India Telecoms Update @ Mar10

Source : Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

• Total telephony subs base up at 621.3 million taking overall tele-density to 52.7%
• 20.3 million wireless adds during March taking total wireless subscription to 584.3 million
• Share of monthly net adds [Operators] - Vodafone (17.9%), Reliance (14.8%), Bharti Airtel (14.8%), Tata (13.7%), BSNL (13.3%)
• Share of monthly net adds [Telecom Circles] - Category B (43%), Category A (33%), Category C (18%), Metros (8%) 
• Mkt Share (31Mar10) - Bharti Airtel (21.8%), Reliance (17.5%), Vodafone (17.3%), BSNL (11.9%), Tata (11.3%) 
• Share
• Wireline subscription continues at 37 million
• Total broadband (> 256 kbps) subscription at 8.8 million

India's Reliance Communications Taps GetJar for Free Mobile Apps

The focus on VAS and in particular apps by India's mobile operators continues given the commoditisation of voice.

APRIL 27, 2010 | Sarah Reedy, Light Reading 

Reliance Communications Ltd. , India’s second largest wireless operator, is the latest to break into the country’s application store movement, tapping the world’s largest independent app store, GetJar Networks Inc., to bring 65,000 free apps to its CDMA and GSM mobile phones.

GetJar’s app store is part of Reliance’s strategy to use free apps as a gateway to increasing data traffic, data plan adoption, and sale of other services that add revenue to waning voice plans. Reliance expects mass mobile data plan adoption and mobile Internet use to be the immediate upside of the partnership.

The partnership also represents Reliance’s response to increased competition in India, as well as an expected growth spurt in smartphone use. It is following the lead of fellow Indian operators, Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Aircel Ltd. , which both announced mobile app store platforms earlier this year. Both have reported steady growth in downloads and users since launching.

All three are responding to a growing shift towards more advanced value-added services, stemming from both consumer interest and the need to offset declining voice revenues. India adds more mobile phone subscribers each month than any other country, and, increasingly, smartphones will become the norm. Competition is heating up as 3G networks come online and handset prices fall to a more mass-market level.

GetJar is already the fourth most visited mobile site in India, according to the company, and now Reliance’s 100 million subscribers will have access to GetJar’s library of apps through the carrier’s VAS platform, R-World. The store will come equipped with freebie favorites like Facebook , Twitter Inc. , Yahoo Inc., and Opera Software ASA Mini, as well as Reliance’s own app store, RWorld2.

The companies plan to make the store accessible to the largest possible number of users by installing it across multiple brands, not just high-end smartphones. The newly integrated app store will span 2,300 handsets across all major platforms.

Globally, GetJar powers app stores and provides analytics to Sprint Nextel Corp., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications , 3UK, The Carphone Warehouse, and Virgin Mobile France. 

India's Bharti Airtel Needs More Data Drive

With the commoditisation of voice on account of the on-going bruising battle in the mobility arena, VAS is something all key operators are focusing on though its currently largely SMS and ringtone based

APRIL 28, 2010 | Gagandeep Kaur, Light Reading 

India's largest operator, Bharti Airtel Ltd., is showing the telltale signs of being a mature mobile operator -- revenues are not rising as fast as its subscriber base, its monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) is in decline, and revenues from non-voice services are increasing noticeably. 


At March 31, when it's financial year ended, the carrier had 137.6 million customers in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, an increase of 41 percent from a year earlier. Of those customers, 131 million were mobile users, 3.1 million were fixed line customers, and 2.6 million were digital TV customers. 


But despite that giant increase in the number of customers, Bharti's full-year revenues, at 396.15 billion Indian Rupees (US$8.88 billion), were up by just 7 percent, with net income up by the same level to INR91 billion ($2 billion).


As anticipated, the ARPU at Bharti's main business, its domestic mobile operation (127.6 million customers at the end of March), declined throughout the financial year as India's tariff war intensified. Monthly ARPU during the fourth quarter was INR220 ($4.93), down from INR230 ($5.15) during the third quarter, and down from INR305 ($6.83) during the fourth quarter of the previous financial year.


