Ah, September is here again. Back to school. The Informer’s been down to Clarks to get his new shoes and he’s got a shiny new protractor and compass in his pencil case. Someone’s been away somewhere nice haven’t they? That’s a lovely tan you’ve got. Don’t worry though, the holiday weight will fall away after a couple more days in the saddle.
Popular nursery rhymes often have quite gruesome origins and typically tell the tale of some unfortunate character or event from history. Not that there’s anything gruesome about the origin of the Wholesale Applications Community, otherwise known as the WAC, of course. But the Informer fears the initiative might come to an unfortunate end after this week’s developments.
Everyone wants to be green, right? It’s a positive thing. Good ideas get the green light. Green is verdant, fertile and lush. Green is vigorous. Green is environmentally friendly. Green is also envious and gullible. While mobile phone recycling schemes have made much of their positive green credentials, they have also had negative influences, certainly here in the UK. Mobile phones stolen in the UK are almost always deactivated shortly after their theft, meaning that they can’t be used on any UK network.
There were growing signs of a turnaround in the industry this week, with a number of mobile players reporting investor-satisfying quarters. First up was once-troubled handset vendor Sony Ericsson, which delivered its second consecutive quarterly profit during Q2 with a whopping €12m. Ok, it’s not a lot but it’s better than the loss of €213m delivered in the second quarter of last year, although it is down from a profit of €21m in Q1.
Many years ago the Informer sat in a university lecture room doodling on his notepad. Back then this was an actual notepad, the whole concept of portable computers being nothing but a geek fantasy. After all, this was a time when you had to be accompanied by an IT student into their baffling department if you wanted to have a look at something they kept there called The Internet.
The Informer’s been in San Diego this week at Qualcomm’s Uplinq developer event, where he’s been augmenting, if not his reality, then at least his understanding of the areas of investment that the firm has identified as essentially cutting edge.
You may or may not know, readers, that there is an album that falls into the easy listening musical category by a lady called Robin Avery entitled: ‘The way that you hold me.’ It is described thus: “[The record] is a smooth jazz album that expresses love in many ways, at times adding pop, Caribbean, and R&B flavours.” It sounds like a dreadful prospect and, the Informer can confirm based on a quick online sampler, lives down to all expectations.
The difference between Apple and Samsung launching a new device is that when Apple does it, the handset is the star. When Samsung does it, it needs to hire in the stars to promote its new wares.
So the new iPhone is here—the iPhone 4. It’s a thing of beauty, no doubt about it—and it has behind it a short but very impressive line of forbears. The iPhone lineage has changed the way that people perceive, define and use mobile phones. It has had more positive impact than any other device on consumer enthusiasm for mobile data. And it has been the interface for one of the most important and influential developments the industry has seen in recent times; the App Store.
Maybe the Informer’s just getting old and the revisiting of his former beliefs is all a part of that process. But he’s sometimes astonished to discover that things he firmly supported around 15 – 20 years ago (tie dye, gypsies, the Levellers, etc…) no longer have his backing. Take the internet for example. For much of that last 15 – 20 years, the Informer, in various incarnations, has been fed and sheltered by producing content for the tubes. And the vast majority of that content has been given away for free.
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