Category: Mobile

Google’s ambitious Glass display is still a ways off from its public release, but it looks like those newly minted Glass Explorers now have something else to do besides taking first-person photos. The New York Times just pulled back the curtain on its own Glass-friendly app today, which makes it the first installable third-party app available for the ambitious headset (Path was technically the first third-party app, but it’s preloaded on early versions of the device).

It’s no surprise to see the Grey Lady embrace Glass so enthusiastically — Google developer advocate Timothy Jordan first showed off an early version of the New York Times Glass app at SXSW 2013 in Austin (you can see his full talk here), which pipes new news and headlines to the head-mounted display at regular intervals. Navigating through that stream of news seemed easy enough: a quick tilt of the head would allow the user to sift through photos and full articles, as well.

Setting up the app is a simple process — clicking on the link above asks for access to your Google account:

Once that’s all done, Glass can occasionally chime in by reading headlines in your ear, but the app is also capable of reading off brief article summaries too. All told it seems like a very neat, (if strangely intrusive way) to consume your daily dose of news, and other companies have already pledged to craft their own Glass experiences — Path and the New York Times are a given, but Evernote and supposedly even Twitter are working on apps for Google’s daring device.

2013 is shaping up to be the year LG finds its voice in the mobile industry. The company recently shipped a record 10.3 million smartphones in the first quarter and is expecting that number to increase throughout the year. Handsets such as the Optimus G, Nexus 4 and Optimus G Pro have won over consumers, however LG believes it has the next big thing coming later this year. Yoon Bu-hyun, vice president of LG’s mobile business, confirmed on the company’s earnings call this week that it plans to launch a smartphone with a flexible OLED display before the end of 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported. Although it is unlikely that the handset will be truly flexible due to limitations with other components, it will be the first consumer device to include a wraparound display. LG plans to release the flexible OLED smartphone sometime in the fourth quarter.

Samsung’s Galaxy S4 smartphone will be available from more than 100 carriers in the coming weeks. The flagship handset will be available in two different flavors: a model with a 1.6Ghz eight-core Exynos 5 Octa processor and another with a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor. After the initial announcement, some people were upset with the company’s decision, especially now that the Exynos CPU supports LTE networks.

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Steven Overman has resigned from his position as vice president for global branding and marketing strategy at Nokia, BGR sister site BGR India reported. The former executive was responsible for drafting the high-profile partnership with Microsoft, and also for marketing the company’s Lumia and Asha smartphones. Before joining Nokia in 2010, Overman previously worked at Lowe Worldwide where he led the marketing team that handled Nokia’s account. Despite producing a number of appealing products with extensive marketing campaigns, Nokia has continued to struggle. Lumia Windows Phone shipments increased to 5.6 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up from 4.4 million in the previous quarter. In North America, however, the company only shipped 400,000 smartphones, down from 700,000 in December.

A new report from Citigroup Global Securities confirms that Apple is planning to release both its next-generation iPhone and its long rumored low-cost iPhone in early September, China Times reported. The firm also claims that Apple is planning to launch a TD-SCDMA version of both devices for China Mobile in late September or early October. As for a new full-sized iPad and iPad mini, Citigroup expects both slates to also debut in September or October. The latest rumors suggest that the iPhone 5S will be equipped with a faster A7 processor, a 12-megapixel camera and a revamped version of iOS.

Soleil Moon Frye, commonly known as the girl who played Punky Brewster, has a startup called Moonfrye, and it has attracted $2.5 million in funding from GRP Partners, Greycroft, Daher Capital, and Google’s investment arm, Google Ventures.

The company is readying a mobile product aimed at inspiring “digital creativity in parents and children with physical products that surprise.” Basically, it will focus on family-oriented crafts and DIY. Frye is serving as Chief Creative Officer. Former IAC exec Kara Nortman is CE.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Randi Zuckerberg is serving as an advisor, along with Dan Rosensweig, Tim Ferriss, Gina Bianchini, Erik Lammerding and Rick Marini.

The startup builds on the Moonfrye.com online community launched a few years ago. It already has 1.5 million Twitter followers and 500,000 Facebook likes.

“As my most important role in life is being a mom, it was clear to me that parents around the world were looking for cost effective activities where their families could come together and create meaningful experiences both online and off,” said Soleil Moon Frye.

“Our product has a unique, innovative design that is going to be a game-changer for providing parents and children with a shared creative outlet,” said Nortman. “If moms are shutting off passive entertainment in favor of engaging their kids actively on mobile devices then we have made our small dent on society.”

“There’s a restored interest in craftsmanship and DIY. It’s a refreshing change from the reliance on ready-made goods,” said Kevin Rose, General Partner at Google Ventures. “Combining real world experiences with digital tools creates a lot of interesting possibilities when put in the hands of moms and families, and Soleil and Kara have an inspiring vision to bring that to life.”

