Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news

My entry about "The best and worst of 2005" got listed at Carnival of the Mobilists, this time hosted by MobHappy:
MobHappy: Carnival of the Mobilists - Best of the Year!

Abiro Mobile News is now listed at Technorati, and I've therefor added a Technorati search box for searching through specifically Mobile News.

This is also exactly the 700th blog entry.

The site is in maintenance mode right now, so expect further changes the coming weeks.

Happy New Year everybody :) !

Samsung will demo its new HSPDA phone at CES next week. Vodafone plans trials early 2006.

HSDPA is about increased speed on UMTS. At launch Vodafone claims speeds up to 1.6 Mbps and later up to 7 Mbps.

HSDPA stands for High Speed Downlink Packet Access and it's the downlink that gets a performance boost. That's relevant since e.g. web browsing is mainly about downloading data, but if you are to send emails with attachments, stream video from you camera etc, you need higher performance both ways, so there's also HSUPA (Uplink), but that will come a bit later.

Cingular is mentioned as the first operator to launch HSDPA.

CES 2006: Samsung's Fast-Data-Download Cell Phone - Yahoo! News

This is achieved through advertisements shown on the phone. The service is aimed for smartphones. Content can be downloaded and read off-line (e.g. on a plane).

A server-side solution where a client application complements the online service will become very common in the future, as many phones now support such applications, either via smartphone/PDA OSs or more often via Java (J2ME) .

Mobileplay

It's starting to get confusing with all the different interpretations of TV on-the-go:
1. True Mobile TV: multi- or broad-cast via DVB-H, MBMS etc; requires completely new handsets; Nokia's first TV phone will be out mid 2006, so this won't happen quickly
2. Streaming via data channel (read: UMTS): not broadcast and prone to breaking down if over-used; as a novelty / early adopter feature it works fine
3. Replaying of local video files of TV shows: the way TV is promoted for the Apple iPod; this is not TV, but the only thing needed in a phone, iPod or similar is a video player, so this might actually be the most interesting choice in the short term

The ending statements sum it up (at least regarding points 1 and 2 above):

Unlike TV streaming via 3G, DVB-H does not eat up bandwidth and is a whole lot cheaper to roll out nationwide, about a tenth of what was spent on the GSM network, according to Mr Sharp.

"3G has capacity limitations and if two or three people in one place are receiving a TV picture, you can't make a phone call," explained Mr Sharp.

"The key thing with DVB-H is that it isn't a two-way thing. It is broadcast one way so as many people in one space as want it can receive it," he said.

"It is not a case of moving from 3G to DVB-H. The two are complementary and will co-exist because 3G is an important two-way technology," said Mr Sharp.

BBC NEWS | Technology | New era heralded for mobile TV

I might come up with my own, but meanwhile, here are a few others:

Top Stories and Predictions - Yahoo! News

Column from PC Magazine: Industry Expert's Predictions for 2006

MobHappy: Predictions

It took 31% (!) of the British total market of £133M during 2005.

Regulators this week fined the company which supplies the ringtone £40,000 for failing to make clear that customers were actually buying into a £5-a-week subscription service.
Actually no. They fined mBlox that's got nothing to do with the Jamba subscription scheme.
£5 a week sounds very high. £5 a month sounds more right (yet still wrong), but if it's really per week this is outright fraud!

Novelty tracks are most popular with the 5 to 15-year-olds who drive the ringtone market.
But should really 5 year olds have a mobile phone, much less be allowed to sign up to this kind of subscription? They have no clue whatsoever of the costs involved, something that's even hard for the parents to comprehend.

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

Opinions from market leaders:
* Rick Simonsen, CFO Nokia: We expect the devices to double in volume in 06
* Ron Garriques, CEO Motorola: did not see (2006) as a breakthrough year for the 3G market
They are both right in a way, as doubling of sales is very little.

I had expected that manufacturers would simply add 3G to more mainstream models, so whether consumers would actually choose the phones for the sake of 3G or something else (like more memory for music, full web browsing, better video recording etc) wouldn't matter. That way volumes could increase rapidly (and not just double). 3G chip sets are of course more expensive than GPRS ditto, so putting 3G in all phones doesn't make sense either, especially as we are in a renaissance period for simple and low-cost phones (both in emerging markets and developed ones).

