Mobile News

2009 stats for new mobile phones shipped, including breakdowns for smart phones, vendors, etc.  They’re everywhere, including the forensics labs now!

For all of 2009, vendors shipped 174 million smartphones, up 15% from the 151 million in 2008. All told, smartphones accounted for 15% of all mobile phones shipped in 2009, up from 12.7% in 2008, IDC said.

via Smartphone Sales Score Record – PCWorld.

A great blog by Charlie Stross on what he sees Google’s ultimate goal in the mobile world…and I like it.  Wouldn’t it be great to end the years of being worked over by the likes of AT&T and other carriers?  2010 is going to be interesting…T-Mobile has long been on a path exploring the use of WiFi as a compliment to their service and could provide the avenue needed to turn this market upside down, again.

This is where the Nexus One announced last week may be significant. If the rumours are true — that they’re pushing it at a low or subsidized price, and have strong-armed T-Mobile (the weakest of the US cellcos) into providing a cheap data-only mobile tariff for it, and more significantly access to VoIP and cheap international data roaming — then they've got a Trojan horse into the mobile telephony industry.

I think Google are pursuing a grand strategic vision of destroying the cellco’s entire business model — of positioning themselves as value-added gatekeepers providing metered access to content — and their second-string model of locking users in by selling them premium handsets (such as the iPhone) on a rolling contract.

They intend to turn 3G data service (and subsequently, LTE) into a commodity, like wifi hotspot service only more widespread and cheaper to get at. They want to get consumers to buy unlocked SIM-free handsets and pick cheap data SIMs. They’d love to move everyone to cheap data SIMs rather than the hideously convoluted legacy voice stacks maintained by the telcos; then they could piggyback Google Voice on it, and ultimately do the Google thing to all your voice messages as well as your email and web access.

via Charlie’s Diary: Gadget Patrol: 21st century phone.

It would be nice if carriers and developers would consider this before distributing to unsuspecting consumers.  However, any progress toward awareness or solutions is fine by me.

Georgia Tech researchers have received a $450,000 NSF grant to boost security of iPhones, BlackBerries and other smartphones and the wireless networks on which they run. And it’s those networks where the researchers are really zeroing in.

via iPhone worms, other smartphone malware in researchers’ sights – Network World.

Verizon and Motorola should be working very hard in the opposite direction to turn the tides against the iPhone and  AT&T’s abysmal service:

Pickens writes “Tom Bradley reports in PC World that the new Motorola Droid smartphone will cost users $199.99 with a 2-year contract, with an additional $30 per month for the mandatory ‘unlimited’ data plan that has a monthly cap of 5Gb. Verizon will charge $50 for each additional gigabyte over the 5Gb limit on the unlimited data plan. Verizon has confirmed that tethering will cost another $30 per month for an additional unlimited data plan that is also limited to 5Gb. If you want tethering you will pay $60 above and beyond the monthly contract for service for an ‘unlimited’ 10Gb of data per month, and if you plan on connecting with an Microsoft Exchange email account you have to pay another $15 a month. ‘Verizon seems to be doing everything it can to make the Droid as unappealing as possible by nickel and diming customers so that actually using it is not cost-effective,’ writes Bradley. ‘After all of the hype around Verizon’s marketing efforts, and generally favorable reviews of the Motorola Droid, users that rush out to get the new device may be in for a shock.’ Droid users will have to wait until sometime in 2010 for tethering. ‘That service is on our schedule for next year,’ says Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney. The delay is because ‘the service has to be tested on the phone so until we know it works, we don’t offer the service. It is not uncommon for us to introduce the phone and continue to test the service and offer it later.’”

via Slashdot Mobile Story | Verizon Droid Tethering Comes At a Hefty Price.