Developers desperate to start creating applications for Samsung’s Bada platform can now start coding, though it will be few more weeks before there’s a handset to run them on.

The Software Developer’s Kit version 1 is available from the Bada Developers’ portal, which promises that the Bada-based Wave phone (which should be shipping by the end of the month) will be followed by “successive promising handsets”, and that Bada phones will be available globally later this year.

Bada is Samsung’s answer to Apple’s iPhone/iTunes combination – the platform is entirely owned by Samsung, which will approve and distribute all the applications. That might seem strange given that Samsung also supports both Android and Symbian and is a member of the widget-obsessed Wholesale Application Community, but never let it be said that Samsung left a base uncovered.

The Wave is an attractive enough handset, but at almost £400 it’s priced more like a smartphone than the mid-range feature phones that the Bada platform is supposed to enable applications for.

But the Wave is intended as a flagship phone for Bada, the one that developers use to show off their applications before selling them to punters equipped with lesser handsets.

How much lesser we don’t know, and until Samsung tells us it’s hard to imagine many developers rushing to create applications for a phone that promises all the expense of a smartphone without the features.

Resource:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/07/bada_sdk/

Apple is hitting the road to showcase its new mobile-device advertising capability, dubbed iAd, and has indicated it could charge as much as $10 million to be part of a handful of marketers at the launch, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ad executives say they are used to paying between $100,000 and $200,000 for similar mobile deals.

Earlier this month, Apple unveiled iAd, a software system to offer ads in the applications available in its App Store. Ads are likely to start appearing in applications on its iPhone and iPod Touch devices in June, and its iPad later in the year, according to the person familiar with the matter.

Apple is making waves on Madison Avenue with its price tag, which comes with initial demands for greater control over advertisers’ marketing campaigns.

“It’s a hefty sum,” says Phuc Truong, managing director at Mobext, a mobile marketing business owned by Havas SA whose clients include Sears, Choice Hotels, Amtrak and Volvo. “What Apple is trying to do is certainly above and beyond what’s been done in the past.”

An Apple spokeswoman said the company will sell and serve the ads and declined further comment, except to reiterate that app developers will receive 60% of the revenue. Apple gets the other 40%.

Apple on Wednesday said it has scheduled a developers’ conference for June 7-11, where it is expected to unveil its next iPhone. It would be up to developers whether they want to include ads in their apps, although the financial incentive is there.

A handful of other companies sell ads that appear in Apple device applications, including AdMob Inc., which Google Inc. announced it would acquire last year for $750 million. AdMob says Apple’s entry into ad selling is going to boost competition and development in the space, says Jason Spero, vice president of AdMob North America.

Zaw Thet, chief executive of mobile ad firm 4INFO Inc., said Apple’s move is likely to spur other mobile ad startups to shift the focus of their developments away from the iPhone to other mobile systems, such as Google’s Android.

Despite the high price, ad executives at agencies from Boston to New York and San Francisco to Los Angeles have crowded into conference rooms in recent weeks to listen to the tech company’s pitch for iAd.

Discussions over possible deals are ongoing but several ad executives said they are beginning to prepare creative ideas for campaigns.

One example Apple has been showing advertisers is an ad for Nike’s Air Jordan basketball shoe, says Baba Shetty, chief media officer at Boston-based ad agency Hill Holiday, owned by Interpublic Group. When a user is in an application, an animated banner ad appears on the border of the screen, along with an iAd logo. If the user taps on the ad, it expands across the screen, displaying a video, an interactive store locator and exclusive offers at local stores, among other features.

“It was very easy to think about the several minutes of interaction time consumers can spend with the ad. It’s incredibly attractive,” Mr. Shetty says.

Apple is planning to charge advertisers a penny each time a consumer sees a banner ad, ad executives say. When a user taps on the banner and the ad pops up, Apple will charge $2. Under large ad buys, such as the $1 million package, costs would rack up to reach $1 million with the various views and taps.

The audience is sizable: Apple has sold 85 million iPhone and iPod Touches so far and estimates that users spend about 30 minutes a day using applications.

