Samsung has appointed Lee Sang-chul as the new mobile marketing head. The move comes from the South Korean giant a month before the launch of its flagship Galaxy S6.
Lee Sang-chul was formerly head of the company's Russian operations. He has been tapped as head of strategic marketing for the mobile business. Kim Seok-pil, Sang-chul's predecessor, has stepped down from the role due to health reasons and was unrelated to performance. Lee, who also has worked as head of Samsung's Latin American operations, will look after the launch of the new Galaxy S device. Samsung Galaxy S5, launched last year has seen relatively poor sales hence, the upcoming device's success will be extremely critical. The company's mobile earnings declined 64 percent from a year earlier in October-December.
A latest report from IDC stated that in Q4, 2014, Apple has reduced the gap between Samsung when it comes to global market share. Samsung has sent out invitations for a March 1 event in Barcelona ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show where its next Galaxy S smartphone is widely expected to unveiled.
sourceSamsung has appointed Lee Sang-chul as the new mobile marketing head. The move comes from the South Korean giant a month before the launch of its flagship Galaxy S6.
Lee Sang-chul was formerly head of the company's Russian operations. He has been tapped as head of strategic marketing for the mobile business. Kim Seok-pil, Sang-chul's predecessor, has stepped down from the role due to health reasons and was unrelated to performance. Lee, who also has worked as head of Samsung's Latin American operations, will look after the launch of the new Galaxy S device. Samsung Galaxy S5, launched last year has seen relatively poor sales hence, the upcoming device's success will be extremely critical. The company's mobile earnings declined 64 percent from a year earlier in October-December.
A latest report from IDC stated that in Q4, 2014, Apple has reduced the gap between Samsung when it comes to global market share. Samsung has sent out invitations for a March 1 event in Barcelona ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show where its next Galaxy S smartphone is widely expected to unveiled.
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OnePlus that shot to fame with just One smartphone in 2014 has published its first annual report for 2014. It details the company's growth and the growth of the OnePlus community in its first year. Even though it shipped only 7% of smartphones to India since it launched in the country only in December, it grabs the second spot when it comes to OnePlus forum members.
Percent of OnePlus One smartphones that were shipped to each region of the world
39% Ones shipped to East Asia (incl. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong)
32% Ones shipped to Europe (incl. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK)
22% Ones shipped to N. America (incl. Canada, USA) 7% Ones shipped to India (started shipping Dec. 2014)
In the infographic OnePlus mentions that they made over US$ 300 million revenues, shipped 1,055 tons of merchandise, got 100,000 media mentions, customer support spent 10.8 million minutes (about 20.5 years) answering tickets, added 78 employees and more. Check out the infographic below or head to the Annual Report 2014 page.
Vodafone India has announced it has applied to the country's central bank for a permit to operate a payments bank as the world's largest network looks to bring basic banking service to its millions of Indian customers. In the statement sent to Reuters, the firm said it was exploring options for a partnership for the mobile banking deal.
Ahead of yesterday's deadline, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) received 41 application for payments banks who are allowed to take deposits but not lend money to consumers. The RBI also received 72 applications for a new category of banks calls small finance banks whom will presumably have the ability to both receive deposits and lend money to consumers.
Should they be granted a permit, the deal would presumably allow Vodafone India to launch a mobile banking service that would negate the need for customers to visit a traditional bank. Similar systems are already in place in other developing countries and if granted a permit to accept deposits, Vodafone India could theoretically offer payments and traditional banking features to its existing customers whilst competing with the more traditional banks.
The RBI confirmed the number of applications are subject to revision but did not indicate when ...
O2 UK have finally begun rolling out the Lumia Denim update for selected Lumia smartphones but for those receiving the update on the Nokia Lumia 930, it comes with a particular feature missing. One of the highlights of the update is the "Hey Cortana" voice activation but the Denim update for Lumia 930 users comes with this feature missing.
