Category: Mobile

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Boeing [NYSE: BA] on Feb. 11 shipped the first Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF satellite from the company’s satellite manufacturing facility in El Segundo to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a Boeing-built C-17 Globemaster III airlifter.

The next-generation navigation spacecraft will now undergo final preparations for launch.

Space Vehicle 1 (SV-1), the first of 12 GPS IIF satellites for the U.S. Air Force, will lift off on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV vehicle later this year.

The GPS IIF system will bring enhanced performance to the GPS constellation by providing twice the navigational accuracy of heritage satellites, more robust signals for commercial aviation and search-and-rescue, and greater resistance to jamming in hostile environments.

“Since the first GPS satellite was launched in 1978, this successful program has demonstrated the value of space assets,” said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems.

“The GPS IIF system will afford major performance improvements over the legacy satellites and will sustain and dramatically improve the GPS constellation for civil, commercial and defense users alike.”

To prepare for the launch of SV-1, the SV-2 spacecraft in September successfully completed a consolidated system test – a set of one-time, system-level design verification and validation tests involving the space vehicle, the ground-based control segment, and user equipment.

In addition, GPS master control stations successfully commanded the space vehicle as they will do when the satellite is in operational orbit. SV-2 was also used as a “pathfinder” to validate transportation equipment and processes, as well as launch-site test procedures and equipment.

GPS is a space-based, worldwide navigation system providing users with highly accurate, three-dimensional position, navigation and timing information 24 hours a day in all weather conditions.

GPS IIF is the product of Boeing’s experience with 39 successful satellites from the GPS Block I and Block II/IIA missions and more than 30 years of teamwork with the Air Force. GPS IIF will form the core of the GPS constellation for many years to come.

About Boeing Defense, Space & Security

A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Defense, Space and Security is one of the world’s largest defense, space and security businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world’s largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft.

Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is a $34 billion business with 68,000 employees worldwide.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Bob Pickard, 310-364-6125
Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems
[email protected]

Angie Yoshimura, 310-364-6708
Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems
[email protected]

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Our mobile devices are getting smarter, faster and are increasingly mimicking the functionality of a full-fledged PC. New capabilities such as multicore processors in phones and the ability to send HDMI video out mean that the brains inside our phones need more performance while they sip power. To that end, several chipmakers are coming to market with chipsets that combine multiple processors, high-end graphics cores and other design features to make truly killer end devices. As the top wireless chipmaker, Qualcomm has long been the “Intel inside” for mobile phones, but can it compete against a host of new processors with better graphics and more performance?

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor is the brains behind the Nexus One phone and will also star as the processor inside some small yet powerful computers called smartbooks, but rivals such as Texas Instruments, Nvidia and Marvell are gunning for those same design wins. And from a feature perspective, it looks like Qualcomm’s competitors may bring more to the party. Its current 1 GHz Snapdragon (a 1.5 GHz version with 1080p will be in later handsets) delivers 720p video, and has a 3-D graphics engine that’s less impressive than those from Marvell or Nvidia.

Yes, Qualcomm has won big so far. Nvidia launched an application processor at the 2008 Mobile World Congress, which was one sexy hunk of silicon. Later, it became the foundation of the Tegra chipset for mobile devices. After seeing what that could do, I predicted it would revolutionize computing and graphics consumption on the phone. So far, it’s in the Zune, but hasn’t taken off like I expected.

Last year Texas Instruments talked up its OMAP 4 chipset, which seemed to exceed Tegra in terms of graphics performance (1080p, supports up to a 20-megapixel camera, etc), and actually had me giddy with excitement. This year at MWC it launched with TI talking up the chip’s ability to enable gesture recognition on handsets. Also today Marvell, which has really made a big push into application processors for mobile devices in the last year or so, launched its own 1 GHz chip capable of delivering 1080p HD video and hosting real-time, graphic-intensive applications.

Not to be outdone, ST Ericsson, another top wireless chipmaker, announced at the MWC show a dual-core smartphone chip that can deliver 1.2 Ghz on each core. That’s about what my laptop offered five years ago, and seems like far more performance than any phone needs, until you take into consideration that the phone form factor is just one of many mobile connected form factors and that ST Ericsson has also created a chip for mobile devices that allows for HDMI out of the phone.

We predicted such a port in our phone of the not-too-distant-future, but ST Ericsson has the silicon to make it happen. That means with an HDMI cable your phone becomes a DVD player for any content downloaded from the web. One hopes that online stores can get their act together when it comes to selling HD versions of video on mobile devices.