Marketers will be able to target ads to groups of users based on consumers’ download preferences from its iTunes store, according to ad executives. For instance, a marketer could choose to show its ads to people who have downloaded financial applications or reggaeton music, horror movies or comedy TV shows.

Marketers also will be able to target ads to users in a general location like a city, although they cannot target ads to individual consumers or access personal details.

Apple is seeking high quality ads from big-name marketers for the launch, ad executives say. The ads will go through an approval process, and Apple will build the ads itself during the first couple of months to make sure they work well and attain a certain aesthetic and functionality, ad executives say. Eventually, Apple plans to create a developer kit so that agencies will be able to design and create the ads themselves.

The process is causing tension among some ad directors, who are hesitant to give up control.

“As a creative director, I can completely understand that they created this new baby and they want to make sure it gets born looking gorgeous. But as a creative director, I don’t feel completely comfortable letting Apple do the creative,” says Lars Bastholm, chief digital creative officer at WPP’s Ogilvy.

Marketers have been much slower to buy mobile ads than expected, largely because consumers had yet to visit mobile Web sites in meaningful numbers and the process of creating mobile ad campaigns was a technical and logistical feat.

Apple isn’t making that any easier, with requirements that advertisers use special technologies for its system, says Jordan Rohan, an Internet analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners.

But, ad executives say that if Apple nails its pitch, it could open up the gates for mobile advertising.

“I think the tipping point has come,” says Mark Read, chief executive of WPP Digital. “The absolute revenues now are tiny, but you can see how these things are starting to fit together.”

Resource:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703648304575212411500983040.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular

Apple has started accepting new iPad apps for review and approval, ahead of the US launch of the tablet-style computer on April 3.

The iPad app store will go live on the day of launch, and developers need to submit their app by March 27 to stand a chance of being among the first apps featured on the dedicated iPad store.

Many developers are yet to actually see the iPad, Apple’s touch-screen, tablet-style computer that was first unveiled in January. Instead, developers have had to run their apps on an emulator, which simulates the interface of the iPad.

Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble are creating ebook applications for the device, reports the New York Times, despite the iPad featuring its own digital download service, the iBookstore.

“We have actually developed a tablet-based interface that redesigns the core screen and the reading experience,” said Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon’s Kindle ebook division. “Our team had some fun with it”

The expected iPad app gold rush echoes that for the iPhone, which went on sale in 2007. The iTunes App Store, which launched in July 2008, sparked an “app revolution”, with dozens of other mobile phone makers and operators scrambling to launch their own dedicated portals through which customers could buy and download extra software and programs. More than three billion applications have been downloaded from the App Store by iPhone and iPod touch users to date.

However, some app developers say they will wait to try an iPad first hand before releasing an app. “As much as we’d love to be there on Day One, a misstep could kill the train before it even gets out of the station,” Wade Slitkin, chief executive of Panelfly, which makes digital comic book readers, told the New York Times.

Although Apple is launching a dedicated iPad channel on the iTunes App Store, the majority of applications already written for the iPhone and iPod touch will work on the new tablet-style device. But many developers, including games maker Ngmoco, are keen to optimise their software for the larger-screened iPad.

Resource:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7497193/Apple-accepting-iPad-apps.html

After a successful launch of the Google Buzz for mobile web application, Google today announced that the new Buzz widget is now available on the Android Market.

Google’s Buzz application acts like an extension of the Google Chat found in Gmail, allowing users to update and comment on each other’s statuses, post images, videos and links, and add a location tag to show where they were when they posted. The Buzz widget is currently only available in English, although Google say they are planning releases in multiple languages for the near future.

Google Buzz came under criticism last month for its overly complex privacy settings and by default allowing people to track users’ “most contacted” contacts. Google has since resolved the issue, although whether the new widget will allow it to compete with services like Twitter and Facebook remains to be seen.