But while the ARPU level continues to slide, other metrics are increasing. Bharti Airtel recorded its highest ever volume of voice traffic, 19.6 billion minutes, during the fourth fiscal quarter, up 13 percent compared with the third quarter. The average minutes-of-use-per-user rate hit 468 during the fourth quarter, up from 446 in the third quarter.


And non-voice revenues are increasing at Bharti's domestic GSM mobile business too. In the fourth quarter, non-voice revenues accounted for 11.8 percent of all mobile revenues, or INR9.7 billion ($217 million), compared with 9.3 percent, or INR7.65 billion ($171 million), a year earlier.


Like all of India's mobile operators, Bharti is striving to increase its non-voice revenues in an effort to counter the fall in voice revenues and stabilize ARPU levels. And for those operators that emerge from the ongoing 3G spectrum auction with a license (of which Bharti is expected to be one), it's likely that sales from an increasing range of data applications will only increase in the coming years. 


But Bharti's strategic efforts are not confined to its domestic market alone. It has recently made an acquisition in Bangladesh, and is in the process of extending its empire into Africa with the acquisition of Zain Group 's African operations, a move that Bharti believes will make it the fifth-largest operator in the world. 

The Age Of Facebook

Facebook is at an increasing clip permeating all aspects of the web. Their vision of an open graph of people and things (with Facebook at the center) is becoming reality. Facebook is taking over our identity and we are going along with that happily. It will take a new technology paradigm to disrupt what Facebook is doing.

by Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
Apr 25, 2010

Two years ago I was on the Charlie Rose show and we talked about, among other startups and trends, Facebook. It wasn’t clear then that Facebook had what it took to become one of the great technology companies. They had conquered the college market and were destroying the hopes and dreams of MySpace. But they were also reeling from the Beacon debacle and hadn’t proven that they could turn those massive reach and page view numbers into sustainable revenue streams.

You can watch the whole discussion about Facebook, which begins at about the 22:00 mark. But the key question I asked then was, “Will Facebook Have their Google moment?” I was referring to Google’s ability to pair awesome search in the late nineties with, later, an amazing business model – a bidding system for text ads. In 2008 it was clear that Facebook had taken the first step and changed our culture, possibly permanently. But it wasn’t at all clear that they would create the massive revenue streams to allow them to effectively dominate tech culture.

Fast forward to today. Those questions have been answered. Facebook is profitable and probably is running at a billion dollar plus revenue run rate today. They have 400 million users and 500 million people visit the site each month. Only Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have more monthly visitors than Facebook. And only Google has more page views. And they aren’t done growing yet. In a year they will likely be second on the list of unique visitors. In two years, they’ll probably be first.

In a talk a few days ago investor Ron Conway spoke about the explosive growth of Facebook. “They are the universe,” he said. I asked him if we are in the Age of Facebook. His answer was yes. Ron has been investing in startups for thirty years and he has seen the rise and fall of many companies. This wasn’t just idle chatter.

Microsoft dominated the technology world in the 90s on the back of their Windows and Office products. Google was the champion for the last decade after perfecting the business model around search. Both are still huge companies.

But all the momentum is behind Facebook and how they are changing the Web, and our culture.

Last week Facebook unveiled a variety of new developer tools, and new consumer applications are set to be launched in the near future. What’s most interesting about these changes aren’t the debates about whether what Facebook is doing is good for the Internet or not, or how open or not open their solutions are.

Those debates are important but they don’t affect the Facebook revolution any more than debates about Adsense a decade ago affected the decade of glory that Google just experienced. The fact is that Facebook is permeating the Web. Publishers, us included, are clamoring to organize our websites in ways that please Facebook.

Their vision of an open graph of people and things (with Facebook at the center) is becoming reality, and debates by technologists won’t changes that. Facebook is taking over our identity and we are going along with that happily. It will take a new technology paradigm to disrupt what Facebook is doing.

