July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Nokia continued its befuddling marketing roll-out for the Lumia 928 today — even though we’ve seen ads for it already, as well as a Nokia-produced camera comparison — by announcing that it will hit Verizon Wireless next week on May 16.

Nokia is also holding a large press event in London next week, which the entire tech world assumed would be centered on the Lumia 928. The company could still use the event to further show off the Lumia 928 (or surprise everyone by showing off something completely new, like a Windows 8 tablet).

In a blog post today, Nokia confirmed that the Lumia 928 sports most of the features of its predecessor, the Lumia 920, while packing in a slightly redesigned case and xenon camera flash. The 928 features a 4.5-inch screen, as well as support for wireless charging accessories. I’m just hoping its lighter than the Lumia 920 — as intriguing as that phone was, it felt like a brick compared to other modern smartphones.

While it’s a slightly minor upgrade, the Lumia 928 is significant because it’s Verizon’s first high-end Lumia smartphone. Up until now, Nokia has focused on AT&T for debuting its top-end Lumias, while Verizon has had slim pickings with mid-range devices like last year’s Lumia 820.

Now Nokia can target an even bigger audience for its most desirable devices (although this marketing campaign probably won’t do much to woo people away from the iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4).

The Lumia 928 will cost $100 on Verizon (after a $50 mail-in rebate) and comes with a $25 credit for the Windows Phone app store.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

As with a child’s first years, every little Windows Phone development demands its own bit of fanfare.

The latest update comes from Foursquare, which is updating its Windows 8 app. The app, which Foursquare says is optimized for Nokia’s Lumia phones, adds features like lock screen notifications, voice search, and the ability to pin certain people or venues to the home screen.

The biggest improvement, however, is the app’s new Metro-fied interface, which is a significant step up from the design of its predecessor. In fact, the new Foursquare app doesn’t feel like a Foursquare app at all — it feels a Windows Phone 8 app.

That, I assume, is exactly the point. While Windows Phone 8 offers a number of things that iOS and Android don’t, the most distinctive of these features is the operating system’s design language. As a result, it’s always a big deal when developers take the time to create native, optimized versions of their apps rather then poorly port design elements from elsewhere. (It’s also a major vote of confidence: Obviously, Foursquare sees the use in taking the time to do all of this extra work, even if it did get help from Microsoft and Nokia.)

And Foursquare isn’t alone. Another big Windows Phone 8 app addition came just yesterday, when Hulu finally released a native version of its app for Microsoft’s mobile OS. The Windows 8 YouTube app also saw a big update today.

Foursquare is on a design update streak as of late, having last month updated both its iOS app and web interface to focus on core features like Explore and user ratings.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone team has something to celebrate today: Another top-tier app has hit their platform.

Hulu has released the Windows Phone 8 version of its app, and it’s a good-looking one.

“Our team has been focused on creating a beautiful and comprehensive Hulu Plus experience that is optimized for Windows Phone 8,” somebody from Hulu’s marketing department wrote on the company’s blog. “The app leverages Windows design principles that lend themselves elegantly to the rich content catalog and features on Hulu Plus.”

And indeed, the provided screenshots make it clear that Hulu on Windows Phone promises to be a clean, easy-to-use experience, with no chrome or skeuomorphic nonsense coming between you and the videos you want to watch.

It integrates nicely with your Hulu account, so, Hulu suggests, if you fell asleep watching Community last night in bed, you can catch up on the bus ride to work.

I’d test it out, but I no longer have a Windows Phone. If you want to try it yourself, the new Windows Phone Hulu app is free, but you will need a Hulu Plus subscription, which costs $8 per month.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Windows Phone 8 users who just want to see a stream of random, but curated content need to look no further. Tumblr is finally here.

It’s all mobile for Tumblr these days. The company launched its Windows Phone 8 app today, shortly after revamping its Android version.

Where previously the Tumblr app was only available on iOS and Android, today’s news opens the “post anything” blogging site to a whole new host of phones.

The app is connected to the phone’s voice assistant. You can speak your posts and Tumblr will obediently (we hope) record the thoughts. It also shows content from the Tumblrs you follow on the live tiles, or the ever-changing home screen box graphics, as well as the lock screen. Of course, you’ll be able view gifs on the app as well as take photos from it.

It’s obvious Tumblr is focusing energy on its mobile side. The company recently released an update to its Android app that includes a playful revamp to its activities menu. Options to post videos, images, links, quotes, photos, text, as well as to chat appear to be spring-loaded, popping out of the bottom right corner of the app. This was done on purpose, since that corner is the easiest place to poke the screen with your thumb.

We don’t get that same, lively feel from the Windows Phone 8 app, however. Those working on the Android app likely have more resources than those working on Windows Phone 8. Android still holds the top spot on mobile marketshare charts, making it a much wider audience for Tumblr to target.

The app is available now from the Windows Phone App Store.

Tumblr app image via Microsoft

Rightware is introducing a benchmarking tool, Basemark X, that will be able to tell consumers which smartphone or tablet is really the most powerful at running demanding apps such as games.

The new tool, which has been submitted as an app to the Apple iTunes App Store, is a professional performance evaluation tool built with Unity 4, a real-world gaming engine. That means it tests how real apps perform on different smartphone platforms, including Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 8 devices. That means that, for the first time, consumers will be able to understand which new phone can run games and other apps the fastest. It will be particularly useful for gamers who want to identify the fastest hardware in the fast-changing mobile environment.

The tool is a new business for Espoo, Finland-based Rightware, which licenses a fast-moving, graphics-intensive user-interface for web and mobile devices. Rightware generates licensing revenue from that software, dubbed Kanzi. Tero Sarkkinen, chief executive of Rightware, showed me the app running on an Android smartphone last week at our Mobile Summit event. The app ran various graphics routines and came up with a score for the smartphone at the end.

Sarkkinen was formerly CEO of Futuremark, which became the leading benchmark software provider in the PC gaming market. The goal is to give objective performance information for the devices that can run the highest-quality content.

Basemark X can measure how well a device can run advanced game-like content, including particle effects, advanced lighting effects and post processing. The benchmark comes with an integrated online results comparison service, dubbed Power Board, which already has a whole database of detailed performance data for over 1,000 devices. Power Board shows a user’s actual performance as compared to other devices.

“When it comes to gaming, creating and delivering optimal user experiences on any device is critical to the global adoption of the game,” said Sarkkinen in a statement. “Basemark X brings the collective knowledge and experience of the Rightware Benchmark Development Program and our long history of delivering the most popular benchmarking tools. Now anyone can measure, score and compare gaming performance of any platform and device. Combined with Power Board we are enabling the consumers to make informed buying decisions when choosing their next smartphone or tablet.”

The Basemark X is pending review with Apple, and is available for free for consumers on Google Play. A Windows Phone 8 version will be available in the future. The company will also have a professional version available for paid licensing.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Facebook describes its new Android app suite, Facebook Home, as “a new way to organize the information on your phone.”

