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Sony trademarks ‘Xperia Sola’ name
By Joe Svetlik on 5 February 2012, 12:00pm
Now this is intriguing. Sony has trademarked the name ‘Xperia Sola,’ Pocketnow reports. Thanks to the Xperia moniker, we know it’s the name of a handset, but exactly which handset is a complete mystery.
Could it be a forthcoming solar-powered effort? (Stranger things have happened in the world of mobile recently.) Or will the Xperia S get a new name before its March launch? Or is it the new name of the Xperia U?
The patent made an appearance on the United States Patent and Trademark Office, though it’s credited to “Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB,” complete with the address of its Swedish HQ. So maybe Sony hasn’t got round to amending its records yet, alerting the patent office that it’s buying out Ericsson to produce phones under the Sony brand. Naughty.
The patent was filed on 30 January of this year, so Sony would’ve known Ericsson was on the way out.
We’re going to put on our speculation hat and say the Xperia S is too close to launch to get a completely new name. Ok, so working names are liable to change, but rarely following an official announcement and hands-on for the likes of us tech journos. More likely, the as-yet-unannounced Xperia U will take the name (it was codenamed Kumquat during development), or an entirely new handset we’ve not seen yet. It’s highly likely we’ll see the Sola make an appearance at Mobile World Congress at the end of February, along with LG’s rumoured quad-core effort, and more from HTC and the like.
The Xperia S is due for release in March — as it always was, according to Sony, though Play.com initially listed it for release at the end of last month.
Can Sony claw its way back to its former greatness? What would you like to see at MWC? Let us know in the comments below, or over on Facebook.
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Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All rights reserved.
By Joe Svetlik on 5 February 2012, 12:00pm
Now this is intriguing. Sony has trademarked the name ‘Xperia Sola,’ Pocketnow reports. Thanks to the Xperia moniker, we know it’s the name of a handset, but exactly which handset is a complete mystery.
Could it be a forthcoming solar-powered effort? (Stranger things have happened in the world of mobile recently.) Or will the Xperia S get a new name before its March launch? Or is it the new name of the Xperia U?
The patent made an appearance on the United States Patent and Trademark Office, though it’s credited to “Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB,” complete with the address of its Swedish HQ. So maybe Sony hasn’t got round to amending its records yet, alerting the patent office that it’s buying out Ericsson to produce phones under the Sony brand. Naughty.
The patent was filed on 30 January of this year, so Sony would’ve known Ericsson was on the way out.
We’re going to put on our speculation hat and say the Xperia S is too close to launch to get a completely new name. Ok, so working names are liable to change, but rarely following an official announcement and hands-on for the likes of us tech journos. More likely, the as-yet-unannounced Xperia U will take the name (it was codenamed Kumquat during development), or an entirely new handset we’ve not seen yet. It’s highly likely we’ll see the Sola make an appearance at Mobile World Congress at the end of February, along with LG’s rumoured quad-core effort, and more from HTC and the like.
The Xperia S is due for release in March — as it always was, according to Sony, though Play.com initially listed it for release at the end of last month.
Can Sony claw its way back to its former greatness? What would you like to see at MWC? Let us know in the comments below, or over on Facebook.
You might like these…
What Steve Jobs told original iPhone team
Android takes 50% market share, as smart phones out-ship PCs
Apple banned in Germany, quickly overturns it
LG P-700 joining X3 at MWC, runs ICS
iPhone 5 complete guide
Mobile Phone Reviews
More reviews »
Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All rights reserved.
What Steve Jobs told original iPhone team
By Joe Svetlik on 5 February 2012, 3:00pm
Read Full Review
Looking at the iPhone now, it’s hard to think how it was originally conceived. How do you go about asking a team to come up with one of the world’s most iconic gadgets?
Well Steve Jobs didn’t mention apps, or media, or even a touchscreen. “His [charge] was simple,” former iPhone product marketing manager Bob Borchers said during a recent lecture at a California school, AppleInsider reports. “He wanted to create the first phone that people would fall in love with. That’s what he told us.”
So where do you go from there? Well Borchers — now a venture capitalist at Opus Capital — was just as perplexed. “Now if you’re an engineer, like I am by training, you’re like ‘what does that mean?’,” he said. “But he was right. The idea was, he wanted to create something that was so instrumental and integrated in peoples’ lives that you’d rather leave your wallet at home than your iPhone.”
Jobs did elaborate somewhat, saying the device had to be a revolutionary mobile phone, the best iPod to date, and also let owners carry “the internet in their pocket.” There was no talk of apps (indeed, Jobs was initially against third-party apps), GPS, video or photography, or voice integration.
The iPhone almost shipped with a plastic touchscreen, until Jobs expressed concern at the last minute it would scratch too easily. The team improvised, and convinced Corning to resume production of its then-abandoned Gorilla Glass. Borchers also commented on Apple’s insistence it would sell the handset and not give over all power to network AT&T.