Microsoft’s Windows platform wasn’t threatened by user complaints, lawsuits or even government actions to weaken it. It took the evolution of the browser as an operating system, and new applications like Google Docs, to give users the comfort to move beyond Windows. And while the Windows franchise is still going strong, the writing is on the wall. Eventually, it will fall.

Someday, maybe a decade from now, some new technology will rise and allow other companies to threaten Facebook. But until then there is little to stop them. Their march to dominance has just begun.

YouTube’s IPL Cricket Streams Near 50 Million Views, Blow Away Internal Expectations

Would also be interesting to understand the number of streaming sessions and average viewing. Interesting stats at first glance given India only has 8 million broadband connection (with broadband = 256 kbps & above) 

by Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch on Apr 23, 2010

Last January, news broke that YouTube had signed its first international sports streaming deal, gaining multi-year rights to broadcast the Indian Premiere League’s 45-day cricket tournament worldwide. We’re now closing in on the conclusion of the tournament — the finals begin on Sunday morning — and YouTube has shared some initial stats.

Right now, YouTube’s IPL channel has over 49.5 million views. That far exceeds the company’s internal expectations: we’re told that their stretch goal was to get 10 million views over the course of the tournament. Viewers from 200 countries have watched the streams. Unsurprisingly, India has the most views overall; coming in second is the United States — YouTube had expected that spot to go to the UK or Australia, where cricket gets far more attention.

When the IPL deal was first signed it granted YouTube live streaming rights for every country except for the United States, where matches have been posted fifteen minutes after they ended. However, YouTube is streaming both the semi-finals and finals live (we’re told YouTube’s biz dev people worked “around the clock” to make that happen). All of which means the final view tally is going to be way more than 10 million.

Carriers Beat Facebook to Location Game

The potential combination of social network and LBS is potent and hence the raving and ranting about the same from across the ecosystem.


Facebook is by and large pegged as the natural-born leader in the battle for the next great location API. With more than 500 million users, a strong presence on GPS-enabled mobile phones, and a rich social experience, location would be icing on the cake –- something that would attract developers, advertisers, and potentially new revenue.

APRIL 23, 2010 | Sarah Reedy, Light Reading


Facebook surprised attendees at its f8 conference this week not with what it said, but what it didn't.
Despite the potential of the combination of social network and location-based services, the Facebook had nothing to share on that front. In an atypical turn of events, it appears this is one area where the wireless operators have beaten the Web giants to the table. But, the game is far from over.

Most industry observers have Facebook pegged as the natural-born leader in the battle for the next great location API. With more than 500 million users, a strong presence on GPS-enabled mobile phones, and a rich social experience, location would be icing on the cake –- something that would attract developers, advertisers, and potentially new revenue.

But, with no location news coming out of Facebook's f8 conference this week, the wireless operators have a leg up, albeit one that Josh Martin, senior analyst of wireless media services atStrategy Analytics Inc. , is confident won't last.

Sprint Nextel Corp. has always been the most active in location, working withWaveMarket Inc. to release its data to developers, but AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless are catching up now.

AT&T has promised to open up its location APIs to developers looking to tap users' location for fun, utility, or marketing purposes, and Verizon did the same in its recently launched V Cast App stores.

Carriers promise a higher degree of accuracy through the phone's built-in GPS and the cellular network, but, according to Martin, their advantages end there. While they have large subscriber bases, carriers don't yet play nice with the other carriers, Martin says. Even the coolest location-based service loses value when it's limited to just AT&T or just Verizon. Aggregators like WaveMarket and uLocate are helping to change this, but the "cool factor" is also at play.

"It's a great indication that they are recognizing the limitations of being a carrier while trying to get involved," Martin says. "But, even AT&T with all the benefits they have from the iPhone making them cooler, they won't have the cache of a Foursquare or Gowalla, because these are the hip new brands."
Some took Facebook's silence to mean that it was working on acquiring the popular mobile LBS app Foursquare, which reached 1 million users yesterday, but has yet to turn a profit. Others surmised that its location features just weren't ready to go public yet. There are also significant privacy issues that Facebook has to work through to go to market with location, and partnering could be the route it takes.
The social-networking giant did introduce other new features this week, including a social graph API that lets users "like" anything on the Web and a protocol for status searching.