That’s what Facebook product director Adam Mosseri told VentureBeat earlier this week. He’s right, to a point: The interface is novel.

But the idea of putting the information you care about most (pictures from your friends, Facebook updates, chat bubbles) right on your phone’s home screen and lock screen? Well, that isn’t new. Its most immediate antecedent is Windows Phone 8, which added a customizable lock screen, including the ability to show photos from your Facebook feed, in October, 2012.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft’s Kin One and Kin Two were a commercial disaster, but showed the way for Windows Phone and Facebook Home.

In fact, Windows Phone has been organized around this principle since version 7, its modern overhaul. And before that, it was preceded by social-centric experiments Microsoft conducted with its ill-fated Kin phones, which were a commercial and critical disaster, but prefigured the company’s interest in putting social media front and center.

Android and iOS are centered on small app icons, with optional small “badges” that show a tidbit of information about the app, such as the number of unread email message. By contrast, Windows Phone 7 and 8 are organized around app tiles, which give more room to the app’s content. Instead of an icon showing a skeuomorphic picture of a desk calendar, Windows Phone’s calendar appear appears as a big rectangle, with most of the real estate given to showing the details of your next upcoming appointment.

That user-centric orientation made Windows Phone remarkably fun to use, in my experience. (At least until I got fed up with Nokia’s dysfunctional hardware and AT&T’s miserable policies.) Pulling out my phone and turning it on was no longer an exercise in getting some specific task done. It was a mini-surprise every time: Each time I took the phone out there was some new tidbit of information from my life or photo from the people I cared about.

I don’t want to overstate the significance of this change. It’s really only a tap or two from the home screen icon to the full Facebook feed in your Facebook app, no matter what phone OS you’re using. So it’s not going to make an enormous difference to the experience of using Facebook: It’s likely to be more or less the same on Android, iOS, Windows Phone, or Facebook Home phones.

But I suspect it will make the experience of using the phone subtly different, making it more and more into your primary hub for experiencing your social network. On Windows Phone, that could mean Skype, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. In the case of Facebook Home, that means Facebook, full stop.

If this is the future of phone OS design, and I think it is, then Facebook has just made an early and smart move. It has staked out a user-centric POV and associated it closely with its own network and brand.

Either that or it has just made its own version of the Microsoft Kin.

Facebook Home screenshot via Facebook.

Popular online radio service Pandora has launched a Windows Phone 8 app, with the added bonus of hearing no advertisements with songs through the end of the year.

Pandora offers its service across nearly every platform it can to reach the widest audience possible. The service has more than 150 million registered users in U.S., but it has struggled to make a profit. The biggest news coming from the Pandora camp as of late was the resignation of long-time CEO Joe Kennedy. This happened just as Apple is reportedly looking to stomp on Pandora’s turf with its own radio service.

But today Pandora’s focus in on the future, with the addition of Windows Phone 8 to its lineup. The company writes in a blog post:

For the last six months or so we’ve been working hard to bring Pandora to the Windows Phone 8 audience. Happy to announce the day has finally come.

While of course Pandora on Windows Phone 8 features the same listening experience you’ve come to expect from us, we really wanted to embrace the unique features of the Windows Phone 8 platform. For example, you can pin your favorite stations directly to the Start screen. Even cooler, the tiles are live and show you what’s currently playing without having to actually launch the app. If you have kids, we’ve also integrated into what Microsoft calls “Kid’s Corner” – just launch Pandora from that starting point and we’ll make sure that no explicit content plays during that session.

From a design perspective, we constantly strive to keep the Pandora user experience as easy and consistent as possible across an ever-increasing variety of platforms — computers, mobile phones, tablets, set-top boxes, cars, and more — all while taking into account the additional capabilities and design patterns of each individual platform. With its visually flat elements and unique panorama concept of navigation, designing for Windows Phone 8 while keeping our consistent Pandora aesthetic was an exciting challenge and we’re thrilled with the results.

The best part of the Pandora experience for most users, however, will be hearing no annoying ads while listening. Microsoft is actually footing the bill so Windows Phone 8 users don’t have to hear ads.

While the app isn’t available as of this writing, Pandora said the app will be available some time today in the Windows Phone Store.

Top photo via Pandora

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The current versions of Windows Phone have finally gotten their death sentences.

Microsoft will end support for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7.8 on July 9 and September 9 2014, respectively – exactly 18 months after they were introduced. On those dates, Microsoft will stop shipping updates — including security updates — to devices running those versions of the mobile OS.

While that sounds like a bad deal for Windows Phone owners, it’s really not: Microsoft is ending support for the versions, but users can simply upgrade to the next version of Windows Phone when it is released later this year (which resets the 18-month update cycle).

But that doesn’t mean it’s all good. Some owners will not get the chance to upgrade, either because phone manufacturers fail to take the plunge or because carriers block the updates. So while Microsoft will obviously allow current Windows Phone 8 owners to update their devices, the company can’t guarantee that other factors won’t prevent the updates from reaching their phones.

“Distribution of the updates may be controlled by the mobile operator or the phone manufacturer from which you purchased your phone. Update availability will also vary by country, region, and hardware capabilities,” Microsoft says.

That stinks, but as Android has so painfully shown, it’s just what happens when you take the multi-manufacturer approach to smartphones. This is one thing Apple is probably pretty glad it doesn’t have to deal with.

What about native-only solutions?

Only 15 percent of developers would go native-only when building an app for multiple platforms, a stat that might be a little shocking to those witnessed Facebook famously and loudly abandoning HTML5 development last year in favor of a faster, smoother, better native app experience.

See the infographic: What developers do with HTML5

“Most developers were not impacted by that Facebook decision,” Kendo UI EVP Todd Anglin told me yesterday. “One thing that gets overlooked often in the Facebook news is that Facebook hasn’t abandoned HTML5 at all … just changed their use of it.”

In fact, the new Facebook app includes a lot of HTML5, Anglin said, adding that Facebook has said that HTML5 makes it faster to develop and maintain multiple apps.

Source: KendoUI

Developers who are actively using HTML5

HTML5 on the desktop

HTML5 on mobile is nothing new. But what about HTML5 on the desktop?

It turns out that HTML5 could be huge on the desktop, with 66 percent of developers interested in developing HTML5 apps for Windows 8, almost half interesting in building apps for Google’s Chrome OS, and another third thinking about developing apps for the emerging Firefox OS.

“It’s the final frontier for where HTML5 should go,” Anglin said. “And it begs the question … why don’t we think of this as an equal option for a PC?”

On a desktop PC, HTML5 would not be limited by a relatively puny mobile processor, either, meaning that developers could do even more with HTML5 video and interactivity. What that means, Anglin said, is that you could have a complete unified strategy for all mobile operating systems and desktop systems at one time … that uses the same codebase and the same developer skill set.