With the update now rolling out, users have reported on O2's official support forum that the update comes without the feature that adds extra functionality with the ability to activate Cortana using just your voice. The carrier is not remaining silent on the missing feature as on its official forums, Chris from the Social Media Team posted:
We’re trying to get the updates out sooner by streamlining the test and approval process. As a result, we were trusting Microsoft to test the O2 software updates for us and provide the results of the tests for us to approve, rather than us testing it, releasing back, and waiting for it to be pushed. In the case of the Lumia 930, the Cortana issue was missed by Microsoft, so we will be working together to improve the process for future updates. Microsoft have identified ...
Samsung has only just begun issuing invites to its March 1 MWC 2015 event in Barcelona where the Galaxy S6 and S Edge are likely to be announced but already we're hearing alleged pricing for the handset. According to AndroidPit, the Galaxy S6 and S Edge will both be available in three storage sizes and the Galaxy S6 will begin at €749 whilst the Galaxy S Edge will be approximately €100 more.
The Galaxy S6 with 32GB, 64GB and 128GB storage options and will be priced at €749, €849 and €949 respectively whilst the Galaxy S Edge will be available with the same storage options and will be priced at €849, €949 and €1049 respectively. These prices equate to approximately £565, £640 and £715 for the Galaxy S6 and £640, £715 and £790 for the Galaxy S Edge but it's worth noting that we usually hear higher pricing ahead of the official launch and actual release price could be lower.
These prices are similar to the launch pricing for the Galaxy S5 which started at £550 in the UK for the 16GB and the Galaxy Note Edge which had a launch price of £700 in the UK (although it was available from ...
The LG G Flex 2 was announced almost a month ago at CES 2015 and shortly after we heard that it was coming to the UK as a Vodafone exclusive for six weeks. Since then, there's been very little information about a release date but now it has been revealed the handset will launch in the UK on March 19th with pre-orders opening on February 12th.
Carphone Warehouse have teamed up with Vodafone to launch the handset in the UK and have opened a pre-registration page for the LG G Flex 2 but neither the retailer nor the network have announced any pricing information as yet. Carphone Warehouse also confirmed that they will begin accepting pre-orders for the G Flex 2 on February 12th and the handset is expected to be widely available in its stores from March 19th.
To recap, the LG G Flex 2 specs include a 5.5 inch Curved P-OLED Full HD display with 1080p (1080 x 1920 pixels) resolution that offers 403 pixels per inch density and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Under the hood is a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset with quad-core 1.5GHz and quad-core 2GHz processors. There's also an Adreno 430 GPU, 3GB RAM, ...
Samsung has sent out invites to its March 1st event where we're expecting to see the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S Edge announced and in the run up to the event, we're now hearing that both handsets will come in these four colours.
Sammobile is reporting that the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S Edge will be available in four different colours: dark blue, blue-green, gold and white (shown below).
Previous Samsung flagship have come in a range of colours but there's usually a Gold and White version announced. There's also always the customary dark colour which is black on the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 but was dark blue on past Samsung flagships.
The blue green is the colour that strikes us the most as it's not one used by Samsung in the past yet it could appeal to some users; we'd definitely like to see them offer Red or Rose as a colour variant as these could sell well. As always, these colours are not confirmed so take the information with a pinch of salt but would you buy the blue-green Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S Edge? Let us know in the comments below.
Source
Micromax has beaten Samsung to be the top smartphone maker in India, according to a latest report from Canalys. The homegrown smartphone maker has achieved the heights in Q4, 2014, mainly due to shift of mobile phone users upgrading to smart phones.
As per the report, Micromax is responsible for 22% share of total smartphone market in India while Samsung is just behind with 20%. The company's flagship line of products has very effectively targeted the US$150 to US$200 (Rs 9,000 to Rs 12,000) segment, with products such as the Canvas Nitro and Canvas Hue”.
"Micromax has been quicker than its competitors to improve the appeal of devices, for example, by including a wide variety of local languages on its Unite phones. Lava, another domestic vendor, has launched devices that cater to the preference for greater battery life – in this case a couple of days. But vital to success is selling these handsets at low price points to appeal to the bulging mid-level income market in India."
said Canalys Analyst Rushabh Doshi said.
India shipped a total of 21.6 million in Q4, 2014, up 90 percent year-over-year. 23 percent of these smartphone shipments were priced under US$100 (INR6,000). Almost double that number, 41 percent of ...
