Posts Tagged ‘Smartphone’

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HP Quits Smartphone, Computer Business

August 24th, 2011
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Computer giant, Hewlett-Packard, is pulling out of the tablet and mobile phone market after poor sales of its products and stiff competition from rivals, Apple and Google.

The announcement, just a year after the company spent billions to acquire failing mobile maker, Palm, came as HP said it also plans to sell or spin off its PC division.

Together, the moves would take HP out of the consumer market, though it will continue to sell servers and other equipment to business customers.
The move comes in the wake of alarming news from retailer, Best Buy, who according to reports, is struggling to shift its stock of over 250,000 HP Touchpad tablet.

It has only shifted 10 per cent of the stock so far and is reportedly asking HP to take the rest back.

‘Our TouchPad has not been gaining enough traction in the marketplace,’ said HP CEO, Leo Apotheker, in a conference call.

“We have made the difficult but necessary decision to shut down the WebOS hardware operations.”
HP’s mobile device business, which includes the webOS-running smartphones and TouchPad has suffered while rivals Google and Apple have seen roaring sales of their products.

In a desperate bid to regain market share, HP last year snapped up Palm, a struggling wireless pioneer for $1.8 billion.

But since Palm’s comeback attempt, the popularity of the iPhone has only grown while phones running Android, which first hit the market in 2008, abound.

According to research firm, IDC, Apple took the top spot in the second quarter, while Samsung, a big maker of Android phones, took second place in unit sales.

Nokia came in third, while BlackBerry maker, Research In Motion, took fourth.

The PC division is HP’s biggest revenue generator but least profitable division.

The move has long been rumoured, but just six months ago HP dismissed reports of the possibility as “irresponsible reporting”.

Meanwhile, Google Inc. and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals in the US, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and the approval of Motorola Mobility’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2011 or early 2012.

Source:http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2011/08/23/hp-quits-smartphone-computer-business/

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HTC EVO 3D brings depth to smartphones

July 26th, 2011
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Watching and interacting with content in 3D has been around for a few years.

Putting it on a smartphone, though, is something new all together. The HTC EVO 3D brings the 3D technology on an Android phone that does a really good job of displaying 3D images and videos.

Where the experience falls short is when you want to view the 3D pictures and videos away from the phone.

3D content

The HTC EVO 3D does more than let you watch 3D content. I was able to watch The Green Hornet on the phone entirely in 3D.

The phone does more than let you play 3D games. I played a pretty cool Spider Man game on the phone that did a good job of mixing solid gameplay and the 3D display.

Where this phone distinguishes itself is in how it lets you produce 3D content.

The 5 megapixel camera works great for standard 2D images and high-definition video. But you can shoot 3D images and video by moving a small switch on the phone from 2D to 3D.

The resulting images and videos are pretty good considering no glasses are needed to view them. You can clearly see depth in the images. I took a picture of a monster truck that made it appear as if the truck was a good bit in front of the backdrop.

The challenge is being able to share the images you create or even just view them on something other than the phone. The phone can easily share content with computers and televisions. You’ll need a 3D compatible display to look at the 3D content produced with the phone.

The other stuff

This phone obviously does more than 3D. It’s actually a pretty good Android smartphone. It runs on an updated version of the HTC Sense Android skin. That gives the phone several ways to personalize the experience and brings the Sense user interface several new tweaks that make finding and sharing content much easier.

One of my favorite features is the HTC Watch movie library. You can log in through your phone to get access to tons of films. I was able to view The Green Hornet through HTC Watch. The only real issue I have with the phone is that it’s not 4G compatible. Sprint offers some pretty good 4G connections in select markets. Valley owners of this phone will be left out of the 4G party once Phoenix gets access.

Let’s be honest.

The truth about a phone like the HTC EVO 3D is that it is a good smartphone that will do most everything the other similar devices on the market can do. It’s an Android phone, so it has some of the same benefits – such as an open platform and easy access to files – and deficiencies – such as a slow camera and bad battery life – other Android phones do.

