It appears that Taiwan’s HTC (TPE: 2498) is going through something of a transition.

Last week the company announced that its’ CEO Peter Chou had stepped down to lead the company’s innovation lab, being replaced by founder Cheryl Wang. On Friday in Taipei the company announced that HTC’s design chief Jonah Becker was departing the company.

“We can confirm that Jonah Becker has left HTC; he had been with the Company since HTC acquired One & Co over six years ago,” a statement from the company read. “We would like to thank Jonah for his work with HTC, and wish him all the best in his future endeavours. He has been succeeded by Daniel Hundt, based in our San Francisco design office.”

This announcement comes just under a year after the Scott Croyle, who held the position of design chief for quite some time, was moving on.

It’s been an amazing seventeen year journey with One & Co and HTC, but it’s time for a new adventure. Stay tuned for details of what’s next.

— Jonah Becker (@JonahABecker) March 26, 2015

Why the departure?

There is no clear reason Becker  chose to depart the company at this time. While HTC’s new One M9 was criticized for its boring design, the company had a series of design wins with its Periscope and VR headset revealed at the 2015 Mobile World Congress.

It could be that the company’s new CEO would like a clean slate as she hopes to reboot the company. With any large firm there are more political alliances than Frank Underwood could deal with and a successful corporate reboot might mean installing new faces.

If HTC wants to properly compete, it needs a new, fresh and compelling design language. Perhaps CEO Wang thinks the only way to effectively do this is through a new team.

The post Another HTC Designer Calls it Quits appeared first on VR World.

While 4K certainly has its uses and benefits on larger displays, the potential use cases on such a small smartphone screen are negligible at best. On an average smartphone screen, which is usually around 5.5-6 inches, the resolution of QHD — let alone 4K — is too great for the eye to appreciate. Apple’s Retina display has a pixel-per inch density of 326. A QHD display on a smartphone would equal something in the range of 538.

A PPI of 538 is far beyond the maximum resolution that the human eye can recognize. There is a bit of controversy as to what the highest practical PPI is for a 5.5 inch screen held 12-18 inches away from the eye, but the consensus holds that it’s 477 PPI at 12 inches and 318 PPI at 18 inches. Of course, holding it closer than 12 inches away from your face would make it difficult to properly focus.

So this means that the iPhone’s Retina resolution introduced in 2010 is the highest practical resolution for a smartphone sized screen. Of course with bigger screens found on phablets and full-on tablets this figure jumps.

QHD and 4K smartphones are impractical

The other issue with QHD and 4K displays on smartphones is the substantial battery drain that comes as a result. Battery technology has reached a ceiling, yet the demands keep on increasing. A QHD or 4K screen requires substantially more push from the SoC to drive a screen of that resolution, which means the SoC will require more battery power for all tasks.

Before the 2015 Mobile World Congress kicked off, Huawei (SHE:002502) announced that it would not be producing 4K smartphones because it simply is not worth the battery drain.

“4K needs a lot of power, so if you use it you have to make compromises. A 4K display on a smartphone may give you half a day of battery life but a 2K display can give you maybe one day or more,” President of the Handset Product Line Kevin Ho is quoted as saying. “4K has four times the pixels of Full HD so the power consumption is maybe 4 or 8 times as much as Full HD so the smartphone has to have compromises with battery life.”

All about competition

Pushing up the resolution of smartphone displays  is not the only way to improve the quality of the screen. There’s much to be done to improve color depth, backlight quality, and the ability for the screen to display in bright conditions.

But the resolution race is a way for vendors to compete with each other. The screen resolution of a device is an easy and digestible metric to understand. But for consumers this resolution race isn’t, in the end, a value add as it does little to increase productivity or performance.   

The post Resolution Overkill: Why QHD and 4K are Too Much for Smartphones appeared first on VR World.

With over a million apps each on the Apple App Store and on Google Play, marketing one’s app must be tough business for any developer. With the multitude of copycat apps that essentially have similar functionalities, app developers will be lucky to have their offerings included in top and featured lists, whether in terms of downloads, ratings, reviews or revenues. How does one reach the tipping point, in which great traction — and organic revenue potential — will shortly come thereafter?

It seems developers are finding ways to game the system, in what can be considered shady practices or at least grey areas in building up the profile of one’s app. In a recent tweet, Hong Kong-based TapCase developer Simon Pang shares what appears to be a lady doing ratings and reviews on an array of tablets. Pang writes how “this is how App Store ratings work.”

This is how App Store ratings work. Welcome to the reality. pic.twitter.com/0MyHmTeqwE

— simonpang (@simonpang) February 2, 2015

Barry Mead of Fireproof Games tweets that “‘respected’ major developers use systems like these daily.”

This being Twitter, of course, there is no verification yet as to the original source of the image, and whether the photographed activity is, indeed, a pay-to-review or pay-to-rate service. However, it has shed some light into such practices that skew app store ratings, popularity, downloads and eventually revenues for these developers.

Wall Street Journal‘s Lisa Fleisher plans to dig deeper into the issue. But without prejudice to Fleisher’s journalistic work, we can already arrive at several questions and critiques with respect to how major app ecosystems are run.

Is it against policy? What is being done?

One might wonder whether Apple is aware of how developers are gaming its app discovery system. It’s reminiscent of how developers will jack up their app prices from $0.99 to $999 (the maximum that the App Store supports), and then having someone buy a copy of the app. Even as Apple gets a 30% share of the money, the app then gets a boost on the top paid apps list, after which the developer can revert the price back to $0.99. In essence, moneyed developers can shell out cash and then lose 30% of this value, but then get a potentially more popular (and revenue generating) application in return.

