FriendCaller Blog

According to a recent press relase by the npdgroup, the android operating system continued to shake up the U.S. mobile phone market in the first quarter (Q1) of 2010. npdgroup’s research revealed that the RIM’s OS (Blackberry) stands 36 percent, and Android OS moved into the second position at 28 percent, leaving behind the Apple’s OS on 3rd position at 21 percent.

“As in the past, carrier distribution and promotion have played a crucial role in determining smartphone market share,” said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for npdgroup. “In order to compete with the iPhone, Verizon Wireless has expanded its buy-one-get-one offer beyond RIM devices to now include all of their smartphones.”

The strong selling of Droid, Droid Eris, and the Blackberry Curve via such promotions helped Verizon Wireless’s smartphone sales on par with AT&T in Q1 of 2010.

“Recent previews of BlackBerry 6, the recently announced acquisition of Palm by HP, and the pending release of Windows Phone 7 demonstrates the industry’s willingness to make investments to address consumer demand for smartphones and other mobile devices,” Rubin said. “Carriers continue to offer attractive pricing for devices, but will need to present other data-plan options to attract more customers in the future.”

Its time for Apple to shift to a multioperator strategy in U.S., and take control of the smartphones market share. Not to forget that recent lawsuit papers filed against Android by Apple revealed Apple’s 5 year contract with AT&T which is now going to end in early 2011.

Apple launched its new tablet, iPad, in early April this year. The iPad version available in the current market only supports WiFi connectivity, and the 3G version is to be offered by May. Despite of its cool design, awesome functionalities, and the huge count of 500,000 sales in first week of launch, the iPad is struggling very hard to cope with network standards around the world.

At many Universities in the US, such as  George Washington University and Princeton University, the network administration has discovered the network problems caused by iPad. Some universities blame the iPad of overloading their limited Wifi bandwidth, while others are complaining of the way the iPad is authenticated by University’s DHCP server. Some other institution are not happy with the iPad’s Wifi interference to other on-campus devices. Reports claim that 25 out of the 41 iPads on the Princeton University campus exhibited malfunction, and were banned. Students at George Washington University are notified that iPad usage will not be supported on the campus until next year, because they have to upgrade their network to solve iPad’s connectivity issues.

iPad’s subjected interference has also made Israel to ban the device nationwide. Two-way Passengers possessing an iPad have to leave the device with the Airport authorities and must pay the storage fees, if they wanted back on their way return. However, iPad will be confiscated if any one-way arriving passenger is found possessing it.

Today Apple announced its 3G version confirmed release date. Let’s hope that the 3G device does not violates any regulatory authority or cause any technical interference.

Many of you must have enjoyed the announcement at Apple’s homepage about the new upcoming iPhone OS 4.0. Where Apple uncovered many new features e.g. the function of multitasking, the users of iPhone 2G or the iPhone 3G should not celebrate too early.

Though, apple announced the OS 4.0 also for the older iPhones, but some new features will not work on the old devices e.g. the multitasking. Older iPod Touch models don’t have the ability to manage the multitasking functionality, too. Either the hardware from the old models is just too old or maybe its a marketing-strategy from Apple to sell more new devices.

But in the end: No multitasking for the iPhone 2G and 3G!