The South Korean LG Electronics Company has published its mobile strategy for the year 2010. It is going to sell more than ten million of cell phones and smartphones. Also LG plans to release about twenty new models of smartphones this year and more than a half of them will be running OS Google Android. The rest models will be based on Windows Mobile and different Linux versions.
Meanwhile, LG will gradually reduce the number of mobile devices with Windows Mobile “on board”. It’s a notable fact for mobile application developers, because analytics couldn’t foresee such changes. Only in 2008 LG Electronics and Microsoft formed an alliance to join their efforts in mobile devices development. Even in 2009 an absolute majority of LG smartphones were developed on the Windows Mobile operating system, and LG Eve was the only phone on the Android platform. This year the situation has changed dramatically and it definitely will have action upon those companies who provide such services as mobile application development for Android and Windows Mobile.
Posts Tagged ‘Windows Mobile’
Notable fact for mobile apps developers: LG believes in Android!
Saturday, January 30th, 2010Windows Mobile and iPhone OS: results of the year 2009
Monday, January 11th, 2010Summing up results of the year 2009, it will be quite reasonable to choose the best operating system for successful mobile apps development. So, what operating systems did we have at the turn of the year? Of course, there were Windows Mobile, iPhone OS, Symbian OS, Symbian UIQ, Linux Mobile, Palm OS and BlackBerry OS. Let’s try to investigate which of them has all chances to be called the best one.
Ah, this “old woman” still holds the largest market share. It has relatively out-of-date interface, nevertheless Microsoft delays the release of Windows Mobile 7 with touch-screen interface (as they promise) and complete compatibility with older apps versions. Though this OS has undoubted plus (a large number of good and stable mobile applications with rich functionality that was accumulated over the years), it’s not a permanent advantage. It can be lost soon as new operating systems are constantly adding new applications, offering new features and up-to-date interface. In general, if the next version of Microsoft Windows Mobile does not have any pleasant surprises for its users, the company will lose its market share under pressure of other mobile operating systems.
Yes, it’s beautiful, yes, it’s quite functional and it has already accumulated a lot of good features and high-quality applications. Due to the fact that iPhone has taken a considerable market share its application are relatively cheap (it’s an important bonus for those who choose a platform for a mobile device). But it has the main drawback: only Apple can produce hardware and iPhone source code is closed for mobile development companies. Nevertheless it’s not an obstacle for numerous Apple fans, Mac + MacOS + iPod + iPhone can be considered as a modern religion, it’s a way of live, no doubt.
Android outruns iPhone OS and Windows Mobile in 2012
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009Gartner analysts consulted their crystal ball and found that Android will be the second most popular mobile platform in the world in the year 2012. The company will present its full report with forecasts for smartphone market only at the end of October, but Ken Dulaney from Gartner has already shared some basic information with ComputerWorld reporters. 
Google Android’s popularity is growing wildly. According to the analysts, it is caused by many different factors. One of the key factors is a number of additional functions and related mobile applications from Google.
Also Android as a platform has advantages over other operating systems. For example, Android is an Open Source project in contrast to iPhone OS.
In addition, smartphone interfaces usually differ from each other by two approaches: iPhone OS is based on applications, devices using Windows Mobile and Symbian are based on communicational functions. Android, according to Dulaney, wisely combines both approaches. In particular, its interface allows running high-usage tasks without having to return to the main menu.
Finally, although the first AndroPhone appeared only a year ago and did not gain big popularity (it had serious hardware limitations), in recent months the major mobile phone manufacturers have introduced several new smartphones based on Android. Moreover about 40 new Android models will appear in the next year, said Dulaney, as well as a new OS version (its code-name is Donut).
Gartner experts managed to write all these factors in mathematical expressions and get a new model of mobile market in 2012. There are their projections:
1. Symbian OS – 203 million devices, 39%
2. Android – 76 million devices, 14.5%
3. iPhone – 71.5 million devices, 13.7%
4. Windows Mobile – 66.8 million devices, 12.8%
5. BlackBerry – 65.25 million devices, 12.5%
6. Linux – 28 million devices, 5.4%
7. Palm (webOS) – 11 million devices, 2.1%
What do you want to see in your ideal smartphone?
Friday, September 25th, 2009
Many of us are Smartphone owners, some use Windows Mobile, others prefer such OS as iPhone or Android. But we all need different additional applications to personalize our high-tech “friend”. Mobile application developers released thousands of programs for smartphones, but users always want more.
So let’s review the list of functions, which you may wish to add in your future ideal smartphone, so called “can do anything” device. Of course we will be realistic and will not add such functions as “to make coffee”. 
Wish # 1: RSS reader, Twitter client, mail client with voice synthesizer and voice control. Such functions will be very useful on the way to work. For example, you can read news headlines, and then give a voice command to read the full version. Many users say that existing applications for voice control are far from the ideal, so there is a lot of work for mobile programs developers.
Wish # 2: Built-in FM transmitter. Many of us save a lot of music files on our smarts (iPhones), and it would be nice to listen to it in a car (a car radio) without awkward adapters and cables. Of course, we must admit that such features somehow have been already implemented on the basis of Bluetooth.
To be continued…
Show your location using Google Latitude!
Monday, August 31st, 2009
Now you can show your location to the best friends via Google Latitude! The service Google Mobile Maps introduced a new feature called Google Latitude. It gives the opportunity to indicate user’s location and show it to selected contacts via mobile phone (using the GPS). You may be know this flashing blue dot on the map, which shows your location, wherever you are. In other words Google Latitude gives you the opportunity to “share” this blue dot with anyone you want.
Google Latitude is a mobile application (supporting such platforms as Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry). You can install it by downloading via mobile browser at google.com/latitude. Using it, you will always know where your friends and family are, also you can call them directly from this application, send instant messages or emails. Each contact added in your profile will be marked as an icon or avatar on the map; it will have the same look in the contact list (like in Twitter).
Do not want to shine your location? So you can “hide” from unwanted contacts (choose “hide from this friend” in properties of each contact). You can even enter your fake location. So it’s so easily to control the degree of your privacy.
Google Latitude is available for users of Blackberry, Windows Mobile Smartphones, iPhones, Android-devices and Nokia S60 in 27 countries.