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Reliance 3G in 140 cities by March

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Reliance Communication (RCom) will launch services in 140 cities across the 13 circles it has 3G licences for, by March 31.

A spokesperson for RCom said, “In the first phase we are targeting to reach people in 140 cities with our 3G services by March.” However, he did not elaborate on the company’s plans for the second phase.

RCom has spectrum rights in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, the North East, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa and Assam. It has already launched services in more than ten cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Patiala, Bathinda, Ludhiana, and Srinagar.

Another operator, Aircel, which launched its 3G services on Wednesday, also plans to cover an equal number of cities in 13 circles by the end of March.

The service providers’ plans indicate that 3G services will reach even tier two cities faster than expected.

Tata Docomo, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, BSNL, MTNL, and S Tel are other service providers who have 3G spectrum rights. Of these, only S Tel and Vodafone are yet to launch services. BSNL, which got 3G spectrum licences one year prior to private operators, has already rolled out services in 700 cities and has announced that it will cover 760 cities by March 31.

Is a touchscreen phone your next buy?

Sandeep Budki
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India has around nine million smartphone users out of a total of 530 million mobile subscribers, and if you are planning to join the league of smartphone users there’s a good chance that your new smartphone will have a touchscreen. While planning to buy a touchscreen phone, though, you will come across terms such as capacitive or resistive in the spec sheet of the phone, which might get you confused and may derail your plan to buy a smartphone altogether.

Resistive and capacitive are two types of touchscreen technologies used in smartphones. The experience of using each is quite different, so we suggest you understand the basics of both before troubling your wallet.

Resistive vs capacitive

The basic difference between resistive and capacitive technologies is the way they respond to the touch of your finger or stylus.

Resistive touchscreens are made of several layers, the topmost of which flexes under your finger or stylus, and is pushed back to touch a layer behind it. This completes a circuit, telling the phone which part of the screen is being pressed.

Capacitive touchscreens don’t rely on pressure, and instead use electrodes to sense the conductive properties of your finger. So, they don’t rely on having an object pressing particularly hard on their surface, but react only to touch of your finger.

User experience

The type of touchscreen can easily be recognised by the user.

Capacitive screens don’t require the user to press hard to initiate an action; a light swipe across the screen usually produces the desired action, such as scrolling through contact lists or photos etc, zooming in and out of web pages and maps, and typing e mails and text messages.

Capacitive technology also often supports multi touch so that it can detect more than one finger at once. This can be used for advanced gestures such as pinch to zoom, as on an iPhone or devices.

In contrast to capacitive touch, a vast majority of resistive touchscreen phones won’t normally react at all to a very light swipe — the user has to exert some pressure to initiate action.

While it may sound as if capacitive touch is the best choice, that’s not entirely correct. Resistive offers more potential for accuracy when used with a stylus, while capacitive touchscreens can only be touched with a finger. They don’t respond to touches with a regular stylus, gloves or other objects.

Which touchscreen technology is better?

The general consensus among smartphone users is that a capacitive touchscreen is the way to go, but one thing that needs to be kept in mind is that capacitive screens, being made of glass, are more susceptible to damage by sharp objects such as coins, keys, scissors, tweezers, pens and so on, which invariably give your cell phone company in handbags and pockets. In the case of a resistive touchscreen, on the other hand, you can buy skin guards, which won’t be as responsive, but will work. The same solution can’t be employed on capacitive screens, on which tolerance is so low that any sort of barrier will prevent operation.

Touchscreen smartphones

Among the best capacitive touchscreen phones in the market are Apple’s iPhone or 3GS, HTC Desire, HTC Wildlife, Motorola Milestone, Huawei Ideos and Samsung Galaxy. Barring Apple’s devices, which run on iOS, the others use Android operating systems.

For a resistive touchscreen from the Android family, you could consider Micromax A60, Dell XCD28 and Samsung Galaxy POP.

In you are looking for a touchscreen phone which will work on Symbian you can have a look at Samsung Omnia and Nokia N8, both of which have capacitive touchscreens, and if want a resistive screen, you could get either Nokia N97 or Nokia 5800 Express Music.

Alternatively, you can explore phones as well. Samsung Jet, LG KS360 and LG Cookie are good resistive touchscreen devices; and LG Crystal, LG Viewty Smart and Samsung Corby are among the better capacitive screen devices running operating systems owned by their respective producers.

Six new LG smartphones in India by June

The Mobile Indian Network
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With the increasing popularity of smartphones, LG Electronics India has now decided to focus its attention on smartphones. The company, as per reports, will launch six new smartphones in the range of Rs 9,000 and Rs 32,000 this year.

“LG is planning to launch six new models by the end of this June. Currently, the portion of the smartphone market is very low, but there is phenomenal growth in this market and manufacturers are very aggressive in the year 2011,” Vishal Chopra, business head of mobile communications at LG India was quoted as saying, by an Indian daily.

