SAN FRANCISCO – Your health is not solely in your doctor’s hands. As mobile technology improves and health care providers reach out to consumers, many apps are popping up to help people manage their own health.

The problem is that too many of these apps are useless.

At HealthBeat 2013 today, David Levin, chief medical information officer of Cleveland Clinic explained what he sees all too often when reviewing new technology: “CrApps,” or crappy apps.

Fortunately, not all apps are crappy. Here are some of the most promising new consumer health apps.

PokitDok

Pokitdok is a health marketplace with price transparency for health services, where consumers can shop directly from providers. Originally launched as a “Pinterest for healthcare,” the mobile app now offers tools for payers to facilitate transactions.

Coolness factor: Although it’s unclear whether consumers will actually purchase health services online, fully transparent cost data should facilitate better care decisions and value based judgments. The app also collects quality ratings data for providers so that patients can generate a match score based on their personal and clinical needs in order to locate their ideal provider. PokitDok makes it possible for patients to consider both efficacy and price when making healthcare decisions.

Caremerge

Caremerge is the first app that allows caregivers to communicate and coordinate with those living in senior  communities. Through their web and mobile apps, staff can connect with each other while offsite stakeholders (doctors, family members, etc.) organize timely care.

Coolness factor: As the population ages and baby boomer smartphone adoption increases, Caremerge will engage families in managing their elders’ health and help reduce hospital readmissions. But only 18 percent of consumers age 50 or older currently have a smartphone, and those are exactly the people who are generally caring for seniors, so this number will have to rise.

MangoHealth

MangoHealth came out of RockHealth’s 2012 class and enables users to facilitate and track their medication intake. The app identifies potentially dangerous interactions with medications, supplements, or food and drink, provides medication reminders, and offers real-world rewards for taking medication on time.

Coolness factor: Over half of the U.S. adult population uses supplements and 40 percent of older adults take 5 or more prescriptions per day. As these numbers increase, a user-friendly app can prevent adverse health reactions and decrease medication non-compliance (estimated to be a $289 billion problem.)

Asthmapolis

The Asthmapolis sensor sits on top of an inhaler and automatically syncs data to a mobile app on your smartphone. The system provides personalized feedback and education to control asthma, which affects 25 million people in the US.

Coolness factor: Once the sensor is paired, the phone will automatically capture data from the sensor whenever it is nearby (I wish my Jawbone Up were this easy to use).

Allayo

Allayo is a virtual health assistant that can save your family as much as 100 hours per year on health care activities. Members can send reminders, order and refill prescriptions, schedule appointments, arrange for tests and labwork, find help with insurance claims, and arrange home delivery. (The company also mentions gamification and loyalty, but we’re less excited about those buzzwords.)

Coolness factor: Allayo has created a new category of health care offerings; the virtual healthcare assistant. As our current system becomes increasingly difficult to navigate, this service provides  “certified medical assistants” who are available on the phone or through secure chat to take care of members’ health needs.

Photo credit: Michael O’Donnell/VentureBeat

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That lasted a few months, at least.

Nokia and Intel had decided in 2010 that they needed an answer to Apple’s iPhone juggernaut which was taking high-end smartphone sales away from Helsinki and making it completely obvious that the king of chips had no chips in the mobile processor poker game. Meego was the answer, and Meego would be the operating system that would lead the then-still-powerful Nokia back to the forefront of the mobile market, and would make Intel relevant in small, low-powered, and battery-life-efficient phone CPUs.

Unfortunately, one loser plus another loser often just equals two losers. And, unfortunately for Nokia and Intel, Google and Samsung took their lunch and ate it, too, as Android began to reign uber alles. So Nokia turned to Microsoft for salvation — and a very painful process it has been — and Meego lost its way.

But not entirely.

Jolla, a new and independent smartphone vendor which almost no-one but mobile wonks has ever heard of, took the core of Meego and built Sailfish, a new mobile operating system that is built on an open-source project named Mer that is the new incarnation of Meego, and is just now teasing the coming-soon release of its very first device, the oddly named and oddly designed but also oddly attractive “The Other Half.”

Surprise, surprise, Jolla is based in Helsinki, Finland, where there just happens to be a surplus of top-notch mobile talent available lately (shocking, isn’t it). And surprise, surprise, all of the top Jolla leaders are ex-Nokia employees. Almost two years ago, Jolla announced its intentions of bringing a new smartphone to market. The biggest surprise is that they seem to be succeeding.

We are Jolla. We are Unlike

Jolla appears to be a two-part device, consisting of a 4.5-inch screen, a buttonless main phone handset, and various colorful plastic cases, or “other halves.”

Snap one on, and your phone OS changes.

Source: Jolla

The Sailfish OS almost reminds you of Windows Phone tiles.

Changes color, changes battery life, perhaps, changes content such as apps and media, and changes in other ways yet to be invented, based on the creativity of Jolla and partners.

Actual devices have yet to be released, and the details are fewer than might be desired, but the key point is that the Jolla is Android app compatible. Which, frankly, is probably essential for any new smartphone platform entering the market today. The smartphone market is an ecosystem battle, not a device battle primarily, and any new entrants with any real aspirations for success have to plug into what is already available and — largely — a global standard.

Interestingly, the main Sailfish operating system screen appears to draw from Windows Phone design elements, with titles on the home screen that aggregate information that you might be interested in.

According to Engadget, the phone will have a dual-core processor (type unknown), LTE, an 8MP rear camera and a front-facing camera, and have 16GB onboard storage plus micro-SD expansion.

At the very least, it’s an interesting take on mobile that enables users to participate in some — if not all — of the benefits of the world’s leading smartphone operating system, while still having some unique and differentiating factors. Jolla says it will offer the world’s best multitasking experience, and will be so intuitive that you can operate your favorite features “without even looking at the device.”

Main navigation on the phone is buttonless, with the four main icons appearing to be Phone, Messages, Browser, and Apps. The Sailfish operating system will also support gesture control, the company said.

I’m assuming that full Google integration and access to Google services such as music would not be included, and syncing contacts and other core data would not be as simple as on a straight Android phone.

However, Jolla seems to be competing on differentiation. And while the jury will be out on how successfully they’ve achieved it until we have actual devices in our hands, at first glance, they’ve succeeded.

Image credits: Jolla

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

China’s speedy growth in fast-mobile subscriptions — and increasing mobile competition among the giant Chinese mobile carriers — will be key factors in driving Apple’s moldering stock price to unseen heights of over $800, one analyst said today.

With over three quarters of net new mobile growth in emerging markets, if Apple is ever to get its stock back to the $700 heights of summer 2012, it needs a less expensive and more carrier-friendly product suite. That’s coming this summer, according to Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets, and just in time.

The three major Chinese carriers reported subscriber growth for April 2013 today, and wireless subscribers rose 13 percent year-over-year to 1.16 billion. Fast wireless subscribers using 3G connection speeds rose 84 percent to 293.1 million.

And that’s the critical number.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dailysublime/6814011513/

Competitor Samsung will have something to say about Apple’s success — or lack thereof — in China.

The major competition right now between China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom will drive China Mobile, the grandaddy of mobile in the Middle Kingdom, to finally adopt the iPhone … and offer Apple’s iDevices to its 730 million mobile subscribers. That’s a deal that Apple and China Mobile have not been able to consummate since 2009, and it could be the deal that kickstarts Apple into massive growth outside its U.S. market once again. Especially given the fierce competition between carriers in China.

