U.S. Mobile Industry is Behind the Times and Other Lies My Mother Told Me
As a resident of the United States, I’ve longed for the latest mobile phones from Japan, Korea, and other more “tech-fortunate” countries throughout APAC and Europe. I live in arguably the most powerful industrialized nation on the planet, and yet I still can’t video chat from mobile to mobile like they do in Japan. My free-phone-with-a-two-year-commitment doesn’t come with a QR Code™ reader pre-installed. And, let’s be honest, most entry level phones in the States don’t even include Bluetooth or a 1.3 megapixel camera. Until recently, I was convinced that the U.S. mobile market is behind the times.
So what gives?
Very recently, a number of studies have surfaced leading me to think that maybe, just maybe, things aren’t so bad on this side of the pond. For example, according to the CTIA in Wireless Wave Fall 2007 – A Continental Idea:
[..] earlier this year Merrill Lynch reported that Europeans still pay an average of 19¢ per minute for an average of 153 minutes a month, compared to 5¢ per minute for 834 minutes a month for customers in the U.S. The U.S. is the leader in offering bucket plans, driven by competitive market forces to offer more minutes at a lower effective rate.
3G penetration stats are looking up, too. According to industry analyst Chetan Sharma, President of Chetan Sharma Consulting, “Because of the heavy penetration of the Internet over the desktop, as well as the late advent of 3G in the market, there was not a big driver for mobile Internet until the last one or two years. As 3G penetration has been increasing[,] now we’re up to 15 to 16 percent penetration (in the U.S.).”
M:Metrics — which conducts an on-going survey of thousands of wireless customers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the U.S. — recently found that a slightly higher percentage of U.S. consumers browse wirelessly for news and information than their European counterparts.
The study also shows that the U.S. is at the top in average number of minutes used per month at 832 (Canada, the number two country, averages 429 minutes). The country with the lowest average revenue per minute — a measure of the effective price per voice minute — is again the U.S. at $0.04 USD (South Korea and Mexico are tied for the number two spot at $0.11 USD). And finally, the number of wireless carriers with over one million subscribers is the largest in the U.S. at 10 companies. The country with the next highest number is the England.
My conclusion? Maybe it’s true that the grass is always greener on the other side.
Are cell phone projectors on the Way?
Via Gizmodo
South Korea’s Iljin Display has been crowing about its coin-sized laser projector module for more than a year with no haps, but now the company says it’s inked a deal with South Korea Telecom (SK Telecom) to mass-produce the projector for use inside cellphones. Is Iljin’s so-called Nano Projector finally for real? [more]
Turn your fingers into a mobile phone
Via Tech Digest:
Another winning entry to this year’s iF Concept Product Awards (albeit in a different category to the baby car seat featured earlier today) is ‘Finger Touching’, which is a wearable mobile device that turns your hand into a phone. No, really.
Designed by Sunman Kwon at Hong-ik University in South Korea, it slips onto your hand, and then projects a 3×4 mobile-style keypad onto your fingers, with each joint making up a button. You can see how it works from the picture.
Who knows if it’ll be turned into an actual product. But imagine the looks you’d get if you whipped one out on the train and began texting by rapping your knuckles. Marvellous.
Samsung takes a stab at the iPhone with new F700
Via In an effort to keep up with the touchscreen buzz generated by Apple’s iPhone, Samsung as created the F700. The F700 is part of Samsung’s new Ultrasmart line of phones and sports 7.2 Mbps HSDPA, a 5 megapixel shooter, your typical media functionality, Bluetooth, 2.78 inch touchscreen display, and a slick looking interface designed by Adobe.
and
Via Electronista:
Samsung on Thursday unveiled what it says is one of the world’s most advanced smartphones. Closely resembling the minimalist design of the iPhone, the Ultra Smart F700 is conspicuously targeted at “the recent trend” in touchscreens, according to the Korean company. A 2.8-inch, 440×240 screen is used to control calling, Internet, and music functions. It further includes VibeTonz, a vibration system introduced in the recent W559 that simulates tactile feedback to touchscreen presses. A further resemblance to its American counterpart is a singular navigation button. In contrast to Apple’s device, however, the F700 also contains a slide-out physical keyboard for messaging and heavy-duty browsing.
Better photos can be found here.
Nokia To Intro N77 Consumer-Priced Mobile TV Cellphone Next Week?
Via Gizmodo, Nokia may unveil the N77, a consumer-aimed, moderately priced cellphone with TV capabilities.
Big bad Reuters let it slip that Nokia will unveil at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona next week the N77, a consumer-aimed, moderately priced cellphone with TV capabilities. The N77, which should resemble other N7x phones like the N70 here, will be able to receive TV broadcast by way of DVB-H, a nascent mobile TV technology that is currently undergoing tests in several markets around the world. So what?
Nokia wants to jump start the mobile TV market, which up until now has really only taken off in Korea, if that. And no, we’re not talking about downloading hot videoz picked out by your cellphone carrier, but actual programming. One problem seems to be that people just aren’t that excited to watch video on their mobile devices if the screen isn’t large enough. We should find out more once the Barça conference hits, hopefully with pretty pics of the phone, too.
– Nicholas Deleon
The only question left—will it have Flash Lite? My guess is yes.
