Category: Mobile

AT&T (T) may be pushing alternatives to the iPhone, but that doesn’t mean one of those alternatives will be BlackBerry (BBRY). The Wall Street Journal reports that two AT&T stores in Manhattan on Friday featured “neither special signs nor floor displays” to highlight BlackBerry’s flagship Z10 smartphone on its first day of availability in the United States. And this apparently wasn’t just a New York problem either, as the Journal reports that an AT&T store in San Francisco didn’t have any sort of display for the Z10 upon opening Friday and only brought out a Z10 for public viewing after a customer asked for it. When the San Francisco store finally did put up a display for the Z10, the Journal says that it was “at a back corner of the store, away from a large sign advertising the iPhone 5.”

One need only look at the chatter on any tech blog or social network to see that demand for Samsung’s (005930) next-generation flagship smartphone is building. The Galaxy S 4 is set to launch in the coming weeks, and some analysts think sales could climb as high as 10 million units in the phone’s first month of availability. If pre-registration interest at one of the U.K.’s largest smartphone retailers is any indication, Samsung indeed may have another winner on its hands.

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Nokia (NOK) priced its latest flagship Windows phone ambitiously — the Lumia 920 was at parity with the 16 GB iPhone 5 in early January. Both the Lumia 920 and the 16 GB iPhone 5 cost €540 in Germany, the largest smartphone market in Europe. By third week of March, the 16 GB iPhone price in Germany has dropped to the €510-€520 range at retailers such as Modeo, Notebooksbilliger and Handyschotte. The price of the Lumia 920 has declined to €497 at retails like Handyshop and Notebooksbillige, but perhaps surprisingly, the price has remained above €520 at most retailers, ranging from Modeo to Notebook.

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Photographed parts that allegedly come from Apple’s (AAPL) next-generation iPhone were published on Friday by Japanese vendor Moumantai, which describes the components as the home button, flex cable and internal vibrator for the iPhone 5S. It was believed that Apple was planning to include a fingerprint scanner in the home button, however this is now in doubt because the purported iPhone 5S button looks nearly identical to the one found on the iPhone 5. According to MacRumors, the only difference is the positioning and size of the flex cable. The internal vibrator is also similar to the one found in the iPhone 5, once again suggesting that the iPhone 5S won’t include any major design changes from earlier models. The latest rumors claim that Apple is will release the iPhone 5S in late summer. The leaked images follow below.

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BlackBerry is launching the Z10 today in the U.S., but it’s already looking ahead to what comes next, according to an interview between ABC’s Joanna Stern and BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins. The company is working on ways that BlackBerry software can power your laptop or tablet, too, and all from your smartphone. Heins sounds like he’s describing an Asus PadFone, and revealed a dream of a personal computing world focused on just a single device.

Heins said, referring to the new BlackBerry smartphones, that we’ve now reached the point where you’re now carrying around a full-fledged computer in your pocket with “the power of a laptop.” He emphasized that BlackBerry wants to be the one to finally figure out how to truly consolidate all of a user’s computing devices into one, though when asked directly whether this would take the form of a laptop or tablet that supports and is powered by a docked smartphone, Heins told Stern that the company is working with a number of different options.

We’ll know more about BlackBerry’s unification plans at BlackBerry World in May, Heins said, when he plans to “talk about a few of those concepts” the company is working on. Another subject up for discussion at the event will be additional BB10 phones beyond the currently announced Z10 and Q10 handsets, he told ABC.

Hybrid tablet/PC/smartphone devices have a bit of a checkered past. The Asus PadFone has seen success in some international markets, but failed to make a splash in the U.S. And Samsung launched a Smart Dock for the Galaxy Note II that supposedly converts your smartphone into a mini desktop computer, but we’ve heard relatively little about that device and nothing about its popularity since its launch.

Another reason for skepticism is BlackBerry’s track record with the Playbook tablet. The Playbook was the first BlackBerry device to ship with a QNIX-based operating system, a clear precursor to BB10. It didn’t fare well: facing extremely low consumer demand, BlackBerry ran a number of fire sales and eventually stuck with a permanent, drastic price drop to get people buying.

Does that mean BlackBerry can’t pull off a tablet/notebook/smartphone unification? Not necessarily, but it also doesn’t necessarily instill courage. Still, it’s good to see the company aim for the kind of solution that’s seemed so promising in the past, even if it might be the proverbial Fountain of Youth of the tech industry – eminently desirable but ultimately mythical.

HTC’s new flagship smartphone, the HTC One, will go on sale in the U.K., Germany and the company’s home market of Taiwan next week, HTC has confirmed today. The rollout will then ramp up “across Europe”, North America and “most of Asia-Pacific” before the end of the April.

The company had previously said the handset would start rolling out to customers “from mid-March”.

