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44 billion mobile app downloads by 2016: ABI Research

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A new study from ABI Research reveals that the worldwide application industry is well on its way to achieve 44 billion cumulative downloads by 2016.

“Given the vast number of choices available, developers and app stores need to innovate continually in order to maintain consumers’ interest,” said ABI research analyst Fei Feng Seet.

He added, “For example, an app called OfferedApp promises to provide a paid app each day in exchange for users completing a simple survey or signing up for an offer with advertisers. Some apps also offer virtual currency or other premiums to consumers who download a featured app from the developer. However these new marketing tactics are likely to face opposition as iTunes starts to clamp down on such incentivised promotions when they cut into Apple’s revenue from in-app sales.”

The iTunes is also rumoured to have made modifications to its App Store ranking algorithm. The new ranking system takes into account qualitative information such as reviews, on top of download statistics.

According to practice director Neil Strother of ABI research, “App store browsing on devices has been an issue with users, who can face difficulty finding an app of interest. Having many ‘misleading’ apps hogging the top charts for a week at a time does not help either, so this could not be a better time for Apple to reform its app ecosystem in an environment where competition and consumers’ heightened expectations are increasing the pressure.”

Applications business is a fairly new one, and a phenomenon which has taken everyone by surprise due to the tremendous growth it has seen in last couple of years. So the business models have not yet fully evolved, and therefore chances of companies loosing track is high.
What will be required is continuous effort from the entire eco-system to keep tweaking business models, user interface and type of apps based on the changing user preference and keep experimenting to discover this preference.

Google bids for Modu mobile’s patents

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Modu, which made world’s smallest phones, has filed for bankruptcy. Google has now shown interest in these companies’ concepts and has bid to buy patents that Modu holds.

According to a report published in Cellular-news.com, Google has made a bid of USD $2 million to buy up the patent portfolio held by the failed Israeli phone manufacturer, Modu.

Google submitted the offer to the Tel Aviv District Court, which is handling Modu’s liquidation. Google’s bid is higher than Kensington Technology Corporation, which filled a bid in late March.

Google has been stepping up its efforts to buy wireless telecoms patents as a defensive move against being sued over the smartphone platform, and although a tiny amount compared to the USD $900 million bid for a block of Nortel patents, the portfolio comprises over 100 patents.

Although the concept of Modu and Google’s Android based operating systems are as different as chalk and cheese, the concept seems to have attracted Google as it could be a perfect platform to target lower end of the device market.

The patents are the key assets held by the bankrupt handset manufacturer. It had attempted to develop a modular based phone, which while garnering widespread admiration, was never successfully commercialised.

It was even launched in India through a partnership with Micromax, though we do not have the numbers sold in India, the phone seems to have failed to take off in India.

Handygo launches city specific information service

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To provide city specific news and information to its users, Handygo Technologies has announced Zing services in partnership with Buzz in Town, which offers city specific information.

The Zing services provide the users updates about their city on daily basis through SMSes. Users won’t be required to download and install any specific application for accessing this service. Subscribers, apart from just receiving information, can also be a part of the Zing club where they will be able to share information using the Zing platform.

“Zing is our latest offering for young India which constitutes more than 45 per cent of the population. In order to provide credible and up-to-the-minute information to the subscribers, we have tied-up with India’s biggest entertainment based information portal Buzzintown. Zing is a very powerful service as it works on a push based model and a chance of missing any city specific development for a subscriber is negligible,” said Praveen Rajpal, chief executive officer, Handygo Technologies

As of now the SMS based service will only carry information about the various thing happening around the city, but in the near future Handygo plans to make it big.

Handygo has plan to get in to tie up with popular discount services like Snapdeal, Khojguru and others for offering exclusive deals and offers to its customers on mobile. Along with that Handygo also plans to offer mobile purchase facility for these deals and discounts through payment tie up with CellPAY.

Micromax to launch A70 in May

Sandeep Budki
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Continuing with its strategy of offering affordable handsets, Indian handset maker Micromax will launch an 2.2 based dual camera handset A70, a successor to A60, in May.

