ArchiveJuly, 2007

Today, Nokia announced a new service that drastically cuts the time it takes to utilize GPS services on a cell phone – a step that could push the cell phone industry closer to full-scale GPS-adoption.

Currently, GPS-enabled cell phones are slow to initiate a connection, taking up to three minutes to get a “first fix� on a location. The new service, dubbed A-GPS (Assisted GPS), can reduce that start-up time to one minute. Presumably, this makes using those location-based services much more appealing. Nokia will equip all future phones with built-in GPS with the new technology.

It’s a usability issue, really, and improving the connection speed is often a big step in making a new technology user-friendly. Thanks to the rollout of A-GPS, your phone might actually start to react as fast in real life as it does in the demos we often see. And that’s a good thing.

Best of all, the service is a firmware upgrade, so current Nokia N95 users have the opportunity to improve the GPS utility for free, by visiting the Nokia Software Updater.

In what several Wall Street analysts hailed as a “win-win transaction for both companies” on today’s conference call, Sprint and Clearwire announced a new partnership to deploy a nationwide mobile broadband network using WiMAX Technology. WiMAX is wireless broadband access designed as alternative to cable and DSL. WiMAX differs from WiFi in that it’s a long range system that uses a scheduling algorithm to make the bandwidth use more efficient. WiFi networks are generally confined to small areas – a building or neighborhood and network access is random and not scheduled. WiFi is, however, cheaper to deploy which is why it’s popping up in your local coffee shop.

I dialed into the conference call today, to hear Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff sum up the benefits of the new network: “The ability to have mobile end user devices always on, and always with the person - and that have the benefit of true broadband speed - will enable a whole new generation of internet based services, content and applications.”

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With the meteoric rise in popularity of social networking websites like mySpace, and especially Facebook, it seems like the move Sprint announced this week – plans to partner with ANTHEM and move into the social networking realm – was a smart one.

ANTHEM will allow Sprint’s cell phone customers mobile access to LiveJournal, Rabble, Vox and Xanga, where they will be able to view photos, send and receive messages, post comments and search profiles. The new service rolls out next week on select Sprint cell phones. We imagine a FaceBook app can’t be far behind.

Coupled with the revelation that Sprint and loopt are about to start working together, this kind of functionality points to the carrier’s commitment to social media. With the myriad of Internet-based options now available for your cell phone, it may be time for that data plan.

On Tuesday, Sprint released plans to provide “social mapping” services for its cell phone customers, through a company called Loopt.

Social mapping, as a budding phenomenon, is starting to generate significant buzz in the wireless industry. The Sprint service allows users to automatically share their location (together with a status message), send proximity-based messages, and view “geo-tagged content” directly from a cell phone.

In essence, your Loopt-enabled friends will be able to track your location, making rendezvous (and progress updates, for the friend who’s always late) that much easier to coordinate. The status message option also allows you to distinguish between “stuck at the office” and “happy hour – come on down!” And, going beyond planned encounters, Loopt likes to say it “increases serendipity” by letting you know when your friends happen to pass nearby, thereby facilitating chance meetings.

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Another cell phone related survey – conducted by Samsung – was released this week, this one detailing the habits of “single mobile females”? (or SMFs). We think the results may be useful for “single mobile males.”?

The “SMF”? subset, defined as young single women who have cell phones, are among the most savvy consumers of wireless products, and rely on their phones to play numerous roles – including, as a Samsung marketing VP cleverly noted, “pocket-size detective, matchmaker, and wing-woman.”?

To wit: more than two-thirds of the women surveyed no longer rely on traditional address books, preferring to organize and store information on a cell phone. Three out of every four respondents look at their phone, rather than their watch, to get the time.

When it comes to dating, you’d better have a good-looking cell phone if you hope to woo an SMF. Thirty-two percent of young women say they “can tell a good amount about a person”? based on the kind of cell phone that person carries; 12% say they would be less likely to date someone with a “big and bulky cell phone.”? And nearly half (48%) will readily flirt with someone they are interested in via text message.

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Music phones, and the music services that help you fill your song library, are getting more and more attention. Although the Apple iPhone didn’t start the trend, AT&T’s biggest phone launch of the year certainly isn’t hurting the proliferation of music programs. Verizon Wireless announced a new PC-based software suite designed to make it easier to manage your music through Verizon’s VCAST Music service. The program, called Music Manager, is available for free at the Verizon Wireless website.

Music Manager, according to Verizon Wireless, will “make buying and organizing your music intuitive�, by presenting your music files in four simple categories: VCAST Buy Music, to purchase new songs; Music on My PC; Music on My Phone; and Music on My CD. Tranferring and ripping songs is a matter of dragging and dropping files.

In addition, Music Manager is designed to sync directly with Windows Media Player, and will handle the conversion from AAC to WMA automatically, if necessary.

As we speculated, the arrival of the iPhone and heavy promotion of its capabilities appear to be a positive development for the entire industry – and that includes consumers, who will certainly benefit from the competition and innovation in the “music phone� market.

By the end of the year, you will be able to upload and view YouTube videos on LG phones. It sounds like they are working complete integration, so you’ll be able to shoot a video with your phone and upload it directly to YouTube. Those new phone models will come with Google services including Google Maps, search and Gmail pre-installed. YouTube launched a mobile-specific version of the site earlier this year; Helio then announced it was jumping on the bandwagon as well, with the new Up for the Ocean which will allow uploading to YouTube with two clicks.

And the FCC has just approved a new BlackBerry – the first to integrate cellular services and WiFi in the same device, which sounds like another device that hit the market recently. It doesn’t look as streamlined as the Curve, but I can imagine a lot of business users of the BlackBerry being quite happy to get their hands on one. We’ll certainly have more on this as news develops.