Here’s CIRP’s chart calculating the loyalty rates of smartphone users by the mobile OS they choose. It shows 78 percent of iOS users chose another iPhone, while 67 percent of Android users stayed with Google’s OS. There is some switching among those though: 14 percent of former iOS users went Android, while 27 percent of former Android users crossed over to the Apple mobile ecosystem.

You can also see how iOS and Android are continuing to decimate the previous era’s smartphone champ, Blackberry: 34 percent of former Blackberry users switched to Android, while nearly half, 48 percent, moved over to iOS.

But the real battle that that Google and Apple need to focus on now is winning the feature phone users who have yet to upgrade to a smartphone. So far, Android is winning, gathering 50 percent of basic phone users, while just 39 percent chose iOS. This fight explains why Apple is pushing its iPhone 4 and 4S so heavily (and having pretty good success). It wants to lure in users who don’t mind upgrading to a fancier phone as long as it’s cheap, like the free iPhone 4 or $99 iPhone 4S with carrier contract.

In this chart, you can see a more granular break down of Android device makers and how their individual loyalty rates compare to the iPhone:

Just as the previous graph showed, iPhone owners are pretty loyal, with a 78 percent retention rate — though if they are going to switch, they mostly end up choosing a Samsung device, which speaks to Samsung’s aggressive recent ad campaigns against the iPhone. Samsung performs next best, with 52 percent loyalty to its brand of smartphone. But HTC (27 percent), LG (18 percent), Motorola (9 percent) and Blackberry (10 percent) performed miserably when it came to keeping their customers.

The Sync in-car communications and infotainment system is currently standard on all 2010 Lincoln models and available on select 2010 Ford and Mercury models. The service allows drivers to operate most MP3 players, Bluetooth-enabled phones and USB drives using voice commands–additional features include turn-by-turn navigation, realtime traffic updates and business search tools

Resource:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/android-blackberry-apps-drive-fords-sync-applink/2010-04-20

The bank is aiming the application at merchants with iPhones who are highly mobile and want to take payments quickly and securely, instead of lugging around portable EFTPOS machines.

Dubbed ANZ ePOS Mobile, the application can process on-the-spot credit and debit card transactions at a customer location.

Credit card details such as expiry date and card verification code are encrypted and no customer data is stored on the iPhone.

Authorisation does not require a signature or PIN as it is treated as a “card not present activity” — a form predominantly used to buy goods and services on the internet.

After payment is made an email bearing the receipt will be sent to the customer, who doesn’t incur any fees. Merchants, however, pay their standard rates to ANZ.

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Three merchants, including Fisher & Paykel Australia, are currently involved in a pilot to trial the software, ANZ head of innovation Peter Dalton told reporters in Sydney.

ePOS Mobile accepts credit cards from all financial institutions but during the trials a limit of $1000 was set, Mr Dalton said.

Spruiking the security features of the application Mr Dalton said if an iPhone is stolen the bank can remotely cancel a transaction.

The pilot, which commenced in mid-March, will scale to 20 merchants until May, he said. The bank hopes to make ePOS Mobile available on iTunes in Australia by June, Mr Dalton said.

“We’re trying to deliver banking solutions that make things faster and simpler for our customers,” he said.

According to Fisher & Paykel customer care financial controller Rudolph Khoury, the application was easy to use and convenient. “I haven’t had to call anyone from ANZ about this during the trial.”

A mobile suit tailor and mobile car detailer are also testing ePOS Mobile .

The idea for the solution was conceived in August 2009 by Mr Dalton’s team and developed with help from Deloitte Digital. The total project cost was “in the vicinity of a couple of hundred thousand dollars”, he said.

“We chose to do this on the iPhone because of its growing market share. Also, the (iTunes) apps store makes it easy for people to download the application,” Mr Dalton said.

Mr Dalton’s 22-person team is also working to enhance products for internet banking and other platforms such as the Apple iPad.

Resource:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/anz-bank-trials-mobile-pos/story-e6frgakx-1225854534900

LAS VEGAS—Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse announced a 4G-capable smartphone, the HTC Evo 4G, during a high-profile presentation at the CTIA Wireless 2010 conference on March 23. Boasting that it would take multimedia to “a whole new level,” Hesse demonstrated the device, which boasts a 4.3-inch capacitive touch-screen and the Google Android 2.1 operating system, for media and analysts.

The HTC Evo 4G will apparently make its debut during the summer. “It’s a fast device with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor,” Hesse told the audience. “It’s a terrific smartphone, even in 3G markets.” The device incorporates two cameras: an 8-megapixel module with auto-focus and an HD-capable camcorder, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera.

Hesse then introduced Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, who explained that HTC and Sprint had been working on the project hand-in-hand with Google since May 2008 to deliver what he described as “the world’s first fully integrated 4G consumer handset.”

