Archive for the ‘Smartphones’ Category

Motorola Droid Unexpectedly Appears on Motorola’s Site Ahead of Schedule [Leaks]

Motorola is set to officially announce the Droid for Verizon on October 28th, but it popped up on Moto’s official site with full specs and more detail than we’ve seen so far.

This leak (or whatever it is) confirms a lot of things we already knew: The Droid will be packing Android 2.0 (Eclair), has a 3.7-inch touchscreen, 5MP camera, blah blah blah. It also will have a “Notification Panel,” which could be a light like the alert light BlackBerrys have had for years (that’s not a dig, it’s an extremely useful feature), a 1400mAh battery (rated at 385 minutes usage, 270 hours standby), pretty extensive audio and video codec support, a video camera, microUSB port, and 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s also listed as having the WebKit HTML 5 browser with Flash 10 support, though the Flash is noted to be arriving sometime in 2010.

This handset is shaping up to be a mighty impressive piece of hardware. Check back with us in the coming days for more info as we get it. [Boy Genius Report]

Ballmer on the Smartphone Race: “It Doesn’t Matter What the Critics Say” [Ballmer Interview]

In this segment of my exclusive interview series with Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer, I brought up the sore subject of Windows Mobile 6.5. After defending it, he cited another product that did well but suffers mounting criticism: Nokia smartphones.

As you can see in the video, Ballmer acknowledges that Windows Mobile 6.5 is receiving negative reviews, but I never get him to actually admit that the platform still needs work. He says, “reviews aside,” he’s happy with what Windows Phones (running 6.5) can do now.

And faced with competition of iPhone, BlackBerry and others, he contends it’s currently “kind of a horse race.” The only clear leader, market-share wise, is Nokia, and they’re losing ground. When I said that Nokia was another developer currently lambasted by reviewers, Ballmer replied:

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what the critics say, it matters what the customers say.

Perhaps given the power of advertising (still mighty, even if it’s on the decline), there may still be a way for a product to get positive sales despite negative reviews. But the internet has changed that landscape, and the lines between critic and customer blur more every day. We all share knowledge in order to make better choices. So who, in the end, is this customer, who is so different from the critic? Not anyone who reads Gizmodo, that’s for sure.

Stay tuned for more exciting Ballmer moments (and facial expressions) over the next day, and then the full uncut interview video on Friday.

Steve Ballmer Exclusive Interview Series:
Part 1: Ballmer Talks Natal, Says Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox Coming

Graphs and Charts Prove iPhone to Be the Most Successful Gadget Ever (Sort of) [Graphs]

These charts, from the Web 2.0 Summit, show the iPhone’s growth in both data usage and sheer sales compared to other blockbuster gadget releases—and (not without caveats, natch), it blows most of them out of the water.

Before I show these charts, created by Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker, I should mention the obvious: Comparing one gadget to another in a different category is messy and inconclusive. iPhone adoption is different than, say, Wii adoption for lots of reasons: The iPhone is a phone, a gadget which pretty much everybody has and needs, and it combined the capabilities of a phone with that of an established hit, the iPod. In contrast, the Wii is a videogame system, a category with a totally different demographic, requiring different kinds of software and accessories. They’re just not the same (and I only mentioned a couple reasons), and comparing unit shipments doesn’t necessarily prove anything. However, it is interesting to see exactly what an absolute blockbuster the iPhone has been over its first ten quarters, and while we can’t make any sweeping conclusions, we can say that the iPhone/iPod Touch is, as TechCrunch says, “the fastest-growing consumer electronics product of all time.”

This next chart is also inconclusive, but pretty interesting: It compares the rate of growth in mobile internet to the rate of growth in desktop internet, in the mid-90s. Caveats apply again, of course, as the adoption of mobile internet is much easier than going from no internet to desktop internet. But certainly the iPhone has introduced easy-to-use mobile internet to the masses in much the same way that Netscape and AOL brought it to the home user a decade and a half ago, and the iPhone is making way quicker work of it.

As I said repeated, these charts aren’t exactly ironclad evidence. But they do put the iPhone’s remarkable rise to the top of the smartphone game in perspective, and it’s hard to show in charts and graphs exactly how much it’s changed the game of mobile devices. Those sales records are pretty impressive, after all, and there’s no denying the impact it’s had on today’s gadget landscape. [TechCrunch via Twitter]

Blackberry Storm 2 Dummy Units Arrive At Best Buy and Verizon Stores [Storm 2]

As this spy shot confirms, Blackberry Storm 2 dummy units have started to arrive on Best Buy shelves—and word is that Verizon has received them as well. In other words, the launch is imminent.

How iminient? Well, If you believe earlier reports, there is a good chance that the launch could take place as early as October 25th. [Crackberry via MobileCrunch]

iI iHate iVerizon’s iNew iMarketing iCampaign [Rants]

What’s the only thing more annoying than a non-Apple company using Apple’s trademark diminutive “i”? Companies thinking they’ll really stick it to Apple by using it to mock them. The latest marketing school dropout contestant: Verizon’s “iDoesn’t” campaign.

Verizon’s got a new anti-iPhone tagline: “If the iDoesn’t, What Does?” It’s part of a new marketing ploy in which they plan to spell out the iPhone’s weaknesses, only they’re calling it the “iDevice” for some reason I don’t really understand—people still know you’re talking about the iPhone, Verizon, so what’s the point? SanDisk did the same thing a couple years ago, trying to get people to buy their Sansa line of PMPs over the iPod, and ran a campaign called “iSheep.” It blew, and SanDisk wisely cut the ads. It’s a dumb idea, Big V: Old, unoriginal, and without perspective.

Anyway, there are certainly flaws with the iPhone, and we’re sure Verizon will mention its superior network about a bazillion more times, but you know what the best argument would be? ACTUAL COMPETITIVE PHONES. Once Verizon’s got the Palm Pre, HTC Hero and Motorola Droid, then you can talk some smartphone trash. Until then, iShut iIt.

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