A report from Taiwanese publication Digitimes says smartphone manufacturers Samsung, HTC, LG and Nokia are launching their new products in Q2 2012 instead of Q1 in order to avoid direct competition from Apple’s iPhone 4S.

Digitimes sources said that sales of the iPhone 4S “will remain at peak in the first quarter of 2012 and then begin to decline,” so many handset makers will be waiting to unveil 2012 models at Mobile World Congress in late February — with launch dates after that.

At first glance, the Digitimes reports seems tenable. At this year’s CES, many products revealed at the show were announced with release dates of April or later, and “in the coming months” was a common refrain among PR reps when asked when products would hit retail.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t look like Apple’s smartphone success bears much influence on its competitors’ release dates.

“If they did that, they’d never release anything,” iSupply analyst Francis Sideco said. “I’m sure it’s a factor, a consideration, but I doubt it’d be the factor that would drive somebody’s marketing plan. That’s like letting your competitor drive your product roadmap for you.”

Apple had blockbuster sales and earnings last quarter, particularly in the iPhone department. Sales of the iPhone 4S, which was announced Oct. 5 and released into the wild shortly thereafter, were especially remarkable, helping Apple to achieve a record 37.04 million in iPhone sales.

Although many smartphone manufacturers saw lackluster sales and slow to no growth over the holiday season, Samsung still managed to come out on top. Samsung sold 300 million phones last year and experienced record profits. If any company isn’t afraid of Apple, even in the face of lengthy, global-wide court battles, it’s certainly Samsung.

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney also thought today’s rumor sounded unlikely.

“Samsung and Nokia have both released phones during the iPhone 4S frenzy,” Dulaney said. True: Nokia launched its Lumia 710 smartphone on T-Mobile Jan. 11, and its Lumia 800 in Europe during Q4. Samsung’s flagship Android Ice Cream Sandwich phone, the Galaxy Nexus, also went on sale while 4S sales were peaking over the holiday season. Samsung is also releasing its Galaxy Note smartphone in February, during Q1.

Sideco points out that announcing phones during this quarter is basically as good as releasing them, as far as marketing impact is concerned. Nearly every handset maker unveiled at least one new smartphone at CES: HTC debuted the Titan II, while Sony unveiled the Xperia S, to name a few. We will likely be seeing many more product reveals once Mobile World Congress rolls around — but that still puts announcements in Q1, not Q2.

Apple may be a huge influencer in terms of smartphone trends, and a huge mountain of competition to overcome, but it’s very unlikely that Apple is the reason smartphone manufacturers are releasing phones later than Q1.

[Thanks: http://www.wired.com]

Adding to the rumor mill, a recent report published in 9to5Mac suggested that Apple’s next generation iPhone would feature near field communication or NFC technology.

The report was based on a conversation between one of their reporters and “a well-connected developer” at the recent Macworld convention. According to the report, the developer claimed to be building an application that includes the ability to process mobile transactions using the NFC technology.

Although the developer didn’t give any information about the specification of any new hardware release, he told 9to5Mac that he did speak to Apple iOS engineers many times, and they are “heavy into NFC.”

Rumors about Apple planning to introduce NFC in its future products have been around for quite some time now. The New York Times reported even before the launch of iPhone 4S that a forthcoming iPhone would feature NFC. Since it did not turn out to be iPhone 4S, it could well be the one on the cards.

According to Smart Money, Apple and other smartphone manufacturers will inevitably feature NFC technology in their devices, the Redmond Pie has reported. But the question is - who will partner with Apple for its payment system?

The 9to5Mac report provided some crucial hint…

Ed McLaughlin, who heads emerging payments at MasterCard, was quoted as saying to Fast Company: “The timeline is always as rapid as it makes sense for consumers.”

“That’s a combination of having a critical mass of the merchants, which is what you’re seeing right now, and getting devices into the hands of consumers. I don’t know of a handset manufacturer that isn’t in process of making sure their stuff is PayPass ready.”

Moneto meets MLB from Moneto on Vimeo.

Excerpt from McLaughlin’s Interaction with Fast Company:

“So that would include Apple then?

‘Um, there are…like I say, [I don't know of] any handset maker out there,’ McLaughlin says. ‘Now, when we have discussions with our partners, and they ask us not to disclose them, we don’t.’

