Wireless and Mobile News

"There is no value in us selling our customers phones with problems, we want customers to walk out satisfied with the device they purchase," said Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney,  "Our standard policy on any device we sell is for a customer to bring it back if they have a problem and we'll determine the appropriate action."

comScore MobiLens released their finding for October 2009 and January 2010. Motorola was the top handset maker (22.9 percent market share), while RIM led among smartphone platforms with 43.0 percent market share. The two most popular uses for phones was texting and web browsing.

42.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in an average month during the November to January period, up 18 percent from the August through October period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 43.0 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, rising 1.7 percentage points versus three months earlier.

Apple ranked second with 25.1 percent share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft at 15.7 percent, Google at 7.1 percent (up 4.3 percentage points), and Palm at 5.7 percent. Google’s Android platform continues to see rapid gains in market share. Google’s Android jumped to 7% in January.

Adobe and Microsoft are working together to bring Flash Player 10.1 to Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phone 7 Series, blogged, Mike Chambers, product manager for developer relations for the Flash Platform at Adobe.

Windows Phone 7 will not support Flash initially, it will support it later. It has also been reported the HP tablet based on Windows Phone 7 will support Flash.

Google will be supporting 10.1 Flash in future versions of Android per their announcement at Mobile World Congress. Windows 7 Phones are expected in December of 2010.

As the web moves more to mobile, don't forget you can get a non-Flashy simplified version for mobile phones of Wireless and Mobile news at wmns.mobi.

Opera Mini, compresses data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the phone, resulting in significantly improved page loading and speed. Opera Mini offers a desktop-like web browsing experience on a mobile phone.  Features such as Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, password manager and bookmarks. With Opera Mini optimized for Android, more people will be able to get a PC-like browsing experience on their mobile handsets.

"Android users should not have to compromise when it comes to surfing the Web on their phones. Opera Mini will give Android users a fast and cost-efficient access to their favorite Web sites and services," said Dag Olav Norem, Vice President of Products, Opera Software.

Download Opera Mini directly to your Android phone. To download, visit m.opera.com/next with the Android browser or search for Opera Mini 5 in the Android Market.

Filling a need for professionals who want to actively manage their online appointment book in real-time, Schedulicity is the only service that offers all the features necessary to run a small appointment-based business from a mobile phone. Where other services offer limited or view-only modes, Schedulicity mobile delivers everything professionals need to be responsive, flexible and successful.

"With Schedulicity, I get to be on the go all the time!" said Jamie Nelms, LMT, esthetician and owner of  Your Body's ReTreat, Dallas, TX. "I'm in control and know with confidence on my iPhone when a client schedules; or if there's a cancellation, I can fill it right away. At the office, at a restaurant, or walking my dogs, I can manage my schedule, serve my clients, have a life and a thriving business."

From a Blackberry, Android or iPhone device, businesses can create and edit client accounts, create and cancel appointments, send and receive appointment reminders, and manage daily and weekly calendars on the fly. Even a double-booked appointment can be managed on-the-go. Clients can search for nearby service professionals, book appointments and manage future appointments all from their mobile device.

TeleNav, released data that shows all kinds of interesting preferences for TeleNav users. Walmart is the most popular business location.  Los Angelenos use GPS the most for navigation for routing and re-routing around traffic. The favorite food for searching is pizza.  Phoenix is the most cost conscious city.

Walmart topped the list as the number one U.S. business TeleNav customers sought, while using their GPS service. Starbucks took a close second, Target and Best Buy, took the third and fourth spots respectively, while Bank of America rounded out the top five most searched destinations in the country.

Los Angeles took the number one position as the city where most GPS searches occurred in 2009. The Dallas/Ft. Worth area followed in a close second, indicating that while things may be bigger in Texas, it doesn’t always mean they’re easier to find. Chicago, Houston and Atlanta, respectively, rounded out the top five U.S. cities where most GPS searches took place.

To educate the mobile marketing industry about currently available Rich Media mobile ad units, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) today announced the publication of a new whitepaper on Rich Media Mobile Advertising, now available for download at http://mmaglobal.com/files/file/RichMediaWhitepaper.pdf

The whitepaper includes definitions, attributes and examples of Rich Media advertising that are currently being used in the marketplace. With this document, the MMA created a definition for Rich Media Mobile Ad Units, which are interactive and/or non-interactive ad units displayed on a mobile web page and/or in a mobile application that offers one or more of the following: (i.) inclusion of streaming video content or animated GIF within the ad unit; (ii.) inclusion of sound; or (iii.) a richer interactive feature set than basic mobile click-through (such as user interaction that occurs through input other than a “click” or “tap.”)

The worldwide market for touchscreen mobile devices will surpass 362.7 million units in 2010, a 96.8 percent increase from 2009 sales of 184.3 million units, according to Gartner, Inc. By 2013, touchscreen mobile devices will account for 58 percent of all mobile device sales worldwide and more than 80 percent in developed markets such as North America and Western Europe.

"Touchscreens are no longer the preserve of high-end devices and are now being included in many midrange phones as more companies have been driving the consumer market for affordable touchscreen phones," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. "As phone capabilities increase, consumers are becoming much more aware of the benefits of touch interfaces, and vendors are responding."

