Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news

The iPod was certainly not the first MP3 player on the market, but the note claims it succeeded due to providing the right combined feature set. My spin on this is simplicity and feature focus: The iPod does what it says to do, and nothing else, and fits very well with the fact that users have tons of MP3 files on their PCs already. Quote that confirms this theory: "Does the iPod have a radio or built-in mic? No, and the fact is that the vast majority of people DON'T CARE. That's what so many iPod critics just don't get: adding such features adds complexity that most people don't want."

What about mobile phones? Aren't they now devices with features that most users will never use or at least very seldomly? Something else comes in here: It's a status thing to have the latest phone with all the latest features (x Mpixels etc) but that still very few uses.

Entelligence: Understanding the success of the iPod and iPod mini - Engadget - www.engadget.com

I sure agree with this. It doesn't cost much extra to add (except the memory that needs to be upgraded (Flash or hard disk)). Most potential users will upload music they already have to the phone, so the use case is already there. Will the carriers and others sell more music this way? To some degree I'm sure they will, and music sales (especially singles sales) will start to move from CD to online sales. Those manufacturers that think one step ahead adds real music player controls to the phones.

2005's Hot Game: Musical Cell Phones

Mainland China is the leading country in use of mobile phone technology, even though a relatively small part of the population has a mobile phone (24.5%). China is also coming strong when it comes to making phones: "The number of mobile phone manufacturers increased from eight in 1998 to 37 last year with total production presently exceeding 250 million sets a year. "

Yahoo! News - China tops 329 million mobile phone subscribers

Finally when 3G starts to happen, it seems there are plenty of much better technologies that could (and will?) replace it. GSM didn't face that threat, as it was primarily focused on voice and broad commonality, rather than data performance. 3G (outside of voice) on the other hand has many competitors from outside of the telecom field.

Yahoo! News - 3G: Where Will It be this Time Next Year?

Regarding: "Security experts say plagues like these will target mobile phones, but others contend cell phone viruses are the tech equivalent of smallpox: To the best of anyone's knowledge, they exist only in labs."
Security experts of course give the darkest picture of the virus risk (it's their business), but it would be naive to think that a programmable device (which a Symbian OS or Mobile Windows device is) would not be in the risk zone if users are not careful when downloading and running applications. Also, Bluetooth is quite complex, in part to establish a secure framework for communication, but with complexity comes risks of bugs etc, that viruses can exploit.

Hints:
- Never download and run mobile applications from file sharing networks. You are asking for trouble, as most PC anti-virus software will not know what e.g. a .sis (Symbian OS) application is.
- Disable Bluetooth if you don't use it. A good precaution (however small the risk might be) and it saves on battery.

Yahoo! News - Some Fear Virus Threat to Cell Phones

At least iPod's sell very well. Price/performance-wise MP3 players with a hard disk are much more cost-efficient than ditto with Flash memory. They are also a bit more bulky, but the mini iPod blurs that notion. iTunes is of course not the reason for the success of the iPod, but has served as a marketing banner according to this article.

Yahoo! News - Apple's pint-sized iPod music player flying off shelves

Countering the negative Canalys report, both camera and MMS use seem to rapidly increase in the UK.

Digital Media Europe: News - 200% increase in UK camera phone usage

Like all trojans this requires the user to deliberately download an application that in this case states it's Metal Gear Solid. No doubt file sharing is increasing the risk of these kinds of attacks, as anyone can put anything on display for anyone to download (without any names (company or otherwise) being known). The sure cure would be to stay away from free downloads of applications, except from well-known web sites like download.com, but how many downloaders listen to such advise?

InfoWorld: New Trojan threatens Symbian smart phones: December 23, 2004: By : SECURITY : TELECOM

Note that most (or all) of the games listed are based on well-known PC or console games (primarily name-wise of course). They must also be reasonably good to be in this list, but brand recognition seems quite important for the success of mobile games.

I bought Chessmaster from Gameloft for $3 a few weeks ago. That's a good price for a quality game (despite it's minimal form factor). Buying Might&Magic and Neverwinter Nights seem tempting, or maybe Baldur's Gate. Maybe I should buy them all...

Top 10 Wireless Games of 2004 - Mobile Phones/PDAs News - Designtechnica News

According to this article the idea of advanced phones being used for corporate data services was in practice dead wrong, and that the killer app is really gaming. At least the industry is preparing for that, with a wave of acquisitions.

