Massive Mobile Post
I was just going through my mobile news this evening and there's a ton to note. There's so much that on other days like this, I just gave up and didn't blog anything. But tonight, I'll just go for the grand slam and throw it all here.
First, Daniel Scuka is back from Japan and thinks Europe has almost caught up in many ways to Japan where he spent the last few years. (He's the guy from Wireless Watch Japan). Almost, but not quite. It's an interesting read and goes into much of what's going on in Japan in terms of mobile tech.
Here's an interesting interview with UIQ's CEO Johan Sandberg. Even though we all know that Series 60 is the much more popular UI for Symbian devices, it's a bit odd to see the head of UIQ resigned to this fate! (Or he could be being sly and lowering expectations... you never know). It seems to me that being a part of Symbian, they could - and should - come up with an alternative to Series 60 for those manufacturers who may have reservations about licensing the tech from Nokia. The insane thing is that they expect the quarter VGA to be the big winner, but at sizes of 2.4/6.1cm. Wow... do magnifying glasses come with those phones as well? Anyways, I could write a whole post on this article examining everything he said about UIQ and the P800. Go read it.
Moving on... This was announced last week, but here's a decent analysis of the news that Electronic Arts will be publishing for the N-Gage. This is pretty amazing. EA is the "king maker" it says in the article (I sorta knew that already) and many attribute its lack of support for the Sega Dreamcast as a principal reason for its failure. For EA to put their support behind the N-Gage is a serious coup for Nokia. At the bottom of the article as well, there's an interesting bit about how Nokia is not promising or expecting subsidies for the N-Gage by the carriers. That's very interesting indeed as that's the model that serves them so well with their other phones. But they don't want to set expectations of a $99 N-Gage that doesn't actually arrive. I was on the fence before, but after this article I've decided that I'm a believer in the N-Gage now. It'll be a hot product.
There are *so* many Java games being announced. Check out Midlet-Review's front page and you'll be blown away by how many companies are publishing new titles. What I find interesting is many are starting to provide their games online as well. For example, this is Macrospace's download guide. It's very interesting... though I'm 100% positive that online sales of J2ME games will pale in comparision to the quick-buy OTA sales from carriers, it's still an interesting development. ANYBODY can set up an online shop nowadays in minutes... But man. That's just more competition. These games are already priced low, that'll just put more pressure on publishers. I'll say it again, how many thousands of Java games do you have to sell to pay just 1 full-time developer? Think about it.
Here's a LexisNexis overview of the latest mobile sales reports. Wow. They're on track to sell 450 million new phones this year. Mindboggling. And Nokia recently said it wants another billion mobile users, and this report says it'll happen by 2007. But that report also predicts that by that time UMTS will *still* not have grabbed hold of the European markets. Oh well, another day another report. Remember when 3G was supposed to be widespread by 2002?
My fascination with CDMA continues. Here's a review of the Samsung SPH-i500 Palm OS Smartphone which has high-speed internet connections via Sprint PCS Vision ("Sprint's name for their high speed 1xRTT data network capable of speeds up to 144k and averaging about 60 - 70k these days in metro areas.") I had no idea this existed (both the network and the phone). That's pretty cool, now where's PalmOne's answer to that phone?!? And via Alan Reiter, an article about using Sprint's CDMA1xRTT data service as a home network. Wow. It's not even 3G yet, but these services are already starting to offer alternatives to landlines. Interesting as hell. I've got to learn a bit more about what CDMA offerings there are in the U.S. and at what levels. Right now I only understand the GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS speed curve and not any of the CDMA stuff.
Another report: Wireless Remote Access Usage for Business on the Rise. With this fun quote: "Usage of wireless hotspot services is nowhere near as great as that of wireless WAN data services." Yeah, I can see that, Execs love their Blackberries.
I think I've just about decided that There are too many fucking new phones to keep track of.
Frank pointed out to us the other day a site where you could buy a Nokia 6600 now, and not have to wait until the end of the year. But the catch was that it cost 1000€! We're broke, but I was seriously tempted. It's a good thing I didn't, Here's a great All About Symbian thread which has pics from someone who did spring for the phone only to find out that it was a prototype, not supposed to be for sale and didn't work very well. Damn! :-)
By the way, Nokia 3650 Wallpaper sizes are 174 x 132. After I ran across that, I made the above image for my phone. :-)
Over and out.
-Russ