Desperately seeking new revenue opportunities amid intensifying competition from free alternatives, providers of navigation applications are turning to social networking sites to make their products more appealing to consumers, according to iSuppli Corp.

“Google’s and Nokia’s decision to provide free turn-by-turn navigation applications to users is posing a major competitive challenge to navigation application providers,” said Gerrit Schneemann, analyst for portable navigation and Location Based Services (LBS) at iSuppli. “These application providers require revenue from the sales of navigation applications to the smart-phone and PND markets. Because of this, these companies now are seeking to enhance the usability of their offerings and to extend them into as many other mobile sectors as possible. Navigation application providers and PND makers believe social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace provide a way accomplish both goals.”

Android developers can now download the third release of the Android Native Development Kit (NDK)  from the Android developer site.

It can be used to target devices running Android 1.5 and higher. In addition to a few bug fixes and improvements, this release includes toolchain improvement, OpenGL ES 2.0 suppport and a new name "r3."

The National Football League (NFL) has teamed-up with Verizon Wireless.  The new four-year agreement for NFL Mobile kicks off next month with coverage of the 2010 NFL Draft to be held from April 22-24 and continues with the NFL's regular season.

Verizon Wireless, which also becomes the NFL's official wireless service sponsor and provide NFL coverage.

A native Gowalla app is now available for Android, it's called a place-sharing app that offers special rewards.  The new native application greatly improves the Gowalla experience by providing additional features and more accurate location data through its use of Skyhook Wireless' SDK.

Gowalla for Android is available for free in the Android Market and at Gowalla.com. It gives users way to explore places.

The national campaign features true stories and the text message that was sent or received before someone's life was altered, or even ended, because of texting and driving. By featuring real stories, the campaign will demonstrate how insignificant a text message is compared to the potentially dire consequences of reading or responding while driving.

For example, in one of the television spots, the text "Where u at?" flashes on the screen and a mother says, "This is the text my daughter was reading when she drove into oncoming traffic." The ad also includes the message "No text is worth dying over" and the campaign's tagline, "Txtng & Drivng ... It Can Wait."

The NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD) premium application offers live streaming video and video highlights of the 2010 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. Coverage begins with the NCAA Basketball Championship Selection Show on March 14 and continues with every game from the first round of the tournament through the semifinals and championship of the Men's Final Four.

New this year, in collaboration with AT&T, the live video will be delivered over 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi connections. Premium app users can also receive score alerts and listen to live game radio broadcasts from Westwood One throughout the entire tournament, starting with the Opening Round game on March 16.

We reported earlier that Windows Mobile users would not be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 7, now we know the real reason. Windows Phone is a complete overhaul and a new phone operating system. Apps created for Windows Mobile will not work on Windows Phone.

In a blog entry, Microsoft's Charlie Kindle,  Partner Group Program Manager for the Windows Phone Application Platform & Developer Experience, noted that Windows Phone 7 Series is different from "what we've done in the phone space before and it's different from other phones..The Windows Phone 7 Series developer platform is as different as the new user experience. It's fresh. It's pure. And it's powerful."

The development Windows Phone 7 developer experience builds upon

• .NET
• Silverlight
• XNA platform
• Microsoft's developer tools.
• Web 2.0 standards.

According to a comScore study social networking access via mobile browsers is growing. The study found that 30.8 percent of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010, up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago. Access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter experienced a 347-percent jump.

In January 2010, 11.1 percent of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via mobile browser, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from the previous year. Much of this growth has been driven by smartphone owners, 30.8 percent of whom accessed social networking sites on their mobile browsers, up more than 8 percentage points on the year. By comparison, just 6.8 percent of feature phone users accessed social networking sites on their mobile phones.

If you are an Oscar fan and won't be in front of your television in time for the Academy Awards show, Oscars are on the go with a mobile website, text alerts and iPhone app.

You information on the big night by going to m.oscar.com to view the Oscar wap site, or text AWARDS to 22288 for a link to the mobile site.

The mobile Oscar website offers a list of the nominations, fashions, news, and history.

You can also be the first to know by signing up Oscar mobile alerts on the WAP site.

There's been a lot news lately regarding what search is being pushed on mobile phones.  he first news was that the Motorola BACKFLIP coming out today on AT&T has Yahoo! mobile search.

T-Mobile USA replaced Yahoo with Google for its default search engine on T-Mobile phones such as their RIM BlackBerry widget. This could be the continuation of the alliance forged between the Google and T-Mobile for the release of the Nexus One, the first Google-branded Android phone.

The Motorola BACKFLIP is now available on AT&T.  The BACKFLIP is AT&T's first Android smartphone. It has a back-flipping design that folds back that  you can use it with the back of your hand which comes in very handy. The QWERTY keyboard is on the back of this flipping phone. You can also unfold it so that it works like a picture frame, making it easier to view movies.

Another super handy feature the BACKFLIP is MOTOBLUR social networking syncing and networking through widget of email, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Gmail, Picasa, work and personal e-mail, and Last.fm

BACKFLIP comes with a full HTML browser that can be viewed on the 3.1" high-res, touch screen display and makes use of 7.2 HSPA 3G. Other features include a 5 megapixel camera with video capture, Wi-Fi and GPS.