February 5, 2012

The iPhone 3G Coming to Canada

Mark July 11th on your calendar. The iPhone is coming to Canada and 22 initial countries on its roll out to more than 70 countries worldwide. Rogers in Canada will require a 3 year commitment but pricing will be the same as the US: $199 for the 8GB version and $299 for the 16GB version. Data and voice plans will be announced at a future date. The full press release is listed below. As expected, along with the new iPhone supporting 3G technology, Apple announced a number of products at WWDC including the replacement of .Mac with MobileMe and further clarified features in iPhone OS 2.0 and iPhone SDK. Apple  Here are some notes of interest around the new iPhone: no longer includes Dock. includes USB Power Adapter supports HSPA (High speed packet access), technically 3.5G technology not available through the Online Apple Store activation in-store only requires iTunes 7.7 (not yet released) continues to feature 2.0MP camera A-GPS technologies Enterprise support significantly … [Read more...]

A New Era in Mobile

The BlackBerry Thunder

A new era in the mobile world is expected to begin on Monday with news from Apple of the next version of the iPhone. The importance of this cannot be underscored enough. On the heels of the iPhone announcement, BlackBerry is poised to release the oft rumored BlackBerry Thunder - their first release of a full-faced touch screen smart phone. Both devices are expected to accelerate increasing web traffic from mobile devices. They are also expected to operate on the faster 3G networks. The guys over at CellFanatic.com have posted a mockup of the Thunder along with initial specs: hybrid CDMA EVDO Rev C, GSM HSPA for international traveling Full Touch Screen 4 Simple Keys: send, end, menu, and back Hybrid device supporting many carrier technologies Available exclusively on Verizon Wireless in the United States Available exclusively on Vodafone in Europe Tentative Model Number is BlackBerry 9500 Enter the next iPhone. The second version of the iPhone would have the following … [Read more...]

Google’s Android Mobile Platform

A new player will be entering the mobile market space to help other phone manufacturers compete with Apple and BlackBerry. Google's mobile platform, called Android, is building upon some of the strength's of Apple's iPhone. Some features such as the 'slide to unlock' capabilities have been copied and enhanced allowing users to unlock their screen using a preset pattern as opposed to a left-to-right swipe. More significantly, it appears Google is establishing its' own Application Store modeled after Apple's imminent release of their own iPhone App store. The concept is that people can go to a secure, trusted place to download and install software for their phone. Some software will be free while others will cost users to download. The Apple model provides 70% of proceeds to go directly to the developer while 30% covers the hosting, purchasing, marketing and download bandwidth costs that Apple will incur. Google is expected to adopt a similar cost structure. Google's Android operating … [Read more...]

Mobile Subscriber Usage – US & Europe

Mobile Subscribers from Major Cell Markets. Source: M:Metrics

For those trying to determine whether to plan for mobile technologies, M:Metrics has come out with some interesting stats on mobile subscribers in the US and major European markets. With rapid adoption in the next two years of converged devices such as the BlackBerry Thunder and the Apple iPhone, growth in Internet usage (social network sites, news, sports, weather, media access, and applications such as productivity and game downloads) is expected to increase dramatically. If you haven't considered planning for a mobile version of your website, it should start showing up on your radar. To build on a recent post, mobile subscriber growth is increasing faster than Internet access over the last 5 years and is cheaper to roll-out than building fixed Internet connectivity such as cable or adsl. Marketing initiatives will also be increasing for mobile technologies and will be introduced in mobile video, sms messaging, mail (such as mobile Gmail), instant messengers, social network sites and … [Read more...]