Its new protocols, which indicate that developers can tap into location to some degree, suggest that, whatever the delay, there's more to come from Facebook. It's a market that's also attracting Google, handset makers, and others still, so it's too early to cede a winner. It's anybody's game.
"Location is obviously something getting a lot of press and becoming increasingly important as an ad platform," Martin says. "It remains to be proven as a viable ad platform, but it's still pretty early... We'll see all these big guys dipping their toes into the water to figure out how to monetize this."

Social Phones Offer Shortcuts to the Web

In my dictionary a Social Phone is broadly one which merge's users' address books with their Social Networking/Blogging (Facebook, MySpace & Twitter) contacts (to provide one view of their social graph) and display exchanges (texts, e-mails, and social network messages) with their social graph via a single interface (window/box).


To scale in emerging markets like India multi-lingual support and sms as a bearer are critical.

Microsoft, Nokia, and Motorola are among the companies releasing a new batch of devices that make it easier for users to post comments, photos, and tweets

By Olga Kharif

Businessweek, April 22, 2010

Mobile-phone makers are building social networking software right into the central controls of their newest handsets to win over the swath of consumers who spend nary a minute disconnected.

Microsoft's new Kin phones, due to arrive in May, stream social networking updates from sites like Facebook onto the phones' home screens, and let users post pictures to the Web by dragging them onto a special area of the Kin's screen. Microsoft Kin marketing director John Starkweather says the company and partners Verizon Wireless and Sharp plan to market the phones as aggressively as AT&T and Apple flogged the iPhone when it made its debut. "You'll see a significant marketing campaign that'll rival, in the U.S., anybody," he says.

Nokia on Apr.13 announced three social networking handsets due in the third quarter that it says make posting to Twitter as easy as sending a text message. One of the phones, the C3, lets users update their Facebook status and post photos and comments to the site with a few clicks of a button. "We are looking to merge your phone with the social network," says marketing director Mark Thomas.

Motorola sells four phones with social networking capabilities that can merge users' address books with their Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter contacts, and display texts, e-mails, and social network messages in a single in-box. Motorola plans to include similar social networking features in "most of our [upcoming] phones," corporate vice-president Rick Osterloh says, since the capability appeals to buyers of many ages.

BEST-SELLER POTENTIAL

Phone makers and retailers say these "social phones" could be their next best sellers as they tap into consumers' desire to stay constantly connected to friends on the Web. "The stars are starting to align here," says Scott Anderson, a senior director in charge of mobile-phone sales at Best Buy, which plans to carry the Kin. "The best-selling handsets [today] have the best social networking on them."

At a time when handset makers are getting whacked by the iPhone—Apple reported on Apr. 20 that sales more than doubled to 8.75 million units in its fiscal second quarter—social networking features could make their products more compelling. Nokia on Apr. 22 reported first-quarter earnings that fell short of analysts' expectations as the company cut prices to compete with Apple and other vendors.

To be sure, millions of consumers tap into Facebook and other social networks through apps that they download onto their iPhones, BlackBerrys and Google's Android-powered phones. And Apple announced Apr. 8 that the test version of its upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 operating system includes software called Game Center that lets developers create apps with social gaming aspects.

Yet as consumers do more of their computing on the go, including visiting social networks to keep up with friends, social phones ensure they don't miss a beat by pushing comments, status updates, recently posted pictures, and other information front and center without requiring users to visit a Web site or fire up an app.

SOCIALIZING ON THE MOVE

More than 17% of U.S. mobile subscribers accessed a social networking site or blog from their phone from November to January, and mobile social networking is the fastest-growing activity on handsets, according to market researcher ComScore. A 2009 study of 800 U.S. teens by the Pew Internet & American Life Project released Apr. 20 showed that 23% have accessed social networks from their cell phones, and 64% of teens with multimedia-capable phones have shared cell-phone photos with friends.