That’s fairly mind-blowing, considering where we’ve come from.

Source: KendoUI

HTML5 for the desktop

The ‘one + HTML5′ strategy

A growing strategic solution to the challenge of multiple platforms seems to be the “one + HTML5″ plan, in which developers build one app for a key target platform in native code — although it may also contain some HTML5 — and one app for all the other desired-but-not-core platforms in HTML5.

Typically, the “one” is iOS, although it could also be Android, and the HTML5 solution is for BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and any other desired platforms.

Still, given a choice, most developers would either do a pure HTML5 app for all platforms, or a hybrid app: HTML5 core, with native wrapping on each targeted platform.

Source: Kendo UI

Native vs HTML5 vs Hybrid apps

The hype cycle — HTML5 isn’t overhyped anymore

Only a quarter of developers now believe that HTML5 is overhyped, while almost half strongly believe it is not.

“Developers are now beyond the hype curve,” Anglin said. “Even though some developers think that  HTML5 is overhyped, that doesn’t mean they don’t think it’s a platform that is both usable and important.”

78 percent of developers now say HTML5 is appropriate for building mobile apps, and 68 percent say it’s appropriate for all developers building any kind of app.

iOS and BlackBerry: both hard to develop for

While iOS is a top platform, developers say it’s difficult to develop for. In fact, iOS ranked just under the notoriously challenging BlackBerry for development difficulty. Sixty-four percent of developers said that BlackBerry was challenging — and having developed two apps for the platform myself, I agree — while 69 percent said that iOS was difficult.

Objective-C is not the newest or widest-known language in the world, of course, and Apple does put a few hurdles in developers’ paths as well.

In contrast, half of developers thought that Windows 8 was easy to develop for, and Windows Phone 8 was not far behind. Android, meanwhile, was split: 26 percent said it was very easy, while 29 percent said it was very hard.

“What’s surprising to us is not that it’s difficult, but that’s it almost twice as difficult to work with as Android,” Anglin said. “We would have thought developers would rank Android equal to iOS or even harder, since there are so many more devices in the Android ecosystem.”

Source: Kendo UI

Mobile platforms: how difficult?

photo credit: brucelawson via photopin cc

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Bill Gates made some surprisingly candid statements this morning about the company he used to run, telling CBS that Microsoft hasn’t been innovative enough and that it had misstepped in the mobile arena.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform hasn’t gained significant traction in its efforts to catch up to iOS and Android since its launch in October 2010, but it does control three percent of the OS market now. The company has several serious mobile priorities for 2013, but its initial mobile strategy was flawed, Gates said.

“We didn’t miss cell phones, but the way that we went about it didn’t allow us to get the leadership,” Gates said in the interview. “So it’s clearly a mistake.”

While he admits the mistake, Gates still believes CEO Steve Ballmer has done a relatively good job with the company, especially in the last year.

“Well, [Steve Ballmer] and I are two of the most self-critical people — you can imagine,” Gates said. “And here were a lot of amazing things that Steve’s leadership got done with the company in the last year. Windows 8 is key to the future, the Surface computer. Bing, people are seeing as a better search product, Xbox. … But is — is it enough? No, he and I are not satisfied that in terms of, you know, breakthrough things, that we’re doing everything possible.”

Watch the interview with Gates below.

Top photo via Microsoft/YouTube

Music streaming service Rhapsody has launched a sleek new app for Windows Phone 8 — just a week after competitor Spotfiy launched its app on the same platform.

Rhapsody is the oldest player in streaming music in U.S. and it has more than a million paid users in the U.S. But it has lost mind share to Spotify, which is raising copious amounts of money to build buzz and acquire customers all over the world. Still, Rhapsody keeps collecting new users and will soon launch in Europe. High-quality mobile experiences will also help.

Version 3.0 of Rhapsody for Windows Phone is specifically built with Windows Phone 8 in mind and has a lot of improvements for people looking to rock out with the service’s more than 16 million tracks.

Heres’s what you’ll get in the new version of Rhapsody for Windows Phone 8:

• Offline playback of downloaded tracks, albums, and playlists.
• Support for My Music, including the ability to add or remove tracks, albums, and artist—plus check out other people’s libraries.
• Add and remove stations from My Stations.
• Add and remove playlists from My Playlists.
• See your listening history.
• Improvements to audio playback, album art, and search.

Rhapsody doesn’t offer a free version of its product like Spotify, so it focuses its efforts on the experience of its paid subscribers. It costs either $10 or $15 per month depending on your needs, but most folks will be fine with the $10 plan.

Photo via Rhapsody

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Sprint subscribers waiting for Windows Phone 8 won’t have to wait much longer. Sprint announced today that the first Windows Phone 8 devices will hit the carrier as soon as this summer.

While the move is both expected and overdue, what is surprising is which companies the first two devices are coming from — Samsung and HTC.

But where’s Nokia? It’s no secret that the smartphone maker is struggling right now, which is why it’s so odd that it isn’t jumping on any possible opportunity to offer its phones to consumers. Hopefully, the company will have something to announce soon, perhaps at Mobile World Congress next month.

As for Sprint, nabbing its own Windows Phone 8 devices is key to helping it keep up with not only AT&T and Verizon, but T-Mobile as well. The other major U.S. carriers already carry Windows 8 devices, giving them a slightly but certainly perceptible advantage over Sprint.

The movie is also good for Microsoft, whose efforts to get Windows Phone into more consumer’s hands have been sluggish so far.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft has released some illuminating stats regarding its Windows Phone Store’s performance in 2012: 75,000 apps published and 300,000 app updates.

On its Windows Phone Developer Blog, Windows Phone Store leader Todd Brix said people have downloaded 54 apps each on average, showing that they are hungry for apps and new experiences with their phones.

Brix writes:

Our big goal this year was to establish a new, scalable platform on the phone and in the cloud upon which we can better achieve our mission: to provide a confident, convenient, and customized app experience for our customers across the world and enable developers to rapidly innovate and realize opportunity.

We literally set a new foundation this year with the deployment of all-new infrastructure – new client platform, new developer toolset, new Dev Center, new catalog infrastructure, and all-new global service. I know transitions can be frustrating, but it is now complete and customers and developers are already beginning to reap the benefits with a better app and store experience, faster performance and more robust tools.

As a direct result of our investments, Windows Phone customers now download, buy, and use more apps than at any time since we first launched Windows Phone 7 two years ago. On average Windows Phone users have downloaded 54 apps each to personalize their phone experience around the people and information they care about most.

While the Windows Phone platform has steadily improved and has stronger smartphone and app options, sales appear to be relatively slow thus far. The big question is if consumers in the U.S. and around the world will try out Windows Phones when iPhone and Android devices own the majority of market share and mind share. You could also ask the same question about RIM’s BlackBerry 10 OS, which will show up in devices hitting in the first quarter of 2013.

