Mark Bridge writes:
Oh, how the mobile industry loves a superlative. Much like the work ethic celebrated by Daft Punk (or Kanye West, if you prefer), it’s always looking for a new angle.
The mobile part of last week’s CES show in Las Vegas presented us with the world’s largest smartphone and the world’s thinnest smartphone. Well, depending on your precise definition and probably only until Mobile World Congress.
Anyway, Alcatel came up with the 6.45mm deep (in places) Android-powered One Touch Idol Ultra smartphone, while Huawei’s Ascend Mate had a 6.1-inch screen. Also from Huawei came a Windows Phone 8 handset and a flagship Android phone with a 5-inch HD display, 13 megapixel camera and quad-core CPU… slightly taking the shine off Sony’s flagship Android phone, which had a 5-inch HD display, 13 megapixel camera and – I’m sure you’ve guessed – a quad-core CPU.
Meanwhile, in another part of the show, Belkin added a mobile-controlled WiFi light switch to its home automation product range while Glympse announced an in-car location-sharing feature in partnership with Ford.
Outside of CES, NTT Docomo said it’s planning a smartphone aimed specifically at pre-teen children and teenagers in Japan, UK pub company Punch Taverns arranged free WiFi in its pubs and Ordnance Survey launched its first official map application for Apple devices.
Finally, and away from the glitter of Vegas, we’ve had some preliminary financial results. HTC expects its quarterly profit to show a drop when official figures are released in the next few weeks, Nokia said it shipped 4.4 million Lumia smartphones (and 2.2 million Symbian smartphones) in the last three months and Samsung predicted a record quarter. Yes, yet another superlative.
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