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It would appear that according to an Interpret report that gamers are increasingly giving play time to their phones while their portable gaming units gather dust. The report titled, “The Phone Gaming Revolution: Do the DS and PSP Stand a Chance?,” shows us what might be obvious to many: gamers have phones and have realized games are on them. Few things beat accessibility.
Interpret’s New Media Measure™ data shows 43.8% of the phone/DS/PSP gaming market plays games on phones—a significant 53.2% increase over the past year—while the proportion of those who play on the DS or PSP has fallen by 13%. Gamers appear to be defecting from their handheld gaming devices to phones to get their gaming kicks: a full 27.2% of consumers who indicate that they play games on their phones only (and not on the DS/PSP) actually own a DS or PSP, but do not actively use the device(s).
Smartphone gaming has improved to a point where the entertainment value rivals a dedicated portable gaming system, at least in my book. For the low entry costs ($.99-$4.99 in most cases) combined with high users satisfaction for short-period gaming, smartphone gaming is a win for many consumers. Is it serious gaming? No. And that kind of the point.
Those who still cannot get enough on the whole Windows Phone 7 copy and paste bit can rest assured in that the functionality has recently been captured on video. Of course, while we can see how it will all work—we still have no idea when you will actually be able to use it. That said, the last of the rumored dates called for early 2011 and “in a matter of weeks.”
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Last night at D: dive into mobile, Google’s Andy Rubin showed off a new tablet by Motorola. Not only was a new tablet shown off but the tablet was running an early version of Honeycomb. Rubin remarked the tablet (mind you, it’s a prototype) cost $10,000.
While not much time was spent talking about the actual product, the Motorola tablet looked to be bigger than the 7” Samsung Tab. The tablet Google showed off looked more like 10” wide but kept the same aspect ratio as the Tab. There was a front facing camera and it appeared to be running Google video chat when first turned on.
Rubin did reveal that tablet packed a NVIDIA processor and a dual core 3D processor. Rubin said the unit was not due out until sometime in the future.
In the video below you can see how quickly the tablet performed. Rubin used the tablet to show off a new version of Google Maps coming to Android devices shortly. Rubin was quick not to let the host hang onto the device.
Google may have officially announced Android 2.3 yesterday, however they, or more specifically Andy Rubin showed off a little bit of Android 3.0 as well. The demo was as part of the All Things D Dive Into Mobile event that took place and the OS was demo’d on a prototype tablet from Motorola. Based on the video it looks like tablet lovers looking for something Android flavored have something to look forward to seeing come available. The video made special attention to Google Maps as well as other little bits such as the lock screen, desktop and the fact that the tablet has no buttons. With that, we are still unsure of an Android 3.0 release time, however according to the latest rumors, that should be happening sometime in Q2 of next year.
This is not the first we had heard about the HTC Trophy and Verizon Wireless. In fact, it is not the first time we have heard rumblings of the Trophy arriving early next year with Verizon. That said, according to the latest—it looks like Verizon will be launching the handset in January. Of course, we still need to see the official announcement come from Verizon, but until that happens, we will tentatively mark our calendars.
Rogers has recently posted a rather nice (and complete) video demo of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The PlayBook was being shown off during the Rogers Tab Life event and the video offers a 17 minute and 40 second look. Of course, the entire video is not the PlayBook by itself—it also includes some of the interview with Dave Neale who is the Vice President of Special Projects at Research In Motion. Needless to say, if you are interested in the BlackBerry PlayBook, this is a good video to check out.
It looks like we have yet another Archos device to look forward to seeing come available, except this time it is not going to be in the Internet Tablet lineup. The latest is the Archos 70b eReader and it has been spotted in an FCC fling that not only gave some nice images, but listed some specs as well. According to the details given, he Archos 70b will have support for Adobe Digital Editions DRM, which would make it Google eBookstore compatible. Otherwise it will have a 7 inch color LCD display, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, USB, built-in stereo speakers and an SD memory card slot. With that and as you can see from the images, it looks like a rather basic device. Still, assuming the price is right it could be nice for someone looking to make the jump into Google eBooks.