Chou continued: “I think the Evo 4G gives a clear indicator of how mobile broadband experience is starting to move beyond the fixed-line broadband experience by what it offers in terms of local and personal relevance.” The HTC Evo 4G plays into that as a “holistic video and multimedia experience. As you know, the mobile video experience hasn’t been really embraced yet due to network speed limitations.”

As with other smartphones making their debut at CTIA, including the Samsung Galaxy S, the HTC Evo 4G will include a substantial social-networking element, aggregating content from a variety of services such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr into a continually updated “flow.” Unlike some smartphones being shown at the conference, including Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series devices, the HTC Evo 4G will apparently provide Adobe Flash support.

Sprint made a limited number of HTC Evo 4G devices available to analysts and members of the press following the executive presentations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the smartphones feel and operate very much like the Nexus One and HTC Droid Eris.

Sprint 4G capability is currently available in 27 markets, with plans to expand into Houston, Boston, Washington, D.C., New York City and San Francisco by the end of 2010.

Sprint has been working to ease its subscriber loss over the past few quarters, an effort helped by its recent acquisition of Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA. On Feb. 10, the company reported that it had lost a net 148,000 subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2009, better than the 545,000 who apparently left the network during the third quarter.

At the same time, the company has also been working to narrow its financial losses, which totaled $980 million for the fourth quarter—an improvement, nonetheless, over the $1.6 billion that had been lost during the same quarter a year earlier.

With that sort of financial pressure bearing down, Sprint has been gambling that users will be drawn to the prospect of a 4G network, with plans to invest an addition $1 billion into Clearwire’s WiMax 4G technology. Intel, Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House Networks have plans to contribute another $500 million to that effort.

Resource:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Sprint-Announces-HTC-Evo-4G-Emphasizing-Multimedia-735848/

Since this is a Nextel iDEN phone, it comes with lots of Nextel Direct Connect extras, including one-to-one push-to-talk with any other Nextel subscriber – the first time an Android phone has taken advantage of this feature. It also includes Group Connect, International Direct Connect, Direct Talk, Direct Send and Group Messaging — features Nextel likes to push front and center with its phones.

The Motorola i1 will run Android 1.5 and has a 3.1-inch, 320-by-480 TFT touch screen, a 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, and Opera Mini 5 Web browsing. It appears to share many build similarities with the Motorola CLIQ XT, another slab-style Android phone with mostly equal specs.

That said, the i1 will not run on 3G because it is Nextel’s network, and there’s no word if the phone will run MotoBlur, the social-networking oriented build of Android 1.5. If it doesn’t run MotoBlur, there will be questions about why the phone doesn’t have a newer version of stock Android.

The device is also the first truly rugged Android phone we’ve seen. Like several earlier “rugged” products from Motorola, the i1 meets military specification 810F, which means it should be able to tolerate dust, shock, vibration, extreme temperatures, humidity, and more. It will support up to a 32GB microSD card and claims about three and a half hours of talk time. The phone will be available for Nextel and SouthernLINC some time this summer.

Resource:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2361660,00.asp

Apple has begun accepting iPad apps for review and approval before the device launches in the US on April 3, several weeks ahead of Australia, which gets the device “late April”.

Developers must submit their apps by March 27 if they want to be included among the first apps to be featured on the iPad app store. The device’s 9.7-inch touchscreen interface is seen as a game-changer for mobile apps and the earliest apps are likely to be the most successful.

Analytics firm Flurry, which provides real-time user data to thousands of app developers, crunched the numbers for AppleInsider and revealed that, like with the iPhone, games will be the most popular iPad app category, commanding 44 per cent of the apps being tested for the device. Entertainment follows with 14 per cent.

The iPhone’s 150,000 apps will work on the iPad, but developers are planning to do a lot more with the device than simply stretch their apps to fit the larger screen.

Media companies in Australia and abroad are hard at work on porting their publications to tablets such as the iPad. Already, Wired magazine has shown off a tablet version, while the ABC has confirmed it is actively looking into developing iPad apps.

Graham Clarke, through his new Glasshouse Apps company, is one of several Australian developers beavering away to create their apps in time for the launch.

“The iPad to me is just the start of something much bigger. April 3, 2010 isn’t just the date of another Apple event, it’s the first word of the next chapter in the history of computing,” he said.

Clarke developed the Cellar and Barista apps for the iPhone but would not give away much about his iPad plans.

“People are pretty tight-lipped about it, which is understandable because Apple haven’t really approved any apps yet – you can’t give too much away until you know for sure that everything’s going to work out,” Clarke said in a phone interview.