Jamba (acquired by Verisign of all companies) is stated as a mobile game provider. Jamba's main business is ringtones, and I believe that was the reason Verisign acquired them (being Europe's biggest provider of such), not for games.

When will Gameloft be acquired (from Ubisoft)?

Yahoo! News - Not Quiet on European Cell Phones

Zi Corp, like Tegic, provides software for predictive text input in mobile phones. Without it there would be much less SMS's sent, so they have both been catalysts to the SMS boom. Tegic is the clear market leader in this segment, but by Zi getting a deal with Nokia indicates it doesn't have to stay that way.

Yahoo! News - Zi Corp. licenses text technology to mobile phone giant Nokia

Interesting new solution, previously impossible to achieve.

Quote: "Varatouch expects the joystick to be used in gaming-centric mobile phones as well as mobile devices with larger or more complex menus or more advanced applications, as it will allow for variable-speed scrolling."

infoSync World : Analog joystick for mobile phones

An idea that seems completely bonkers: When we now have the possibility to download music (commercially or for free) removing lots of logistics (read: cost) from sales of music, The Phone House instead introduces music on MMC memory cards. Considering the price is very high (~$60) for Robbie Williams' Greatest Hits and the quality is low (considering both the album and a video fits in a 128 M card), it's seems like the worst of all worlds.

I applaud their will to experiment though, so let's see what happens.

Mobil - Allt om mobil kommunikation
(in Swedish)

If this can be verified to be true also in real-life settings the mobile industry will have to adapt or get hit hard.

Yahoo! News - Mobile Phone Radiation Harms DNA, New Study Finds: "Mobile Phone Radiation Harms DNA, New Study Finds"

New at least in mobile phones:
NFC = Near Field Communication
RFID = Radio Frequency Identification

Nokia is experimenting with creating business around these phenomena, that are useful for vertical applications (logistics, warehousing, point-of-sale etc) but potentially also for consumers (payment, product info etc).

Yahoo! News - Nokia Offers Mobile Workforce Tools

Motorola will make a phone for Apple that can play iTunes music. As iTunes uses AAC the question is what's new (many phones support MP3 and AAC), but maybe it's also possible to purchase music via the phone, or there are things related to DRM that need to be catered for.

iTunes Phone Due In 'first half of 2005' - Mobile Phones/PDAs News - Designtechnica News: "An Apple executive has revealed that the company is working on a cell phone capable of playing songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, due for release during the first half of 2005, in collaboration with long-term partner Motorola."

A reality in Japan (where else). MeT attempted to achieve that in the "WAP world", but in practice achieved nothing. Uses a smartcard for the confidential information, but doesn't say how it communicates with the POS terminal (some kind of near field communication?).

Yahoo! News - Phones As Payment Devices Catching On In Japan

Has music player controls, still within a phone form factor. Slides out to show a normal phone keypad.

I'm in favour of the slide-out concept, as it's easy to protect the keypad and camera that way. It also requires just one display, cutting cost and potentially increasing battery life.

It also has a camera. Will anyone dare to not include a camera anymore?

infoSync World : Pantec PH-S4000 MP3 player slash phone

Seems one of the new hot areas is complementing keyboard for PDA's and smartphones using Bluetooth instead of infrared or cable. As I concluded in the review of the Nokia 6630: Good applications is not enough, you have to be able to use them as well. Similar to the one for the Series 60 phones this keyboard is pretty huge.

The next model needs some mechanical improvements: "The Freedom Keyboard folds exactly in half when closed, and is small enough to fit in a purse or large pocket, despite the latter being somewhat ungainly (ed. note: You bet) Opening the keyboard is a multi-step process. The clamshell design opens with a single clasp, after which the left half of the keyboard slides right to meet the right half. A small slider above the keyboard does a crude but effective job of keeping the keyboard open on non-flat surfaces."

infoSync World : Review Centre : Freedom Keyboard

Stated reasons, among others:
"One reason American consumers are miffed is what Forrester Research analyst Lisa Pierce calls "big holes in rural coverage." In the Tampa, Fla. area where she lives, her wireless calls start breaking up one mile south of her home. Her husband uses a different carrier; his calls break up one mile north."
"Another reason for lower cell phone use in the United States is how service is sold. The largest carriers sell phones by subscription, requiring a credit check and a commitment of at least one year."

Yahoo! News - U.S. Wireless Use Behind Rest of World

Another review, this time by infoSync World.

