MobileCrunch |  |
- Charted: Android Fragmentation
- RIM Faces Class Action Lawsuit Thanks To BlackBerry Outage
- BlackBerry Bold 9790 Caught On Film Ahead Of Dubai Debut?
- Crazy Nokia Kinetic Concept Does The Twist
- LG’s Dual-Screen DoublePlay Smartphone Lands At T-Mobile For $99 On-Contract
- Social Gaming Network PapayaMobile Coming To iOS
- The Nexus One Isn’t Invited To The Ice Cream Sandwich Social
- Nokia: Let’s Call It A Comeback
- Augmented Reality App Maker CrowdOptic Scores $500,000 In New Funding
- iPhone App Downloads Dropped In September, iPhone 4S Anticipation Pegged As Culprit
- Local Recommendations App Alfred Now Does Group Recommendations
- BlackBerry Bold 9900 And Curve 9360 Earn The MasterCard PayPass Cert, First SIM-Based Smartphones To Do So
| Charted: Android Fragmentation Posted: 27 Oct 2011 03:45 AM PDT  Michael DeGusta has done an amazing job charting the fragmentation of Android by visualizing the history of operating system updates on Android smartphones for sale in the United States. Compare this to iPhone updates (which DeGusta did), and it paints a telling picture. Writes DeGusta:
I don’t want to steal the guy’s thunder by reblogging the whole thing, so go check out his chart and solid analysis of what’s going on DeGusta’s his Tumblr blog. Company: Android Website: android.com In July 2005, Google acquired Android, a small startup company based in Palo Alto, CA. Android’s co-founders who went to work at Google included Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire), Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (one of the first engineers at WebTV). At the time, little was known about the functions of Android other than they made software for mobile phones. This began rumors that Google was planning to enter...
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| RIM Faces Class Action Lawsuit Thanks To BlackBerry Outage Posted: 26 Oct 2011 02:57 PM PDT  Sorry RIM, but it looks like the promise of free apps and tech support weren’t enough to assuage the masses. According to the Financial Post, RIM is preparing to deal with a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Canadian users affected by the company’s widespread service outage. Filed in Quebec Superior Court by the Consumer Law Group, the complaint seeks compensation for all of RIM’s customers that “were unable to access their email, BlackBerry Messenger service (BBM), and/or Internet for the period of October 11 to 14, 2011." RIM hasn’t received the complaint yet, but representatives have said that the company will “formally respond” to the matter soon. The lawsuit’s lead complainant was an avid user who used his BlackBerry to communicate with his friends across the western hemisphere. According to the formula laid out in the complaint, he will only be able to collect $1.25 in damages from RIM — not much, but the payouts could quickly add up if the lawsuit picks up steam. The amount of damages owed is calculated on a person by person basis, and accounts for how long a customer was left without service, so some users will net more than others. It’s tough to put a finger on how much RIM may have to shell out here, as the company has avoided offering estimates of how many customers were affected. Still, co-CEO Jim Balsillie called the outage the biggest in the company’s history in a recent conference call, so RIM could be looking at a sizable number customers itching for some restitution. Then again, of all the places struck by the outage, North America seemed to be affected the least. RIM may be able to pay off a few thousand customers and move on, but considering their luck, I doubt things will go that smoothly. Fans of legalese can find the full complaint reproduced below.
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| BlackBerry Bold 9790 Caught On Film Ahead Of Dubai Debut? Posted: 26 Oct 2011 01:33 PM PDT  RIM may be pinning their hopes on BBX, but that doesn’t mean they’re done churning out classic BlackBerrys. Case in point: the revamped Bold 9790 has been revealed in a new set of photos that doesn’t look like someone took them during an earthquake. The 9790′s existence isn’t exactly a secret, but these images (courtesy of @moha87_) represent the most up-to-date look at what RIM is working on behind closed doors. Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the new Bold (on the left) sports a funky new “home row” of keys that already seem to have polarized the BlackBerry fanbase. The rest of the improvements are a bit harder to discern: a 2.44-inch touch display sits up front, and a 5-megapixel camera rests on the back. It runs the BlackBerry 7 OS (naturally), and finally moves the charging port to the bottom of the device. Anecdotal evidence also reveals that it feels “lighter and slimmer” than the current Bold 9700. Interestingly, the Twitter account belongs to a gentleman named Mohammad Al Bastaki who just happens to live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Could it be a simple coincidence that RIM and Porsche Design are holding an event tomorrow in that very city to show off their exclusive new collaboration? Maybe — it doesn’t exactly scream Porsche, but I’m half-hoping that this design takes the stage instead of the angular nightmare we saw last time.
