Source: USPTO

The transparent conical housing with a flexible display being inserted

Apple’s new patent is for a “consumer electronic product” with a flexible display that rolls up when needed, and unrolls if desired. In the patent claims, Apple says it could fit within a conical glass housing — a flattened oval — which would allow the display to be visible on any portion of the device.

In other words, your phone no longer has a front or back … just whatever side you happen to be looking at.

The device as patented includes facial recognition and user-sensing technology that determines which side is within your field of vision at any given time and selectively displays content and controls only where you can see them.

As such, it’s an interesting response to Google’s backside control patent, which describes controls built into the back of your phone to allow you to flip screens, turn pages, or control music without taking up front-screen real estate. Apple has a previous patent on similar backside controls, but this is more radical.

Source: USPTO

The flexible display inside the transparent glass housing

What’s interesting to me, however, is the flexible AMOLED display that rolls up and unrolls (see image gallery below, especially the fifth image). It’d be a perfect display for a sort of iCuff — a full phone built into a product that rides on your wrist.

The concept of iWatch as a peripheral to an iPhone has never made a ton of sense to me. If I already have a phone, it is already either on my person, or close enough for easy checking. A peripheral that simply enables notifications from my phone and perhaps has a few other self-quantification features doesn’t seem to be enough to make it worthwhile.

Rather, it makes more sense, potentially, to provide the entire phone (read: portable computer with communication capabilities) in a flexible cuff format that now comes with a handy new carrying case: you.

And, of course, if you want your full screen to be available, you simply unroll the cuff and snap the screen flat.

It would certainly solve the phone-in-the-pocket problem while still keeping your hands free for whatever you need to carry or do. And it’s built-in hands-free for while you’re driving.

More images from the patent application:

Image credits: iWatch mockup by VeneStudio; Hat tip: Cult of Mac

In 2012, Samsung sold just over 30 million smartphones in China — a 300 percent increase from the previous year and good for almost 18 percent of the Chinese market. In a stat that shows just how explosive the Chinese smartphone market is, that 18 percent market share is up only 5.3 percent from 2011, despite the tripled number of units.

That compares to Apple’s 11 percent market share.

Apple, which has achieved astonishing success in China, including selling two million iPhone 5 units on its opening weekend, still does not have a deal with China Mobile, the big kahuna of Chinese carriers, with more than 700 million mobile subscribers. Morgan Stanley recently suggested that Apple could triple its Chinese market share with an “iPhone mini,” a clear sign that even a month ago, the data on Apple’s sales in the Middle Kingdom were not where they could be.

But the big loser in China was not Apple.

Eleven percent market share in a vast and growing market — with a premium product — is actually a very good performance. The title of biggest loser goes to Nokia, which lost almost all of its share, dropping from 30 percent to 3.7 percent in a now-familiar story.

Lenovo is now the number two smartphone seller, with 13.2 percent of the market in China. Huawei captured 9.9 percent, and Coolpad trailed with 9.7 percent.

photo credit: My Daily Sublime via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

While IT departments are freaking out about the new devices entering their offices, parents are having a very similar freak out when children bring home those shiny tablets and smartphones. Qustodio, which creates software to help parents keep an eye on their kids’ online behavior, raised $1 million in a seed round of funding today.

The round was led by W8 Ventures.

Spain-based Qustodio created the product, keep in mind that families have “more connected devices than the average small business did five years ago.” It prides itself on giving parents control over what apps can be used on those devices, how much time is spent on the device as well as set up rules around device usage.

Children may be unhappy to discover that Qustodio also lets parents watch what they’re doing specifically on Facebook and other social networking sites. Parents can monitor Facebook chats and searches as well as view browsing histories and which applications have been opened in a given session.

There is one dashboard that parents can use to control all of these devices, which may include tablets, smartphones, and home computers per child. It is currently only available on Windows and Android, but the company says it will soon release a version for Mac.

Qustodio is based in Barcelona and was founded in 2012.

Parent child devices image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple may be winning the smartphone battle Stateside, but Android is winning the global smartphone war being fought everywhere else.

Smartphone sales grew 38 percent last quarter to reach 217 million units worldwide, and over 700 million units for the entire year, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. Of those 700 million-plus smartphones, 68.4% smartphones ran Android as the operating system, while only 19.4 percent ran iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system.

“Almost half-a-billion Android smartphones were shipped in total worldwide during 2012,” the firm’s executive director Neil Mawston said in a statement. “Android is clearly the undisputed volume leader of the smartphone industry at the present time.”

In terms of manufacturing, the global smartphone industry is basically two companies: Apple and Samsung. Apple shipped 135.8 phones last year, all smartphones, of course, while Samsung shipped 396.5 million phones, most of them smartphones. Phone shipments in general reached 1.6 billion in 2012, meaning that smartphones still made up slightly less than half of all phones sold. Nokia still ships a lot of units — 335.6 million in 2012 – but most of them are not modern smartphones.

“Apple grew 29 percent annually and shipped 47.8 million smartphones worldwide for 22 percent marketshare in Q4 2012, dipping slightly from 24 percent a year earlier,” Scott Bicheno, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, added. “Combined together, Apple and Android accounted for a record 92 percent share of all smartphones shipped globally in the fourth quarter of 2012.”

The massive numbers obscure that growth, while still torrid, is slowing. While 2011 saw 64 percent in smartphone shipments, 2012′s growth rate was a slightly more moderate 43 percent.

But it’s clear that the market has become a tale of two mobile operating systems: Android and iOS.

