Another from the guys at BlackBerry Cool: A survey by Bplay-creator Magmic Games has revealed some interesting numbers about smartphone gamers.
90% of respondents found gaming on a smartphone to be a better experience than on a regular mobile phone, and 91% cited the larger screen, easier control, and easier downloads as reasons why they wouldn’t switch back. A little more than half played more games on their smartphone than on their PC, console, or other medium. 65% purchase at least one game or other type of content (theme, music, etc.) every three months, and 60% said they preferred puzzle games like tetris or sudoku over other genres.
Certainly some interesting numbers to crunch, although I hope we don’t see a rash of tetris-themed games and themes and music and so on (there are more than enough already).
Our friends at BlackBerry Cool got the scoop on another report that looks at the present and future of smartphones.
The report from ChangeWave shows Apple’s large lead, with 17% of mobile phone users polled saying they plan to buy an iPhone in the next six months and 16% planning on buying a BlackBerry. Motorola has continued their downward plunge, with 11% of users planning on buying one of them in the next six months compared to over 30% in July of ‘06.
Apple again topped the charts with 72% customer satisfaction, followed by RIM with 55%. Most other manufacturers hovered in the mid-30s, and Palm sat dead last with only 30% satisfaction.
The gang at PalmInfocenter posted the results of a smartphone usage report by Canayls, which shows off the strong growth of smartphones in 2007.
The report compared market share between some of the bigger players in the smartphone industry. Total shipments grew almost 72% just in the 4th quarter of 2007, from 20 million units to over 35 million. RIM was the leader in growth, shipping 121% more units than in the preview quarter. Newcomer Apple shipped 2.3 million units, beating veteran player Motorola by only around 20,000 units.
Unsurprisingly, Nokia was the strong leader, shipping nearly 19 million units.
A new report on Business Wire suggests that smartphones will capture 22% of the mobile market in Asia by the end of this year.
A company named Research and Markets compiled the report, which lists 5 “hot topics” for mobile operators and manufacturers this year. Beyond the predicted rise to 22% in the Asian market, the author says that competition in the OS sector will increase and Mobile Linux will be on the rise; that UI innovation will increase dramatically, and even that smartphone companies will merge with UI companies to get an edge on the competition; that touch screens will be used on more and more phones; and that GPS and and Location Based Services based GPS will be the next “killer app” for the mobile market.
Nokia has posted financial results for the fourth quarter of 2007 as well as the full year.
Net sales for Q4 reached €15 billion, up from €11 billion in the previous year’s quarter, while total year sales were up 24% to €51 billion. Mobile phone sales went up only 5% to €7.4 billion, or 1% to €25 billion for the year. All in all, net profits were up approximately 50% to €1.8 billion for the quarter, or about 75% to €7.2 for the year.
Nokia’s board of directors will propose a dividend of €0.53 per share for 2007.
Our friends at BlackBerry Cool posted a story about a new nanotechnology that could increase battery life up to 10 times its current power.
Professor Yi Cui and colleagues at Stanford University got around a long-standing problem with battery technology by developing a new type of anode that uses silicon nanowires. Lithium ion batteries use graphite as the anode despite their lower charge capacity due to silicon’s tendency to expand–and thus get pulverized–during charging. Professor Cui overcame this by creating silicon nanowires with a diameter one thousandth the thickness of a sheet of paper, which can expand up to four times their normal size without fracturing.
Cui said this technology could be commercially available within “several years,” after testing.
The guys at IntoMobile found a story about two electronic engineer who set out to discover just how much heat a SIM card can take before the data becomes unreadable.
12 SIM cards were collected in all. After using acid to dissolve their protective covering, the bare circuits were placed in heated air, allowed to cool, and retrieved. Six of them were subjected to 365 F (180 C), and the researchers were able to retrieve all the data from the cards. Five were then heated to 842 F (450 C), but only one of them was readable–and at that, only briefly. The final card, heated to 1,202 F (650 C), was completely unreadable with the methods employed.
The two researchers, Benjamin Jones and Tony Kenyon from University College London, stated that cards would likely be recoverable when heated to 842 F or above if better recovery methods were used.