Smartphones Passing Up ‘Feature’ Phones

This year, smart has finally beaten dumb decisively…at least as far as mobile phones are concerned. This year, smartphones will pass up dumb phones…or feature phones, as the industry euphimistically calls them, according to research company IDC. The combination of falling prices for smartphones, coupled with wider availability of 4G networks are the main drivers. Smartphones will account for a little over half of all mobile phone sales this year, and look to take around two thirds of phone sales by 2017. A great deal of the growth is in China, Brazil, and India. If you connect the dots, this is probably the major reason Apple is expected to introduce a cheaper iPhone this August…although price sensitive US consumers will benefit too.

Shop at Google?

Amazon is the 800 pound gorilla of online retailing, who could possibly take them on? That would take a company like Google. Google Shopping already partners with retailers who usie the giant’s search to increase their own business. Those brick and mortar retailers and Amazon should keep an eye peeled…it won’t take much more than adding a ‘buy’ button for Google to become a direct competitor with both retailers and Amazon…and apparently they’re moving in that direction.

If they can cut some deals for cheap goods, it could suddenly be: do a google search…choose…click…and your new stuff is on its way to you.  Amazon may find itself in a real online retail jungle very soon. As for brick and mortar- Google has denied…as recently as today that they plan to open a chain of retail stores to compete with Apple’s. The company says they believe it’s not necessary for customers to touch smartphones, tablets, etc…with online reviews and recommendations from friends and acquaintances to go on.

There’s No Need To Fear…Underwear Is Here

It’s a nerd’s dream come true. No shopping for socks and undies to replace the ratty ones they’re wearing. Revamped startup meundies.com will mail what they term reasonably priced ones to the house once a month. Besides boxers, briefs, thongs and the like…they also do t-shirts and socks…and even have a line of ultrasoft ones for those with a tender tushy from sitting in front of the computer for hours. Right now they have men’s and women’s Tees, and will introduce a whole new line of women’s underwear soon. Get your geek on…and those scroungy shorts off…and replace them with some new ones!

HTC’s Latest – Good, but Good Enough?

When it comes to smartphones lately, Samsung and Apple have sucked most of the air out of the room. Today, HTC showed their latest top line smartphone, the newest HTC One, and is tacking towards Apple in an effort to differentiate from Android rival Samsung. Most noticeable are the beautiful aluminum case, with obvious cues taken from the iPhone, and the great screen. Taking another page from Apple’s playbook, specs weren’t really highlighted…instead it’s Blinkfeed…which automatically live updates content feeds, as well as their Ultrapixel camera with better low light capability. The HTC One hits stores in March, just as Samsung rolls out the Galaxy S-4. Time and buyers will tell if it’s good enough to carve out some space for itself…something Nokia, Blackberry, and Microsoft are also all grappling with.

The X Phone

Could another player be readying a game changing smartphone this year? If so, it may be Google. Through their Motorola Mobility division, they are working on what’s called the X Phone. Along with the usual improvements…better camera, longer battery life, and so on…the X Phone is reported to feature software that’s never been installed on a smartphone. According to the chief technology officer for an Australian wireless provider, it could be a game changer for Apple and Samsung. Adding to the intrigue, Microsoft has delayed it’s Surface phone and Amazon has also put off a companion phone to its tablet. Of course, this wouldn’t be the 1st phone from Google, but it it has truly unique software that people will love having, that may be enough to grab substantial market share. You can bet that the folks at Motorola Mobility…as well as those at parent Google…are hoping for something along the lines of the original Razr.

Free WiFi

How would you like FREE wifi that’s more powerful than any available now…able to get through concrete walls and clear hills and trees? You would? Then you obviously aren’t a wireless carrier! For the rest of us, a proposal from the FCC sounds almost too good to be true. They are talking about buying back unused television spectrum from TV broadcasters, and building free WiFi out in virtually every metro area and most rural areas. This would be a boon to cities, schools, people traveling…again- everyone but the wireless providers…who wouldn’t be able to sell their lesser coverage to us when we could get something better for free. Expect a big fight from them, but on our side and the government’s…Google and Microsoft have already weighed in.

Pay Tube?

No, they’re not going to start charging for everything, but You Tube is set to launch some paid channels this spring. They’re trying to lure some content producers along the lines of lesser cable channels and makers of TV series to the site. Apparently they will have pay per view, or monthly fees to watch these more commercial channels…ranging from a dollar to five dollars a month. A Google spokesperson says they’ve been looking at doing this for quite a while now. It remains an experiment…they aren’t sure that even with professional content channels at the level of cable TV that large numbers of people will pay to watch….especially on a site that’s been built on free content.

Videos Now the Fruit of Twitter’s Vine

Something new besides Tweets and pictures is just out from Twitter. It’s from a company they acquired, and it’s called Vine. Vine lets you upload little 6 second looped videos. Yes, that’s short, but from a company that gave us 140 character Tweets, no surprise. Twitter says it will encourage creativity…and apparently lots of editing to cut things down to 6 seconds. Right now, Vine is only available on iPhone and iPod Touch from the Apple App store, but Twitter says versions for all the other mobile platforms will be out soon. Some users had trouble logging in with their Twitter credentials early on. The problem is supposedly cleared up for all now. Here’s a word of warning…if you’re prone to drunk texting or Tweeting, you might want to pass on Vine!

Microsoft’s Surface Pro Finally Coming

After months, Microsoft has finally announced a release date for the Microsoft Surface Pro tablet, and a price. They will start selling it on February 9th, and the Surface Pro will run you $899…a full $400 more than the Surface RT that’s already out. If you really want a good Windows tablet, this might be the ticket…it runs the full version of Windows 8, so you can do actual work on the Surface Pro…the hardware is said to be equal to that of an ultrabook. The Surface Pro will be available at Microsoft stores, Best Buy, Staples, and online at microsoftstore.com. You can add the cover with flat keyboard for another hundred, and even though it has a touch screen…if you really have to have one, there’s a mouse!

We Still Use Phones More Than Tablets

You’d think tablets were taking over the world, but at least in data use, they’ve got a ways to go before catching up with smartphones. A survey is just out, and of the top 10 data gobbling devices, 7 are smartphones, and 3 tablets. Technically, one is a phablet, but that’s really just a big smartphone. Researchers at Arieso, the mobile data analytics company, found that iPhone 5 users really burned through the data, downloading 4 times as much content as iPhone 3G users did. All the flagship smartphones…from Apple, Samsung, and HTC showed greater data use than tablets. With all the outrage when phone companies have threatened to throttle data hogs, they found that 1 percent of users chew through 40 percent of downloaded data.