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Monday, April 2, 2012

Last week at The Fonecast: 2nd April 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s always a relief when April Fool’s Day doesn’t fall on a work day, isn’t it?  Still, that didn’t stop the jokes. Even though the mobile industry traditionally tends to head to the pub for a roast dinner and a pint on Sunday, there was many a prank in the morning of April 1st. Our friends at 51Degrees.mobi revealed left-handed device detection, Google prepared to run mobile ads on phones with dials, Phones 4U introduced Gnomes 4U femtocells, Nokia made a Windows Phone device out of ice… and so on.

Back to reality now – and with a bump.

BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion reported quarterly results that weren’t as good as previously hoped. CEO Thorsten Heins talked about a ‘refocus’ on enterprise users, which led a number of journalists to assume the company was about to drop its offering to individual consumers. Not true.

On a positive financial note, UK-based mobile commerce business Monitise plc agreed to acquire US-based mobile banking company Clairmail Inc. The deal values Clairmail at approximately £109 million.

The other big headline-grabber of the week was the European Commission, which moved closer to seeing its new roaming rules becoming law. It wants price caps on data use from this summer, along with the ability to choose a separate contract for mobile use abroad from July 2014. Call me a cynic but I can’t see this running smoothly.

While we’re talking about networks, O2 UK introduced a new tariff called On & On. It offers unlimited calls and text messages, along with a fixed data allowance. O2 isn’t the first network to do this, so it’s beginning to look like a trend.

Meanwhile T-Mobile UK has announced that it’ll be increasing some of its prices from May. Customers on most ‘pay monthly’ contracts will have their basic monthly charge increased by 3.7%. It’s a somewhat gentler announcement than last year’s Orange price rise.

Mind you, network operators need every penny they can get. Juniper Research has calculated that the mobile telecommunications industry lost more than $58 billion last year due to inadequate Fraud Management and Revenue Assurance processes. The figure is the equivalent of over 6% of global industry revenue. And that’s no joke.

Start your week with a reminder of the latest mobile headlines. Simply register at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page and we’ll send you this weekly news summary by email.

The Fonecast is sponsored by 51Degrees.mobi. More details about advertising and sponsorship opportunities are available on the About us section of our website.
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Opinion Articles

Monitoring road quality with a standard smartphone and the Roadroid app

Resurfacing repairs required? There's an app...

Mark Bridge writes:

In the past five years, what started as an advertising message - “there’s an app for that” - has become a challenge to developers. It’s become part of 21st century culture. And it’s become an totem for journalists to pin their most outrageous app-based stories to.

Roadroid doesn’t need the attention-grabbing headlines.

Author: The Fonecast
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Product review: Nomad ChargeCard and Nomad ChargeKey

Connect and charge your smartphone on the move

Mark Bridge writes:

What would you say to a tiny little device that enabled you to recharge your smartphone almost anywhere, whenever you wanted?

This is pretty much what a US-based company called Nomad is promising. In fact, they sent me two of their latest products to try.

Author: The Fonecast
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Big announcements from Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and LG

Podcast transcription - 4th June 2014

Mark Bridge writes:

Every week we produce a half-hour podcast that covers all the biggest news headlines for the UK mobile phone industry.

Thanks to a special offer from Scribie.com, we can also offer a transcription of last week’s programme.

Author: The Fonecast
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Last week at The Fonecast: 9th June 2014

Apple prepares for the future

Mark Bridge writes:

Apple kicked off its 2014 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last week with an announcement about the forthcoming iOS 8 operating system for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. There was some catching up, some innovation and a couple of new services designed to work with home automation and health/fitness devices. What’s Tim Cook’s plan? We’ll have to wait and see.

Author: The Fonecast
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Using Bitcoin on a mobile phone: it's much easier than I expected

Mark Bridge writes:

Bitcoin, as Wikipedia tells me, is a peer-to-peer payment system introduced as open-source software in 2009. It’s a ‘virtual currency’ that can be used for transferring money and for buying products or services, although only if your chosen retailer accepts Bitcoin.

Author: The Fonecast
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