Thursday, March 26, 2009
Samsung's Weird & Wrong Betty Boop Handset
Do I Want My RIM TV?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Dell: Stop Flirting With Smartphones & Turn to the Palm
Rollercoasters usually make me want to barf, but the undulating speculation associated with Dell's protracted flirtation with the smartphone space are having a curiously soporific effect on me...perhaps because Dell is a brand only corporate IT guys get excited about. Here's the chain of events:
- It all started in February 2007 with a theory in a Gizmodo post that Dell was going to jump into handsets after poaching Motorola device exec Ron Garriques.
- That April the rumor-mill started churning again with speculation in Engadget that Dell and Quanta Computer were working on a handset codenamed "Fly".
- Just before 3GSM 2008 bloggers were advancing a theory that Dell and Google were in cahoots on the project.
- But on a conference call in September 2008 Michael Dell dismissed rumors that the company was working on a smartphone, according to MacUser.
- Buzz was rekindled by an Engadget post this January reporting on industry chatter over a Dell Android or S60 handset.
- Then at 3GSM 2009 (aka MWC) gadget blog GearLog reported that during a panel discussion AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega inadvertently blabbed that, "Dell announced they're entering the smart phone market." The rumorazzi went wild.
- Then last week Barron's reported on Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu's research note that claimed Dell had presented Windows Mobile & Android prototype devices to the US carriers and that they had been rejected for "lack of differentiation" (ouch!!)
- But, just yesterday Computerworld reported that in a Tokyo speech Michael Dell indicated that the company was still exploring a smartphone device.
OK, now wake up...there's more! In the note referenced in the Barron's story above Mr. Wu also mentioned that Dell is exploring acquisitions to help them with their differentiation problem. The author of the piece Eric Savitz ran with this idea, wondering aloud why Dell wasn't bidding for long-suffering Palm. Good idea! Palm knows the ropes with the carriers and that Pre is potential handset hotness.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Is Disney Ditching Mobile Games?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Clockwork Orange on a Tocco May Not Be Delicious
Like How Trendy Are Mobile Games?
Boy, do I love Google Trends...I've wasted many geeky hours on this site trying to figure out what y'all are thinking about (and I'm a little frightened, frankly). Anyhoo...before GDC I thought it would be cool to post this graph that shows the relative hotness (used loosely) of "mobile games" as a search term. Here's what I'm gathering from these data:
1) Consumer interest in mobile games since 2004 has been tepid, but stable and (the good news) search volume has been growing incrementally.
2) As most publishers and every carrier know, consumers are most enthusiastic about mobile games in the time period just before and after the Holidays...when they presumably are getting or got a shiny new handset.
3) (This you can't see with me unless you click through the chart) Interest in mobile games is coming from some interesting places...particularly developing countries in Asia and some of the smaller economies in Europe. Top 5 in terms of search volume are Pakistan, India, Philippines, Greece and Croatia.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Buh-Bye MOSH, We Hardly Knew Ye
#1 in Games on App Store = $7mil for Gameloft?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
ZOINKS! -- 800mil iPhone Apps Downloaded | 3.0 Features Should Keep The Train Rolling UPDATED & CORRECTED
At the same event Apple also previewed iPhone OS 3.0 with expanded APIs for developers...key features announced thusfar:
- Peer-to-peer Apps via Bluetooth
- Ability to embed Chat and Email into Apps
- Microtransaction billing within Apps and Subscription pricing
- Apps will be able to directly link into iTunes music store
- Apps will be able to handle streaming video as a feature (getting more detail on this...)
- Cut & paste functionality
- Landscape support for all Apps
(thanks to Calvin Lim at Universal Pictures for catching an error in my original average App per device calculation...I had not factored in the iPod touch as an addressable device)
Monday, March 16, 2009
Burrito Barcode Boasts 400 Customer Bonanza...Who Cares?
More Americans Like The Mobile Web More Often
Saturday, March 14, 2009
4 Key Blog Buzzes About New iPhone
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Greystripe Gets More Green to Support AdGame Machine
Monday, March 9, 2009
27,131 Apps on iTunes App Stores, But Who's Counting
Friday, March 6, 2009
Hurray for Hurray! in 2008?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Telefónica Gets Emociónal With Player X
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
True That: Don't Ignore Good Ol' J2ME
Java is no small island.
While there are many technical and logistical reasons why publishers and developers prefer the iPhone, the fact is that there has been a definite move away from J2ME development and releases.
Those companies that have chosen to continue supporting the older platform are therefore likely to see their market share and profits increase.
The flipside of this is that the stampede towards the iPhone by publishers and developers has outstripped the increase in installed base of Apple handsets.
Sticky Green Stuff: Glu Mobile Exec Pay 2009
RIP RCR Wireless
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Moto's Mojo Handset Photoshop Fantasy?
My favorite Lithuanian mobile blog UnwiredView is theroizing that pics, videos and specs for the Motorola TouchZINE HD handset posted by a Yury Cassini in Brazil are pure Photoshop fiction...which is a damn shame considering that this is exactly the kind of handset Moto needs to make it relevant/competitive again. Cassini had claimed that the device had the following superjuicy specs, so you can understand why the community (caveat: it's a nerdy community) was in a frenzy over the handset:
- Android OS
- NVIDIA Tegra chip
- HDMI connectivity
- 1080p HD video playback
- 5 megapixel camera with HD video recording
- 16GB of memory
- Only 4 physical buttons (volume, camera and lock)
- Motorola apps: MotoVideoMaker, MotoMusicMaker, MotoImageMaker
I must say that the misspelled copyright line on the attached YouTube video gave me more than a little pause. But that said, I hope that Moto announces in the next couple days that it's all true.