Nokia sees 3G handset sales doubling in 2006 - Yahoo! News

This note from David Cowan, one of the founders of Visto, indicates none of the NTP patents were involved in Visto's suing of Microsoft. They just wanted to secure NTP would not hammer Visto.

And if Microsoft can improve upon mobile PIM synchronization, I'll be the first to subscribe, but they can't expect to infringe upon issued patents without attracting lawsuits. That's why Visto licensed NTP's patents--to respect others' intellectual property.
Hmm. OK, but why did they wait so long with doing that? This means Visto was at risk of infringing NTP patents for several years. Didn't they know?

Who Has Time For This?: The Truth Behind Visto's Lawsuit Against Microsoft

Below I list what I consider the most exceptional and/or weird things that happened during 2005. The year is not at an end yet, but after I've eaten a lot of Christmas food I probably won't have the ability to stay sharp enough to write anything sensible until next year.

I challenge all readers to come up with your own list. Expect more edits by me in the coming days.

The RIM/NTP legal battle, seemingly gone totally out of hand with no end in sight, and that also puts a lot of doubts on the US patent system. Why were NTP's patents granted in the first place, if they can be so easily cancelled now?
Latest post:
* RIM: No deal with NTP

Ever increased use of Java for "real" applications (and not just games), e.g. Opera Mini, Shape Services' IM+ Messenger, providing the functionality users want, rather than what operators and OMA want. Will this phenomenon bloom fully during 2006?
Latest post:
* Opera Mini is released, quietly

A crazy frog took over the ringtone market (at least in the consumer's mind) via Coca Cola style always-in-the-face marketing and an arguable subscription-based business model that wasn't mentioned to consumers until the provider was forced to. The business model as such hasn't changed.
Latest post:
* Payback on Crazy Frog

The industry finally understands people want to surf normal web sites, not mobile-adapted sites that don't exist (except within the operators' walled gardens).
Latest posts:
* Nokia's new browser revealed
* Opera Mini is released, quietly

Users obviously want phones they can use, and they use pretty much only voice and SMS, yet they buy them based on other features. Media and manufacturers help each other convince consumers that they need the latest features.
Latest post:
* Simple ís in in US

For yet another year Microsoft has failed to make any footprint on the mobile phone market. This is not really news, but shows how billions can be spent on the wrong things under the wrong assumptions. Not that they will run out of money any time soon.
Latest post:
* Palm partners with Microsoft for new Treo

Another not-so-positive news, at least for the music and movie industry, is how slow and cumbersome the establishing of DRM solutions goes. Sony's blunder with copy-protection on audio-CDs didn't make consumers feel more comfortable with DRM.
Latest post:
* Music downloads handicapped by incompatible DRM methods

Based on the above: Is 2006 the year when the operators finally become the voice/bit-pipes they more or less already are? Will operators succeed with their own music and video/TV services? I don't know, but it will be very interesting to see what happens next year.

It's actually in-line with the industry de facto standard (2 soft keys, pop up menus scrolling long text, etc), so it's nothing really new. Vodafone just might have applied some pressure here too, being pretty strict on how the UI should look and behave.

Final words: But in general, the new user interface looks great and works really well - except for one point: speed.

A Look At Motorola's New User Interface Review (MobileBurn)

The criteria mentioned are: from a good song, easily recognizable, the right part of the song, repetitive percussion. They don't mention that it has to be from the latest hit song, which I think many considers as the most important selection criteria.

In short (see the site for reasons):
1. “In Da Club” – 50 Cent
2. “Stairway to Heaven” – Led Zeppelin
3. “Sweet Home Alabama” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
4. “Super Mario Brothers” Game Theme
5. “Halloween” Movie Theme
6. “The Next Episode” - Dr. Dre
7. “Mission Impossible” Theme Song
8. “Sandstorm” – DaRude
9. “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Theme Song
10. “The Jetsons” Theme Song

The Top 10 Ringtones of All Time

UIQ - a Swedish company offering an application platform and suite based on Symbian OS - and Discretix - an authority on data security - partner to provide DRM to the UIQ platform.

UIQ's platform has been most successful as part of Sony Ericsson's P series of smartphones.

Discretix’s multi-scheme DRM client will be available on the UIQ platform, providing support for OMA DRM v2.0, Microsoft WM-DRM 10 and CPRM.

