Author: Brad Reed

Although Facebook (FB) spent most of its time Thursday talking about its new Facebook Home software that puts Facebook at the center of the Android operating system, the company also announced a new smartphone with HTC (2498) that will be the first to use Home. The appropriately named HTC First will be available in four different colors and will be available on AT&T (T).

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Maybe Facebook (FB) is onto something after all with its notion that people want their smartphones to be centered more around its social network. Flurry Analytics released a new report on Wednesday showing that iOS and Android users spend roughly half their time either playing mobile games, which accounted for 32% of all time spent on both platforms, or using Facebook’s mobile app, which accounted for 18% of all time spent. The report, which used both Flurry’s own data as well as data from comScore and NetMarketShare, found that mobile users spend 80% of their time using some kind of mobile app on their devices and spend just 20% of their time using some kind of mobile browser.

Nokia (NOK) should take solace because it’s not the only company getting panicky advice from analysts who want it to produce a “phablet” within the coming year. Per Barron’s, ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall, who maintains a Strong Buy rating on Apple shares, told CNBC on Wednesday that Apple needs to “migrate to the 5-inch screen iPhone this summer” or the company will “lose a lot of market share.” Marshall noted that at Mobile World Congress this year, “every major high-end smartphone was had a larger screen” and claimed that “most people are migrating to five inches” for smartphones in the future. Even more dramatically, Marshall said that the “phablet” craze presents a “do or die moment” for Apple. As we’ve noted in the past, it seems that having the world’s best-selling smartphone just isn’t enough anymore for some Apple analysts.

Like a lot of important consumer technology, the cellphone got its start as a luxury item for businesspeople who wanted the ability to take important phone calls while out of the office. But 40 years after its invention, the cellphone has become the single most important piece of consumer electronics in the world, acting not only as a communications device for voice calls but as a low-cost way for millions of people around the world to access the Internet without needing more expensive personal computers. As companies such as Samsung (005930), BlackBerry (BBRY), Nokia (NOK) and perhaps even Apple (AAPL) move more aggressively to bring low-cost smartphones to emerging markets, it’s easy to see how mobile phones have become the key to spreading Internet connectivity around the world and giving people access to vital information that had previously been much harder to come by.

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Election years have become nightmares for many Americans, who are not only subjected to an endless stream of campaign ads but must also put up with campaigns and third-party advocacy groups overloading their phone lines with annoying robocalls. The Federal Trade Commission this week announced the winners of its “Robocall Challenge” competition to find ways to stop robocalls and gave special kudos to Google (GOOG) engineers Daniel Klein and Dean Jackson, who proposed “the creation of a system that allows users to report, to an online database system, the originating telephone number of unwanted solicitations, advertisements or robotically placed calls.” If the Google engineers’ system is successfully implemented, blocking robocalls could soon become as simple as blocking unwanted spam messages in Gmail accounts, which is certainly a welcome prospect for Americans who are tired of having their dinners interrupted by automated messages.

Does the world really need another “phablet?” Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean it would be a bad idea for Nokia (NOK) to release an oversized smartphone of its own. In an interview with Bloomberg, IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo says that big-screen devices are “a trend that can’t be missed” because “people are using smartphones in different ways now, consuming media by streaming over faster mobile networks.” CCS Insight research director Ben Wood similarly thinks that “phablets” are an important trend and tells Bloomberg that “Nokia needs to make sure they don’t miss the boat” by not building one of their own.

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If you’re a T-Mobile subscriber who’s been accessing the carrier’s HSPA+ network with an unlocked iPhone 5, don’t worry about having to buy a whole new device to use its recently launched LTE network. TmoNews reports that T-Mobile will push out an update to its unlocked iPhone 5 subscribers on April 5th that will give the device access to the AWS spectrum bands used for T-Mobile’s LTE services. Of course, since T-Mobile’s LTE network is only live in seven markets right now, you’ll probably still be relying on HSPA+ connectivity even after installing the update this week. TmoNews also says that the update will also give unlocked iPhone 5 users access to Visual Voicemail “among other features.”