Apple's latest operating system iOS 8 is present on 72% of iOS devices, as per latest numbers from App Store distribution. The iOS 8 adoption is up 3% since is was 68% in January .
iOS 7 now stands at 25% which is down from 29% in January. While all the older versions are claiming a total of 3% of installs also down from 4% since last month. iOS 8 adoption has been somewhat slower than iOS 7 adoption, as iOS 7 was running on 80 percent of devices in January of 2014, compared to iOS 8’s 68 percent adoption rate at that same time.
Apple had released iOS 8 in September last year and since then has updated the OS with bug fixes an stability improvements. Last week, the company released 8.1.3 update. There were a few bugs when iOS 8 launched so Apple quickly launched iOS 8.1.1 in November and iOS 8.1.2 in December for Touch ID and cellular network issue.
Yesterday, Google released the Android distribution numbers for February 2. It showed that the latest version of Android 5.0 Lollipop released in November, is currently only installed on 1.6 percent of Android devices. A majority of Android users are still running KitKat, which was released ...
ARM today announced Cortex A72 processor in the A70 series based on ARMv8 architecture. It has 64-bit processing technology and is fully compatible with the extensive ARM 32-bit ARMv7 ecosystem, similar to the A50 series. It offers three and a half times the performance of Cortex-A15 based devices and is also highly power efficient, says the company. It is mainly targeted at premium smartphones to large and mid-size tablets.
ARM also introduced CoreLink CCI-500 Cache Coherent Interconnect that enables big.LITTLE heterogeneous processing and has integrated snoop filter for system power saving. This would offer more responsive user interfaces and accelerates memory intensive workloads such as productivity applications, video editing and multi-tasking. It also announced Mali-T880 GPU that is said to offer 1.8 times more performance and 40% more energy efficiency when compared to Mali-T760 GPU-based devices.
Since the Cortex A72 has big.LITTLE heterogeneous processing support with CoreLink CCI-500 , it can be used with the Cortex-A53 processor to increase the performance and efficiency further. It is optimized for the 16nm FinFET process technology, enabling the Cortex-A72 to clock up to 2.5GHz, compared to 28 and 20nm
Highlights of Mali T880 GPU
Full support for next-generation and legacy2D/3D graphics applications including OpenGL ES 3.1/2.0/1.1 OpenCL 1.1/1.2, DirectX11 FL11_2 and RenderScript
Hardware implemented Full Scene Multiple Sample Anti-Aliasing with 4x, 8x and 16xMSAA
Frequency 850MHz in 16nm (16 FinFET)
ARM Mali-DP550 ...
Samsung has started rolling out the Android 5.0 Lollipop update for Samsung Galaxy S5 Exynos variant. The OTA update is coming to Exynos-powered G900H Galaxy S5 model in Kazakhstan.
In December, Samsung started rolling out the Galaxy S5 Lollipop update to the international variant, the SM-G900F. Samsung had launched the Galaxy S5 in two variants one powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 chipset and the other one by the company’s proprietary octa-core Exynos 5422 SoC.
As we know Lollipop updates will get include features like Material Design, lock screen notifications, better performance, updated native apps, new Flashlight toggle in Quick Settings, the new Screen Pinning feature, better battery statistics and more apart from Samsung’s own customizations to the TouchWiz UI on top of Android. Users will need to go to Settings > General > About phone > Software updates > Check for software updates. You can also check for the update via KIES.
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Idea Cellular has launched a new Easy Share prepaid plan that comes with internet, Local & National Minutes and SMS benefits. This plan lets users transfer internet packs, minutes and SMS to their friends and families, through a simple process of USSD or from Idea website. It start from Rs. 158 and goes till Rs. 958 depending on the plan. Last year it launched Easy Share postpaid plan in some markets, due to its success this has extended to the large base of prepaid users now, says the company.
Commenting about the new Sharing plan, Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellular said,
Convergence’ is the new trend in technology and devices and we feel that it should also reflect in our tariff and billing planning to offer seamless user experience. For postpaid subscriber, Easy share plan is already available since last one year and we are now happy to introduce sharing plan for our prepaid subscribers. The plan not only helps users to share their voice and data benefits but also provides great value for money.
Idea Easy Share plans
MRP (Rs.)