Do you think the Windows Phone platform will have a good 2013?

Steve Ballmer screenshot via VentureBeat

Microsoft will ring in the new year by opening six new retail locations that will help customers get better exposure to products such as its Surface tablet and Windows Phone devices, the company announced today.

In a clear mimicking of Apple’s retail strategy, Microsoft opened 51 “full-line” (large retail locations) and “specialty” stores in 2012. With electronics shops like Best Buy and RadioShack closing stores, it’s important for Microsoft, like Apple, to educate folks about its products and partner products.

The new shops could help educate customers about its still-new Windows 8 operating system, various Windows Phone 8 smartphones, and Microsoft Surface tablets running Windows RT and Windows 8.

The six new Microsoft retail locations will be at:

• The Shops at La Cantera, San Antonio, Texas
• Dadeland Mall, Miami, Fla.
• Beachwood Place, Beachwood, Ohio
• Westfield San Francisco Centre, San Francisco
• City Creek Center, Salt Lake City
• St. Louis Galleria, St. Louis

Microsoft said it expects to open “many” other stores in the near future as well.

We’ve had questionable experiences with Microsoft’s retail store in Austin, Tex., but we realize there are other stores around the country where people might be more friendly.

Microsoft Store via Rob Stinnett/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Carrier subsidies are increasingly standing in the way of innovation.

“We’re drunk off the subsidy model,” IDC analyst Ramon Llamas told VentureBeat last week.

The lure of cheap, subsidized phones underwritten by massively long two-year contracts stands in the way of competition and innovation. The big carriers use their contracts to lock in profits and help limit the customer “churn” that would otherwise make their revenues too unpredictable. But those two-year contracts keep people from upgrading as quickly as they would otherwise, stifling handset makers’ ability to get the latest models in our hands.

Carriers also stifle OS upgrades, keeping you from upgrading to the latest version of Android because they don’t want to invest the time to make it work with a string of older phones: They’ve already got you locked in to a contract, so why would they want to make your phone any better than it already is?

The U.S. is not unique in its dependence on carrier subsidies, but it’s not the only way: In many European countries, for instance, people buy their phones and SIM cards separately, without long, onerous contracts.

Some carriers are starting to see this as a wedge issue. T-Mobile, for instance, promises to do away with contracts and subsidies altogether. The carrier sees it as a more honest, direct model, and I agree: I’m done with contracts. I recently paid $245 to get out of my contract with a large carrier after I had endless problems with its service and its phones.

In an earlier column, I blamed Microsoft for not being able to solve these problems. It was an unfair criticism, but it does reveal an opportunity for the Redmond, Wash.-based software company.

We need someone to break the logjam. Could it be Microsoft?

Instead of standing by and playing the same ballgame as every other mobile phone maker, Microsoft should take a page from Apple’s book and rewrite the game. It’s got the leverage, it’s got the installed base, and it’s got a powerful weapon: cash.

In short, Microsoft should subsidize its own phones. Google currently offers the Nexus 4 for $299, unlocked and off contract. That’s a subsidized price, although the actual amount of the subsidy is probably far less than you might think. When you buy an unsubsidized iPhone for $650, only about $200 of that goes to the iPhone’s  component parts. Let’s be generous and assume that another $200 goes to manufacturing, shipping, and the manufacturer’s profit. That subsidized price is still higher by $250 than the actual cost to the carrier.

In other words, assuming that it, too, can get phones made for $400 apiece, it would cost Microsoft $100 to $200 each to subsidize unlocked, off-contract Windows phones to a sales price of $200 or $300.

That’s a small price to drive its currently anemic Windows Phone OS deeper into the mobile ecosystem.

It would cut out the carriers — those that depend on subsidies, anyway. A small benefit might be helping out the carriers like T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile that have a big incentive to take on the incumbents, and they’d in turn help Microsoft with aggressive, edgy advertising campaigns.

Now, Google can afford to subsidize Nexus 4s because it knows it will eventually make money from advertising and location services for Android users. Microsoft might make some small amount of money from Bing, but that’s not its real payoff.

The real benefit would be enabling Microsoft to sell directly to the large companies that make up the backbone of its revenues. It wants to tie Windows 8 closely together with Windows Phone 8, and this is one way to do it: With volume sales of corporate phones that are off-contract, work seamlessly with your corporate Windows 8 laptop or tablet — and, by the way, which are far more useful and hipper than anything Research in Motion is likely to produce.

Why I keep harping on Microsoft

I’ve been writing about Microsoft a lot this year because it’s one of the most interesting companies in tech right now.

With a market cap around $225 billion, annual revenues of $73 billion as of the fiscal year that ended in June, and net income around $17 billion, it remains a mighty company, one to be reckoned with.

Microsoft still outstrips IBM, Cisco, Intel, and many other giants of the tech world in size and revenues.

Microsoft’s research and development arms are unparalleled, with armies of Ph.D.s that few other companies can match. Even a long-time startup guy like Rahul Sood, who joined Microsoft over a year ago, can’t stop raving about how much talent the company has.

Microsoft’s financial power pales next to Apple, which still has a market cap of about $500 billion despite sudden (and rather inexplicable) losses last week, on about twice the revenue and more than twice the profits — over $41 billion for the last fiscal year.

It stands eye-to-eye with Google, which has almost exactly the same market cap on half the revenues and profits. Google is worth more on a P/E basis because its star is still rising, while Microsoft is a mature sun, and no one knows if it will keep burning for another billion years or if it’s going to blow up next year and obliterate its entire solar system.

Make no mistake, Google is Microsoft’s biggest threat. One glance at this slide from KPCB partner Mary Meeker’s annual Internet trends report, and you’ll see that mobile devices — led by Google’s Android OS — have rapidly blown away Microsoft’s dominance of the computing market in the past few years. (See that green triangle in the right corner: That’s Android.)

That’s why Microsoft’s mobile strategy is so critical. It’s going to do everything it can to regain control over the computing world. It may already be too late. But it’s certainly been interesting to watch.

I’d love to see Microsoft start tackling that by mining one of the areas most ripe for disruption today: our broken carrier subsidy model.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The last thing Microsoft needed with Windows Phone 8 was a widespread software issue — so of course that’s exactly what it got.

Many Windows Phone 8 users have seen a peculiar issue that makes their devices reboot spontaneously. But it looks like Microsoft has figured out what the problem is, and is working on a fix.

“We’re continuing to investigate some reports of phones rebooting and have identified a cause with our partners,” Microsoft said in a statement released last night. “We are working to get an over-the-air update out in December.”

We’re still awaiting further details on what caused the issue. While it never seemed big enough to convince people away from Windows Phone 8 (indeed, most consumers won’t even be aware of the rebooting problem), it’s the sort of thing that makes Microsoft lose credibility among more tech-savvy buyers. And at this point, Microsoft can’t afford anything that will slow down sales for Windows Phone 8.

