We’ve seen handset makers like HTC, LG and Nokia all warning of declines in smartphone sales. But if there is a slowdown affecting some, it’s not because people are not buying smartphones; it’s because they’re all buying iPhones.
Figures out from Gartner today say that smartphone sales totalled 149 million units in Q4 2011 — 47.3 percent higher than the same quarter a year ago, led by none other than Apple’s iPhone, which its analysts noted “saved” the smartphone market after two quarters of declining sales. → Read More
On Thanksgiving, Pinterest’s co-founder Ben Silbermann sent an email to his entire user base saying thanks. It was fitting, as Pinterest was born two years ago on Thanksgiving day 2009. Ben had been working on a website with a few friends, and his girlfriend came up with the name while they were watching TV. Pinterest officially launched to the world 4 months later.
Some startups go crazy with hype and users right after launch. And some don’t. I don’t know the founders, but I thought I’d take apart Pinterest’s story to discuss growth and virality in consumer web startups. Pinterest was not an overnight success. On the contrary, its growth was surprisingly modest after Turkey Day 2009.
Take a look at Pinterest’s one-year traffic on Compete from Oct 2010 to Oct 2011, which is the picture in this post, and shows Pinterest rising from 40,000 to 3.2 million monthly unique visitors. I took both ends of this chart and estimated monthly compounded growth over Pinterest’s lifetime, then interpolated the curve using constant growth and put the results in this Google Spreadsheet. → Read More
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you can’t have missed the recent dust-up over race and Silicon Valley. Like almost every discussion of diversity and meritocracy in this town, it turned ugly fast. One side says: “All I see is white men. Therefore, people like Michael Arrington must be racist.” The other responds, “Silicon Valley is a colorblind meritocracy. If there were qualified women or minority candidates, we’d welcome them.”
I’d like to say a few words about this, but I want to do so under special ground rules.
I want to make an argument, step by step, that I hope will convince you to care about this issue, but that doesn’t presuppose that you already agree that diversity is important. And it will explain how it is possible for both sides to be mostly correct – and that we still have a problem. → Read More
In response to this morning’s Open Letter from a purportedly “high level” RIM employee to the CEOs of the company, RIM sent over the following statement: → Read More
We already know that Nokia has started shutting down some of its online stores, such as those in Spain, France, and Finland, but we didn’t expect to see the U.S. and U.K. web outlets close so soon after.
That’s right folks, Nokia online is gone. Forever. In fact, the only online stores Nokia has left are in China, Portugal and a few South American countries. Luckily for the end user, Nokia phones are still available across a number of different online retailers including Amazon. → Read More
Oh, how great it is to live in the future. Sure, we may never explore the galaxy in our personal space cruisers (single tear.), but we can buy our friends coffee without even being at a coffee shop. From our phones! → Read More
Oh man! That girl you met in the hostel in Prague wants to video chat. It’s like 2 a.m there! This can only be good! HIGH FIVE! Wait. No. No high-five. I TAKE MY HIGH FIVE BACK. You’ve only got a Windows Phone 7 handset. They don’t having front-facing camera support, much less video chat support. Sad trombone. Fortunately, it looks like a fix is on the way. Well, sort of. Anyone who already has a Windows Phone 7 handset won’t benefit much from this (for obvious, lacking-a-camera-on-the-front reasons), but a few developers have dug through the most recent build of the WP7 Mango update and have found all sorts of evidence that Microsoft’s up-and-coming update might natively support front-facing cameras. The most damning evidence: that circled icon above lurking about in the camera app. [Via WPCentral] → Read More
When it comes to doin’ video stuff on Android, things can get a bit.. complicated — especially when that video is streamed. That’s why just about every video app to launch on Android is launching on but a handful of handsets at a time. Netflix initially launched on five. Hulu launched on six. This morning’s somewhat-limited-launch? Skype 2.0 for Android. Though it’s not streaming video in the same sense as the rest, two-way video chattin’ is just as — if not way more — complex. The first batch of supported devices is made up of just four handsets: HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia pro and the Google Nexus S. Kind of a weird selection (No DROIDs? No Thunderbolts? No EVOs?)… but hey, gotta start somewhere, right? → Read More
Today a letter slipped out addressed to RIM’s co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. It was written by a “high-level” employee, who BGR claims to have identified and confirmed as the author. The letter is not angry, disgruntled, nor does it cross the line. It is a simple, heartfelt plea to get RIM back in the game. → Read More
The Nokia E6 saw a $7 price-cut as it became available today on Amazon’s site, listed at $439 instead of its pre-order price of $446. The unlocked, SIM-free phone is available and in-stock, and shipping is free from Amazon.