But the question still remains, in a world offering silicon that enables HDMI content to be stored and processed on a handset, or gesture recognition thanks to a high-end camera and a powerful processors, can Qualcomm compete? For the last two years I’ve waited for Qualcomm to be dethroned, but I’m still waiting. Maybe 2010 is the year.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Better Battery Life Motivates Mobile Chipmakers

Of all the companies competing in the cellphone industry, it is perhaps more than just a little poetic that Microsoft should be the first to offer a truly compelling product to rival Apple’s iPhone.

I never thought I’d write that sentence.

Yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Steve Ballmer unveiled Microsoft’s newest phone platform, awkwardly-titled Windows Phone 7 Series.

Quick rundown; it’s based on Windows CE kernel 6.0 (the latest WinMo is 5.2) is finger-friendly everywhere with swiping, pinching and multitouch, sports a virtual keyboard and offers music and video playback via the awesome Zune UI. Oh, and, there’s not a stylus in sight.

And here’s the thing; Windows Phone 7 Series actually looks good. I mean, it looks really good, even though it’s clearly unfinished.

As such, the UI is a bit slow, finger touches are sometimes ignored, and it’s clear that the fancy animations and transitions are something of a drag on the processor. Microsoft engineer Joe Belfiore said of the new OS;

“What we’re doing is building and delivering a different kind of phone […] a smart design that puts the user at the center of their experience. We’re moving beyond the phone as a PC-like item that moves beyond separate applications and brings together the key things that are important to people […] like pictures, and music and video, and productivity.

Users have one simple place to go and access their web services, access the functionality in their applications, and access the data on their phone. Those are the fundamental ideas behind this new user experience.”

On the matter of its fresh new UI, Windows maven Paul Thurrott wrote in his (even more awkwardly titled) Windows Phone 7 Series Preview Part I;

This is an important difference between the iPhone and Windows Phone. When you use an iPhone, you go into an app, which takes over the device. If you want to do something else, you must leave the first app, navigate around the home screens, find the new app, and launch that. Rinse, repeat. (And the iPhone’s lack of a Back button let alone sophisticated multitasking is, of course, still a huge issue.)

After years of heavy daily iPhone use, I can’t honestly say the lack of a back button or “sophisticated multitasking” have ever been a “huge issue.” I had those things in Windows Mobile phones years ago but never used those devices anywhere near as much as I use my iPhone. Maybe Thurrott is right – though personally, I just don’t think it’s the issue he has long made it out to be.

Credit Where Credit is Due

But this shouldn’t be about taking cheap shots at the competition. Microsoft deserves credit. The new Windows Phone 7 Series is a compelling glimpse at – maybe – a bright future for a platform everyone thought was dead. The UI is stylish and looks really fun to use. It even makes the iPhone’s OS look more 30 years old than three.

We’re just not accustomed to Microsoft doing bold, exciting and compelling work. Maybe that’s the result of having the wind knocked out of its sails by the EU Commission, or because it tends to focus more on business solutions than it does personal consumer-facing solutions. Whatever the reason, it hasn’t done anything this exciting and new in a long time.

There’s still opportunity for it to mess-up. If Microsoft has any sense at all, and wants to claw-back some of the marketshare it has lost since 2007, it’ll need to exercise far greater control over OEM’s (enforcing strict minimum specifications on Windows Phone handsets) and Carriers, too (insisting end users be free to install software updates – traditionally, Carriers required users buy a whole new handset should they want to upgrade).

Apple’s iPhone success owes much to its closed ecosystem; Apple designs and builds its own hardware which is coupled with custom-software. Updates are available for everyone everywhere and carriers have no say in the matter. Even third-party apps are vetted by Apple in order to ensure they don’t tarnish the universal iPhone ‘experience’.

Microsoft has never demonstrated it cared about user experience in Windows Mobile. Now, it seems obvious it’s adopting a new attitude.

So here’s the big picture; Microsoft has produced a powerful new mobile OS in Windows Phone 7 Series. It offers all the same basic functionality as the iPhone. There’s an app store. The Zune media platform. System-wide social network integration. It will likely be cheaper than an iPhone and Carrier-agnostic from day one. It won’t need iTunes or the iTunes Store, either (though I’m not suggesting the Windows Marketplace or Zune Social is any better).

I look at today’s current best-competitor for the iPhone and it’s clearly an Android-based handset such as the Nexus One. But let’s be brutally honest – Android is a mobile OS for Geeks. Android’s huge gain in market share probably owes more to the fact that it’s free than to any other consideration.

