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Low-end smartphone fight

Low-end smartphone fight

By Gao Yuan (China Daily)

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A woman using a smartphone to browse a news website. Along with the rapid growth of Chinese smartphone producers, the demand for smartphone chips is stronger than ever before. Provided to China Daily

Competition up as companies seek to cut costs but Apple and Samsung aloof

China's low-priced smartphone manufacturers could face more fierce competition as demand booms and the cost of chips continues to decline.

Local smartphone makers are growing rapidly in mid- and low-end markets, said Hao Jian, an analyst at China academy of telecomunication research, part of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

"The absence of the world's top players such as Apple Inc, Nokia Corp and Samsung Electronics Co (from low-end markets) has provided a stupendous opportunity for local makers," said Hao, adding that the rapid development of low-end chips has helped Chinese smartphone makers to reduce costs, a key factor to grab market share among price-sensitive buyers.

Shipments of smartphones on the Chinese mainland hit 18 million in April, accounting for more than half of the mobile phone market, data from the academy showed. More than 77 percent of the shipment was contributed by local brands targeting mid- and low-end customers.

MediaTek Inc, a Taiwan-based company that designs and sells components for wireless communication and is famous for its low-priced smartphone chips, plans to expand business on the Chinese mainland in the face of growing demand. On June 27, the company released a dual-core chip developed specifically for smartphones priced lower than $200.

"The new chip added the next level of performance and enhanced user experience to the MediaTek smartphone family, delivering enhanced user interactivity, mobile connectivity and rich multi-media experience previously only available on high-end devices," said Ching-Jiang Hsieh, president of MediaTek.

MediaTek's monthly revenue amounted to NT$78.45 billion ($2.6 billion) in June, jumping by more than 16 percent year-on-year, a company statement showed.

"Competition among chip providers will become more intense because China's smartphone makers are finding any possible way to try to reduce their costs. The price of smartphone chips is set to fall," said Hao.

The world's large chip makers, who previously ignored the low-end markets, are now looking at the sector as growing demand could help to generate higher profits.

In May, Intel Corp, the world's largest semiconductor chip maker by revenue, returned to the smartphone chip-making sector by teaming up with Lenovo Group's mobile phone department. The giant in the personal computer chip sector sold XScale, the company's cellphone chip arm, in 2006.

Qualcomm Inc is another example of a company that has joined the competition in the low-end market.

The increasing demand for smartphones in emerging economies helped Qualcomm to open up the low-end market. More Qualcomm-powered models are expected to join the market this year, according to Wang Xiang, president of Qualcomm Greater China.

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Since the company launched its products targeting the low-end market late last year, nearly 30 types of smartphones had been released as of June. There were also more than 100 models in development that will enter the market soon, industry newspaper Communications Weekly reported on June 12.

"China's low-end WCDMA smartphone market is a vast blue ocean for cell phone makers. A chip with a fair performance and a reasonable price will enable its manufacturer to make huge profits," said the newspaper.

China's high-end market is dominated by global brands such as Apple and Samsung. The local companies have to dive into low-end markets where the profit margin is also lower because of the increasing number of competitors.

A number of Chinese Internet companies started to tap into the smartphone market this year, a move that will further stir up competition in the sector.

Tencent Holdings Ltd released six smartphone models targeting student customers. Baidu Inc, China's most-used search engine, introduced two smartphone models running on its self-developed mobile operating system.

Qihoo 360 Technology, an anti-virus company, teamed up with three manufacturers including the nation's home appliance giant Haier Group to offer new models to the market. "As an Internet company, Qihoo has more than 100 million users and we are good at online marketing. Both of our specialties can help mobile phone makers explore the market and boost sales," said Zhou Hongyi, chief executive officer of Qihoo 360.

Almost all the devices provided by the Web companies were priced lower than 2,000 yuan ($314), less than half the price of an iPhone 4S.

"The competition in the low-end market is poised to grow as more businesses enter it and telecommunication carriers start to cut subsidies to lower-end smartphone makers," said Hao from the academy of telecomunication research.

IBM i Mobile Native Apps Coming On Strong

by Dan Burger

You know you have business apps and data running on the IBM i operating system that needs to be mobilized. The business case for this is obvious. It solves a common business problem. That is, if you don't have slick-running business apps for a mobile device, you have a problem. Real time access to information for your mobile workforce is a revenue boosting tool that is too powerful to ignore. But there's still a decision to be made: Do you want apps running native on the mobile device or do you tweak Web apps for mobile uses?

