Mobile Phone News
Former Palm head Jon Rubinstein leaves HP, taking a long-deserved break
Jon Rubinstein, the former Apple executive who spearheaded engineering for the iPod, and then proceeded to revitalize Palm, has officially left Hewlett-Packard, the company confirmed today.
The news isn’t entirely unexpected. Rubinstein was reportedly a no-show at HP since former CEO Leo Apotheker killed off the company’s WebOS devices, and even before that his role at HP was reduced with a change to a vague “SVP of innovation” title.
An HP spokesperson told All Things … Continue Reading
The DeanBeat: Game Dojos accelerator will help foster even more game startups
We’ve seen an explosion in game startups in the past few years. Zynga and Nexon have gone public, an indication that we could be nearing the end of a cycle. Their IPOs raise the question: When will there be enough game companies?
Game Dojos, a brand new San Francisco-based accelerator for game startups, thinks we’re not there yet. The game market will be saturated, not when there are lots of game startups, but when many … Continue Reading
Apple takes back world’s top smartphone maker crown from Samsung
In what will likely be a constant back and forth between Apple and Samsung, the iPhone maker has apparently reclaimed the title of the world’s largest smartphone vendor for the fourth quarter of 2011.
That’s according to research firm Strategy Analytics, which points out that Apple shipped 37 million iPhones during the quarter versus Samsung’s 36.5 million. Samsung still remains king for all of 2011 though, with 97.4 million smartphones shipped compared to Apple’s 93 … Continue Reading
Samsung’s Galaxy S II leads it to record profit of $4.7B
It’s good to be the Android king: Samsung today announced its record fourth quarter earnings, in which it saw operating profits of 5.3 trillion won (around $4.7 billion) on revenues of 47.3 trillion won (around $42 billion).
That’s a decent jump over last year, when it reported earnings of 3 trillion won (about $2.6 billion) on 41.8 trillion won (about $36.5 billion) in revenue.
Samsung performance was in line with its guidance from earlier in … Continue Reading
Droid doesn’t: Motorola loses $80M in Q4, phone shipments down at 10.5M
Without any wildly successful Android devices this quarter, Motorola took a beating during the fourth quarter.
Motorola reported a loss of $80 million on revenue of $3.4 billion, compared to earnings of $80 million last year. The company’s mobile device shipments were down as well at 10.5 million, a slight dip from 11.3 million a year ago.
Motorola’s earnings show how difficult it is for Android phone makers to remain profitable in the face of … Continue Reading
With record earnings, Apple has no excuse for continued labor abuses
In a week when Apple reported its highest quarterly earnings ever, the company is still plagued with reports of labor abuses among its suppliers.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Apple — which is now sitting pretty with $97.7 billion in cash after record-breaking earnings of $46.33 billion in the first quarter — has become addicted to the rapid-fire manufacturing capabilities made possible by low-wage Chinese workers, no matter the human cost.
The New York Times … Continue Reading
New to-do list app Clear simplifies and color-codes organization
Is there such a thing as being too organized? A new to-do app called Clear aims to cut down on the amount of time you spend managing to-do lists so that you can actually, well, do things. The app is being demoed for the first time Thursday at the Macworld/iWorld expo in San Francisco.
There is no shortage of feature-filled to-do apps in the App Store. Apple even launched its own in October called Reminders, … Continue Reading
AT&T made 150K network improvements in 2011, added 700K square miles of 3G
Hoping to dispel its reputation for terrible reliability, AT&T today revealed the dramatic extent of its network improvements in 2011 as part of its fourth quarter earnings announcement.
The carrier said it made over 150,000 improvements throughout last year, including the addition of more than 700,000 square miles of 3G coverage. AT&T also said that 3G call retainability across the nation is up 25 percent from last year.
The latter is something I’ve definitely noticed … Continue Reading
The FCC is dragging its feet on wireless spectrum, says AT&T
Echoing the sentiments of its competitors, AT&T today discussed the growing need for more wireless spectrum in the US and criticized the FCC’s inability to open up more spectrum, in its fourth quarter earnings call.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said the wireless industry is in the midst of tremendous growth, but “this growth cannot continue without more spectrum being cleared and brought to market.” He pointed out that the last big spectrum auction by the … Continue Reading
AT&T activates 7.6M iPhones in Q4, but reports $6.7B net loss
AT&T saw its best wireless sales ever in the fourth quarter, but the aftermath of its failed T-Mobile acquisition was a big hit on profits.
The carrier reported a net loss of $6.7 billion on revenue of $32.5 billion (up 3.6 percent from last year). That’s mostly due to the $4 billion break-up fee AT&T had to pay to T-Mobile following the failed merger, as well as losses in the company’s directory business.
