2010 October » TamsPalm - the Palm OS / web OS Blog

Krusell on top-sellers for September 2010

Oct 072010

When it comes to data on the mobile market, finding out which data is useful is hard. The data from Krusell has been useful in the past; as it is generated from users purchasing cases.

Krusell has sent out the following stats for September:

TOP-10 selling phones for September 2010.
1. (2) Samsung I9000 Galaxy S
2. (1) Nokia 3720 Classic
3. (4) Apple iPhone 4
4. (3) HTC HD2
5. (10) HTC Desire
6. (7) Nokia C5
7. (-) Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
8. (-) Samsung B2100
9. (9) Nokia E52
10. (6) Nokia 6700 Classic
() = Last month’s position.

Samsung Galaxy is the best selling phone in September according to Krusell’s monthly Top list. I guess we have to rank Nokia as this month’s winner since they have four out of ten positions on the September list, says Ulf Sandberg, MD at Krusell. IPhone 4 is ranked as number three. One possible explanation could be the difficulties Apple have had to meet the demand for their new device. Apple’s “problem” has been positive for both Samsung and Sony Ericsson during the third quarter as the list reflects, says Sandberg.

Not much to add here…

Palm Mansion – 800×480, no keyboard

Palm News No Responses »

Oct 052010

So far, information leaking out of Palm pointed at – um – conventional things shipping with webOS 2.0.

Precentral now reports something different:

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The phone is codenamed ‘mansion.’ It is to have a 800×480 screen and it will not have a physical keyboard – a design decision that’s very interesting given that we assumed that virtual keyboard code buried in webOS 2.0 was meant for the PalmPad.

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Given that Palm hasn’t done an all-touch device since the Z22, I am interested to see what will become of the project. Keep in mind that HP used to do all-touch smartphones in the past, but then started to deploy all kinds of weird keyboards.

Even though professional users tend to prefer keyboards, there obviously also is the prosumer market – let’s see how it all plays out…

HP abandons Android

Palm News No Responses »

Oct 042010

HP traditionally used Windows Mobile – until WP7 came along. The manufacturer switched to Android shortly, and then took over Palm-

Mobile Business Briefing now reports the following:

Jon Rubinstein, the Palm chief executive who has stayed on to lead HP’s gadgets business (following HP’s US$1.2 billion purchase of Palm earlier this year), told the Financial Times. It has abandoned a project to launch a smartphone based on Google’s Android operating system and there will be no tablet based on the system, Rubinstein said.

Given that HP has shown a nice amount of Android devices at last year’s MWC, this is a good sign…

Super AMOLED vs Super LCD

Hardware News No Responses »

Oct 012010

samsung super amoled Super AMOLED vs Super LCD Even though Samsung has managed to ramp up production enough to keep the SUper AMOLED supply issues out of press, various manufacturers have shipped Super LCD devices happily for the last few weeks.

DisplayMate.com has taken the time to evaluate the two technologies, and has come to the following conclusion:

All of the tested LCDs were considerably brighter than the OLED displays – however, that may change in the near future as OLEDs continue to improve… While “Super” OLEDs have roughly 50 times the Contrast Ratio of “Super” LCDs, when a display is set properly to its optimum screen brightness that superior Contrast Ratio is visually insignificant except under dark ambient lighting, which is seldom the case for mobile displays. While OLEDs love to flaunt their vivid colors and large color gamut, that produces gaudy and over saturated pictures – someday they will turn those down and get it right…

While the iPhone 4’s sharpness is something of an overkill (it’s that high for App compatibility) the PenTile arrangement of the OLEDs has only two sub-pixels per pixel instead of the usual three, so it sometimes appears more pixilated than its stated resolution implies – it’s excellent for photographic images but is noticeably degraded for colored (red, blue and magenta) text and graphics. While all OLEDs behave considerably better with changes in viewing angle than “Super” LCDs, smartphones are primarily single viewer devices and the user can easily orient the phone for the best viewing angle. LCDs are currently more power efficient for brighter images and OLEDs are more efficient for darker images.

But for typical web and app content, which typically use bright backgrounds, the power balance is still decisively in the favor of LCDs by more than 2 to 1 in our tests – again, that should change as OLEDs continue to improve… The big question remaining for OLEDs (and not covered by our tests) is whether the previous uneven aging over time for the red-green-blue OLED sub-pixels has been solved.

Let’s see how long it takes until Samsung ditches PenTile – if they ever do, you will be the first to know!

3931 webOS apps there are

Palm News No Responses »

Oct 012010

When it comes to webOS, the main “fear” held by many users is the lack of available applications.

Fortunately, the number is increasing every day. webOSRoundup now shares the figure of 3931 via the Tweet below:
webos apps 3931 webOS apps there are

Not much to add here…

HP appoints Leo Apotheker as new CEO

Palm News No Responses »

Oct 012010

After laying Mark Hurd off, HP was managed by its CFO in an interimistic fashion.

The company now has a new CEO) – its Leo Apotheker from SAP fame:

The Board of Directors of HP (NYSE: HPQ) today announced the election of Léo Apotheker as Chief Executive Officer and President. Apotheker, who previously served as CEO of SAP, will also join HP’s Board of Directors. The Board also elected Ray Lane, Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as a new member of the Board and designated him as non-executive Chairman. Both elections are effective November 1.

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Not much to add here…

Mobile payments perceived as threat by Canadian mint

Miscellaneous No Responses »

Oct 012010

Mobile payments perceived as threat by Canadian mint When discussing mobile with friends, mobile payment always is a topic – unfortunately, it is not one which tends to be considered as “important” in Europe and the Americas by my crowd.

However, it looks like we are totally wrong – the Canadian Mint (manufacturer of Canadian coins) considers mobile payments such a significant threat that it has censored a speaker which it initially invited to its own event.

The man in question was nobody less than Tomi Ahonen, who tells the following story:

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So get this – When 08:32 comes, and the previous speaker has ended his presentation, Mr Ian Bennett says that the next speaking slot is Mr Tomi Ahonen, but that Mr Ahonen will not be speaking. He mentions that that I am in the audience and points me out (I wave) and Mr Bennett says he will be publishing my paper with the conference proceedings

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Then in that context, Mr Bennett considered my last slides in my presentation where I show how coins have been eliminated of very significant coin businesses in Sweden and Estonia – perhaps he was spooked and felt, at the very last moment, that he does not want that story out?

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Looks like mobile payments will become big if governments are spooked – in case you feel like reading more on how not to treat a speaker, hit the URL below:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/09/so-national-mints-behaving-like-ostriches-or-is-it-only-ian-bennett-of-canadian-mint-who-is-afraid-o.html

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Skeezix

Todd Bradley mentions PalmPad

Palm News No Responses »

Oct 012010

When it comes to webOS, the one upcoming device to be excited about is the tablet.

PreCentral now reports the following:

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We’ve already announced the expansion of our future product portfolio well beyond smartphones. We’ll have a webOS-powered PalmPad that will be set for release early in 2011.

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Given that the trademark in question has been reserved for some time, let’s see how it will all play out in the near future.