Meanwhile, the iPhone’s remarkable success proves that consumers are willing – even during a recession – to pay real money for a great product if everything is done right.

Microsoft might have finally figured this out. And ain’t it fun to imagine that, a year or so from now, the most credible competition to the iPhone may come not from Android or RIM, but from the company we all stopped caring about years ago. Somehow, that’s just perfect. And I can’t wait to see how Apple responds.

Skype and Verizon are likely to announce a brand-new partnership tomorrow at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) currently being held in Barcelona. The two companies are keeping mum about their plans. Just not quiet enough.

The Verizon-Skype partnership isn’t going to mimic the relationship between Skype and 3 UK, a division of Hutchison Whampoa. The result of that partnership was the launch of Skypephone. In that specific case, 3 UK used a more traditional circuit switched solution to route the phone calls. It used the data connection for signaling and instant messaging features.

Verizon is likely to use a variant of this methodology, according to our friend Andy Abramson, who picked up some additional details in Barcelona. According to him the devices that are likely to use Skype over Verizon Wireless would include “RIM Storm, Storm 2, Curve, Curve2, Tour and Tour2 and the 8830 World Edition Blackberry, plus all the Androids from Motorola and HTC.” As Andy explains, this should help Verizon sell more data connections on its 3G network and of course offer some sort of bragging rights over the iPhone.

This is OmniVision’s newest 1/4-inch, 5 megapixel RAW sensor. It’s tiny, has low light sensitivity, captures 720p video at 60 fps or 1080p at 30 fps, and shoots in RAW. The best part? It could be in cellphones soon.

Now if only phones had lenses which would truly take advantage of sensors like this. [PR Newswire via Engadget]

Tech circles are buzzing this morning with news that Apple has been ambushed by a consortium of carriers and handset manufacturers that have declared war on its App Store. But nobody in Cupertino is going to lose any sleep over the move.

The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), as the group calls itself, is looking to “unite a fragmented marketplace” by creating an open industry platform that will serve as a single path to market for mobile developers, regardless of which platform their apps run on. The WAC plans to create standards to ensure apps run on all platforms, enabling developers to create a single build of an app that could be accessed on a broad swath of handsets. The group boasts some of the planet’s most powerful carriers, including AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless, as well as three major OEMs.

While that may sound like a panacea for an industry that admittedly is crippled by a plethora of mobile operating systems, the initiative is nonetheless doomed from the start. Carriers have a well-earned reputation for not playing nice with one another, and it will be impossible to herd all those cats, which operate a wide variety of different networks and platforms. And carriers have never been able to effectively cultivate developer communities or distribute apps, which led to the rise of Apple’s App Store in the first place.

More important, though, is the fact that some platforms are already hopelessly fragmented. Windows for years has struggled with the splintering of Windows Mobile, and Google is already suffering from the emergence of multiple versions of Android. Those fragmentation challenges have sometimes made it increasingly difficult — if not impossible — for developers to address a broad swath of devices within a single OS. Such problems will increase exponentially as the WAC tries to find a way to deliver apps to countless devices running any of a half-dozen (or more) operating systems. And they will only multiply with each new OS — or version of an established OS — that comes to market.

The concept of “write once, run anywhere” is a compelling one, but it’s one that’s never come close to being realized in mobile. And thanks to the proliferation of new smartphone operating systems and an ever-increasing number of superphones on the market, there’s no chance the WAC will be able to change that.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• The App Developer’s Guide to Choosing a Mobile Platform

Image courtesy Flickr user Horia Varlan.

Sony Ericsson’s Mobile World Conference announcements are quite interesting – they’ve already announced a sidekick to the recently released Vivaz, aptly named the Vivaz Pro. If you don’t recall, the Vivaz is a Symbian (S60, 5th Edition) OS phone and one of their first phones with 720P HD video recording capability. So what’s the difference between the Pro and regular version? From what we can tell, the only differences is that the Pro has a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a lesser camera at 5.1 megapixels compared to the 8 in the regular version. The Vivaz Pro will also only be available in black or white, which indicates Sony Ericsson will be aiming this towards business professionals.

Sony Ericsson posted a great gallery of the Vivaz Pro on Picasa, and also posted a cute promotional video:

Sony Ericsson has surprised many with the announcement of the touchscreen XPERIA X10 Mini (and Pro version with slide-out QWERTY keyboard), which is basically a miniature version of the upcoming XPERIA X10 smartphone. This is quite an interesting product – it’s like Apple releasing an iPhone Nano. Click here to view Sony Ericsson’s X10 Mini gallery, and the X10 Mini Pro gallery on Picasa.

