MobileCrunch |  |
- PressOK’s PlacePlay Lets Developers Integrate Location Features And Local Advertising Into Games
- Toshiba-Fujitsu IS12T: World’s First Windows Mango Cell Phone Up And Close (Video)
- Carriers To Obama: Give Us More Spectrum Access!
- Mobile Research Firm Zokem Acquired For Up To $24M
- Motorola CEO: Droid Bionic Will Launch In September
- Motorola Mobility Beats The Street, Shipped 440k Xoom Tablets, 4.4M Smartphones In Q2
- Is This The iPhone 5?
- Skyfire’s VideoQ Lets You Save Flash Videos To Watch On Your iPhone Later
- Motorola Triumph’s Camera Issues Are Way Worse Than A Little Screen Flickering
- Verizon Takes J.D. Power Customer Care Crown From T-Mobile
- RIM Releases BBM 6 To The Masses With App Integration
- Nielsen: Android Takes Top OS Spot, Apple Tops Manufacturers
- First “Light” iPhone Images Appear
| PressOK’s PlacePlay Lets Developers Integrate Location Features And Local Advertising Into Games Posted: 29 Jul 2011 04:05 AM PDT Seattle-based PressOK Entertainment, a game development company, launched an interesting new service this week in public beta called PlacePlay, which the startup describes as a “location enablement platform” for games. Location is something that hasn’t really been explored much in gaming as of yet, so simply put, PlacePlay aims to tackle the obstacles that prevent location from becoming a relevant facet of the games we play every day. For starters, the platform is focused on giving game developers the ability to quickly add local tournaments into gameplay, so that a user can, for example, play a virtual game of Battleship with other players that live on the same block. Though tournaments are the primary feature of the platform at this point, PlacePlay also supports location-based virtual goods, objects, achievements, and more. PlacePlay is targeting Apple iOS as its main platform, but it just so happens that Apple prevents mobile developers from displaying location-based advertising in apps if they don’t include location based features. Happily for developers, because PlacePlay gives them easy access to location-based features for gameplay, developers also have the ability to take advantage of integrated local advertising networks to not only drive more engagement via in-game activities like tournaments, but also gives them access to higher ad revenue from targeted local advertising. PressOK CEO and Co-founder Ryan Morel says that the simple truth is that it’s much easier to drive consumer action as part of gameplay than to drive action outside of gameplay, i.e. implicit user behavior versus explicit. In other words, if game developers were to add no reward for a user to join, say, a game’s leaderboard (other than it being free), but added incentive for users to play in certain locations (like free level packs for completing location-based challenges) — engagement is still going to be much higher in leaderboards, which are implicitly part of gameplay, rather than actions that are not. There’s less friction for a consumer to participate in a local tournament than there is to get them to take some specific action at a specific place or time. When it comes to appeal for advertisers, it’s hard to find location-based games that overcome these challenges and still have a large enough user base to be relevant, he says. In allowing third party developers access to PlacePlay’s SDK, the startup hopes that it will be able to collect data from a large number of users, across a wide set of games, by integrating features gamers love (like leaderboards, tournaments, virtual goods, etc.) around location. In the short term, Morel says, PlacePlay will monetize through integrated local ad networks, and longterm the startup plans to monetize through direct deals with brands and sponsors. Widespread distribution of its SDK among game developers will obviously be key if this is to happen. Thus, the value proposition for PlacePlay is that it allows developers to drive both engagement and revenue; based on early testing, PlacePlay increases end-user engagement by 1.6-times and offers eCPMs of up to $20 — which should be music to the ears of game developers. The startup is bootstrapped at this point, but it has already begun working with developers like Joybits and Brisk Mobile, and is in the process of converting more. For another gaming startup making some cool strides in location-based features, especially in regard to gaming check-ins, check out our recent coverage of Heyzap. For more on PlacePlay, check out the video below:         
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| Toshiba-Fujitsu IS12T: World’s First Windows Mango Cell Phone Up And Close (Video) Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:46 PM PDT Two days ago, Toshiba-Fujtsu in Japan took the wraps of the IS12T, the world’s first world's first phone running Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango). We were quick in giving you the first specs, but we now have a video that shows the 1 Ghz Qualcomm CPU-powered device in action – plus some more detailed specs. First, here are the main specs (in more detail), as announced [JP] by the provider of the IS12T in Japan, local mobile carrier KDDI:
