Apple’s “12 Apps Of Christmas” iPhone commercial

Apple just pushed out a new, Holiday-themed commercial. Playing on the classic “12 Days of Christmas” song, they rattle off a different type of application for each of 12 days.

Windows Mobile Losing Ground as Competitors Grow

Is the end in sight for Windows Mobile? A number of recent surveys show that market penetration for Microsoft’s mobile platform is stagnant, even as support for Apple’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, and mobile devices based on Google’s Android are growing by leaps and bounds.

New numbers from comScore show precious little interest in Windows Mobile. The platform had seven million users in May, 6.6 million in July, and 7.1 million in October. Those numbers compare unfavorably with the iPhone, up 50 percent since May, and market leader RIM, up 20 percent. Android, while still a small player, is up nearly 30 percent.

“Windows Mobile has not captured the imagination of the public and people are not buying those phones,” Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research, said in a telephone interview. “The attention is not on Windows Mobile — it has been crowded out in the press and the public mind.”

Waiting … and Waiting on Mobile 7

In the smartphone business, excitement is a key part of marketing success. The market has dramatically shifted since the introduction of the iPhone. Mobile operating systems used to create a level playing field — with manufacturers delivering hardware enhancements on top of platforms like Windows Mobile.

Now the market is controlled by companies like Apple and RIM who control both the OS and the hardware. And with the iPhone and Android supporting a rich ecosystem of third-party development, the ground has shifted again.

Microsoft may be counting on the release of Windows Mobile 7 to make a difference, but it’s still an open question about when consumers will be able to buy Mobile 7 phones. “There is no question that Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform is way behind their competitors and they need to do a lot of work if they are to catch up,” Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, said in an e-mail.

“It appears that Microsoft is putting a lot of energy behind Windows Mobile 7 and plans to make it the cornerstone of a new thrust in the mobile handheld market,” Bajarin said. “But given the competition, even if they get it to market in 2010 they will face the strongest competition they have ever encountered and will need to put an enormous amount of marketing and energy behind this platform if Microsoft wants to be a serious player in this market in the future.”

Android Rising

That competition clearly includes Google’s Android platform. With Apple and RIM sporting their own proprietary operating systems, Android is positioned in exactly the same space as Windows Mobile — a general mobile operating system that many manufacturers can deploy and differentiate. That means Microsoft faces a serious risk that manufacturers will jump ship to Android.

The success of Motorola’s Android-powered Droid smartphone, offered exclusively by Verizon Wireless, sharpens the software giant’s dilemma. Microsoft desperately needs a partner to deliver a “really good product” on the platform, “and there needs to be a massive marketing campaign,” Sterling said. “One gets the sense that the public is not interested and OEMs are not seeing the demand from the public or innovation from Microsoft.”

Motorola has already walked away from the Windows Mobile platform, and it’s possible other handset makers may follow.

With the momentum firmly in the Apple-Android-RIM camp, Palm is also facing a dark future, Sterling said. “Palm is emerging as a takeover target, but it will be hard for Microsoft or Nokia to admit their current strategies have failed,” Sterling said.

With a New Phone, Google May Challenge Apple

SAN FRANCISCO — Two titans of the tech world, Google and Apple, may soon be engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Or, more precisely, handset-to-handset combat.

Google plans to begin selling its own smartphone early next year, company employees say, a move that could challenge Apple’s leadership in one of the fastest-growing and most important technologies in decades.

Google’s new touch-screen Android phone, which it began giving to many employees to test last week, could also shake up the fundamentals of the cellphone market in the United States, where most phones work only on the networks of the wireless carriers that sold them.

The company, using

the power of its brand, plans to market and sell the new phone directly to consumers over the Internet, and buyers would be able to sign up for service from any compatible provider, the employees say.

The introduction of a Google phone — manufactured to its hardware and software specifications by an Asian maker of handsets — would be an important and risky departure for Google. Until now, it has made software to power cellphones that are built and marketed by partners, and it has largely avoided selling hardware.

The apparent shift underscores the fact that mobile phones are quickly becoming the biggest technology battleground of the future, as consumers increasingly rely on their phones to browse the Internet and perform other computing tasks.

It also indicates Google’s determination to make its mark on yet another industry, as it has done previously in advertising, books and online videos.

But analysts say it is not clear that Google’s success on the Internet will carry over into the design, marketing and distribution of hardware. Many companies have tried to make similar shifts and stumbled. Microsoft turned the Xbox into a hit, but when it pushed aside its partners in the music-player business in favor of its own Zune, it failed to gain traction against Apple and its iPods.

The phone’s success could also depend on how Google chooses to price it. Most Americans buy phones that are subsidized by wireless carriers, which recoup that cost by locking customers into contracts. IPhones that cost consumers $199 actually cost AT&T about $550, analysts say.

Katie Watson, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on the company’s plans. She referred reporters to a blog post published Saturday in which Google said that the new device was a “mobile lab” that would let employees test out new technologies.

Google employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because plans for the phone were supposed to be confidential said that the device, manufactured by the Taiwanese company HTC, was thinner than Apple’s iPhone, with a slightly larger touch screen. It could be available as early as January, they said.

Employees say the phone will be sold unlocked, meaning that buyers will be able to choose a service provider, and will be based on G.S.M. technology, which is used by AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States and by most other carriers around the world. It is named Nexus One, according to various reports and to digital traces that the phones have been leaving on Web sites.

Google had long insisted that it was not interested in building and selling phones, saying it preferred to rely on hardware partners and wireless carriers to market a wide variety of phones powered by Android, the operating system that it offers free.