Another Australian app maker, Firemint, which made Flight Control – one of the iPhone’s most popular games – has said it is preparing to release an iPad version, Flight Control HD.

Most iPad developers bar a few major media companies such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have been unable to test their apps on the device before launch, instead relying on iPad emulation software.

Apple has told developers not to give away too much about their plans, while the few organisations that have received an iPad in advance of the launch are forced to abide by strict secrecy rules. These include, according to The New York Times, “keeping the iPad hidden from public view, chained to tables in windowless rooms”.

Some developers have complained that Apple’s immense secrecy measures are limiting their ability to create apps that are optimised for the new device.

One of the main selling points of the iPad, the ability to buy e-books from the iBooks store, will not be available to Australians at launch. But Amazon said this week it was developing an iPad Kindle app, which would provide access to more than 450,000 Kindle books and allow users to turn pages simply by swiping their fingers.

Anthony Agius, founder of the MacTalk community website, said he worried Apple would reject the Kindle app because it competed with iBooks, after similarly banning the Google Voice app on the iPhone.

Agius and Clarke are among several Australian Apple fanatics who will be travelling to New York for the US launch in an effort to obtain the iPad weeks before other Australians.

“For me, Apple is kind of like my favourite band. If your favourite band had a new album that was out and you can’t hear it for a month, it’s painful,” he said.

Agius will fly to New York on Friday and hopes to bring home about 10 iPads for friends. Apple has limited purchases to two per person but Agius hopes to get around this by pre-ordering with several credit cards and Apple IDs.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that hundreds of thousands of iPads had been pre-ordered ahead of the US launch. Some analyst firms, including the NPD Group, believe the iPad’s sales in the first few months after launch will exceed those of the iPhone.

One company, iPodMeister, is offering a free iPad Wi-Fi + 3G model to people who send it 1150 used CDs or DVDs, which will then be distributed at a discount in poor countries.

Clarke believes the iPad will spark a major shift in desktop computing towards the use of more touch-based interfaces.

“You’ll probably have to change the way that you use them [desktop PCs] because you obviously can’t sit down in a chair and hold your hands up to the screen all day, but I just think that it’s so much more intuitive to connect with the computer by touching it, rather than using a keyboard and mouse all the time,” he said.

Resource:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life

According to Youwager.com, which began taking bets on the topic this week, it is unlikely that Jobs’ Mob will sell a million of the overpriced keyboardless netbooks within 74 days.

The Iphone, which went on sale in June 2007, took only 74 days to get to the 1 million sales mark. It also had considerably less hype than the Ipad and featured a touchscreen that was a bit of a novelty at the time.

The bookies say that, despite saturation marketing – much of which is free from the US press – the odds are stacked against the Ipad.

According to Bloomberg, Youwager.com said that no matter what Apple puts onto the market there are going to be large sales, but with this particular product, it does not think that the Ipad is as practical as the Iphone.

Clearly the odds would be lower if Youwager was aware that occasionally Apple has made turkey products in the past. Apple TV anyone?

Paddy Power, Ireland’s biggest bookmaker, has open betting with 3-to-1 odds that Ipad sales will surge past 6 million in 2010. The bookie has 8-to-1 odds that fewer than 1 million units will sell.

Resource:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1597397/the-odds-ipad

Even though the suit did not name Google Inc as a defendant, Apple’s move was viewed by many analysts as proxy for an attack on the Internet company, whose Nexus One smartphone is manufactured by HTC.

“I think this is kind of an indirect lawsuit against Google,” said Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu.

Apple’s suit was filed with both the US International Trade Commission and the US District Court in Delaware on Tuesday, and seeks to prohibit HTC from selling, marketing or distributing infringing products in the United States.

The complaint filed with the ITC cited Google’s Nexus One, which was launched in January, and other HTC phones such as the Hero, Dream and myTouch — which run on Google’s Android mobile operating system — as infringing products.

In a statement, a Google spokeswoman said: “We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it.”

HTC said in a statement that it was looking at the filings. “HTC values patent rights and their enforcement but is also committed to defending its own technology innovations,” spokesman Keith Nowak said.

In a statement in Taipei on Wednesday, HTC added that it had not had the opportunity to investigate the suit. “Until we have had this opportunity, we are unable to comment on the validity of the claims being made against HTC.” In a separate statement to the Taiwan stock exchange, HTC said it will not see any impact on its financial outlook for the first quarter from the lawsuit.

By 0250 GMT, HTC shares lost 1.4 per cent in Taipei in a broader market up 0.4 per cent. The stock had fallen as much as 3 per cent in early trade.

“The news is having some impact on HTC’s shares but lawsuits are quite common among tech firms and I would say it is just a threat from Apple this time,” said John Chiu, a fund manager at Taiwan’s Fuh Hwa Securities Investment Trust. “However, HTC is not a good buy in the longer term since its margins will be coming under pressure when competition intensifies.”