Bringing social networking into phones' controls offers an economic incentive for wireless carriers, too. Consumers who weave social networking into the fabric of their everyday phone usage can ease the burden on carriers' networks since they've been given an alternative to launching a mobile browser or app. About 20% of smartphone-generated network traffic comes from social networking use, estimates independent wireless consultant Chetan Sharma. When users visit Facebook's Web site from their phones, downloading the page layout onto a device consumes more network capacity than simply plucking data from the site and displaying it on a phone as text, Sharma says.

Social network-oriented phones are gaining popularity overseas as well. INQ Mobile, a subsidiary of telco Hutchison Whampoa, in March said it would start selling social phones in India that receive Facebook updates, tweets, and instant messages on their home screens. Similar phones will come to the U.S. and China in 2011, says CEO Frank Meeehan.

Ken Dulaney, a vice-president at market researcher Gartne, says social phones may primarily attract young consumers. "This is what kids want to move to next," he says.

Introducing Google Places

But expected though I was anticipating this much earlier. An offline leg (like a call center, feet on street, etc.) needed for emerging markets.


The coupons, real time updates and ability to run promo features are interesting

Google Blog

April 20, 2010 

Today the Local Business Center is becoming Google Places. Why? Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages — the way that businesses are being found today — with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.

We launched Place Pages last September for more than 50 million places around the world to help people make more informed decisions about where to go, from restaurants and hotels to dry cleaners and bike shops, as well as non-business places like museums, schools and parks. Place Pages connect people to information from the best sources across the web, displaying photos, reviews and essential facts, as well as real-time updates and offers from business owners.

Four million businesses have already claimed their Place Page on Google through the Local Business Center, which enables them to verify and supplement their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings and more. It also lets them communicate with customers and get insights that help them make smart business decisions.

Google Places will continue to offer these same tools, but the new name will simplify the connection with Place Pages. This reflects our ongoing commitment to providing business owners with powerful yet easy-to-use tools.

We're also introducing several new features:

• Service areas: If you travel to serve customers, you can now show which geographic areas you serve. And if you run a business without a storefront or office location, you can now make your address private.
• A new, simple way to advertise: For just $25 per month, businesses in select cities can make their listings stand out on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags. As of today, we’re rolling out Tags to three new cities — Austin, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. — in addition to ongoing availability in Houston and San Jose, CA. In the coming weeks we'll also be introducing Tags in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco.
• Business photo shoots: In addition to uploading their own photos, businesses in select cities can now request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business which we'll use to supplement existing photos of businesses on Place Pages. We've been experimenting with this over the past few months, and now have created a site for businesses to learn more and express their interest in participating.
• Customized QR codes: From the dashboard page of Google Places, businesses in the U.S. can download a QR code that’s unique to their business, directly from their dashboard page. QR codes can be placed on business cards or other marketing materials, and customers can scan them with certain smartphones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for that business.
• Favorite Places: We're doing a second round of our Favorite Places program, and are mailing window decals to 50,000 businesses around the U.S. These decals include a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone to directly view the mobile Place Page for the business to learn more about their great offerings.

Over the past few months we've also added the ability for business owners to post real-time updates to their Place Page. You might want to promote a sale, a special event or anything else that you want customers to know right now, and this feature lets you communicate that directly to your customers. You can also provide extra incentive by adding coupons, including ones specially formatted for mobile phones.

To keep track of how your business listing is performing on Google, we offer a personalized dashboard within Google Places that includes data about how many times people have found your business on Google, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people traveled from to visit your business. With the dashboard, you can see how your use of any of these new features affects interest in your business and make more informed decisions about how to be found on Google and interact with your customers.

One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward. We’re excited to announce Google Places today, as it’s just the beginning of what’s to come from our efforts to make Google more local. If you want to learn more about Google Places, we’d like to invite you to an upcoming overview webinar, or you can visit our newly updated Help Center. We’ll also be posting on the Lat Long blog throughout the week to give a deeper dive into many of our newest features. To get started now, go to google.com/places.