In the early going, the consensus opinion was to develop Web apps that would render on multiple mobile devices. For those already doing Web development work, this was a natural progression. Developing applications for Apple's iOS or Google's Android operating systems was not a skill that many IBM midrange shops possessed. And where the skills were present--like a roomful of Java programmers hungry to build Android apps--there was the dominance of the Apple iPad that gives rise to second thoughts. Then again, finding programmers at midsize companies who can pump out Objective C applications for iPads is about as unlikely as finding cows that squirt out chocolate milk.

But now we are seeing software vendors offering frameworks that make it easier for developers to create native applications specifically built so RPG apps can be extended to run natively on the iPad, with other mobile device coverage coming soon. These frameworks are not unique to RPG. They exist for other programming languages as well. But for now, let's talk like mobile application development in an RPG world.

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LANSA, the IBM i application development tool vendor, created a hive of activity around its booth at the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition two months ago when it announced the availability of LongRange, an intermediate server and a iPad app that together convert RPG code and DDS displays so applications can run natively on that device. Steve Gapp, LANSA's CEO, told me last week, a version of LongRange for LANSA's 4GL customers that want to create native iPad apps has just been released. He also said an RPG version of the product capable of creating native apps on Android is imminent. Farther down the road, he says LANSA will have an app designed for Windows 8 tablet users.

At that point, Gapp says, users can write an application once in RPG and DDS, integrate it with LongRange, and have the potential to deploy the app on the operating systems of the major tablet makers. End users need only to buy the app for the tablet they are using.

The importance of LongRange is that it only requires RPG programmers to know RPG. Skills in other programming languages are unnecessary. It does require the writing of new RPG and DDS code that acts as the user interface layer. Templates are built into LongRange to assist RPG programmers with the creation of such features as drop downs, text boxes, buttons, time widgets, prompters, and many other features that take advantage of the built-in capabilities of an iPad. It's only by running native on the iPad that technology Apple puts into its market-hogging tablet can be accessed. Web-based applications can forget about that.

Red Oak Software, a terminal emulation vendor in the IBM i and the System z mainframe markets, is also ready to lend a hand to RPG programmers looking for an easier way to get native apps on the iPad. Red Oak's app, called Legacy Mobile, is designed to display green-screen applications. Coming from years of experience in the emulation business, this seems like a smart way to break into this business. Red Oak CEO George Cummings calls it "a starting point, not a goal."

Cummings describes the base product as "an intelligent emulator" that passes data back and forth with the capability to execute green-screens as fast as anyone can. For users who are familiar with maneuvering through this territory--like Red Oak customers would be--there are productivity benefits that non-green-screen users would probably never understand. The iPad interface, naturally, includes the keyboard and special function keys that make sense for these users. Red Oaks existing customers have all received a trial version of Legacy Mobile.

Since its founding Red Oak's development of "programmatic integration" tools--products, that intercept screen definition languages, like the 5250 data stream, and transform them into Windows or Web browser GUIs--in Java. That language would point mobile development in the direction of Android-based devices. But Cummings said the decision regarding its mobile product lines were made a year ago and it was based on business computing being standardized on the iPad.

Expanding on that, Cummings says, "We don't care what the underlying app is written in," Cummings says. "As long as the functionality can be accessed with 5250, we can help."

Leveraging existing skill sets into mobile solutions like LANSA and Red Oak are doing is a great idea, says Bill Gravelle, an independent consultant with experience in mobility, modernization, and integration projects. He prefers the native app engine approach over the Web application strategy, which he describes as focused on "fitting a browser page, made for a 24-inch monitor, into the small glass."

But he is also wary of some of the native app engine blueprints.

"It's a step in the right direction for a certain set of business developers with a certain set of mobile solution requirements," he says. "I just think there are better solutions for broader audiences."

Productivity is the goal and learning curves are the bumps in the road. In the case of RPG developers, the avoidance of retraining in other languages and technologies keeps the learning curve relatively flat. This is not to say RPG programmers are any different than any other programmers. It's just to keep the conversation in the RPG world.

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"There are many frameworks that promote themselves in a similar manner, but their learning curve takes the traditional business developer into traditional coding. In my mind, that's not moving the ball far enough down the field," Gravelle says. "I also think that, for the most part, these frameworks lead to 'quick and dirty' solutions that generally fall short in the real-world of user experience."

Getting a few simple applications up and running on a mobile device is often the early goal of a long-term, multiple phased project. It's instant gratification, if you want to look at it that way. But it's also taking a learn-as-you-go, don't-jump-in-until-you-find-out-how-deep-the-water-is approach.

Gravelle sees it differently. He believes with better tooling and better skills, it's possible to deliver apps that make a real difference to mobile knowledge workers in a much shorter time frame.

The issue goes beyond the initial decision of whether to choose a native app or browser solution, even though Gravelle leans toward native apps because of their better user experience.

"The difference-maker in our competitive world is the choice of tooling/platforms. It's my belief that continuing traditional coding approaches is counter-productive for enterprise mobile solutions--the issue of Java versus Objective-C versus HTML5/CSS3 is really not the major one," he says. "I'm probably one of few out there these days who believes that the less code I have to personally develop to quickly deliver an effective solution actually makes me a more valuable developer. As we in the IBM i world have known for years, building business solutions on top of comprehensive, productive, integrated, and innovative platforms actually delivers a tremendous competitive advantage for the enterprise."

"Less code doesn't mean no logic, no process, no workflow--it just means that no traditional code is necessary (no RPG, no Java, no Objective-C, etc). It means that the existing developers do tend to elevate into architects or conductors who master the orchestration of these pre-built components or templates with configuration options."

Spy on your Girlfriend with ‘Touch My Life' Android App

All of us have that ‘Bond-ish' chromosome- we are incessantly curious about other's life and secretly wish if we could just creep into their lives and get a sneak-peek as to what they are actually up to. Insecurity is a virtue perhaps for people who are in love.

By the sheer courtesy of an Android app, you can now touch your girlfriend/ friend's life remotely with the help of a newly released and rather inconspicuous Android app, ‘Touch my life'.

However, nothing exciting in life is easy. To spy on your girlfriend, you would need to install the aforementioned app on your girlfriend's phone. Yeah, you can sneak in the phone some time and install the app but what if she finds out? Well, you can probably install ADW launcher or Go! Launcher alongside, which would help you hide the app from the main menu, leaving no trails that you actually installed an app.

So, how does this work after the initial setup? Well, the road ahead is smooth. You just need to text some simple text messages from your phone number to your girlfriend's phone. The app provides a lot of fun features like Call Back with Speaker ON, Vibrate for N seconds, Play Ringtone, Take pictures, Record live Audio, Location settings and much more.

You can also install this on your phone as an anti-theft solution. It works both ways.

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Below are enlisted some of the messages which you can send: (All messages have to be sent without enclosing the quotes

1) Write "CALLMEBACK" and send it to your friend's mobile number for an automatic call back.

2) Write "VIBRATENSEC N" and send it to your friend's mobile number to vibrate your friend's phone for N seconds.

3) Write "DEFRINGTONE" and send it to your friend's mobile number and it will play the default ringtone on your friend's phone.

4) Write "SENDPHOTOME" and send it to your friend/girlfriend's mobile number.it will apparently take the photo of current location of your friend and send it to the email address specified in the SMS as an attachment and will also send a confirmation message to your number.

5) Write "SENDCALLLOG" and send it to your friend/ girlfriend's mobile number. It will send all the call details like incoming calls, outgoing calls, missed calls to the email address specified in the SMS.

6) Write "SENDCONTACTLIST" and send it to your friend/girlfriend's mobile number. It will send the whole contact list to the email specified.

There are lots of other functionalities provided by the app like playing MP3, recording live video or sending some file from SD card to the email specified. You can also alter the text format and set it to your preference. You can also constrain the remote capability of spying on your target just to your number, so that even if someone finds the text, he won't be able to break the ice.

This app would be perfect for keeping an eye on your spouse, girlfriend or even children, besides working as an efficient anti-theft mechanism.

App Spotlight: Call Blocker By NQ Mobile

In addition to a top notch Android security suite, NQ Mobile offers a portfolio of important easy to use tools for every Android owner. One of those tools is the call blocker by NQ Mobile.

With Call Blocker by NQ mobile you can block any number you want. Do you have a stalkerish annoying X? Maybe a telemarketer offering you magazines or vacations? What about that collection agent that is calling the person who had your phone number five years ago?

All of those people can be added to your block list. Or, you can elect to only let calls through to your device that are in your contacts list. Also if you use Google Voice and have it set to let the actual number through caller ID instead of your Google Voice number, you can use Call Blocker with it.

More after the break

But in the infamous words of a Kevin Harrington add... That's not all...

Call Blocker also offers other great privacy features.

Privacy Eraser, lets you erase your call history, SMS messages, quickly and easily.

Private space lets you keep other callers and SMS messages private from your phone. Whether you're hiding that girlfriend from your other girlfriend or you have sensitive numbers that you don't want in the wrong hands this is a feature for you.

Call Blocker will also back up all your contacts and transfer data across phones.

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