In October, Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering for Android at Google, scoffed at the idea that the company would “compete with its customers” by releasing its own phone, according to the technology news service CNet.

Analysts say that the apparent shift signals a recognition by the company’s executives that Google needs to take more control of its destiny in the wireless world.

“They perceive mobile as the next major opportunity,” said Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “It is too big a risk to drive the strategy through their partners. They want more say and more control.”

In addition, analysts say that the iPhone, despite prominently featuring some Google services, makes the company nervous.

“They don’t want to have access to Google being controlled or influenced by one player like Apple,” said Ben Schachter, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech, a research firm.

Google wants to get more people using Web-friendly phones in part because it depends on the growth of search advertising, which is slowing on PCs. On cellphones, however, use of Google’s mobile search engine grew 30 percent in six months this year, Mr. Schachter said. “That’s huge, and a majority of that growth is coming from the iPhone,” he said. “When that happens, Apple has a lot of power over influencing users’ behavior.”

Until recently, Google and Apple were considered close allies with a common enemy: Microsoft. They shared two board members, Eric E. Schmidt, the chairman and chief executive of Google, and Arthur Levinson, the former chief executive of Genentech.

Google Voice Coming To iPhone As Web App

The calling service enables users to funnel multiple numbers to a single number, send free SMS messages, and make inexpensive long-distance calls.

Apple iPhone users may soon have an official way to use Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Voice, as Google is working on a Web application for its calling service, according to an unconfirmed report on David Pogue’s blog on The New York Times’s Web site.Google Voice enables users to funnel multiple numbers to a single number, send free text messages, and make inexpensive long-distance calls. The service is not a VOIP app like Skype for iPhone, so users still have to use cellular minutes to make and receive calls.

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Apple pulled a Google Voice app from the App Store a few weeks ago, saying the service duplicated functionalities of the iPhone, which is against Apple’s developer policies. The move garnered the attention of the Federal Communications Commission, which sent letters to AT&T (NYSE: T), Apple, and Google seeking an explanation for why the app was blocked.Google has not confirmed it is working on a Web app version, but the Times report indicates Google Voice for iPhone will be a specialized Web page that should retain the functionality of a native app. The Web app will enable users to send SMS messages, as well as make and receive calls from their Google Voice number. Users will also be able to add a Google Voice bookmark to their home screen, so it will look and feel like a native app, the report said.

“Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store,” a Google spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. “We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users, for example by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.”

Google did something similar with its location-sharing Google Latitude service, which was rejected from the App Store in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone. Google released Latitude for the iPhone as a Web app in July, but some users have complained the Web version is not as good as the native version for competing platforms like Android, Blackberry, S60, and Windows Mobile.

iPod touch gets VoIP, steals some iPhone thunder

Now here is something the phone operators can bang their head on. Apple is rumored to release the new Ipod touch with VoIP (or Voice over IP) capabilities, meaning yo u can call people for free from your iPod touch to theirs for FREE. For further details & more free services, check the details below. Welcome to the beginning of VoIP takeover and charged data calls’ downfall

The ‘funnest’ iPod ever has kicked it up a notch.

Thanks to a microphone adapter and some free software called Truphone, the second-generation iPod touch is now capable of courting consumers as a VoIP mobile phone, in the most literal of senses (just don’t try to use it for emergency calls, mkay?).

The software uses the iPod touch’s Wi-Fi connection to carry calls over the Internet to its destination. There is no monthly line rental, no subscription or other hidden charges. The Truphone application provides you with a virtual keypad that enables you to make the call.

Of course, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Yes, this will allow calls to be made worldwide from an iPhone touch, but only to other iPod touch users with Truphone, customers of Truphone’s Internet telephony service and to users of the Google Talk instant messaging service.

Right. As in no calls to real phones. Yet.

According to the company, the following features are coming soon:

• Making and receiving calls to and from landlines (PSTN) at low cost with a Truphone account
• Instant messaging to Skype and MSN (free)
• Calling to Skype users (free)
• Calling to MSN users (free)
• Check and set facilities for Twitter (free)
• Check and set facilities for Facebook (free)

Apple admits to iPhone 3GS heliophobia

Apple has finally admitted that the iPhone 3GS can suffer from heatstroke, kind of.

In a support document on the its website, Apple has urged customers to use the iPhone 3GS “in a place where the temperature is between 0°C and 35°C”. It can be stored anywhere the temperature doesn’t stray out of the -20°C and 45°C range.

Lower or higher temperatures may, Apple said, shorten the phone’s battery life or cause it to temporarily stop working.

The same rules apply to the iPhone 3G, Apple warned.

Power down now – or else…

Earlier this week, Register Hardware reported how numerous iPhone 3GS owners had started complaining about scorch marks on the phone’s rear plastic panel. It’s been claimed these appear after the phone becomes hot to the touch.

But Apple hasn’t made reference to any such problems on its support page.

The company did add, though, that both iPhone 3G models may stop charging, suffer dimmed displays or weakened network signals “if the interior temperature of the device exceeds normal operating temperatures”.

To avoid this, make sure you don’t leave “the device in a car on a hot day” or “in direct sunlight for extended amounts of time”, Apple suggested.

“Using certain applications in hot conditions or direct sunlight for long periods of time, such as GPS tracking in a car on a sunny day or listening to music while in direct sunlight,” it added.

Apple said the iPhone complies with key safety standards in the US, Europe and Down Under. ®