And the competition is all over the 293.1 million 3G subscribers, who are projected to grow to between 375 and 400 million by the end of 2013.

China Mobile’s 730 million mobile subscribers includes 120 million of the higher-end 3G subscribers, meaning China Mobile, which has historically trailed Unicom and Telecom in the more lucrative segments of the mobile market, leads the race for 3G subscribers in raw numbers. Unicom and Telecom, however — both of which sell Apple’s iPhone — have a much higher percentage of users on big contracts, giving them better per-user margins.

China Unicom has 254.6 million mobile subscribers, including 91.9 million 3G subscribers, and China Telecom has 170.2 million users and 81.1 million 3G users.

Cue the lower-priced iPhone, which White believes is coming this summer.

That will help Apple finally ink a deal with China Mobile just as the bulk of its 730 million subscribers are starting the switch to faster 3G connections. Which could mean tens of millions of new customers for Apple in Asia, and — with growth in other countries as well — set up a sales growth recovery for Cupertino that, White believes, can bring AAPL back to its $700 heights, and beyond, up to his price target of $888.

That’s a lofty target, of course, and a lot will have to change between the ears of Wall Street analysts and institutional investors for that to become a reality. Morgan Stanley, of course, has also published an analysis that Apple could triple sales in China with a lower-cost iPhone.

Since Apple sold $8.8 billion worth of product in China in the second quarter of this year, out of $43.6 billion in total sales, tripling that could be $26 billion quarterly, and perhaps as much as $100 billion annually.

Those are big numbers, and whether Apple can accomplish that or not, no one knows. But if it did, that would certainly have a major effect on Apple, its stock, and the mobile markets.

Major competitor Samsung, which sold 400 million phones last year and captures 95 percent of all profits in the Android device ecosystem, will have a few things to say about it too.

photo credit: wZa HK via photopin cc

“We’ve opened authentication and sockets on all your devices,” cofounder Maneesh Arora explains.

What that means, essentially, is that MightyText has trusted, secure connections between all your technology. And that those connections can be used to transfer almost anything.

The company is starting with photos, announcing real-time photo and video syncing between your Android phone and your PC or Mac. I watched Arora take a photo on his smartphone and saw it pop up almost immediately on the MightyText app on his MacBook — a much more immediate experience than what you get with iCloud, which typically takes a few minutes, and sometimes hours, to sync photos via Apple’s Photo Stream.

But photo-syncing is just the beginning.

“Everything on your phone should be everywhere all the time,” Arora says. “No one raves about iCloud, and we feel there’s an opportunity. There will soon be billions of Android devices, and no one’s making it easy.”

It’s good timing, and not just because  iCloud just had an outage yesterday. It’s good timing because, while our phones are the most personal of our devices, they can be islands of content and capability that don’t translate well to your laptop or tablet.

So Arora sees the possibility of leveraging his MightyText platform, which is on pace to route about six billion texts annually, for much, much more.

Essentially, what MightyText has created is the plumbing and wiring for a personal data sharing platform, which can then open up an API for any other apps that want to communicate to the desktop or send data and documents to a user’s other devices.

“That’s in our plans,” Arora says. “We also have some professional features coming soon, such as scheduling texts, managing multiple phones, a B2B play for enterprises, especially as BlackBerry moves out of the enterprise and companies need to manage 50 or 50,000 devices centrally. And we’ve seen that people will pay for storage.”

Building a platform for personal sharing has been part of the plan all along, Arora says, calling MightyText more of a productivity play than a messaging app.

“This is just the beginning,” he told me. “We can do any file type, any media type, install and uninstall apps … “

Currently MightyText works on your tablet or laptop via a web-based interface to its cloud software. However, the company has a native Mac and native Windows client in beta right now — Arora was using it as we video-chatted — and they’ve included native OS-level notifications, so your texting and syncing experience will be as real-time as possible.

Also of note: MightyText is currently building a Gmail plugin that will let you text right from your Gmail account.

“We just want to be a useful product,” Arora says. “We’re trying to find nuggets of value throughout a user’s day.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The smartphone market may have largely left QWERTY keyboards behind, but companies like Nokia and BlackBerry aren’t so eager to follow suit.

Nokia is teasing the announcement of a new keyboard-equipped smartphone, the details of which are at the moment completely nonexistent. We do know, however, that Nokia plans to announce the device this Wednesday at 7 a.m. GMT (3am ET), which certainly hints that this will be a device aimed at Europe and not the U.S (sorry, guys).

Of course, the inevitable question when any company announces a new QWERTY phone nowadays is this: Will anyone buy this thing? Perhaps. As the buzz around BlackBerry Q10 has shown, there are still lots of people who are into phones with physical keyboards, even if they’re far outnumbered by those that aren’t.

But while the QWERTY market is still significant, what’s probably not significant is the number of QWERTY fans who are into lemon-yellow phones — which could be bad news for whatever it is that Nokia is teasing in the photo above. Let’s hope Nokia also release the device in more muted hues as well.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The booming mobile advertising market grew from $1.4 billion in 2011 to $4.1 billion in 2012, and it’s projected to hit a massive $7.3 billion in 2013.

And almost all of it is spent on Apple’s ecosystem.

There’s a reason that even though Android has almost caught up to iOS in downloads, it’s still way behind in monetization. Partially, it’s because iTunes has a long and successful history of commercial transactions, so people feel comfortable clicking and shopping and buying on iOS. Partially, it’s because Apple was the leader in mobile for so long.

But it’s also because advertisers are simply getting fed up with an Android ecosystem that doesn’t convert very well.

Source: MoPub

Mobile ad spend ballooned in March 2013

“There have been whispers and comments around Google’s Play app store, and some of those concerns were supported when they announced a redesign,” Paul Gelb, head of strategy for MoPub, the world’s largest mobile ad exchange says. “If you have people click on your ad and drive them to the app store and that becomes a breakage point … that will reduce the value of the ad that you want to buy.”

Which is a nice way of saying that ads for app installs aren’t always working, even when the mobile user taps on your ad.

Most advertisers and ad exchange partners don’t want to talk on the record, of course. But off the record, they’ll say that Google Play is just not at the quality level of the iOS app ecosystem. There’s too much crap, too much malware, there’s not the level of quality that iOS has … and there is a missing mass of people on the platform who have confirmed credit card accounts and are, frankly, in the demographic who are willing and able to buy.

That may sound sacrilegious to Android enthusiasts, many of whom are tech-savvy and higher-income, but it’s borne out by the numbers.

Not only are 75 cents out of every mobile ad dollar spent on iOS, but iPhone, iPad, and yes, even iPod touch ad rates are much higher. While Android smartphones draw $.50 CPMs (cost per thousand impressions), iPhones pull in $.65 to $.88 CPMs, iPod Touches do $.74 to $.98, and iPads do between $.82 and $1.16.

Source: MoPub

Mobile ad CPMs for the first quarter of 2013

So while tablets are the highest-revenue mobile ad platforms, Android tablets only account for a skinny single percent of all mobile ad sales.

That’s entirely due to the basic question underlying ad pricing: Do they work? Click-through rates on Android devices are about half as good as those on iOS devices, with under one percent on Android tablets and just over a percent on Android smartphones. Meanwhile, iOS devices such as iPads pull in 2-2.5 percent click-through rates, and iPhone pulls in 1.4-1.7 percent.