Motorola's iSIM could power company-specific mobile apps

Innovative concept but provisioning and support could be big potential issues. This seems to have been pitched in emerging markets like India by Motorola as a way to have multiple MSISDNs even with a single SIM card. That in my view wont fly atleast in India due to regulatory, branding, provisioning and support issues.
By Matt Hamblen, ComputerworldApril 15, 2010

Motorola's new Intelligent SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) just got its start in Europe by powering a parental control application for GSM phones, but it will also be available to enterprises that need to customize mobile phones for a sales force or other application across an entire group of workers.

The iSIM is a thin, 0.4 mm, flexible wafer containing two chips that attaches to a mobile phone's original SIM card to provide additional services and applications to the phone.

Motorola's first customer for the iSIM, Bipper Communication of Norway, was announced April 7, but Motorola expects the iSIM to be used by a a variety of wireless GSM carriers and application providers globally late this year.

A third chip can be added to the iSIM to provide Near Field Communications to enable a GSM device to be used for mobile banking and purchases, said Venkat Eswara, director of marketing for applications at Motorola.

The potential for adding-in NFC to a phone could be important to financial services and other companies seeking to turn mobile phones into mobile payment tools, said Stephen Drake and Will Stofega, analysts at research firm IDC.

Even for enterprise applications, Drake said iSIM offers "the potential for even more IT control of a phone. There's a lot of talk of how to get more data onto a device and this could be a way."

The iSIM wafer won't be available for purchase by end users, but an enterprise could purchase iSIMs from a carrier and then use the SIM tool kit to build a custom application. The advantage to using an iSIM is that it will work across a number of phone models from different manufacturers being used by a company or customer group, Eswara said in an interview.

"A major enterprise like Pepsi might have multiple carriers and multiple device types, but iSIM gives IT one control point to enable secure sales force automation or ERP application," Eswara said.

In addition, a bank could use the iSIM to issue security tokens into their customers' mobile phones, which would not be tied to a particular mobile carrier, Motorola said in an online brochure about the product.

Eswara said pricing for the iSIM will vary based on the kind of application used. Motorola will also work with companies to develop an iSIM application or to train a company's Java developers in creating an application.

At Bipper of Norway, the iSIM is used to provide parental controls to GSM phones .

Bipper's iSIM application, which initially launched in Bulgaria and Norway, will help parents manage their children's mobile phones, offering a Web-based lookup to see when calls are made and to which numbers. Block-out capabilities are also available, and an emergency calling feature is supported that uses GPS to send an emergency call to five parties that will show where the child's phone is located.

Eswara said he didn't know of any competitor offering anything similar to the iSIM that is a product physically apart from the original SIM in a phone. Many companies already offer a variety of applications that work with a customer's SIM.

IDC's Stofega and Drake also said they have heard of nothing comparable to the iSIM. An enterprise might want to evaluate the iSIM and decide whether it truly provides advantages. One potential downside is that the iSIM could be viewed as a separate component that is harder to manage than an integrated application on a phone.

"It might become something like a Wi-Fi card that you used to have to stick in the side of your laptop to get Wi-Fi," Stofega said.

Microsoft in talks to acquire mobile ad network

Fits in given the broader reach across more publishers and in mobile apps on the iPhone, Android, and other platforms that this would provide Microsoft

GSMA Business Briefing

April 20, 2010

Microsoft is close to finalising a deal to buy US mobile advertising network Millennial Media say industry insiders, a strategy that mirrors recent moves by arch rivals Apple and Google. According to sources at Business Insider, Microsoft has been negotiating with Millennial for the last two months and the companies have agreed on basic terms. The deal has been a long-standing rumour in the mobile advertising industry and follows Google’s US$750 million acquisition of AdMob last year – a deal still being looked at by US anti-trust regulators – and Apple’s US$275 million purchase of Quattro Wireless in January. Such deals have been made to capitalise on the fast-growing market for delivering advertising over smartphone platforms. According to Nielsen, Millennial reaches more than 80 percent of US mobile Internet users.

