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Monday, December 23, 2013

Last week at The Fonecast: 23rd December 2013

Something for everyone this Christmas

Mark Bridge writes:

'Twas the week before Christmas,
when all thro' the mobile industry
came a sudden burst
of news-related activity.

There’s been something for everyone in the wireless telecoms industry during these final festive days of 2013.

Tablets?  Most certainly. How about the new Datawind UbiSlate tablet for £29.99?  You’ll struggle to find a cheaper tablet, although admittedly you don’t get high specs for the low price.

Accessories?  Oh yes. Let’s take a look at the Samsung GamePad, which connects via Bluetooth and will work with most of the company’s Galaxy devices. There’s an accompanying app that’ll help you find compatible games, too.

Mobile payments?  A deal with Eurostar will see iZettle devices used when passengers want to upgrade after they’ve started their high-speed train journey.

Quarterly results?  Go on then, if you insist. BlackBerry has reported a £2.7 billion quarterly loss. However, it’s also announced a Foxconn manufacturing deal and an agreement to pre-load BBM on some LG phones, so it wasn’t all bad. But mainly bad, you might say.

4G?  Starting to go mainstream, it seems. EE has set up the first 4G roaming agreement for visitors to the UK, while Strategy Analytics is forecasting there’ll be two billion 4G LTE connections worldwide in 2018, up from 238 million this year.

Festive concerns?  Yes, thanks to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The ICO has been warning consumers not to get carried away on 25th December – the busiest day for app downloads last year – by reminding users to protect their personal information when installing new mobile apps. As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus might say, “let’s be careful out there”.

Finally, I’d like to wish you and all our other readers a very happy Christmas. We’ll now be taking a short break and look forward to returning in the New Year.

Our final podcast of 2013 included the team’s mobile industry predictions for 2014 and a not-too-embarrassing look back at our thoughts from last year. You can listen to the podcast on our website, by downloading the mp3 file, by finding us via iTunes, by using our RSS feed or on the Stitcher.com mobile app.

On Monday mornings we summarise the past week’s mobile industry headlines in a newsletter that’s very much 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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Opinion Articles

A Sure Signal from Vodafone

Mark Bridge writes:

Today I've been using my mobile phone at home. For many people that’s not an unusual thing to do – but it is for me because, around here, coverage indoors isn’t particularly good. Downstairs it’s previously been non-existent. But this morning everything changed.

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Physician uses cell phones to bring health care to the poor

Natalia Ardanza of voanews.com writes:

In Africa there is another use for mobile phones. Public Health workers in Kenya are now using mobile phones to gather health information from patients in remote areas and upload it to the internet for instant analysis at distant centers. And it is all happening thanks to Dr Joel Selanikio.

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Making dumb touchscreen phones was a smart move

Mark Bridge writes:

I remember a report from last year that said ‘non-smart’ touchscreen handsets – generally those without a popular operating system – would be bad news for mobile operators.

Conventional touchscreen smartphones tended to result in higher-than-average ARPU thanks to their early-adopting tech-loving users, their web-friendly browsers, their email programs, their app-friendly operating systems and their fast 3G connectivity. However, dumber touchscreen devices – those with a manufacturer’s own proprietary OS and perhaps a clumsier browser – could generate 23% less ARPU than smarter phones. So, if touchscreen dumbphones weren’t good for networks… and weren’t really good for consumers either… manufacturers wouldn’t really bother with them. Right?

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"Hello Nexus One" I say...

James Rosewell writes:

Mark’s been encouraging me to write an opinion piece on the Nexus One for the last few days and I’m finally putting fingers to keyboard to share my experiences. It’s taken so long because this phone has so many features. On a positive note I could go into details about the gorgeous screen, the Android Marketplace that will out-sell Apple’s over the next 18 months, the built-in satellite navigation service and the speedy processor that makes everything run smoothly in real time. Or on a less positive note, the touch screen keyboard that sucks (think carefully about this if you’re a heavy texter or emailer, it’s even worse than the original iPhone), the lack of ActiveSync for Calendars and Tasks, no support for WMA music files or the clunky zoom functions on the web browser.

However I’m going to focus on voice dictation. Nexus One is the first phone I’ve used with this feature.

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The Amazon Kindle prepares to fight the Apple iPhone and Tablet

Mark Bridge writes:

Here’s a curious thing. Firstly, Amazon creates the Kindle. It starts selling the Kindle in the USA with a mobile deal that lets users download electronic books and newspapers wherever they are. Then it starts selling the Kindle to us in the UK, although – hang on a moment – it’s not talking about a UK mobile deal. Instead it still seems to be ‘roaming’ from the AT&T network. Next comes the larger-screen Kindle DX – also roaming away when it reaches our shores. And now Amazon is talking about third-party downloadable applications for the Kindle. Yes, a mobile device with downloadable apps. Hold that thought; I’ll be returning to it.

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A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

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