Source: MoPub

Click-through rates for mobile ads – first quarter of 2013

All of that adds up to an ad-share spend in which iPad almost eclipses the entire Android ecosystem single-handledly, iPod Touch by itself does about a third to a quarter as much as all of Android, and iPhone owns about double the share of all Android smartphones and tablets combined.

Which brings us to the 75 percent iOS ad share:

Source: MoPub

Mobile ad market share, Android vs iOS devices

Does this matter?

On a certain level, Android users might not really care — after all, who likes advertising? But advertising is increasingly driving mobile monetization strategies for app developers, who must therefore care. And that means the apps and experiences Android users will eventually get from their platform suffer from the Android monetization gap.

Which doesn’t mean the gap will exist forever. MoPub’s Gelb isolated two key factors that need to change for that gap to disappear:

“I think Android tablets need to hit. It’s incredibly important — the larger screen just offers more ad potential,” he told me. “Also, there needs to be a bit more certainty and success around identifying high-value users who are known to have credit cards and disposable income.”

The question, of course, is when that will happen.

photo credit: photo credit: swishphotos via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Parham Aarabi teaches a graduate course on Advanced Mobile User Interfaces and is the CEO of ModiFace.

When conceptualizing your mobile app’s user interface, there are a few things that you should keep in mind. Some of the basic things such as clarity of interface, consistency from one view to the next, and making sure that tapping on any button or UI element provides feedback to the user are fairly straightforward and are generally, though not universally, followed by most app designers.

There are a few things, however, that are often ignored which can equally impact the user experience.  Below are some of these often-ignored UI design elements:

1 – Expert vs. novice users – the tale of two audiences

Often, we think of our app users as a ubiquitous set of users with similar intentions and expertise.  However, there are often several distinct user groups with different intentions and levels of expertise.

Novice users, for example, tend to move slower throughout the application, are prone to making more touch errors, and are more uncertain about the functionality of each button. Expert users, on the other hand, tend to have the app elements memorized and move quickly and with intent throughout the app.

When creating your app’s user interface, you want to make it efficient enough for your expert users while being informative and simple enough for novice users.

2 – Ideal button size

This is a fairly obvious issue.

Button sizes are generally limited by the size of our fingers, and so if they are too small, users will be unable to touch them accurately.  Button widths below 1cm are harder (and slower) to touch.  Aside from the minimum size, there are some benefits to non-uniform button sizes (they give an indication to novice users as to which button is more important).

As a general rule of thumb, the size of a button should be proportional to the square root of the likelihood that an expert user would need to select it (there are more scientific reasons behind the size-proportional-to-root-probability rule, but that is a discussion for a different day).

3 – UI location

Usually, application UI elements are either placed at the bottom of the app (most common) or at the top.

However, the way most users hold their phone is by using their thumb as the primary finger for touching buttons. If the user is right-handed, the thumb will more easily reach the region at the bottom right of the screen (or, for left-handed users, the bottom left).  Reaching the top screen corner that is opposite to the thumb is much more difficult, and more intrusive with the application flow since the user has to reach over the screen.

Generally, it is best to keep the primary application buttons at the bottom of the screen, and ideally, to place the more important and often used buttons at the bottom-right corner of the screen.

4 – Accounting for motion

The location of buttons is not the only consideration related to how we hold our mobile devices.

We also need to keep in mind that the thumb generally has a specific flow direction.  For example, for a right-handed person, circular flows with a pivot point at the bottom right of the screen are much easier than linear flows (flowing out radially).

So if you have a user interface control that requires motion (i.e. a slider, a selection list, etc.), keep in mind how a user is holding the phone and that certain motions are generally more natural for the user.

5 – How much is too much

Some applications tend to pack quite a few buttons into each of the application views.

Now, even if the buttons are of a decent size so that a user can click on them, there is another issue that app designers should be aware of.  The more buttons presented to the user at one time, the more difficult it is for the user to choose one of them (this is especially true for novice users).  It is interesting to note that as an analogy, a touch screen device can be thought of as a communication channel where the goal is to minimize the entropy of the interface (i.e. require the least information from the users for each touch selection).

Generally, most user-friendly apps tend to have an interface entropy under 3.5 bits (the maximum entropy for an interface is approximately 5.5 bits on an iPhone 5, accounting for average finger size and screen size).  What this essentially means is that you should keep the total number of touchable UI elements to less than 10 per view.

There is a lot more involved in creating great mobile user interfaces.  But hopefully you will find some of the above suggestions of benefit.

Parham Aarabi is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he teaches a graduate course on Advanced Mobile User Interfaces and directs the Mobile Applications Lab.  He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and was twice selected as a Canada Research Chair.  He has been the recipient of MIT’s TR35 “Top Young Innovator” award and the IEEE Mac Van Valkenburg Award.  He is also the founder and CEO of ModiFace Inc., the leading provider of virtual face simulation and virtual try-on technology.

photo credit: Alexandre Van de Sande via photopin cc

The rumors, frankly, sound extravagant, even fanciful:

• 60″ Apple HDTV
• 9.7″ Apple mini iTV for second screen experiences
• Apple iRing to wear and control your TV with gestures
• View content on your mini iTV up to 200 meters (656 feet) from your Apple HDTV
• Add up to four iTVs for each Apple HDTV
• Home security applications and integrations
• Video conference (FaceTime) and phone call integration
• Siri integration
• And yes, lest we forget, iWatch integration
• $1,500-2,500

Source: YankoDesign

An iPhone-controlling ring

They also sound very very cool and compelling, and perhaps just the thing Steve Jobs was talking about when he told biographer Walter Isaacson that he had “cracked” the essence of the TV experience.

According to White, who says he learned this information at least partially by checking with component suppliers in Asia, “the ‘iTV’ ecosystem represents a major innovation for the $100 billion LCD TV industry that will revolutionize the TV experience forever.”

That’s a mark in the rumor’s favor, actually, in two ways.

Apple needs to revolutionize something, soon. After the computer (arguable, I know), the phone (not so arguable), and the tablet, Apple needs new device markets to reinvent. While still huge and critical, the phone and tablet markets have major competition at lower price levels and similar sophistication levels, meaning that profits are going to be drained from that swamp.

With Apple stock at year-long lows and analysts attacking the company almost daily, Apple needs something to reinvigorate itself.

And, Apple needs to approach markets with an ecosystem point of view. That’s exactly what won it the smartphone market and tablet market, and that’s the only way to build a somewhat defensible moat against the competition that inevitably arrives in any hot new space.

That all said, there are major challenges here.

TV is a massive market, with massive competitors — including Apple arch-rival Samsung. And it depends heavily on wealthy, entrenched enterprises with interests in content creation and transmission … and interests in maintaining control of those activities. Even more of a challenge, the TV market is commoditized, with little profit on the device side.

In addition, these rumors have been coming for so long that an Apple HDTV is almost a joke. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, for one, has been predicting the Apple TV since 2009, continuing in 2012. We have yet to see the product, and it’s a challenging one to anticipate, not least because Apple has an Apple TV set-top product, which tends to cloud the waters in conversations with suppliers and analysts.

So a good dose of skepticism is well-advised.

But where there is smoke, there’s often fire. And, of course, Apple has done this before. The above description of the TV market would have been a pretty good view of the mobile market before iPhone. And, as someone who wants to see Apple tackle massive challenges and innovate hidebound industries, I hope the rumors are true.

Certainly the timing is right for a 2013 Black Friday and Christmas shopping schedule.

