Iphone India

In 2007, Dell was sued over selling faulty computers to not only individual consumers, but also to corporations and big Universities who needed Dell’s OptiPlex business units.

New documents, finally unsealed in the long-standing case, show that Dell employees knew that the company was selling faulty units, and decided to instead play off the issues, allowing the corporations and schools use the computers, at risk to their business.

In a twist of irony, the firm defending Dell in the suit had 1000 Dell computers run into trouble, and the PC manufacturer refused to fix them.

Internal documents also show that Dell shipped almost 12 million computers from May 2003 to July 2005, knowing full well they were at risk of failing.

In 2005, the company took a $300 million charge to fix and replace faulty computers, and will pay up to $100 million this year to settle with the SEC for shady accounting practices.

The problems affecting the millions of computers had to do with bad capacitors found on motherboards being built by Taiwanese suppliers. After three years, the capacitors had a 97 percent chance of popping and leaking fluid.

Making matters worse, explains The NYTimes was that Dell, when they did choose to fix faulty units, would replace the motherboards with other motherboards with bad capacitors, delaying the inevitable.

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Source: Abhilash

Microsoft has confirmed today that they are pulling the plug on the Kin One and Kin Two smartphones, after sales fell well below expectations.

Additionally, the Kin phones will not make it to Europe as promised, and the entire Kin team has been moved over to the company’s Windows Phone 7 division.

Says Microsoft: “We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.”

Pulling the plug is a glaring admission of failure from the Microsoft team, which released the phone just two months ago, after almost two years of development.

The Kin series failed for many reasons, but the main factor was price. For low-end smartphones aimed at teenagers, Microsoft and Verizon still forced consumers to buy a $70 mandatory voice+data+texting plan. For the same price, you could have a top-end Android device, or head to AT&T for an iPhone.

Sources from within Microsoft say Verizon sold over 1000 devices since launch, but under 10,000, with many believing that number is around 2500.

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Source: Abhilash

Apple may not want to admit it, but the Android OS has already surpassed their iOS in smartphone market share in the United States (by some accounts), and is catching up internationally.

AdMob, the mobile analytics and tracking firm that was recently purchased by Google, has released their latest mobile metrics report, which is a “monthly snapshot of the smartphone industry based on data generated by ad requests within its network of 23,000 mobile websites and mobile applications.”

The report shows that Android is rapidly rising internationally, in terms of share, thanks to a plethora of new smartphones using the popular mobile operating system.

As of May 2010, iOS leads the way at 40 percent international market share, with Android closing in at 26 percent. Symbian, by Nokia is in third at 24 percent. Blackberry OS, despite being popular in the United States, is in fourth at 6 percent. Windows Mobile, once dominant, fell to a measly 2 percent. Palm’s WebOS and “other” make up the rest of the numbers.

In North America, Oceania and Western Europe, the iOS is dominant, while Nokia dominates Eastern Europe, Asia and almost the entire Africam continent.

Overall, traffic from Android devices has grown 29 percent month-over-month for every month since May 2009.

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Source: Abhilash

Since the introduction of their new iPhone 4, Apple has been getting complaints of reception problems related to users bridging a gap in the steel band around the phone’s edge during normal use. Despite acknowledging that the issue exists, Apple has consistently defended their design and characterized the problem as a user issue.

The problem occurs when the device is cupped in the user’s left hand in such a way that a gap in the steel band around the edge is bridged. Among other things, the band serves as a pair of antennas which are separated by this gap.

Holding the iPhone 4 in this way has been found to degrade or completely block phone and data service.

A number of people have reported getting email responses from Steve Jobs on the issue telling them to hold the phone differently. A recent statement from the company mirrored that sentiment.

“Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your Phone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.”

As the Apple statement indicates, the use of a case resolves the problem by covering both antennas.

A document reportedly leaked from Apple to Boy Genius Report seems to indicate the company intends to continue making customers responsible for solving the problem.

1. Keep all of the positioning statements in the BN handy – your tone when delivering this information is important.
   1. The iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. Our testing shows that iPhone 4’s overall antenna performance is better than iPhone 3GS.
   2. Gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception. This is true of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, and many other phones we have tested. It is a fact of life in the wireless world.
   3. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 3GS, avoid covering the bottom-right side with your hand.
   4. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 4, avoid covering the black strip in the lower-left corner of the metal band.
   5. The use of a case or Bumper that is made out of rubber or plastic may improve wireless performance by keeping your hand from directly covering these areas.
2. Do not perform warranty service. Use the positioning above for any customer questions or concerns.
3. Don’t forget YOU STILL NEED to probe and troubleshoot. If a customer calls about their reception while the phone is sitting on a table (not being held) it is not the metal band.
4. ONLY escalate if the issue exists when the phone is not held AND you cannot resolve it.
5. We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers – DON’T promise a free bumper to customers.

Apple is certainly correct that antenna issues aren’t unique to the iPhone 4. But the fact it occurs when the device is being used in a way their engineers should have anticipated and tested for still makes this a design flaw.

There are a variety of ways Apple could be handling this. Denying all responsibility for the problem seems like choosing the worst one in the long term to avoid spending money on a slight design modification or a relatively inexpensive fix for existing units in the form of free or discounted bumper covers.

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Source: Abhilash

Amidst the usual comparisons of operating systems and the constant analysis of the biggies in the handset segment (Nokia, Apple etc), a few other things in the AdMob Mobile Metric report caught my attention.

This graph basically shows a regional share of the traffic and requests that the company receives. Firstly the notable fact stated in the report is that globally the traffic has increased by 4 times in just 2 years. And this multiplication factor seems to have reduced only because of Africa because otherwise the rest of the world has increased its mobile activity for the company by 6 times.
Also notice that Oceania has seen the steepest growth in the time span. Why is that? Is it due to a new marketing strategy that was being pursued in the region or does this growth represent a new surge or true growth in mobile spending and engagement in the region?

The other noticeable fact is revealed in this bar graph published in the report.

The difference in the choice of the phones between the developed world and the developing world is very stark. The last 3 bars show that the economically advanced countries have a clear preference for Apple devices. Latin America seems to be in 2 minds while Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe prefer the sturdy and affordable Nokia devices. Oceania and Africa come across as the most loyal markets while Latin America shows the most varied distribution in use of all devices.

The last observation that I want to end this post is with is this. The graph below shows the global operating system share. As seen, traffic generated from Android is the only traffic which has shown consistent growth. In fact Apple and Symbian have largely shown a decline. Android’s growth almost looks like coming at the expense of the other two. This does mean that Android is clearly getting something right about the mobile consumer’s operating system demands.

What do you think?

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