The XPERIA X10 Mini differs from the bigger version in several ways. One of the most obvious differences is the form factor; the Mini (83 x 50 x 16 mm) and Mini Pro (90 x 52 x 17 mm) are far smaller than the regular XPERIA X10 (119 x 63 x 13 mm). Also, the Mini (and Pro) has a 2.55 inch scratch resistant screen (240×320 QVGA, 16m color) compared the larger 4 inch screen on the XPERIA X10. Oddly enough, this phone will ship with Android 1.6 (instead of the current 2.# version) – something we’re not really fond of but Sony Ericsson has promised that an upgrade path will be available in due time.

We’re curious if this device will cost far less then the XPERIA X10 so no one is left out in the new XPERIA experience.

Both phones will be available in the second quarter of this year. The X10 Mini will be available in Pearl White, Black, Pink, Lime, Red and Silver while the X10 Mini Pro will be available in Black and Red. Great to see a plethora of color choices here for the Mini.

Sony Ericsson is also touting the inclusion of the signature application Timescape which brings all communication together in one place so users can see at a glance text messages, missed calls, and Facebook and Twitter updates, without having to open lots of different applications. We had some hands on experience with Timescape at CES 2010 and it was simply outstanding. As an avid iPhone user, it made me want to switch. The interactive music player also uses the “infinite button” to pull together all music content from the music store and YouTube.

The processor within the X10 Mini and Mini Pro is a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227, which is very impressive and should be more than sufficient for Android. We love the added 2GB microSD card. The included camera is equally impressive at 5 megapixels with auto focus, geotagging, video recording, and other features.

Connectivity is also very solid with the inclusion of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM radio, A-GPS, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. We noticed there is a Micro USB connector, which seems to be the new standard in these little tiny devices. I miss the days of Mini USB.

Other notable software features include Google Maps, Google search, Google Talk, Google Voice Search, YouTube, Android Market, PlayNow, and a WebKit-based web browser (excellent). Business people will appreciate the Exchange ActiveSync support.

Battery life is about what we would expect for a Sony Ericsson device of this size, with 4 hours of talk time for EDGE (GSM/GPRS), 285 hours standby. 3G (UMTS) talk time clocks in at 3.5 hours, while its standby time is quite impressive at 360 hours. The X10 mini and X10 Mini Pro supports HSPA 900/2100 and EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, HSPA 850/1900/2100 and EDGE 850/900/1800/1900.

Microsoft unveiled the long-awaited upgrade to its venerable mobile operating system this morning, and — so far, at least — the results are pretty impressive. The company has finally scrapped the cumbersome look and feel of Windows Mobile in favor of a more intuitive, streamlined user interface, and – much like HTC — is focusing on consumers by emphasizing the personalized nature of mobile phones in addition to productivity features. (See video below.)

Windows Phone 7 Series, as the new OS is dubbed, is built on the Zune HD interface and enables users to navigate the device via a series of integrated “hubs” (Office, pictures, games, music and video) and widgets. And Microsoft has wisely enlisted the help of industry heavyweights such as Qualcomm and AT&T to help it regain its lost relevance in the ultra-competitive smartphone space.

But producing a knockout mobile operating system won’t be enough to get back in the game, as Palm can tell you. For Microsoft to challenge platforms like Android and iPhone, it will have to address these three primary challenges before its new devices come to market in the fourth quarter of 2010:

• Build a better app store. Smartphone users already have the luxury of browsing through tens of thousands of apps in the Android Market or Apple’s App Store, so Microsoft will have to quickly find a way to build an impressive library of offerings for its new Phone 7 Series. CEO Steve Ballmer today quashed speculation that the company might make its OS freely available to developers, so the company must find other ways to attract the attention of developers who already have lots of attractive platforms on which to build their mobile apps.
• Build a better brand. Forrester’s Charles S. Golvin noted this morning that 24 percent of Windows Mobile users in North America say their phone was made by Apple or RIM, and more than one-third of European Windows Mobile users said Nokia made their phone. And the Windows brand isn’t linked to phones that use the OS on any carrier’s web site, Golvin said. So Microsoft will have to leverage its partnerships and invest heavily in promoting its brand if Windows Phone 7 Series is to be a hit with consumers.
• Understand the mobile web. Microsoft’s inability to become a major player on the Internet is well documented, and is a key reason the company has failed to connect with consumers. Apps are great, and Microsoft’s apparent progress in tearing down the siloed world of mobile apps to create a more integrated experience is impressive. (That progress was illustrated this morning by the company’s success in integrating Bing and social networking sites with the mobile experience.) If the overhauled OS is to find an audience, though, Microsoft must prove that it understands how consumers want to use the web while they’re on the phone. That will be a particularly difficult hurdle for a company that has always been about software — not consumer experiences.