Image credit: YankoDesign; Hat tip: 9to5Mac

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Hey, mobile phone. Happy fortieth birthday (or are we celebrating 39 again?).

We remember the day you were born, April 3, 1973, like it was yesterday. Your father, Martin Cooper, was at Motorola and we were all, “It’s time!” and he called up a friend to say, you, “a ‘real’ cellular telephone” was here — we think you might have had an evil twin.

You have a helluva figure now, but you weren’t always that way. You started out with a boxy frame that barely fit in anyone’s hands, though those Saved by the Bell kids sure looked cool using you. Remember when you had that antenna in the ’80s? We are so glad you slimmed that down, we were worried it was going to be permanent.

Over the years, we’ve watched you get smarter, too. When you first came out, we thought all you’d be able to do was make phone calls. But quickly you learned how to handle our emails, let us send text messages to our friends, and in 2007, when you graduated to a “smartphone,” you became a staple in our lives we simply couldn’t live without.

So, here’s to you, cell phone. You’ve come so far (and had some really great face-lifts) and become a huge part of our lives.

And when those younger folk like Google Glass come in, don’t feel too threatened. Sure, they might be the younger, sleeker models, but no one will forget how great you are. You know. When you’re dead.

hat tip BBC; Cell phone image via Meghan Kelly, birthday cake image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

NEW YORK, NY – Deloitte released its seventh annual “State of the Media Democracy” survey yesterday, and its findings suggest there is even less hope for the human attention span than previously thought.

To compile the survey, the consultancy analyzed the digital consumption habits of over 2,100 American consumers aged 14 and older.  The report said that from 2011 to 2012, there has been a 160 percent surge of “digital omnivores,” or people who own smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Americans who own this trio of devices now represent a quarter of the domestic consumer market.

Digital omnivores often consume digital content on all three devices simultaneously, and 80 percent of this concurrent-multi-device content viewing occurs inside the home while people are watching television, the report said.

The report’s other notable discoveries:

* There was a 177 percent spike in tablet ownership, and tablet owners are 70 percent more likely to stream movies. Also this group is projected to watch more movies than any other video content in the next 12 months.

* In the last year, people in the 14-to-23 age bracket have doubled the rate at which they access online video services. This group is also 10 times more likely to watch television on tablets than it was the year before.

* Online video game subscriptions have increased by 47 percent in the last year; and video game advertising affects millennials more than any other consumer segment.

“This new reality creates opportunities – and an imperative – for organizations to differentiate themselves by utilizing multiple platforms to reach prospects and serve their customers,” said Gerald Belson, Deloitte’s vice chairman, in a prepared statement.

VentureBeat attempted to contact Belson for further discussion, but he was not immediately available for comment.

Above: “Cuddling with Multiple Devices.”

Image courtesy Jeremy Keith.

Congress is conducting a three-day series of hearings to decide how to regulate the explosion of health apps on smartphone and tablet devices.

Lawmakers from the House Energy and Commerce committee have been holed up to discuss how to balance patient’s privacy concerns and inspire innovation in the developer community.

“Developers are mystified by the rules in this highly regulated industry,” said Ben Chodor [below], the chief executive of mobile health app store Happtique, who called me after testifying alongside a handful of medical experts in Congress today.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been mulling over this problem for years. It remains unclear which medical and consumer health apps come under its jurisdiction.

“Since the 2011 guidance [that it would be seeking public input], the FDA has held a public workshop on mobile medical apps and has received many public comments, but has not yet issued final guidance,” states a letter the committee sent to the FDA earlier this month.

Gaining FDA approval can take years and thousands of dollars, but it’s worth it for companies like AliveCor, a technology that turns your smartphone into a sophisticated heart monitor.

But what about the vast majority of medical apps that are not for clinical use and are designed for scheduling doctors’ visits or devising a healthy eating plan?

Chodor advised the FDA to clarify that apps sold in a consumer environment, like an App Store, will not come under regulation. The vast majority of health apps fall into this category (only about 15 or 20 percent of all apps are for clinical use.) He explained that FDA approval should only be necessary if the app is intended for physician use to make decisions about your health. “The FDA is in the best position to regulate that subset of apps,” he said.

The total market for health-related app services will reach $26 billion by 2017, according to a study from the consulting firm Research2Guidance.

The burgeoning med-tech community fears that the FDA will step up its enforcement, and shackle consumers health products. This is stifling innovation with developers “waiting on the sidelines” for an official decision, according to Chodor.

“FDA needs come up with their guidelines already — sooner rather than later,” he said.

According to the Washington Post, lawmakers are also questioning whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would encourage the FDA to define smartphones and tablets with health-related apps as “medical devices.” This has repercussions for the tax that will be levied on the next generation of mobile health products. Medical devices are levied far higher taxes than consumer products and services.

Chodor is concerned that investors are already turning to international markets, where tax rates on medical-related products are lower.

The blurry line between a consumer-focused health app and a medical device is a bureaucratic nightmare. To make matters worse, many of these new health-related apps are used in clinical settings and by consumers. “To put it bluntly, that is the area that no one gets,” said Chodor.

Top image via Tyler Olson// Shutterstock 

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HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

---

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The global app economy will reach $25 billion this year, according to new data from ABI Research. Thirty-five percent of that, or $8.8 billion, will be tablet apps, and 65 percent, or 16.4 billion, will be smartphone apps.

And Apple will have a combined 65 percent share.

The overall trend in the app economy is that tablet app monetization is outpacing smartphone apps, ABI said. By 2018, the company said, tablet apps should surpass smartphone apps in revenue. At that point, total global app revenue will reach $92 billion.

“The larger screen makes apps and content look and feel better, so there are more lucrative opportunities,” analyst Aapo Markkanen said in a statement. “One might think that the bigger installed base of smartphones would compensate for the disparity, but that notion fails to take into account the arrival of low-cost tablets, which hasn’t even started yet [in] earnest. The smartphones paved the way for them, but in the end we believe that it’s the tablets that will prove the more transformative device segment of the two.”

For 2013, ABI expects Apple to take 65 percent of global app revenues, followed by Google’s Android with 27 percent. The remaining eight percent will be fought over by the other mobile ecosystems, primarily Windows Phone and BlackBerry.

ABI didn’t comment on Apple versus Android share in later years, but you have to assume that the 65 percent share will not last. According to one measure, Android’s overall global market share hit almost 70 percent in 2012, and ABI has previously predicted that by December 2013, there will be 800 million Android smartphones to 300 million iPhones in active use.

But Apple’s market share will stay very strong for many years to come, Markkanen believes.

“Apple’s share is obviously declining as Android grows,” Markkanen told me on the phone. “By 2018 in terms of tablets it will still be 57 percent, and in terms of tablets plus smartphones, it will still be above 50 percent … around 52 percent.”

That 52 percent of the 2018 app market will be worth about $48 billion, a third of which is almost pure profit.

photo credit: waferbaby via photopin cc

But perhaps not for long.

As PatentBolt saw, Google has applied for a patent on touch control built into the back side of future Android-based phones and tablets, which means that you could turn the page of an ebook, flip to the next song, or pause a video just by tapping or swiping the back of your device.

That all sounds simple, but the challenge lies in distinguishing normal holding contact from intentional touches to control the device or app. Google’s technology will apparently ignore spurious contact and only react to intentional, sustained contact.

Ars Technica notes that Apple also filed a patent for touch controls on the back of a device back in 2006. In Apple’s case, the device in question is an iPad, but no shipping device using this technology has yet seen the light of day.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Seventy-seven percent of all new smartphones and tablets activated in the enterprise last quarter were Apple devices, according to a new report from Good Technology.

