Irina Sandu

Every week I post an overview on what’s been happening in the mobile (browsing) world and is relevant to Mozilla.

Summary for this week:

• Opera reported record results, with most revenues coming from mobile operator deals.

• Mobotap launched an iPhone version of the Dolphin browser with a similar look and feel, as well as key features.

• Samsung presented 3 new Bada handsets and is preparing new Android device announcements tomorrow.

• The first, 7-inch, Amazon tablet is rumoured to be shipping in October, followed by a 10-inch version early 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every week I post an overview on what’s been happening in the mobile (browsing) world and is relevant to Mozilla.

Summary for this week:

• Dolphin announced 9 million downloads and a partnership with Softbank, a Japanese carrier, in launching a 3D phone featuring the Dolphin HD browser.

• Opera launched a co-branded version of the Opera Mini browser with Vodafone Essar, India’s 3rd carrier by number of subscribers.

• The Android team announced that it will bring closer its development of the Android browser and Chrome by making available a slightly modified, open source Android browser port in Webkit.

• Google has released a preview version of a Google TV plug-in for the Android SDK, after buying Motorola Mobility, an important player in the TV set-top box business.

• Microsoft filed a patent lawsuit against Motorola, which can act as a test for the protection that Motorola’s patents can provide to Android handset makers, which was the main reason declared for Google’s acquisition last week.

• HP announced that it will discontinue efforts for the hardware of its Web OS devices and focus on the platform development, which it hopes to license to other hardware makers.

•  Frequent mobile Internet users are happier with their mobile operator, as consumers perceive that the quality of their experience on the device is linked to the quality of service provided by their mobile operator, a survey by On Device Research from April reports.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every week I post an overview on what’s been happening in the mobile (browsing) world and is relevant to Mozilla.

Summary for this week:

• Google intends to buy Motorola Mobility to consolidate its mobile patent portfolio and potentially also to enter the TV equipment business.

• Android now accounts for 20% of the smartphone installed base of 750 million.

• Opera announced partnerships with: 
  • Telling Telecom, a mobile phone distributor in China, with whom it launched a mobile browser called Oupeng
    
  • MTN, a carrier operating in South Africa and 20 other African and Middle Eastern countries
    
  • Terra, a Brazil-based Internet company which operates a Web portal and an ISP in the US, Spain and 16 Latin American countries

• Samsung is rumoured to be looking to significantly enhance its software capabilities as it competes with Apple in the smartphone business

• Fusion Garage launches an Android kernel-based mobile OS, named Grid, which will be featured on a 10-inch tablet and a 4-inch handset

Read the rest of this entry »

Every week I post an overview on what’s been happening in the mobile (browsing) world and is relevant to Mozilla.

Summary for this week:

• Dolphin HD was updated to v6.1 beta and voted No.2 on CNET’s Top 100 Android apps.

• In Q2, smartphone sales experienced 62% year-over-year growth and a re-shuffle of the top OEM positions due to Nokia’s decline from the first place to third.

• Approx. half of smartphones sold in Q2 run Android and their top manufacturers are Samsung (34%), HTC (23%) and Sony Ericsson (11%).

• Alibaba, a Chinese ecommerce giant, released its own mobile OS, which runs Android and Web-based apps.

• Phone Gap 1.0 was released and Nvidia announced tablets featuring its Kal-El quad-core CPUs to be available this fall

Read the rest of this entry »