What the EVO 3D does differently is life up to its name. Viewing 3D content on a mobile phone is a pretty cool thing. It would be far cooler if I personally had a way to view the photos and videos on my T.V. or computer monitor. That deficiency, though, is the result of my own personal hardware, not a problem with the phone.

Fans of the 3D technology should definitely consider this phone. Everyone else should know that it’s a good smartphone running on a solid network.

Source:http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2011/07/25/20110725htc-evo-3d-review.html

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Does Hardware in Smartphones Matter?

May 24th, 2011
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Silly question. Of course it matters, otherwise we would not be getting 1080p phones and 3D-capable devices with the ability to run applications our PCs ran four or five years ago.
ZoomBut how much attention do you have to pay to the hardware in smartphones that are on carrier shelves today?

I consider myself a moderate geek and always enjoyed comparing hardware specs and being at the bleeding edge of computer hardware, at least as far as my budget reasoning permitted. That has changed somewhat over the past years, perhaps as a result of the general commoditization of hardware (and growing age.) However, I noticed that I was paying much more attention lately to smartphone hardware, especially as the first dual-core phones arrived.

That was an enlightening moment by any measure. Faster hardware is not necessarily better hardware and it may not matter at all in the grand scheme of smartphone usage.

Several months ago, I purchased an HTC-built G2 phone with an 800 MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. The phone had issues, especially on the battery side, which barely lasted 4 hours under heavy use, but it was a decent phone otherwise. The only performance issue I ever noticed was a boot time of more than 1 minute. Now a phone geek, I could not wait to get my hands on a dual-core phone to see how app performance would improve. So I got a LG-built G2x phone, which uses Nvidia’s 1 GHz dual-core Tegra processor. The effect: Boot time is down to less than 20 seconds and Firefox is blazingly fast in JavaScript benchmarks (about 3 times faster than the G2 in Sunspider), but I would still call it the worst phone I ever owned (just behind the RIM Blackberry Pearl).

The touchscreen is less sensitive and a nightmare in games that require accuracy. Application stability is even worse as the default Android browser takes leisurely pauses now and then, the core phone app crashes frequently during dialing and I have gotten used to the fact that my G2X reboots itself three or four times a day. I would love to get by G2 from my girlfriend back, but since she has seen the G2X, my chances aren’t that good. I am not going to bash the G2X, even if my criticism is admittedly harsh. This may be a lemon and I am waiting for a replacement device.

The important observation is that the hardware may be, in the current competitive smartphone landscape, a nice-to-have feature, even if you are shelling a lot of money for your gadget and expect the very best from it. The true value of your phone, however, may not be so much single-core or dual-core at this time. It is platform integration. Apple is, conceivably, leading this discipline since it has only one two devices (excluding tablets) that are fine-tuned to work with its software platform. Just like its desktops and notebooks, Apple is recreating an overall experience – and experience that is tough to match by an Android or Windows Phone manufacturer. HTC or LG will never understand Android as well as Apple understands iOS.

A few weeks ago, I was called by a friend who had trouble with his new entry-level Android phone. He was tired of his iPhone, thought it was overkill and did not want to pay AT&T’s high carrier fees anymore. However, that opinion changed quickly – he got an Android phone with a 3″ screen and learned that Android on a 3 inch screen is a pain in the you-know-what to use. It had a horrible graphics engine and a build quality that suggested Yugo may have returned as a phone. Yes, he should have looked closer before he bought the phone, but it reminded of my LG and the overall lack of dedication to build a device that just makes sense from a usability view.

You can look a fragmentation from different angles – you can defend the Android model and you can attack it in various ways. But you can’t lose your attention to detail and it seems that Google has given phone developers too much freedom in creating new devices. Perhaps it is time to pull back a bit and make sure that tougher standards have been met and better phones are being rolled out to market. Inferior hardware can quickly kill a product image, especially the perception of quality. Microsoft has made its fair share of experience here.