The Nexus S news originally broke as the Nexus Two way back when and while that name was never confirmed it did seem to make sense considering we currently had the Nexus One available. Given that it seemed only logical that potential customers would take to the name and it would probably have even helped sell a few upgrades because many would want the Nexus Two as opposed to the Nexus One for the simple fact that it is a newer phone and therefor better. Of course, looking at the specs we can clearly see that it is better, but naming is also important for the mind and it seems that Samsung had something to do with the handset coming in as the Nexus S as opposed to the Nexus Two. First and foremost, yes there is the S and Samsung and Galaxy S thing going on, but it seems much simpler than that. According to a report on TechCrunch; Samsung simply did not like “being number two” and given that the handset was born as the Nexus S.
It seems that Android 2.2 update news for the Samsung Epic 4G was little more than a leaked version and sure you can still follow the directions that were provided and have your handset running Froyo—but you are doing so at your own risk. Bottom line, according to Sprint that version is a test build and “is not approved software for Sprint production devices.
“Software version DI18 is the current production version of software. When new versions of software are available, users will receive a notification from Google on their device stating that an upgrade is available for download and installation. While we are unable to communicate a firm delivery date, rest assured that we are working on a software upgrade to Froyo and hope to have it out in the very near future.”
And there you have it, the Samsung Epic 4G is not the first Galaxy S branded handset in the US to get upgraded to Android 2.2, well, not yet at least.
If Digitimes’ report this morning is reliable, we might be looking at a possible shipment of the iPad 2 starting February 2011. According to the report, Foxconn Electronics in Shenzhen, China has already been notified to start manufacturing the iPad 2. Initial shipments are expected to be as much as 400,000-600,000 units.
It should be noted that Apple was originally planning to start mass production of the 2nd gen iPads by January. This was recently postponed since Apple is still testing the OS that this iPad will be running on, probably iOS 4.3.
While the iPad 2 is still in the manufacturing stage, Foxconn will still continue to supply Apple’s order for the current iPad model. Foxconn has yet to ship the remaining units of the original iPad for the fourth quarter of 2010. As of today, around 1.8 million units of inventory are still left .By January 2010, Apple might place for another 1.6-1.8 million units of the original iPad and will reduce order volume come February 2010. This is more than enough for the inventory to last March 2011. By then, the iPad 2 might start shipping from China.
FROM GAMERTELL - The world’s largest video game retailer and one of the most visited video game websites have announced a partnership to share resources. MORE »
AT&T has been deemed the worst cell phone carrier in the United States by Consumer Reports. The survey, which targeted 58,000 Consumer Reports readers, asked users to rank categories ranging from email and texting, to staff knowledge and overall value. It came as a bit of a shock to me that my ten year long cell phone provider pretty much received an “F” across the board. Looking to save some face, AT&T release the following statement in regards to their underwhelming report card.
"We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience. The fact is wireless customers have choices and a record number of them chose AT&T in the third quarter, significantly more than our competitors. Hard data from independent drive tests confirms AT&T has the nation's fastest mobile broadband network with our nearest competitor 20 percent slower on average nationwide and our largest competitor 60 percent slower on average nationwide. And, our dropped call rate is within 1/10 of a percent – the equivalent of just one call in a thousand – of the industry leader." AT&T statement
Upon taking into consideration the criteria upon which this survey was based, I don’t think the customer service should have been rated as poorly as this study suggests. For starters, which phone company doesn’t have awful customer support? Also, the “staff knowledge” category will undoubtedly vary from location to location. I’ve come across very knowledgeable employees at some locations while others have had complete yokels running shop. In any event, I think we should all take this study with a grain of salt.
If Digitimes’ report this morning is reliable, we might be looking at a possible shipment of the iPad 2 starting February 2011. According to the report, Foxconn Electronics in Shenzhen, China has already been notified to start manufacturing the iPad 2. Initial shipments are expected to be as much as 400,000-600,000 units. 
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