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| Crazy Nokia Kinetic Concept Does The Twist Posted: 26 Oct 2011 11:37 AM PDT  What. The. Bleep. Not to say that Nokia’s new smartphones aren’t interesting, but this crazy flexible smartphone-like device CNET spotted over at Nokia World has to be the coolest thing to grace the showroom floors. Unfortunately, CNET reports that its strictly in the prototype phase, and may never become an actual product that’s for sale. Either way, the Nokia Kinetic device feels like a step into the future, with a real OLED display and all the innards of your standard computing device — but this thing bends! The device scrolls through media collections (whether that be photos or music) when twisted in opposite directions by both hands. Bending the display inward or outward controls zoom for photos, as well as the pause and play functions while listening to music. You can also tap the corners to pan through photos. While we won’t be seeing this flexible interface on consumer products anytime soon, Nokia may have some interesting implementations in the pipeline. I, for one, will surely have my eyes peeled. CNET has a video of the UI in action here. Nokia is a Finnish multinational communications corporation. It is primarily engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices and in converging Internet and communications industries. They make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Nokia is the owner of Symbian operation system and partially owns MeeGo operating system.
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| LG’s Dual-Screen DoublePlay Smartphone Lands At T-Mobile For $99 On-Contract Posted: 26 Oct 2011 09:31 AM PDT  If you are of the opinion that two screens are better than one, I come bearing good news. LG’s new DoublePlay smartphone has today been made available at T-Mobile. We first got a peek at the device back in June, though we were pretty uncertain on details at that point. Then a leaked T-Mo roadmap shed some light, which leads us to today’s official launch. The LG DoublePlay’s claim to fame are its dual screens — one 3.5-inch primary screen, with a 2-inch secondary screen landing square in the middle of its split QWERTY keyboard. The screens can work in tandem on a single task, or can be used separately to, say, update your Facebook and send a text at the same time. The DoublePlay touts a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. You’ll find a 5-megapixel camera on the back, equipped with LED flash, auto focus, and the ability to capture 720p video. Unfortunately, there’s no front-facing cam for the DoublePlay, so hopefully multi-tasking is more important to potential buyers than video chat. LG understands that not everyone enjoys QWERTY keyboards, and has preloaded the Swype application along with T-Mobile’s Group Text and Cloud Text services. We originally thought the DoublePlay would go for $149 on-contract (courtesy of that leaked roadmap), but it would seem that the phone gods are in a good mood today. The LG DoublePlay will retail for $99 on a new two-year contract, and is ready to be picked up at a T-Mobile store today. T-Mobile is a mobile telephone operator headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile has 101 million subscribers making it the worlds sixth largest mobile phone service provider globally. The LG Group is South Korea’s third largest conglomerate that produces electronics, chemicals, and telecommunications products and operates subsidiaries like LG Electronics, LG Telecom, Zenith Electronics and LG Chem in over 80 countries.