It’s easy to get excited after a single demonstration, of course, and Windows Mobile will surely continue to lose market share before Windows Phone 7 comes to market late this year. Meanwhile, those competing platforms will only become more so in the coming months. And while Microsoft’s move to give network operators flexibility to tweak the OS is commendable, it runs the risk of carriers damaging the platform as they put their own stamp on it. But the smartphone space is a wide-open field, and Windows Phone 7 Series indicates that Redmond might finally be getting a clue. If it can continue to execute in the coming months, Microsoft may just find itself back in the game.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• The App Developer’s Guide to Choosing a Mobile Platform
• Could Games Redeem Windows Mobile and Palm’s webOS?

Images and video courtesy Microsoft.

Nokia and Intel have just announced the creation of MeeGo, a new Linux-based operating system designed for portable devices including netbooks and smartphones as well as other non-desktop platforms like connected TVs and vehicles. The new OS is a combination of Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin, both Linux-based computing environments. This partnership is notable not just for combining two different Linux platforms under one roof, but for its cross-platform support of both Intel and ARM chips, the latter currently popular in mobile devices like Apple’s iPhone thanks to its low power consumption needs.

Sponsor

The MeeGo operating system is designed to let developers write once and then deploy to a number of hardware platforms including everything from smartphones to netbooks and more, a popular strategy these days in an increasingly fragmented mobile world. The same strategy has also been recently embraced by Adobe, who now lets their developers write once and then deploy their Flash apps to any operating system, both desktop and laptop-based or mobile.

Applications that previously worked on Maemo or Moblin will work on the new MeeGo OS, too, say the companies. Also, the new platform is not intended to replace Nokia’s own Symbian OS, Nokia assures. Instead, using the Qt application and UI framework, developers can deploy apps to both MeeGo and other platforms, including Symbian. The resulting applications will then be marketed through Nokia’s Ovi Store, for all MeeGo and Symbian-based Nokia devices while Intel’s AppUp Center will handle the marketing of apps for Intel-based MeeGo devices.

Open Source vs. iPhone OS…and More

Both companies are positioning the new OS an open source alternative to the iPhone App Store model. Although they don’t come out and directly call out the popular Apple iPhone OS by name, they hint at it by stating that with MeeGo, people “are not locked into one kind of device or those from any individual manufacturer.”

Both companies are also preparing for a new range of tablet devices that will compete against the trail-blazing iPad. In an interview with CNet, Renee J. James, a senior vice president at Intel, affirms that “this kind of operating environment is targeted very well for a tablet-style device.”

However, the platform isn’t meant to just compete with Apple products. It will also go up against the upcoming netbook OS from Google, Chrome OS, as well as mobile, tablet, and in-car OS’s from other vendors, including Microsoft.

MeeGo will arrive in the second quarter of 2010 with products becoming available starting in the third quarter.

Discuss

By now you might have heard that Intel and Nokia are merging their respective mobile Linux Operating Systems — Mobilin and Maemo. The merged effort is going to be called MeeGo. It will be hosted by the Linux Foundation and is targeting the whole universe of connected devices.

Here are some notable bits from the Nokia press release:

* MeeGo will support multiple hardware architectures across the broadest range of device segments, including pocketable mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.
* MeeGo offers the Qt application development environment, and builds on the capabilities of the Moblin core operating system and reference user experiences.
* Developers can write once to create applications for a variety of devices and platforms, and market them through Nokia’s Ovi Store and Intel AppUpSM Center.
* MeeGo will be hosted by the Linux Foundation.
* The first release of MeeGo is expected in the second quarter of 2010 with devices launching later in the year.

The guys from The Linux Foundation are pretty excited about this. In a blog post, Jim Zemlin, executive director of the foundation, writes:

MeeGo isn’t just an important project at the Linux Foundation, it is also helpful for Linux as a platform. It combines mobile development resources that were recently split in the Maemo and Moblin projects into one well-supported, well-designed project that addresses cross-platform, cross-device and cross-architecture development. Android, ChromeOS, the Palm Pre, Bada, and dozens of traditional Linux desktop efforts use many of the components in MeeGo.

He goes on to give his reasons why he sees MeeGo as a major step forward, and better than iPad-type closed systems.

