Hasta La Gadget!

After the launch of Apple’s iPhone 5, we knew it would only be a matter of time before sparks flew. We already saw Samsung’s advertisement about the Galaxy S III that bashes Apple’s latest offering, but now it’s Nokia‘s turn. The company released a video advertisement on YouTube that features the manufacturer’s Lumia 920 flagship phone and attacks the iPhone 5 at the same time.

The video is pretty subtle (and kind of weird, frankly) and doesn’t include any dialogue whatsoever, but it gives you a clear idea that Nokia simply thinks the iPhone 5 is boring. More specifically, the only difference between a boring phone and great phone is apparently the color of the device.

Nokia boasts that its lineup of vibrantly-colored Lumia devices is the one thing that separates them from Apple’s boring black and white iPhone 5 models. Apparently, having a selection of colors to choose from when picking out a smartphone is a huge deal to Nokia, and they think that it’s one of the biggest reasons that users will switch to the company’s Windows Phone 8-powered Lumia devices.

The video advertisement is part of Nokia’s “switch” campaign to sway users away from iOS and Android. In an odd way, the video reminds us of Apple’s famous “1984″ ad that was for the original Macintosh. It includes some of the same eeriness and subtle messages that were in Apple’s Macintosh ad.

[viaW Macgasm]

Nokia attacks the iPhone 5 in new Lumia ad is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Love or hate Apple’s iPhone 5, you cannot argue that it is one heck of a popular device, so much so that the iPhone 5’s competitors such as Samsung and Motorola have released ads poking fun at some of its features. Well it looks like Nokia has decided to join in on the fun and released an ad which points out how “dull” the iPhone 5 is.

Apple has typically released the iPhone in black or white which we admit keeps things sleek and simple. Nokia on the other hand has released devices that are particularly colorful and extremely striking, and this is pretty much what Nokia’s video has suggested. We’re not sure if this will be enough to lure would-be iPhone owners over to Nokia’s Lumia devices that run on Windows Phone but it might be worth watching anyway.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPhone 5 and Nokia Lumia 920 compared in Nokia UK infographic, Nokia Lumia 510 spotted in the wild, expected to be priced at $150,

UK 4G carrier EE has been flaunting its speeds again, and we couldn’t resist stopping by to see how the iPhone 5 and other handsets perform on the new LTE network. Set to go live within a matter of weeks, EE – a combination of Orange and T-Mobile UK – promises to deliver the first taste of 4G speed to data-hungry Brits, and the numbers certainly are impressive: downloads nudging 60 Mbps and uploads of up to 18 Mbps.

EE had laid on a number of its devices for us to benchmark, with the iPhone 5 being joined by HTC’s One XL LTE, and Huawei’s Ascend P1 LTE. The handsets span the gamut of price points, something EE says is very much intentional: data plan pricing hasn’t been confirmed yet, but EE told us it has resolutely mass-market ambitions in mind.

That likely means a slight premium over 3G data, but hopefully not too much as to dissuade regular customers from dipping a toe into 4G. From what we’ve seen, it’s certainly worth their while: as our comparison video shows, all three phones are capable of impressive turns of speed.

EE 4G LTE benchmarks:

In our testing – conducted in central London – performance was reasonably variable, though we noted that the Huawei handset seemed to regularly post slower speeds than its HTC and Apple rivals. The biggest difference may well be how the 4G system holds up under heavy use: LTE is designed to take better advantage of the available spectrum, so EE’s network should be less prone to bogging down when multiple concurrent users are taking advantage of the upload and download speeds.

One minor blip may well be in the 3G/4G handover. As it stands, voice calls are still carried over EE’s 3G network, so the handsets automatically step down onto 3G whenever a call is made. That means, if you’re also tethering with the phone, the data connection you’re relying on will also slow. There’s a slight increase in the time it takes to initiate a call, though only of 1-2 seconds, and the 4G signal is restored shortly after the call is terminated.

The first EE phones go up for sale today, albeit through Orange and T-Mobile, with the promise of an easy switch to a 4G contract when the service goes live to the public. There’s more on the iPhone 5, meanwhile, in our full review.

EE LTE benchmarked: iPhone 5 gets super-fast in the UK is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’re a fan of either Android or iOS and make it your mission to insult the other band whenever you get the chance, Steve Wozniak is now on your case. It’s no secret that this co-founder of Apple owns his fair share of devices from all corners of the mobile universe, but loves iOS and Android the most – have a peek at his backpack to see what he carries. This week in an impromptu conversation with the internet via SlashDot, Woz spoke up on a subject that’s near and dear to a lot of nerd hearts: which is better, Android or iOS?

The actual question being asked of Woz included Windows Phone and asked what his “gut” told him about the mobile landscape as it’s evolving each day – specifically in the software realm. Woz made it clear that the first thing he considers when he thinks about the competition between the iPhone and the rest of the mobile universe is not the software, but the size of the screen, and that Apple has left an advantage to the competition for several years.