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| Social Gaming Network PapayaMobile Coming To iOS Posted: 26 Oct 2011 09:25 AM PDT  The popular social gaming network for Android, PapayaMobile, is announcing today that it’s now expanding its gaming platform to iOS. The company is making its social development toolkits available to iOS developers as a beta release, allowing them to connect users on both platforms (iOS and Android) for in-game features including challenges, game invites, leaderboards and more. In addition, developers who have built their social games using Papaya’s Social Game Engine can now export both iOS and Android versions of their game from a single code base, the company says. To kick off the iOS support, several third-party game developers will bring their new games to the Papaya network in the coming weeks as iOS releases. The current list of expected games includes X-City by Aidi Game, Contagion by 2Clams and Burger Joint by Arctic Empire. All developers will also have access to PapayaMobile's recently launched Gateway to China program, which localizes, distributes and promotes Western games in the Chinese market. Earlier this summer, Papaya announced it had reached 25 million users – 940% growth since the beginning of last year. The growth was attributed to the ever-increasing size of the Android market. Now, the company says it has over 30 million users. And all this before it hits the iPhone. PapayaMobile raised $18 million in a Series B round led by Chinese venture firm Keytone Ventures and DCM this April, bringing Papaya's total funding to $22 million. Last week, the company announced, too, that it will be one of the first startups to receive an investment from DCM’s A-Fund. The $100 million Asian A-Fund is intended to support early-stage startups focused on Android. DCM partnered with gaming giant Tencent, Japan's largest mobile gaming social network GREE and Japan's second largest mobile operator KDDI, to fund the startups, each which will receive anywhere from $250,000 to $5 million. PapayaMobile is Android's leading social gaming network, offering a full suite of social gaming features, Android's most diverse set of monetization tools, and the fastest 2D OpenGL engine. Our products allow developers to maximize the return on investment of their games, while virally marketing to the 10 million active Papayans to instantly increase user acquisition. All of PapayaMobile's SDKs and Game Engine products are open and free to use, serving as a one-stop-shop for all game developer...
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| The Nexus One Isn’t Invited To The Ice Cream Sandwich Social Posted: 26 Oct 2011 07:54 AM PDT  We’re all ready to get a hefty helping of Ice Cream Sandwich, but some may wait longer than others. HTC is still firmly on the fence about details, while Motorola has promised Android 4.0 to the Droid RAZR in the first half of 2012. Meanwhile, Nexus handset owners will be on a shorter waiting list, with the exception of the Nexus One. Unfortunately for owners of the original Google phone, Google has confirmed that the Nexus One is just “too old” for the new software. Google’s Product Management Director of Android Hugo Barra has confirmed that the Nexus S, on the other hand, will get a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich “within weeks.” The Telegraph reports that Google hopes to get Android 4.0 out to the Nexus S just after the release of the Galaxy Nexus, an NFC-capable phone recently announced in Hong Kong. Then again, Nexus S owners can get an almost-complete version of Android 4.0 over at the XDA-Developer forums. Brave Nexus One owners can also find a flashable ROM of an Ice Cream Sandwich build in this thread. Barra went on to discuss the various joys of Ice Cream Sandwich, taking the opportunity to strike back against Steve Ballmer’s blatant attack on the platform. Last week, Microsoft’s CEO said that Android “required a Computer Science degree” to use, which Barra unsurprisingly doesn’t agree with. “Android, especially this new version 4.0, is an incredibly intuitive platform – the best one we've ever built. There are power user features, but there is no need for an instruction manual or a computer science degree," Barra said. Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information....