Those interested can sign up for early access to the app.

Microsoft has reportedly developed an Android application with the sole purpose of stealing users away from Google. According to a report from CITE World, the company will be releasing the “Switch to Windows Phone” application on Android to help users change platforms. The application is able to “find identical or replacement applications” for Windows Phone 8 to replace a user’s old Android apps, thus making the transition far more bearable.

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As more developers are receiving their pair of Google Glass, the tinkering with the device is heating up. One developer found a very interesting easter egg within Glass itself, which introduces you to the entire Glass team.

The steps to reproduce it are fairly simple:

Settings -> Device info -> View licenses -> Tap the touchpad 9 times -> Tap Meet Team

Here’s a video demo, including the neat sounds that happen as you keep tapping:

The neat part about the photo is that you can see the entire 360-degree panoramic image by moving your head around. This was hard to show in the MyGlass screencast, since it lags a little bit. We’ve learned that Mike LeBeau, Senior Software Engineer for Google X, is the one who dropped the hidden gem into Glass’ software. He’s appeared on TechCrunch before in a <a target="_blank" href="“>hilarious Google blooper reel.

The team photo has Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, front and center.

I’m sure that more of these easter eggs will pop up over time, but this one is particularly cool since it’s the first time that I’ve seen a panoramic image on the device since I started using it. This functionality could be something that isn’t exposed in the Mirror API as of yet, but once it is, it’ll be a fun one.

BGR reviewed the BlackBerry Q10 on Tuesday night, and we said it is a great handset for diehard BlackBerry fans desperate for a QWERTY phone. For everyone else, however, we thought the Z10 was a much more impressive phone for people looking to buy a BlackBerry. BlackBerry shared preliminary launch details for the Q10 a few hours before reviews were published, and it said the phone is expected to begin rolling out in the U.S. toward the end of May — priced at $250. Carriers determine their own prices so nothing is set in stone, but at $250 the Q10 will be more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S4, Apple’s iPhone 5, the HTC One, Nokia’s Lumia 920 and many other high-end smartphones. A number of pundits have called BlackBerry crazy for pricing the phone so high, but we want to know what you think, BlackBerry fans: is the Q10 worth $250? Vote in our poll below and let us know what you think.

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Doom and gloom aside, it looks like there are still a few people eager to develop for Apple’s iOS and OS X platforms. Tickets for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference this year went on sale at 1:00 p.m. EDT and they’re already sold out according to Apple’s website — and it took less than 3 minutes for all of them to go. To put Thursday’s unbelievable sellout into context, WWDC 2011 sold out in just under 12 hours and WWDC 2012 sold out in about 2 hours. Among the highlights expected at this year’s WWDC are an overhauled user interface in Apple’s iOS 7 software and an updated version of OS X. Apple might have a few surprises in store as well, and the show kicks off on June 10th in San Francisco.

Apple pays out more than $1 billion to third-party developers who sell apps in its iOS and Mac App Stores each quarter, so the hefty $1,599 it charges for each ticket to its annual Worldwide Developer Conference seems like a good value. The company recently recently announced that WWDC 2013 tickets would go on sale at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday, and Apple has now made them available to purchase online.

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Nokia on Thursday sent invitations to bloggers and the press for an event at which it will unveil at least one next-generation Lumia smartphone. “You are warmly welcome to join us in London on 14 May for the next chapter of the Lumia story,” the invitation said. Specific details about the upcoming announcement were not provided. Nokia is reportedly working on a number of new Windows Phone handsets that will debut in 2013, including the Lumia 928 and a phablet with a screen that measures between 5 and 6 inches diagonally. An image of Nokia’s invitation follows below.

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Apple’s three available iPhone models combined to handily dominate rival smartphones on the three top wireless carriers in the United States last quarter. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have now each reported their first-quarter financial results and in doing so, they have also released smartphone sales and activations figures. Enders Analysis analyst Benedict Evans charted the combined data and found that Apple’s iPhone line continued its reign in the first quarter despite the soured Apple sentiment.

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Don’t write off Microsoft’s chances in mobile just yet. It may still be struggling to make itself count in the smartphone space but early signs are more promising for Windows plus tablets. Microsoft has gone from having no share of the global tablet OS market in Q1 last year to taking 7.4% one year later, with three million Windows 8 tablets shipped in Q1 2013, according to preliminary figures from Strategy Analytics‘ Global Tablet OS Market Share: Q1 2013 report.

The analyst notes record tablet shipments in the quarter, with global branded tablet shipments reaching an “all-time high” of 40.6 million units in Q1, driven on by year-on-year growth of 117% (vs 146% in Q1 2012).

