Samsung Galaxy S4 launch date announced

So a date has been announced for what is anticipated to be one of the biggest tech product launches of 2013.

The 14th March is now officially the date that Samsung has set for the launch of its new smartphone, predicted to be called the S4.
Note: the use of the number '4' in the image below strongly hints at a move away from the potential use of Roman Numerals for this product's name.

So at 19:00 on the 14th (or midnight GMT over here in the UK) we will finally see what is expected to be a further strengthening of the Korean tech giant's position against Apple.

On a personal note I am really looking forward to seeing what Samsung has up its sleeves. I'm hoping is a powerful personal computing device that is still small enough to fit in my pocket, but that still works well as a phone. I think it's almost certainly going to use Google's Android operating system and have a clear & high resolution screen, to take it way beyond the iPhone5.

In just over 2 weeks we shall find out.

Why I want the Samsung Galaxy S4

It may seem strange to readers that I'm looking forward to the launch of a mobile phone that hasn't even been announced yet. But yes... I admit it, I'm eagerly awaiting the launch of the new Samsung flagship phone, the Galaxy S4 despite it not even being announced yet.

You see... I currently have an iPhone 4S that I've had since the end of 2011 (so only 14 months in reality). But, several weeks ago the power button broke on it, just a few days after its 12 month warranty period had passed. Despite a trip to my friendly local Apple store, the annoying news was that a fix required a replacement phone, which would cost me £130 (just a few weeks before Christmas).
Not willing to trade the kids presents in for a replacement mobile, I now I have a leading smart phone with one major issue: turning it off and on is no longer a feature.

So now I really want a new phone and to be honest, I want an Android handset again. In fact, I missed having an Android handset the day I took delivery of my iPhone 4S. And I missed it even more when I dropped the bloody Apple product in the first week of ownership and shattered its glass rear. Normal glass, the type that breaks into a million child-unfriendly pieces and makes a lovey crunching noise when you then go an buy a cover to put over it. Glass people. GLASS FFS !

Could I go and get myself a Samsung Galaxy S3? Or is that a Galaxy SIII? I'm not so sure Roman Numerals really look good on a modern communication device... which in that case would make the phone I now want the "SIV" (and I'm pretty sure that could be pronounced "sieve").
Sure I could! But now I'm pretty sure the S4 is due to be announced pretty shortly and made available not long after that.... and I want one!

I was teased even further last week when Samsung unveiled a flexible, foldable smart phone prototype at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jim6l2jRGQw&feature=youtu.be
But even seeing a folding LED screen due out in a couple of years couldn't abate my desire for the new Android S4.

Mobile devices and our data consumption

The continued popularity of mobile devices has now driven demand for smartphones, tablets and netbooks. This has consequently had a significant impact upon the type and rate of our digital media consumption.

Once we just used the humble desktop (or laptops if we were fancy and flushed with money), but now at home, at work and on the go we use mobile devices such as: iPhones, iPads and a legion of Google Android powered devices more than ever before.

We’ve apparently now become Digital Omnivores, using Internet data from a variety of sources and many at the same time. I know, because my own browsing and other online behaviour has changed in the lst few years since I've had a smartphone (or few).

As well as sitting down with a laptop most evenings to continue working, I also now regularly burn through over 1.5 gigabytes of mobile data a month on my mobile (mainly accessing email and Twitter through the day, when I'm not within range of a public Wi-Fi node). I also have the fabled "multi-screen experience" when watching the TV at the weekend now, as the iPad tablet comes out to check program schedules, background information on news stories or the Twitter back-channel gossip on the latest pop star wannabies.

And I can only see this trend for increasing data consuption to continue, as devices get faster and deliver a more interactive experience.

Is mobile your company's biggest challenge?

So..... 40% of Fortune 500 companies claim their biggest mobile challenge is developing their online services across multiple operating systems and devices

 do they?

Well fragmentation in the online industry isn't anything new for web developers. We've been living with this since the the days of the Mosaic and Netscape browsers (and if you don't know who they are, then I'd stop reading this blog now if I were you). This confusion was then multipled with the arrival of Microsoft 16 years ago, who then went onto make a complete mess of browser standards, that we've been living with ever since.

However things have got even more mixed-up in the last few years with the growth of the mobile channel, fueled by smartphones and tablets such as Apple's iPhone & iPad, as well as a host of Google's Android mobile OS powered phones. For me 2011 has definately been the long-awaited "year of the mobile". Although this is a title that online marketing consultants have been foretelling for the last decade, in my opinion this year is it and according to research from Gartner.... smartphone sales globally will reach 467m in 2011.

But the fragmented mobile landscape is directly affecting many organisations’ plans to implement an effective mobile channel. No one device or operating system entrely rules the roost (at least not in the UK) and right now if a company plumps for just one.... typically the iPhone... then it is excluding a huge user base. But to try and get comprehensive market coverage is an expensive and exhaustive process....