Via AllThingsD

The videos all start with the same message from Microsoft employee Ben “the PC guy” Rudolph: ”Hi, I’m Ben, and today I’m showing people why Windows Phone is a better match for them than iPhone and Android.”

In the spots, Rudolph — no red nose in evidence — shows up apparently unexpectedly, surprising iPhone and Android users, and showing them something better about his Windows Phone. Cheeky, but effective, at least in the spots that made it to YouTube.

Here’s one of the iPhone 5 segments, which uses the Nokia Lumia 920, which has an 8.7 megapixel camera to iPhone 5′s 8 megapixels. Yes, that’s the same phone that Nokia famously used in its faked ad — the ad that led users to believe it was shot with the 920, when in fact it was shot with a high-end video camera.

But the camera is, actually, quite good:

A quibble: Ben doesn’t use the iPhone 5′s built-in flash. He doesn’t with the Nokia either, but if the Nokia is optimized for low-light capability, that could be seen as something of an unfair competition. Or, from the other side of the coin, as an example of why you want a diversity of devices in your mobile collection, with differing capabilities for differing user requirements.

Rudolph runs the same script by a family which has a myTouch Android phone from T-Mobile, with a 5 megapixel camera.  This time he uses HTC’s Windows Phone 8X, which has an 8MP camera:

Again, predictably, the Windows phone wins.

How effective these ads will be remains to be seen.

What is clearly visible, however, is that Microsoft is no longer content to take a backseat in the mobile device market, and with Surface and Windows Phone 8 is making a major push to become a significant player.

photo credit: smallritual via photopin cc

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Steve Ballmer has all his troops lined up, and he’s ready for a massive, multi-pronged attack on the entire tech universe.

Consumer services, devices, software, enterprise services, video game consoles, Internet telephony, media and entertainment content — Microsoft stands ready to deliver it all. And to hear Ballmer tell it, Microsoft is not only in a great position to succeed at all of these businesses, it might be just about unstoppable. And it all comes down to Windows — in its desktop and mobile varieties.

He criticized Apple for being too restrictive with its app store policies and too expensive, while Android’s app store policies are too lax.

“The ecosystem of Android is a little bit wild,” Ballmer said.

“Strategically, we think there’s a place to be the best of organization and the best of diversity. We think there’s an unmet need with the operators. From the consumer perspective, all these darn phones look basically the same, and there’s a lot of opportunity to have a different point of view.”

Ballmer appeared onstage with LinkedIn founder and executive chairman Reid Hoffman for a discussion hosted by the Churchill Club, a public-affairs forum in Silicon Valley. About 760 people attended the event, packed into the ballroom of the Santa Clara Marriott for a dinner of hotel chicken followed by disruptive discussion. It was the largest Churchill Club event in a decade.

It was a rare chance to see two giants of the tech industry speaking together at the same time. Hoffman founded LinkedIn in his living room in 2003 and built it into a public company whose market capitalization is now somewhere around $10 billion. (Hoffman also now serves as a partner at venture firm Greylock Partners.) And Ballmer is the longtime CEO of one of the biggest software companies of all time.

He’s got more modest goals than immediate total domination, however.

“Our challenge is not to get 60 percent of the smartphone market. Our challenge is to get 10, then 15, then 20.”

In fact, Ballmer said, wireless carriers are clamoring for a third alternative to the current high-end leaders, Apple and Samsung. Microsoft is just the one to deliver it, he says.

“We’ve got a customer set that wants an alternative; we’ve got a differentiated point of view” — and the product, he says, is appealing.

And there’s more innovation to come.

“If anyone thinks we’re at the end of the hardware innovation chain in pocket devices, I think that’s nuts,” Ballmer said.

The installed base of Windows 7 systems — over 670 million worldwide, Ballmer said — will help drive the success of both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Those who have Windows 7 will want to upgrade, because it’s faster to boot, uses fewer system resources, and offers more IT controls. And those who have Windows-based enterprise applications will want their employees to use Windows 8 phones to access them, because those phones will integrate more seamlessly with existing client-server and cloud based applications that use Microsoft’s architecture.

“You really want to be on Windows and Windows Phone with client applications. We will have volume, and I think that will be clear soon.”

Ballmer spoke about the challenges facing Microsoft now as it transitions to a less PC-centric world, although he didn’t drop any bombshells or unveil anything particularly surprising — unless you count his amazing level of confidence about the potential for Windows Phone 8, the company’s mobile operating system, which currently has a market share somewhat comparable to that of RIMs — that is to say, a tiny, single-digit slice of the overall smartphone market.

For instance, Hoffman asked Ballmer how Microsoft was managing its forays into hardware manufacturing with the Surface — a move that has angered many of its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners.

“Carefully,” Ballmer said, to chuckles from the audience.

More explicitly, Ballmer described the careful dance of negotiating with OEMs and other partners to drive innovation forward and stated that Microsoft has taken a different approach in each market. For instance, it went it alone in the game console market when developing the Xbox because there was no way get hardware partners excited about the idea of selling consoles at a loss and making that up through sales of games. In mobile, Microsoft carefully designed a set of specifications and worked closely with hardware makers to create Windows Phone-based handsets. In the PC sphere, Microsoft continues to support the very open standards of the market while creating its own hardware, the Surface, to extend the market. In each case, it took the approach most appropriate to the market and to the innovation needed.

“There’s no way something like Kinect gets invented unless you’re doing both hardware and software,” Ballmer said. But now that it exists, Microsoft is extending Kinect into the PC ecosystem, where PC makers can use it to extend the capabilities of their devices.

Ballmer’s not worried about the possibilities for freemium models or inexpensive web content to drive down the value of software that people actually want to pay for. Ballmer noted that the recently-released game Halo 4 did $220 million in sales in its first day or two.

“The only way to monetize that is to charge money for it. Not everybody may want to pay for it, but those who want to pay for it, they’ll buy it!”

Perhaps the most characteristically enthusiastic Ballmer moment came when Hoffman asked him a question from the audience: What aspect of the consumer reaction to Windows 8 surprised him the most?

Ballmer’s response:

“Touch! Touch! Touch! Touch! Touch! Touch!”

Apparently, people like those touchscreens.

Source: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

Hoffman and Ballmer wearing bowler hats, a symbol of the Churchill Club.

The ads are fun and focused on people … which incidentally highlights Windows Phone’s core differentiation from both iPhone and Android-based smartphones. “The ads are designed to show how personal Windows Phone is while showcasing the features that make it so different,” a Microsoft representative told VentureBeat.

