27/07/2009 - Behance iPhone App is "Twitter for Actionable Tasks"

INTERVIEW: Scott Belsky, founder and CEO of Behance, tells smartphone.biz-news about his company's Action Method iPhone application - a free and innovative app aimed at increasing users' productivity.
He said that people focus too much on deadlines instead of what matters most - action and delegating.

22/07/2009 - Handset Vendors Eye Russian Smartphone-based Navigation Market

16/07/2009 - Apple Updates iTunes, Ends Pre's iPod Charade

Apple has released an iTunes update that prevents Palm's Pre smartphone from appearing to be an iPod when connected to a Mac or PC.
According to Apple, iTunes 8.2.1 is a free software update that provides a number of important bug fixes.

15/07/2009 - iPhone App Downloads Pass 1.5 Billion

Apple's App Store has hit the 1.5 billion download mark just a few days after celebrating its first anniversary.
iTunes now has more than 65,000 apps available in 77 countries, with over 100,000 developers registered with the iPhone Developer Program.

09/07/2009 - Opt-In Subscriber Database "Crucial" To Mobile Operator Ad Revenues

INTERVIEW: Mobile operators are searching for new and innovative ways to generate revenues beyond service plans.
Julien Oudart, sales and marketing director for French mobile advertising company Sofialys, tells smartphone.biz-news about the opportunities open to carriers from opt-in subscriber databases.

06/07/2009 - iPhone Wine App Points to Potential of Location-based Data

INTERVIEW: Rick Breslin, Principal of Hello Vino, tells smartphone.biz-news how the food pairing and wine suggestion tool came about - and the team's plans for both monetising it and capitalising on location-based data.
The California-based company launched an iPhone app in June but it offers a multi-platform delivery - mobile web, Web and SMS.

02/07/2009 - Standard Smartphone Charger Gets Green Light in Europe

European smartphone users are to get a standardised charger following an agreement between handset manufacturers that control 90 per cent of the region's mobile market.
From next year, new phones will be sold with the charger but will eventually come without one - significantly lowering manufacturing and shipping costs.

02/07/2009 - Innocell Developing Double Capacity Palm Pre Battery

Battery life is a key issue for smartphones - and it's an area where the Palm Pre with its removable battery has some definite advantages over Apple's iPhone.
Not least that Innocell is developing a new battery for the Pre that has twice the capacity of the handset's original.

02/07/2009 - 02 Secures Exclusive UK Rights to Palm Pre

O2 has beaten rival operator Orange to secure the exclusive rights to the Palm Pre when it is released in the UK.
Palm and O2 are expected to make the announcement next week almost a month after the launch of the handset in the US.

26/06/2009 - Palm Targeting Smartphone Growth - Not Apple

Palm's new CEO Jon Rubinstein believes there is sufficient growth in the smartphone market to profitably sustain "three to five players".
He was speaking after announcing "strong and growing" sales of the company's new Pre handset - with download applications now numbering more than 1 million three weeks after it launched.

19/06/2009 - iPhone 3GS Enters Smartphone Wars

Apple has launched its new iPhone 3GS with demand expected to be strong for the handset in the US and seven other initial launch countries.
However, with a smartphone market also offering new handsets from Palm, RIM and Nokia, to name but a few, the landscape has changed considerably since the original iPhone hit the market two years ago.

16/06/2009 - HiT Barcelona: Android Marketplace To Overtake Apple's App Store?

INTERVIEW: Android's Market will be at least as successful as Apple's hugely popular App Store - and could prove even more of a hit.
That's the view of Florian Seiche, vice president of HTC Europe, who believes app downloads for the open-source software platform developed by Google could well emulate Apple's success.

16/06/2009 - RIM Crossing Categories and Borders With Blackberry Tour

RIM is boosting its Blackberry range with a new 3G dual-mode handset aimed at both its core executive users and the wider consumer market.
Candy-bar shaped and with a full keyboard, the Blackberry Tour will launch with Verizon and Sprint in the US and Telus and BCE's Bell unit in Canada.

11/06/2009 - Palm Entrusts Pre Success to New CEO Rubinstein

Palm has appointed Jon Rubinstein, the man credited with delivering Apple's iPod and iMac, as its new CEO and chairman.
He replaces Ed Colligan, who is stepping down after sixteen years leading the company. The executive changes come just a few days after Palm launched its Pre smartphone.

