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Last week at The Fonecast: 12th August 2013

Mark

Welcome to the not-so-silly season

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Mark Bridge writes:

August is traditionally known as the ‘silly season’… but last week’s mobile industry news was all very serious. Apple started with a move designed to reassure customers about unsafe iPhone chargers by arranging a discounted exchange scheme – and it ended the week with a patent victory in the USA.

There were two big launch announcements during the week, although neither was particularly unexpected. The much-rumoured LG G2 smartphone appeared, offering the novelty of rear-mounted controls as well as a Qualcomm quad-core processor and a 5.2-inch screen.

And Vodafone announced it’ll be launching its 4G mobile data service in the UK on 29th August 2013, which is the same day as O2 has chosen for its own 4G launch.

Finally, a couple of departures. It’s goodbye to Telefonica’s TU Me voice call and instant messaging service. The internet-based service closes next month after just over a year. Meanwhile, Nokia has completed its acquisition of Nokia Siemens Networks and will be dropping the ‘Siemens’ name. However it’s not dropping the NSN abbreviation because the new company is called Nokia Solutions and Networks. Very sensible.

On Monday mornings we summarise the past week’s mobile industry headlines in a newsletter that’s a lot 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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