You might not have noticed this yet but we have become extremely dependant on our mobile phones. This is especially true for those who use modern smartphones. Our always-connected lives would become highly disconnected if we were forced to live without these devices for a single day.
Our dependence comes through very clearly when we are trying to buy a new phone. Suddenly, all our daily needs and requirements come into play and we are left puzzled at the onslaught of features. This scenario is further complicated by the fact that most companies have product release cycles that are between 10 months to a year.
The companies cannot be stopped from bringing out the latest gear all throughout the year but we can help you catch up on the latest phone news. And so we do, every Thursday. Get over to the other side for this week’s digest.
Apple:
Apple Now Has 17% Global Smartphone Market Share
Apple has grown yet again in the global smartphone market. Now its total global smartphone market share stands at 17%. That’s not bad for a 2-year old line of smarpthones. [read]
Apple Makes More Money Selling Handsets Than Nokia
The stats are in and Apple won. Nokia made about 1 billion this last quarter (Q3) and Apple made 1.5 billion during the same time, selling smartphones. To put things into perspective, Nokia is the largest mobile handset maker in the world. [read]
Malware Finally Hits (Jailbroken) iPhones
After the recent rickrolling worm, we now have something much more serious. There’s a truly malicious program for the iPhone and it won’t even change your wallpaper to let you know that you have been hacked. It scans the network for open SSH sessions and then tries to log in with the default root password (which all users should change). Once it logs in, it will silently siphon off any data that it can access and that includes every last bit of personal and financial information stored on your iPhone and apps. Thankfully, this only affects jailbroken iPhones that have the default password. [read]
O2 Unlocks iPhones
O2 now unlocks the iPhones of the their customers against a £15 fee. They will only do this after the contract has expired. [read]
Orange Sells 30,000 iPhones On day 1
On their very first day of selling the iPhone in the UK, Orange has reported that they have sold over 30,000 iPhones. To remind you – the iPhone is nothing new in the UK and it is available from two other carriers. [read]
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Verizon:
Verizon Mocks AT&T And The iPhone [Again]
Verizon has launched a triage of new ads that mock AT&T’s (3G) coverage and also mock the iPhone in one ad where it is shown as fitting-in in the Island of Misfit Toys. [read]
Droid Can Be Tethered At An Extra Monthly Premium
If you want to tether your new Droid smartphone from Verizon, you will have to do two things: -
a) Pay an extra $30 per month on top of everything else and
b) Wait till next year
[read]
100,000 Droids Sold During Weekend, According To Analysts
According to analysts, the Droid has sold over 100,000 units over the first weekend after it was released. While that is not exactly record breaking, it is at least good to know that the phone is doing well after early reports of lukewarm interest. [read]
Droid Gets New Macho Ad
There is a new ad that shows the Droid as a stone-crushing robot. We refuse to believe it for one nanosecond. [read]
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Nokia:
Nokia Recalls 14 Million Chargers
After finding a fault with new batches of its travel handset chargers, Nokia has issued a call back of some 14 million chargers through a free exchange program. The fault lies with the casing, which can become undone and shock users. Kudos to Nokia for its fast response. [read]
Nokia’s X6 To Ship Soon
Looks like the much awaited Nokia X6 is going to ship sometime soon. Some people put it as the coming Monday or earlier. [read]
Nokia N900 Gets New Fr33ky Ad
So apparently, what we have told you so far about the N900 is completely wrong. It is actually a tranforming beast that has a lot of existential angst captured within it.
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Fujitsu’s Modular, Pico Projector Phone
If you want to see a phone that splits up into modular parts, has a 12.2 megapixel camera, 1-seg digital TV and a pico projector – you have to see Fujitsu’s F-04B. [read]
Samsung Unveils New Mobile Platform: Bada
Samsung has recently unveiled a new mobile platform called Bada. It is an open platform and Samsung hopes that developers will be excited about it because it will have great user experience, will be easy to integrate into networks and will also be easy to develop for. Apparently, Samsung has no clue that the mobile platform segment is over-crowded already with big-shot players battling it out for supremacy. This is almost like a cola start-up hoping to grab a sizeable marketshare whilst being ignorant of Pepsi and Coke. [Read]
Viewsonic Presents A Windows XP Phone
Viewsonic has brought a new smartphone that will be running the Windows XP OS. It is called the VPC08. It is not the first XP phone but we do hope that it is the last and that companies stop wasting their resources like this. They should all give in and make great Android phones. [read]
Vodafone Has Free HD2 For You
If you are in the UK and you want the HTC HD2, you can get one for free from Vodafone in exchange of a long-term contract with them. Or you can wait till the 23rd of this month when O2 will apparently start selling it too. [read]
Vimeo Is Now More Mobile Friendly
If you like Vimeo videos and own either an iPhone or an Android phone, you are in luck. Vimeo has just has just made their site more mobile friendly for these platforms. [read]
Windows Mobile Marketplace Gets Upgraded
The Windows Mobile Marketplace has just received some tweaking. The in-phone app still sucks but you can have a better experience on your computer, through any browser. Plus there have been some added security upgrades to stop piracy and address developer-end issues. [read]
Willcom Hybrid W-Zero Is The World’s First Handset With PHS And W-CDMA
I haven’t heard of them either but this company has made the world’s first mobile handset that has PHS and W-CDMA (3.5G) that can give you HSUPA 7.2 Mbps performance. I want to ask them about the number of networks that will support this phone to its full extent. Bad part? It is coming in January 2010, may be only in Asia. Worse part? It is running Windows Mobile 6.5!!! [read]
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