Author: Darrell Etherington

Logitech had a definite winner on its hands with the Ultrathin Keyboard Case for iPad, a Bluetooth keyboard that attaches via magnets built into the iPad, protecting the screen and adding only minimal thickness. Now, there’s a successor designed for the iPad mini that comes in an appropriately shrunken down package. Of course, making a keyboard smaller doesn’t always produce the best results, but in this case, Logitech strikes a good balance.

• MSRP: $79
• Three months of battery life (based on two hours daily usage)
• Availability: Preorder now, with availability sometime later this month
• 7.33mm thin, weighs 220 grams
• Available in black and white (and red in select markets)

The Logitech Ultrathin is a good-looking device that matches up really well with the iPad mini’s design. My review unit is black, and the case’s matte finish pretty much perfectly mirrors that of the iPad’s rear case. Side-by-side and face down, the symmetry is such that you could easily pick up one thinking it was the other if you aren’t paying close enough attention. The two surfaces also feel the same, which speaks volumes about Logitech’s attention to quality with the Ultrathin’s construction.

The magnet spine that attaches to the iPad itself snaps into place with a satisfying click, and lines up well when closed. The face of the keyboard features a shiny black plastic, which, while not as classy as the iPad’s glass surface, does a good job of mimicking its black bezel visually, to keep the whole design symmetry experience consistent.

The Ultrathin’s keyboard is the part upon which everything hinges, and Logitech has pulled out all the stops to try to provide a typing experience that doesn’t feel compromised, despite the extremely limited real estate available given the iPad mini’s small footprint. To make it work, Logitech has combined a number of function buttons, reduced key size and cut down on the space between them.

The keys themselves feel great, and offer a nice response when typing despite how thin the cover is. But the experience isn’t without compromises. Typing on the keyboard will prove a frustrating experience at first for anyone used to using a full-sized keyboard. But the good news is that the number of errors you make starts to taper off pretty quickly, and in very little time, you can even feel mostly at home on the Ultrathin keyboard, though placement of some elements like the Shift keys never quite feels perfectly natural.

While the typing experience isn’t perfect on the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard, it’s about as close as you can get without adding a lot more bulk to a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad mini. It still dramatically increases your ability to enter text, and beats using the software keyboard by a very wide margin. If you’re looking for an iPad mini keyboard that maintains the smaller tablet’s considerable size advantage over its big brother and still greatly improves the experience of typing anything longer than a tweet.

Apple’s next big growth market could be India – a country where it has failed to find significant purchase with consumers up until this point. The Economic Times (via @ScepticGeek) is reporting that sales of Apple devices, with iPhones leading the way, rose by between 300 and 400 percent in the past quarter. That growth, identified by research firm IDC, is likely being propelled by Apple’s distribution partnerships with Redington and Ingram Micro.

According to Convergence Catalyst founder Jayanth Kolla in conversation with the Economic Times, Apple’s strategy in India mirrors the route it took to success in China; the company spent time studying the market, learned what it needed to do to sell handsets in India and then got aggressive about executing its sales strategy. Apple’s India team grew by 500 percent in six months to help make that happen, going from 30 to 150 people, Kolla says.

Apple’s strategy in India hasn’t involved fielding a lower cost device, but it has included making its iPhone more attainable for cost-conscious buyers. That’s being done through installment-based payment schemes operated through its resale partners, including one with TheMobileStore, a national Indian retail chain, which that company’s CEO says has helped increase sales of Apple gadgets three-fold in the past year.

Three- or four-fold growth in a single quarter is definitely impressive, but Apple has to make up a considerable gulf in India. According to recent figures from IDC, Samsung had a 46 percent market share in India between July and September 2012, and Apple didn’t even show up in the top five, with HTC rounding out that crowd with a relatively small 6.6 percent. Browsing stats show that Apple has only a tiny percentage of current mobile web traffic in the country, and the most recent IDC numbers for mobile operating systems show a meager 1.4 percent share of sales in the July through September 2012 quarter.