The brands to be launched are Optimus Me, Optimus 2X, Optimus 7, Optimus Black, Optimus Pad and Optimus Star.

LG is facing stiff competition from other major handsets makes such as Nokia, BlackBerry, Samsung and HTC in India.

Get live cricket updates on Nokia N8 for free

nilabh-jha
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Nokia, in partnership with ESPN, has introduced the ESPN Widget for all N8 users on the Ovi Store for free.

With this widget, cricket enthusiasts will be able to get latest news and updates pushed directly on to the homescreen of their Nokia N8 handsets.

The Nokia N8 ESPN Widget is a stand-alone mini web-based application, which will bring live news feeds, live scores and ball-by-ball text commentary, statistics and expert comments, schedules and standings, points and video clips.

There is no subscription fee for downloading the ESPN Widget on the Ovi Store for N8 . The users need to pay only for the data download charges as part of their operator bill.

Jasmeet Gandhi, head, services and devices, Nokia, said, “The entire nation is abuzz with the cricket World Cup fever and we are happy to be associated with ESPN to reach out to our cricket-loving consumers. The widget will enable cricket lovers to stay on top of their game, providing them with live news feeds, scores, video clips and much more.”

Windows Phone 7 update problem only in Samsung phones

The Mobile Indian Network
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A glitch has been found in the Windows Phone 7 update process, which was started on Monday. The problem, however, is restricted to only some of the Samsung handsets.

Rest of the users can still download the update, only the Samsung users get a message that the update is not available to them.

According to Microsoft, only a small number of phones, mostly the Samsung Omnia owners, have reported problems while updation.

The root of the problem and the damage seemed to be dependent on the version of the update. The newer Samsung Omnia handsets didn’t have any problem whatsoever, the problem apparently lies with the older handsets.
The update process usually goes fine up to the sixth step when the phone gets bricked and asks the users to connect the device to the PC.

New version of Firefox on Android

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Fennec, officially called the Mobile 4 beta 5 version of Firefox, has been released by Mozilla, and is meant for devices running 2.1 or newer editions.

Though the recent version has few feature enhancements over its predecessor, Mozilla claims that Mobile 4 beta 5 starts, loads pages and renders Java Script faster. In future, the company intends to continue focusing on optimising (central processing unit) use.

Firefox 4 beta 5 on Android is smaller than the previous beta version, though it still is 13.5 in size because the Java Script and rendering engines remain separate from those of the default browser’s.

The new promises smooth performance, and even if multiple add ons are used, they won’t affect performance. The other evident improvements include better zoom response and, of course, Firefox Sync, which allows you to carry your web history across devices (most useful when you move from a laptop to a smartphone).

Firefox has shown its magic on desktops. Through its latest attempt, it tried to make Firefox a fun mobile browser. However, the verdict will rest on the thumbs of users.

Only 10 per cent young Indians use smartphones

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Only 10 per cent young Indians use smartphones

Only 10 per cent of Indians aged between 15 to 24 years use smartphones at present, much less than China’s 29 per cent, according to media research firm Nielsen.

Nielsen conducted a survey among mobile phone using youth (aged between 15 to 24 years) in Brazil, Russia, India, Vietnam, Germany, USA, UK, Spain and Italy.

Smartphone penetration in Italy stands at 47 per cent.

The research revealed some interesting points regarding the choices and preferences of Indians when it comes to mobile phones.

According to the study, 15 per cent of young users in India prefer multiple phones. Multiple SIM devices are most common in countries such as Brazil, Russia and China as well because it helps people take advantage of low tariff rates on different networks.

More men use each different type of phone in almost all countries except the USA, where 65 per cent of smartphone users are female.

Interestingly, 15 per cent of young people talk to their parents before deciding which handset to buy.

The research further adds that about 97 per cent of Indian youth are prepaid mobile users; whereas the trend is reversed in countries such as the UK, USA and Germany, where more people opt for post paid mobile services.

A whopping 84 per cent of Chinese youth using mobiles use these devices for accessing the internet; whereas only 13 per cent of Indian youngsters use mobiles for data services.

Aircel launches 3G in Kolkata, Patna and Lucknow

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Aircel has launched services in Kolkata, Patna, and Lucknow, after having already covered Chennai.

Aircel has 3G spectrum in 13 circles — Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kolkata, West Bengal, UP (East), Assam, North-East, Orissa, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Bihar.

The telco is planning to roll out 3G services in 140 cities in these circles by the end of March. It will cover the remaining towns and rural areas in these circles within the next nine months.

Meanwhile, Aircel has launched bundled plans for students, executives, and heavy users for voice, as well as 3G data needs. At a price of Rs 132, Rs 252, Rs 502 and Rs 802 consumers get to use 75 MB, 150 MB, 350 and 1024 MB of data, respectively, per month, with voice and SMS included.

Aircel will provide both prepaid and postpaid 3G products and services. It has set up a specialised 3G data call centre with the ability to serve customers who speak regional languages.