Despite the rumours of an impending deal, experts are sceptical whether Microsoft needs to acquire Millennial Media to compete in the mobile ads space. Business Insider notes that the software giant already has mobile ad products in-house, including some via its acquisition of mobile ad firm ScreenTonic in 2007. It also pointed to Millennial’s likely high price tag – estimated at over US$500 million – suggesting that even cash-rich Microsoft may decide it is money best spent elsewhere. However, the report notes that a deal would be useful in expanding Microsoft’s mobile ad business beyond the deals it strikes with operators such as Verizon Wireless to use its Bing search engine. “Acquiring Millennial could quickly give Microsoft broader reach across more publishers and in mobile apps on the iPhone, Android, and other platforms,” the report said.

Apple iPhone OS 4.0 to ship this summer with multitasking support

Long overdue !

By Prince McLean, Apple Insider

Due this summer, iPhone OS 4 will deliver multitasking as a way to run background apps that the user can quickly switch between.

The new feature was highlighted by Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs as one of the top 7 "tent pole" features of the new release, along with 100 other user features and hundreds of new features for developers to leverage in their apps.

"We weren't the first to this party," Jobs said of the new multitasking feature, "but we're going to be the best. Just like cut and paste."

"iPhone OS 4 provides multitasking to third party apps while preserving battery life and foreground app performance, which has until now proved elusive on mobile devices," Apple said in a press release.

The new feature enables users to launch multiple background apps, and then from any running app (or from the Home screen), call up a "multitasking tray" of the currently running apps, which the user can then immediately switch to.

Jobs demonstrated jumping back and forth between the iPhone's Safari browser and Mail, then jumped into a running game to continue from the previous game.

How Multitasking works in iPhone 4.0

Apple's Senior Vice President of iPhone software Scott Forstall appeared on stage to explain how the company had added multitasking without incurring a performance hit. iPhone 4 will add seven different multitasking services APIs for developers, he explained, each tuned to solve different multitasking scenarios.

Background Audio

One, demonstrated by Pandora's Internet radio streaming app, will allow apps like it to play music in the background, with playback controls available even at the lock screen.

Voice over IP

A second example involves VoIP, which enables apps like Skype to continue to receive calls even when the calling app is not the foreground app.

Background Location

A third mechanism is background location, which can be used by direction apps such as TomTom or social media apps like Loopt. Rather than constantly polling GPS (something that kills the battery rapidly) the new system calculates location from cellular sites

Push Notifications and Local Notifications

A fourth and fifth enhancement relates to Apple's existing push notification service and a new "local notifications" service that allows apps to post reminders or other events without using Apple's servers.

Task Completion

A sixth feature, task completion, will enable an app to start a job and continue working on it after the user leaves the app. And example given cited an app posting photos to Flicker, which continued working after the user left that app.

Fast App Switching

The seventh multitasking mechanism is fast app switching, which "allows you to restore the state of an app when you switch out and back," is the easiest to implement, essentially freezing the progress of an app such as a game while the user handles another task in another app.

iPhone and iPod touch model support

The iPhone 4 update will bring multitasking features to the existing 2009 iPhone 3GS and 3G iPod touch models with 32 and 64GB of storage. Earlier models from 2008 (iPhone 3G and the 2G iPod touch, as well as the low end 2009 models based on those designs) will be able to install the iPhone 4 update but will not be able to use multitasking because those devices lack the system RAM and processing power required.

The original iPhone and iPod touch models from 2007 will apparently not be supported by iPhone 4. At its release, they will be four years old.

Apple said "a version of iPhone OS 4 will be coming to iPad this Fall."

The next generation of Google Docs

Google Docs is the company’s main weapon on the enterprise market, besides Gmail of course, and the office and collaboration suite has been seeing a steady stream of updates and improvements aimed at making the cloud more of an alternative. Google’s regular modus operandi is to iterate fast, always bringing in small updates to improve a service or app. But, every once in a while, a reboot is needed and Google Docs is getting just such a reboot. The underlying cloud technology has been completely rewritten and the apps themselves are getting a major overhaul. 