They also noted the "not for video telephony" design: "One oddity remains, however: the 6630, although capable of performing video calls with aplomb, has no front-mounted lens. Thus, a 180-degree flip is required if one wants the other party to get a clear view of ones nostrils - but then again, nobody seems to care much for video calls."!!!! What does 3 think about that?

They were much more positive about the camera and the keypad than I was. I guess it depends on what you compare with.

infoSync World : Review Centre : Nokia 6630

Talks about mobile games utilizing the network for multiplayer scenarios. Mobile gaming is overall a success, and increasingly so. Europe has admittedly been a bit slow on this. Because we have too few Java (and no BREW) phones?

Without saying, most of the games mentioned are based on Java or BREW. Clearly both platforms are successful in the marketplace. Which one is used is mainly depending on the operator.

Quote: "Mobile gaming skyrocketed in the past 18 months as handsets with color screens and better multimedia features became more affordable. Those once-fancy phones are now standard and will be the replacements for millions of wireless subscribers next year, expanding the number of potential gamers."

Yahoo! News - Mobile Games Get Fancier, More Social

An alternative to having all functionality in one device is to carry around all kinds of devices. Wasn't that what we were supposed to get away from?

Yahoo! News - Gear to Go

I wonder what part of the phone will suddenly start to malfunction. The GPS receiver perhaps...

Yahoo! News - GPS Used to Track Teens' Driving

It will be free of charge, yet initially only available for download rather than embedding (pre-installed) in phones. Embedding the browser would be interesting as well in the long run as Firefox is a quite capable browser, even though it doesn't support WAP/WML (I believe), nor a WAP protocol stack.

infoSync - Minimo: Mozilla for mobile phones

There are several notes at Yahoo about this acquisition. As China Mobilesoft also has a set of mobile applications (browser, MMS etc) this means more than just PalmSource getting a Linux platform, but also inroads to the Chinese market as well as (possibly) a stronger mobile application suite.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/cmp/20041209/tc_cmp/55300517
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/infoworld/20041208/tc_infoworld/51674
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/zd/20041208/tc_zd/140619
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/cmp/20041209/tc_cmp/55300334

310 million users in Mainland China alone!

Who will control the mobile phone market in a short while? Hints: Not USA and Europe.

Quotes:
"Driving the mobile phone phenomenon, according to the report, was a rapid rise in subscriber numbers in three of the world's most populous nations -- China, India and Russia. And by the middle of the year developing countries as a whole had overtaken rich nations to account for 56 percent of all mobile subscribers, while accounting for 79 percent of growth in the market since 2000.

Yahoo! News - Mobile Phone Users Double Since 2000

Today Abiro issues a press release about Moodies.

http://www.abiro.com/news/20041206_Press_Release_Abiro_introduces_Moodies.pdf

I've written a review of sorts of the new Nokia 6630.

In short: The phone combines a lot of nifty features, including UMTS, Symbian OS and many productivity applications, just to name a few. It's also got a 1.3 Mpixel camera (yet in my opinion crappy), VPN client, Java, a surprisingly good WAP/Web browser, all PIM applications you can think of, sync with a PC, etc etc. It could be called a true smartphone in a nice package if it hadn't been for the lack of decent text entry and more instabilities than my Windows-jaded mind could muster. The latter I hope Nokia will fix ASAP.

You'll find that it's not a run-of-the-mill review (actually it's quite odd, even to me...), and I don't imply that there will be any more reviews of this kind.

I might review the review (sic!) later if I find out more interesting things. Revision number will be changed if so.

See it for yourself.

http://www.abiro.com/news/20041206_Review_Nokia_6630.pdf

This solution (hardware and service) provides the means to track the location of your pet dog (or other larger pet). I doubt though a chi-wa-wa would be happy with this gizmo on its back.

Syniverse and GPSTracks Launch GlobalPetFinder
GlobalPetFinder

This Canalys report has been quoted earlier, but this link provides more details.

"Furthermore, 3G handsets represented three per cent of all shipments in the period, and 4.6 per cent of all camera phones. 2004 has seen a dramatic shift towards camera phones, which have captured 56 per cent of the overall market this year. Canalys research indicates that Nokia was the leading camera phone vendor in the quarter, with 48 per cent share, followed by Sony Ericsson on 12 per cent and Samsung on nine per cent. These were narrowly ahead of Motorola and Siemens in fourth and fifth place respectively. In the nascent 3G handset market, however, the picture is quite different, and Canalys warns vendors and operators not to get distracted from the core customer requirements as activity around 3G service launches builds."