Five years on, and until recently, the original iPhone was still way ahead of most handsets in terms of usability.
So there you have it, Jobs’ original vision was not quite as concrete as we’d have thought. Is the iPhone still king? Or has Android overtaken? Let us know in the comments below, or over on our Facebook page.
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Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All rights reserved.
By Joe Svetlik on 5 February 2012, 3:00pm
Read Full Review
Looking at the iPhone now, it’s hard to think how it was originally conceived. How do you go about asking a team to come up with one of the world’s most iconic gadgets?
Well Steve Jobs didn’t mention apps, or media, or even a touchscreen. “His [charge] was simple,” former iPhone product marketing manager Bob Borchers said during a recent lecture at a California school, AppleInsider reports. “He wanted to create the first phone that people would fall in love with. That’s what he told us.”
So where do you go from there? Well Borchers — now a venture capitalist at Opus Capital — was just as perplexed. “Now if you’re an engineer, like I am by training, you’re like ‘what does that mean?’,” he said. “But he was right. The idea was, he wanted to create something that was so instrumental and integrated in peoples’ lives that you’d rather leave your wallet at home than your iPhone.”
Jobs did elaborate somewhat, saying the device had to be a revolutionary mobile phone, the best iPod to date, and also let owners carry “the internet in their pocket.” There was no talk of apps (indeed, Jobs was initially against third-party apps), GPS, video or photography, or voice integration.
The iPhone almost shipped with a plastic touchscreen, until Jobs expressed concern at the last minute it would scratch too easily. The team improvised, and convinced Corning to resume production of its then-abandoned Gorilla Glass. Borchers also commented on Apple’s insistence it would sell the handset and not give over all power to network AT&T.
Five years on, and until recently, the original iPhone was still way ahead of most handsets in terms of usability.
So there you have it, Jobs’ original vision was not quite as concrete as we’d have thought. Is the iPhone still king? Or has Android overtaken? Let us know in the comments below, or over on our Facebook page.
You might like these…
Access hidden iPhone features without jailbreaking
iOS 5: How to set up geotagged Reminders
iOS 5: How to use iPhone’s native Twitter tools
iOS 5: How to use home sharing
Best touchscreen phones
Mobile Phone Reviews
More reviews »
Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All rights reserved.
LG P-700 joining X3 at MWC, runs ICS
By Joe Svetlik on 4 February 2012, 9:00am
Mobile World Congress is just three weeks away, and the leaks are coming thick and fast. We already knew about the quad-core ICS handset LG is prepping to show off in Barcelona, but now comes word of another LG phone running Ice Cream Sandwich.
Dubbed the LG P-700, it’ll run Ice Cream Sandwich, though in a completely unique way, CNET reports. The thing is, it features a 640×480-pixel resolution screen, which hints it could be optimised for landscape usage. But why, oh why?
One possibility is it could be a dedicated gaming handset, like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. Though considering that handset’s limited success, we’re not too sure LG would follow suit. Or LG could position it as ideal for movies, explaining the landscape orientation. Whatever the deal, there’s not long to wait to find out.
There’s not much else to go on, seeing as the handset was found on the UPnP Forum (a body that ensures devices are usable using standardised technologies, so they’ll play nice with other bit of consumer tech). But look, the LG X3 has also shown up there, under the working title of the LG P-880, according to Pocketnow. We brought you news of the X3 a couple of weeks ago: it’s the quad-core packing, Tegra 3-running beast of a phone, that also packs a 720p HD screen that matches the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Sony Xperia S. Oh, and that screen is a mammoth 4.7-inches across, too.
The X3 is also rumoured to have an 8-megapixel camera, and 16GB storage on board.
HTC is also expected to out a quad-core handset at MWC, when it kicks off on 27 February. We’ll be there, bringing all the news as it happens, so keep it CNET UK.
What are you hoping to see at MWC? Let us know below, or over on our Facebook page.
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Android takes 50% market share, as smart phones out-ship PCs
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Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All rights reserved.
By Joe Svetlik on 4 February 2012, 9:00am
Mobile World Congress is just three weeks away, and the leaks are coming thick and fast. We already knew about the quad-core ICS handset LG is prepping to show off in Barcelona, but now comes word of another LG phone running Ice Cream Sandwich.
Dubbed the LG P-700, it’ll run Ice Cream Sandwich, though in a completely unique way, CNET reports. The thing is, it features a 640×480-pixel resolution screen, which hints it could be optimised for landscape usage. But why, oh why?
One possibility is it could be a dedicated gaming handset, like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. Though considering that handset’s limited success, we’re not too sure LG would follow suit. Or LG could position it as ideal for movies, explaining the landscape orientation. Whatever the deal, there’s not long to wait to find out.
There’s not much else to go on, seeing as the handset was found on the UPnP Forum (a body that ensures devices are usable using standardised technologies, so they’ll play nice with other bit of consumer tech). But look, the LG X3 has also shown up there, under the working title of the LG P-880, according to Pocketnow. We brought you news of the X3 a couple of weeks ago: it’s the quad-core packing, Tegra 3-running beast of a phone, that also packs a 720p HD screen that matches the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Sony Xperia S. Oh, and that screen is a mammoth 4.7-inches across, too.