Digital Media Europe: News - UIQ Technology, Discretix partner for DRM

The article claims that Opera Mini is now available for worldwide use, and can be downloaded from Opera's site. The site still indicates limited use though, so I haven't been able to verify that it's actually true.

What might work against Opera is that they at the same time sell Opera Mobile to phone manufacturers. What will they think of Opera when Opera Mini is given away for free, that partly takes away the need for an advanced integrated browser? I hope they've thought that through.

Opera indicates 700M phones have Java support enough to run Opera Mini. I think that's a bit over-exaggerated based on the latest market figures and the fragmentation of Java functionality in phones, but in any case there are lots of Java phones out there.

Opera quietly enabled the download of Opera Mini to be able to prepare for the increased traffic on its servers before the official launch next month (January).

Opera Quietly Ships Mini Browser - Yahoo! News

An interesting spin on the effects of new technology, that indicates mobile phones could rather even out social and economical boundaries than the opposite. I believe so too. Mobile phones are anyone's gadget nowadays, and the way it connects people in new ways (always-on voice, text, picture and video messaging (instant or otherwise)) makes it also much easier to get in touch with people, provided they want to be contacted.

The way the mobile phone is used as a complement to and sometimes instead of a PC probably/hopefully increases the need for specific application development for mobile phones. Rather than relying on the applications delivered with the phone, new experiences could instead be provided via Web services or locally via Java or BREW.

Inclusion through innovation

mBlox has been asked to pay £40k to consumers that have been lured into Jamba's subscription service. My only question is: Why fine mBLox? They are just doing their job. Fine Verisign/Jamba that has set up the business model and consumer pricing!

MBlox, which was fined £2,000 in April for a promotion that involved unsolicited text messages, has argued that Icstis should in future go after the content providers directly.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Refunds over Crazy Frog ringtone

mBlox Statement regarding ICSTIS Adjudication and Mobile Content Industry Regulation

This is the only mobile version of the Skype client. I'm wondering why they went for Pocket PC (but probably it was because of easier porting). A Series 60 or J2ME/MIDP application would make much more sense volume-wise.

the::unwired - UPDATE: Skype released new Beta with WM 5.0 and better low power CPU support [UPDATE]

Download Skype for Pocket PC

As earlier reported mobile phones are increasingly replacing watches.

But ask 15-year-old Jaynee Rodgers why she doesn't wear a watch, and the reason is clear: "I don't see the need for one, because I've always got my cell."

In some cases, there is a generational divide. Price, the Plant High junior, said most of her friends don't wear wristwatches, but both parents do.

Jim Katz at Times mentions a few reasons why watches will stay: heart monitor watches for serious runners, the altimeter watch that's great for your mountain hikes, watches with digital compasses and more.
I don't think that will sway younger users that've already made a choice (conscious or not) to use the clock in the mobile phone. The reason would probably rather be to make a statement (fashion- or status-wise).

Worldandnation: Will cell phones replace watches? Time will tell

From a Microsoft email client the user can send MMSs and SMSs for the same cost as normal mobile messages. Text, images, sound and video can be sent as MMSs this way.

160Characters Association

General Wireless sms outlook text esms mms executive Notes Outlook Express

Note that Morgan Stanely says this about specifically Apple iPods, not DAPs in general. It also says that only 4% would choose another brand if the store had run out of iPods. That's amazing figures. Technology and sound quality are clearly not the priorities here. Brand and intuitive use are.

AppleInsider | Morgan Stanley: consumers seek more iPods than cell phones this holiday

About provides a simple listing of phones recently introduced in the US. You can find more info about them via links.

Motorola V557
Motorola C155
BlackBerry 8700c
BlackBerry 7130e
LG Migo
LG MM535
Sprint CDM-105
Samsung a900
Samsung a920
Motorola v171

Latest Cell Phones Gallery

Google introduces Gmail for mobile phones, for access from the integrated Web/WAP browser.

Yet it didn't work with my pretty outdated yet WAP-capable Sony Ericsson T300 (WAP 1.x only). The page showing which phones are supported only list US operator endorsed phones. Does that mean it won't work outside of the US (where most people are)?

I know I should probably get a new phone anyway...

Gmail Mobile

Gmail: Help Center - Which phones work with Gmail Mobile?

Colorful and nicely designed, yet how come LG and Casio release phones that look exactly the same? The note indicates it's made by Casio and private-labelled by LG for the Korean market.