How to get your mobile application right first time

I get asked quite a bit these days for advice on mobile platforms & applications. So I have asked Mark Walsh from Nation of Apps to answer a few questions on developing and delivering the right mobile app for businesses.

Once I have an idea for a mobile app, what’s the best process to follow to get it right first time?
There are a number of things that need to be thought through in detail. This starts with defining your mobile application requirements.
- What do you want your mobile app to do?
- What do you want to achieve with your app?
- Who is the target audience? Personas, Demographics.
- Do you have branding requirements?

How should I decide what platform to build for?
One of the key drivers to answer this question is regarding who will be using the app. It is important to understand your target audience and what mobile devices they use. Analytics from websites and apps that your target audience currently use can help with this. If you find the trend to be specifically more Android orientated, or iPhone orientated then there’s your answer.
If the app is targeted for specific business users, then it may well be that Blackberry should be the choice. It has been a common strategy for companies to develop mobile business applications first for iPhone, however this approach has often been flawed and the target audience found to be predominantly Blackberry users.

Mark's details:
company site: http://nationofapps.co.uk/
blog : http://www.nationofapps.co.uk/news-mobile-application-development.html
Twitter: @nationofapps

Apple claims formula leads to signal strength issues

It is common knowledge by now that if you grip the new iPhone in such a way that your hand covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band there is a decrease in the signal strength of the device.

Rumours are still making the rounds that Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO told someone complaining about this issue not to hold it in this way... but these are completely denied by the Cupertino-based company.

However in a press release today from Apple, they have broken their silence and claimed

"We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both
simple and surprising."

"Its seems that the formula used to calculate how many signal strength bars are displayed is wrong"

Therefore the phone, rather than showing the users they are in a low signal areas, is incorrectly showing too many bars. So when users touch the phone in the lower left corner and get the resulting drop in signal...

"Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place."

So there you have it... its not Apple's fault this happens... you're in the wrong signal area.

Oh, and to solve the problem they will be releasing a fix for this problem soon, that also makes the smaller bars bigger.... so if you leave your glasses on your head whilst losing your signal, you can still see what a poor signal you are getting!

Another giant leap for Apple with the iPhone?

With the launch of yet another device this year (the iPhone 4G, of course) Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has once again brought the media spotlight back to advanced smart phone market and their applications - rather than the tablet format that the iPad created so much hype about earlier in 2010.

Jobs has described the device as "the biggest leap since the original iPhone"... But is it?

Sure, the original iPhone was a jump from the rungs of the traditional lunar capsule of Personal Computing and MP3 players that was Apple's existing domain... but it was hardly the huge step that he is now claiming it was. Others were already in the market with similar and comparably better or higher specification mobile phones.

The giant leap was in the creation of the App Store, the method of distributing small programmes that further enhanced the functionality of the device. This led to a micro-industry of bedroom developers building things they wanted or needed ... then Apple cleverly allowed them to give away or sell their work (provided they gave Apple a cut of the profits).

Lets just be careful . Don't let 'The Book Of Jobs' be the only historical document we refer to in the future.... or we may find that he claims he was first to walk on the moon (or water) as well !

Note: If you are passing an O2 store in London first thing tomorrow morning, you may see me queuing outside for my 4G iPhone

Palm Pre to challenge iPhone

No, I know I usually blog about corporate comms, newspapers and ecommerce strategy, but I couldn't let the launch of the Palm Pre go by without mentioning it.
"What do you mean by 'imminent'?" I hear you ask.

Ok, O2 in the UK are planning on a December launch of the 'iPhone challenger' but its already available across the Atlantic Pond and over here O2 are already turning on the buzz machine with this video:



So what does this video do?

Well, it provides what the UK version of Palm's website doesn't... it provides we with enough UK-specific information to still want one! We know its been out in the USA for over 2 months and some of us over here think its could be the answer (the question being "why doesn't my iPhone work when I wear gloves?")

Sure, you can browse along to http://www.facebook.com/palm (which is just a re-hash of their US-centric blog) but come on Palm... if the Pre is to be any good, you've got to get the market primed & ready for the anticipated Xmas launch... and that means starting very very soon doesn't it? Of else i'll have to face another winter without gloves........

Symbian joins the application goldrush

Making a very late entry into the mobile applications market comes Symbian.

The operating system for almost 50% of the smartphones around the world has had a development platform (called Horizon) in Alpha release for a while now, but this has now moved into Beta and they are encouraging developers to sign-up and build apps.
http://developer.symbian.org/main/horizon/faq/index.php

This move means that a significant proportion of Nokia phones which use the Symbian OS will now be able to have the same sort of functionality that devices such as the Apple iPhone have had for ages. In fact, Apple announced only earlier this week that its own App Store has had 1.5 billion downloads in the last year.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2350194,00.asp

Has Symbian arrived too late to the party?