Here’s Jessica and her live updating home screen tiles:

Microsoft is planning a massive campaign in the U.S., UK, France, and Germany — and it’s not afraid of the competition:

“In partnership with carriers and OEMs, we are … providing in store challenges that will put Windows Phone head to head with the competition while shining a brighter light on the OS than we have in the past,” the Microsoft representative said.

Here’s Jessica’s new Kids Corner, one of nine unexpectedly cool features of Windows Phone 8, which keeps kids apps separate from adults’ data.

Gwen Stefani’s ad focuses on how many different things Windows Phone 8 pulls together. While watching, I had to check if someone was calling me on Skype … a Skype incoming call tone rings about 15 seconds in:

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

SAN FRANCISCO — Android hit its fifth birthday earlier this week, and for Android cofounder Rich Miner, the past half-decade has been pretty good.

“I don’t think that we would have done anything different,” Miner said yesterday at the annual Open Mobile Summit.

Miner was the keynote speaker here in November, 2008, shortly after Android’s launch.

“I think maybe there were some things we didn’t quite realize,” Miner said, of his perspective in 2008. Chief among them: just how quickly smartphones would grow in market acceptance. Now, more smartphones are sold every year than computers, and there will soon be one billion smartphones floating around the planet.

Android has ridden that wave better than anyone else.

Since the official debut of Google’s mobile operating system on November 5, 2008, Android has gone from an also-ran to completely dominating the market. Remember, at the time Android launched, Apple’s iPhone had already been on the market for over a year, and it looked like Google might be too late to the party, despite its impressive array of manufacturing partners. Android is now by far the most successful mobile OS, and 75 percent of the smartphones shipped in the last quarter were running Android, according to recent data from IDC.

In that time, Miner himself has gone from being the cofounder of Android (the company, which Google acquired in 2005) to a general partner at Google Ventures, the investing arm of the search giant. So he’s not directly involved in the OS any more.

“My day job since 2009 has been to seek out interesting new startups and invest in them,” Miner said, echoing the mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

“We look for bright people who have really big ideas. … Largely what I’m doing is looking for people who have a passion for what they’re doing, and what they’re doing looks like it could be something really significant.”

Miner pointed to “the value destruction of RIM” as a big opportunity for startups, especially those focused on delivering mobile products and services to businesses. No major smartphone vendor is currently targeting the enterprise market where RIM had its greatest success. That, Miner said, presents an opportunity — for Apple and Google, but also for startups.

Apple is a distant second behind Android in market share, but it has the lion’s share of the profits. But what about other players? Miner was skeptical that Microsoft has any chance at all with its Windows Phone 8 OS.

“When I talk to developers, they’re certainly not asking for a third platform to develop for,” Miner quipped.

As for the so-called fragmentation issue, with the profusion of different versions of Android, Miner said it’s a non-issue.

“If fragmentation was really an issue, you’d hear a lot more people having problems,” Miner said. ”Most apps work. It’s not a big issue.”

Indeed, he thinks carriers could be doing even more to differentiate the versions of Android that they install on their devices.

“I think they could do a lot more to customize Android. … I don’t think they really capitalized on that,” Miner said.

Miner acknowledged that there were security risks inherent in Google’s more open approach to delivering apps. There are bad apps that do malicious things or help themselves to your personal data, and some of these do make it into Google’s Play Store.

“Sure there’s malware, and Google continues to innovate in that area,” Miner said. “But again, security is one of the areas for people to focus on startup opportunities.”

Spoken like a true venture capitalist: There are no problems that cannot be turned into an investment opportunity.

Photo credit: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

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Dear Windows Phone 8,

I want to love you, but there’s something coming between us.

When we first met, you were just version 7, but you impressed me. I liked how your home screen showed me all kind of nice things, like gentle reminders about my next appointment or photos of my Facebook friends. I liked the way that your photos app was always showing me new pictures of my niece. Something about the way your tiles flipped into place just made me smile.

I was so won over by your charms that I was even willing to go back to AT&T, a company that’s let me down many times in the past, for your sake. I took the big step and signed a two-year contract to get a Lumia 900, which was the flagship Windows phone last summer. It wasn’t your most flattering phone, but I will say it was impressive in almost every way: Fast. Big screen. Bright colors. And fun to use.

Besides, it was made by Nokia, a company I’ve always admired for its workmanship, for its well-designed and reliable devices.

But then something went wrong. One morning the Lumia 900 just didn’t wake up. I had plugged it in to charge overnight, but it just wouldn’t boot up, no matter what I did.

I went without a phone that day. Fortunately, I use Google Voice as my mobile contact number, so I could still get calls on my computer, even without a phone. When I got to the AT&T store that afternoon, they told me they’d seen this happen a few times but that they couldn’t do anything to fix it. They gave me a new Lumia 900.

I entered my Live.com information and signed in. There you were again: My Windows Phone OS. Except something was missing. My Live.com account included connections to Twitter and Facebook, so those contacts reappeared right away. But all of the groups of friends and family members I had created? Gone. I had to re-create each group, one contact at a time. Ringtones, music, and all the apps I’d downloaded? Also missing.

So I re-created the groups, re-installed my apps, got my music and favorite photos back onto the new handset. Everything went smoothly then for a week or two. But then it happened again: One evening, the Lumia locked up and just wouldn’t wake up. I couldn’t power it back on. Even after recharging it all night, it still wouldn’t work.

Back to the AT&T store I went. They replaced my phone again, after a short half-hour wait. Once again, I had to re-create my Google accounts, contact groups, apps, and such. Fortunately, I’d remembered to check the option to sync all the photos I took to Skydrive. Thank goodness for that.

At this point I was growing quite a bit less enchanted with you, Windows Phone. I mean, I still liked you. But reintroducing myself to you every time I got a new phone was getting tiring. Why couldn’t you just remember all the things about me, like my apps, my ringtones, all my contacts, and email accounts?

So things puttered along for a month. And then it happened again. One fateful morning, the Lumia did exactly the same thing again: It wouldn’t wake up.

Back to the store I went. This time, I begged them to give me a phone — any phone — so long as it worked reliably. So the nice AT&T representative handed me an Android phone, an HTC Vivid. I’ve used Android phones for several years, before I met you, so this was an easy transition, even if it wasn’t the phone of my dreams.

But here’s the thing. It’s three months later. I’ve seen your new style, Windows Phone 8, and I like a lot of things about you. I’ve spent some time with you on the confusingly named HTC Windows Phone 8X, which is a terrific phone: It’s super-slim, attractive, fast, and has a battery that goes for days. I like it a lot.

If I weren’t already an AT&T customer, I’d be happy to give you another try on the Windows Phone 8X, which will be offered to AT&T customers soon for $99 plus a two-year contract. That seems like a good deal. Except I’m not eligible for it. Because I signed on with a two-year contract for a subsidized phone, and that phone is now my HTC Vivid, I’m stuck until October of next year, it appears.

Even if I still had that Lumia 900, I still wouldn’t get Windows Phone 8, because none of the older models are upgradeable.