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| Nokia: Let’s Call It A Comeback Posted: 26 Oct 2011 07:51 AM PDT  It’s been a long time coming but after a decade of slowly losing its way, I think Nokia is headed back from the land of the lost. This is not to say that I think the two new Lumia phones will pull Nokia out of its doldrums. However, I think the company has finally made some bold, intelligent decisions and, like it or not, Windows Phone will save them over the next few years. First, Nokia cut its losses. For most of this decade Nokia has been producing phones that people bought because, in short, there was little else available. Europe bought Nokia because it was local, useable, and, above all, cheap while Asia and America liked the phones but rarely saw them as available and affordable. Samsung started in on Nokia’s lunch and Apple finished it. Now Microsoft, pardon the extended metaphor, is going to have to serve up dinner or they’re toast. By breaking with MeeGo and Symbian, Nokia has ensured that IT departments will look at Nokia phones seriously again. Windows Phone may not seem popular, but rest assured that once Windows 8 hits it will be an important part of the Microsoft ecosystem. As fanboyish as we are here, I well understand the impact of Windows on the tech landscape and once Windows 8 and Windows Phone merge, Nokia’s profile will improve immensely. Second, Nokia has always built good hardware and the N9 and these two new phones are no different. Strong, metal casing, a bright touchscreen, and meticulous manufacturing standards have made Nokias the workhorses of the mobile age and these phones don’t stray from that. Third, Nokia can grab Apple’s scraps – and RIM’s whole market share. There is still an untapped group of consumers that are looking for a smartphone but aren’t quite sure what to buy. Consider Nokia’s current subscriber base, at least in Europe – they’re not selling to young, plugged in professionals. Instead, they’re selling to folks who are already loyal to the brand and have had a Nokia cellphone since the days of the 8120. The smartphone revolution passed them by and, in the same way Samsung tried to capitalize on the “soccer mom” market with phones like the Windows Mobile-powered Blackjack, Nokia now has an untapped market. The difference, however, is the branding. Two familiar brands, Microsoft and Nokia, are better than one – RIM. Nokia’s return isn’t guaranteed but if you can give Elop credit for anything it’s in giving the company a bit more time to turn around. [Image: gosphotodesign/Shutterstock]
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| Augmented Reality App Maker CrowdOptic Scores $500,000 In New Funding Posted: 26 Oct 2011 07:24 AM PDT  CrowdOptic, a maker of an augmented reality app and mobile analytics solutions for the enterprise, has raised $500,000 in new funding today in a round led by Bowman Capital. According to CEO Jon Fisher, CrowdOptic will use the new capital to accelerate development of products in the area of mobile-powered technology for live events as well as expand the security features of its platform. For those unfamiliar with CrowdOptic, the company makes a platform that can detect where crowds are focused in real-time by triangulating their angle and bearing via the GPS and compass on users’ smartphones. It then applies algorithms to detect shifts or anomalies in the crowd’s attention patterns. A dashboard and alerts system can communicate with onsite security personnel when a possible threat is detected. The platform also supports real-time advertising, broadcasting and communication during live events, including augmented reality displays. This is how CrowdOptic gets the crowd to use their smartphones in the first place – a cool augmented reality app. At a sporting event, for example, a fan might be able to point their phone at one of the players in order to get more info about them, like their stats, or they could receive messages sent out from the team to its fanbase. Recently, CrowdOptic signed security services firm Andrews International onto its platform, and will now provide its technology to its 15,000 security personnel for use at the events it oversees. "WithCrowdOptic, we will be able to surveil the crowd and support our personnel with a stronger arsenal than onsite security cameras," Randy Andrews, CEO of Andrews International, said in a statement. CrowdOptic is a privately held, venture-backed company based in San Francisco.
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| iPhone App Downloads Dropped In September, iPhone 4S Anticipation Pegged As Culprit Posted: 26 Oct 2011 06:53 AM PDT  Marketing technology company Fiksu’s data for the month of September shows the year’s biggest drop in application downloads, a trend it claims was impacted by mobile consumers holding out for the next Apple iPhone. Last month, the company speculated that a hiatus in sales of older iPhone models was impacting app downloads, and Apple’s recent admission of a drop of 3 million device sales last quarter appears to validate that claim. The company publishes its Fiksu Indexes monthly to measure fluctuations in competition for rank in the app stores and the cost to acquire loyal users in order to help mobile app marketers benchmark their performance against industry averages. In September, the Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the Top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps, dropped by 6% from 4.06 million downloads in August to 3.8 million. This is the largest decrease Fiksu has seen this year, since it began measuring app store trends in May. Meanwhile, the Fiksu Cost per Loyal User Index, which measures the cost of user acquisition, increased last month. It went up by 10 cents to $1.64, a 6% jump from $1.54 in August. The company also saw a continued decline in organic iPhone app downloads during September (a 4% drop), though not as bad as in August (a 35% drop). Organic downloads are those where people actively seek out new apps in the app store without first seeing an ad. The drop here could also have been somewhat impacted by the anticipation of the new iPhone, as consumers weren’t looking to download new apps to what would soon be their old iPhone. Fiksu, Inc. is a new marketing technology company. Fiksu™ for Mobile Apps is the company's first solution designed to help mobile app brands achieve their business goals faster and more cost-effectively. Based in Boston, Mass., Fiksu – which means ‘smart’ in Finnish – is venture-backed by Charles River Ventures. The company was born from Fluent Mobile, developer of the Fluent News™ app.