Microsoft launched Windows 8, its touchscreen-friendly reboot of its desktop OS, last fall – so it’s swung from zero to a 7.4% share in just under half a year. Compare that to the Windows Phone OS, which launched more than two years ago, in fall 2010: Windows Phone took only a 4.1% share in the US smartphone OS market in the three months ending February, according to Kantar figures. Globally, its share is even smaller. Earlier this year ABI Research predicted Windows Phone will end 2013 with around 3% of the worldwide market.

Returning to tablets, compared to the dominant players in the tablet OS market — iOS and Android — Microsoft’s share is still very modest. Strategy Analytics dubs it a “niche” portion, noting that “very limited distribution, a shortage of top tier apps, and confusion in the market, are all holding back shipments”. Microsoft has followed its Windows Phone strategy of paying developers to create apps for Windows 8 but it’s still got work to do in the quality vs quantity stakes. While “confusion in the market” likely refers to Microsoft’s decision to offer two flavours of tablet OS (Windows RT/Windows 8).

According to Strategy Analytics’ figures, Apple retains its lead in the tablet OS space, with a 48.2% share in Q1 vs a “robust” 43.4% for Android on 19.5 million and 17.6 million unit shipments respectively. Apple’s tablet lead over Android is shrinking considerably, dropping to under half the market from 63.1% in the year ago quarter when Android took just over a third (34.2%).

The analyst described Apple’s performance as “solid”, helped by its first full quarter with the iPad mini in its tablet portfolio. But Android is growing fastest, with global branded Android tablet shipments increasing 177% annually in the quarter. Add in budget white box tablets and Android becomes the market leader, taking a 52% share of the total tablet market while iOS slips to 41%.

LG has found success with a handful of LTE and 3G smartphones that have propelled shipments to record heights. The company announced on Wednesday that Android smartphones such as the Optimus G, Optimus G Pro, Optimus L Series and Nexus 4 have helped shipments climb to a record 10.3 million units in the first quarter of 2013. LG said more extensive availability of newer devices is expected to help smartphone sales and shipments increase further in the second quarter. The company is scheduled to announce the U.S. launch of its flagship Optimus G Pro smartphone on May 3rd. The handset has thus far been a hit, surpassing half a million units sold in South Korea in just 40 days.

BlackBerry executives will be pleased to know that Samsung’s plan to challenge them in the enterprise space has been dealt a setback. The New York Times reports that Samsung has delayed releasing its KNOX security software for business customers until at least this summer because the company “needed more time to test the software internally and with carriers.” Samsung’s KNOX security suite, which it first unveiled at Mobile World Congress this year, has several key enterprise features including an application container that works similarly to BlackBerry’s Balance feature that separates work application data from personal application data; the ability to implement separate VPNs to individual applications rather than relying on one VPN for the entire device; and a security-enhanced version of Android that’s been customized to help IT departments enforce more than 300 IT policies and have access to more than 700 mobile device management APIs.

T-Mobile announced on Wednesday that preorders for the QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry Q10 smartphone will begin later next week. BlackBerry’s latest handset comes with a 3.1-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus processor and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The device also includes 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, LTE connectivity, NFC, a microSD slot and a 2100 mAh battery. Earlier reports suggested that T-Mobile would launch the BlackBerry Q10 in May. While exact pricing and a release date were not revealed, the company said business customers can preorder the smartphone beginning on April 29th. BGR reviewed the BlackBerry Q10 earlier this week and found it to be a decent option for those users who still require a physical keyboard.

While some fans of larger screens may be clamoring for Apple to launch its own 5-inch “iPhablet,” Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn’t see his company releasing such a device unless it’s a significant improvement from the current selections being offered by the likes of Samsung and LG. MacRumors has spotted an interesting tidbit from Cook’s earnings call on Tuesday in which Cook criticizes phablet manufacturers for allegedly sacrificing quality for size in their quest to make the largest screens possible.

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Samsung’s Galaxy S4 hasn’t even launched yet in the U.S. and there are already rumors suggesting that a new version of the phone is currently in the works. Middle Eastern tech blog Techview.me attended Samsung’s recent Galaxy S4 press conference for the region. During a question and answer session following the presentation, the site reports that Samsung Gulf president Young Soo Kim was asked why the company hadn’t launched a new waterproof smartphone recently. In response, the executive reportedly stated that a new ruggedized dust and water-resistant version of the Galaxy S4 is in development, though he did not indicate when it might launch. Samsung is also reportedly developing a smaller version of its new smartphone — the Galaxy S4 mini — that will be released this summer.

ZTE has come to an agreement with Microsoft to license the company’s technology that is being borrowed in the Android and Chrome operating systems. Microsoft has signed licensing deals with more than 20 other manufacturers, including HTC, Samsung and LG. In fact, the company claims that 80% of Android smartphones sold in the U.S. and a majority of those sold throughout the world are now covered under its various agreements. Of course, there are still some companies — most notably, Google’s Motorola Mobility — that have not yet come to terms with Microsoft. 

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