Last year, during an Apple quarterly conference call, CEO Tim Cook said that while he “love[s]” India, he said they didn’t see much opportunity there in the short-term and would be focusing on other market where there was more growth potential for the time being. Part of the reason for his hesitation was the distribution system in that country, he said at the time. But a fresh injection of local Apple staff, and a distribution model that is beginning to find its legs could signal that Cook and Apple are finally willing to put in the time and effort to grow their presence in India, where there is reportedly currently less than 10 percent smartphone penetration.

T-Mobile says that BlackBerry’s new Z10 smartphone is “more stable than … anticipated,” and could potentially get a faster-than-expected launch on the network. As it stands, the new BB10-based smartphone looks to be on track for a mid-March release, according to statements made by T-Mobile USA Head of Business Sales Frank Sickinger speaking to Bloomberg today. The company anticipates it could be the first U.S. carrier “out of the gate” with BB10 as a result, according to the report.

Anticipated launch dates for the BlackBerry Z10 in the U.S. had pointed to a March 27 launch on T-Mobile, according to a leaked roadmap published by TmoNews earlier this week. While that date may have originally been accurate based on the carrier’s assumption of how long the Z10 would take to clear testing, Sickinger’s words today suggest that the timeframe has been pushed up.

The Z10 is already out and available in the Canadian and U.K. markets, and BlackBerry has been issuing reports of early sales success in both countries. The launch in Canada on Rogers is reported to have seen initial sales numbering in the “thousands,” making for a record launch day for a single BlackBerry device, and in the U.K. many outlets report being sold out. That said, BlackBerry still isn’t releasing any specific sales numbers, which casts some doubt on how successful sales have actually been, in relative terms compared to the larger smartphone industry.

The Z10 will retail on T-Mobile for $199 with a new two-year agreement, and will be offered to business customers ahead of its consumer launch, with about a week’s worth of lead time. If T-Mobile can get the Z10 in customer hands a bit faster than its competition,  that might help it win over some more business customers to its cause. But this could just spur other carriers to try to speed up their own testing processes, which should please the eager U.S.-based BB-heads out there.

Apple had a new patent application published by the USPTO today, describing an unlocking method for digital devices that uses image identification to properly recognize an authorized user. The system would present a user with photographs from their iPhoto or iCloud collections, and then ask them to identify who or what the subject is in order to unlock the device. The item in question could also be an object or series of images.

The authentication process would work by displaying at least one image to be identified from the user’s library, though it could also display a number in succession if users are looking for more security. It’s highly likely that someone close to you will recognize another individual depicted in photos on your phone, for instance, but if you’re worried about granting access even to that inner circle of acquaintances, it becomes increasingly unlikely they’ll be able to identify each of a series of more than one picture.

Different means of input are also described in the patent, from a multiple selection list of choices for one-tap entry, to using an on-screen (on an iOS device) or physical keyboard (on a Mac) to type in the exact answer, to just speaking the name of the person or object aloud. Combined with voice recognition, you can see how the third option would provide yet another layer of added, personalized security, which would be very hard to beat via conventional machine-based security workaround tools.

If the system uses objects instead of people, the patent describes a process by which users would offer up unique, alternative nicknames for recognizable monuments and landmarks. So, for example, a picture of the Eiffel Tower could actually be linked to the phrase “The Big Stick.” Since no one else is likely to use quite the same idiosyncratic alternate names for highly recognizable objects, the system should remain fairly secure.

In most cases, Apple’s current passcode unlock system is probably sufficient for the needs of users, but should the company want to meet the needs of privacy sensitive users, a method like this that’s highly personal and hard to hack could be of considerable benefit.

Pebble, the smart watch that set the world on fire with its Kickstarter project, is already encountering a few growing pains as its device begins to trickle out to the earliest backers. Chief among those issues is a problem that sees iOS notifications for email turn off whenever an iPhone or iPod touch has its Bluetooth connection interrupted. Problems are also cropping up around different Android OEMs and the stock email apps they use not necessarily being compatible with Pebble, iOS caller ID issues and differing support for various Android ROMs, among others.

