During his keynote on consumer products failures, New York Times columnist David Pogue shared his personal RIM nightmare story with the audience here at FailCon.
For Pogue, RIM decided to ship the incomplete Blackberry Storm in the Fall of 2008 because it was under pressure to deliver it to Verizon for the start of the holiday season.
“It [Blackberry Storm] was horrible. It was a piece of crap. It was so filled with bugs, I will be on the phone every day with RIM… It just doesn’t work,” explains Pogue.
But what made this a complete disaster for RIM is it continuously denied that the Blackberry Storm had any problems, despite tons of consumer complaints on the Web and a devastating email Pogue received from one of the Storm team member:
“When you wrote that this product was released prematurely, you were absolutely right, and everybody here knew it… Internally, many of us argued that we would be hurting ourselves by rushing it out the door. Obviously, our managers disagreed,” reads the email.
Inspite media reports, HP has no plans to shelve Palm smartphones.
“On the contrary,” insists Tim Pettitt, Palm’s senior product manager of smartphones at a briefing today in San Francisco, Calif. “Palm is going to be the mobility play for HP!”
Expect to see more smartphones coming from HP/Palm as well new mobile devices such as tablets/slates, printers and netbooks, all powered by the company’s mobile operating system, WebOS.
“Our goal is really to expand the form factor. We built WebOS to go on any device. So we knew we’re going to move off smartphones eventually… So definitely you’ll keep seeing things new coming out from Palm.”
It’ll be interesting to see if HP/Palm is able to break in the smartphone market, today dominated by Apple’s iPhone, Google Android and RIM. But you can forget about Nokia. The Finnish company just doesn’t get mobile Internet.
With the economy expected to continue improving, analyst firm Forward Concepts forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 24% for Smartphones to the 496 million unit level in 2014.
Follows some of the key findings of the Forward Concepts latest study.
Smartphone shipments worldwide grew 18% in 2009 to 171 million units at a $67 billion level. The Smartphone semiconductor and display revenue reached $11.7 billion.
Nokia continued to lead Smartphone shipments in 2009, with a market share of 36.4%, followed by RIM at 19.4%, Apple at 14.9% and HTC at 6.3%. Sharp follows with a 3.5% market share, then Samsung at 3.4%. 18 other Smartphone vendors constitute the remaining 20% share.
Western Europe has overtaken Japan to be the leader in Smartphone consumption, with a 23% 2009 market share. However in 2010, North America is forecast to become the leading Smartphone market, driven by iPhone and Android phones, with a 22% share, closely followed by Western Europe at 21.6%, and fast-growing China at 17%.
Symbian continues to be the leading Smartphone operating system, with an estimated 43% unit market share in 2009, while RIM’s Blackberry OS (19%) and Apple’s OS X (15%) has supplanted Microsoft Windows Mobile (13%) for the #2 and #3 positions. Linux variants, including Android, reached 8%, followed by, Palm’s WebOS with 2%. In 2014, Forward Concepts analysts predict that Android will grow to the #2 position, followed by OS X in 2014.
DoubleTwist has been characterized as an iTunes for Android, Google’s phone software.
DoubleTwist also hints at Xbox support
But it is more. That’s because the desktop software also works with the Palm Pre, the Blackberry, Nokia phones, the Kindle and the Sony PSP, acting as a management center for music and media the way iTunes does. Want to share with another device? Just drag and drop. DoubleTwist is multi-platform
Now founder Monique Farantzos says the service is coming to the cloud. Within “months” DoubleTwist will allow content to be uploaded and stored on DoubleTwist servers for portable access, Farantzos said late last week during a presentation at an SDForum event.
She also suggested DoubleTwist’s list of compatible devices would soon include Microsoft’s Xbox game console.
The 20-person company has been creating a storm of interest – in addtion to $7.5 million in venture capital from the likes of Index Ventures.
Its software has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times since in launched in February, according to a post last month on TechCrunch.
A new wave of mobile startup is creatively reshaping the way people will think of and use their mobile phones in coming years.
Before long today’s pocket-sized communicator will become a credit card, a photo store, as well as a user’s primary source of information from the Web.
Micro transactions are promising, says Tapulous' Andrew Lacy
But this vibrant incubation of new applications is missing one key ingredient: a straightforward way of turning turn technical innovation and site development into revenue.
The proliferation of smart phones, such as Apple’s iPhone, the latest Blackberries and the Palm Pre, is enabling this transformation – opening the door to more complex applications and pushing data in steady streams to mobile users.
The dramatic shift is still several years away. But several early innovators were on display at the MobileBeat 2009 conference Thursday in San Francisco.
One startup, AppStore HQ, wants to create an easier way to locate useful iPhone apps. With tens of thousands of applications available, “it’s easier to get your applications found than get a camel through the eye of a needle,” says exec Chris De Bore.