Second, our friends at Diginfonews in Tokyo have shot this professional video (in English) that shows the IS12T in action:         
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| Carriers To Obama: Give Us More Spectrum Access! Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:01 PM PDT President Obama announced back in February his support for a Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative, which he believed would (among other things) "benefit all Americans, bolster public safety, and spur innovation in wireless services, equipment, and applications." Under his plan, 500 MHz of spectrum would be freed up over the course of the next ten years in order spur on mobile broadband expansion and the development of 4G networks. Rather than leave things up to fate, today the heads of Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have decided to reach out to President Obama and let him know exactly what part of the spectrum they're gunning for. In a jointly signed letter [PDF], they candidly lay out what they would like to see happen:
But what does that mean? In short, the Big 4 carriers believe that freeing up those bands will help drive expansion in mobile broadband coverage into much needed areas, a key focus of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. A benign, seemingly altruistic request from the looks of things, but make no mistake — they would certainly stand to benefit. Still, if it means that people will be able get access to much-needed internet service where they couldn’t before, I'm willing to look past financial motivations.        
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| Mobile Research Firm Zokem Acquired For Up To $24M Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:01 PM PDT Tearing through a mountain of mobile phone data isn’t much fun, but someone has to do it — and it looks like it pays well enough. Just 4 years after its founding, mobile research firm Zokem has been snatched up for $11.7 million up front, with a potential payout of an additional $12 million through 2014. Their buyer? Arbitron Inc., a company focused on — hey, whatd’ya know? — consumer research. Zokem is sort of like a European Flurry. Their main product is an SDK which developers can plug-in into their smartphone (iOS, BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Phone) application to gather up all sorts of anonymous data like usage patterns, signal strength, and creepier stuff like location. Zokem had raised around $2M in funding prior to the acquisition, all from European VCs (specifically, Finland’s Veraventure.) Up until this point, Arbitron’s primary research beat has been on collecting listener data for the radio industry. They poll a random chunk of the radio-listening population in just shy of 300 regions, then sell that data to broadcasters, networks, and ad agencies. With the acquisition, Zokem will be changing its name to Arbitron Mobile, with Zokem’s CEO Dr. Hannu Verkasalo leading the mobile division. Just shy of $12 million with a payout of another $12 million within a few years? Not bad for a company with just 14 employees. Not bad at all.        
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| Motorola CEO: Droid Bionic Will Launch In September Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:01 PM PDT After six… Wait, let's make that seven months of uncertainty, we might finally have something solid to work with. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said in an interview with CNET that the Droid Bionic will land in September. Just so we're clear, that's nine months after the phone was announced at CES, five months after rumors circulated of its cancellation, and four months after Motorola promised it would arrive this summer via tweet. In other words, this thing better pack one helluva punch. And from the looks of its specs, that's just what it'll do. The Droid Bionic runs Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread on top of a dual-core TI OMAP 4430 1GHz processor, with a stellar 4.3-inch qHD touchscreen display with 960 x 540 pixels of resolution. Oh, and the 8-megapixel LED flash-equipped rear-camera shouldn't hurt either. It's worth noting that, as most of us already know, the iPhone 5 should launch in September. The fact that Motorola feels comfortable launching the Bionic alongside one of the best selling smartphone lines in history says quite a bit about just how sweet this Android handset could be. Now it's all about how patient we can be. Hey September: get here now!        