The X3 is also rumoured to have an 8-megapixel camera, and 16GB storage on board.
HTC is also expected to out a quad-core handset at MWC, when it kicks off on 27 February. We’ll be there, bringing all the news as it happens, so keep it CNET UK.
What are you hoping to see at MWC? Let us know below, or over on our Facebook page.
You might like these…
Android takes 50% market share, as smart phones out-ship PCs
Apple banned in Germany, quickly overturns it
iPhone 5 complete guide
DriveSafe tells friends you’re driving, stops danger texting
ADzero is a British Android phone made of bamboo
Mobile Phone Reviews
More reviews »
Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All rights reserved.
Android takes 50% market share, as smart phones out-ship PCs
By Joe Svetlik on 4 February 2012, 1:30pm
Here’s something for Andy Rubin to tweet about — shipments of Android smart phones grew a phenomenal 250 per cent in the last three months of last year, accounting for 52 per cent of all handsets shipped that quarter, according to market analysts Canalys, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Over the year as a whole, Android accounted for 48.8 per cent of all smart phones shipped around the world, meaning nearly five out of every ten smart phones shipped in 2011 sported Google’s Android operating system. Pretty impressive.
Of course this is how may units were ‘shipped’ (i.e. punted out to shops), as opposed to actually sold, so we should take the numbers with a pinch of salt. What’s undeniable, however, is the inexorable rise of the smart phone — sales exceeded those of PCs for the first time ever, with the collapse of netbooks taking its fair share of the blame. Netbooks dropped by 32 per cent, according to Canalys, with tablets taking over.
Android was up 244.1 per cent over last year, reaching 237.8 million units over the 12 months. (No doubt those 4 million activated over Christmas will have helped.) Apple’s iOS was the second most dominant operating system, with its 93.1 million devices accounting for 19.1 per cent of the market. It also showed impressive growth, shipping 96 per cent more units than 2010. Apple was just ahead of Samsung for handset shipments, though Canalys’ numbers don’t take into account Samsung phones distributed under other brands, like the Nexus. Factor that in, and Apple sits third behind Nokia and Samsung — at least, according to a previous survey that goes on sales, that is.
Android has no doubt been boosted by handsets boasting its latest version, Ice Cream Sandwich, chief among them being the Galaxy Nexus.
Which is your operating system of choice? Is Android a stolen product, as Steve Jobs said? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or over on our Facebook page.
You might like these…
Apple banned in Germany, quickly overturns it
LG P-700 joining X3 at MWC, runs ICS
iPhone 5 complete guide
DriveSafe tells friends you’re driving, stops danger texting
ADzero is a British Android phone made of bamboo
Mobile Phone Reviews
More reviews »
Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All rights reserved.
By Joe Svetlik on 4 February 2012, 1:30pm
Here’s something for Andy Rubin to tweet about — shipments of Android smart phones grew a phenomenal 250 per cent in the last three months of last year, accounting for 52 per cent of all handsets shipped that quarter, according to market analysts Canalys, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Over the year as a whole, Android accounted for 48.8 per cent of all smart phones shipped around the world, meaning nearly five out of every ten smart phones shipped in 2011 sported Google’s Android operating system. Pretty impressive.
Of course this is how may units were ‘shipped’ (i.e. punted out to shops), as opposed to actually sold, so we should take the numbers with a pinch of salt. What’s undeniable, however, is the inexorable rise of the smart phone — sales exceeded those of PCs for the first time ever, with the collapse of netbooks taking its fair share of the blame. Netbooks dropped by 32 per cent, according to Canalys, with tablets taking over.
Android was up 244.1 per cent over last year, reaching 237.8 million units over the 12 months. (No doubt those 4 million activated over Christmas will have helped.) Apple’s iOS was the second most dominant operating system, with its 93.1 million devices accounting for 19.1 per cent of the market. It also showed impressive growth, shipping 96 per cent more units than 2010. Apple was just ahead of Samsung for handset shipments, though Canalys’ numbers don’t take into account Samsung phones distributed under other brands, like the Nexus. Factor that in, and Apple sits third behind Nokia and Samsung — at least, according to a previous survey that goes on sales, that is.
Android has no doubt been boosted by handsets boasting its latest version, Ice Cream Sandwich, chief among them being the Galaxy Nexus.
Which is your operating system of choice? Is Android a stolen product, as Steve Jobs said? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or over on our Facebook page.
You might like these…
Apple banned in Germany, quickly overturns it
LG P-700 joining X3 at MWC, runs ICS
iPhone 5 complete guide
DriveSafe tells friends you’re driving, stops danger texting
ADzero is a British Android phone made of bamboo
Mobile Phone Reviews
More reviews »
Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All rights reserved.
