.264 video and Mpeg4 AAC, AAC+ and MP3 audio.
Pesky work-based activity is supported with an email client and a file viewer capable of viewing MS Office files, pdf format documents, text and jpeg images.
The whole caboodle measures up at 103x52x27.6mm, weighs 165g with Samsung claiming 4.5 hours of talk and 200 hours standby
Unfortunately, the SPH-V7900 will be a CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) model and only sold in South Korea, but the company are preparing a hard-drive-based smartphone for the European market.
Their SGH-I300 – scheduled for a European November release – will run on the Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system and also offer a 3GB hard disk drive offering plug-and-play support (so files can be dragged over from your home PC).
Not quite as excitingly specified as its Far Eastern cousin, the phone comes with a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, scroll wheel navigation, Bluetooth and a 240×320 pixels 262k LCD screen.
The tri-band GSM/GPRS (900/1800/1900MHz) phone will also offer MP3, WMA, AAC, and AAC+ audio support, with expansion through a TransFlash memory card slot.
Pricing hasn’t been announced.
Samsung
17 October, 2005
Italy Has Highest Number of Mobile Users in Europe
According to the latest figures from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Italy can now boast the highest mobile penetration rate in Europe, with mobile-mad Italians notching up 109.42 phones per 100 inhabitants.
The data comes from an ITU report scheduled for presentation next month but leaked by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera over the weekend.
The figures in the report reveal that, globally, only Hong Kong has a higherpenetration rate than Italy – 114.5% – but Italy wins in absolute terms with as many as 62.7 million mobile users.
With over four million UMTS users, Italians are also leading the way in 3G take up, with the ITU reporting that the country is the most prominent user of 3G services in Europe.
Globally, the country slips to twelfth place in terms of 3G penetration, out of 70 countries that have introduced services.
ITU’s Cristina Bueti elaborating on the criteria used for their data in the newspaper, explaining that the figures referred to the number of activated SIM cards in use, rather than the actual number of phones.
Several countries have also quibbled about the methods used, including Luxembourg who reckon that the Italy’s figures are inflated because many Italians use more than one SIM on the same mobile phone.
Mind you, it could be argued that Luxembourg’s high mobile ownership is equally skewed due to their nationals living in neighbouring countries needing a second handset for use within its borders.
In May this year, research firm Analysys predicted that overall mobile penetration in Western Europe would 100 per cent by 2007, with the UK reaching 101% last year.
ITU
17 October, 2005
W900: Sony 3G Walkman Phone Launches
Sony Ericsson has today announced the launch of their first 3G (UMTS) tri-band GPRS Walkman phone, the W900.
The new handset sports a thumping great 470MB of internal free memory space, providing room for between 120 and 240 songs in the main popular formats: MP3, AAC or AAC+, MIDI, WAV and XMF.
There’s also a Memory Stick PRO Duo slot onboard, allowing storage expansion up to 2GB – enough for up to 1,000 tracks
The phone comes stuffed with multimedia widgets, with a built-in FM radio and 2 megapixel auto-focus flash camera offering 8x digital zoom and the ability to record and playback video at a nippy 30fps.
As ever, Sony’s designers have done a great job of coming up with a desirable phone, with the fascia dominated by a large 2.2-inch, 240 x 320pixels 262k TFT display and a neat sliding keyboard offering access to a numeric keyboard.
In line with its Walkman branding, the phone has dedicated music controls, letting users scroll through play lists, artists or individual songs, and a bundled LCD remote control.
Music can be transferred to the device via cable and Bluetooth, with the handset supporting over-the-air music download services, letting users download tracks directly to the phone while on the move.
“In our first UMTS Walkman phone we have combined fast download speeds with superb sound quality and crystal clear 30 frames a second video recording and play-back in a really simple and easy to use device. The W900 will not only appeal as a music phone. The superb communications, multimedia and imaging functionality will appeal to all those wanting a true multi-media capable device,” said Sony.
The W900 UMTS Walkman phone will be commercially available in black or white finished by the end of Q4 2005 in two versions:
W900i – Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) – GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa
W900c – Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) – GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Mainland China.
Sony Ericsson
17 October, 2005
Frans Bauer DVD Debuts On Mobile Before Shops
Call us cynical if you like, but when we get a press announcement trumpeting some kind of ‘world first’ or another from someone we’ve never heard of, our eyebrows tend to arc skywards.
So when we heard that “popular singer” Frans Bauer was slapping up a mobile version of the (ahem) “most breathtaking scenes” from his DVD and making Norris McWhirter troubling noises, a mass outbreak of chin-stroking followed.
Despite being boldly hailed as the “first time that scenes from an as of yet unreleased music DVD will make their debut on a mobile phone,” there were unimpressed noises emanating around Chez Digital-Lifestyles as we suspected the over-eager hand of a hyperbolic publicist at play here.
It is significant that content is breaking on mobiles before it’s in the shops and we’ve no doubt that mobiles will continue to play a greater part in the distribution of music and video, but we can’t really get excited about someone (even if they have got dazzling teeth) releasing a few snippets of a DVD for mobiles and then expecting the Guinness Book of Records to be calling them up.
After all, all they’ve really done is just make the equivalent of a film trailer available a few days before the full release. Big bloomin’ deal.
In fact, we’re so unimpressed that we can’t even be bothered to give you the name of the video, but you can find it somewhere on Vodafone’s Dutch Live TV website, or just click around chirpy Frans’ website.
Whose the winner from this? Well, top marks to the music company who we suspect will be getting a slice of cash from Vodafone NL, as well as getting them to promote the artiste with all of the PR power they can muster, giving tons of free promotion to the new release of a DVD that many of us wouldn’t have heard about otherwise.
The fans of Frans ‘The Teeth’ Bauer will probably also be falling off their Zimmer frames in excitement. There’s no doubt that Frans will be flashing a smile too, but he probably can’t help that.
But this transparent marketing exercise does reflect the growing importance of the mobile music market – and with sales of mobile music surpassing CD single sales this year in terms of volume, we can no doubt expect to be troubled with more attention-seeking press releases.
Vodafone.nl
Frans Bauer
17 October, 2005