Category Archives: Android

Marketing Budgets

Peter Chou of HTC made a point recently that they didn’t have nor spend as vast amounts on Marketing as Samsung or Apple.

So lets look at the amounts. Lets take Coca Cola. Last year it spent $3bn. That’s huge but we all know what Coca Cola is. How about Apple? Apple spent $1bn which still seems huge. But these amounts are nothing compared to Samsung who spent $11bn. That’s nearly 4 times the marketing spend of Coca Cola.

I cannot see how any company, even HTC compete against such a strong marketing budget and campaign.

Sony Experia Z & ZL – The Design Differences – Which is Best?

It’s great to see Sony back in the game with 2 decent handsets but don’t they listen or learn from others.

I will be doing a bigger piece on Friday, but here is my first views.

The Sony Experia Z – it’s thin at 7mm but only had a 2300mah battery. Seriously Sony on a 5 inch screen. Sony say the have a power management tool that turns off apps in standby. Big deal. Run time will still be poor. For the sake a thinness a bigger battery is needed. I like the look, the decent camera and the waterproof and dust proof aspects. However, it’s very angular in design , meaning sharp corners and edges, meaning uncomfortable in the hand. The back is glass, gorilla glass. Who said Apple was mad using glass in the iPhone 4/4S!

The Sony Experia ZL – this is smaller in footprint and but has the same screen. In other words it is all screen practically. But it is not dust and waterproof. However, it does have rounded edges and curves, meaning it feels very comfortable in the hand. However it is slightly thicker too. It also loses the glass back for a more traditional plastic.

So the Z was angular as it needed to have flaps to conceal all the ports and slots to help it retain its dust and waterproof aspects. This is a good idea but sadly it does make it not as comfortable to hold. I am concerned about the battery. The Samsung Note has a much larger battery. But the Z is ultra thin. To make the ZL have a smaller front, the thickness was increased.

As you can see design compromises or design features impact the end result.

Which would you choose?

Sony’s Internet TV Service – Goodbye Cable

There are lot of whisperings that Sony is looking to launch an Internet TV service. This could be a breakthrough as it will simply transform the need for your TV to have an aerial. Adios to cable television and more.

I strongly believe the tech companies that will survive are the ones offering the best services. And Sony could recover from their recent drop in financial performance and the Japanese earthquake disaster.

20 years ago I was involved in a paper discussing threats to the insurance industry. Up at the top sat Sony, who at the time had nothing to do with the industry. But they did have the consumer database and infrastructure.

In technology it only takes 18 months for a top company to slide out of the rankings. In the same light that is all that is needed for a tech company to reach the top. Interesting times are ahead.

Windows Phones come to Android

Ever wanted to try a Windows Phone, but didn’t want to lose out on all those apps and functionality.

Well Tile Launcher is a launcher available on the Google Play store. It mimic the windows phone interface fairly well. It is still in beta, so more development and bug quashing is yet to come.

This is another reason why android is so popular. You can customise the look and feel to your hearts content.

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Watch Out Apple, here’s comes Amazon

For a while now I have always thought Apple’s reign at the stop would be most threatened from Amazon, not Google.

The Kindle Fire is the tablet that reduced the iPads web traffic share the most over Christmas. Now the amount may not seem a lot but I still believe its significant and will grow faster again.

To add to my argument, Amazon is strengthening its already large R&D department by another 250 employees. That’s huge. Adding to the strong rumours that Amazon will release their first smartphone, 2013 is looking to be the shift towards another dominant player in this industry.

Ofcom looking to stop Mobile Operators Ripping Off People

At the moment when you sign up for a fixed term mobile contact, you would have thought the price quoted was fixed too. It’s not though. All the mobile operators have slipped small increases into their monthly prices even when you thought you monthly cost is fixed for the lengthy of the contract. If the increase is deemed reasonable you cannot cancel your contract without being charged a fortune.

Well Ofcom looks like they are finally acting to stop these rip off practices that make the phone companies an additional £100m. New guidelines are due to come into play this autumn. Of course the phone companies are not happy. A suspect a battle will commence. Lets hope Ofcom win.

Google deliberately not Offering Window Phone apps – viewpoint why

It is well documented that Google is not going to offer at the moment any of its app for the Microsoft Windows Phones.

Many have theorised that Google doesn’t want to support a potential competitor. Others have said the Windows Phone is not being supported as it doesn’t have a viable market share.

All valid points but I believe it goes further. It is a well know fact Microsoft has sued phone manufacturers that produce android handsets, instead of suing Google directly. Microsoft has been successful in suing over its patents and receives a nice sum of money from android phone manufacturers. So Google just played its trump card by basically saying to Microsoft “Screw you, no Google apps”.

There are many ways of extracting revenge and I think Google is having the last laugh here.