Reports suggest that the company plans to focus more on open OS mobiles and very soon it will launch a new range of handsets with their own OS. Samsung presently sells smartphones based on Microsoft Windows, Symbian and Google’s Android OS platforms. This new addition to Samsung’s mobile ecosystem facilitate developers to create applications for millions of new Samsung mobile phones, and consumers to enjoy a fun and diverse mobile experience.

Apart from latest development, Samsung also plan to enhance its presence in the dual SIM mobile handset market, for which it has lined up 6 new models for launch over the next few months. The company expects its dual sim phones to contribute 15% of its total handset volumes by this year.

Yesterday, Samsung has also announced the launch of two new dual sim handsets B-5722 touch-screen phone and Duos 259 multimedia phone at a price of Rs 10,650 and Rs 7,799 respectively.

Resource:
http://www.thefirstreporter.com/technology/samsung-launch-range-handsets-os-bada/

The patent, titled "Group Formation Using Anonymous Broadcast Information," which was filed with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, outlines details of a proposed location-aware mobile application delivered via token-based system that would enable iPhone and other mobile device users to discover each other and ultimately congregate when in the same physical space, such as a business meeting, tradeshow, wedding or concert.

"During private or public events, a typical individual may have many brief contacts with individuals for which they would like to have further correspondence post event," Apple said in its patent.

The Tokens would be received and stored locally on the users’ iPhone or mobile device with corresponding timestamps, which would enable a service to match or correlate the tokens with other tokens of users in the same geographic location. The service would then perform an analysis on the tokens and timestamps to hone in on the locations of other iPhone/mobile device users.

"Modern wireless devices can operate in an ad hoc mode, which allows wireless devices within range of each other to discover and communicate in peer-to-peer fashion without involving central access points," Apple said in its patent. "A group can be created based on results of the analysis. Users can be identified as members of the group and invited to join the group."

In its patent, Apple uses the example of users at a rock concert, in which various attendees set their Bluetooth-enabled devices to Token Exchange mode. The devices within transmission range begin exchanging and storing tokens. Then during or after the concert, the device holders upload their tokens to a trusted service that maintains a database of device data secured by authentication and encryption technologies. Device holders can then set up accounts through the service’s Website portal in order to post or relay personal information and secret data, including physical location, to other device holders with the aim of forming live groups.

However, the tentative ad hoc networks only exists while the users’ devices are within close proximity, as in a concert hall, hotel, or convention center. "There is no facility for regenerating the network at a later time to allow users to continue discussions or exchange content," Apple said.

With its tentative foray into location-aware mobile applications, Apple is attempting to play catch-up in the social networking arena, while putting itself on a competitive playing field with Facebook and microblogging site Twitter, the latter of which already enables users to specify exact geographic locations for their "tweets," which appear on the Twitter site or through other third party applications.

Resource:
http://www.crn.com/networking/224000222

Motorola will soon push Microsoft’s Bing search engine onto Android phones in China, after announcing an alliance with the Redmond software giant that will see Bing appear on Androids across the globe.

In the wake of this Moto-Microsoft pact, Google has confirmed with The Reg that it has barred the use of its mobile applications on Android phones from Chinese carriers, leaving the likes of Motorola to use alternatives.

On Thursday morning, Motorola said that before the end of the quarter it would add a Bing browser bookmark and a Bing search widget to new phones based on Google’s open source OS as well as handsets already in the market. Motorola did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but it appears that Bing will not be the default provider on the devices’ browser search box.

The pact will also put Microsoft’s Bing Maps service on Motorola phones.

Motorola’s announcement comes amid ongoing confusion over Google’s position in China – and thus Motorola’s relationship with the Mountain View web giant. In mid-January, Google threatened to shutter its China operation in response to an alleged Chinese hack attack on its internal systems, and days later, it said that it would postpone its launch of two Android phones on the Chinese carrier China Unicom – one from Samsung and one from Motorola – saying it would be “irresponsible” to let the launch proceed.

Google says it has made the decision to “no longer” censor results on its Chinese search engine, but it continues to censor results while discussing its position with government authorities.