The unbranded Nokia E6 will work with both AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, and with a pentaband 3G radio on board, the E6 can get 4G support, too. → Read More
A picture on Flickr (which I can’t find and therefore can’t confirm) has apparently been spotted by PocketNow with “motorola Droid HD” listed as the camera. Oh my god, it’s a new Droid with a 1280×720 screen, like that in the Nexus Prime and other upcoming superphones! Or… someone has been messing with EXIF data, or (as the picture was taken near the Motorola campus in Illinois) it could be a test platform for new Droid-standard HD camera hardware. One data point isn’t much to go on. [via Droid-Life] → Read More
HTC’s line of Evo phones have long been Sprint exclusives, and are arguably the number three carrier’s shining stars.
Interestingly enough, Sprint’s most recent (and also most awesome) phone, the Evo 3D has been spotted passing through the FCC sporting T-Mobile’s AWS bands. A trip to the FCC doesn’t necessarily mean that T-Mobile is for sure, without a doubt picking up the Evo 3D, but it does give a little hope to T-Mobile customers who aren’t keen on the pink carrier’s current front-runner, the Sensation 4G. → Read More
The fact that HP is considering licensing webOS isn’t exactly news — HP head honcho Leo Apotheker said as much in an interview weeks ago. What is news, however, is that such licensing deals might already be in their early stages. At least, that’s what we’re gathering from this Bloomberg piece, where Apotheker is quoted as saying HP is already in talks with “a number of companies” regarding putting webOS on their devices. My only question: Why the heck would anyone want to? → Read More
We’ve covered the HTC ChaCha’s journey to the States pretty exhaustively, from its debut at Mobile World Congress, to the rumors that it was heading for AT&T, to the last-minute name change from ChaCha to Status (presumably as a result of this lawsuit filed by ChaCha. As in the company, not the phone. A phone can’t file a lawsuit, silly; it doesn’t even have hands.) Well, the journey’s pretty much over: this morning, AT&T threw up a Facebook fanpage for the Status, pretty much confirming everything. As usual, they’re keepin’ mum on the price/release date for now. I don’t often play prophet, though the birds-eye-view this job provides would allow me to. I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb in saying this, though: this phone.. won’t be a raging success. Between the antiquated-looking form factor, the odd screen size, and the gimmicky Facebook button, people just don’t seem interested. → Read More
They’re at it again folks, and it only gets uglier and uglier.
Samsung has filed another complaint against Apple, according to the International Trade Commission website, this time to request an import ban against the iPhone, iPad, and iPod.
Should the ITC choose to investigate the complaint, we won’t get a final decision for at least 16 months. → Read More
Yesterday we reported that Nokia has a few girly-named phones in the works, one of which being the Nokia 700 Zeta. Unfortunately, all we had to lead us down the road to spec discovery was a vague and sparsely detailed spec sheet.
Today however, a couple snap shots have been leaked of the Zeta, and we wanted to make sure to give you a more informative introduction to this C6-01 successor. → Read More
There’s not a lot of real data to pull out of this unless you’re privy to a lot of internal Microsoft stuff, but it’s fun anyway. A video from Microsoft’s Cambridge campus has a whiteboard in the background that seems to have some Windows Phone 7 improvements scribbled on it. Nice eye on the viewer who spotted this! → Read More
Along with the 500 features originally announced for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Mango OS, Microsoft today announced the ability to create custom ring tones. Obviously, pre-loaded ring tones will still be available for those of us who enjoy a more classic ringer… but if you want Fergie to assure you that tonight’s going to be a good night every time your special lady friend calls, now you can. → Read More
Good news for any Windows Phone 7 owners out there who are just dying to get back to telling everyone where they are and amassing cutesy badges: Gowalla is now available on your platform. This is the first of the major check-in apps that has made its way to Microsoft’s nascent platform — which is actually a bit of a surprise. Why? Because if Microsoft’s demos back at their MIX 2010 conference were any indication, a Foursquare app was riiiiight around the corner. Turns out, that app was built by someone at Microsoft.. who’s no longer with the company. A rep from Microsoft went on record back in May saying that an official Foursquare app was on the way, but we haven’t heard anything since. → Read More
Another day, another carrier expanding their 4G network. This time around, it’s T-Mobile… which means calling it “4G” is technically a bit of a stretch, but hey, we’ve beat that horse enough at this point. The latest regions to show up on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ coverage map: Chico, Calif.; Redding, Calif.; Barnstable, Mass.; Vineland, N.J.; Lancaster, Penn.; Ogden, Utah, and Winchester, Va. If nothing else, T-Mobile customers at Chico State should be glad that they can totally send each other regrettable text messages, like, way faster now. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
