Where is this consumer attention being focused?

The biggest beneficiaries have been mobile apps. Time spent on apps dwarfs time spent on the mobile Web, and smartphone owners now spend 127 minutes per day in mobile apps.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we analyze the main mobile usage trends developers and publishers should consider to be successful in mobile, detail how users are consuming content on their mobile devices, take a look at the most popular mobile activities, and examine how mobile usage is an additive activity.

To access the full report, sign up for a free trial of BI Intelligence today >>>

Here’s an overview of the four usage trends developers and publishers should consider:

The rise of gaming: Games are the largest mobile app category and the biggest money-maker in the app stores, accounting for 70% of Apple’s top-grossing apps. However, even with the most addictive games, consumers’ attention is fleeting and companies run the risk of becoming “one-hit wonders.”
Mobile-social synergies: Social networking apps are the second largest time bucket for mobile users. 39% of mobile users access social networks. This includes mobile versions of desktop favorites, as well as mobile-first networks like Instagram. Mobile holds promise for the social category, but monetization is far from a sure thing.
The piggyback rule: The only tried-and-true way for a mobile success is to take a popular usage category and build a product that piggybacks on that activity to provide a unique mobile-native experience. Instagram did it with photos, “Angry Birds” with games, but other usage categories — news, weather, travel, video etc. — are waiting for a similar hit.
Portal erosion: Mobile is a fragmented space, and consumers seem to like it that way. No one has succeeded aggregating services via a single app or mobile website. The desktop portal is fading with the advent of mobile. Yahoo Mail Traffic declined 12% in the 12 months leading up to December 2012. Carrier attempts to build mobile portals have failed miserably.

The N8 phone has a 12 megapixel camera and allows people to record and edit High Definition video clips, as well as watch web TV services.

Analysts said the phone was a “pivotal device” in efforts “to make Nokia’s high end phones credible again”.

It is also a chance for Symbian to prove itself alongside Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iPhone.

Despite being the world’s most popular smart phone software, Symbian has lost “mindshare” against more high-profile software, according to industry experts.

Analysts at CCS Insight described the Symbian 3 software as “evolutionary not revolutionary” but said it was a “key first step if it proves reliable”.

Cinema support

It is the first version of the software since the Symbian foundation announced that it had made its code open source in February.

The Foundation – which includes Nokia, Motorola and Samsung amongst others – gave away the code to developers for free in the hope that it would help speed up the pace of improvements. Any organisation or individual can now use and modify it.

The software in the N8 allows the phone to have multi-touch and multi-tasking, meaning more than one application can be open at any one time.

The device will be Nokia’s flagship smartphone. It can be plugged into home theatres and supports surround sound as well as high-quality video.

Social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, can be displayed on the home screen in a single application.

Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, said he was “stoked” that Nokia had chosen to use the operating system on its phone.

The phone will ship in the third quarter of 2010, following delays.

Resource:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8646715.stm

Someone from O2 UK tipped the site on the fact that the new N8 will be available but not for a foreseeable future. Mid-July was quoted as the most probable launch window instead of the initial April ETA.

The phone, which is also known as the N8-00, will comes with a 12-megapixel camera with Flash and will be capable of recording in HD 720p, something that others already offer.

It will offer HDMI out and we expect a 1Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor plus the Symbian^3 platform but minus the keyboard. The phone will be a direct replacement for the ageing N97 model which has already been superseded by competitors.

O2 did not offer the N97 previously so this will be a new addition to its range. However the success of the N8-00 will depend on how well the HTC Evo, Incredible and Desire, the Sony Ericsson X10 and Apple’s own iPhone 4G perform over the next few months.

Furthermore, Nokia doesn’t normally ship phones immediately after being announced, which means that the N8-00 might appear in shops only towards the end of the third quarter.

The N8 may be one of the last high end Nokia handsets to come with an ARM processor and a Symbian operating system as the phone manufacturer embraces Intel’s x86 platform wholeheartedly for better and for worse.

Resource:
http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/4/15/nokia-n8-uk-launch-pushed-till-july/