Similarly, the Rong Zun 758 Razor Phone, was - as the name suggests - a phone that had a razor at the bottom edge of the device, perfect for a quick shave before an important call. So was it a razor with a phone, or a phone with a razor?]]>
"Huawei Consumer Business Group adopts an open approach towards mobile operating systems to provide a range of choices for consumers," the company said in a statement to FierceWireless. "However, most of our products are based on Android OS, [and] at this stage there are no plans to launch a dual-OS smartphone in the near future." No Acer dual-boot PC, no Huawei dual-boot phone. Any others? (And a dual-boot phone made even less sense than a dual-boot PC.)]]>
Yesterday we gave you almost all the information of the upcoming flagship phone you need. We already know the second camera will be used for selective focus and 3D shooting. The phone's specifications are also out detailing the One will feature a 5" 1080p screen, Snapdragon 801 chipset, 4MP camera on the back and a 5MP front-facing camera. Wonder if the comprehensive leaks of this year's product - which we understand HTC isn't pleased about - come from outside contractors; HTC was said to have closed some of its production facilities last year to cut costs.]]>
The OS is still a bit buggy, but it's impressively complete for an initial semi-commercial release. Once the bugs start getting ironed out, and developers start really looking at building solid apps for the system, it should offer a real alternative to Android for those on a budget or who have privacy or other ethical concerns around using Google's OS.]]>
This is clearly a challenge for any handset OEM, but especially for one at the high end. There are fewer and fewer new high-end buyers coming into the market and the ones you sold to in the past may increasingly be tempted by ever improving cheaper phones. So a high-end phone maker risks losing sales if it stays at the high-end, or losing margin if it makes cheaper phones, or both.
In case it isn' t obvious, this is the essence of the bear story for Apple. There's lots of froth and nonsense swirling around as well, but this is a perfectly coherent and intelligent story. It isn't that Apple is losing sales to Android (it isn't, at least not yet) - it's that the high-end market itself may be close to tapped out. This is the point where you have to figure out how the phone market is going to split.]]>
Meanwhile, Phil Porter, who had worked with [Richard] Frenkiel on the original system, came up with a permanent answer to an interesting question. Should a cellular phone have a dial tone? Porter made a radical suggestion that it shouldn’t. A caller should dial a number and then push “send.” That way, the mobile caller would be less rushed; also, the call would be connected for a shorter time, thus putting less strain on the network. That this idea—dial, then send—would later prove crucial to texting technology was not even considered.It’s amazing that although this suggestion was made in 1971, we’re leveraging it more than 40 years later with text messaging. How many other technologies and businesses are built on top of SMS that wouldn’t have existed without this decision? I’m sure an SMS-like technology would have come along regardless of this decision but it still makes me wonder how significantly past technological decisions influence us in the present.]]>
Now, this being Facebook, nothing really works unless you sign in. The problem is, all of this is pre-release, so it's set up to only work for Facebook employee accounts. Everything is basically packing unintentional always-on DRM, so screenshots are going to be a little sparse. Could this be HTC's revival - or just another phone with Facebook, like the one it released a couple of years ago? Seems though the app and launcher will also work on Samsung's Touchwiz; that means an app that would be front and centre on your phone.]]>
Even if it looks like he might.
In the past two years the 59-year-old retiree has been pestered by people showing up at all hours of the day and night at his house, demanding their phones. They've yelled, shown him evidence, called the police - sworn that their phone is in his house.
But he's no thief. Bizarre.]]>
We'd always known mobile to be a "fragmented" space, with the number of handsets expanding seemingly by the day, but could we get a better picture of what that fragmentation looked like?
A dip into the data proved instructive.
Note: we've looked at the top 250 mobile phone models ranked in terms of pages viewed. We looked at traffic to m.guardian.co.uk, our native iPhone and Android apps, and mobile devices accessing the guardian.co.uk desktop site. We did not include traffic to our iPad edition app. The sheer number of different Samsung devices by 2012 is remarkable. However...]]>
Don’t weep too much for Microsoft. It’s design decisions give it an advantage in the tablet to notebook continuum that is ultimately more valuable. Not only that, so far Apple has eschewed the Phablet space confirming it might remain a fairly small niche. So the question becomes, does Microsoft ignore Phablets completely? If not, how are they going to address them? ]]>
Samsung, with its popular "Galaxy" devices, is the biggest such partner and is quickly gaining market share. The South Korean company shipped 40.3% of all Android-based phones in the third quarter, according to IDC. Google has co-developed devices with Samsung and provided it early access to new versions of Android software.
Some Google executives have expressed fears the relationship could go sour if Samsung decided to use a "forked" version of Android, according to four people familiar with the matter. That means Samsung would create devices based on a version of Android that doesn't come with Google apps preinstalled.
Motorola is seen as a kind of insurance policy if Samsung shifts strategy, these people said, even though there is little evidence so far of such a move. Google could begin adopting an integrated approach of having its Motorola and Android units work more closely together, like Apple does with its hardware and software teams, they said. The idea of Motorola rivalling Apple or Samsung is presently ludicrous: those two companies have billions sunk in manufacturing and supply chains. Motorola is a minnow by comparison; it will take a long time and huge investment to really rival them. Is Google prepared for that?]]>
Of course, with great flexibility comes great complexity. The phone bombards you with warnings and disclaimers — sometimes upside-down. You really need a Learning Annex course to master this thing.]]>