Mark Bridge writes:
Time once again for our look at all the biggest mobile industry stories from the past seven days.
Microsoft kicked the week off with news of an own-brand rival to the Apple iPad. The new Windows-based Microsoft Surface tablets will start to appear later this year, although full details of the specifications – including whether or not there’ll be cellular connectivity – remain unconfirmed.
But that wasn’t the only hot news from Richmond. We also saw a preview of Windows Phone 8, the obviously-named successor to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. It’ll be pre-installed on new phones from later this year but won’t be available as an upgrade for older phones.
That’s not necessarily good news for anyone who’s just bought a Nokia Lumia... but at least those customers will know how to get the best from their handsets. Nokia has just launched a service called Smart Setup, which offers a free telephone helpline to UK customers who buy a Lumia smartphone.
Sticking with the UK, we heard that Amazon’s own Android application store is heading our way this summer. It’s already a popular destination in the USA – and it could well be a precursor to the Kindle Fire tablet turning up.
Talking of international travel, T-Mobile UK launched new tariff options that give its customers an unambiguous data allowance when they’re using a smartphone or mobile broadband device abroad.
However, it wasn’t a week of entirely upbeat news. Samsung had a challenging time, dealing with a Galaxy SIII that appeared to have suffered some heat-related damage. Twitter experienced problems too, seeing the ‘fail whale’ surfacing for over an hour on Thursday.
And – in a week when one of the world’s big technology companies moved into tablet manufacturing – LG was reported to be putting tablet development “on the back burner” in order to focus on mobile devices. Quite a contrast with tablet-lovin’ Microsoft, which killed off its Kin smartphones a couple of years ago.
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