The company is starting with the iPhone and hope to expand to apps for Google’s Android and the Blackberry.
Boku has already begun turning the phone into a payment device and now boasts operations in 50 countries. Urban Airship plans an alternative way to push data to cell phones and is even working on push alerts for RSS feeds – a potentially huge market. (Apple and other phone developers have begun offering their own push technology for phone data.)
Another promising startup – Touchnote – is rooted in the real world. It wants to make money by turning cell phone photos into postcards it mails to recipients.
But making money is no guarantee. Opentable has been able to use its iPhone application to deliver dinners to local restaurants, for which it gets a fee.
But Flixster’s hope of selling movie ads into its movie location app is a work in progress. The evolution of the phone payment system is also creating confusion.
Payment restrictions make it hard to know whether to charge for a game application and make money with virtual products or to charge for the game itself, says Andrew Lacy of Tapulous.
Over the weekend, I finally made the switch from my “old” Blackberry Curve to the Google G1. And what a disappointment it was.
Just a few minutes into it, after setting my Gmail account, synching my contacts and calendar (cool!) and even downloading some applications, I realized I made a mistake.
Some applications even started crashing like the Dialer (what’s up with this name?) or the Photo application. The good thing is that it didn’t crash the phone!
Here’s a rundown on some of the reasons why I think the G1 is just a bad phone:
The keyboard is terrible, at least if you’re used like me to the comfort of a Blackberry or Palm keyboard. The keys are too low, the touch imprecise. And I don’t have large fingers! And when the G1 is plugged-in, typing on the keyboard gets really hard.
The Android software does not support multi-touch (although the hardware can!), making it hard to navigate the Web: you can’t zoom on a page for example;
Applications randomly crashes;
Cryptic system messages like the “Force Close” error message when applications crashes. Would you say that to a human? The G1 is a phone designed by geeks for geeks. Not for humans!
Low battery life. With Twitter, Facebook, NewsRob (Google Reader) installed the battery lasts about half a day before I need to charge the phone. That’s a showstopper don’t you think?
SMS messages and emails are in different applications. I was used to receiving both in the Blackberry’s mail application. How nice it was!
The phone plastic feels cheap, fragile and the camera button is nearly inaccessible when the keyboard is open.
Finally, the back of the phone gets really hot when use for 10 minutes or more;
And T-Mobile, where’s my Android 1.5 update? I’m still at 1.0!
So what’s the alternative for me?
Of course I could go back to the Blackberry Curve, but my goal with the G1 was to access the potentially thousands of applications and do more with my phone, and the Blackberry AppWorld store just don’t look that appealing.
Why not the iPhone? Because I need a keyboard.
So? I’m considering a Palm Pre (nice keyboard), even though it means moving to Sprint, or perhaps one of the Motorola’s Android phones, that are not expected before Fall!
Otterbox's Defender plastic case is surrounded by a silicone membrane that covers all the phone's ports
I’ve been using for several weeks already Otterbox‘s Defender case for my Blackberry Curve.
Putting the screen shield – that wrkinles a bit on screen – and the plastic case, which was hard to clip together, were the hardest part of the setup. After that, putting the silicone membrane around it was a no brainer.
Now my phone is bulky – about twice its original thickness – but matches my scuba diving gears with its yellow plastic case (also exists in black) and black silicone, and is finally protected.
Protected but not waterproof!
“It does look like swimming equipment but keep in mind this case is not waterproof!,”reminds Kristin Golliher, spokesperson for the Fort Collins, Colorado-company.
As for the screen, you can smooth it out with a credit card, adds Golliher. There may be a few air bubbles but generally when the screen is on, they can’t be seen.
Personally I still can see it. So in that regards, it’s not yet perfect.
For testing purposes, I dropped my phone a couple times on a wooden hard floor and it still works!
And despite being fully covered with silicone, my Blackberry is still fully usable: trackball, keyboard, camera, access to the USB port for Sync and charge and the earphone jack right through the case!
Overall this nicely design $50 protection case will fit more the “sporty” kind of people.
MotherApp creates native mobile phone applications from Web sites
Looking for a recession proof business? Try mobile applications, and more specifically for the Apple iPhone.
In just a little more than 9 months, Apple will serve the one-billionth iPhone application from its App Store.
A gold rush that left many companies on the starting blocks, incapable of building their own application, either because of a lack of expertise in Objective-C – the computer language used to develop iPhone applications – or of available iPhone developers.
The Hong-Kong base 7-people startup offers a an automated service that will take any Web application and turn it into a native app for the iPhone, Google Android and/or Windows Mobile devices.
Support for the Blackberry is coming in July and in September for Symbian/Nokia.
All you need is a web site to build a iPhone app!