158
258
458
658
958
Local + National Mins
110
250
450
700
1000
Data (MB)
250
500
1024
1536
3072
Local + National SMS
110
250
500
750
1000
Validity (Days)
15
30
30
30
30
The Idea Sharing plan is available in all its circles, except Orissa, where benefits offered may vary.
Samsung has joined hands with Good Technology to create Good for Samsung Knox. The collaboration will be used to provide enterprise users access to Good for Knox.
The Samsung Knox platform has now extended beyond private use to now encompass businesses and enterprises. This new program is designed to offer businesses a way to allow their workers to download apps that are secure on devices that run the Samsung Knox security platform.
“Together, Samsung and Good are addressing the growing importance of mobility management for enterprises by delivering an unmatched secure mobile productivity solution for Android that will relieve organizations of past concerns with Android adoption. The combination of Samsung and Good represents the best solution for secure enterprise Android productivity – no matter whether corporate-liable, COPE(Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled) or BYOD(Bring Your Own Device) device ownership models are being used.”
said Injong Rhee, executive vice president of enterprise business, IT and mobile business at Samsung Electronics.
Samsung claims that Good is the first enterprise mobility management (EMM) that’s fully integrated directly into Samsung Knox. Good for Samsung Knox can eliminate virus and malware concerns that come with Android adoption in the enterprise, added the company. The latest partnership comes after Samsung Knox and Blackberry ...
Samsung today announced that it has started mass producing of world's first ePoP (embedded package on package) memory. This is a single memory package that includes a 3GB LPDDR3 DRAM, 32GB eMMC (embedded multi-media card) and a controller to be used in high-end smartphones saving approximately 40 percent of space.
Commenting on the new ePoP solution, Jeeho Baek, Senior Vice President of Memory Marketing at Samsung Electronics, said,
By offering our new high-density ePoP memory for flagship smartphones, Samsung expects to provide its customers with significant design benefits, while enabling faster and longer operation of multi-tasking features. We plan to expand our line-up of ePoP memory with packages involving enhancements in performance and density over the next few years, to further add to the growth of premium mobile market.
The 3GB LPDDR3 (4 x 6Gb) mobile DRAM fabricated on 20-nanometer (nm) class process technology inside the ePoP operates at an I/O data transfer rate of 1,866Mb/s, and sports a 64-bit I/O bandwidth. The ePoP does not need any space beyond the 225 square millimeters (15x15mm), compared to separate eMMC (11.5mm x 13mm) package that takes up 374.5 square millimeters. The single-package configuration also meets the semiconductor package height ceiling of 1.4 millimeters (mm).
Samsung is ...
AOC has announced E40, the company's latest entry-level Android smartphone. It has a 4-inch WVGA display, is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and runs on Android 4.4 (KitKat). It has a 2-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera. It has a dual SIM support and come with 3G connectivity.
It comes with regional language input with Adaptxt Keyboard), free F-Secure Antivirus and Anti-theft worth Rs.1000 for 365 days , Your Movies app to download movies worth Rs. 2000 for 60 days, Music downloads and streaming using Hungama worth Rs. 1000 for 30 days, Free Reading with readwhere worth Rs.1000 and more.
AOC E40 specifications
4-inch (800 x 480 pixels) WVGA display
1.2 GHz dual-core processor with Mali-400 GPU
512MB RAM, 4GB internal memory, up to 32GB expandable memory with microSD
Android 4.4 (KitKat) OS
2MP rear camera with LED flash
0.3MP (VGA) front-facing camera
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n , Bluetooth, GPS / A-GPS
1600 mAh battery
The AOC AOC E40 comes in Black and white colors and is priced at Rs. 5,299 (MRP). It is backed by a 1-year warranty.
A new report from Avast has revealed that popular Android apps on Google Play Store are infected with adware. The security firm has stated that several affected apps on the Play Store have already been downloaded millions of times.
The most popular of the adware affected apps is a card game called Durak, which has been downloaded between 5-10 million times. Other affected apps include an IQ test app, which has received between 1 and 5 million installs and a Russian history app, which has been installed between 10,000 and 50,000 times. These apps are said to wait up to 30 days before they start displaying advertisements warning about security risks and other problems whenever an Android device is unlocked.