Pebble itself acknowledged these and other issues in an email to Kickstarter project supporters today, identifying which issues they’re working on and what their top priorities are. The iOS email problem, which can be fixed somewhat with an awkward workaround. Pebble says that they’ve talked about this problem with Apple’s developer support department, but doesn’t think that that’s necessarily a route they can expect a solution from anytime soon. Instead, they say finding a solution is their “#1 priority iOS task,” and they’re currently looking to gather feedback from the iOS user pool to help them address it.

Other issues highlighted in the email include problems like HTC and Samsung devices not delivering email notifications to the Pebble properly from the default email apps used by those OEMs, Pebble interfering with proper Siri functionality on iOS and more. Here’s a complete list, as quoted from the email sent by the Pebble team.

• Email notifications from the default email app on HTC and some other Android devices are not being delivered to Pebble yet. On other default email apps (Samsung in particular) do not transmit email contents. Working on it.
• Some Pebbles are rebooting after receiving some notifications. If this happens to you regularly, use the Contact or Email support button inside the app to send us debug logs.
• iOS Caller ID. We’ve identified a bug that prevents a caller’s name from appearing on Pebble. Will have a fix in the next iOS Pebble App version.
• Android two factor authentication – click here for instructions
• Watchfaces not loading on iOS. Fixed in the next version of the iOS app.
• Battery indicator: we’re seeing reports of Pebble battery lasting from 2-7 days. It seems to be related to the variety of different Bluetooth connections on different phones. The first thing we’re working on is improving the battery logging and how Pebble alerts you when the battery is almost empty. Then we’ll move to improving battery life across the board.
• Android ROMs: we’ll do our best, but unfortunately we cannot promise support for the entire wide world of Andriod ROMs out there. We’re testing with stock devices from HTC, Samsung, Nexus (among others) and always on the stock OS.- Pebble seems to interfere with Siri on iOS devices. Working on this problem.

Issues are to be expected with a device that’s so new to market, and essentially just reaching its first users now. But many of these involve basic Pebble functionality, including the ability to transmit information from your phone to your watch about basic things like incoming calls and email. And the battery issues are another core element of the watch’s appeal, and one which users are likely to find fairly disappointing.

More worrying than these are issues that don’t seem to have an imminent solution. Pebble says it will fix some of these issues in the next update for iOS, including the caller ID problem and the issue around being able to change watch faces, but other things like the Siri interference and Bluetooth connection problems don’t have any kind of projected timeline for a solution. And the Android fragmentation problem is one even Pebble admits is too big to ever completely tackle.

My Pebble is still in the mail, so I’m reserving judgement on the device until I can actually get to try it out, but these early problems aren’t that encouraging. At least the team seems intent on addressing the issues to the best of their ability early, which could help get things ironed out before the Pebble is in the hands of more actual users.

Apple is set to lose its iPhone trademark in Brazil, according to a report from Reuters which cites a source familiar with a forthcoming decision from that country’s copyright regulator. The trademark was challenged by Brazilian electronics firm IGB Electronics SA, which launched a new line of Android phones bearing the name late last year.

The decision will be announced officially on February 13, Reuters reports, at which time Apple is open to challenging it. The Brazilian company has had the trademark since 2000, giving it a lengthy head start over Apple’s own use of the term, but the Android line with the name “iphone” was only launched in December 2012, which could indicate it was an explicit attempt to give its copyright claims more force.

IGB Electronics SA has said in the past that it is willing to discuss selling the trademark rights to Apple, in an interview with Bloomberg from just before news of this decision was reported by Reuters. IGB may be looking for a similar outcome to the case in China last year which saw Proview, a Chinese electronics company, eventually sell its own ownership of the iPhone trademark to Apple for a $60 million payday.

IGB is playing its cards wisely, targeting Apple in one of its key growth demographics. Last year, Tim Cook said that Apple sees “huge opportunity” in Brazil, and the country in many ways mirrors the economic climate in China, which is increasingly important to Apple’s bottom line.