Akihabara News - LG or Casio? canU 502S or G'zOne TYPE-R

With the patents in hand Visto sues Microsoft. Visto claims Microsoft has been violating their own and/or NTP's patent in the mobile e-mail solution provided in MS Exchange and Windows Mobile. My impression is that the reason is money, and nothing else.

The overall issue here is that what they claim is so unique is so blatantly obvious and has been considered by so many companies that it all seems like a farce that never ends.

Visto - News

Hardball tactics in the BlackBerry patent case worry Research In Motion customers - Yahoo! News

Siemens speculates that US will abandon CDMA for GSM. That would be a hard blow for Qualcomm, but they are maybe less sensitive now when they dominate the WCDMA chip market.

"CDMA is losing market share globally as the new mobile phone users live mostly in the areas where GSM is the leading technology," Catselitz was quoted as saying.

Siemens says US mobile could shift to GSM - Yahoo! News

Feature-wise it's seemingly well inline with PC browsers, despite being optimised for mobile phones (or at least smartphones). Interestingly it doesn't support OMA WAP/WML, yet HTML and XHTML. So much for mobile standardisation. The trend is clearly towards browsing any web page rather than mobile-optimised HTML or WML pages, yet there are still many WML sites.

Some noted new features (quote):
* The minimap creates a full screenshot of the web page ... and with the help of a small rectangle the user can navigate at any place of a given page almost instantly
* supports Netscape-style plugins and porting them from other platforms should be relatively easy
* Find As You Type
* The browser will autodetect RSS feeds mentioned on the HEAD of an HTML file

There are some omissions though (quote):
* there is no WAP support anymore, at all (WebCore doesn't support WML)
* there is no support for tabs
* Nokia's QVGA phones use a 2.8" screen while their new high-resolution 352x416 screens are barely 2.4". This means that a lot more text information that fits on the high-res screen has to be much smaller in size than on the QVGA Nokia screens
* Webcore doesn't check the return value of malloc() for example (but seemingly Nokia has fixed this on their own)

If you didn't understand any of the acronyms above, rest assured you are not alone.

An Overview of Nokia's KHTML/WebCore-based S60 Browser - OSNews.com

This one by All About Symbian.

The reviewer was impressed by its high-resolution display (352 by 416), support for all bands possible (almost), WLAN, Bluetooth 2.0 (any peripherals out yet?), the new Konqueror-based browser supporting e.g. RSS feeds and "fish eye" page navigation, powerful J2ME/MIDP with many of the newer JSRs, 3 Mp camera, FM radio, music (WMA, MP3, AAC(+)) etc.

Final words: The N80 is a very powerful device which outclasses all of its competitors. In providing a well integrated, user friendly and feature rich convergence device which maintains the phone origins it comes from, the strengths of Symbian OS 9 and Series 60 3rd Edition are on show in the N80.

AAS Feature: Nokia N80 Preview

About has a very brief review of the Nokia 8801. The reviewer has only looked at the most basic functions, yet found flaws in the speakerphone, keypad and the menu navigation.

It's tricky to make luxury versions of devices that are technically speaking commodities. How do you make the phone itself that much better that it motivates a high price? It probably would have been better to start with a good existing phone platform, like the one used in the N70, and then add external "bling bling" to it. Simpler and safer.

Nokia 8801 Review

As reported earlier NTP wants part of RIM's revenue to settle matters, but RIM doesn't accept the "offer".

To be continued...

RIM Rejects 5.7% Royalty Settlement Offer From NTP (MobileBurn)

Mobile WiMax is now an approved standard, making it a part competitor to 3G/UMTS.

The specification supports peak speeds of around 20 Mbps, with average data rates expected to be between 1 Mbps and 4 Mbps

Shakouri expects the first pilot services based on mobile WiMax to be launched in the middle of 2007. The WiMax Forum plans to release a product timeline in the middle of 2006.

Mobile WiMax Standard Approved - Yahoo! News

EA is the leading video game provider and Jamdat is one of the leading brands in mobile games. Doesn't take too much of an effort to guess why EA acquires Jamdat.

Electronic Arts to Acquire Game Provider - Yahoo! News

Adds different effects to the photos taken, like wide-angle, soft focus etc. I'm wondering why this is needed as it's very simple to do in software. See e.g. Scalado.

picturephoning.com: Special Effect Lenses for Cameraphones

This is the first DVB-H Mobile TV phone from Nokia.

The big issues for most people are going to be the size and weight of the unit and the keypad. At 191g (6.7oz), it weighs more than many PDA phones.

Nokia N92 Gallery (MobileBurn)

Vodafone introduces Mobile TV worldwide. The reason they can do this so quickly is that they rely on the UMTS network for distributing the video streams rather than adopting DVB-H or similar. I hope they have enough juice in the network to handle all the video streams.

Digital Media Europe: News - Vodafone launches global Mobile TV

Like children and elderly. Designed to be sturdy and in the case of dogs carried in the collar. Made by On4 Communications.

Wired News: Fido's First Cell Phone

Another solution for using the integrated camera for navigating in games (and other applications) by detecting movement in the picture. If they made it directly compatible with Java's paradigm for navigation it would be immediately useful in all existing Java games.

Georgia Tech Mobile Technologies Group

This is provided as part of Yahoo! Alerts. It says it's absolutely free, but in smaller text: "*Note: Wireless carriers may charge the recipient fees for receiving and sending text messages." So it's not free ... right?

Overall it's a nice feature though. Kind of like a unified alert service.

Yahoo! Alerts

By now you know that when someone talks about push-to-talk it's really about walkie-talkie functionality in a mobile phone.

The solution in question has been provided by Kodiak Networks. According to the site it supports the OMA PoC standard.

"There a big market for business, but there's a huge market for family and friends," said Seybold who estimated that the service could attract as many as 20 percent of Cingular's more than 50 million existing customers.

Cingular to Add 'Push-To-Talk' Service - Yahoo! News

Cingular walkie-talkie service to rival Nextel - Yahoo! News

Oddly, most of NTP's patents have been made invalid, yet the case against RIM is moving along and as indicated earlier might force RIM to close down in the US. I hope this will lead to revised patent laws in the US, because this is ridiculous.

Patent Office rejects NTP RIM patent

It of course doesn't say anything about how many of them are actually used for photography (or filming), as cameras are included in so many phones nowadays that many people buy them for other reasons than that they have a camera.

Almost 300 Million Cameraphones Sold In 2005 - Yahoo! News

picturephoning.com: Worldwide Camera Phone Sales Reach 300 Million In 05

1/3 of all mobile phones sold are from Nokia. It seems all the gloom is gone and Nokia is stronger than ever, with the closest competitor a long way off. Nokia seems also to get stronger on the infrastructure side, even though low-cost competitors (mainly Huawei? and I guess also Ericsson) get tougher.

Nokia's margins and ASPs have fallen as it pushes for growth in developing markets, where customers typically buy cheaper phones.

"On the networks side ... taking share is part of the strategy and in the devices business we really estimate we will be gaining share in 2006," Kallasvuo said.

launching 56 new handsets so far this year -- including three new 3G phones

Nokia sees continuing hefty mobile market growth - Yahoo! News

6233: stainless steel, 2 Mpixel, UMTS
6234: Vodafone only, 2 Mpixel, UMTS
6282: 1 Mpixel, FM radio, UMTS (incl. 1900 MHz, for US)

Nokia Intros New 3G Phones, One for U.S. - Mobile News - Designtechnica

Nokia launches new 3G phones - Yahoo! News

Press Release: Nokia introduces Nokia 6234, feature-filled 3G mobile phone exclusively for Vodafone (MobileBurn)

Press Release: Mixing Business and Pleasure: Nokia 6233 offers 3G performance in a sleek package (MobileBurn)

Press Release: Nokia 6282: High-speed UMTS performance for 3G customers in the Americas (MobileBurn)

The Nokia 6233 and 6234 - Cellphones - cellphones.engadget.com

The verdict is not out yet, but the clouds look dark. My understanding is that if they got a negative verdict also the service would have to stop, so Blackberry terminals would be rendered useless in the US. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Enterprises Must Prepare For BlackBerry Shutdown: Researcher - Yahoo! News

NTP Closer To Forcing A BlackBerry Injuction (MobileBurn)

Judge May Halt BlackBerry Service in U.S. - Yahoo! News

Its main distingushing feature is that it supports Mobile TV via DVB-H. There's no visible antenna. It seems to be even bigger than N90.

Hands-on with the Nokia N92 - Cellphones - cellphones.engadget.com