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HTC Acting President Wishes iPhones Were Less Cool
I brought my daughter back to college — she’s down in Portland at Reed — and I talked to a few of the kids on her floor. And none of them has an iPhone because they told me: ‘My dad has an iPhone.’ There’s an interesting thing that’s going on in the market. The iPhone becomes a little less cool than it was.
Did I say "wishes"? My mistake. Here we have a scientific study of a large population by an unbiased source that proves it.
Five Stars, When Nobody Else Could Garner Four
While the competition peaks at "about average", Apple passes "better than most" to be "among the best".
Not sure the word "among" is even necessary.
Ouch! Google document proposes giving Motorola time-to-market advantage for Android devices
Here's the text of the highlighted passage:
Do not develop in the open. Instead, make source code available after innovation is complete
- Lead device concept: Give early access to the software to partners who build and distribute devices to our specification (ie, Motorola and Verizon). They get a non-contractual time to market advantage and in return they align to our standard.
Court papers confirm what most people already knew, but what some OEMs (HTC, LG, etc.) were hoping wasn't true. Google intends to give lead time advantage to some hardware makers over others. Yes, the Motorola purchase wasn't just about patents.
There Is No Plan B.
The chart totals over 100% because respondents were allowed multiple choices. That's too bad because it skews things a bit. Yes, the iPad is stomping everyone, but 94.5% has less meaning when the total comes to nearly 150%.
It's better to look at this one column at a time, where we can determine a device's absolute rejection (not acceptance). For example, we don't know that 3.8% of respondents would buy a RIM PlayBook, because it may have been their second choice, but we do know 96.2% of respondents rejected it outright, since it's not on their list at all.
I think of the beatdown like this: for each iPad competitor (column), 90% or more of respondents rejected it. In other words, nine out of 10 people wouldn't even put it on their list as a second choice. Meanwhile, the iPad is rejected only 5.5% of the time. Put it all together and we know not only that the vast majority of respondents are interested in the iPad, but that for most of them there is no Plan B.
Sprint cancels plans to well RIM's PlayBook
A Sprint spokeswoman added that the decision “has no impact on our relationship with RIM.” The Overland Park, Kan., company noted that competing tablets, such as the Xoom from Motorola Mobility Holding and the EvoView from HTC, had increased competition in the space.
The PlayBook was turned down because the unimpressive Xoom and unimpressive EVO View were considered "increased competition"? Ouch! That's got to leave a mark.
I hope Sprint didn't email RIM the news, they won't get it on their PlayBooks.
Ladies, get in line for Bliss…
Known so far as the Bliss, it would be targeted at women in their 20s and 30s and would have both hardware and software shaped around stereotypes of what women want.
Surely a green "calming color" and calorie-counter app are all it would take to sway women to make this their phone of choice? They don't want to mess with all those "manly" technical details, right?
Ugh! This is a rumor, and seems so ridiculous I hope it's only that. Still, I know what it's like to be the target of stupid gender-specific stereotypes, so anything's possible.
Smartphone OS Upgrades: iPhone's "can" vs. Android's "can't"
TechCrunch's post shows a huge discrepancy of smartphones running the latest versions of Android vs. iOS. The numbers will surprise no one that follows mobile tech, but I believe there's a larger point that doesn't even need a chart to make. What should be discussed is how many phones it's even possible to upgrade. That's the real story.
It's well known (if not well reported) that upgrading an Android device is hit or miss. It could be because of the carrier, or the manufacturer, or a combination of both. One thing's certain: Google has no control over the process for any phones other than their own Nexus-branded models, and there's only two of those.
Recently, Computerworld examined carrier and manufacturer "trust" in terms of upgrading Android phones, and the conclusions are dismal. For manufacturers, HTC took top honors:
50 percent of its Android phones having been bumped to Froyo within 2010. Its average upgrade time is also relatively impressive, at 56 days.
Only half their phones were upgraded, but other manufacturers were worse.
Meanwhile, for carriers Verizon took the crown:
A third of the carrier's qualifying Android phones received Froyo within the software's first six months on the market. On average, it took Big Red 58 days to get those updates delivered.
Only a third of the eligible phones are upgraded, yet it's King among carriers.
If you had an HTC phone on Verizon, you had about a 17% chance (one-third of 50%) of upgrading to Froyo last year. And that was your best shot since other manufacturer/carrier combinations were worse.
For the iPhone things are easier. Put simply, 100% of current and -1 generation phones are eligible for upgrades. Apple has even made upgrades available for -2 generation phones, though some features are not available.
It's not just that these iPhones are eligible, but that the carriers have no involvement in the actual upgrade. Just connect the iPhone to iTunes and let it upgrade. That's it. Further, the upgrades are available on the day a new OS is released, not two months later, which is the best Android's manufacturers/carriers can manage.
The mobile market tends to treat their devices as semi-disposable, so it may be unrealistic to discuss models over two years old, but in Android's case "old" models aren't needed to skew the numbers. There are models only five or six months old seemingly "abandoned". This makes Apple's major upgrade to each generation of iPhone, twice, all the more impressive.
HTC's New Handset Looks a Lot Like Motorola's New Tablet
So little originality.