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| Motorola Mobility Beats The Street, Shipped 440k Xoom Tablets, 4.4M Smartphones In Q2 Posted: 28 Jul 2011 02:36 PM PDT Motorola Mobility just released its Q2 earnings and it’s loaded with fun stats. First off, the company posted $3.3 billion in net revenue with non-GAAP earnings of nine cents a share. That’s up 28% over last year’s second quarter and beats the Wall Street’s estimate of just six cents a share. The company also realized a GAAP net loss of $56 million compared to a net earnings of $80 million in 2010. Over that time period Motorola Mobility managed to ship 11 million devices including 4.4 million smartphones and 440,000 Xoom Android tablets. That’s up from 8.3 total devices last year . Part of this growth came from the Latin America and China markets where revenue grew 40% and sales more than doubled from the previous year. Note, the company reported shipments rather than sales to consumers. Sanjay Jha, chairman and CEO of Motorola Mobility, stated regarding growth “With a focus on profitable growth and delivering differentiated LTE smartphones and tablets, we expect to achieve profitability in Mobile Devices in the fourth quarter and for the full year 2011.” The company’s wireless division’s net revenue’s grew a whooping 41% over last year to $2.4 billion, partially lead by the Droid product family and International expansion. Motorola made a big push with Sprint during Q2 and announced plans to launch 10 devices on the carrier including the carrier’s first international phone and a new iDEN Android smartphone. The company also credits part of the growth from new home entertainment devices such as Motorola Televation IPTV and Medios Xperience. That sector of the company grew 2% over last year and end with net revenues at $907 million. This report also clears the air concerning the much debated Motorola Xoom. Analysts couldn’t agree on a shipment estimate and most simply stated they were disappointing. Motorola is now saying it shipped (read: shipped, not sold) 440k Xooms during the second quarter. Apple previously stated that they sold 4.69 million iPads during the same time period, outselling the original Honeycomb tablet by at least a factor of ten. Moving to Q3 Motorola Mobility is predicting a non-GAAP earnings of zero to ten cents a share with Wall Street expecting the company to report a 24 cents a share profit on $3.37 billion in revenue. Then for Q4 Motorola Mobility is expecting 47 cents a share on a revenue of $3.84 billion. The market didn’t like what it saw and Motorola Mobility took a hit in after hours trading.        
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| Posted: 28 Jul 2011 02:11 PM PDT iPhone fans, start drooling. Skeptics, have your grains of salt at the ready. An iPhone 5 — or at least something closely fitting the rumored description of the iPhone 5 — has just been spotted… on a train, of all places.
The shot up above (and the ever-so-slightly-different one below) comes from 9to5Mac, who received them from a tipster who claims to have spotted the device on his way home from work. Alas, these two just-too-far-away glimpses are as good as it gets for now. While most news reporter-types out there would run through a pack of angry charging bulls and scale a building covered in butter for a shot of the iPhone 5, the tipster seems to have practiced at least a bit of caution in their undercover photography session. The person holding the device was supposedly being quite cautious to keep it at least partially covered, masking the Apple logo behind their fingers throughout. Fortunately, their eyes worked a bit better than their camera. Here’s what they had to share about the purported prototype:
Could this be the real deal? It’s plausible. The iPhone 5 is said to be coming in just over a month (sometime in September), which means there absolutely are iPhone 5s out there, right this second, being field tested. Apple can install as many cell towers on their campus as they want, but it’s nearly impossible to release a phone without testing its signal attenuation and performance in the real world. After Antennagate, you can bet that Apple is going to make damned sure that the iPhone 5 has rock solid signal performance. With that said, think back to the lost iPhone 4 prototype. At first glance, it looked just like an iPhone 3GS — because Apple had disguised it as one. A special case was made just to mask the new hardware as something not worth a second glance. Would Apple really let an iPhone 5 prototype lurk about in public in the nude? Maybe in the back of a blacked out van — but on what looks to be something like CalTrain? Doubtful. Also doubtful: where the heck is the camera flash? While my geek side would love for this to be an iPhone 5, my skeptic side is saying it’s a 3GS shot from a strange angle. What say you? Real? Photoshop? Just a really fancy fake from China? Weigh in down in the comments.        