“A70 will be launched in the third week of May and it will be priced at around Rs 9,000,” said sources familiar with the development in Micromax to The Mobile Indian.

In the Android based dual camera category, Micromax A70 will be the cheapest handset in the market after Samsung Galaxy S i9003 which is priced at Rs 19,000.

Micromax A70 will feature a 3.2 inch TFT capacitive display, a 5 rear camera, a VGA front camera and a 1450 battery.

Our sources further said that Mircomax, even after launching A70, will continue with production of A60 as it runs on Android 2.1, doesn’t have dual camera and comes at a different price point.

Micromax joined the Android handset bandwagon some time back with the launch of A60 priced at about Rs 7,000. As of now, Micromax A60 is one of the most affordable Android handsets available in the market.

Mobile calls might get cheaper if TRAI has its way

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In a move that could see your mobile bills drop further, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has started a consultation process to review the interconnection charges.
Interconnection Usage Charges are the wholesale charges payable by one telecom service provider to another for use of the latter’s network for originating, terminating or transiting or carrying a call.

Currently this charge accounts for almost 75 per cent cost of the calls, any reduction in this charge will reduce call rates substantially.

Though Interconnection Usage Charges are not directly related to retail tariff, but they play a major role in determining the tariffs offered by the service providers.

While the new operators will welcome any reduction in these charges, older operators who have a wider network and larger customer base will not like to see such a move as it will dent their revenue as they are net gainers in the current regime.

TRAI has already acknowledged the complaints of smaller and new operators that incumbents gained most from termination charges and has sought the industry’s response through this consultation process.

Some of the operators have demanded termination charges to be scrapped, however that seems to be unlikely as already the industry is struggling due to rock bottom call rates.

The industry is already divided on lot many issues and this new initiative might open a new war front amongst the warring factions of the industry.
The country’s No 1 mobile operator, Bharti Airtel recently told TRAI that the costs of building and operating networks should be taken into account when determining termination charges and cautioned against extending “undue privileges or subsidisation” to new operators.

The Association of Unified Service Providers of India, an industry body representing firms such as Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, has urged TRAI to cut all components of interconnect charges right away.
Internationally too these charges are reviewed every two years and had fallen by 50 per cent during this period, it said.

Even though the consultation processes has started it is unlikely that there will be a decision anytime soon as the industry is currently undergoing a shaky phase with investigation underway about the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

Microsoft adapting to the changed face of computing

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Microsoft is still the largest software company in the world, yet when it comes to the mobile operating systems it lags far behind the market leaders such as Apple’s and Google’s Android.

Microsoft hopes to reverse its position with the new Windows 8 which will be able to run everything right from phones to servers.

Microsoft is seeing a peculiar situation off late. While personal computers have been witnessing a downward trend, sales of tablet PCs and smartphones are going up. But most of the Windows 7 sales reported by Microsoft are replacements and not new sales. At the end of 2010, Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft just had 4.7 per cent market share, says a report from Gartner.

But Windows 8 also poses a risk for Microsoft as it has to embrace the mobile platform while retaining the existing desktop and laptop users. The company hasn’t attempted a similar feat with one product before.

The Windows 8 version given to hardware manufacturers for testing looks similar to Snow Leopard OS. Windows 8 will likely have the ability to synchronise data between a mobile device and cloud apart from the push notifications feature. The PDF reader may come inbuilt with it, and some user interface elements perhaps have been taken from Windows Phone 7 also.

The Task Manager is likely to be reconfigured and renamed as Modern Windows Task Manager. The Task Manager and Resource Monitor have been combined to create this new task manager. The kill buttons are likely to be tap friendly so users can easily kill tasks using this task manager on the tablets also.

The is simple and full screen, just like the Metro browser used in Windows Phone 7. Any USB drive of 16 and more will be able to store a portable image of the operating system in it so the users can carry their work space along with them.
If these features make it to the end product, it appears Windows 8 will end up to be a significant upgrade over the current operating system.

Android has more free apps than any iOS platform

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Android operating system has now more number of free applications than Apple’s Store. The No 1 operating system now has 134,342 free applications, while the Apple App Store iPhone has 121,845 free applications, says analytics firm Distimo.