The most popular device was Apple’s new iPhone 5, with 32 percent of all activations. The top five devices activated also included the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPad 3, and iPad2. Out of the top 10, eight were Apple devices, including the iPad 4, the aged iPad 1, and the equally venerable iPhone 3GS.

Essentially, it’s utter enterprise domination by Apple’s iOS:

Source: Good Technologies

Top 10 devices activated in the enterprise: Q4 2012

Android’s first foray into the enterprise comes at number six, with the Samsung Galaxy S III, and its only other contestant is the S III’s baby brother, the Galaxy S II, which clocks in at number 10. iOS activations were up 8.5 percent year-over-year.

Good Technologies offers solution for secure collaboration, communication, and data. With 4,000 enterprise customers and half of the Fortune 500 in its stable, it has fairly good insight into what the enterprise is doing in mobility.

One place Android is gaining somewhat? Tablets.

“Between Q1 and the end of Q4 2012, Android tablet activations jumped from 2.7 percent to nearly 7 percent of total activations,” Good says in its report, attributing the spike in part to the rise of fablets: hybrid phone-tablet devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note.

Source: Good Technologies

Tablet activations in the enterprise: Q4 2012

Windows reigns, of course, on the enterprise desktop, but it is a marginal, niche player so far in enterprise mobility. Only .5 percent of enterprise device activations in the fourth quarter were Windows phones or tablets. That may, of course, change as Windows 8 edges into the enterprise and CIOs look at the potential benefits of a more unified desktop-mobile operating system environment.

Source: Good Technologies

Q4 2012 activations by device type

One interesting note: The business sector that is driving down Apple’s stock valuation is the same industry that is purchasing the most of Apple’s products. According to Good Technologies, between 30 percent and 36 percent of all iPads activated in enterprise where purchased by the financial services industry. The next closest sector is business and professional services, at under 20 percent.

Curious, no?

Source: Good Technologies

iPad activations by industry

photo credit: papalars via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

By the end of this current year, 1.4 billion smartphones will be in use: 798 million of them will run Android, 294 million will run Apple’s iOS, and 45 million will run Windows Phone, according to a new study by ABI Research.

The ABI study factors in an annual smartphone growth rate of 44 percent for 2013, which is just ever-so-slightly down from 2012′s 45 percent but is still a torrid pace. ABI also predicts that 20 million BlackBerry 10 phones will be in active use at year-end.

The result of that growth — and a push for share by Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 — is a global customer market share of 57 percent for Android, 21 percent of iOS, and 3 percent for Windows Phone. Which sounds big for Android, but is actually significantly down from its third-quarter 2012 performance, in which Android captured almost 70 percent global market share.

It’s also a significant divergence in the global numbers from U.S-specific sales, which show Apple leading the market with over 50 percent share in the last quarter thanks largely to both new users and older models of iPhones.

But perhaps the most startling prediction? The bit players will start to become serious contenders again, ABI says.

“2013 should be seen as relative success for both Microsoft and BlackBerry,” analyst Aapo Markkanen said in a statement. “For the end of the year, we expect there to be 45 million Windows Phone handsets in use, with BlackBerry 10 holding an installed base of close to 20 million. Microsoft will also have 5.5 million Windows-powered tablets to show for it.”

For tablets, Markkanen is predicting continued hyper-growth: 125 percent, which will result in 268 million tablets in use. Sixty-two percent will iOS, he says, and 28 percent will run Android.

Image credit: Etsy

“My iPhone was on a coffee table and randomly the power went off,” Bhujle told VentureBeat via email. “It was not on a charger or charging. In the next minute, I smelled fumes and picked up my iPhone, which was extremely hot.”

Bhujle says she tried to turn the phone on, which didn’t work, and then as the phone continue to heat up and emitted a burning smell, she panicked and tried to remove the battery by prying open the back of the iPhone. As she did so, the battery, she says, was “in the process of melting and oozing liquid (acid).”

Opening the iPhone — not a user-serviceable device — may not have been the smartest idea. But, as Bhujle told VentureBeat, she was panicking, trying to save her phone, and attempting to avert a worse fire. She ultimately did manage to succeed in removing the battery, which she claims was swollen and partially melted or bubbled.

“If I was not present around my iPhone when this incident occurred, it had the potential to cause serious property damage and became a serious bodily hazard,” Bhujle says.

This is not the only smartphone — and not the only iPhone — to have allegedly spontaneously combusted. A Motorola cell phone burned a hacker’s butt (you can’t make this stuff up) when he was carrying it in his back pocket at DefCon in Vegas last summer. And an iPhone battery fire allegedly caused an airplane flight delay in 2011, when an improperly installed screw punctured the battery.

Bhujle says the unpleasantness did not end when she took the phone to an Apple store for repair or replacement.

Source: LinkedIn

Shibani Bhujle

She has talked to numerous Apple employees, she says, with no resolution. A genius bar appointment yesterday also resulted in no resolution — although Apple wanted to take the phone from her, she says. And Bhujle maintains that various calls with managers and staff at Apple’s 14th street store in New York have left her with a response that Apple will not be offering her a replacement phone.

Which has Bhujle, understandably, more than upset.

Everybody’s freaked out about passwords. We’ve got to get rid of these things, right? Well, we’re not quite there yet, so two-factor authentication companies like Toopher are needed to protect what we’ve got. Toopher, which uses your location to verify you are who you say you are just got $2 million in its first round of funding today.

The funding comes from Alsop Louie Partners. Toopher was also recently admitted into IC2 Institute, an Austin tech incubator.

Toopher’s founders Josh Alexander and Evan Grim are just as scared of the password as the rest of the security industry. It’s a weak form of protection that has been around since the dawn of the Internet — and has been barely changed since. Two-factor authentication helps passwords out by making people “prove” they are who they say they are through entering a code supposedly only accessible by the account owner. But that’s not perfect either.

Instead of relying on user input, Toopher relies on your phone’s location. When you try to log into an account that’s protected by Toopher, the software checks the computer’s location versus your phone’s location. If the computer that’s trying to access your account is in a location that isn’t “normal” for you, the user, then it will block the person from accessing your account.

Competitors in the two-factor authentication space include RSA and PhoneFactor. (Toopher, while launching on stage at the DEMO Conference in 2012, smashed some of RSA’s authenticator tokens with a hammer.)

The company was founded in 2011 and is located in Austin, Tex.

Photo courtesy of Heather Kelly for VentureBeat

The six new categories are iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, iTunes (with software and services), and Accessories. All of them are billion-dollar businesses in their own right, but of course they’re not all the same size. iPhone revenues were $30 billion, 15 times the accessories business and dwarfing every other business category.

The new iTunes category, which came in at $3.687 billion for the first quarter of 2013, includes all the revenue from music sales, app sales, software sales via the Mac app store, and any other media sales (such as books and movies. Apple has also stuffed a few random items into iTunes that might otherwise fit in a “miscellaneous” category: AppleCare extended warranty revenue, licensing revenue, and services revenue.

But essentially, if Apple has a good iPhone and iPad quarter, Apple has a good quarter. Seventy-six percent of Apple’s revenue, which totals $41.42 billion, comes from those two segments alone.

Two numbers are particularly interesting.

