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Last week at The Fonecast: 15th April 2013

Mark

Going up...

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Mark Bridge writes:

It’s claimed there’s recently been some dodgy equine activity in the mobile industry. No, I’m not talking about the dancing pony that promoted Three UK. I’m not even making lasagne jokes. I’m talking about the ‘Trojan horse’ threatening to monopolise the mobile marketplace.

That Trojan horse is the Android platform, according to a complaint to the European Commission… and those companies doing the complaining include Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle. They’re part of a coalition called FairSearch, describing Google’s distribution of Android as “predatory”. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

Sticking with legal activity, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading has launched an investigation to find out whether some free mobile applications and web-based games for children are breaking the law.

It’s not saying anyone is; it’s just checking because consumer protection law doesn’t allow products to include a ‘direct exhortation’ encouraging children to make a purchase. The results of its fact-finding are due to be published later this year.

In other news from the past seven days, a lot of things appear to be going up. Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to increase 38% this year, the number of mobile HTML5 browsers is forecast to rise by 87% this year and app downloads are already up by 11% since the end of 2012.

Also increasing is the UK’s spending on mobile advertising – up 148% to £526 million in 2012 – along with global spending on location-based ads.

4G data speeds are on the way up, too. EE says it’s going to double the speed and the capacity of its UK network, introducing maximum data speeds of over 80Mbps.

And one final increase: a large-screen smartphone from Samsung. This new ‘phablet’ is packing the biggest screen ever seen on a Samsung phone; bigger than the Galaxy S4 and the Note II. It’s equipped with a 6.3-inch display and is called the Samsung Mega. Yes, Mega. Well, with a screen that size it was hardly going to be subtle, was it?

Every Monday morning we summarise the past week’s mobile industry headlines in a newsletter that’s very much like this article. To receive it, simply register your email address at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page.

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Opinion Articles

ExclusiveLast week at The Fonecast: 1st July 2013

Mark Bridge writes:

I don’t know about you but I’m delighted to see Sony Mobile getting plenty of coverage for its new smart watch and giant smartphone. The company’s impressive presence at Mobile World Congress 2013 showed plenty of promise... and I’d say it’s now delivering.

ExclusiveLast week at The Fonecast: 24th June 2013

Mark Bridge writes:

Another week, another couple of product announcements from Samsung. There appears to be no stopping them, despite a recent drop in the company’s share price.

This time it’s a couple of tablets – one of which runs both Android and Windows 8 – and a 20 megapixel camera that’s got a 4G-enabled Android device built in.

ExclusiveLast week at The Fonecast: 17th June 2013

Mark Bridge writes:

The telecommunications industry was making plenty of headlines last week – but much of it wasn’t particularly upbeat.

The debate about privacy and security continued in the wake of allegations about US agents intercepting internet traffic. Meanwhile, Nokia prepared to make its last Symbian smartphones and Tradedoubler warned that mobile devices were having a negative effect on high-street consumer loyalty.

ExclusiveHow to shield from internet snooping

George Putic of voanews.com writes:

When news broke about U.S. government agencies collecting metadata about its citizens’ Internet and phone communications, many were surprised by its scope. The surveillance covered a vast number of Internet messages and phone calls. The government did not deny the action but pointed out that the collected data contained, not the substance of the communication, but the so-called metadata.

ExclusiveGiving it all away

Mark Bridge writes:

There’s been a lot of talk recently about PRISM, which may allow the US National Security Agency - and anyone they choose - to access some of our personal online information if it passes through the USA. It’s unclear exactly what (if anything) is being shared with whom… and given the nature of national security, we may never know.

However, alongside the possibility of governments seeing information we thought was secure, it’s also worth pointing out that we choose to share plenty of online information ourselves.

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