A HTC spokeswoman provided the following statement: “HTC has seen unprecedented demand for and interest in the new HTC One, and the care taken to design and build it is evidenced in early reviews. The new HTC One will roll out in the UK, Germany and Taiwan next week and across Europe, North America and most of Asia-Pacific before the end of April. We appreciate our customers’ patience, and believe that once they have the phone in their hands they will agree that it has been worth the wait.”

The One has a 4.7-inch 1080p screen — putting it close in screen size to ‘phablet’ territory — which is topped and tailed with aluminium trim. Inside it’s powered by one of Qualcomm’s new quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipsets, clocked at 1.6GHz, and also packs in 2GB of RAM.

In looks the One resembles BlackBerry’s Z10, and that’s not the only similarity between the two companies at this point. Both have a lot riding on their respective flagships as rivals have gobbled up huge chunks of the smartphone market.

HTC needs the One to fly, having struggled to make an impact in an Android space dominated by Samsung’s Galaxy series of devices. Earlier this month the company reported its lowest sales since January 2010. Sales for the month of February fell by nearly 44% to 11.37 billion Taiwan dollars ($384 million). But with falling revenues, HTC has fewer resources to marshal in its fight with Samsung — perhaps explaining the One’s staggered rollout — making it all the more important it gets a hit with the device.

Enders Analysis analyst Benedict Evans noted recently that HTC has now “given up every penny of revenue growth it picked up from Android” — illustrating the rise and fall on the following graph:

Evans added that while the HTC One “is a very nice phone” in the current highly competitive handset market nice hardware is ” insufficient to compete”. HTC will be hoping it can prove him wrong.

HTC (2498) confirmed on Friday that its flagship HTC One smartphone will launch in the U.K., Germany and Taiwan beginning next week. More extensive launches across Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region will follow by the end of April. HTC said in a statement that it has seen “unprecedented demand” for its new flagship Android phone, which was delayed due to problems the company has had sourcing certain components. BGR previewed the HTC One last month and said in terms of hardware, it is one of the best smartphones ever built. HTC will see fierce competition from the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S 4 however, and Apple (AAPL) is expected to unveil multiple new iPhone models this summer. HTC’s full statement follows below.

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BlackBerry (BBRY) fans in the United States haven’t even been able to purchase the company’s newest flagship phone for 24 hours and BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins is already teasing a new BlackBerry 10 smartphone. During an interview with CNET, Heins confirmed that his company has plans to launch an “exciting” new flagship smartphone ahead of the holidays this year, though launch timing isn’t yet set in stone. “There’s one new product I’m really excited about, but I can’t really share it,” the BlackBerry boss said. He wouldn’t confirm any details about the unannounced device, though he did say that the upcoming phone “takes BlackBerry 10 to another level in terms of the user experience” — which could be somewhat aggravating news to all the diehard fans and other users about to enter into a two-year agreement when they purchase the BlackBerry Z10.

Julius Genachowski announced on Friday that he will be stepping down as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, a position he has held since 2009. During his tenure, Genachowski supervised the regulation of radio, television, broadband, wired and wireless communications within the United States. He also attempted to free up additional spectrum for wireless carriers and oversaw the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.

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It looks like Apple (AAPL) will finally break from its historical launch pattern and release two new iPhones in 2013, including the “budget iPhone” that Wall Street has been starting rumors about for at least three years now. Numerous reports from newspapers, blogs and sell-side analysts have insisted that Apple is planning a new entry-level iPhone model that will launch alongside the “iPhone 5S” this coming summer. A recent report from a plugged-in industry watcher suggested the affordable iPhone will be released in the late summer months featuring a plastic case and the same 4-inch Retina display from the iPhone 5, but a new note from RBC Capital claims otherwise.

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The wait for a fresh new BlackBerry (BBRY) smartphone to launch in the United States has been absolutely grueling for diehard fans, but it’s finally over. Beginning Friday, BlackBerry’s first next-generation BlackBerry 10 smartphone is available from AT&T (T) online and in stores for $199.99 with a new two-year agreement. BGR reviewed the BlackBerry Z10 in January and called it a huge improvement over the stale BlackBerry 7 OS in many ways, but BlackBerry still has a long way to go to catch up with market leaders. Following Friday’s launch at AT&T, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available from T-Mobile beginning March 27th and from Verizon (VZ) starting March 28th.

Google (GOOG) is reportedly working on a redesign for its Google Play store that includes brighter colors, bigger images and a cleaner look. According to Droid-Life, the redesigned marketplace carries the version number 4.0.16 and features a streamlined layout with inspiration drawn from Google Now. Other changes include the removal of the application download/install screen and it would appear all apps will be auto-updated by default, an option that can be turned off for individual apps. It is unclear when Google will release the redesign, though it could happen in the coming weeks. A leaked video walkthrough follows below.