But despite … Continue Reading
Addmired launches social mobile iMob 2 game with cool chat features (exclusive)
Mob games aren’t really fun unless you can disrespect your foes. That’s the idea behind iMob 2, the latest mobile social game from startup Addmired, which has had a string of hits.
The new iOS game (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) has a new feature in real-time online chat, where users can talk with other players and strategize attacks into the mob-themed game.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Addmired has more than 37 million downloads of its games, … Continue Reading
Angry Birds will hit Facebook on Valentine’s Day
Angry Birds fans may be staying home without a date on Valentine’s Day, but at least they can hang with a few hundred friends. That’s when the popular mobile game will debut on Facebook for the first time.
Angry Birds is the most successful mobile game in history with more than 700 million downloads since its launch in December 2009. To keep growing, it has to expand to just about every platform on the planet.… Continue Reading
Big Fish snares an Angry Bird with Wibe Wagemans hire
Wibe Wagemans is trading Angry Birds for Big Fish.
Wagemans, the former global brand-building executive (known as the Hummingbird) at Rovio, maker of the popular Angry Birds game, will now be vice president and general manager of the new mobile division at Big Fish Games.
The hire shows that there is a lot of opportunity and competition in mobile games, and executives are finding lots of opportunities to slingshot from one company to another.
Asked … Continue Reading
Motorola sues Apple over iPhone 4S and iCloud alleged patent violations
The world’s leaders in mobile technology are really just one big, happy, patent-lawsuit-embroiled family, aren’t they?
Today, Motorola filed a new lawsuit against Apple, alleging patent infringement for software and hardware, and it included the iPhone 4S and Apple’s iCloud storage system in the complaint.
According to Reuters, the patents in question related to wireless antennae, messaging, data filtering, and other software technologies.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern … Continue Reading
HP plans for Open webOS 1.0 by September, Enyo framework out today
HP is moving forward with its plans to open source webOS, after failing to sell it off last year.
The company says it plans to complete the open sourcing process for webOS by September, which will be called Open webOS 1.0 when it’s released. Today, HP is getting the ball rolling by releasing the Enyo 1.0 Javascript framework, as well as the cross-platform Enyo 2.0 core, under open source licensing.
When HP announced its open … Continue Reading
Contact information app Hello wants to replace your contact list
Evernote chief executive Phil Libin believes alphabetical contact lists are outdated. And even though his contact app Hello took off like a lead balloon, he hopes that updates coming in the next couple of weeks will help it kill the typical contact list and replace it with a mosaic of photos.
Ever since the note-taking startup Evernote launched, it has been on a quest to capture and organize every bit of data from your life. … Continue Reading
New iPhone 5 rumor points to summer launch, hints about specs
Ah, iPhone-rumor season, when a young geek’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of unconfirmed gadgets.
The latest iPhone rumors point to a Summer 2012 launch, a larger form factor, and a possible 4-plus-inch display from LG. The details were leaked by a Foxconn worker in China to 9to5mac — the same source who correctly said an iPhone 5 wasn’t coming out last year.
The source says production on the next generation iPhone will begin soon, … Continue Reading
AT&T to launch Nokia Lumia 900 on March 19 for just $99
Nokia’s Lumia 900 Windows Phone, one of the most promising products we saw at CES 2012, will be available through AT&T on March 19 for just $99, according to BGR.
Two weeks ago, we heard from Windows guru Paul Thurrott that the Nokia Lumia 900 could arrive March 18. A first quarter launch for the Nokia Lumia 900 would be a great move for Nokia and Microsoft as they begin converting customers to the Windows … Continue Reading
Game startup Gimmie launches rewards platform for mobile apps
Gimmie, a startup created by seasoned game developers, is launching a new rewards program for users of mobile apps.
Gimmie’s new incentives platform, which begins beta testing today with 10 mobile app developers and consumer brands, can boost in-app revenue (where users buys something like a virtual good inside an app) by giving game players real rewards for using apps or games.
The San Francisco-based company was started by Roy Liu, chief technology officer and … Continue Reading
Let’s look at the all the spectrum T-Mobile is getting from AT&T
With the AT&T/T-Mobile merger dead, AT&T is readying to compensate T-Mobile with precious mobile spectrum that covers 128 cellular market areas. But what exactly does that look like on the U.S. map?
The fine folks at GigaOM and spectrum expert Andrew Shepherd have developed a handy map, shown above, that shows exactly where T-Mobile will be getting new spectrum additions, which will help the company improve its own 4G offerings.
As noted on the map, … Continue Reading