Yes, Android is open source. But the China Unicom phones would have been branded “with Google” a la the Motorola-Verizon Droid or the T-Mobile-HTC G1, offering tight integration with various Google mobile applications. A Google spokeswoman now tells us the company has postponed “the availability of Google mobile applications on Android devices from operators in China.”

This means that even without the Google brand, Motorola is barred from offering Google applications on its own Android handsets in the country. As Google postponed the launch of its China Unicom phones, Motorola told the world that its Chinese Android phones would allow users to choose their own search provider and that the native Chinese search engine Baidu would be among those on the list.

With its mid-January blog post on the alleged Chinese hack attacks, Google said that “over the next few weeks” it would be discussing “the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all”. That was eight weeks ago, and though Eric Schmidt said yesterday that “something will happen” with the talks “soon,” he said the company had “no timetable” for its discussions.

Last week, in Silicon Valley, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer downplayed the possibility of the company putting Bing on Android phones. “That’s a little more complicated,” he said. “Android without [Google] isn’t Android. We’re going to have to see where the Android market develops.” But just a week later, the Redmond giant has inked a global pact with Motorola on Android.

Asked about the deal, Microsoft merely pointed us back to Motorola’s press release, but as Ballmer put it, Redmond is very much interested in expanding the reach of mobile Bing through strategic partnerships. Microsoft has already signed a deal with US wireless carrier Verizon Wireless that makes Bing the default search engine on certain BlackBerries, and in this case phone owners are unable to use their browser’s built-in search boxes with anything other than Bing.

Meanwhile, US carrier AT&T has introduced its first Android phone – the Motorola Backflip – and its default search engine is Yahoo!. Like Motorola’s China phones, this is not a Google-branded phone, and the carrier is free to modify the browser search box however it chooses.

Resource:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/11/microsoft_bing_on_android_in_china/

Fanbois’ bible Appleinsider reports that people with a “proven track record” in divining Steve Jobs’ thoughts have said that the cappuccino firm has a “full-on solution” to one of the most widely cited criticisms of the Iphone, its lack of multitasking OS support.

Actually the Iphone OS does support multitasking, however Jobs has, in his egomanical zeal to assert control over all he surveys, disabled it for all but the core Apple applications. Apple apologists counter this with flimsy arguments revolving around either their own limitations or those of the hardware. The fact is that Apple intentionally crippled the underlying Iphone OS, which is based on the capable – and multitasking – OS X.

There was perhaps a pragmatic case to be put forward that, on a device such as a smartphone, the need for multitasking is diminished because the screen real-estate naturally limits the display of applications. That didn’t fully convince us, but it served as a convenient excuse, perhaps. However today is the day that Apple will start taking orders for its latest toy for the well-heeled, the Ipad. That device will feature a screen that should be physically able to display more than one application at a time, and it will run the Iphone OS.

Surprisingly for Apple, a company that realises that a portion of its users are technologically not to mention logically inert, the latest Iphone SDK has caused some head scratching. First, the release brought in support of two new gestures, including a three finger salute and a single long finger press. The second is the removal of references to video capabilities in Ichat, which had given rise to the notion that a camera might be included on the Ipad.

It stands to reason that, if these references are removed from the SDK, then either Apple doesn’t want to allow developers access to it or, more likely, wants to use it as a ‘killer feature’ for later revisions.

Apple has been unable to capitalise on the falling or plateaued marketshares of its traditional rivals, and it has simply failed to evolve the Iphone OS, which was nothing short of revolutionary in 2007. Aside from a content delivery mechanism, copy and paste functionality is just about the only ‘major’ software feature that has been added in almost three years. Although coming late to the party, Google’s Android has picked up the baton of innovation simply by allowing developers to do what they want with the system.

Those who desperately want basic operating system features from their Apple devices should only have to wait a little while, as the Iphone Dev team is usually not far behind Apple with their releases. In the meantime, we’ll let Jobs’ Mob bask in some glory for finally providing functionality that it intentionally and somewhat inexplicably took away right from the start.

Resource:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1596229/apple-iphone-basic-functionality