Will Apple have to stop selling iPhones in Brazil? It’s unlikely the company will let it come to that. Either they’ll appeal any decision that comes down, or arrange to purchase the mark from IGB in the interest of expediency. But it does make you wonder if we’ll see more trademark claims pop out of the woodwork in other key international markets.

When BlackBerry unveiled its new BB10 line of devices and mobile OS, the company showed off both the Z10 and Q10 smartphones. The Z10 was released shortly after the announcement in many markets (the next day in the U.K., this week in Canada) and will hit the U.S. in March, but the Q10 with its hardware QWERTY keyboard was said to be hitting markets beginning in April. The key word there was “beginning,” however, as in a follow-up interview BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins reveals Americans likely won’t get the device until May or June.

Heins told the Associated Press in an interview (via AllThingsD) that the Q10 is likely to arrive in the U.S. some eight to ten weeks after the Z10 hits the U.S., which is supposed to happen around mid-March. That means it will be until May or even June before U.S. customers are able to buy the Q10, some simple math tells us.

The delay isn’t all that surprising. The Z10 is also arriving stateside later than it is coming to other markets, something Heins attributed to the extensive carrier testing required to get it approved for use on major networks in the U.S. from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. The same thing is to be expected for the Q10, with perhaps a bit of a shorter testing period required since it’s running BB10, which the carriers are seeing in final shipping form for the first time with the Z10′s round of testing.

The delay isn’t great for BlackBerry, which would no doubt like to have the QWERTY handset out as soon as possible, after giving the Z10 a chance to find a foothold with consumers. The Q10 remains among the last real hardware keyboard smartphones, and it’ll be interesting to see how BlackBerry blends that control mechanism with BB10′s largely gesture based navigation interface, and how that combination works for consumers.

LG Mobile today posted an image to its Facebook page feed that strongly suggests we’ll soon see the company officially reveal its next generation of smartphone devices. The teaser graphic promises that LG’s “New series will be unveiled,” depicting a wrapped gift box. The curious tagline “See what surprise LG has in store for you this time, with an unexpected distinction” accompanies the images.

LG may be eager to let people know that something new is coming, but the company isn’t giving anything away in terms of what will be announced or when. In all likelihood, however, given the timing of this announcement, we’ll probably see whatever LG has to show at Mobile World Congress this year in Barcelona. That event is taking place starting later in February, so we don’t have long to wait.

We can also speculate about what LG will be unveiling at that show. While many of the commenters on the company’s Facebook post seem interested in getting updates to their devices to Android Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean, it’s much more likely we’ll see LG’s Optimus G successor, the G Pro, which boasts  a 5-inch, 1080p display shown off, and it seems a number of other devices designed to appeal to a range of budgets. The Optimus G Pro has already been confirmed by NTT DoCoMo, and should launch in April, but other LG smartphones likely remain to be seen.

The question remains whether LG can deliver anything truly surprising now that the Optimus Pro has been outed. Then again, this is the company that delivered the excellent Nexus 4, so don’t underestimate what they can do outside of a flagship phone.

Mophie is one of the most trusted names in iPhone and mobile backup batteries, and the company has finally debuted its battery case for iPhone 5. The Mophie Juice Pack Helium is around 13 percent thinner than the Air version released for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 (get it? Helium is lighter than air), and retails for $79.95 right now direct from the Mophie store. The cases should ship in time for Valentine’s Day, the company says.

The new Mophie boasts a 1500 mAh battery, which keen readers will notice is technically enough to double the 1,440 mAh power station inside the iPhone 5. That’s enough to boost your device’s talk time life by up to 6 hours on 3G, or provide another 6 hours of cellular browsing, 7 hours of WiFi browsing, 30 hours of audio playback or 7 hours of movie watching, according to Mophie.

The new slim down design is offered in both dark metallic and metallic silver colors, with the dark scheme shipping first, and it has the same LED power indicator and forward-facing speaker ports that have made the Mophie line a winner for the past few years. Of course the things can also stand to shed some weight and girth, so this new thinner design is very welcome, but the fact is that when you need juice and you’re without any kind of outlet, having one of these on hand can really save the day, and they take up less space than something like an external charger.