The challenge in 2013 for Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and even smaller upstart phone operating systems is simple to grow enough to matter.

photo credit: CanPatsFan via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Need another sign that smartphones are getting too big? HTC just unveiled the HTC Mini, a tiny remote for its 5-inch HTC Butterfly in China, which harks back to the time when miniscule candy bar cellphones were all the rage.

The Mini functions just like one of those small cellphones of yore — it connects to the Butterfly (the Chinese version of the Droid DNA) via Bluetooth to make calls and view messages. You can also use it to remotely control the big smartphone once you’ve connected it to a TV or stereo.

While some may find it useful, I find the very idea of the HTC Mini ridiculous. If smartphones are getting too big to use comfortably for making calls, then perhaps we should be making smaller smartphones. I’ve tested plenty of smartphones over the past few years, and even with my large hands I still can’t get used to phones around 5 inches.

After a certain point, the race to make bigger smartphone screens will have to end and device makers will have to focus on other ways to differentiate their products. There’s certainly a market for bigger phones like Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2, but I wouldn’t call that market mainstream. Huawei’s 6.1-inch Ascend Mate was pretty much the last straw for me when it came to useless gigantic smartphones.

At this point, the HTC Mini will be exclusive to China. The company hasn’t announced pricing details yet.

Via SlashGear

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Global phone shipments hit 1.6 billion units in 2012, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics, with Samsung shipping a massive 396.5 million phones last year.

“Fuelled by robust demand for its popular Galaxy models, Samsung was the star performer, shipping a record 396.5 million mobile phones worldwide and capturing 25 percent market share to solidify its first-place lead,” Neil Shah, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement.

While 1.6 billion units is a huge number, it’s only a modest two percent growth, as demand slowed in mature markets like Europe and North America, and mobile operators made it more difficult for consumers to upgrade.

Key Samsung competitor Apple shipped 135.8 million phones worldwide last year, which translates to 46 percent annual growth. That’s a record high number for Apple, and Samsung’s 396.5 million is a record for that company as well.

Meanwhile, Nokia retained a 21.3 percent global market share, proving that while it’s down, it’s not yet out. The Finnish company shipped 335.6 million phones in 2012, down from 417.1 million in 2011.

“Nokia’s dual-SIM feature phones, Asha touchphones, and Lumia handsets have been performing well, but this was not enough to offset a slump in demand for the company’s aging Symbian smartphone platform last year,” said Neil Mawston, Strategy Analytics’ executive director.

The top four mobile phone vendors by market share are now:

1. Samsung: 396.5 million units
2. Nokia: 335.6 million units
3. Apple: 135.8 million units
4. ZTE: 71.7 million units

photo credit: juicyrai via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Just when you thought the sad, ugly story of Microsoft’s Kin phones was over, along comes some leaked internal testing videos that makes the whole tale even worse.

The videos, revealed by Wired via someone who worked on the Kin phones, show focus testers struggling with the phone’s interface and basic functionality like making calls. Judging from the timestamps, the testing occurred in December 2009, several months before Microsoft launched the phones and killed them after just 48 days on the market.

The Kin phones were Microsoft’s clumsy attempt at building a hip phone line for kids. They emphasized media and ubiquitous cloud storage. But they were clearly built for a different mobile era — one where phones like the Sidekick were cool. That’s not too surprising, since the Kin project came out of Microsoft’s acquisition of Danger, the creator of the Sidekick.

By the time they were released, the Kin phones were instantly overshadowed by the iPhone and Android smartphones. These videos show that Microsoft knew exactly how lackluster the Kin project was — but instead of calling it quits, the company tried to force them on consumers anyway.

While the testers were using prototype Kin phones, Wired’s source notes that little changed by the time they were released, aside from some performance improvement. But, just to be clear, the source said the Kin phones were still “a pile of shit” when they launched.

“The phone seems to be really slow in responding … and that makes it confused as to what it was doing,” one focus tester said. He went on to describe issues with the phone’s dialer — the phone was so unresponsive, it had a hard time registering a simple phone number.

Most damning was the following exchange with the same tester and a Microsoft representative:

Tester: “Just bringing up the camera, it’s useful for anything spontaneous … and for anything other than spontaneous, I carry a DSLR in the car.”

MS rep: “So it’ll work for you (laughs).”

Tester: “This phone would have gone back had I paid for it.”

Another tester laid out an argument that should have stopped the Kin project cold: “[There's] lots of room to improve I think … especially since I don’t have a touchphone right now, even so I think coming to a touchphone like this is kind of a turnoff.. I think the biggest frustration I have is whetherit’s the lag, or whether it’s my actual touch [causing problems]…”

These videos made me recall what I said back when the Kin project was cancelled, and it’s something that’s particularly pressing for Microsoft as it promotes Windows Phone 8: “Ultimately, the Kin’s failure is one Microsoft needs to remember: Instead of trying to force-feed a lackluster product to consumers, perhaps it should devote more time on creating something people actually want — like it did with the Xbox 360.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The latest IDC numbers are out, and Android is by far the undisputed heavyweight champion of the smartphone world. If Android was Mike Tyson, iOS would be Peewee Herman, and everything else is dust on the floor.

That is, if shipping numbers are all that matter.

Manufacturers — mostly Samsung — shipped 136 million Android-based phones in the third quarter of 2012, capturing 75 percent market share. The only other growing phone ecosystem, iOS, shipped 27 million units, taking 15 percent market share.

After that, it gets really nasty.

BlackBerry captured 4.3 percent, which is, let us remember, more than double the percentage of Windows Phone — not bad for the embattled RIM, but both down and going downer. Symbian desperately clung to 2.3 percent of the market, and Windows Phone had two percent. Expect to see that number grow as Windows Phone 8 — and some positive Windows 8 and Surface tablet momentum — finally engage Microsoft’s mobile engines.

IDC’s numbers in all their glory

But the real story is Android and iOS, Google and Apple. And haven’t we seen this movie before?

I know that shipping numbers aren’t everything. And I know that the Apple ecosystem is still the strongest mobile/media/apps ecosystem in the world (well, I think I know that … some may disagree). And I know that iOS punches way above its weight in terms of actual use and usability — it’s only in the past month that the overwhelming majority of Android phones finally surpassed iPhone’s mobile web traffic share. And I know that Apple still accounts for a staggering proportion, almost certainly still the majority, of profits in the mobile device market.

But do you really think all that can continue to be true if iOS starts accounting for 10 percent of all mobile devices sold? What if it’s five percent?

I should add a caveat here: iPhone sales were probably a little depressed in the past quarter — July, August, and September — since the iPhone 5 was not released until late September. So we’ll probably see a bump in iOS market share in the next couple of quarters, which are traditionally strong for Apple in any case.

Source: John Koetsier

iPhone 5

But Android is a train that has left the station, and it is stopping for no one. (No, not even for Google — ask Amazon.) The number of Android phones sold in this quarter alone is greater than the total number of smartphones of all kinds sold in the entire year of 2007.

And, not to do the monkey dance here, developers follow users. Sometimes the other way around, too, but developers will develop for platforms that have users. Ecosystem partners, like media companies, tend to aggregate around platforms with scale.

Another caveat, for which Apple can get down on its knees and thank Google: Android is fragmented and fractured, and likely to get more so over time.

In spite of all Google is doing to try to connect and unite and consolidate the versions of Android that users have on their phones, powerful ecosystem frenemies, like the carriers, and just plain old-fashioned enemies — or at least freeloaders — like Amazon, have opposing strategic imperatives. As do Chinese carriers, who might love what Android can do for them but have little incentive to keep Google in the mix.

Because of that, and because Apple earns vastly disproportionate amounts of income from its slice of the mobile market, I’m not saying that things are going to be the way they were when “beleaguered” was the adjective du jour for every article about Apple.

But there’s no doubt that there are clear parallels. And while I love Apple’s extreme devotion to not building crap as much as anyone, there’s a very valid question here: Was it truly impossible for Apple to build a mid-market or even low-end phone two or three years ago, and possibly be in a very different position today — possibly not as wealthy, but perhaps with a larger market share?

Some will say market share is irrelevant. To them I say, go get a job at RIM. Or Nokia. Market share does matter. And there will also be some who will say that profits matter most, and Apple’s got the mostest of those. To them I say, revenue and profit are trailing indicators that reveal a lot about what you have done, not so much about what you will accomplish.

I guess, in a sense, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Just not in quite the same way.

photo credit: Insomnia PHT via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

A report surfaced Tuesday that suggests we will soon pass the one billion smartphone mark on Ye Olde Planet Earth.

In other breathlessly breaking news, Facebook will top two billion users, probably three years from now. Google’s website index will reach a trillion webpages, about two decades from now. And the sun will likely go nova, if we’re still here in a few billion years.

Well, OK, it is kind of a big deal.

One billion smartphones means one in seven people on the globe have a mobile device that can access the Internet, use apps, communicate with others, and generally act as a small, mobile computer. That’s cool. That’s big. And, yes, it is a massive milestone.

But — without quibbling about what, exactly qualifies as a smartphone — it hasn’t precisely happened just yet. As the story says:

“Research firm Strategy Analytics has boldly stated that the smartphone market has burgeoned enough in the past two years to reach the 1 billion milestone mark during the current third quarter.”

And:

“In the current quarter, the research firm believes that figure could rise to 1 billion.”

“Boldly stated” is bang-on. Note the creative use of time: Has stated (past), has burgeoned (past), past two years (past), to reach (present), (in the current quarter (present), during the current third quarter (mostly future), and could rise (future).

In other words, this is a pre-announcement. Hold on to your hats. Stay seated. It is going to happen, and it is a big deal. But not quite yet. According to the facts in the story, the most recent historical number is 959 million, which the market reached last quarter after 16 years of smartphones sold.

That’s already pretty momentous … and suspiciously close in time, if not space, to Facebook’s big billion-user announcement.

The next billion smartphone sales, the firm estimates, will only take three years.

photo credit: reflexer via photopin cc

Apple’s iPhone 5 fared a little better than Samsung’s S3, but all phones have eco-issues, according to a study by the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Ecology Center. In fact, mobile phones contain up to 40 elements, many of which are heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants. The results were released today at HealthyStuff.

“Even the best phones from our study are still loaded with chemical hazards,” Ecology Center research director Jeff Gearhart said in a statement.

The iPhone 5 ranked fifth best, appropriately enough, while the S3 was ninth. Apple’s most recent model, the 4S, ranked second, but top honors went to the Motorola Citrus — probably due to the fact that it is both small and cheap (hence containing fewer expensive elements).

Samsung, however, had the best average rating for all of its phones.

The most toxic phones are, thankfully, not huge sellers. The Palm Treo 750, released a digital eon ago in 2007, ranked worst of all, followed by a BlackBerry Storm released in 2008. So the trend seems to be toward greener, cleaner mobile devices.

The biggest offenders are chlorine, bromium, cadmium, mercury, and lead, which can cause birth defects, impaired learning and other serious health problems, according to Gearhart. And while using the phone may not expose consumers to the chemicals, the Ecology Center highlighted the fact that these toxicity levels at e-waste recycling plants — often in China — can be 10 times to 100 times higher than normal background levels.

Here’s a visual view of the best and worst phones. Where’s yours?

photo credit: ‘PixelPlacebo’ via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

For all of the apps, sensors, and powerful hardware our smartphones are equipped with, they’re still pretty dumb when it comes to making and receiving phone calls. With its latest Android app, Current Caller ID, WhitePages shows us one potential evolutionary path for the smartphone’s calling and texting screens.

Like caller ID on steroids, the app displays social media updates, as well as local news and weather information, alongside a caller’s name and number when receiving or making a call or text. Current Caller ID also offers nifty infographics that chart your communication history with contacts (so you can feel extra guilty about never calling your grandma).

As you can see in the video below (seriously, watch it), the Current Caller ID app takes over your Android phone’s standard call screen to do its magic (something that’s notably not possible on the iPhone). It’s such a simple concept that I’m surprised something like this hasn’t been attempted before. Or perhaps the app is just particularly refreshing since call screens haven’t really changed much since the feature phone era.

Current Caller ID replaces WhitePage’s previous Android app, which simply acted as a Caller ID app for your smartphone. The new app offers all of the same functionality as its predecessor, which WhitePages says has identified more than 700 million calls since it launched in 2008.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if Apple, Microsoft, and Android manufacturers take a few hints from Current Caller ID. The app has the potential to bring us even closer to our family and friends by automatically keeping us informed when it matters the most.

WhitePages has also put together an interesting infographic breaking down just how much we’re buried by communication options these days. Of course, the hope is that Current Caller ID will serve as a relief to the headaches of status updates, unread messages, and cluttered inboxes.

The technology is applied to electronic devices and protects the hardware against water. While it won’t save a phone from full-on submersion, the protective layer which is invisible to the naked eye, can keep rain, spills, and short-term soaks from making major damage. It is compatible with a number of Apple, Motorola, Samsung, and HTC products.

This is Liquipel’s first SEC filing, with the investment being listed as equity. No other information has been disclosed. The company’s Form D has an amendment that states “Estimation of valuation among the parties of contracts and other assets exceeds $10,000,000.” Whatever that means.

On April 26, Liquipel won a Silver Award for Enhanced Functionality in the Material Science category at the 2012 Edison Awards, an innovation competition held in New York City. It also made a splash (pun intended) at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and earlier this year, it announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it had struck a licensing agreement with Australia’s Vita Group, expanded operations to Brazil and China, and added six new board members.

The company is based in Santa Ana, California and was founded in 2011. It faces competition from companies like HzO and NeverWet, which also showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show, where waterproofing gadget technology was a major theme.

See the filing here.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple has moved up two spots in the world phone manufacturer rankings, with LG and ZTE dropping down a rank and Nokia and Samsung taking the top two slots, according to new IDC research.

IDC’s latest report on the state of the worldwide phone market says it grew by 6.1 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2011. But that growth is actually quite a bit weaker than the 9.3 percent year-over-year gain for Q3, indicating that feature phones are falling out of favor fast.

“The mobile phone market exhibited unusually low growth last quarter, which shows it is not immune to weaker macroeconomic conditions worldwide,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC, in a statement. “The introduction of high-growth products such as the iPhone 4S, which shipped in the fourth quarter, bolstered smartphone growth. Yet overall market growth fell to its lowest point since Q3 2009 when the global economic recession was in full bloom.”

The most interesting movement to happen this quarter was Apple blowing past LG and ZTE in shipments thanks to huge demand for the iPhone 4S, which is available in more than 90 countries. Apple now has the third place slot with a record-breaking 37 million iPhones moved in the fourth quarter. Apple is also now the largest smartphone maker in the world.

First place in total phone shipments is still Nokia, which has retained that position for some time by selling massive amounts of “dumb” feature phones. Nokia recently introduced several new Windows Phone smartphones like the Lumia 900, showing off a new direction for the company, which hopes to become a major smartphone player again. Nokia shipped 113.5 million phones total.

Second place went to Samsung, which offers a blend of powerful Android phones and cheap feature phones. Samsung was notable for breaking the 90 million phone mark for the first time in a single quarter and breaking the 300 million mark for the first time in a single year for 2011. The company shipped 97.6 million phones in the fourth quarter.

Rounding out the top five are LG and ZTE in fourth and fifth place, both dropping a slot because of Apple’s surge. LG’s phone shipments dropped a staggering amount, going from shipping 30.6 million phones in Q4 2010 to shipping 17.7 million in Q4 2011, a 42 percent decline. Chinese manufacturer ZTE boosted shipments 8.9 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter with the shipping of 17.1 million phones.

Here’s the full chart of IDC’s top mobile vendor list:

Chart image: IDC

Apple Store photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Starting things off on an emotional beat during his CES keynote this morning, Qualcomm CEO and chairman Paul Jacobs unveiled a series of videos that show how mobile devices are changing the lives of people all over the world.

The videos feature people from all walks of life — from a hip and well-connected techie in New York City, to a fisherman in India. Qualcomm also explores how mobile is helping with personal healthcare and with education through the use of tablets.

Yes, it’s blatant self-promotion for Qualcomm, since its mobile chipsets power the devices used by the video subjects, but it’s still nice to see some positive uses of technology. It’s an especially good counterpoint to mainstream media stories that often center too much on how technology is damaging society.

For more news out of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, be sure to check out VentureBeat’s live coverage from CES 2012.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

You may love your phone, but do you love it enough to invest in the company that makes it? Well, if you own an iPhone you are more likely to also own Apple stock, a recent survey reveals.

SigFig, an investment tracking and advice website, conducted a survey of its 300,000 members to find out how loyal mobile customers are to the brand behind their phone. The results show that 16 percent of iPhone owners also own stock in Apple, compared to  just over 12 percent of all SigFig members. In addition, only eight percent of Android owners and six percent of BlackBerry owners have stock in Apple.

Apple by far has the highest loyalty of smartphone owners among the survey respondents, a trend not seen with those who use Android or Blackberry phones. Only four percent of Android owners have stock in Google, and even fewer — less than one percent — own stock in Motorola. Loyalty to Android is harder to show because you can either own stock in the company that makes the software (Google) or one of the many the manufacturers of Android hardware (Motorola, LG, Samsung, etc). Still, far more smartphone users are investing in Apple than Google.

Blackberry fairs the worst; less than one in 100 Blackberry owners have stock in RIM. That’s right, even people who willingly own and use Blackberrys won’t invest in RIM.

So, are you loyal enough to your phone to buy stock the company that makes it?

Infographic via SigFig

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Even though Android is handily winning the mobile market share battle, Apple is still trouncing everyone else when it comes to actually making money from its phones.

In the last quarter, Apple snapped up 52 percent of total handset industry profits, while the iPhone accounted for only 4.2 percent of global phone market share, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley. And that was for a quarter where Apple ended up disappointing Wall Street analysts.

Walkley expects Apple’s December quarter to more than make up for its last (and he’s not the only one), with iPhone sales hitting 29 million. He predicts that Apple will sell 104.4 million iPhones for the fiscal year 2012, and 140.8 million in fiscal 2013.

Come the next quarter, Walkley predicts that Apple will command 60 percent of industry profits (jaw, meet floor). Apple was close to reaching that goal in the second quarter, when it reached 57 percent of industry profits (likely because of the Verizon iPhone).

Apple has been ruling phone profits for some time now — Asymco’s Horace Dediu had a great analysis of Apple’s revenues versus other major smartphone companies in August — but the company’s continued ability to make piles of cash is still worth pointing out. One reason is Apple’s command of its supply chain, which allows it to get high-quality components at far better prices than its competitors.

And of course, it helps even further that Apple has full control over its hardware and software ecosystem, which means the company is making even more from every iPhone sold thanks to app and media purchases, as well as advertising.

Via AllThingsD

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

2009-era Nokia feature phones

Not content to let its feature phone software stagnate, Nokia is apparently working on a new low-end mobile operating system called “Meltemi,” which will allow the company to sell more capable phones in emerging markets.

News of the Linux-based Meltemi, which is the Greek word for winds that blow across the Aegean see from the north during summer, was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

For Nokia, Meltemi is a sign that the company isn’t forgetting about low-end devices, a segment which represented about 47 percent of its device sales last quarter. It’s also a strong hint that the company isn’t willing to be entirely on another company’s platform. Nokia recently abandoned its plans to develop the MeeGo operating system with Intel (though it is releasing a single MeeGo device for some reason, the N9) in exchange for adopting Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform.

Meltemi will allow Nokia to continue innovating with low-end feature phones — which is important, since consumers in emerging markets expect smartphone-like functionality from their feature phones, a source tells the WSJ. Developing a new OS will let Nokia offer those devices at cheaper prices than if they used Windows Phone 7, which requires beefier hardware and licensing fees to Microsoft. As the WSJ points out, Meltemi could be Nokia’s equivalent of Samsung’s Bada platform for low-end phones.

The new software will completely replace Nokia’s S40 software in feature phones, according to the mobile site Boy Genius Report. “Nokia’s vision is seemingly to build an operating system with capability that reaches well beyond “S40,” but that can function on similar low-cost hardware,” writes BGR’s Zach Epstein. “This new platform will be fairly capable, but our understanding is that it will not be a full-fledged OS intended to compete with the likes of Android, iOS and Windows Phone.”

Nokia will still develop inexpensive Windows Phone devices in some markets, BGR says. That will likely happen with Microsoft’s recently announced “Tango” version of the OS, which offers a stripped down experience for low-end hardware.

Nokia has yet to confirm Meltemi’s existence, but a spokesperson told BGR in a statement “our Mobile Phones team has a number of exciting projects in the works that will help connect the next billion consumers to the Internet.”

A new study indicates there’s a dramatic shift to “smartphone culture,” where people are using social networks and downloading media such as games on their phones, according to Magid Media Futures: Mobile 2011. Among the findings, smartphone users spend more on virtual goods in games than social networking users do.

“We are seeing a smartphone culture radically change the way we interact with content and media,” said Mari Baker, chief executive of PlayFirst, which makes a wide variety of web, social, tablet and smartphone games. “This is a big wave of change and it gives us confidence in the platform.”

For years, American cell phone usage lagged behind that of Europeans and the Japanese, but that seems to be changing at long last.

The survey was conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates and sponsored by casual game firm PlayFirst. The survey reports that nearly half of non-smartphone owners are considering buying a smart phone to replace their feature phones in the next 12 months.

Smartphone ownership grew 35 percent from 2010 and the installed base is expected to reach half of the U.S. population in a few years.

About 45 percent of smartphone users play games on their phones. Smartphone owners are three to five times more likely to play games, use social networks, and access the internet from their phones, in comparison to traditional feature phone owners.

Magid found that among those who play games on their phones, the majority use the phone as their primary gaming device. Of those who do not play smartphone games, 55 percent said they may start playing in the next 12 months. One third of smartphone gamers who have not spent money on smartphone games say they may start in the next 12 months.

In 2010, only 10 percent of respondents said they were interested in buying in-game virtual goods on smartphones. This year, the number is 46 percent. Smartphone users spend more money on games and they spend more money, in comparison to social networking games. About 13 percent of smartphone gamers have bought virtual goods on their phones, spending an average of $67 last year. By comparison, social networking users spend $25 a year. About 8 out of 10 social network gamers have not spent any money over the past year in social games.

The survey was conducted online and included 2,482 people, of whom 2,051 were between the ages of 18 and 64. Data were collected from April 15 to April 20.

See below for some charts from the study.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft has asked Samsung to pay $15 for each Android phone it makes, according to a Reuters report. Microsoft owns a lot of patents related to Android and is using them to help earn millions of dollars each year.

The patent game keeps heating up. Tech companies are using patent law to hinder the competition instead of simply providing a better overall product.

Since 2003, Microsoft has created licensing agreements with more 700 companies, including five Android-related companies. The biggest of these was an agreement with manufacturer HTC last year that reportedly ended with HTC agreeing to pay Microsoft $5 for each Android phone it sells. And just yesterday, Microsoft signed a patent agreement with phone component manufacturer Wistron to license some of the big M’s Android patents.

There’s been no official word from Samsung about the request, but the company is reportedly in talks to lower the payment to Microsoft to $10 per phone in exchange for a more amicable relationship between the two companies. Meanwhile, Samsung is embroiled in a high-stakes patent war with Apple.

Microsoft’s move to make more money on Android comes as its own mobile platform, Windows Phone 7, is trying to take off. Clearly, Microsoft wants to push more manufacturers to make WP7 devices and hopes that making Android phones more expensive will incentivize manufacturers to try out WP7 instead.

Samsung is the second largest phone manufacturer in the world after Nokia, and it sold an estimated 19 million smartphones from April to June this year. If, for example, those 19 million smartphones were all Android and Microsoft’s $15 per phone agreement was active, that would equal a staggering quarterly payout of $285 million.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. We’re also accepting entries for our mobile startup competition at the show. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Will Android kill the iPhone? Or is it the other way around? It’s tempting to stick with the market share battle mindset when it comes to smartphones, but as Asymco’s Horace Dediu points out, the real question may be, who can tempt away users of dumbphones, or traditional cellphones?

Dediu compiled second quarter smartphone market figures for the past four years (see chart at right), which makes it easy to see just how much potential is left untapped among dumbphone users. His data shows that smartphones now account for 27 percent of phones shipped to retailers.

“What the chart shows is that Android (and phone versions of iOS) have taken share from direct competitors but have taken more from non-consumption,” Dediu writes. “Rather than focusing on rivalry between platforms, minds should be focused on the shape of the smartphone adoption curve.”

Looking at the smartphone market in that light, there definitely seems to be room for entrants aside from Google and Apple to make their mark. For example, even though Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 devices may not be selling like hotcakes yet, there’s potential for the platform to explode if it can properly tap dumbphone users (that definitely seems to be the angle with its Windows Phone ad campaign). Microsoft’s upcoming partnership with Nokia to create flagship Windows Phone devices could help in this respect.

But it’s definitely not going to be easy for Microsoft, or any other modern smartphone newcomer, to entice dumbphone users. In addition to powering high-end smartphones, Android is well positioned for dumbphone consumers, since it’s versatile enough to run on low- and mid-range hardware.

Research firm Gartner also released its latest mobile device numbers today, which gives us a more granular look at the state of the industry. Smartphones accounted for 23.6 percent of phones sold in the second quarter (compared to last year), according to Gartner, which falls in line with Dediu’s smartphone shipment statistics. Gartner’s numbers show that over 100 million smartphones were sold in the last quarter out of a total of 428 million mobile devices.

Additionally, the firm says that only 1.6 million Windows Phone 7 devices were sold last quarter. That’s a tepid response, for sure, but it’s definitely not enough to scare Microsoft off of smartphones. As I’ve previously argued, Microsoft is in the smartphone market for the long haul with Windows Phone, and I suspect it will work even harder to target dumbphone users over the next year.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. We’re also accepting entries for our mobile startup competition at the show. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

They will follow the same path as landline phones have in residences, where already 25 percent of consumers in the US (and higher in some other countries) have abandoned them for the convenience of their mobile phones (it’s much higher then 25 percent in the younger age groups).

And those percentages are rapidly growing. Smart phone users find they get much more bang for their buck, and balk at paying two carrier fees for what they consider redundant services. And like most technologies of the past few years, what happens with consumers, generally gets implemented by businesses within a relatively short time.

So, within 2 to 3 years, I expect 25 to 35 percent of business users to employ a mobile smart phone device exclusively and abandon use of a fixed line desk phone. The impact to businesses will be significant as they embrace this mobile enabled mindset.

The result is that mobile devices will need to be enabled with many of the same productivity enhancing features of current fixed line desktop phones connected to feature-rich private branch exchanges (PBXes, or business-specific phone exchanges). Companies will be required to extend existing PBX/business phone functionality (e.g., extension dialing, call forwarding, internal routing) to a wide range of mobile devices. Vendors of business oriented smart devices, and business PBXes, will have to scramble to meet that need. But a significant portion of existing business PBXes are old and can’t easily be upgraded, nor are there universal standards to make cross-platform connectivity easy.

So who might be some of the winners and losers of this rapidly emerging trend?

Cisco stands to lose lots of desktop device business as a result. Cisco knows this, which is why it created the Cius tablet. It’s still too expensive for many users, and it’s not going to be the primary communications device like a smart phone, but it’s a step in the right direction. And Cisco competitor Avaya, with its A175 tablet and Flare interface, is moving in a similar direction.

Of course, Cisco and Avaya do have a significant stake in the back office IPBX (IP driven PBXes) market — where they should do very well by rolling out smart phone directed features (and partner with third-party solution providers).

On the device side, RIM bought a PBX extender company (Ascendent Systems) several years ago and turned it into an IPBX connected extension of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) architecture, which turned into its Mobile Voice System (MVS). It was ahead of its time when it was launched, but as more users choose to adopt only smartphones, this capability will grow in importance. Of course, MVS only works within the BES environment, so it’s not as valuable for mixed device environments, but this does give RIM a market advantage for BlackBerry environments.

Google offers Google Voice, which is cross-platform, but will ultimately be “tuned” for Android devices. Microsoft has Lync (formerly Office Communications Server), which it hopes will extend its dominant Exchange franchise into a unified communications powerhouse, but currently has limited mobile support. And IBM offers Connections and Sametime to enhance its suite of communications and social networking tools attractive primarily to the largest enterprises.

None of the above are direct replacements for the office phone/PBX today, but they are clearly pointed in that direction, unifying the voice and data features of the smart device world. And Cisco is not sitting still either, integrating a number of its acquisitions (e.g., WebEx) to enable mobile unified communications on its IPBX platforms. And there’s the wild card of what Apple might do in this space – partner or offer its own competing product to Google Talk.

Ultimately, it’s the user who stands to gain the most. And its companies who stand to feel the most pain in the next couple of years as they struggle to implement a strategy to make this happen within their existing telecomm/IT environment.

Short term costs will go up, as companies must purchase extensions to existing backend systems, or replace them altogether with newer generation products. Longer term however, the need for a single device which is always connected and always available to the user will enhance both that user’s productivity, and lower overall costs to the business by increasingly piggybacking on already existing connections and application (e.g., VoIP, email/messaging, presence, optimized routing, WiFi (free) calling, etc.).

Here’s the bottom line: few businesses have yet moved very far down this path. Its likely many will feel the heat from users in the next 6-12 months — especially the executive ranks that adopt newer technologies quickly and have the highest expectations. And as with in-demand devices like the iPhone and iPad,  IT/telecom operations will likely be caught off guard and struggle to catch up.

Jack Gold is the founder and principal analyst at J.Gold Associates, based in Northborough, Mass. He covers the many aspects of business and consumer computing and emerging technologies.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google is expanding its testing of a long-awaited feature for Google Voice, the ability to port your current mobile number to the service, Engadget reports.

Number porting on Google Voice has been talked about for years now, but Google tells Search Engine Land that it’s only recently gotten over some back-end technical hurdles that will make the porting process easier.

Porting your number costs $20, and it will also end your current cellular service plan — which means you may have to pay early termination fees if you’re still under contract. And since that leaves your phone without a cellular number of its own, you’ll have to call your carrier and arrange for a new number on your device.

The expanded testing, which will only go on for a limited amount of time, is a sign that Google is close to bringing the feature to all Google Voice users. The feature was previously available to some users but couldn’t take advantage of everything Google Voice had to offer. For example, you couldn’t use Google Voice’s nifty voicemail transcription feature after porting your number.

For some, the cost and headache of porting their numbers will be worthwhile. It effectively means you’ll never have to port your number again when you switch service providers — assuming you want to continue using Google Voice. Given how deeply the service is implemented in Android phones, you could easily rely on your Google Voice number more than your cellphone’s actual number. Google also recently released a native iPhone app for Google Voice.

As a Google Voice user, I honestly don’t think number porting is as useful as the ability to create vanity phone numbers. When first signing up, Google Voice lets you create your own customized phone number which can use any available area code and gives you the option of spelling out words. But given that Google is positioning Voice to be a complete replacement for your current phone plan, the addition of number porting will certainly be welcomed by users.

The sources say that Lab 126, Amazon’s hardware division responsible for building the Kindle, is working on other devices meant for consumers. And just like the Kindle, the devices would be a way for consumers to easily tap into Amazon’s content services — like music and movie rentals and purchases.

One source said that it was the company’s original goal to produce other devices with Lab 126. “Jeff’s original goal for the lab was to build a range of other devices,” they said, referring to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. “There was talk of music players and other electronics.”

At this point, it may be a bit too late for Amazon to jump into the portable music hardware business, but the idea of a phone could be intriguing. The company’s MP3 store is already a big part of Google’s Android offering, so perhaps the idea of an Amazon Android phone isn’t that far off. But with the massive influx of Android handsets these days, an Amazon phone would probably be a wasted effort.

A more likely choice would be an Amazon tablet — an evolutionary step from its experience with the Kindle. Then again, if future Kindles manage to adopt color touchscreens, they might as well be tablets. There’s also a burgeoning market for set-top boxes that can easily bring Amazon’s digital media to televisions. Google already seems to be banking on Amazon to deliver media for its Google TV platform, so perhaps Amazon could produce a Google TV box of its own.

Whatever Amazon ends up doing, we won’t see any new devices for some time. Lab 126 has around 80 job openings listed, and according to the NYT’s sources, the company is having a hard time filling certain postings. Amazon is also keeping an eye out for potential acquisitions — it already purchased the touch-screen startup TouchCo earlier this year.

The success of new form factors for powerful computers (think iPhone, Droid, iPad) have inspired PC makers to redirect massive investment budgets towards tablets, TVs and superphones, and the platform of choice has been Android. Dell, Lenovo and Acer are all launching new mobile devices, and all have jumped on Google’s bandwagon.