Hardware that works in sync with the overall platform makes it clear that faster and newer chips do not necessarily enhance the user experience.

Source:http://www.tomsguide.com/us/google-android-apple-ios-iphpone-user-experience,news-11275.html

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Preston Gralla: IT is caught in crossfire when it comes to smartphone privacy

May 10th, 2011
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The news that iPhones, iPads and Android devices secretly track the locations of their owners poses a potentially serious dilemma for IT staffs. If someone’s manager asks IT to retrieve that data and hand it over, what should IT do? We certainly have to acknowledge that a device that’s used for business purposes but automatically tracks personal

information blurs the line between personal and corporate information.

First, a bit of background. It was recently revealed that iPhones and iPads track their owners’ locations and store that information in unencrypted files on the devices and on the owners’ computers. Android devices do the same, but the files aren’t also stored on computers.

In the case of iPhones and iPads, approximately 100 data points — in other words, precise information about places the user has visited — are logged every day. A single file can have tens of thousands of these data points.

Because the files containing these data points can be found on employees’ computers, the IT staff has easy access to them. And even in the case of Android devices, where the data is stored only on the phones themselves, IT staffers can get access to them as well, by simply taking possession of the devices.

Normally, anything done on a company’s hardware is considered rightfully accessible to the business. Email and information about the websites a user visits aren’t considered private — the company has the right to examine it.

That standard would seem to apply as well when the hardware is a smartphone or a tablet. Email, Internet and app use would fall under the dominion of the business, just as they would with a PC, and could rightfully be examined. But can that guideline be extended to location data? Employees are often required to carry company-issued smartphones at all times, including after work and on weekends. And now we know that as they do so, their movements are being tracked, with the data stored in a file.

Legally Hazy
So I’ll ask the question again: Does the user’s employer have the right to examine that data if it owns the devices it’s stored on? And if it does, should it do so? Is it really an employer’s business if an employee goes to his daughter’s softball practice on a Saturday afternoon? How about if an employee goes to a strip club on a Saturday night? Even though I don’t frequent strip clubs, I want to say no, that information should remain private. But if the information is stored on a device that belongs to the employer, it’s a hazy legal issue.

IT staffs, which have the technical capability to gather the location data, will inevitably be caught in the crossfire when this question arises. But until companies develop clear, legally valid guidelines about what information can be gathered and what can’t, IT shouldn’t do it.

And this is only one of several complicated issues on the horizon. For example, when someone uses a personal smartphone to conduct company business, is everything on the phone fair game for the enterprise?

The upshot: If you’re in IT, get your company to develop clear guidelines on smartphone data now. If you don’t, it’ll come back to bite you in the future.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/356168/Smartphone_Privacy_IT_Caught_in_the_Crossfire

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iPad, smartphones dragging down PC sales

November 29th, 2010
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Gartner has lowered its 2010 and 2011 global forecasts for PC shipments, saying sales will be lower than expected due to growing interest in Apple’s iPad and other tablet computers. The research firm said Monday that PC makers are on track to ship 352.4 million units this year, up 14.3% from 2009. Gartner had predicted in September a 17.9% increase.

Gartner also lowered its 2011 forecast to 409 million units, a 15.9% increase from this year. The firm’s earlier estimate was for an 18.1% increase.

Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal said the lower estimates are based on slower consumer sales. The drop is “due in no small part to growing user interest in media tablets such as the iPad.”
“Over the longer term, media tablets are expected to displace around 10% of PC units by 2014,” Atwal said in a statement.

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Because the majority of potential challengers have yet to reach the market, the iPad is the biggest cause among tablets of slowing PC sales. The flat computer with a 9.7-inch diagonal touch screen accounts for more than 95% of the consumer tablet market today. That percentage could change as tablets hit the market from Hewlett-Packard, Samsung Electronics, Acer and others.