One is digital media in the iTunes segment. Revenue from digital media is now almost worth more to Apple — top-line revenue — than all its iMac, MacBook and other Mac hardware sales. This will likely only grow. The second is Accessories, which also is almost worth more to Apple than iPod sales. Both are signs of the future.

Here’s the raw data:

• iPhone: $30.6 billion
• iPad: $10.7 billion
• Mac: $5.5 billion
• iTunes: $3.7 billion
• iPod: $2.1 billion
• Accessories: $1.8 billion

photo credit: Hans and Carolyn via photopin cc

Instead, you see stupid shit about a sensor in your shoe that detects motion via an accelerometer, communicates via a wireless radio (probably Bluetooth) to a smartphone, and displays that information on your screen so that it can tell you when your shoes are wearing out.

Because you can’t, like, just look at your shoe?

Apple filed for a “Shoe Wear-Out Sensor” patent this morning. The patent application contains gems of wisdom such as “Shoes provide comfort and protection for feet.” Shockingly, the patent goes on to attest that “a shoe is often necessary to provide support during intense physical activity, such as running, soccer, and American football.”

Blinding flashes of the obvious for $200, Alex.

According to the patent, the technology could be used for shoes that are “rated” for a certain number of steps or time of use and that would then “expire.” (I can just see it, the new SaaS: Shoes As A Service. After $50 worth of wear, you need to re-up, plug in your credit card, and buy another year’s worth of service.)

Jeff Hammerbacher, one of Facebook’s first 100 employees, left the company after realizing that ”the best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.”

I figure that’s an upgrade on sensors for shoe wear.

But for those who want to die of boredom, or are having trouble sleeping, enjoy these patent claims. This is truly rocket science at its highest level:

1-25. (canceled)

26. A body bar sensing system, comprising: a housing having at least one detector for sensing a physical metric that indicates repeated movement of the housing when attached to the body bar; a processor configured to process the physical metric, over time, to determine repetitions thereof; and a display for informing a user of the repetitions.

27. The system of claim 26, further comprising a wireless transmitter with the housing and a watch, with a wireless receiver, remote from the housing, wherein the user views repetition information at the watch.

28. The system of claim 26, further comprising a wireless transmitter with the housing and one of a MP3 player and cell phone, with a wireless receiver, remote from the housing, wherein the user views repetition information at the MP3 player or cell phone.

29. The system of claim 26, further comprising a clamp, integrated with the housing, to retain weights on the body bar.

30-43. (canceled)

44. A body bar sensing system for sensing movement of a body bar, the body bar sensing system comprising: a housing having a coupling mechanism operative to couple to the body bar; a detector disposed within the housing and operative to sense movement of the body bar when the housing is coupled to the body bar; and a processor operative to determine a number of repetitions of the movement based on the sensed movement.

45. The body bar sensing system of claim 44, wherein the detector comprises an accelerometer.

46. The body bar sensing system of claim 44, wherein the detector is further operative to output the sensed movement as an acceleration value.

47. The body bar sensing system of claim 44, wherein the detector comprises a Hall effect sensor.

48. The body bar sensing system of claim 44, wherein the detector is operative to sense the movement by detecting inversion of the body bar.

49. The body bar sensing system of claim 44 further comprising a display operative to display the determined number of repetitions of the movement.

50. The body bar sensing system of claim 49, wherein the display is remote from the housing.

51. The body bar sensing system of claim 44 further comprising a speaker operative to output at least one sound based on the determined number of repetitions of the movement.

52. The body bar sensing system of claim 51, wherein the at least one sound comprises at least one voice annunciation.

53. The body bar sensing system of claim 52, wherein the coupling mechanism is further operative to retain at least one weight to the body bar when the body bar sensing system is coupled to the body bar.

54. A method for detecting repetitive movements of a body bar using a motion sensing system, the method comprising: detecting a physical metric associated with the body bar; processing the detected physical metric to determine whether the detected physical metric indicates a repetitive motion of the body bar; determining a current number of repetitive movements of the body bar based on the processing; and providing the determined current number of repetitive movements to a user.

55. The method of claim 54, wherein the detecting comprises detecting an acceleration of the body bar.

56. The method of claim 54, wherein the processing comprises detecting when the body bar is at least one of raised and lowered within a predefined time interval.

57. The method of claim 54, wherein the detecting comprises detecting an inversion of the body bar.

58. The method of claim 54, wherein the providing comprises displaying the determined current number of repetitive movements.

59. The method of claim 54, wherein the providing comprises transmitting the determined current number of repetitive movements to an external device.

photo credit: IvanClow via photopin cc, Hat tip: AppleInsider

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

AppSurfer, the online demo site for Android smartphone apps that launched last October, is now letting developers offer tablet apps, too.

While buying an app for a couple of bucks may not be a big deal, no one wants to waste money. So try-before-you-buy is a great idea, especially for those apps that you can’t fully evaluate within the 15-minute Google Play refund period.

Site users have already run over 100,000 demo sessions, according to cofounder Amit Yadav, and over 4,000 developers have signed up to feature their apps on the platform — including Rovio, which makes the ultrapopular Angry Birds franchise of games. Registration is free.

“With this, users can try apps from any device and any platform before making a download decision,” Yadav told me via email from Mumbai, India, where the company is based. “AppSurfer helps users to decide faster and decide better … now instead shifting through pile of reviews and screenshots and videos, you can just try five or six apps in a few simple clicks. If you like it, you download it — as simple as that.”

To enable this technically, AppSurfer runs a customized version of Android that is optimized for cloud, Yadav said. It runs multiple instances as needed and streams graphics to users via HTML5 or Flash.

Once users try an app and decid to buy it, they can simply click through to Google Play and download it.

For developers, it’s almost seamless.

“Developers just need to put their application apk [the Android app file format] onto AppSurfer,” Yada said. “There is no code integration or changes in the app. It is free for developers.”

Once an app is live on AppSurfer, app marketers can then feature the app on websites and blogs via a simple embed, the same way you would embed a YouTube video.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Free tonight and feeling courageous enough for a blind date? Launching today, an app called “Crazy Blind Date” matches you with a mysterious stranger.

Before agreeing to meet, all you’ll see is a shattered profile picture, age, first name, and a suggested venue. It’s a means to avoid that awkward back-and-forth chat that goes on between potential matches on sites like Match.com.

The free app for Android and iPhone is the brainchild of OkCupid, an online dating site that is popular with young people (and especially professionals). To celebrate the blind dating app’s release, the team removed all of the photos from its website so that members logging into OkCupid “will have to make their dating decisions based on words and wits rather than abs and, well, other body parts,” the company said in a statement.

This isn’t new ground for OKCupid; it attempted to launch a blind dating service in 2007, but it was a complete bomb. Members weren’t comfortable meeting a complete stranger from the Internet without being able to peruse their profile first.

But the matchmaking service is giving it another shot; CEO Sam Yagan told the New York Times that this might be a remedy for users who are too bogged down by all the profiles they see on OKCupid.

Does Yagan have a point? Are we dead-set on rippling abs, a flashy car, and a six-figure salary? Would a blind date help us avoid those sleazeball charmers? The idea of meeting a complete stranger from the Internet, let alone a smartphone app, fills me with fear, but there’s not much I won’t do for the sake of a story.

It was easy to get started. If you’re an OkCupid user, the app will import your existing information, and use it to find your perfect match. I signed up for a new account, snapped an image, and inputted some basic biographical information. Within a few hours, I received an offer to meet a nice-enough-looking man in his 30s called Stephen (I could detect brown hair and glasses from his scrambled profile pic) at a local restaurant.