I’ve talked to AT&T. I’ve begged, pleaded, and spoken to supervisors. But no one is budging. I signed a two-year commitment to get to you, but what I got, in reality, was AT&T — because that’s the way subsidized contracts work in the U.S.

So, Windows Phone 8, I’ve got to break it to you: AT&T is not your friend. It’s what’s keeping me from you right now.

For that matter, Verizon probably isn’t your friend either. I’m not sure there’s a carrier in the country that will put you first, not when iPhones sell so quickly and Android phones come so cheaply. And that’s a problem.

Since you’re coming from way behind iOS and Android, you’re going to need all the friends you can get. I don’t know where you’re going to find them. Big companies that want to standardize on Windows? People like me who are bored and annoyed with Android? They all seem like a stretch.

Your best best, in all likelihood, is Windows 8, which promises to link you with tablets and PCs in one, consistent interface, all sewn together with the surprisingly useful Skydrive service. For your sake, let’s hope that works, because right now, you need a lot of help.

A pretty face that makes people smile is a good start, but it’s not enough.

Photo credit: Karen Jensen, for VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

AT&T has finally announced pricing and availability for the flagship Windows Phone 8 devices, and compared to other smartphones, they look like a freaking steal.

The long-awaited Lumia 920 from Nokia and HTC’s Windows Phone 8X will both cost $99.99 with a two-year contract. AT&T will also offer the mid-range Lumia 820 for $49.99. All of the Lumia phones will be available this Friday, November 9th, with pre-orders beginning tomorrow. The 8X will launch sometime “before Thanksgiving.”

The Lumia 920 seems to be the best deal of the bunch, thanks to its killer PureView camera technology (and, judging from my hands-on, superior design). The Lumia 920 also comes with 16 GB of storage, while the entry-level HTC only has a measly 8GB.  AT&T is also including a free wireless charging plate, which allows you to charge the phone without plugging it into any cables.

With the $100 pricing, both devices are continuing a trend that Nokia began earlier this year with the Lumia 900, which kicked off for the same price. Unfortunately, being cheaper than the competition didn’t help sales much for that phone. But with improvements in Windows Phone 8, plus some marketing muscle, Microsoft’s premier Windows Phone manufacturers may finally be able to convince consumers to forgo a new iPhone or Android smartphone.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is daring to dream when it comes to beleaguered Windows Phone sales.

“We’re still relatively small … I expect the volumes on Windows Phone to really ramp quickly,” Ballmer told the meeting at a Windows 8 launch event in Israel this morning, according to Reuters.

Of course, it’d be a surprise if Ballmer offered anything less optimistic for Windows Phone. Microsoft just launched Windows Phone 8 last week in San Francisco, and hot new models like the Lumia 920 and HTC Windows Phone 8X will soon be available to tempt buyers. The company is likely planning a large marketing surge which, together with the launch of Windows 8, could finally spur on sales for Windows Phone.

Ballmer also noted something he’s said before: together with the strong work from its hardware manufacturers, Windows Phone has an “opportunity to create really a strong third participant” in the smartphone world. That may not sound too ambitious, but it’s a fairly realistic goal considering the massive head start the iPhone and Android have.

It would be tough for Microsoft to realistically surpass the sheer volume of Android sales, or the hype surrounding the iPhone, to reach the number one or two spot. But there’s nothing wrong with being number three: That would make Microsoft the successor to RIM’s BlackBerry, and it would allow Windows Phone to finally become a sustainable business.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Missed Microsoft’s Build conference this year? Now you can watch all of the sessions online at Microsoft’s Channel 9 website.

Non-developers should stick to the two keynotes, which offer a glimpse at some interesting Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 features. (Microsoft also kindly livestreamed those keynotes as they occurred earlier this week.) All of the other session videos are new to the wev, but will likely only interest devs.

I argued last week that Build was Microsoft’s most important event ever — primarily because the company desperately needs developers to build apps. Windows 8 will likely attract devs as more people install it, but Windows Phone still needs strong apps to compete with iOS and Android.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy killed my plans to attend Build. Aside from initial excitement over developers receiving free Surface tablets and Lumia 920 smartphones, I didn’t see much else really causing them to cheer from my remote viewpoint. (If you were at Build and want to chat about it, drop me a line.)

Via Engaget; Photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft’s smartphone plans are starting to take shape.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the company has already begun testing its own smartphone design with Asian suppliers. Sources say the device’s screen will measure between four and five inches, making it pretty standard as far as smartphones go.

But while Microsoft is already testing its phone, the company isn’t sure it will actually end up mass producing such a device. As we’ve noted before, the creation of the phone will depend largely on the success of Windows Phone 8: Microsoft will probably be in less of a rush if existing Windows Phone 8 devices are selling well.

Still, it’s telling that Microsoft’s smartphone development has already progressed as far as it has. While a Microsoft smartphone could spur further interest in the Windows Phone platform as a whole, the device will also show that Microsoft isn’t confident leaving Windows Phone solely in the hands of its hardware partners.

The most key of these partners is, of course, Nokia, which is betting what feels like its entire future onWindows Phone with its Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, which launch this month.

In terms of timing, previous reports speculated that a Microsoft smartphone wouldn’t see a release until mid-2013, likely long after Nokia had its chance to try its own hand at success.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

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

Federal Trade Commission staff are recommending the agency file a lawsuit against Google because of its efforts to block U.S. imports of iPhones and Windows Phones, according to Bloomberg.

Google subsidiary Motorola has been involved in two lawsuits against Apple at the ITC — International Trade Commission — over the past year, seeking import bans on competitors’ phones.

In the first, the ITC cleared Apple of infringement on three claims but found that one of Motorola’s patents related to a “sensor-controlled user interface” was possibly infringing. The second case alleged infringement of seven patents, including location reminders, email notifications, phone/video players, and Siri voice recognition.

Motorola had been asking for royalties of 2.25 percent on retail pricing, which would put almost $15 in Google’s pocket every time Apple sells an entry-level $649 iPhone 5.

Standard practice in the wireless industry, however, is to license essential patents at much lower cost, often referred to as FRAND: fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms. The goal is that no one player can dominate the industry with exorbitant demands over a single patent.

Google and Motorola had dropped that patent lawsuit just last month, and at the time, it wasn’t clear why Google dropped the suit.

Seen in the light of today’s decision, it now seems possible that Google caught a hint of the FTC staff’s concerns and decided to get out of Dodge before getting into further trouble.

The threatened lawsuit, however, is just a recommendation from FTC staff and would need to be acted upon by federally-appointed FTC commissioners. That seems an unlikely option given that Google has withdrawn the complaint.

But it does give Apple plenty of ammo in its crusade to pay as little as possible to the creators of its greatest rival, the Android mobile operating system.

photo credit: loop_oh via photopin cc

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Looking to cloud-enable your mobile app? Looks like Microsoft can help make that a lot easier.