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| Skyfire’s VideoQ Lets You Save Flash Videos To Watch On Your iPhone Later Posted: 28 Jul 2011 10:00 AM PDT Until Adobe and Apple work out their differences (Yeah, right) or the entire Internet miraculously switches to using HTML5 for all video content, the Skyfire browser will always have one steadfast selling point: through some on-the-fly conversion magic, it can play back Flash video content on iOS devices. The problem: outside of its Flash shortcomings, Safari is great. Most people probably don’t want to replace it entirely. Skyfire gets pushed to the background, waiting for its moment in the sun when the user comes across a video that Safari just refuses to play. Realizing this, Skyfire has started to think outside of the browser. This morning they’ve released VideoQ, a standalone player for video content that Safari won’t touch. It’s like the Skyfire browser, minus the browser — or, in some sense, like a ReadItLater for mobile video.
Here’s how it works:
Alternatively, you can also use a bookmarklet to send the link from your desktop computer to queue it up for playback on your handset. But that’s not all it does — in fact, one of its secondary features might just be cooler than its main, video queueing trick. Given that Skyfire processes something like 8 million video requests a day, they’ve got a pretty good idea what the masses are watching at any given second — so they list it. The “Hot” tab within the app pulls together a real-time list of the most popular videos from all around the web, and you can drill down to just the content you want by dropping in channel filters like “Technology” and “Animals”. Hurray! You’ll never miss an adorable cat video ever again! Skyfire’s VideoQ currently goes for $1.99 in the App Store (a buck shy of what they’re asking for with their full-blown browser). Video Demo:            
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| Motorola Triumph’s Camera Issues Are Way Worse Than A Little Screen Flickering Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:23 AM PDT The Motorola Triumph is off to a rough start. A flickering screen issue, while annoying, isn't all that bad when compared with what new Triumph owners are complaining about now: Apparently the handset’s 5-megapixel autofocus camera forgot how to autofocus. We figured this may be a settings issue, but it seems that most people are experiencing the blurry cam problem right out of the box. Some have even exchanged the faulty unit for a fresh one, only to have the same problem. My gut tells me that this has nothing to do with hardware, since autofocus is generally a software-controlled feature. A similar issue plagued the original Motorola Droid in its early days, with a software patch clearing it up just a few weeks post-launch. But wait, there’s more! Other Triumph owners are complaining that while their pictures are mostly in focus, they’ve got a nasty yellow/green tint to them. One user reported that they tweaked settings a number of times, and also reset the phone to factory settings, and still couldn't get the green blob out of the pic. (See that box used in the picture up above? Notice the funky green blob in the center? Yeah, that box was completely white.) The Triumph was Virgin Mobile's summer beast. With solid specs and a $300-off-contract price tag, we expected this pre-paid handset to launch with guns blazing. Unfortunately, these hiccups have caused a not-so-triumphant debut. Having similar issues? Drop a comment below and let us know. [Thanks, zebramall!]        
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| Verizon Takes J.D. Power Customer Care Crown From T-Mobile Posted: 28 Jul 2011 08:53 AM PDT In recent years, Verizon and T-Mobile have been neck and neck when it comes to customer care performance, a race that I (and surely many other customers) have seen the benefits of firsthand. T-Mobile held on to the top spot a few months back in the first installment of J.D. Power and Associates' Wireless Customer Care Performance Study, but Verizon has managed to take the lead for volume 2. Despite Verizon's triumphant crowing, it was perhaps a closer race than they were willing to admit. Big Red's Customer Care Index Ranking is in fact the industry leader at 770, but T-Mobile was certainly no slouch at 766. While Verizon was specifically cited for good satisfaction feedback about calls beginning with an automated system and ending with a CSR, T-Mobile excels at pleasing customers who opt for online support. Meanwhile, Sprint and AT&T retained their third and fourth place positions respectively, and both fall below the industry average score of 762. In their Power Circle rankings, J.D. Power gives them both a 2, effectively branding them as the "other guys" of customer satisfaction. While I'm glad to see Verizon and T-Mobile being called out for taking care of their customers, reports like this should hopefully be a kick in the pants to all four carriers. Verizon’s 770 sounds pretty good, but J.D. Power’s scale tops out at a whopping 1,000, so everyone has their improvements to make. In all fairness, Sprint certainly seems better than it has in the past, but I foresee the roughest road for AT&T. Should the proposed merger with T-Mobile go through, they'll have to put some major time into not alienating their new customers, considering this is their second showing at dead last. Hopefully, they pick up some of T-Mobile’s friendly DNA in the process, but only time will tell.        
