Mark Bridge writes:
Welcome to a summary of last week’s mobile industry news from TheFonecast.com.
The biggest mobile-flavoured story from the past seven days was probably HP’s replacement of its president and CEO. Léo Apotheker is out after less than a year, replaced by former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. It’s not likely to affect the company’s plans for webOS tablets and phones… but it’ll be interesting to see what Ms Whitman does next.
More headline-grabbing news came from Facebook, which introduced a ‘Timeline’ feature that’ll let users display every aspect of their lives in a… well, a timeline, really. You’ll be able to fill your timeline automatically via ‘social apps’ on your desktop and mobile devices – from the music you play and the newspaper you read to the shopping you buy and the exercise you do. Somehow, I think a few people may be caught out by this.
Sticking with new products and services, Google Wallet went live (but only for US-based customers at the moment), Orange added a bada-powered smartphone to its 'Quick Tap' mobile payment service and Bambuser introduced a Google Map mash-up for its live broadcasts. Not quite so new was the introduction of MMS photo uploading to Twitter; the micro-blogging provider was very proud of it, despite Orange UK having introduced its own MMS tweeting service two years ago.
Under the ‘not-so-good’ heading last week we heard Ofcom say that complaint numbers from Three UK customers are rising. (No, not three customers but Three customers). The NPD Group revealed that 82% of smartphone users had no security products on their phones. UK virtual network Desi Mobile closed within a year of launch. And the Emporia Telme phone for older users was hit by a European injunction from rival Doro.
At the other end of the age range, internet security company Westcoastcloud had been looking at younger users. They reckon one in ten children under the age of 10 now owns an iPhone, with one in twenty children owning an iPad. Perhaps there’s an entire audience demographic we’re missing here at TheFonecast.com. Maybe we ought to ditch the podcast theme tune and replace it with Igglepiggle’s song instead.
Bye bye, everybody, bye bye.
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