With the revamped underlying technology, Google is also moving to HTML5 for the more advanced features. The new editors were written with the upcoming web standard in mind, but, unfortunately, this means that they aren’t compatible with technologies like Gears. Practically, it means that users won’t be able to go into offline mode with the new editors for now. 


Google Blog

4/12/2010

Today we are hosting nearly 400 CIOs and IT professionals from around the world atAtmosphere, our inaugural event at the Googleplex dedicated to cloud computing. The discussion is centered on how companies can focus their technology expertise on projects that truly improve their businesses instead of managing complex applications, technology platforms and devices. We are also sharing details about improvements to Google Docs, made possible by a new codebase that will allow us to deliver richer functionality more quickly.

New document and spreadsheet features
We’ve responded to many of your requests for features you’re used to in desktop software. In documents, we’ve added a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets and easier image placement options. And in spreadsheets, you’ll now find a formula editing bar, cell auto-complete, drag-and-drop columns and other features not possible with older browser technologies.



Higher fidelity document import
We’ve made big improvements to our document upload feature so moving files from your computer to the cloud is easier now. Imported documents retain their original structure more accurately, so you can hit the ground running editing in the browser without having to fix formatting like bullets and text alignment.

Speed and responsiveness
New browser technologies like faster JavaScript processing have made it possible for us to speed up Google Docs significantly. Even very large spreadsheets are fast to work with in your browser now. Applications that run this fast feel like desktop applications but have the unique advantages of being in the cloud.

Faster collaboration
We’ve extended Google Docs’ collaboration capabilities too, with support for up to 50 people working together at once, and in documents, you can now see other people’s edits as they happen character-by-character. And now you can also collaborate on flow charts, diagrams and other schematics in real time with a new editor for drawings on Google Docs.

Over 1 Million Downloads of Opera Mini from Apple Apps Store on Day1

This is what I term as consumer pull ! 

Cellular News

April 15, 2010

Apple said "Yes", and iPhone users around the world said, "Yes, please". The Opera Mini mobile web browser was downloaded more than one million times in its first day of availability in each market. Opera Mini is currently the number one iPhone app in the 22 featured Apple App Stores on their site.

According to Apple's download count, Opera Mini has been added to 1,023,380 Apple devices. Opera submitted its browser to Apple on March 23, following the unveiling of Opera on iPhone during the Mobile World Congress, CTIA and SXSW. Initial previews of the browser garnered rave reviews, indicating that Opera Mini delivers up to six times the speed, especially on congested networks, and significant Web-page compression to keep roaming and pay-per-MB costs at a minimum.

"Today iPhone users have a choice, and, as the numbers show, they are eager to explore new and faster ways to surf the Web on the iPhone - especially during heavy Web traffic," said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. "With any widely available and frequently downloaded Opera product, we are appreciative of all the feedback we are getting, as it helps us to continually improve our product and better meet the needs of our users."

Olive Telecom to launch triple SIM phone in India!

Triple SIM phone ! when does this really end ? No further comments on professional proprietary grounds

09 Apr 2010 in Phones by Rajat Agrawal Dual SIM phones (phones that can accomodate two SIM cards at the same time) are passe or so Olive Telecom would like us to believe. If its latest advertising in national papers in India is anything to go by, the handset vendor is set to launch a triple SIM phone that can handle two GSM and one CDMA connection at the same time! Called the Wiz V-GC800, the triple SIM phone has the following features: 2.0 MP camera with video recording and webcam function QWERTY keyboard FM radio with recording Expandable memory (up to 4 GB) Social networking with Facebook and Twitter Instant Messaging app Bluetooth with A2DP The phone will come with changeable back panels with an option of three colours - black, silver and yellow.  Olive hasn't revealed the price of this phone yet, but we would be surprised if it gets launched at over Rs 5,000 in India. We wonder what's next? A phone with 10 SIM card slots?