Microsoft just demoed some very slick new mobile and cloud connections today at its BUILD conference in Redmond, showing how simple it is for developers to store their data in the cloud and perform operations on that data.

Josh Twist from Windows Azure Mobile Services — which he announced now support Windows Phone 8 — connected an app to Azure authentication services live onstage. Authentication protocols not only include Microsoft accounts, but also Facebook, Twitter, and Google accounts, and Twist showed how, in just a few lines of code, developers can add social login to their apps.

This works on any app on iOS as well as more traditional desktop apps for Windows Store, and now, of course, Windows Phone 8.

Even more interestingly, Twist demoed how simple it is to set event handlers in Azure that execute code securely and automatically in the cloud whenever data changes. One example he showed was to automatically grab a user’s Twitter avatar when the user logs in via Twitter. In a few lines of Javascript, saved on Azure and triggered automatically when a user logged in, Mobile Services talked to Twitter, retrieved the user icon, saved it locally, and sent it to the mobile app for use in the user interface.

Impressive!

Then Twist connected the cloud app to a live tile on his Windows 8 PC, enabling quick and easy desktop monitoring of his mobile app’s activity. Also impressive.

A preview is available today, Twist said, and developers who sign up will receive 10 mobile services for free.

And the Windows Phone app data arrives on the Windows 8 desktop, via Azure Mobile Services

Image credits: vernieman via photopin cc, Microsoft

Batman and space marines now have a home on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform for mobile devices.

While some developers are a little reluctant about supporting Windows Phone 8, Gameloft is jumping into that ecosystem by optimizing 12 of its most popular games for the platform. Microsoft should release Windows Phone 8 devices, which compete directly with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, in stores by this weekend.

“Gameloft is thrilled to be able to take advantage of the integrated Xbox gaming service on Windows Phone 8,” Gameloft vice president of publishing for the Americas Baudouin Corman said. “As smartphones continue to gain ground as one of the most widely adopted gaming devices, we see this as a great opportunity for us to optimize our titles for Windows Phone 8 users to enjoy the platform’s new features.”

Those new features include a tighter integration with Microsoft’s existing Xbox Live service. Players will be able to tap into their Xbox Live accounts to connect with friends and keep up with full leaderboard support.

Here’s Gameloft’s full Windows Phone 8 lineup:

• Ice Age Village
• N.O.V.A. 3: Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance
• Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour
• Shark Dash
• Asphalt 7: Heat
• The Dark Knight Rises
• Uno & Friends
• Order & Chaos Online
• The Amazing Spider-Man
• Fashion Icon
• Poker for Prizes
• Real Soccer 2013

As popular as playing games on iOS and Android can be, it’s often difficult to keep up with friends on those platforms. Apple’s Game Center service is a decent attempt at centralizing a friends list and providing achievements, but Microsoft’s Xbox Live is better. The publisher could repeat that excellent implementation in WP8, but it just needs the games.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft executive Joe Belfiore showed off the company’s latest mobile operating system, Windows Phone 8, in front of a friendly audience at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium today. He was joined briefly by actress Jessica Alba and, at the end of the event, by Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, who hawked some of the latest phones and carriers with Windows Phone 8 devices.

Microsoft has been planning this rollout for a long time, and most of its major features are already well-known. But the company surprised us with a handful of cool new features.

Customizable lock screen

Windows has had customizable “live tiles” since Windows Phone 7, which can deliver snippets of custom data, such as calendar appointments and Facebook photos, directly to an app’s tile on your phone’s home screen. Now the company extends that customization to the phone’s lock screen too. Result: If an app supports it, you can customize your lock screen with information from that app. For example, in the new Facebook app for Windows Phone 8, you can have your lock screen display the latest photos from your friends.

Skype

Skype will be deeply integrated into Windows Phone 8, Belfiore promised. For instance, you’ll be able to receive chat notifications and Skype calls even when you don’t have the app open. The incoming Skype call screen looks similar to the one for regular phone calls, and you can even use the phone’s call-waiting features to switch between Skype and regular calls.

Pandora

Pandora has been one of the most glaring absences from the array of Windows Phone apps. Microsoft knows it needs to play catch up, fast. Getting Pandora onto Windows Phone 8 was a real coup — and as a bonus, Windows Phone Pandora will offer one year of cost-free, advertising-free music. It won’t be available until early 2013, however.

Kid’s Corner

Do your kids like to borrow your phone so they can play Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds? Mine too. The new Kid’s Corner feature lets you set up a special login screen just for your kids. It’s got larger, more colorful app tiles, and you can specify which apps, games, music, and videos show up there. To show off the feature, Belfiore’s three kids came onto the stage for one of the cutest tech demonstrations in the history of San Francisco tech demos. His five-year-old daughter bypassed the Kid’s Corner immediately and went straight to the regular homescreen — oops! But once she got to the right screen, she found Fruit Ninja right away.

“I love kid’s corner. I think it’s awesome,” said actress and entrepreneur Jessica Alba, who came onstage briefly to wow the roomful of mostly male nerds and to talk about how much she likes Windows Phone.

Data Sense

Windows Phone now includes a feature that compresses web page data while you’re browsing to make sure you don’t overuse your wireless data allotment. Belfiore said this will enable 45% more web browsing with the same amount of data. Data Sense also helps you find local Wi-Fi hotspots on a map and automatically switches you over to Wi-Fi whenever possible. In addition, when you get close to your carrier-imposed cap, you can have it restrict background data downloads to help you eke out an extra few days.

Rooms

Microsoft added a new feature to its People hub: The ability to create “Rooms” for groups of people. Rooms are collections of people, but also include a shared, private messaging string; a shared calendar; and shared notes. You can share calendars with iPhone users, but other features are WP8-only.

Voice notes in OneNote

Windows Phone’s note-taking application, OneNote, now includes a handy voice transcription tool. From anywhere in the OS, press and hold the Start button and say the word “Note.” It will record your voice, transcribe the audio to text, and save both to Skydrive.

Skydrive integration

Skydrive, Microsoft’s cloud-based storage service, is well-integrated into Windows Phone, just as it is in Windows 8. That means you can easily store photos, documents, and other data on your phone and access it from a PC or Windows 8 tablet (or vice versa). Skydrive automatically stores all photos you take indefinitely — unlike the 30-day limit that Apple’s iCloud imposes.

Xbox Music

Although Microsoft had announced it earlier, this is a cool feature worth highlighting: Windows Phone 8 can access all your music via the company’s Xbox Music service. Belfiore said Xbox Music now includes a library of 30 million tracks, any of which you can listen to from your phone or Windows 8 PC or tablet — or your Xbox.

“No other phone works this seamlessly across your phone, your PC, and your home entertainment system,” Belfiore said.

Photo: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat