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Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

UK service providers must notify customers when they connect to a different network

New rules from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will protect customers when they use their mobile phone on a foreign network. In addition, customers will be alerted if they are inadvertently roaming, perhaps because they're near an international border.
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Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
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Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
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UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
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Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
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Opinion Articles

Monday, February 18, 2013

What's wrong with Android?

and why 2.3 is still the most popular version

James Rosewell writes:

8 months ago I moved my main smartphone from Android (Nexus One and Android 2.3 [Gingerbread]) to Windows Phone (Nokia Lumia 800). I had entered a simpler world. There were less applications (noticeably Audible), no tethering option, voice dictation sucked with no option to install a 3rd party and it only worked for text messages and not emails, and I couldn’t get a multi-SIM device. But overall I survived. Every day things like opening my contacts list and email were quick and smooth. I loved the integration with Twitter and LinkedIn. The “Nokia Drive” navigation system is simplicity itself. 6 months ago Audible appeared (minus the feature to control playback speed), and an upgrade arrived to include tethering. But no multi SIM and I was travelling more. I therefore moved back to Android a few weeks ago, specifically a Samsung Galaxy S DUOS running Android 4.0 [Ice Cream Sandwich].

What a disappointment. The DUOS shouldn't be a slouch with its dual-core processor and 2GB memory expanded to 34GB. CPU-wise it’s a higher spec than the Lumia 800. But simple tasks take seconds, and I've got used to better. I don’t want to wait for my email to appear or to search my contacts lists. And worse, features have been removed compared to my previous Android 2.3 device. I can’t install applications onto the expansion memory card! CoPilot, for example, downloads maps to the phone. But it’ll only allow them to be installed on the internal memory. 2GB soon gets swallowed up with a few European maps.

On a more positive note I can control the reading speed with Audible and Nuance’s voice dictation has got even better getting 3 out of 4 short text messages or emails correct first time including punctuation.

Maybe these issues with supposedly more advanced versions of Android explain why 2.3 remains the most popular version in the wild. 51Degrees.mobi Mobile Analytics shows Android 2.3 holding 38.6% of web usage share.

Percentage share of web traffic from different Android versions globally. Source 51Degrees.mobi Mobile Analytics.

I’m reminded of dear old Symbian and my Nokia N95. I loved that phone. Excellent camera, tethering, downloadable applications, web access, dedicated music buttons, expandable memory. The mutts nuts until I played with the iPhone and it all seemed so poor. Take the touch screen away and feature-wise the N95 and first iPhone were pretty identical. But the iPhone was so much slicker and easier to use. In many ways Symbian was exposed as hard to use, taking 2 or 3 times as many interactions to achieve the same task.

Android’s flexibility enabling vendors to tweak, alter and adapt it so easily could ultimately be its biggest weakness. Certainly Android 4 as deployed by Samsung on the DUOS is poor compared to the previous generation of Windows Phone and Android 2.3.

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