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| Local Recommendations App Alfred Now Does Group Recommendations Posted: 26 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT  Clever Sense’s local recommendations app Alfred was already doing a great job suggesting restaurants, coffee shops, bars and nightclubs using its artificial intelligence-based system. But today, it’s going to do something even more extraordinary - it will make suggestions based on who you’re with. This new feature, rolling out today through an app update in iTunes, will combine your personal likes and interests with those of your friends in order to suggest places you will all agree on. In case you’re not familiar with what Alfred does, check out Jason’s earlier review here and his deep dive into its tech here. Simply put, Alfred is a smart, algorithmically-based recommendations system that understands what you like using something called model-based learning. This system lets Alfred build sophisticated, but highly personalized, recommendations. To generate its suggestions, Alfred sorts through hundreds of attributes associated with a given user. According to CEO Babak Pahlavan, each user has, on average, 200 of these “tags” that help Alfred understand a person’s individual interests. And this is in addition to an average of 24 explicit “likes” on Alfred itself. When combining and comparing these tags from one user with another, you’re now talking about thousands of data points Alfred has to consider. The breakthrough here is that Alfred can do exactly this, even for groups larger than two, with minimal impact to the performance of its recommendations engine. In other words, Alfred just got a lot smarter but it didn’t slow down in doing so. The group recommendations feature, however, only works if your friends are also Alfred users. To encourage your friends to try the app, so you both can use the new feature, the app now suggests you send them a text or email invite. In the future, Alfred will begin to surface recommendations for other categories of businesses, but in the near-term, it’s working towards using its technology for deal recommendations. Instead of us being spammed with emails from daily deal providers like Groupon and LivingSocial, Alfred will use its knowledge of your personal interests to recommend which deals it knows you’ll like. Pahlavan says this deal curation feature is on track to arrive by year-end. The company is also working on a Web-based and Android version of its system. The updated app will roll out to iTunes users sometime today. The Clever Sense Platform makes sense of the real world by harvesting and sifting through the vast amount of information available on the Web. The platform is designed to connect the online world with the offline world: delivering the right information to the users in the right context (right time, right place, right intent). At the heart of the Clever Sense Platform is the Serendipity Engine: a personalized context-aware right-time discovery engine. The Serendipity Engine adds a layer of real-time...
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| Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:32 AM PDT  The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and Curve 9360 have something to brag about: They are the first SIM-based smartphone to earn the MasterCard PayPass Certification. This states MasterCard feels the phones have the proper functionality and security to handle MasterCard’s NFC-based PayPass payment system. MasterCard’s contactless payment system rolled out years ago but the company announced earlier this year the system would hit SIM-based systems. Gemalto kickstarted the effort with its SIM cards, which also earned a nod from MasterCard. But now that the Bold 9900 and Curve 9360 are PayPass certified, any MasterCard PayPass-issuing bank can assign a PayPass account to the SIM card within the phones. Andrew Bocking, Vice President, Handheld Software Product Management at RIM indicated in a released statement today that RIM is proactively working with carrier partners, banks, retailers and other industry players in regards to NFC technology. This certification is a “significant step forward in the way we use mobile devices for payments” he said. The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is RIM’s latest flagship device and sports a 2.8-inch touchscreen over a qwerty keypad. The device is currently sold by several carriers worldwide including Vodafone, Telus, Rogers and T-Mobile USA. Likewise, the Curve 9360 is also a qwerty worldphone but does not feature the touchscreen found in the 9900. Both launched last August as part of RIM’s push into the NFC arena.
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