Appitalism launches app store for tablets

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Appitalism has announced a version of its store designed to support tablets.

Earlier, the store has two versions: one for browsing from PCs, and the second version tailored for smartphones.

The firm says the new tablet-friendly version will support the “mid-size” screens of tablets such as Apple’s iPad alongside “tomorrow’s planned tablet devices such as the BlackBerry Playbook, HP Touchpad and Android-powered tablets”.

The store automatically detects a consumer’s device and platform when they enter the store and adjusts accordingly, so they are using the version that is most appropriate to them.

However, consumers do have a choice in the matter. For instance, a tablet user is free to switch to the full website version of the store if they wish by clicking a button at the bottom of the page they are browsing.

Simon Buckingham, the founder of the store, said, “Given the rapid expected growth in sales of tablet devices as well as sales of premium apps built for tablet devices such as enterprise apps, we felt that consumers with tablet devices deserved their own customised Appitalism experience.”

India-centric app store from Aircel

Sandeep Budki
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In August last year when India’s fifth largest GSM service provider Aircel commercially launched its mobile application store PocketApps for its post and prepaid subscribers across India, it ventured into a territory in which other Indian telecom service providers had scant presence.

During that time, the store segment was witnessing action from platform providers such as Apple and Android; and handset manufactures such as Nokia and BlackBerry, and Indian telcos were not excited about apps as they were concentrating more on voice and value added services such as music, Bollywood, cricket and astrology content.

Aircel was the first operator to launch an application store in partnership with Infosys for its subscriber’s across all platforms and handsets. PocketApps was the fourth app store in the country. Nokia launched its Ovi Store in May 2009 and BlackBerry brought its app store to India in November 2009. Before these, Apple’s App Store for iPhone users was already in existence. Bharti Airtel had also launched an app store, but it was only for phones, and was built in collaboration with CanvasM.

Reflecting on Aircel’s initiative, Gurdeep Singh, chief operating officer of the company, says, “When we launched an app store, we wanted to introduce the concept of apps and their utility to our subscribers.”

“Within two months our subscribers will see the new look of our app store, which will have all the apps that an Indian user will desire. It will be a one stop solution for all the app related queries of our customers,” Singh added.

PocketApps charges

Aircel subscribers can download free and paid applications from PocketApps using multiple channels such as GPRS, and SMS.

These applications are available for a wide variety of makes and models of mobile phones unlike many other stores that are locked to a particular platform such as Android and Apple, or to a particular handset brand such as Nokia.

Access to PocketApps is free via Aircel’s Pocket Internet card and for its unlimited plan subscribers, while for other post and prepaid subscribers it is accessible for Rs 7 per week or at Rs 2 for a day.

Aircel customers can download as many free apps as they want, or choose from lots of paid mobile applications, at a nominal price, for which the charges are either debited from prepaid balance or charged to the postpaid bill. There is also a free subscription option that allows the user to access the PocketApps store for three days over a period of one year.

Aircel’s spokesperson did not reveal the number of apps in the store but said that it has something for all segments, be it the youth, housewives, professionals, children, or the elderly.

Application categories

Currently, seven categories of applications are available at PocketApps. These are Everyday Convenience, Education and Career, Finance, Health and Living, Games, Music and Fun, and Social Networking.

Everyday Convenience apps offer services such as bill payments, ticket bookings, local searches and news etc.

Education and Career apps are for students. They are meant to make learning fun and help people plan their career. Apps in this section include MobileMaths, which helps with mathematical calculations; and Shakespeare’s World, which helps improve vocabulary.

Finance and Business apps aid users in taking charge of their portfolio, and apps such as Loan Calculator and Money Manager help them make investments.

Health and Living apps perform the functions of gym instructors and fashion magazines, and help you keep a check on your weight, maintain a workout schedule, and get fashion news. In this section, you can try apps such as The Gymlog and vClinic Mobile Wellness.

The Games section has games with great sound effects and graphics; and Music and Fun apps allow you to create ring tones and share them with friends, and let you take your music collection along. In this section there are apps such as Vringo and Foice.

Socially connected apps allow you to stay in touch with your friends and do a lot on social networking sites such as Facebook.

While surfing PocketApp to download apps, users are informed of the price and size of each app. This information is displayed against applications on the list page. Once you click on the application you wish to download, the size and price of the application can be seen just beside the download button on the detail page.

Apps via SMS

If you don’t have a multimedia phone or one that don’t support GPRS, you can still access PocketApps via SMS.

You can get Aircel PocketApps in three simple steps by sending “APPS” in an to 52777; Aircel will then send a link for you to browse PocketApps under the given categories; and then you can click on a particular app for information on it. You will finally be redirected to the subscription page and after choosing a plan you can download the app.

Also, to know more about an application you want, SMS its name, followed by ‘Help’ to 52777. For example, to know how to use the calculator SMS ‘EMI Help’, or simply ‘EMI’, to 52777.

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