Closed platforms (like Apple’s iPad) drive up costs for consumers and limit hardware choice. MeeGo is multi-architecture and can power a broad range of devices from your TV to your car to your pocketable computer to your phone. Consumers can keep their apps and use different devices from different producers.

I’m not sure if this is going to really impact Apple. I bet this effort causes some problems with other embedded Linux OS vendors. Unlike Zemlin, I don’t think this will gain as much traction.

Why? Because the merged OS is coming to the market at a time when there is already increased demand on an increasingly precious resource: developer attention. The lack of developer attention is one of the reason why Maemo and Mobilin have not been able to get any serious traction outside their own organizations. The developers — who have multiple choices — decide which platforms succeed and which ones become roadkill. For now, developers are betting on Apple’s iPhone OS and Google’s Android.

Related research report from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

The App Developer’s Guide to Choosing a Mobile Platform

We’ve seen leaks of the HTC Legend and Desire (formerly known as Bravo) previously, but what look like the official pics and specs for those and the Touch HD Mini have appeared a day ahead of HTC’s MWC press conference.

The Desire, pictured above, will reportedly pack a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen and will run Android 2.1 with HTC Sense. The Legend looks to have a 3.1″ HVGA screen, a 5 megapixel camera, and a 600 MHz CPU, while the HD Mini is a WinMo 6.5 handset with a 3.2″ HVGA screen, 5 megapixel camera, and HTC TouchFlo 3D.

Full specs, from the Android forum at MoDaCo:

HTC Desire (Bravo)

* CPU Speed – 1 GHz
* Platform – Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC SenseTM
* Memory – ROM: 512 MB, RAM: 576 MB
* Dimensions – (LxWxT) 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm (4.7 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches)
* Weight – 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery
* Display – 3.7-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution
* Network – HSPA/WCDMA:
o Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
o Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps
* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
o 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency, HSPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)
* Onscreen navigation – Optical Trackball
* GPS – Internal GPS antenna
* Sensors –
o Proximity sensor
o Ambient light sensor
o G-Sensor
o Digital compass
* Connectivity – Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets,
and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
* Wi-Fi® – IEEE 802.11 b/g
* 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
* Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
* Camera – 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flashlight
* Audio supported formats
o Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma,
o Recording: .amr
* Video supported formats
o Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv
o · Recording: .3gp
* Battery – Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
* Capacity – 1400 mAh
* Talk time:
o Up to 390 minutes for WCDMA
o Up to 400 minutes for GSM
* Standby time:
o Up to 360 hours for WCDMA
o Up to 340 hours for GSM
* Expansion Slot – microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
* AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency – 100 ~ 240 V AC, 50/60 Hz
* DC output – 5 V and 1 A
* Special Feature – Friend Stream

HTC Legend

* CPU speed – 600 MHz
* Platform
– Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense
* Memory ROM – 512 MB, RAM: 384 MB
* Dimensions – (LxWxT) 112 x 56.3 x 11.5 mm (4.41 x 2.22 x 0.45 inches)
* Weight – 126 grams (4.44 ounces) with battery
* Display – 3.2-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 320 X 480 HVGA resolution
* Network – HSPA/WCDMA:
o Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
o Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps
* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
o 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
* Onscreen navigation – Optical trackball
* GPS – Internal GPS antenna
* Sensors –
o G-Sensor
o Digital compass
o Proximity sensor
o Ambient light sensor
* Connectivity – Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for
phonebook access from the car kit
* Wi-Fi® – IEEE 802.11 b/g
* 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
* Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
* Camera – 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flash
* Audio supported formats –
o Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma
o Recording: .amr
* Video supported formats –
o Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv
o Recording: .3gp
* Battery – Rechargeable Lithium-ion polymer or Lithium-ion battery
* Capacity – 1300 mAh
* Talk time –
o Up to 440 minutes for WCDMA
o Up to 490 minutes for GSM
* Standby time –
o Up to 560 hours for WCDMA
o Up to 440 hours for GSM
* Expansion slot – microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
* AC adapter – Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
* DC output – 5V and 1A
* Special feature – Friend Stream

HTC Touch HD Mini

(Full specs unavailable). [MoDaCo]

Not all mobile apps are created equal, and choosing the right platform on which to launch yours can be the key to its success or failure. “The App Developer’s Guide to Choosing a Mobile Platform,” a new report from Colin Gibbs over at GigaOM Pro (sub required), takes a look at the seven leading mobile platforms and suggests key tips for anyone considering where to launch their next app.

