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Monday, December 17, 2012

Last week at The Fonecast: 17th December 2012

Look to the future now...

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s the week before Christmas, which can only mean one thing for the mobile industry: plenty of research news. Yes, when there isn’t anything new to talk about, a survey or forecast is the perfect way to fill the silence.

Mind you, things haven’t been entirely quiet when it comes to mobile products and services.

Google brought out an iOS version of its mapping app, causing much rejoicing from Apple customers who felt they’d been left in the wilderness. In some cases, quite literally in the wilderness if they’d followed Apple Maps. EE announced the next places in line for 4G UK coverage, while CabWiFi prepared to turn London taxis into mobile hotspots and Twitter introduced photo filters to its iOS and Android apps. Watch out, Instagram.

STMicroelectronics said it planned to leave the ST-Ericsson partnership, which gives joint partner Ericsson a bit of a headache – and Ericsson faced disappointment in another business area when Huawei took over its role managing the network of Three UK.

Time for those studies now. Browser company Opera has been looking at mobile website preferences across Europe… and has discovered very few opportunities for humour based on national stereotypes. The UK doesn’t even have a weather-specific site in the top ten. However, we do like a spot of online shopping according to Ofcom – and we’ve bought a lot of smartphones, too.

Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of mobile video in the USA is watched at home and, on a wider scale, mobile banking has taken hold around the globe. That’s according to Bain & Co and is also reflected in last Friday’s podcast interview with Gemalto.

ABI Research and Juniper Research both published a downloadable list of predictions about mobile technology in 2013 – we’ll be broadcasting ours in a special podcast on Wednesday – and, looking five years into the future, we’re told to expect one in seven mobile subscribers using VoIP, half of all smartphones costing less than £100 and over 4 million alarms connected to mobile networks in Europe.

Finally a couple of big-name appointments. UK entrepreneur Brent Hoberman, best known to many as the lastminute.com co-founder who wasn’t Martha Lane Fox, has joined the Shazam board of directors as an independent board member. And futurist/inventor/writer Ray Kurzweil has joined Google as its Director of Engineering. Which prompts the question: how many years will it be before Ray’s work means you can backup your brain to a Gmail account?  And what happens when you exceed your 10MB limit?

Receive our weekly newsletter about the biggest mobile industry news headlines every Monday morning. Simply register your email address at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page. We’re taking a break for Christmas, so the next newsletter will be sent on 7th January.

All of us at The Fonecast wish our readers and supporters a very happy Christmas and a successful new year.
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Opinion Articles

f u cn rd ths thn wts th prblm?

Iain Graham writes:

Text language. Why do they do it?  What an interesting question!  Normally asked by people who have never ever sent a text, believing it to be the invention of the devil!! "Texters are vandals, doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago" asserted Jhn (sorry) John Humphrys of Radio Four fame writing in the Daily Mail. The new 'text language' has been blamed for many things including...

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Is Google’s new mobile phone distribution model really a big deal for the UK?

Mark Bridge writes:

“Google offers New Model for Consumers to buy a Mobile Phone”. Not my words but those of Vodafone as it announced it was the first operator to bring the new Google phone offer to Europe.

There’s a lot of talk about Google’s online ordering process for its Nexus One smartphone… or ‘superphone’ as the company described it at yesterday’s launch.

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Mobile shopping is worrying... and usually successful

Mark Bridge writes:

I really don’t like to complain. Honestly, I don’t. I’m an optimist. True, I can be a bit of a cynic – but that’s because I like to see things work first time.

So when I saw a headline that said “Shopping via mobile phone causes concerns for consumers”, I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed but not surprised.

And then I looked closer – and I got annoyed. Not annoyed at the companies that make mobile shopping so disappointing. No, annoyed at the organisation that published the report.

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Is mobile technology too young to predict?

Mark Bridge writes:

“Leave them alone, they’re just kids”

My word, Anakin Skywalker was a smart boy. Child prodigy. Wunderkind. Genius, some would say, albeit fictional.

But, without the benefit of hindsight (or the Star Wars box set, as many would call it), very few people would have expected him to marry his babysitter, fall into a volcano, turn to the Dark Side and end up looking like the late Sebastian Shaw.

Which brings me to the mobile phone industry.

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Did 2009 turn out the way we expected?

Mark Bridge writes:

At this time of year it’s something of a tradition – certainly within the mobile industry – to make predictions for the year ahead. It’s a trend we’ve followed with The Fonecast… and we’ve done reasonably well over the last few years.

We’ll be making this year’s predictions for 2010 in our programme on 23rd December. Ahead of that, I’ve been listening to our last show of 2008 to see what we thought 2009 would hold for us.

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Podcast from Mobile World Congress 2015

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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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We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

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