We expect there to be no shortage of hot new PMPs announced this week, so manufacturers are looking for something — anything — to differentiate theirs from the rest. Samsung has two interesting angles for its latest players, the first being the MyFit, an 8GB model with integrated sensors to detect fat and stress, plus the typical accelerometer to measure your activities, and apps that can help you keep hydrated and even stop smoking — assuming you ever started. Oh, and it plays music, too.
Then there’s the Ice Touch, a 16GB model with a two-inch AMOLED screen that’s transparent, much like the Xperia Pureness, but with more colors and fewer stunned looking models.
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To rival Android, Linux operating systems, Samsung Electronics, the electronic giant has announced its own open mobile operating system called as bada, which means “ocean” in Korean. It is designed for use in Smartphones and will enable rich user experience in various applications. The new operating system will be launched in December this year, when its SDK (Software Development Kit) is planned to be made available. The company predicts that bada-powered devices will become a major thrust in the market in 2010.
Bada operating system
Samsung announced the bada operating system on 10 November, 2009, and the company expects that the first mobile phone based on the operating system will be displayed in the first half of 2010, and will be available to consumers in the second half of 2010. It is reported that the company also plans to introduce a “bada application store.” However, Samsung is already selling Smartphones running on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Google’s Android operating system.
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So Sprint’s backtracking on its promise to deliver Android 2.0 to its Hero and Moment in the first half of next year, but it’s backtracking in an awesome way for a change of pace — they’ll actually be getting 2.1. That makes tons of sense considering that the leaked Hero builds have all been on 2.1 and 2.0 will be all but obsolete by the time HTC gets around to releasing anything — so yeah, we probably could’ve predicted this anyway, but now it’s official. Unfortunately that 1H 2010 window hasn’t been reigned in at all, but here’s hoping this is a case where they under-promise and over-deliver.
Check out the screenshot of the upcoming Samsung bada OS that will target cellphones. Basically, it looks more or less like an adaption of the company’s current TouchWiz UI, and will be an open platform similar to Android and LiMo in order to empower developers to tweak and modify attributes of the software design. You will need to make sure your handset has a minimum 800 x 480 resolution display though to get full use out of the bada OS, while multi-touch gestures are supported to keep pace with Apple’s iPhone OS. Are you excited yet?
2010 looks to be the year of musical chairs. With Nokia (NYSE: NOK) recently changing their CFO and then reorganizing their mobile division into phones, smartphones, and mobile computers, it looks like Samsung Electronics is aiming to do roughly same thing.
Previously the mobile division of Samsung Electronics was lumped together with the people working on televisions, computers, home appliances and printers. Starting in 2010 this will change. Samsung Electronics will have a separate mobile division, along with 6 other divisions, with a goal to decrease time to market, and to make the current three level corporate hierarchy operate more smoothly by chopping off a level.
The new CEO of Samsung Electronics will be Choi Gee-sung and he will give more details about Samsung Electronics’ new organizational structure in January 2010.
Swype, a Seattle-based company that develops a new way of typing on touchscreen displays, has secured a $5.6 million funding from Nokia and Samsung (via the companies’ subsidiaries Nokia Growth Partners and Samsung Ventures, respectively).
Reportedly, Swype allows users to write “over 40 words per minute on touchscreen devices” by intelligently guessing the words you want to type, and the new funding will further help it improve its technology.
For the moment, only one handset features Swype’s technology (Verizon’s Omnia II), but Swype plans to offer it to several other WM and Android smartphones next year – and maybe to Nokia’s touchscreen handsets, too.
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Sprint has promised that both its Android-based smartphones, the HTC Hero and Samsung Moment, are going to get upgraded to the newest version of of Google’s operating system, Android OS 2.0.
The big news is really the Moment’s upgrade, as HTC has already committed to release Android OS 2.0 for the Hero.
Both these models debuted with Android OS 1.5, and an operating system upgrade will bring a range of new features, such as support for multiple Microsoft Exchange accounts, an improved version of the web browser, and better camera software.
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It seems that Samsung isn’t content with releasing just the Corby S3650 in India, as it has launched the CorbyPlus B3410 and CorbyPro B5310. Both phones sport full QWERTY keypads, QVGA touchscreen displays, and will be targeted at young mobile users. The CorbyPro B5310 will cost 13,900INR ($299) and will sport GPS, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headphone jack, and 3.2-megapixel camera; The CorbyPlus B3410 has a 3.5mm headphone jack, 2-megapixel camera, but lacks Wi-Fi and GPS. The CorbyPlus B3410 will cost 10,050INR ($216).
Korean giant Samsung claims that 42 percent of phone users worldwide will pay to download applications. That’s ahead of the launch of its Bada platform.
Bada is Samsung’s “open” mobile platform and the firm said the survey showed that 54 percent of the people it surveyed will pay up to $8 for each application downloaded.
The most popular applications, according to the survey, are travel and navigation applications, photography, work and shopping.
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SEONGNAM, South Korea – KT Corporation has sold over 60 000 Apple iPhone units, according to Digital East Asia. In a land where Samsung and LG are the major players, and where most mobile phones support mobile TV, the iPhone has sold relatively well over the last two weeks, despite sales numbers not approaching those of the iPhone in the US.
The number of iPhone units in the market is 1% of the total mobile market, and can be positively compared to the overall smartphone market figures of Q3, in which 400 000 smartphones weresold. The network, whom holds exclusivity in the country, expects sales from 100 000 to 500 000.
The sales figures may not be overwhelming, but KT executives hold hope for Apple’s smartphones, according to a report: “Executives at KT believe that the introduction of the iPhone could be a turning point for smartphones in Korea”.
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