As you might expect, Gibbs is sanguine about the opportunity for developers who choose to build for the iPhone. In fact, he suggests that not building for the OS that ignited the craze would be a foolish mistake for anyone hoping to hit it big with a mobile app. But the iPhone isn’t the only opportunity out there, and he carefully weighs the pros and cons of developing for Android, BlackBerry OS, Palm’s webOS, Maemo, Symbian and Windows Mobile as well.

Choosing among the competing platforms requires a clear-eyed assessment of the audience for your app, the technical strengths (and weaknesses) of the platform, how easy it is to monetize your work and the long-term health of the platform. You’ll need to ask the following questions:

• Who is your audience? If you’re trying to reach a mass market consumer audience, the iPhone and Android are the big winners, with the most momentum and broadest reach. But size may not be the most important factor for your app, and other platforms may let you reach large pools of users with more specific needs — business-focused users or mobile users without reliable access to a full-scale computer, for example.
• What technical firepower do you need? If you’re trying to build a complex app that runs in the background while users are on the go, you’ll want to pursue a multitasking platform like Palm’s webOS rather than the iPhone. If slick graphics and an immersive user experience are important, you want to pass up the BlackBerry OS and head for Maemo. Knowing what each platform can deliver today — and what it’s likely to offer in the future — can help eliminate some options.
• Can you make money? Developers have it far better today than on carrier decks of old, but not all platforms offer the same opportunities, with different revenue-sharing models for developers, payment options for users and a wide range of median price points. If you’re looking for scale, consider platforms with large audiences and easy payment options. On the other hand, higher price points and more clicks to sale might not scare away high-powered niche users.
• Is there a future for the platform? The mobile OS landscape is changing, and the fortunes of some are rising while others are falling. Gibbs takes a look at what to watch for in each case, including casting doubt on Microsoft’s ability to freshen Windows Mobile for today’s market and raising red flags for the white-hot spread of Google’s Android.

Gibbs’ report also takes into consideration a number of game-changing developments that will alter the course of mobile apps over the next several years. App users and developers alike should find it of interest.

Photo courtesy Flickr user splodge.

A scoop of sorts over at Phone Scoop (and verified elsewhere this evening) confirms that Windows Mobile 7 will not support flash at launch—which is officially tomorrow during the MWC—but will eventually support it, sometime.

Both Phone Scoop and Engadget are confirming the news this evening, which means tomorrow’s big Windows Mobile 7 reveal will be revealing, yes, but will not include mention of Adobe or flash. Please note that this is reportedly for initial builds of the OS, and will most likely change with later versions. Most likely. [Phone Scoop via Engadget]

Apple a couple of weeks back released a “tip” for developers on how to enhance its apps using its “Core Location” framework, which it touted as being able to imbue apps with location-based info on the weather, nearby restaurants and more. But while some said it signaled the death of the location-based ad industry on the iPhone, that seems more than a little premature.

The concern centered around the following statement: “If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team.” There have also been reports that applications may be required to ask for user permission to integrate location-based advertising, although I haven’t seen a direct reference from Apple to that effect.

It’s worth noting that the Core Location API features (which I imagine are based on technology being developed by Placebase, which Apple bought last summer) touted in Apple’s tip don’t seem to have been released yet, and that the last material change to location features seem came back in May 2009, in conjunction with an iPhone OS update.

3 Interpretations

But what should we take the developer tip to mean? I see a few possible interpretations:

User Protection — Maybe Apple is merely trying to help users by stopping massive LBS ad spam and potential problems with location-based tracking issues. After all, the company has so far done a good job of balancing user control of location info with a developer-friendly wrapper. Currently, when an app that wants your location tries to access it, the user needs to give permission by way of a pop-up dialog box. After a few times, the pop-ups stop and the app gets continued access to location data. So perhaps Apple wants to keep its users’ best interests at heart.

Commercial — The idea here is that location-based advertising on the iPhone isn’t dead, rather it’s going to become a walled garden or a short-fenced one, with, presumably, Apple/Quattro taking a significant cut of the revenues. While every ad network takes some portion of sales, Apple would not have the normal competitive pressures in setting this revenue share percentage. Possibly you could use other ad systems, but would then have to pay for access to Apple’s core location APIs.

Such an approach could benefit developers as well, as it would immediately create critical mass for location-based advertising on the iPhone (which barely exists today). Apple might even allow new ad networks to participate in campaigns, as long as users receive some location benefit. Alternately, it could disallow all other ad networks –- which would not sit well with Google, Microsoft or anyone else trying to get broad advertising reach across mobile customers.