Along with tablets, future smartphones, which are expected to be more capable than devices in the market today, will also hurt PC sales, Gartner said. Such non-PCs offer better on-the-go computing. While it would seem that laptops would be most affected by these ultra-portable devices, desktop sales also will be impacted, as cloud-based applications make it possible to use tablets and smartphones to do tasks that once required a PC.

Gartner analyst George Shiffler blamed the PC industry for current trends, saying it has focused too much on driving sales through lower prices, and not enough on innovation. “As the PC market slows, vendors that differentiate themselves through services and technology innovation rather than unit volume and price will dictate the future,” he said.

However, the new generation of mobile devices is here to stay, Gartner said, and businesses and consumers will look to these less expensive devices to do more mobile computing, thereby waiting longer to replace PCs as their importance diminishes.

Other factors affecting the PC market include expected purchasing trends in emerging markets, where PC sales are growing much faster than in mature markets. Gartner believes there is a good chance that consumers in emerging markets will leapfrog PCs in the future and move directly to alternative computing devices.

Source:http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/smb/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228400158

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Rhapsody hits Blackberry smartphone

October 19th, 2010
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If you are a fan of streaming music at home or on your computer via Rhapsody and use a Blackberry we have good news for you today. Rhapsody has announced that its steaming music app has landed for Blackberry smartphones and with the addition of the app Rhapsody is now on all major smartphone platforms.

The app allows the user to access playlists anywhere there is a netbook connection. The Rhapsody for Blackberry app is fully integrated into the hardware on the Curve smartphone. The device has to be running Blackberry OS 5.0 or higher to use the app.

Once the app is installed, the user can access their own playlists, radio stations, and playlists compiled by Rhapsody editors. There are more than 200 genre-based stations on Rhapsody. The app is available for download right now at Rhapsody.com with a subscription required at $9.99 monthly for music access.

Source:http://www.i4u.com/41192/rhapsody-hits-blackberry-smartphone

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If the iPad is a PC, then so is every modern smartphone

October 19th, 2010
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An interesting discussion is currently raging through the world of computing, or more accurately, through the world of bloggers and analysts. It basically comes down to this: should the iPad be included in laptop and desktop sales figures? If it is included – Apple becomes the largest PC manufacturer in the United States. But, if the iPad should be included – why not the modern smartphone?

Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore used IDC’s figures and added the iPad into the mix – a type of device normally excluded from IDC’s figures (which looks at traditional computers like desktops and laptops). The result? Apple suddenly has the largest marketshare in the US computer market, at 25%. The discussion that has ensued is this: is the iPad a PC? Should it be included?

I’d say the discussion shouldn’t focus on whether or not the iPad should be included – but about what that means for other types of devices. If the iPad is considered a computer along the lines of laptops and desktops, then why isn’t the iPhone or iPod Touch considered a computer as well? What about all those Android phones out there? Hardware-wise, they’re all pretty much the same; the iPad is just a large iPhone with UI tweaks to make better use of the larger screen.

How much more can you do on an iPad that you can’t do on an iPhone? The iPad surely makes some things more comfortable, but then again, a normal desktop PC makes some things more comfortable than a laptop. In the end, both the modern smartphone and the tablet are used for the exact same thing: consuming media, playing games, browsing, and keeping in touch with friends. It’s just that smartphones are used on the go, whereas tablets are used at your destination.

In other words, if the iPad should be included in computer sales figures, shouldn’t modern smartphones be included as well? If not, is screen size what determines whether something is included or not? A 4.3″ smartphone should be excluded, but what about the 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab? What if someone makes a pocketable dual 3.5″ Courier-like device?

I think the time is ripe to remove the distinction between smartphones/tablets/computers altogether. The iPad, the iPhone, the EVO 4G, HTC Desire HD – they’re all computers, and they should all be included in these figures. Suddenly, Nokia would be one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world. A whole bag of cookies for anyone who can combine smartphone/tablet/computer market share figures into a single graph or chart.

Source:http://www.osnews.com/story/23905/If_the_iPad_Is_a_PC_Then_So_Is_Every_Modern_Smartphone

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