NOTE: Image above comes from Building 44 at Google when the Galaxy Nexus was revealed and Woz collected his direct from the source.

“It’s wrong to look back. It’s not scientific and testable. But I saw for the last few years one small screen in the midst of a lot of large screen and felt myself, as countless others must have, that the larger screens had more value. Blame me for taking the leeway to suggest that this was the one door Apple left wide open.” – Woz

He went on to note the state of the software, and had no hesitation in saying that Windows Phone is not up in the same environment of usability, as far as he was concerned, as Android and iOS. He noted again that the screen size may very well be one of the main reasons why Apple isn’t simply omnipotent in the market instead of just doing very, very well.

“iPhones are not inferior to other smartphones, and the cost is similar. iOS 6 is not inferior to Android. We could all get by with either of them. I never said this sort of thing about Windows. So there has to be some reason that Apple lost so many sales to other products. It may not be screen size as much as the number of players and products in the market. But are we saying the rest of the world has better marketing than Apple?”

Of course there’s always a bit to be learned about the way Apple works as far as profit goes – it’s important to note that it’s not as simple as the news reports make it – it’s not just about how many phones are sold.

“As an Apple shareholder, what matters is not sales or market share. It’s profitability. Apple seems to stand alone in profit market-share. So the course they are taking is a good one. It’s hard to guess whether profits would be greater or lesser under hypothetical scenarios.”

And it’s not just about which device has the most apps anymore – there are so many apps out there that your eyeballs will spin if you even begin to consider it, and what do you know – Woz lets the reader know that it’s not about the quality anymore, either.

“The app store has changed our lives. We depend on Apple leadership. Most of the software I feel is in apps. You speak of iOS becoming less relevant as though other platforms are as good but I think of it more in terms of the fact that for all major platforms, there are more than enough apps and they are generally the same quality on each platform.”

Then there’s the closing statement – of course this isn’t the entirety of the conversation Woz had with the public this week, but in this one sentence is just about as simple a way to put the war to rest. But we all know the war will rage on, anyway.

“It’s better to think constructively about what can be done with our mobile platforms to improve our lives more, rather than trying to throw darts and insults.”

Woz tells fan community to chill out is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

comScore today released its latest U.S. mobile market rankings, covering usage by 30,000 consumers over a three-month period ending August 2012 — that is, in the period just before the launch of Apple’s newest iPhone, and during the time when Samsung was slapped with a $1 billion+ fine over a patent suit brought against it by Apple. In that time, Samsung retained its position as the country’s most popular handset maker, covering both smartphones and feature devices, but its share actually remained flat, at 25.7% of all users, while Apple’s share grew the most and other top players declined. Google’s Android OS, meanwhile, solidified its position as the most dominant smartphone platform, now being used on nearly 53% of all smartphones.

Among all mobile handset makers (covering both smartphones and feature devices) Apple stood out in the period for growing the most, with a rise of 2.1% to take a 17.1% share of all mobile users. That narrowed that gap between it and number-two LG, which declined by 0.9% to 18.2%.  Motorola, equally, saw a decline of nearly 0.8% to bring it down to 11.2%. That’s largely in line with how both of these performed in the quarter before. HTC, however, appears to be seeing a mini-turnaround. It’s market share increased by 0.2 percentage points, and is now at 6.3%. As with the previous survey, it’s telling that the top-five are dominated by Android and Apple.

As for Samsung’s flatlining, it may be that this is more about how it’s doing in its feature phone business rather than its smartphone business. Figures out today from Localytics show that in fact July and August were pretty strong months for sales of Samsung smartphones — in particular its new flagship Galaxy S3. (September looks to be a different story.) Indeed, growing sales in smartphones coupled with slowing sales in feature phones is a trend we’ve seen in previous quarters, too.

Among smartphone platforms, Google is once again gaining some ground and is now well into accounting for more than half of all smartphone users in the U.S. However, as in the previous quarter Apple is still growing at a faster rate, with Google now at 52.6% of all smartphones, growing by 1.7 percentage points; and Apple at 34.3%, growing by 2.4 percentage points. And it’s all about consolidation: RIM, Microsoft and Symbian, which all have less than 10% market share, all continued to decline.

That’s in contrast to the international picture as painted by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. The WPP-owned analysts chart smartphone purchases, and there it is noticing some gains being made by Windows Phone, particularly in Europe.

comScore also charts what people are using devices for, and while it looked like text messaging continues to be the most popular activity, with 75.6% of all users sending texts. The quarter before texting growth was flat; this time around it’s picked up a little steam once again, up by 0.8 percentage points. But it’s not growing as fast as app usage or using the mobile web, these both grew by more than 2 percentage points, with app downloading done by 53.4% of all users, and mobile web being used by 52%. Social networking, games and music rounded out the top 5.

What’s perhaps most notable about this list is that it covers both smartphone and feature phone owners. In other words, “advanced” services beyond basic voice and text are becoming mainstream and easy enough to access even on low-end devices that we are seeing an overall growth in a critical mass using them.

Photo Flickr