“MotherApp is a kind of compiler and it’s a 2 step process. First you develop a Web site using our HTML standard that includes some proprietary extensions to access the mobile phones special hardware, like the GPS radio or the camera. Then send us a link to the Web site and a day or two later, we send back the native application for any or all of the supported mobile platforms,” explains Ken Law, one of the three co-founders and an ex-Googler (pre-IPO) that I first met earlier this month at the Web 2.0 Expo conference.
A MotherApp application costs $1,000 per mobile platform.
The biggest stumbling block in MotherApp service is that customers have not access to the native mobile application source code. “But they can modify it as much as they want for 6-months for free and we are thinking of a business model where companies would pay a $99 a month subscription for example which will let them change their applications as much a they want,” responds Ken.
The other limitation of MotherApp’s technology is the kind of applications that MotherApp can actually “compile.”
“We are focused on client-server applications, like the Facebook, Youtube or LinkedIn apps. And they can be pretty complex like OpenRice, the Yelp of Hong-Kong. But we can not handle “fancy” applications like video games,” confides Law.
Although MotherApp raised an Angel round from Googlers, the startup is mostly self-funded by the 4 wealthy ex-Googlers co-founders and is already profitable.
The company is looking to expand in Silicon Valley, seeking to partner with Web developers with expertise in developing Web sites and gadgets/widgets and looking to offer mobile apps as well, and Web 2.0 companies wanting to turn their web site into native mobile applications.
For Law, MotherApp’s main competitor is open source development tool PhoneGap.
“The PhoneGap is embedding a browser inside the native application. So instead of learning Objective-C, you can use Web standards like AJAX and CSS. But it’s not a true iPhone app and you can not use the camera or access the device’s file-system for example,” warns Law.
Here’s a video excerpt of my conversation with Law in a Mountain View, Calif.-cafe:
Dell's aspiration to enter the smartphone business might be short lived
Entering the highly competitive mobile handset market with a poorly conceived product and little carriers support surely spells trouble for Dell, told Collin Stewarts analyst Ashok Kumar in a note to clients today.
“Dell plans to enter the smart handset market in a unique manner, by launching its products directly to the retailer… Dell committed itself to the handset business with a poorly planned feature set and cost targets,” wrote Kumar.
Although Dell is a newbie in the mobile phone space, the head of its consumer business – Ron Garriques – is no less than the former chief of Motorola’s handset division.
And talking to Garriques on a visit last year at Dell’s corporate headquarters in Austin, Texas, the ex-Motorola executive is focused on not repeating the mistakes done under his watch at Motorola.
But will consumers buy a product that carriers think is not good enough, asks Kumar. “The early verdict appears to indicate that Dell’s handset is more like a “me too” product with a cost structure that offers little advantage over established players like Apple, Nokia and RIM,” suggests the analyst.
On a related news, Dell is reported to launch its smartphone in China, rather sooner than later. What may be a flop in the U.S., may find a public in China, where Dell enjoys a good reputation.
Of course, time will tell. But if H-P was unsuccessful attracting carriers and customers (even its own employees!) to its Windows Mobile phones, its hard to imagine Dell having better luck to crack the world’s mobile market.
Openmoko is not a cell phone, it's a development platform
The maker of the world’s first totally open mobile phone has a long way to go before it can compete with Apple, RIM or Nokia.
At a special session during the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) today in San Jose, Calif., Openmoko CEO Sean Moss-Pultz discussed how developers could use its FreeRunner to create mobile products.
The device is targeted at developers – not consumers – who then can totally change everything, from its physical aspect and hardware components to the operating system, installing Google Android or Debian Linux, for example.
The ultimate open source smartphone: Openmoko+Google Android
“If you want to write applications, buy an iPhone. But if you want to transform the way the physical product looks, then buy a FreeRunner,” said Moss-Pultz. “I don’t think Apple will let you resell their products with a different operator, with a different market, with a different software stack. But we can.”
Moss-Pultz also argued that at $299 (the show’s special for 30 days), the FreeRunner is unbelievably cheap. “It has all the things you will find on a $3,000 development board [...] You have all the major RF components you want to do real development.”
Openmoko doesn’t do 3G because of “monstrous patents issues”
“The moment we try to do a design with 3G, the cost of this device goes up by $200. And then you have serious issues with documentation, etc.
So we decided that for the first version – to get this concept out there – the free networks like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth were more important for development early on than 3G.
Our stand on 3G is that it is something that at some point we will make. But really, we use this device first to see what markets are interesting out there. And then based on those markets, someone will come back to us and say “I want to place an order for 50,000 of these things with 3G.” And we’ll make it.
That would be for a specific project that they would not care about the openness of the mobile part.”
Here’s a video excerpt of Moss-Pultz presentation at ESC’09:
Can anyone @IBM fix the WiFi network at #IOD11 ? It's been terrible for the past 2 days and everybody I talked just can't stand it anymore 7 months ago
Posted by TechPulse 360 
Over the weekend, I finally made the switch from my “old” Blackberry Curve to the Google G1. And what a disappointment it was.