You can also browse suggested dates — I was astonished by the sheer number of Bay Area males that consider Peet’s Coffee to be their dream date venue. Let’s step up the originality and romance people, please.

So, single readers, would you give Crazy Blind Date a shot? Or would you prefer to see a full profile before agreeing to meet in person?

Awkward blind date image // Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Will the iPhone 5 be coming to China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers? Apple needs this, sure, but make no mistake: China Mobile needs it just as bad.

China is the world’s largest market for smartphones, edging out the U.S. in July of 2012 to take the crown. But the country’s biggest carrier, China Mobile, does not yet officially carry the iPhone, despite the fact that probably tens of millions of its customers have purchased Apple’s smartphones elsewhere, jailbroke them, and are using them on its network.

But the need to jailbreak an iDevice to get it to work on China Mobile may soon be over, as Tim Cook and China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua met today to discuss “matters of cooperation,” according to Reuters.

And both companies need each other. Badly.

Apple needs to grow, and while it has had a great past few months domestically — rising over 50 percent market share stateside — global market share is another matter entirely, as 75 percent of all new phones are being activated in Asia and Africa. China is the world’s most populous country, buys the most smartphones, and has the most cellular subscribers, and China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers could easily become tens of millions of Apple customers — if Apple can do the deal.

Meanwhile, China Mobile might be the queen of carriers right now, with that massive subscriber base, but the company has its own issues.

China Mobile’s share of the most lucrative customers is dipping, with a seven percent 3G subscriber market share loss in 2012. The company’s situation is analogous to Japan’s NTT Docomo. Docomo, long the digital darling of mobile carriers and Japan’s premier mobile telecom, is losing subscribers at a record rate due to its easily-solvable lack of iPhonicity.

Simply put: iPhone subscribers are the most valuable segment of telecom markets. By missing out on this segment, China Mobile is hurting its own profits and benefiting its competitors, who do carry the iPhone.

But 700 million subscribers is a very nice little cherry indeed, and it sounds like China Mobile will not do a deal without significant concessions from Apple — possibly including a share of app store revenue, something Apple has never done before and is unlikely to do today.

These two companies have been talking since 2009. Now is the time for both of them to do a deal, for both their sakes.

Tactus Technology is demonstrating a tablet with dynamic buttons that appear and disappear — or, rather, grow and shrink — as needed. The California-based company, which won a PC Magazine technical excellence award in December, calls the technology “morphing tactile surface”: real physical buttons that rise up from a screen when you’re typing and disappear when you’re simply watching.

“We’re planning to be in production by the end of this year,” Tactus chief executive Craig Ciesla told me. “We’re working with customers on an exact launch date.”

The company has its tactile screen running on an Android-based tablet right now, but it’s not tied to any particular operating system, Ciesla said. Rather, the company offers “a very simple API” that any mobile operating system can tied into and access the keyboard functionality.

How does it work?

A Tactus-enabled touchscreen device stores a small amount of fluid in a reservoir embedded in the phone or tablet. When the operating system invokes buttons, tiny amounts flow into specified areas on the screen, forming an QWERTY keyboard, a numeric keypad, or perhaps, a Buy Now button.

It’s a cool idea, especially if the reservoir doesn’t leak into the battery compartment, but you have to wonder if the company is too late to market. Most of us who carry smartphones around said goodbye to physical keyboards a long time ago, and manufacturers will be loath to add weight, girth, or cost to their devices.

But Tactus says that its ”dynamic Tactile Layer component is the same thickness as the layer it replaces and requires no change to the underlying display or touch sensor.” In addition, the size of screen, though currently demoed on a 7-inch tablet, is scalable all the way up to a TV screen, according to Tactus, and down to a standard smartphone size.

“The largest that we routinely make today is 14 inches,” Ciesla said. “But we’re able to make it much larger … there are no fundamental limits to its size.”

The technology has built-in capability for multiple arrays, so device manufacturers could enable dynamic switching between keyboard styles, and it has undergone a “fair number” of durability tests, passing so far with flying colors.

Almost everyone who’s serious about smartphones uses a full-screen touchscreen today, but touch-typing speeds are typically much slower on nonbutton devices — even if you’re a teenage national texting champion. So theoretically, this could help with speed and accuracy.

Not to mention familiarity for the almost half of Americans who haven’t yet upgraded to a smartphone.

Image credit: Tactus Technology

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple was the leading smartphone platform with 53.3 percent share in the U.S. in late 2012.  According to Kantar Worldpanel data scheduled to be released on Monday, a big reason is Apple’s older phones and its capability to reach new users.

Sure, the iPhone 5 is a big part of Apple’s jump from 35.8 percent market share in the previous quarter, but not the only part.

“The iPhone 5 has been successful this period; however, we also see that Apple’s older models – the iPhone 4S and 4 — have also contributed to the growing share of iOS,” Kantar analyst Mary-Ann Parlato said in a statement. “This is particularly the case for first-time smartphone iPhone buyers where we see the older models still selling well amongs this group.”

In fact, of those who bought an iPhone in the month of November, 40 percent were new smartphone buyers. That’s significant, because it was only early last year that smartphone sales passed 50 percent and only in September that ownership passed 50 percent, both of which mean that there are still plenty of feature phone users out there, even in a supposedly mature American mobile market, who will be upgrading to smartphones over the next year.

Apple also did well with competing mobile operating system providers: 27 percent of iPhone buyers upgraded from another smartphone platform.

Source: Kantar WorldPanel

Smartphone operating system share

Apple can thank carriers for a large part of the massive jump, as AT&T’s share of iOS sales went up from 62.3 percent to 71.8 percent in the quarter, while its percentage of Android sales decreased from 25.9 percent to 22.1 percent. Verizon’s share of iOS also went from 40.7 percent to 55 percent, while its Android sales dropped below half to 43.1 percent.

RIM dropped almost 6 percent, while Windows Phone showed a slight improvement to move into third place in the smartphone wars.

While this data is U.S.-only and does not reflect international sales where Android is much stronger, it does follow huge quarters by Android, particularly in the July, August, and September period, when it captured 75 percent global market share.

Kantar’s panel data is generated by more than 260,000 consumer research interviews on a year basis in the U.S. alone, and it covers a somewhat nonstandard three-month quarter from September to November.

photo credit: whatmattdoes via photopin cc

OK, that is actually not a shock, and is pretty much expected, normal, and standard operating procedure for Apple. In fact, the only shock would be if the company was not working on new models and software.

However, it is somewhat surprising that Apple has allowed devices with the new model designator to venture uncloaked into the digital world. According to The Next Web, developers are seeing “iPhone6.1″ and references to iOS 7 in app analytics logs — from an IP address apparently originating in Cupertino.

This is NOT iPhone 6.

Which could easily be explained, of course, by Apple testing popular apps with updated versions of its mobile operating system on prototypes of the company’s upcoming phones.

Given the company’s penchant for privacy, however, one would expect Apple to spoof an older phone’s identifiers, thereby concealing the new hardware and software from public awareness.

Unless, of course, the fruity California company is turning over a new leaf and entering a new era of corporate transparency.

Now that would be a shocking bit of news.

Image credit: Ciccarese Design

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Here’s a knee-slapper to kick off your weekend: Fujitsu is marketing a new line of smartphones for the elderly.

Snark aside, some of the features might be just what the 65-and-older market needs — noise cancellation, larger text, and even speech-slowing for better parsing of fast-talking callers.

The senior market is often overlooked, which can make navigating technology choices confusing and frustrating for some in that demographic. But as our AARP contacts are constantly reminding us, it’s a demographic that still needs access to tech and that often has money to spend, especially when it comes to keeping in touch with family and loved ones.

At a press conference, Fujitsu president Masami Yamamoto showed off the devices, which feature simplified home screens with just a few apps. They’re as bright and colorful as anything you’d see in a nursery, and they’re designed to be drop-dead simple for anyone who is new to smartphones or needs a little extra help with smartphone technology.

Here’s a sneak peek:

These phones are already being sold on Fujitsu’s Japanese home turf; as Yamamoto revealed in the press conference, they’ll now be sold overseas. Fujitsu has plans to bring the phones, called Raku-Raku, into the U.S. and Europe first, with a few modifications for each new geography.

“Raku” is Japanese for “easy.” In 2009, Fujitsu rolled out the Raku Raku PC, designed for senior citizens “or any novice computer user.” The principles behind that device remain the same for the smartphone: Color-coding for ease of use, one-touch apps, highlighting of frequently used features and applications, preinstalled software and apps, and larger fonts.

The company last year rolled out a Raku-Raku feature phone. This marvel gave users a button that, when pushed, would immediately connect users to a dedicated customer support call center.

Top image credit: Phil McDonald/Shutterstock; via The Verge

The Grand will run Android 4.1.2 — Jelly Bean, the latest and greatest from Google — and sports an unnamed 1.2 GHz dual-core processor. Samsung says the 8-megapixel rear camera has “zero shutter-lag,” which is impressive if true, “ultra-quick” camera startup, and can handle full HD video recording.

But that screen, while large, sports just a WVGA resolution: 800 x 480 pixels. That’s only 385,000 pixels, just over half what the iPhone 5 sports and less than half of what its Samsung companion, the Galaxy S III, offers.

That sub-par screen is on a phone that is a little more than 3″ wide and 5.6″ tall —  just a bit bigger than than the S III, but closing in on an inch taller than Apple’s iPhone5 while also being half an inch wider. It’s also probably about the same size as the rumored Galaxy S 4, which is likely to have a 4.99″ screen.

Fortunately, since Samsung is pitching the phone as “an ideal smartphone for users with fast-paced mobile lifestyles,” the phone is significantly smaller than the Galaxy Note, with its 5.55″ display and a full 6″ of height.

One cool feature is the Grand’s dual-SIM capability, which will allow users to have multiple SIMs and multiple phone plans. You could have a work and phone number on the same phone, or a local and international SIM, if you travel a lot.

That said, though, if you’re looking for an Android phone from Samsung, you’d be better off with the S III … or waiting a few months for Samsung’s next version, the 4.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

A new study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau says that most of our mobile video watching actually isn’t very mobile at all.

Sixty-three percent of video-watching on mobile phones, the study said, happens right at home, sweet home. And 36 percent that is right in the front of another, bigger screen: a home theater system, laptop, or a tablet. In other words, the researchers say, mobile video isn’t a way to kill minutes wasted in lineups or something to do when there are no other entertainment options, and this has implications for what kinds of video content brands and entertainment companies should focus on creating.

“We need to see mobile as a primary screen for on-demand consumption, not as an afterthought,” digital agency 360i’s president David Levin said in a statement.

The IAB did not speculate on why supposedly “mobile” video is mostly consumed at home, but this makes a lot of sense. Not only is your phone the most personal device — the go-to device wherever you are — but video consumes a lot of bandwidth. Data costs money when on cellular networks, and it’s typically much slower than on your own home Wi-Fi.

What do we watch? Almost exclusively entertainment content, strongly trending to music videos. There’s a reason Gangnam Style is the most-watched video in history.

• Music videos (45 percent)
• Movie trailers (42 percent)
• Tutorials/How-To’s (41 percent)
• Funny short video clips (37 percent)

What we share with others, though, is a little different: Funny clips and music videos are the most likely to be shared; tutorials and movie trailers are not nearly as viral.

Of course, the Interactive Advertising Board is interested in the use of mobile video for marketing purposes. How do people feel about mobile video ads?

• 53 percent said they’re OK with mobile video advertising
• 48 percent said video ads should relate to the video content they’re watching
• 44 percent remember seeing video ads (10-15 second spots are the most memorable)

The small but intensive study — just 200 participants — lasted for two weeks.

photo credit: mark sebastian via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google chairman and former CEO isn’t mincing any words, saying that Google’s Android mobile operating system is in a war with Apple’s iOS — and that it’s winning.

Refreshing honesty from an executive, or hubris?

Schmidt made the statement in an interview with Bloomberg published this morning. He referenced Android’s massive third quarter of 2012, in which it captured three-quarters of the mobile market and explicitly drew a parallel to the Mac/PC wars of past decades.

Which would mean, I suppose, that Google is the new Microsoft. Be careful what you wish for, Schmidt.

Schmidt did not, of course, mention the past quarter, in which Apple’s iPhone 5 — the gadget of the year, according to Time magazine — helped propel iOS back into a leading position in the smartphone wars, with 48.1 percent of the market versus Android’s 46.7 percent.

Realistically, of course, this last quarter of 2012 is a bit of an aberration, coming as it does just after the launch of the newest iPhone model and providing an opportunity for Apple to capitalize on pent-up demand as savvy customers wait for the latest and greatest. The overwhelming trend of the last year is a shift to Android — even that shift back to iOS in this last quarter was U.S. only, with Android still at 75 percent in Germany, 82 percent in Spain, and more than half the market in England.

Which leaves little choice but to agree that Schmidt is right, and his admission is refreshingly honest for a business executive speaking publicly.

But it’s not likely to win him any allies in Apple legal who might want to settle the incessant Apple-Google courtroom cold war, which have thus far been fought with Google’s proxy companies Samsung, HTC, and others.

And it would be wise for Google to remember — like it or not — that this war will not only be fought in the market. And that Microsoft is now … well … Microsoft.

photo credit: JD Hancock via photopin cc, Yutaka Tsutano via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The iPhone 5 probably won’t sell as much as Samsung’s Galaxy S III this year, but it did win another coveted prize: Time Magazine’s gadget of the year.

Time’s Harry McCracken calls the iPhone 5 “one of the most artfully polished gadgets anyone’s ever built,” adding that “when it comes to melding hardware, software and services so tightly that the seams fade away, Apple still has no peer.”

Despite 5 million units sold in its opening weekend, and stellar sales results that catapulted iOS back into the mobile operating system lead in November, the iPhone 5 probably can’t catch the Samsung Galaxy S III, which launched in the summer and reached 18 million units by early November.

At least, in 2012 sales numbers.

This nod from Time, however, is a prestigious indicator that Apple is still in the smartphone market leader position in terms of overall device and operation system quality.

The other top 10 gadgets selected by Time?

1. iPhone 5
2. Nintendo Wii U
3. Sony Cyber-shot RX100
4. Raspberry Pi Model B
5. Lytro
6. Apple 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display
7. Microsoft Surface with Windows RT
8. Samsung Galaxy Note II
9. Nest
10. Simple.TV

Interestingly, there are two tablets, neither of which are iPads. That’s particularly surprising given the warm reception to the iPad mini in October (which we named our tablet of the year), and the third-generation iPad with the Retina Display in March.

photo credit: archer10 (Dennis) via photopin cc