Phone Industry Plays Catch-Up With Touchscreens, Software
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At the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the big themes were touchscreens (nearly every phone manufacturer had one), software and attempts to create a more unified user experience.
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An operating system for smart phones might make up for a rough quarter and Microsoft nipping at its heels.
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Manufacturers focus on mobile standard, expected to hit the market next year.
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In 2007, we'll see more types of mobile access start to emerge, which will lead to more applications and more competition among providers.
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Google has come to cellphones -- the cheap ones, not just the fancy color-screen models with Web access.
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While it took the digital photography industry around six years to launch a six megapixel digital camera it seems the mobile phone industry is not hanging about.
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No list of trends would be complete without a mention of Apple's iPhone, a device that many handset manufacturers will be looking to beat in 2008 in order to attract a consumer that is ever more interested in advanced wireless services. Many of those devices will debut at CES next week.
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Sony Ericsson, LG, and Samsung have all caught &quot;iPhoneitis,&quot; joining in on one of the hottest trends at the Mobile World Congress -- touch-based user interfaces.All three launched mobile phones at the show in Barcelona, and they all use touch in different ways -- from LG&#39;s icons that change function depending on what part of the phone is being used to Sony Ericsson&#39;s ability to focus where a user touches while taking a picture.Sony Ericsson likes to point out that it has supported touch since the birth of the company. But it also gives Apple some credit.&quot;They are a source of inspiration,&quot; said Rikard Skogberg, category manager at Sony Ericsson.The point is to make mobile phones easier to use and to open the door for more features, such as mobile Internet.&quot;Sony Ericsson&#39;s goal is to make our phones as easy as possible to use, and touch is a big part of that. If people are going to buy more advanced phones, they must be able to use all the features -- and for that to happen, they must be intuitive,&quot; Skogberg said.LG&#39;s Channel Marketing Manager Heather Seabrooke agrees.&quot;It&#39;s all about usability. With touch, you don&#39;t need a million different buttons. Instead, you can use the same ones for different things,&quot; she said.But not all phone vendors seem to be convinced. Nokia was expected to show a new version of its S60 operating system with an integrated touch-based user interface, but it was nowhere to be seen.Nokia says it will use touch starting sometime during the second half of this year but not in a gimmicky way. And there must be a clear migration path for users.Several analysts are also skeptical.&quot;We believe that a good user interface must also support buttons to be effective and fast. And we will see a lot more innovation before this market becomes mature,&quot; said Leif-Olof Wallin, research vice president at Gartner.But at the same time he thinks that Nokia&#39;s lack of support for touch may hurt its sales in the short term.&quot;Nokia&#39;s new flagship phone, the N96, has an impressive spec, but it doesn&#39;t support touch. And that makes it a bit handicapped,&quot; said Wallin.Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight, has this warning for users: &quot;We think 2008 will be the year of crap touch phones.&quot;
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New Doubleclick technology lets customers schedule, show ads on mobile phones.
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By JEFFREY KELLEY  Two marketing companies, each specializing in finding ways to grab your attention, have joined hands to deliver advertisements to the latest frontier of ad space: cell phones.
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Investor's Business Daily - Color screens, cameras and clamshells. Those features helped drive the cell phone industry to another record year in 2004, according to new sales data.
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Mobile phone makers get a choice of new technology plus existing MediaFlo for services.
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Mobile operators, content providers and other participants at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment trade show this weekÂ in San FranciscoÂ will be gearing up for an expected boom in mobile multimedia in the U.S.
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In light of a recent Parks Associates analysis of mobile and portable gaming trends, a series of casual games have hit the market for cellular handsets and portable media devices.
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Mobile phone firms face a series of hurdles if they want to get their customers using their funky new handsets.
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The Mobile World Congress is seeing the introduction of a wealth of gadgets to meet needs and desires.
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Many people are just getting used to snapping pictures, listening to music, watching videos, sending text messages and getting e-mails over their cell phones. It turns out the phones can handle much more.