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HTC (2498) has been on quite a journey in its short history as a company. HTC was founded in 1997 as a notebook computer vendor and then began developing Widows Mobile handsets in the early 2000s and launched one of the first touchscreen smartphones in the world. As the mobile industry continued to evolve, so did HTC. The company would later be among the earliest Android adopters and it produced the first Google (GOOG)-powered smartphone, the HTC Dream. HTC’s EVO 4G was the first 4G smartphone to be released in the U.S. and the Thunderbolt was the country’s first LTE phone. HTC peaked as shares of the company’s stock rose to all time highs in the spring of 2011, however things took a turn toward the end of 2011 and the company still hasn’t recovered.

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We’ve known for a while that Apple (AAPL) design guru Jonathan Ive would look to put his own distinct stamp on iOS and now unnamed sources have told The Wall Street Journal that Ive may go with a “flat design” for the next version of the operating system that will be “starker and simpler” than the current version. The Journal’s report follows a New York Times report from last year that claimed Ive would waste no time overhauling the design of iOS to make it fit in more with his own minimalist hardware designs. The Times’ report similarly indicated that Ive’s iOS makeover will incorporate “clean edges, flat surfaces” to “replace the textures that are all over the place right now.”

BlackBerry (BBRY) is in need of a hit in the United States, but it seems that early preorder volumes for the BlackBerry Z10 on American wireless carriers have been below expectations so far. Barron’s points us to a new note from Detwiler Fenton & Co. analyst Jeff Johnston, who says that preorders for the Z10 “have been light and well below expectations” on carriers he’s checked in with so far. Johnston says that Z10 faces a consumer awareness problem in the U.S., which has only been exacerbated by other recent high-profile launches such as the recent Galaxy S 4 and the HTC (2498) One.

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Google (GOOG) CEO chairman Eric Schmidt had some kind words for Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) at the company’s Big Tent Summit in India this week. In particular, the executive praised Apple as a “tremendous technology innovator” that can “build beautiful products.” But while Schmidt was adamant in his praise for Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad, he was also was quick to point out the superior experience users can have on a Nexus 10 tablet by claiming that it has “more apps, is more scalable and more secure.”

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As BlackBerry (BBRY) continues to fight the bloody battle for No.3 in the global smartphone market, apps are becoming less of a problem for the company’s new platform. Sort of. BlackBerry announced on Thursday that the BlackBerry World app store is now home to more than 100,000 BlackBerry 10 apps. The news comes just seven weeks after the 70,000-app milestone was reached. BlackBerry listed a host of popular apps and games alongside the announcement, but a quick look around BlackBerry World shows that the company still has a ways to go — many top apps are nowhere to be found and BlackBerry 10 seems to be running into the same problem BlackBerry’s PlayBook suffered from, where most of the available apps are just filler. Hopefully now that the 100,000 threshold has been reached, BlackBerry can focus on quality over quantity. The company’s full press release follows below.

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WhatsApp has reigned as the undisputed messaging app champion across dozens of countries over the past two years. However, huge download volumes in all these countries doesn’t necessarily translate to high consumer engagement. A research firm called Mobidia has provided BGR with a fascinating comparison chart providing a direct engagement level comparison between WhatsApp and its major rivals in some of the biggest mobile markets. Mobidia chose a cut-off-point of 2 MB per month to make sure it is counting only consumers who truly use a messaging app actively.

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Anyone who wants to challenge Apple’s (AAPL) reign as king of the smartphone world has a very big obstacle standing in their way: iPhone customers really, really like their devices. J.D. Power’s latest smartphone satisfaction rankings once again show that the iPhone has the highest customer satisfaction in the industry, as its overall score of 855 out of 1,000 easily bested its rivals and actually represented an increase from a year ago when the iPhone got a score of 839 on J.D. Power’s survey. Other companies that scored well in the J.D. Power survey were Nokia (NOK), which got a total score of 795, and Samsung (005930), which got a total score of 793. Nokia’s high score is particularly notable because the company scored just 702 one year ago, which gave it the second-worst customer satisfaction in the smartphone industry behind than the now-defunct Palm.

Some of us have expected that Google’s Android and Chrome operating systems would eventually converge into one operaring system. That’s mostly because Google co-founder Sergey Brin once implied that this would be the case. Since then, Google has given off other signals that this could potentially happen.

For example, we’ve recently seen indications of Android’s Google Now functionality coming to Chrome. Even more recently, Android chief Andy Rubin has stepped away from leading the operating system, as Google now has Sundar Pichai leading both Android and Chrome.

Now, former CEO and current Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has come out and said that Android and Chrome will remain separate products, though we can expect more overlap between the two, according to a report from Reuters. He also said that rumors about him leaving Google were “completely false,” which is helpful to know.

It will be interesting to see just how much overlap does take place between Google’s dueling operating systems, particularly as it is now pushing notebooks with touchscreens (the Chromebook Pixel).

Eventually, it seems, it would make sense for the two to converge as the overlap increases, but even if it’s not going to happen in the near future, who is to say that it never will?

Android has already attained massive popularity, but Chromebook options and availability are really just starting to take off. This week, the company announced availability in six more countries.