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| RIM Releases BBM 6 To The Masses With App Integration Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:45 AM PDT The best part of the BlackBerry OS just got a bit better, as RIM today announced the release of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) version 6. What's more, the company plans to offer certain apps featuring BBM integration, so users can feed their texting addiction without having to close an app. BBM-integrated apps include FourSquare, Score Mobile, Wikitude, and the Huffington Post app, along with a few more that can be found here in the BlackBerry App World. You'll have to install BBM 6 to use any of the new apps. As more and more apps integrate BBM 6, users will then be able to share the content they love in real-time for free, whether its planning to check out a movie or chatting up the latest breaking news.
However, RIM is in the middle of a massive transition to the QNX platform, which means that developers who are spending extra time and manpower on hooking up BBM will have to go through the same process again in a few months. That is where RIM will struggle to grow the App World.        
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| Nielsen: Android Takes Top OS Spot, Apple Tops Manufacturers Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:15 AM PDT Nielsen comes bearing good news today for devotees of the little green robot: as of this past June, Android has claimed the top spot in the U.S. smartphone OS market. Figures have it as comprising a full 39% of the market, with its closest competitor Apple a distant second at 28%. Oh, and let's not forget the BlackBerry OS, which is currently dragging its feet at 20%. Bringing up the rear are Windows Phone 7 at 9%, which is a bit of an accomplishment considering the major head start its competitors enjoyed, and WebOS and Symbian (both at 2%). This strikes me as a bit puzzling, given what seems like the abject lack of Nokia smartphones stateside. The E71x debuted on AT&T two years ago with little fanfare, and even the newish Nokia Astound seems to have been dropped from T-Mobile’s online store. Of course the situation is still in flux; with HP hoping the TouchPad will leverage sales of the Veer 4G and the forthcoming Pre 3, we will likely see a boost in rank next time round. Still, they need to make their next steps very, very carefully. On the hardware front, Apple makes it known that they’re not ones to settle for second. They have managed to land themselves the title of top manufacturer — an easy victory, to be fair. Considering the top OS finds its way to devices made by HTC, Motorola, and Samsung, Apple was a lock from the beginning. RIM surprisingly finds itself tied with HTC for manufacturing 20% of the smartphones in people’s pockets, which we could probably chalk up to corporate support balancing out HTC consumer advertising campaigns. These results are all well and good, and I’m sure they’ll be quoted for quite some time, but they come right on the cusp of change. I’m interested to see how the landscape changes once heavy hitters like the Galaxy S II line and the iPhone 4S/5/whatever are released, and we’ll be sure to let you know as it happens.        
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| First “Light” iPhone Images Appear Posted: 28 Jul 2011 05:42 AM PDT And we’re off: the first photos of a “cheap” iPhone – not specifically of the iPhone 5 but of a light version of the iPhone 4 – are beginning to appear, the latest leak coming from a Vietnamese forum, Tinhte. We wouldn’t usually fall for this sort of thing but Tinhte has been correct in the past and so it’s at least worth a quick look. What we’re seeing here is an iPhone 4 without front and back glass panels. Instead, there are two translucent plastic sheets and metal banding around the edge. This would make the iPhone considerably cheaper to build. We’ve been hearing rumors of the “cheaper” iPhone for most of 2011 and the great prognosticator himself felt that an iPhone “lite” was imminent, potentially priced at pre-paid, developing market levels. After all, Tim Cook said he didn’t want the iPhone to be “just for the rich.” UPDATE – As iawa2k notes, this could be simply a conversion kit. However, I found the seemingly matte or mottled surface to be the most potentially interesting part of this “leak.” Is it the real one? Who the heck knows, but we’d be remiss not to note potential candidates.          
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