FIERCE COMPETITION Apple’s move comes amid fierce competition in the smartphone market, as new players angle for a piece of the fast-growing segment. Mark Simpson, a patent attorney with law firm Saul Ewing in Philadelphia, said HTC made for an easier target than Google. “It’s probably simpler for them to go after the company making the infringing goods, which is HTC. It’s easier to prove at this point,” he said. MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen agreed. “HTC is an optimal target for Apple — it’s a relatively small vendor with a weak brand.

It may be easier to push around than Samsung (which also makes Android smartphones). One question here is whether Apple can intimidate operators to back away from new HTC products by flashing the possibility of litigation trouble.” Apple said HTC “knowingly induce(s) users of accused HTC Android products” to infringe on a number of Apple’s patents, some dating back to the mid-1990s.

They cover user interface processes and other software and hardware components. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours,” Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in a news release.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment beyond the complaints. The iPhone held a 14.4 per cent smartphone market share in 2009, according to research group Gartner.

Phones running Android comprised only 3.9 per cent of the market, but were growing fast.

Apple lost some share to Android phones in the fourth quarter. “This move could be a sign Apple is getting rattled by Google’s recent momentum in the mobile space — notably the avalanche of Android products unveiled at Mobile World Congress,” said Ben Wood from CCS Insight.

Apple’s lawsuit is the latest scrape over ownership of the underlying technology for smartphones — handsets that play video and music, take pictures and send e-mail.

Eastman Kodak Co in January filed a complaint with the ITC, saying Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry camera phones infringe the photography company’s patents.

Nokia, the world’s top mobile phone maker, has also sued Apple over patents. Apple has countersued. That dispute, potentially involving hundreds of millions of dollars in annual royalties, reflects the shifting balance of power in the mobile industry as cellphones morph into handheld computers that can play video games and surf the Web.

In its ITC filing against HTC, Apple noted that some of the patents at issue are at the center of its legal fight with Nokia. Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple fell 14 cents to close at $208.85 on Nasdaq.

Resource:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/apple-sues-htc-over-phones-using-google-software/110974-11.html

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The Introduction to Smartphones

Compared to other manufacturers, Research in Motion got into the competition a bit late with IBM creating the first smartphone back in 1992 followed by Nokia’s 9000 model. Ericsson followed with its own smartphone product boasting its touch screen technology which was a first back in 2000. BlackBerry then came up with their own smartphone model in 2002.

BlackBerry’s Target Market

The BlackBerry 5810 is the first BlackBerry device to have built-in phone features making it the first smartphone to hit the competition. This was the time when the two-way pagers were abandoned and RIM started to advertise these models as email-capable mobile phones. Because of its emphasis on E-mail, the BlackBerry was mainly aimed towards business use rather than regular consumer use.

Main Features

The earliest BlackBerry devices that were available were rich in features supporting telephone calling, text messaging, Internet faxing, push e-mailing, and wireless web browsing. Unlike other smartphone competitors, the early BlackBerry smartphones were famous for their dominant e-mail features to attract people in the business industry. Each of the features were presented in an operating system interface that revolves around icons laid out on a 3 by 5 grid. The first BlackBerry smartphone also had a full keyboard on the bottom which is ideal for thumb texting.

Rise to Popularity

Both the device and the closed source BlackBerry OS saw improvements with later BlackBerry models taking the jump from the dated Intel-80386 processors to the faster Intel 624 MHz processors currently used by the latest 9000 series. Sporting colored screens and exceptional applications for sending and receiving e-mail and browsing the web, BlackBerry devices were often seen as addictive devices because getting an Internet connection was easy as long as the user is within the wireless network range of the phone carrier allowing any users to quickly send and receive e-mails.

The BlackBerry OS evolved as well taking advantage of the scroll wheel used in pre-2006 models while later versions make use of a trackball and track pad for navigating the interface. The OS has reached its fifth major version sporting better customization options, improved browsing experience, faster performance in applications, updated maps, and extra encryption options. This can be used in the latest BlackBerry Bold 9700 model (also known as the Onyx) as well as other touchpad and touch-screen models.

Another full touch-screen model known as the BlackBerry Storm 2 uses this OS and includes OpenGL ES support which opens up opportunities for gaming. Models that use the rollerball or thumbwheel use the older BlackBerry OS 4 which is still supported and has plenty of applications including support for Lotus Notes and Novell GroupWise.

With the powerful hardware that the BlackBerry smartphones run on and increasing developer activity since RIM opened up the App World that offers 3rd party applications, the BlackBerry is continuing their pursuit in winning business users as well as attracting ordinary consumers as well.