The ads does not begin to appear until you have rebooted your device at least once afterwards these ads will appear each time the end user unlocks their phone. The ads prompts consumers to visit malicious websites, download security software that will not make the warnings disappear, or find new apps from a third-party store. Users need to be careful and alert at the time of downloading apps from Play Store as even apps with four or five star ratings can carry malware or ...
Google just announced that it will launch Android One smartphones in Indonesia later this month. Google launched Android One smartphones in India back in September last year and it expanded to Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka last month. Indonesia becomes the fifth country to get Android One smartphones officially.
Google has released three smartphones - Evercoss One X, Mito Impact and Nexian Journey in the country. All these have similar specifications as the Android One devices that were launched in India that includes a 4.5-inch FWVGA screen, 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 1GB RAM and a 1700mAh, but these have 8GB of internal storage and runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop), while the Nexus devices are running on Android 5.0.2 (Lollipop). It also promise updates to the next version of Android for up to two years.
Google has partnered with service provider Telkomsel to offer free over-the-air (OTA) updates and 200MB per month worth of app downloads from Google Play for the first six months for all these Android One smartphones. These smartphones would be available from online retailers such as erafone, Global Teleshop, Oke Shop, Selular Shop as well as offline channels.
Microsoft has released a new app that allows Windows Phone 8.1 users to customize their smartphone's home screen and lock screen. Dubbed as #TileArt the apps offers a quick way to customize the tiles on the Start screen.
The app which has been made by Ricc Webb, who works as "Mischief Maker" at Microsoft Mobile, enables users to create custom lock screen as per their choice. #TileArt lets you create tile layouts by managing tiles just like you would on your start screen. Once the layout is set, users can select an image and edit each tile. These tiles then can then be pinned to the start screen. The images for these tiles can be selected from the phone gallery or from the predefined photos in the app which are categorically divided into different themes.
Users can create custom tile layouts using either your own images, or creations from the #TileArt Gallery that comes with the app. Transparent PNG files are supported, and you can easily share creations with friends. The #TileArt app is free to download via Windows Phone Store.
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Google today released three new Android One smartphones with three new partners in Indonesia running Android 5.1 (Lollipop) out of the box when users in India with Android One smartphones are eagerly waiting for the Lollipop update. Today Google India announced that it will be rolling out the Lollipop update for the Android One smartphones in the next few weeks. Google already promised to offer software updates for Android One devices for two years after its release.
Even the Android One devices in India are expected to get the Android 5.1 update. Google's Nexus and Google Play Edition devices that are currently running on Android 5.0.2 (Lollipop) are are also rumored to get the Android 5.1 update in the next few weeks. It is not clear when OEMs such as Motorola, HTC and others those have already released the Android 5.0.2 update for devices plans to release Android 5.1.
The Android 5.0 Lollipop update brings Material Design with bold, colorful, and responsive UI design, better notifications, battery saver feature, better security including Android Smart Lock, New Quick Settings, Improved network hand offs, flexible sharing, faster, smoother and more powerful experience with ART, 15 new languages and more.
We will let you know once the Android Lollipop ...
Microsoft has updated Yammer for Android with Android Wear support and iOS with Handoff. The apps have been updated for easier collaboration and a more streamlined experience.
"We’ve been focused on delivering weekly enhancements to the Yammer mobile apps for iOS and Android, including profile and group viewing/editing, improved search and notifications, integrated message translation to 25 languages, performance and reliability gains and much more,"
Yammer's Carlos Bohorquez Marin stated in an official blog post.
On Android, Yammer has gained support for Android Wear. You can now read and like team messages directly from your wrist, and even reply using voice commands. Users will need to download the Yammer app on your phone to access it on the smartwatch. The notification experience has improved on the host device as well. Notifications now roll up by thread and are accompanied by a flashing LED to let you know that they have arrived. Users can read and “like” team messages on your smartwatch and reply with voice commands.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEJX_-M_PUc
On the other hand it supports Handoff in iOS and OS X, which lets you switch back and forth between a Mac and iPhone or iPad with a single swipe. The upgrade allows a smooth transition, so you can continue ...