11/06/2009 - Smartphone Ownership Now "Mandatory", Not Techie Toy

Not owning a smartphone today is the social equivalent to not having email a few years ago - at least in the US.
That's the conclusion of a report in the New York Times, which says that having an iPhone, Pre or BlackBerry is pretty much mandatory these days unless you want to ostracise yourself from "society".

11/06/2009 - HiT Barcelona: Can Mobile Operators' New Openness Change Lose-Lose to Win-Win?

INTERVIEW: Mobile network operators traditionally seem to have done their utmost to prevent developers from innovating on the mobile web.
But Michael Crossey, chief marketing officer at Aepona, tells smartphone.biz-news that barriers seem to be tumbling - and the mobile industry is steadily moving towards openness.

08/06/2009 - Palm Pre App Count Builds - Now More Handsets?

Palm must be hoping it can quickly build on estimated opening weekend sales of 60,000 Pre smartphones - not least because Apple has cranked up the pressure with the launch of a new iPhone 3Gs.
While Palm's Saturday launch has largely been judged a success, it was hampered by supply constraints which saw most Sprint Nextel stores get less than 50 phones to sell.

08/06/2009 - WWDC: New iPhone 3Gs Twice as Fast, Video Camera

Apple has unveiled a new version of the iPhone - the iPhone 3Gs - at WWDC 2009.
Among the key improvements are a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and VGA video capture at 30fps, improved battery life, voice control, a faster processor and 7.2Mbps HSDPA-compatible radio.

04/06/2009 - Palm Pre Passes First Hurdle - "iPhone Competitor"

Palm's Pre smartphone has received a pre-launch boost with a succession of (mostly) favorable reviews.
And, in what must be the ultimate accolade in the highly competitive smartphone market, the device has even been described as a tough competitor to Apple's iPhone.

26/05/2009 - Teething Troubles Disrupt Nokia's Ovi Store Launch

Nokia has officially opened the doors to the Ovi Store application site - but its answer to Apple's app store immediately ran into problems.
High traffic "spikes" - which would surely have been expected, right? - meant users experienced slow downloading and page upload times.

22/05/2009 - iPhone Has "Changed Dynamic" of US Smartphone Market

Worldwide smartphone shipments grew 5.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest quarterly market overview by Canalys.
However, Pete Cunningham, senior analyst with Canalys, told smartphone.biz-news the North American consumer market saw shipments rise in Q1 2009 by 22.5 per cent year-on-year.

20/05/2009 - Pre Launch Kicks Off Smartphone Summer

So the launch of the Palm Pre is June 6th - and the scene is all set for what is likely to be an exciting summer for the smartphone industry.
Those joining Palm in announcing new - or updated handsets - over the next few months are Apple with an upgraded iPhone and new phones using the Android operating system from Google.

20/05/2009 - Smartphone Sales Keep Growing As Mobile Market Suffers

Smartphone sales grew 12.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 despite sharply falling sales of mobile phones generally - down 9.4 per cent year-on-year.
Leading the charge in high-end device sales were RIM's Blackberry handsets and Apple's iPhone, along with a number of other touchscreen phones, according to research firm Gartner.

14/05/2009 - App Store Growth Risks Confusing Consumers

INTERVIEW: Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer at analyst house Informa, talks about some of the latest trends affecting the mobile voice and data markets.
Speaking in advance of his address to the Insights'09 conference next month in Lisbon, he discusses the impact of the iPhone, the rush to open app stores and carriers' attitude to mobile VoIP.

12/05/2009 - Vodafone Plans App Store For 289m Customers

Vodafone is joining the increasingly busy application store game by launching its own venture in a number of European markets later this year.
The mobile operator will take a 30 per cent share of all app revenue - mirroring Apple's App Store.

07/05/2009 - Apple Expected to Extend iPhone To Multiple Carriers

Apple will almost certainly break with its exclusive AT&T agreement and allow other carriers to support the iPhone, according to analysts.
Citigroup's research firm say that while the arrangement with AT&T has benefitted Apple, the company is likely to open its smartphone to more US operators within the next two years.

04/05/2009 - Blackberry Curve Overtakes iPhone To Be Q1 Best-Seller

Helped in no small part by aggressive promotions, RIM's Blackberry Curve became the best-selling US smartphone in the first quarter of 2009 - overtaking Apple's iPhone.
The Curve's popularity helped increase RIM's consumer smartphone market share by 15 per cent over the previous quarter to almost 50 per cent, according to market research firm NPD.

