by Cortney Zamm, Jul 19 2010 // 11:00 AM
During Apple’s recent iPhone 4 press conference, they made some pretty hefty claims about other smartphones having similar problems as the iPhone 4, including devices manufactured by HTC, Blackberry, and Nokia. Devices that they singled out, such as the HTC Droid Eris and HTC Nexus One, supposedly have their own history of reception problems.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who heard this and went “Huh?”, as I have had no reception issues with my recently purchased HTC Droid Incredible, because HTC has started fighting back with numbers of their own.
While only 0.55 percent of calls received by Applecare are about the iPhone 4′s reception issues, HTC’s numbers were at a measily 0.016 percent of calls about the HTC Droid Eris. Though the phone was recently discontinued, it has been out far longer with fewer complaints than Apple claims to have received.
Regardless, any issues that the iPhone 4 has cannot be compared to phones like the HTC Eris, as its antenna is located on the top of the phone while most new smartphones have them on the bottom.
Nokia and RIM have both commented on the situation on their own, but Nokia stressed that reception interference due to human hands was a problem across the smartphone market and wasn’t limited to just Apple and the iPhone 4. Regardless of what phones have this problem, it’s unfair for Apple to just say “It’s ok that our phone has a reception problem, because these phones do too”, without first looking at the numbers.
Posted in: Apple · Software · Tech
Tagged: Business, HTC, HTC Droid Eris, HTC Incredible, iOS4, iPhone, iPhone 4, iPhone 4 Antenna Issues, Nokia, RIM
by Erik Jensen, Jul 12 2010 // 10:00 AM
A new report from comScore on U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share reveals some interesting statistics for both domestic cell- and smart-phone users. For fans of Google’s open-source Android Platform, the good news is that Android is continuing to grab ever-larger shares of the U.S. smartphone market. With the sheer number of outrageously great Android-based smartphones being released in 2010, it makes sense that devices based on Google’s OS would jump a healthy 4.0% over the previous period.
Over 234 million Americans age 13 and older are currently using mobile devices and comScore’s report ranked mobile equipment manufacturers (OEMs), smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the U.S. according to their share of current mobile subscribers, and finally mobile content usage (how mobile device owners used their devices).
In terms of top manufacturers of mobile devices, manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 22.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up one percentage point from the preceding three month period. LG ranked second with 21.5 percent share, followed by Motorola (21.2 percent share), RIM (8.7 percent share, up 0.5 percentage point) and Nokia (8.1 percent share).
Of all mobile device users, 49.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May, up 8.1 percent from the corresponding February period. RIM, with their business-friendly Blackberry phones was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 41.7 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.4 percent share and Microsoft with 13.2 percent.
Google saw significant growth during the period, up 4.0 percentage points to capture 13.0 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Palm rounded out the top five with 4.8 percent. Despite losing share to Google Android, most smartphone platforms continue to gain subscribers as the smartphone market overall continues to grow.
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Posted in: Gear · Geek · Google · News · Tech
Tagged: Android, Blackberry, comShare, DROID, Droid X, Froyo, Gear, Google, Hardware, HTC Incredible, LG, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Smartphones, Tech, Verizon, Verizon Wireless
by Joe Gillis, Oct 22 2009 // 2:00 PM
Today, French telecom giant Nokia filed suit in U.S. District Court against Apple alleging copyright infringement on 10 of its technology patents. The company says the patents “relate to technologies fundamental to making devices,” that are compatible with GSM, UMTS, or 3G WCDMA, and wireless LAN technologies.
The claims involve wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption technologies. Nokia says Apple has been in violation of these patents since the iPhone launched in 2007. Additionally, Nokia says it has invested more than $60 Billion in research and development, but says Apple has not agreed to appropriate licensing terms for these technologies.
Nokia, which recently posted a loss of $836 Million, parhaps sees Apple as a worthy target, especially in light of Apple’s recently reported 7% increase in iPhone sales. I’m not saying that Nokia is suing Apple simply for economic reasons, but seeing as one company is going down while another is going up, the timing sure is interesting.
No matter what the relative merits of Nokia’s suit are, sit back and settle in for many long years of litigation. Apple is not a company that goes quietly and if they expect to get a dime out of Cupertino, Nokia had better be prepared to fight.
Posted in: Apple · Gear · News · Tech
Tagged: GSM, iPhone, iPhone 3GS, Lawsuits, Nokia, Patents, Wireless