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Musings on my next personal phone & contract

12 Oct 2011 11:31 No comments
I'm coming up to the point of deciding on my next main personal mobile phone & contract.I thought it might be worth going through my thought processes on the blog, which may highlight some factors that reflect wider industry trends - or perhaps just reflect my outlier status as a user.

Although I've usually got a couple of spare devices around, and occasionally play with new ones to get a feel for things, I don't tend to chop & change, and I don't review handsets. Up until two years ago, I had separate voice/SMS/camera and email/data-centric devices, but I've switched to a single-device approach since then. More...
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WiFi neutrality vs. the OMA

10 Oct 2011 14:14 No comments
I've written before about the critical importance of "WiFi Neutrality" - the ability for the end-user, device OS or applications to choose which WiFi connection to use, over-riding any operator-defined preferences if such exist.

The critical control point is the "connection manager" on a device - the bit of software that determines which accesses are available, and how/when to connect to them. For WiFi, this is usually done as a core role of the device OS - most people are used to seeing the Windows or Mac choices for WiFi APs, or a similar function on their smartphones.
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Deciphering the Orange Sosh proposition

7 Sep 2011 13:13 No comments
I've just seen that FT/Orange France has announced a new brand/proposition called Sosh, aimed at "hyper-connected" youth segment, majoring heavily on data and bundled SMS.

I'm a bit confused by the press release though - it's not obvious that the 2-hour, 5-hour or 24/7 product names refer to telephony minutes, or data time allowed online. There is a reference to "All of the Sosh offers are commitment-free, and they give users access to all of their content and digital services, including social networks, videos, e-mail, internet and VoIP." ... but I'm not sure how that squares with 2/5 hours. More...
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Baidu-droid; Samsung 'no to WebOS'; Amazon Kindle tablet; Apple iCloud design - Telco 2.0 News Review

5 Sep 2011 13:22 No comments

[Ed. Welcome back if this is your first week in the office after the summer holidays - here are the top two Key Telco 2.0 items to note. 1. This week is your last chance to input to our Apple, Google, Facebook, Skype and Amazon research. We'll send you the survey results and a special deal on the report when it's out if you do. More...

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Why Media Tablet and eReader Demand Will Coexist

2 Sep 2011 14:30 No comments
Many analysts predicted the demise of the e-reader product category when Apple launched the iPad -- igniting the media tablet competitor frenzy. The analysts assumption, an erroneous one, was that the buyer of each product was essentially the same.

Now, as the reality sets in, opinions have evolved. While the tablet market’s growth has had some impact on expected e-reader shipments worldwide, the two devices are inherently different. Each device segment targets a different type of consumer.

Standalone e-reader devices target the avid book and periodical readers -- to whom the reading experience is central -- while tablets are targeted towards those consumers who prefer a richer multimedia consumption experience. More...
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Steve Jobs reaction in full; HP frenzy; Samsung speculation; and 'federated cloud' - Telco 2.0 News Review

30 Aug 2011 13:48 No comments

[Ed. In preparation for our next big report we're after your input on Apple, Google, Facebook, Skype and Amazon here. We'll send you the survey results and a deal on the report when it's out if you do. More...

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China Mobile's awesome No.s; the 'HP-ocalypse'; Apple turns bear? - Telco 2.0 News Review

22 Aug 2011 14:25 No comments

[Ed. After last week's coverage on Google/Motorola, have your say via our 2 minute survey here. Why did they do it, and who is it good/bad for? We'll publish the results next week. Also, August is often a great time for diary maintenance, so why not pencil in our next Brainstorms in New York (5th-6th October) and London (9th-10th November) run in collaboration with the World Economic Forum.]

China Mobile reported that it has 622 million subscribers at the end of the quarter. More...

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Vodafone zero-rating Facebook traffic on its new FB-specific device?

10 Aug 2011 13:59 No comments
I've just had a poke around my local Vodafone store in central London.

Most interesting thing I saw was a display for its new HTC ChaCha phone and plan. The phone itself is a small touchscreen + QWERTY device which has a dedicated Facebook button and branding. The point-of-sale material contains the phrase "An extra 250MB of free UK data for Facebook".

Now the interesting question is exactly what that means, and how that policy is constructed / enforced. Is it an "application-specific" charging mechanism, or perhaps more "device-specific", similar to a BlackBerry plan?

Some supporting evidence comes from the brochure. More...
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A volte-face – Apple should start selling TVs

1 Aug 2011 16:49 No comments

Apple has just reported yet another record quarter. As a company it is experiencing revenue growth rarely seen in any sector. Looking at its financials closely reveals that the company that once built its reputation as a computer manufacturer is now, for all intents and purposes, a mobile device manufacturer. It is striking that desktops now only account for about 5% of all of Apple’s revenues. But the continued success of all these mobile devices only serves to highlight where Apple is so very weak – the living room.

There has been a great deal of speculation about whether Apple will develop its own TV to compete with Samsung, LG et al. More...

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Why Consumers in China Will Respond to Mobile Ads

15 Jul 2011 12:56 No comments
Advertising on mobile devices and mobile money services are making strong inroads among the growing affluent segments of China's population, according to the latest market study by ABI Research.

This perhaps counters the conventional thinking that consumer response to mobile advertising -- and the use of mobile devices for financial transactions -- are limited to the mature North American and European markets.

ABI's online survey of 1,000 Chinese consumers was conducted in March-April 2011. Note, however, that given the online approach to the survey, the sample is entirely drawn from the technology-enabled part of the Chinese population. More...
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