30/04/2009 - iPhone Beats Blackberry in Customer Satisfaction Survey

The iPhone has come top of JD Power's customer satisfaction study measuring consumer tastes.
The Apple handset ranked highest among smartphone consumers judging five factors: ease of operation, operating system, features, physical design, and battery function.

30/04/2009 - Palm Preparing Second Pre-like Smartphone For 2009

With a launch date for Palm's much anticipated Pre still to be announced along comes news that Palm is preparing a second Pre-like handset for release this year.
The smaller and slimmer device will be pitched at a different part of the smartphone market, according to Techcrunch.

28/04/2009 - Zoho Expands Mobile Device Coverage For Business Apps

Zoho has extended mobile support for its free web applications to all the major smartphone platforms.
Initially only available for the iPhone and Windows Mobile, Zoho Mobile now supports Android, BlackBerry and Symbian mobile platforms as well.

28/04/2009 - Mobile App Revenues To Reach $25bn By 2014

Mobile app revenues are expected to climb to more than USD $25bn by 2014 - fuelled by the launch of a raft of new application stores.
But while one-off downloads currently account for the majority of revenues, that will change with the increasing utilization of in-app billing, according to Juniper Research.

23/04/2009 - Apple Sold 3.8m iPhones in Q1 2009

iPhone sales have boosted Apple's quarterly profit by 15 per cent - despite economic woes and a new handset expected later this year.
The company also said co-founder Steve Jobs intends to return from his medical leave as scheduled at the end of June.

16/04/2009 - MobiTV Readies European Expansion As Momentum Grows

INTERVIEW: Anders Norström, managing director of MobiTV Europe, talks to smartphone.biz-news about the company's expansion plans and the growing consumer appetite for mobile TV.
The California-based operation now offers content and primetime channels to over 6 million subscribers on more than 350 handset models on its managed mobile media service.

02/04/2009 - Android Market Reaches 40 Million Downloads

T-Mobile G1 customers have downloaded on average more than 40 applications from Android Market.
With one million G1s sold that adds up to 40 million downloads in total since the first Android handset was launched six months ago.

01/04/2009 - Blackberry App World Launches, 1,000 Apps Expected in First Week

Research In Motion (RIM) has launched its application store Blackberry App World in the US, the UK and Canada, with more country launches to follow.
Unveiled at CTIA 2009 in Las Vegas, the much-anticipated app store for BlackBerry smartphones will offer a mix of personal and business applications, both free and paid.

30/03/2009 - Skype Announces iPhone App,Video Calling Coming Soon?

Skype is now available for the iPhone - and will be coming to BlackBerry in May.
The VoIP app on the iPhone will only work over Wi-Fi and not 3G.
It will allow iPhone subscribers to use phone numbers in their existing iPhone address book - without the need for duplicate lists.
UPDATE: Since being released on Tuesday it has emerged that Skype on iPhone does works over 3G, despite being intended only for use with WiFi.

30/03/2009 - iPhone: Not A Top 20 Handset For Browsing And Buying On The Mobile Web

The iPhone sits outside the top 20 when it comes to the most popular phones for browsing and buying content on the mobile web worldwide.
Nokia's 3110c is the top handset, followed by the Samsung M800 and then Nokia's 6300, according to statistics released today by Bango. The iPhone appears as 24th on the list.

24/03/2009 - Boom in Mobile App Store Users Creates Opportunities for Marketers

App stores are offering marketers and advertisers a new way to reach mobile audiences, according to In-Stat.
The researchers forecast more than 100 million app store-compatible mobile phones from multiple manufacturers will be shipping within five years.

17/03/2009 - iPhone Gets Copy and Paste - Finally

Apple has released details of a new version of the iPhone OS, with over 100 new features including finally adding copy and paste.
However, another much desired issue - allowing for background tasks from third party applications - remains unresolved, despite rival handsets running Google Android and the as-yet unlaunched Palm Pre able to support background apps.

13/03/2009 - Smartphone Market: RIM and Apple Closing On Nokia

Nokia still tops the smartphone market with sales of 60.9 million handsets last year for a total global market share of 43.7 per cent.
But the Finnish phone-maker's sales grew by just 0.8 per cent and its market share dropped from 49.4 per cent, with rivals Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple taking bigger slices of the smartphone pie.

13/03/2009 - iPhone Likely to Get Background Application Support?

Apple has flagged up March 17 for a special event to preview its new iPhone 3.0 software.
One issue that could be addressed with the new OS is allowing for background tasks from third party applications.