In the midst of this Android lovefest, however, the biggest PC maker in the world appears to be increasingly going it alone. While it does have Android devices, the company has announced plans to acquire Palm and its WebOS software layer. That looks to VentureBeat like it plans to own its own mobile stack, platform and all. With a $40 billion PC business and big ambitions, we believe HP is on the verge of becoming the new mobile powerhouse.

Why do device makers need to innovate in software as well as hardware in the current market? How does this play into the coming deluge of connected devices? You won’t want to miss McKinney’s keynote on the current “perfect storm” of innovation. McKinney will share developments now underway at his own organization, including HP’s vision for next-generation connected devices, and how to tap the promise of the cloud.

Early-bird tickets for MobileBeat are available for just four more days. Grab them here before they expire May 31.

Phil McKinney, VP and CTO, HP Personal Systems Group

McKinney is responsible for long-range strategic planning and research and development for the company’s PC product lines, including displays, mobile devices, notebooks, desktops and workstations.

A leading authority on innovation and its impact on business, the economy and culture, McKinney speaks to worldwide audiences at conferences and through his blog (www.philmckinney.com) and weekly podcast (www.killerinnovations.com). Dubbed “chief seer” by the The San Jose Mercury News, McKinney is a contributing columnist for Forbes, writes the column “The Objective” for Forbes.com, and has been quoted in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Financial Times, Fortune and others.

We also want to thank the mobile industry leaders that are supporting MobilBeat2010, including GetJar and Placecast as Gold Sponsors, AdMob and Open Market as Silver Sponsors, and Nexage and Offerpal as Event Sponsors.

In addition, we’re proud to partner with GetJar, the world’s second largest app store, to present “The Gettie Awards 2010,” a competition for talented mobile application developers. The winners of the awards will be announced at a ceremony to take place on the evening of July 12, immediately following the first day of MobileBeat. The Getties ceremony will include dinner, entertainment and the awards announcements themselves. Submission guidelines and event information can be found here. To purchase tickets to the Getties, click here.

Don’t miss MobileBeat 2010, VentureBeat’s conference on the future of mobile. The theme: “The year of the superphone and who will profit.” Now expanded to two days, MobileBeat 2010 will take place on July 12-13 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Early-bird pricing is available until May 31. For complete conference details, or to apply for the MobileBeat Startup Competition, click here.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

What Google unveiled this week was not just a device, the Nexus One, but a vision for the way phones should be bought and sold.

Andy Rubin, who became Google’s mobile chief after it acquired his startup Android, said he sees a future where people buy phones the way they purchase digital cameras. They’ll do it primarily online and use the web and word of mouth to research different models, instead of in a carrier’s store and with a two-year service contract.

The way phones have been sold in the past — with a subsidized device and that pesky contract — has partially been a prison of our own making. With price expectations anchored at $200 or less, consumers balked at paying the upfront cost of a high-end phone at between $400 and 600. Apple initially tried to woo people off that model when it launched the iPhone, but the company quickly reverted to the older pricing structure.

The problem with that model is that pure competition on service quality and pricing suffers when customers are trapped in two-year contracts. It incentivizes carriers to focus on getting exclusive hardware and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on brick-and-mortar stores and expensive marketing campaigns over improving the coverage and quality of the network. The U.S. has Byzantine pricing schemes compared to other countries. Americans pay twice for every call — a charge for the caller and the receiver and sensible pay-as-you-go models common in Europe and Asia are few and far between.

Google is taking another crack at trying to break the legacy pricing model, but with baby steps. You can either buy a phone unlocked or choose a subsidized price paired with a two-year contract from a mobile operator. As of this point, only T-Mobile is on board, with Verizon coming on in the spring. With the Nexus One, Google says its keeping its sales strategy “pure and simple.” As of now, there won’t be models in physical retail stores. You’ll have to look at it on-line or have the good fortune of having a friend who has one. Although for now Google’s online store will just have the Nexus One and presumably future Nexus models, a longer-term implication is that the company could sell other types of hardware, perhaps even Chrome OS netbooks, online.

All of these moves are far from what’s needed to reshape the way we buy phones. The concept of buying unlocked phones then choosing a carrier isn’t particularly novel. It’s just that a company with the brand weight and technical expertise Google carries hasn’t done it yet with multiple carriers in tow. For it to work, enough consumers would have to vote with their dollars in Google’s store to show that’s the way they want to buy phones. The other two major carriers, AT&T and Sprint-Nextel, might need to jump in with proper monthly pricing plans for the phone as well. Or more imaginatively, if the search giant really wanted to remake the system, it could buy cellular bandwidth and offer its own data network, with Google Voice obviating the need for any traditional calling plan. Or maybe we could dream that in the distant future, it could apply its Googly “free” model and offer an ad-supported phone.

We talked to several carriers to get their thoughts. T-Mobile’s subsidized Nexus One price is a $179, with a $79.99 monthly fee. Verizon hasn’t yet to disclose its pricing details, according to the carrier’s spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. If (for whatever reason) you want to be on AT&T’s network over Verizon’s, AT&T spokesman Rolf Gatlin says Nexus One owners can buy the unlocked phone, then purchase a data plan for $30 a month, plus their choice of voice plans based on the number of minutes per month. That data plan rate is month-to-month, not a contract rate.

It’s hard to break bad habits though. The old model persists — yesterday T-Mobile said it’s getting the HD2, an HTC Windows Mobile-based phone exclusively, while AT&T said that some devices in its new slate of Android-based phones will have some exclusivity as well.