One final advantage of the Juice Pack Helium is that it has a micro USB port to take the place of the Lightning connector, which handles pass-through charging and data syncing just fine. That’s good news if you’ve already got a ton of micro USB cables (one is also included) lying around from other devices and don’t want to invest heavily in replacing all those 3o-pin Apple chargers from your past iOS devices. This may be one of those cases where a blogger’s needs may not reflect the larger community’s, but I’m definitely a believer given Mophie’s track record, and for sure picking one of these up.

Apple has managed to nab three of the top 5 spots for the top-selling mobile phones in the U.S. during Q4 2012 according to the NPD Group, with the iPhone 5, iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 ranking first, third and fourth, respectively. Apple also retained the crown for best-selling overall smartphone maker, accounting for 39 percent of smartphone sales in Q4 2012, compared to Samsung’s 30 percent.

iPhone 4 sales rose 79 percent compared to Q3 2012, and iPhone 4S sales grew 43 percent sequentially, while the iPhone 5 accounted for 43 percent of all iPhone sales in Q4 2012, which is roughly in line with the numbers we’re seeing out of carrier data as well. It also made up nearly two-thirds of all smartphone sales on post-paid plans with a value over $200, NPD says. Samsung made considerable gains on the year, going up to 30 percent of all U.S. smartphone sales in Q4 2012 from 21 percent in the year ago quarter, but the gains were mostly at the expense of other Android OEMs, including HTC, while Apple’s overall share remained constant.

Net Applications also released its monthly report on mobile OS share, which found that Apple’s iOS increased slightly in terms of traffic, accounting for 60.56 percent of all mobile operating systems, while Android actually took a bit of a dip to 24.51 percent, continuing a decline that has occurred over the past two months from a peak high in November of 28.02 percent. It looks like Apple’s release of the iPhone 5 might have essentially begun to erase earlier gains made by the longer availability of the Samsung Galaxy S III, but Apple still has some ground to make up if it wants to climb back to its 2012 high of nearly 66 percent web traffic share among mobile devices.

Apple’s holiday quarter, which included 47.8 million iPhone sales and 22.9 million iPads, looks to have helped it in terms of remaining the leader in both smartphone and mobile device sales in the U.S., and in keeping the hold it has on mobile browsing. The strong quarter also accounts for Apple’s regaining the role of largest mobile phone maker by volume in the U.S., an honor it reclaimed according to the latest data from Strategy Analytics released earlier today.

HTC is set to show off something at a special press event in NYC on February 19 (the day before Sony’s, it turns out), and it’s quite likely that the company will debut its rumored new flagship phone, the M7. And now new leaks from the generally dependable Evleaks suggest the company has a multi-device lineup planned to follow the M7 with retail availability in Spring.

The two phones detailed by Evleaks on UnwiredView suggest that HTC will follow-up the M7 with a device with slightly more moderate specs, akin to how the One S was designed to complement the One X last year. And there will also be a down-market device, called the G2, that will be 2013′s equivalent to the HTC Desire C.

The M4 will reportedly pack a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, with a 4.3-inch 720 p display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of onboard storage and a 13 megapixel rear camera. It’ll have a fairly limited 1500 mAh battery (but fewer pixels to push compared to the M7), and should run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

The HTC G2 (which is unrelated to the previous HTC phone of the same name) will have a 1.0GHz ARM Cortex processor with 512MB of RAM, a 3.5-inch HVGA (480 x 320) display, with a 5 megapixel rear camera and no front shooter, a 1400 mAh battery and Android Ice Cream Sandwich as its operating system.

Once again, HTC looks set to deliver a trio of solid Android handsets designed for various consumer budgets, but I am a little concerned that this won’t be different enough from the status quo to really excite consumers and propel sales to higher than HTC’s rather disappointing performance overall in 2012. That said, it’s still very early to be judging these phones considering they haven’t even been made official yet, so maybe there’s more to HTC’s 2013 lineup than what’s apparent from the spec sheets.