However, Apple still has more number of applications when paid apps are taken into consideration.

Distimo also says in its website, “If all application stores maintain their current growth pace, approximately five months from now Google Market will be the largest store in terms of number of applications followed by the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad, Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, BlackBerry App World and Nokia Ovi Store.”

There are 14 app categories in Apple App Store whereas Android has 26. In the world of mobile operating system warfare, nothing carries as much weight as the number of apps in an app store does and surely Android is surging forward.

This is an exciting news for budget conscious smartphone buyers as they are more likely to tilt towards an operating system which offers more free applications.

Nokia not in a hurry to launch a tablet

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Nokia is not in a hurry to launch a competitor for the Apple’s iPad in near future, its chief executive officer Stephen Elop has indicated this in an interview with YLE TV of Finland.

He noted that there were close to 200 tablets already in the market and only one product was doing really well and that Nokia didn’t want to be just one more entrant into the tablet market.

At a time when the Nokia profits are declining gradually, its engineers are working really hard to come up with a product which would stand out in a crowded market. Nokia has also announced that it would reduce 4,000 jobs and the Symbian workers would be transferred to Accenture.

Nokia is still the largest handset maker in the world. The company is also weighing its options whether it should go for a Windows tablet or a MeeGo one. Some time ago, Nokia entered into an alliance with Microsoft to work together on mobile devices.

A good quality tablet operating system would greatly help Nokia in its quest to create a tablet that may take on iPad. It’s not that there were no tablets before the iPad, but it was Apple which first came out with a tablet that became an instant hit among the users. Apple understands the subtle things about the users that is catching up with.

The Nokia engineers have the backing of Stephen Elop to take their time to come up with a good product. The company looks to excel in all the three market segments of tablet including hardware, software and ecosystem. It believes it needs to sell huge quantities of tablets unlike the other rivals of iPad who are selling small quantities here and there.

The only doubtful area for Nokia is the presence of the right operating system for a tablet. It’s clear that Nokia would concentrate on launching a well timed strike on the giant and if that happens to be a dual strike with Microsoft, it would be better. Till the time comes, it’s preparation time for the Nokia engineers.

Samsung Nexus S gets support for video calling over Gtalk

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Google 2.3 Gingerbread has got its first official upgrade that brings in native support for video calling over Gtalk. So now no more third party applications will be required for video calling on Android 2.3 devices.

The first batch of Android 2.3.4, which can be manually updated, is available exclusively for Samsung Nexus S devices world over including India. In the UK and the USA it is available over the air, which means that the service providers will upgrade the automatically.

However, there is no news on when this video calling functionality will come to earlier Android 2.1 and 2.2 based devices.

After the update, users can do video chat with all the people on their chat list provided they too have an Android 2.3 Gingerbread device with the 2.3.4 update installed.

To manually install, first click here to download the update from the Android website.

Then connect your Nexus S to your computer via and select Mass Storage mode form the screen prompt. Copy the downloaded the file to the root of your phone’s USB storage.
Then turn off the phone. Hold the volume up button and then press the power button to power on the phone in bootloader mode. Use the volume buttons to move up and down, highlight “Recovery” and select it by clicking the power button.

The phone will have to restart again. You’ll see another icon on the screen that has a triangle and an exclamation mark in it. Once again, hold the power button and then press volume up to bring up another list of options. Pick “Apply update from Card” and hit the power button again to select it. If the installation went okay, it will prompt you that the patch was applied.

Parenting guide app on Android launched

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Parenting Magazine has launched the Parenting Ages and Stages on platform, which aims to guide young parents through the early years of parenting.
The app was launched on last June and became the No 2 free lifestyle app in the Apple App Store.

It’s broken down into five categories &#151 pregnancy, first year, second year, the early years and school years. You can customise the app with the name, age and pictures of your children for a more personal experience in learning about your kid.

Apart from the successful features of the iOS version, the Android app has some added features such as the push notifications to alert users of product recalls and updated blog content.

The Android app is ad supported and can be downloaded for free from here. The app has been a phenomenal success in its iOS version not just with parents but also for the advertisers who want to reach them.

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