Irrational — I’ve seen numerous examples of this interpretation, with headlines including:

Location-Based Advertising Dead on the iPhone? — Technorati

Apple tells devs that location-based advertising is a no-no -– Ars technica

Apple Bans Location-based iPhone Ads -– InformationWeek

Apple vows to reject location apps geared for mobile advertising –- Fierce Mobile Content

But let’s face it: Apple is about as likely to kill location-based advertising on the iPhone as Microsoft is to start giving Windows away for free.

Some Conclusions Can Be Drawn, But Questions Remain

As its acquisition of Quattro at the start of year (and its interest in AdMob, before it was snapped up by Google) made clear, Apple is serious about mobile advertising. It’s also serious about its users. And it recognizes the impact location-based activities (in a variety of types) are going to have on mobile services, sooner than later.

Some questions remain, however, the most important of which is: Would a walled garden ad network on the iPhone be in Apple’s best interest? On one hand, it could serve to alienate a variety of people in the industry. But it would undoubtedly bring a huge boost in business to Quattro and give Apple enough critical mass to come out with industry-changing location-based ad products and a thriving network.

What did you think was implied by Apple’s Core Location tip to developers? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Rahul Sonnad is the founder of Geodelic Systems.

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To Win in the Mobile Market, Focus on Consumers

The good people at MobileMag got a chance to review the new Addonics pocket NAS 2.0 NAS2XU2, and they report that for the price and the size, it’s worthy of your attention.

You guys showed some interest when we got our first look at the NAS2XU2 back in November, and MobileMag reports that by and large it lives up to its promise. The pocketable device sports 2 USB ports and now has gigabit ethernet, improving the slow transfer speeds that plagued the first model.

MobileMag had some trouble getting the built-in media sharing system to work, but the unit supports SMB and Samba so with some tinkering it will likely do fine as a media server. As a mini FTP server, a hub for USB devices, and Bit Torrent server, however, it worked like a charm.

The NAS 2.0 NAS2XU2 is available for $59.99 from Addonics. [MobileMag]

Seven months isn’t a long time for most companies, but it’s practically an era in itself on the hyperkinetic mobile web. Since last July, Motorola has launched the Droid and Google its Nexus One. Tens of thousands of new apps have been created — Apple even finally unveiled its iPad, which could potentially rewrite the rules for mobile apps entirely.

One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is PayPal’s visibility on mobile devices. Last July, PayPal opened a beta of its open platform so that developers could embed the payment system in their applications. In November, it went further, staging a developers conference to officially open the platform and setting up the X.com site for APIs and documentation.

If the timing felt a bit slow, the strategy was sound. As AuctionBytes noted, “PayPal believes payments for services is a bigger opportunity than e-commerce.” The Times’ Bits blog painted a clear picture of what it could mean:

PayPal imagines a future in which cash is obsolete, as are wallets. We will buy movie tickets by touching a movie poster on the street and order drinks from a touchscreen embedded in the bar.

It’s a nice vision. But in the months since, PayPal hasn’t really left much of a footprint in mobile apps. I’m still paying for movie tickets mostly with cash, and the Fandango app I downloaded asks me for my credit card number, not my PayPal account. PayPal is now an option in the iTunes App Store, but few people who entered a credit card number in iTunes years ago will bother to go back and change their settings in order to use it. In short, PayPal is very much on mobile devices, but pretty much invisible.

Instead, the buzz in mobile payments in recent months has been centered on Square, whose little white dongle turns an iPhone or iPod touch into a credit and debit card reader. Square is clearly a threat to point-of-sale companies like VeriFone, but by making plastic cards even more useful on the mobile web, it could be a big obstacle to PayPal as well. You can swipe plastic through a Square reader, but not your PayPal account.

PayPal has been at once a success story and a company that hasn’t quite lived up to its potential. Its revenue has grown 45 percent in the past two years, while eBay’s main marketplace business has seen revenue fall 1 percent. But PayPal has never really disrupted credit and debit cards in e-commerce. And outside of eBay, it hasn’t become a default payment method on other sites, notably Amazon.

The web is full of consumer complaints about PayPal, but my experience with the service over several years have always been positive. Even so, most of my purchases at Amazon or other e-commerce sites use debit card payments that bypass PayPal. It’s just a pattern I fell into and haven’t felt a need to change.

That pattern will be even more deadly on mobile e-commerce. Smartphones like the iPhone and the Droid – along with the most popular apps — resonate because of their simple interfaces. They are designed to eliminate tiresome choices. No one wants to choose whether to pay by credit card or PayPal each time they make a mobile payment. And that is PayPal’s challenge — not simply to be an option on the mobile web, but to be the default.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

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