Apple, of course, has the magical ability to transform whole industries. No one paid for music digitally before Apple unveiled iTunes; virtually no one listened to MP3 players, or carried smartphones, or played with tablets before Apple entered the markets. (And we have good reason to believe they are angling into wireless payment territory.) I asked whether the contactless payments industry needs Apple to hit critical mass.”

“Well, anytime someone with a major base moves forward, it advances what you’re doing. So of course,” McLaughlin says.

From his remarks, it seems that McLaughlin was desperate to reveal that Apple is partnering, but he didn’t… He couldn’t.

Is there anything that can block the expected Apple/MasterCard entry? According to 9to5Mac, it’s carriers who “can actually prevent device companies from putting apps on phones.”

The Verizon blockage of Google Wallet on the Galaxy Nexus in support of Verizon’s own ISIS NFC standard can also affect an Apple/MasterCard entry.

[Thanks: http://www.ibtimes.com]

Reporting from Edinburgh, Scotland—
D’ye want me tae spaek more clearly, Siri?

Aye, ye would.

The Scottish have long been accustomed to ridicule and bafflement over their accents from their fellow Brits, who strain to decipher words like “cannae” and “daftie” (for the record: “can’t” and “fool”). But you’d think that Siri, the voice-activated virtual assistant in Apple’s latest iPhone, would take a nice Scottish brogue in its stride.

Think again. Since the phone debuted in October, many of the Scots who rushed to buy it have discovered that their new “smart” gadget can’t understand them. This is true despite the fact that their phones are set to “English (United Kingdom)” under the “language” setting for Siri, which doesn’t seem to take the distinctive Scottish burr into much account.

“What’s the weather like today?” Darren Lillie said hopefully into his iPhone recently here in the Scottish capital, in a demonstration for an American reporter.

Lillie, 25, is Edinburgh born and bred, and his thick accent shows it.

Siri thought for a moment, then decided it best to repeat what it thought it heard.

“What’s available in Labor Day?” it asked.

Lillie shook his head. “I don’t even know what Labor Day is,” he said ruefully to the American, who told him.

Such misunderstandings haven’t prevented the new iPhone from being the top seller in the cellphone store where Lillie works. But talking up the benefits of a virtual assistant is a wee bit harder when the assistant virtually has no idea what you’re telling it to do.

Even in the U.S. and in England, where Siri recognizes speech patterns better, the system is far from flawless. That’s because the program is, in effect, still being tested and fine-tuned. Apple encourages customers to persevere, because the more use the system gets, the more information it has to draw on next time.

In other words, practice helps make Siri perfect.

“Once you’ve been using it for a while, it should pick up your accent,” Lillie said, then paused.

“But if you’ve got a broad accent, you’ve got no chance.”

A number of Scots have found this out already, and given up in frustration. Others have grumbled loudly on Internet forums.

A few amused and befuddled users have posted videos of themselves to show the world what happens when irresistible accent meets immovable assistant.

In one, a bearded young Scotsman, eyes dancing and Rs rolling, tries repeatedly to get Siri to “create a reminder,” only to receive in puzzled reply, “James, I don’t understand,” or “I don’t know what you mean by ‘create Alamain.’ ” (Does anyone?)

Finally, after multiple failures, James’ most deliberate and emphatic attempt (”Create. A. Reminder.”) yields something close: “Create our remainder.” No one breaks out the whiskey.

In other clips, “Can you dance with me?” gets misinterpreted as “Can you Dutch women?” and the question “How many miles are there in 10 kilometers?” elicits the helpful, if irrelevant, response: “I don’t see any email for yesterday.”

Lillie admits to adjusting his speech patterns to get Siri to understand him.

“I find I speak slower. It’s like when I speak to tourists,” he said to the American reporter, who felt at once both patronized and relieved.

To be fair, not all the blame for the verbal miscues ought to fall on Siri’s cold electronic shoulders. Even their fellow Scots complain of being mystified by people from Glasgow, whose brogues can be as thick and impenetrable as a Highland fog.

At Hector Russell, a traditional kilt-maker along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, manager Mark Cassidy, a friendly Glaswegian, gamely gave Siri a go.

“Can I make you a kilt?” he offered, twice.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘Telemedia kilt,’ ” Siri answered politely, both times.

Ella Bendall, an Edinburgh native, said she finds her thumbs more reliable than getting Siri to obey her. “I don’t even bother using it because I’d have to speak even more slowly,” said Bendall, 18. “It’s quicker typing.”

An attempt to reach Apple for comment was unsuccessful.

But it also turned out to be unnecessary, since it was possible to go straight to the source.

Reporter: “Siri, why do you have trouble understanding Scottish people?”

Siri: “Let me check on that…. I don’t know that. Would you like to search the Web for it?”

Nah.

Reporter: “Do you like Scottish people?”

Siri: “This is about you, not me.”

Clever.

Reporter: “Are you deliberately trying to annoy people from Scotland?”

Siri: “No comment.”

[Thanks: http://www.latimes.com]

People who have jailbroken and unlocked iPhone models in the past have probably come across redsn0w and ultrasn0w, well the good news is that these are the tools you need to carry out the jailbreak and unlock, but for some reason only a certain version of redsn0w worked for us while we tested out this method, the rest was pretty easy.

Before carrying out this method we connected the iPhone 3GS to the computer, updated it to iOS 5.0.1 and once that was installed we ran a factory reset to give the iPhone ‘a fresh start’, we’re not saying this is necessary, but this method worked for us.

Note: we carried out the following method using Windows not Mac OS X, also we can’t be held responsible if anything goes wrong, you are always taking a risk when jailbreaking a device, so don’t do it unless you are sure!

Now that your iPhone 3GS is running iOS 5.0.1 you should turn it off. Now download RedSn0w 0.9.10b4 via this link (Mac link here). Once downloaded extract the files and you should see a redsn0w.exe file, right click this and then select ‘Run as Administrator’ – redsn0w should now be open.

Click the ‘Jailbreak’ button, ensure your iPhone 3GS is off and plug it into your PC via the USB cable then click next, you may see a warning about your iDevice’s serial number, don’t ignore this and only continue if your iPhone doesn’t fall into the blacklisted serial numbers (you may have to briefly turn on your iPhone to check the serial number). redsn0w will now ask you to enter DFU mode, follow the on-screen instructions and then redsn0w will carry out the jailbreak. A few seconds later you should see some jailbreak options, ensure that ‘Install Cydia’ and ‘Install iPad baseband’ are both ticked, click next and then you will have to accept a warning to continue, the process will then finish and you will see your iPhone’s display showing the latter stages of the jailbreak – wait for this to finish and your iPhone should start-up running jailbroken iOS 5.0.1.

You now need to run a few checks, firstly swipe across to see if Cydia is installed, secondly go into Settings, General, About and scroll down to ‘Modem Firmware’ – here you should now be running baseband 6.15.00 – this means you have successfully installed the iPad baseband on your 3GS. Note: Some say that this baseband affects WiFi and GPS connectivity, but it worked just fine for us.

Finally load up Cydia, search for ultrasn0w, run it, reboot your iPhone and voila – you’re done. There are other methods out there which may work, but this is the only method which worked for us after 4 hours of trying different mehods. We didn’t have to install custom IPSW images or anything like that, just update to iOS 5.0.1, run a factory reset, jailbreak with redSnow 0.9.10b4 ensuring that you tick the iPad baseband (all other redsn0w versions failed for us) and then open up Cydia and run ultrasn0w – it’s simple when you know how.

[Thanks: http://www.product-reviews.net]

Nearly 40,000 people have signed the petition to Apple on the online petition site called SumofUs.org, asking Apple to “overhaul the way its suppliers treat their workers in time for the launch of the iPhone 5.”

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs, said that — as an Apple user herself — she would like to see Apple reform its labor practices, even if it means taking a hit to it profit margin or passing some of the costs onto consumers.

“I think there are lots of people who love Apple products, but are unhappy about the labor conditions,” she said. “We believe there are many ethical consumers out there who identify with these brands and want that part of their life to be equally as ethical. If you wouldn’t have a slave in your home, you also wouldn’t want to have one making your iPhone.”

Stinebrickner-Kauffman would also like to see Apple open its factories to independent audits. While the company recently joined the Fair Labor Association, she said that she would like to see another independent auditing group review the factories as well.

She would also like to see Apple extend the same protections to workers in Asia as it does to its workers in the United States, even if it takes a hit to its profit margin. Citing statistics from The New York Times, she said that it would add just $65 to the price of each iPhone to pay Chinese workers American wages, which she said could come out of Apple’s profit margin on each phone, which the report estimates to be in the hundreds of dollars. The Apple petition is the “most viral” of all of the petitions the Web site has posted in its short history, she said.

SumofUs.org, which Stinebrickner-Kauffman founded this past November, has also promoted petitions aimed at getting Google to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and pressuring Trader Joe’s to sign the Fair Food Agreement.

Apple has yet to release an official statement on the opposition to its labor practices, though the company did release a list of its suppliers and its annual audit of its supply chain last month. That report included recorded labor and environmental violations as well as details about Apple’s worker education programs.

In an internal e-mail, chief executive Tim Cook told staff that the company cares “about every worker in our worldwide supply chain.” He continued: “Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values.”

[Thanks: http://www.washingtonpost.com]

Only 36% of iPhone 4S buyers switched from a rival smartphone operating system, while 43% upgraded from an older iPhone, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Among those who bought in the first few weeks after the launch, about 70% were iPhone upgraders, says Michael Levin, a co-founder of the firm. In fact, in October and November, Apple claimed the top three spots among the top 10 smartphone models sold with the 4S, iPhone 4, and 3GS, according to research by the NPD Group, a market research firm. And consumers are clearly willing to play along with the upgrade cycle: About half of new smartphone buyers had owned their previous phone for two years or less, according to NPD Group.

And a large number of consumers managed to make the upgrade by reselling their older iPhones on sites such as eBay and Gazelle.com – often for as much as the full price of a new model. More than half of new iPhone buyers have sold their old phones, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. “Especially now that there’s a market for used phones, you’re more willing to buy the 4S because you know there’s a market for it,” Levin says. See our earlier stories for more on how these resale sites work and how much prices for older models fall when the latest upgrade is announced.

When the iPhone 4S was unveiled last year, many lamented it was a “relatively incremental” upgrade compared to the iPhone 4, says Tim Bajarin, the president of Creative Strategies, Inc. “Even though it was a marginal upgrade, it was a spectacular hit,” he says. “And we expect Apple to significantly update that phone this year.”

The 37.04 million iPhones during the quarter represent a a 128% increase from sales over the year-ago quarter. Apple set other records too: According to its earnings report, it made a net profit of $13.06 billion and sold 5.2 million Macs, and 15.43 million iPads.

Apple is certainly winning market share from competitors, chiefly Research in Motion. The BlackBerry maker’s operating system saw its market share fall nearly 60% in the first three quarters of 2011, according to the NPD Group. Apple’s iOS saw its market share grow 38% during that time. In October and November, iOS and Android between them accounted for 90% of smartphone sales in the U.S., making the market “a two-horse race,” says Ross Rubin, the executive director of the Connected Intelligence division of the NPD Group.).

[Thanks: http://blogs.smartmoney.com]

Nearly 1 million people jailbroke their iPhone 4S or iPad 2 between Friday and Monday, according a blog post from the Chronic-Dev Team, who took the lead in developing the untethered solution for jailbreaking iOS 5 on Apple’s newest gadgets.

News of Friday’s launch of Absinthe A5 temporarily crashed the greenpois0n site, as it evidently gave hundreds of thousands of users a fun weekend mini-project. The initial tool was only released for Mac OS X, but a Windows version quickly followed over the weekend.

Not surprisingly, the iPhone 4S was the most-jailbroken device with over 491,325 phones broken free from the restrictions of the iTunes App Store. Since iOS 5 came pre-installed on the iPhone 4S, this is the first time its owners could jailbreak the device without tethering it to a computer, which is too cumbersome a process to be considered by most users. The iPad 2 saw n 308,967 new jailbreaks, on top of the 152,940 second generation iPads running iOS 4 that were re-jailbroken. Those users were likely waiting to upgrade to iOS 5 until this solution was available, which is one of the drawbacks of jailbreaking.

Why People Jailbreak

For devotees of the jailbreaking process, the drawbacks are vastly overshadowed by the benefits. Rather than be able to cite a single “killer app” that makes it worth it, most just prefer the general freedom and customizability it offers. That includes the ability to tweak the visual appearance of the device’s UI and run any number of unauthorized apps.

Cydia, the repository of apps for jailbroken iPhones and iPads, contains many applications that would never meet Apple’s approval requirements for inclusion in the official App Store. For some, it’s because of trademark or copyright issues, such as video game emulators or controversial music services like Grooveshark.

Quite often, the apps don’t adhere to Apple’s agreements with the carriers, who would obviously never approve of an app that lets users tether their phone to their laptop and use its data connection without paying extra. With the iPhone 4S, the feature that offers perhaps the most new potential for jailbreakers is Siri, which developers have wasted no time hacking and tinkering with.

As controversial and officially frowned-upon as the whole thing is, many of the experimental features available on jailbroken iOS devices actually end up being included in the next release of the OS. This was true of recording video, which was technically possible on a jailbroken iPhone 3G. Similarly, the overhauled Notification Center found in iOS 5 bears a striking resemblance to the notification system available on jailbroken devices running iOS 4.

Jailbreaking May Not Be Mainstream, But Its Popularity is Growing

As Apple’s gadgets continue to burn through sales records, there also appears to be a growing interest among users in doing more with their phones, much like Android device owners are already accustomed to.

Truth be told, jailbreaking probably isn’t something the average user is going to get into, given the nature of the process, its risks and the tools involved. It’s really something more geared toward tinkerers and those who want more control over what their device can do.

Given the massive number of iOS devices out in the wild, several hundred thousand new jailbreaks doesn’t come anywhere close to a constituting majority of of users. Rather, it’s the pace of the growth that’s interesting to see.

[Thanks: http://www.readwriteweb.com]

These are the questions Ask Maggie tackles in this edition.

Should I upgrade to the iPhone 4S for Siri?

Dear Maggie,
I’ve had the iPhone 3G for a couple of years. But recently, I’ve really gotten tired of the slow download speeds for emails and Web surfing. Would the iPhone 4S be better? Also the Siri app looks really interesting, and I can’t get it on my iPhone 3G. Is it worth it for me to upgrade to the iPhone 4S for this app?

I’m going to be buying a new phone in the next couple of weeks, and I am curious as to whether or not you think it is worth the money to get the iPhone 4S, or if I should consider something else. Now that I’ve been retired for almost five years, I’ve lost touch with the latest technology so your advice is much appreciated.

Dear Jim,

I have mixed thoughts about the Siri application. It’s definitely cool to speak into your device, ask a question, and have Siri answer you. And some people I’ve talked to who own an iPhone 4S, really love it. But the times I’ve tried the app, it hasn’t worked that well for me. It doesn’t understand what I am saying, or it just directs me to a Website without telling me the answer I wanted. So in my opinion, the app can be useful at times, but it’s more a novelty at this point than a reason to buy the iPhone 4S.

Even though I don’t think the Siri is cool enough to make me upgrade to the iPhone 4S, there are many other features of the iPhone 4S that are worth upgrading for. And without a doubt, the iPhone 4S is a big improvement over the iPhone 3G, which is now two-generations old.

The biggest benefit for you is that the the iPhone 4S will likely offer you those faster downloads you want. The iPhone 4S sold by AT&T operates on the carrier’s HSPA+ wireless network, which is a slightly faster network than AT&T’s regular HSPA 3G network, which the iPhone 3G uses.

But just to be clear, the iPhone 4S does not operate over AT&T’s new 4G LTE network, which promises to offer much faster download speeds. (There has been a lot of talk about 4G LTE networks and I just wanted to be clear that the “4″ in the name of the iPhone doesn’t mean it supports this network.) Most Apple iPhone fans are hopeful that 4G LTE will be coming to the next iPhone that’s released. But it’s unclear when that new phone will be released.

In terms of device performance, the network is just one piece of the puzzle. The real difference in download speed between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 4S is likely attributable to the fact that iPhone 4S offers more processing power than the older iPhone 3G. So everything you do with the phone should be noticeably faster - from downloading email to surfing the Web to switching between applications. The overall response time of the iPhone 4S will just be snappier than what you’re used to.

There are also many other improvements on the iPhone 4S over the iPhone 3G. For example, the iPhone 4S offers a better camera with a built-in flash. It also has a front facing camera, so you can use the Face Time video chat app. The iPhone 3G doesn’t have a front-facing camera and can’t support Face Time.

The screen on the iPhone 4S is much clearer than the one on the iPhone 3G. Also, you are not able to run Apple’s latest iOS 5 software on the iPhone 3G. This software upgrade gets you access to a whole slew of new features, such as Apple’s cloud-based music and storage services. And it also gives you access to iMessage, a nifty messaging application that allows you to text message other iPhone users without using up carrier text messages. iMessage bypasses the carrier SMS system so you can text for free with other Apple iPhone users.

So in short, the iPhone 4S is a solid phone that gives you much more than what you’re used with the iPhone 3G.

Now, you could also consider something other than an iPhone for your next smartphone. There are plenty of Google Android devices to choose from on AT&T as well as other carriers. And many of them will offer similar features to what you can expect on the iPhone 4S. AT&T is also now offering some Google Android devices with 4G LTE capability. These smartphones should offer you fast email downloads and Web surfing when you’re in 4G territory. But AT&T has only deployed 4G in limited areas, so you may not be able to access that network even if you have one of these phones.

If you’re willing to wait a couple of months, you can also consider a Microsoft Windows Phone. I checked out the new HTC Windows Phone smartphone and Nokia’s Lumia 900 at CES. And I really liked these phones. Windows Phone is an intuitive and easy to use platform, so I think it’s worth considering. And both the HTC Titan II and the Nokia Lumia 900 are good smartphones, with advanced cameras and other hardware goodies that rival the iPhone 4S.

But since you already have an iPhone 3G, and it seems like you like the platform, I’d suggest just sticking with Apple. All your contacts, music, and most importantly all your apps will load easily onto the iPhone 4S. If you switch to the Google Android or Windows Phone platforms you will have to re-download and even repurchase your apps. Most of the apps you had on your iPhone, will likely be available on Android, but you may not have the same luck with a Windows Phone device.

Even though Microsoft is quickly adding more apps to its marketplace,the company still doesn’t have the same exact catalog as Apple or Android. For example, Words with Friends, the popular online Scrabble-like game that everyone is playing these days, isn’t yet available on Windows Phone. It will probably be on Windows Phone at some point, but it’s not there now.

So to summarize: if you are in the market for a new smartphone right now, I think someone like you, who is already a happy Apple iPhone user, can’t go wrong with the iPhone 4S. Also you will have a lot of fun with Siri, but just don’t expect too much of her just yet.

Take care. And good luck!

Avoiding ‘bill shock’

Dear Maggie,
My wife and I are going on a western Caribbean Carnival cruise in March. We each have AT&T iPhone 4’s with grandfathered unlimited plans, and iPad 2’s that are Wi-Fi only. We access the Internet on our iPads via an AT&T Elevate 4G hotspot on a 5GB plan.

We want to take our devices on vacation with us. What should we ask AT&T and/or the cruise line so that we can have usable voice and data access without getting one of those surprise $1,000 phone bills?

Dear James,
The first thing you need to understand is that your U.S. voice minutes and unlimited data plans don’t apply when you’re traveling internationally. So the phone calls you make and receive and the data you use while on your trip will not be counted toward your monthly total for your regular AT&T plan. Instead, you will be charged per minute when it comes to voice and per kilobyte or per megabyte for data.

As you have probably heard, those roaming charges can be hefty. And people have been known to rack up massive bills while talking, texting and surfing the Net on their wireless devices while abroad. To make sure you are keeping your costs in check, you should sign up for an AT&T international plan before you leave home. You can access information about AT&T’s international plans on the Web. Check to see if the countries you are traveling to are included in AT&T’s international plan. And then you’ll just sign up for the plan right before you leave for the trip.

The way these plans work is that for voice services, you will still pay per minute, but with the international plan, the per minute rate will be reduced. For data, you will sign up for a certain package for a flat rate. For example, you could get 50 MB of data for $25. And each additional 10 MB you use, you’d be charged another $10. AT&T’s international plans go as high as $100 for 800MB of data.

Remember that you will just be signing up for the International service just before your trip, since you don’t need it until you are abroad. If you want to use the full 25MB or even the full 800MB of data that you’re paying for as part of this plan, make sure you wait until your billing cycle ends before you cancel the service.

If you cancel the service in the middle of your billing cycle, AT&T will prorate the cost of the service as well as prorate the amount of data you can use. So you could end up spending more if you exceed the monthly data cap on the International plan.

Your iPhones and iPads will allow you to track usage while you’re away, so try to keep track of how much data you are using so you don’t go over your limit. Since it’s very easy to exceed these caps and those charges can add up quickly, I would use data service while you’re on vacation much more judiciously than you do at home. If the cruise ship you are on has Wi-Fi or there is Wi-Fi in the cafes when you’re in port, I’d use those networks as much as possible. Remember that when you use Wi-Fi, you are not using any carrier data. So all that usage isn’t counted toward your monthly total.

I hope that information helps save you from bill shock. And I hope you and your wife have a fantastic vacation!

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers’ wireless and broadband questions. The column now appears twice a week on CNET offering readers a double dosage of Ask Maggie’s advice. If you have a question, I’d love to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at maggie dot reardon at cbs dot com. And please put “Ask Maggie” in the subject header. You can also follow me on Facebook on my Ask Maggie page.

[Thanks: cnet.com]

Nielsen’s claim that the iPhone is ‘catching up’ with Android isn’t quite right. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

“More US Consumers Choosing Smartphones as Apple Closes the Gap on Android” says the headline on the Nielsen blog, looking at sales of smartphone in the US over the fourth quarter.

Only one thing wrong about it: Apple isn’t, by the numbers Nielsen provides, closing the gap in installed base on Android. Instead, the Android OS is extending its lead in smartphones – which, according to Nielsen, stands at 46.3% of the total market; Apple, it says, has 30% of the overall market.

US installed base (left) and market share in the past three months (right) of smartphone platforms. Source: Nielsen

The error arises in Nielsen’s interpretation of its data, where it says that among recent acquirers of smartphones (that is, in the past three months), “44.5% of those surveyed in December said they chose an iPhone, compared to just 25.1% in October. Furthermore, 57% of new iPhone owners surveyed in December said they got an iPhone 4S.”

Okay, fair enough. But its figures for acquirers of smartphones in the past three months shows that 37% of them got iPhones, and 51.7% of them got Android phones. (We’ll come to the other platforms in a moment.)

That means, roughly, that for every 10 smartphones sold in those three months, four were iPhones and five were running Android. (Nielsen gives figures: 61.6% v 25.1% for Android/iOS in October, 48.7% v 38.8% in November, 46.9% v 44.5% in December.) At no point have iPhones been outselling the totality of Android phones – though in December they came within 2.4%, so nearly neck and neck.

US market shares over last three months of 2011 for Android, iOS and RIM. Source: Nielsen

The point being that you can’t catch up with someone if you’re running at nine-tenths the speed they are. The iPhone hasn’t “closed the gap”, except in the sense that nearly as many people were buying iPhones in December as they were Android phones.

However, until and unless iPhone sales overtake Android sales, the lead that Android – as a platform – enjoys in the US smartphone market is going to continue to grow.

We’ll have to see what happens to the figures in January: it’s faintly possible that Apple could overhaul all Android phones in sales, but I wouldn’t bet the house on it.

The one wrinkle in all this of course is that Apple is just one company, where “Android” describes lots of companies - Samsung, HTC, and Motorola for example. Even with Samsung’s growing power in the US (though HTC used to dominate Android sales there) it’s unlikely to have taken a near-100% share of the Android market there. So Apple might have sold more smartphones than any other company in the US over those three months.

But as Stephen Elop of Nokia says, it’s a war of ecosystems, not a battle of devices. Apple’s chosen its ecosystem. And Android is the principal one it’s up against right now.

And the first part of those wars may be over: Nielsen says that 46% of US mobile consumers now have a smartphone. (In the UK, the figure passed 50% around autumn 2011.) It seems a safe assumption that there will be a certain segment who will hold out against smartphones – which means there’s probably less than 50% of the market to play for in the coming years.

[Thanks: http://www.guardian.co.uk]

According to a survey from Nielsen, the iPhone 4S, again the lone bearer of the iOS flag, is becoming the smartphone of choice for more and more consumers.

The figures revealed by Nielsen last Wednesday were culled from 2011 numbers, and it was evident in these numbers that the iPhone kept gaining ground steadily as months went on. This was especially true in the two months following the iPhone 4S’ October 2011 release. That said, close to 50 percent of all respondents still favored Android phones based on the survey results.

To be specific, the gap between iOS and Android in the battle of operating systems was just two percent in December. Smartphone sales figures for December 2011 show Android leading with 46 percent, followed by Apple at 44 percent and everyone else (Blackberry, Windows Phones, etc.) accounting for the remaining ten percent. This was largely due to the frenzy caused by the release of the iPhone 4S and the high number of activations done towards the end of 2011.

However, there are some factors that might help Android increase its lead once again in 2012. First is the number of 4G LTE phones featuring the Android OS. Moreover, there is also a possibility that the iPhone 5 (possibly with 4G LTE) may be out only in October.

Although, if rumors regarding the next iPhone’s LTE capabilities are true, some analysts believe there’s a good chance iOS might eventually beat out Android in terms of market share.

[Thanks: http://dailynewscorner.com]