Regarding reasons for adding cameras to phones: Not as much photo messages as expected and (possibly) decreased picture sales due to using camera pictures as wallpapers. That's a big "Oops!" for the operators.
"There has been a huge rise in camera phone shipments, but multimedia messaging usage has not exploded in the same way," said Chris Jones, Canalys director and senior analyst. "Consumers are clearly drawn to the idea of having a convenient, ever-present digital camera built into their phone, particularly as the purchase price for many of them has been offset by upgrade subsidies. But that doesn't necessarily reflect a desire to send photos between phones, particularly if there is a cost attached to each message. What the integrated camera has enabled though is a way of personalising the phone, with unique wallpapers and screensavers, without downloading premium image content. Operators need to keep a close eye on usage trends for signs of service revenue being eroded by behavioural changes prompted by technology advances in the hardware."

Digital Media Europe: News - 3G handsets on the rise in EMEA - report

The main applications of a moble phone is voice, simple messaging and arguably content purchasing. All other functions are used very little and generate almost no operator revenue, at least today.

Quote: "Still, Canalys sees many challenges ahead for 3G adoption. First and foremost, handset makers need to make sure they don't cannibalize core features for the sake of edge features such as color screens, camera flash, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. Voice quality and battery life remain the primary factors for mobile phones, and if those fail for the sake of extra features then customers will go elsewhere. Advanced network content features only make the matter worse, as excessive downloads are not easy on a battery."

infoSync World : Camera phones on the rise, 3G still struggling

Signals that there's internal turmoil, and possible doubts about company directions...

Quote: "The news came on the heels of Nokia's chief strategist Matti Alahuhta's decision last month to leave the company to take up the position as chief executive officer at Finnish lift maker Kone."
It's a stretch to move from telecom to lift making!

Yahoo! News - Head of networks division leaves Nokia
Yahoo! News - Nokia Hit by Loss of 2 Top Networks Execs

Of course in part the reason for this is that so many new phones have integrated camera (with no possibility to choose it away), similar to Vodafone Live! being popular in part because Vodafone always bundles Live! with new phones. More interesting would be to know how much and for what cameras are used, and whether it generates more network and service traffic (which is the obvious reason operators think it's nice with a camera). The note indicates that most photos are used locally, eating away on operator profit (as they have to subsidize more expensive phones that don't generate more traffic).

One might wonder why not all operators have a picture archive/sharing service they could charge for. That would add on top of the picture messaging revenue. A setup with a sensible monthly fee would make sense.

Quotes:
"While the ability to take still photos with phones has exploded in the last year, other types of multimedia over phones has not."
""There has been a huge rise in cameraphone shipments, but multimedia messaging usage has not exploded in the same way," Chris Jones, a Canalys director and senior analyst, said in a statement. He also noted that consumers seem hesitant to pay to transmit the photos and, instead, tend to use the photos for wallpaper and screen savers."

Yahoo! News - Cameraphones Now Majority Of Phone Sales

This means the top players are now:
- Nokia 30.9%
- Samsung 13.8%
- Motorola 13.4%
- Siemens 7.6%
- LGE 6.7%
- SonyEricsson 6.4%

Quotes:
"Samsung advanced from 12.1 percent in the second quarter, as consumers continued to snap up its fold-away models with integrated cameras and other advanced features. It also entered the mass market with cheap phones in growing markets like China."
"Booming demand in the third quarter -- a total 167 million phones ended up in the hands of consumers -- meant the $100 billion-a-year handset industry was now surely on track to ship 650 million cell phones in 2004, Wood said."

Yahoo! News - Samsung Pips Motorola in Cellphone Ranking

Already established in Austria and Sweden (e.g. via Telia) but now broadening to most of Europe.

Yahoo! News - Ericsson to Distribute Warner Music Tones

DMeurope: TeliaSonera launches Ericsson's M-USE mobile music service

Ericsson M-USE info site

This note claims the next big thing after ringtones will be pictures in different forms. No doubt wallpapers etc sell OK already, yet are overshadowed by ringtone sales, but the report referred to here indicates sales of pictures is growing fast. No doubt pictures are much easier for content providers to deploy than high-quality music (not the least due to the issue with digital rights). Most content providers will not get contracts with major music providers, so this might become their fallback.

Quotes:
"Graphical content such as wallpaper is phenomenally popular, especially among youths and young adults"
"The report observes that graphical content likely will track the rapid growth path of ring tones"

Yahoo! News - Next Big Thing For Cell Phones: Graphics