If pay-to-review farms are mass-producing ratings and reviews in exchange for pay, then it’s grossly unfair to developers who rely on organic reviews and ratings by actual users. Ratings affect discoverability and revenue potential. Developers can easily recoup their investment once they start getting millions of daily downloads.

Apple’s developer terms of service says this: “If you attempt to cheat the system (for example, by trying to trick the review process, steal data from users, copy another developer’s work, or manipulate the ratings) your Apps will be removed from the store and you will be expelled from the developer program.”

Google Play also has this to say in its developer program policies: “Developers must not attempt to change the placement of any Product in the Store, or manipulate any product ratings or reviews by unauthorized means such as fraudulent installs, paid or fake reviews or ratings, or by offering incentives to rate products.”

But “tricking the review process” and “manipulating the ratings” are quite broad terminology. Does it specifically ban paying someone to do manual reviews? Or does it only ban bots? Does it have a geographic dimension? And what does Apple do to apps that employed such practices, but then gained legitimate and organic ratings, reviews and downloads later on?

At least Google’s terminology explicitly calls out paid and fake reviews and ratings. The question is whether the app store ecosystems are actually doing concrete steps in going after violators.

Gaming and economics

This reminds me of the way people have gamed the big systems before. To wit:

• In the heyday of pay-per-click advertising, clickfraud was a big deal. But it did not prevent publishers from hiring third parties to do manual clicking to jack up revenue — or sometimes even to kill off competitors’ campaigns or screw with their ad budgets.
• Content farms used to be a popular way to earn millions. These companies paid measly cents for writers to churn out rehashed, SEO-friendly, but questionable quality articles, and then earn from the ad placements. This was a viable business model until Google pulled the plug with various search algorithm updates that ended up hurting both content farms and valid publications.
• While trading virtual goods with real money may be against the policies of most games, it has not stopped companies from doing “gold farming” activities — something that has implications not only within the dynamics of MMORPGs, but also development economics, as well (e.g., buyers tend to be from developed countries, while players who play to sell items come from emerging economies).
• Today, viral sites have the habit of ripping off content from other sources (in which the originating source is rarely credited), adding clickbait headlines for the benefit of social sharing, and earning from advertisements. Facebook has recently attempted to curtail these practices through algorithm changes, but viral junk still remains in our newsfeeds.

The common denominator among these examples is money. Where there is potential money involved, then people will tend to find ways to game the system for their economic advantage. Never mind user experience, content quality or business ethics.

Given that “respected major developers” are said to be doing this, can we still trust app store ratings and discovery mechanisms?

Feature image credit: Bloomua / Shutterstock.com

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When Microsoft launched the Lumia 535, its first branded smartphone after absorbing Nokia’s mobile and services division, the strategy had become clear: that the company will start focusing on the low-end in its quest to gain market share in the smartphone industry. This has been further cemented with the announcement of the Lumia 435 and 532, budget Windows Phone 8.1 smartphones clearly targeted at the masses — the devices are even priced lower. After all, a core focus for the company is “connecting the next billion people to the Internet.”

Outside of smartphones, Microsoft also has the Nokia 215 up its sleeve — a sub-$30 feature phone that will enable access to apps like Facebook Messenger and Opera Mini. This is clearly aimed at emerging markets, where the priority is to connect people through mobile Internet, even if it’s through a small screen and slow transfer speeds.

Priced at about $120 unlocked, the Microsoft Lumia 535 seems to strike a balance between the low-end and mid-range. Microsoft markets it as having a “555” strategy, offering a 5-inch touchscreen display, 5-megapixel main camera and 5-megapixel wide-angle front camera for selfies.

As with most entry-level devices, it’s not exactly stellar in terms of specs and design. But being a Windows Phone, performance is decent even this low in the price and spec range. A clear advantage over the Lumia 530 and 520 it replaces in this segment are the bigger screen and better camera. While the user experience is decent, I do have some gripes with the screen being washed out — something common in this price range for Lumia devices. With this pricing, there has to be some compromise in component quality.

Specs

The Microsoft Lumia 535 is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 Cortex A7 clocked at 1.2 GHz. Display is powered by an Adreno 302 GPU, outputting 540×960 pixels onto a 5-inch screen. This results in a PPI of approximately 222. The devices comes with 8GB of flash storage, with the system eating up about half. Good news for photo and music junkies: the device supports miroSD cards up to 128GB. Storage is augmented by 15GB of OneDrive storage — Microsoft account holders who have activated auto backup in September 2014 will have up to 30GB free.

The 535 thankfully has 1GB of RAM, which should improve app performance over previous entry-level devices. Even the “affordable flagship” Lumia 830 ships with 1GB, so raw performance can be comparable, memory-wise.

The Lumia 535 comes with a 1,905 mAh removable battery, which is rated at 552 hours standby and 11 or 13 hours talk time (2G and 3G, respectively). In real-world scenarios, however, I would usually get about 55 hours standby time on this device, with a few calls, news reading and and Skype chats.

Our review device is the Dual SIM variant, which means you can use two SIM cards simultaneously — a great way to reduce device clutter in your purse or pocket, or at least get more than one active line on the phone, whether from the same or different networks. It’s a handy feature whilst roaming — you can keep your current number and also use a local prepaid SIM to save on data, SMS and call costs.

Comparing it with the Lumia 530 it replaces, the 535 is certainly an improvement, although the devices sport basically the same procssor. You can see VR World‘s review of the Lumia 530 from a few months back.

Design and User Experience

The 535 sports the familiar Lumia design — polycarbonate removable back cover that comes in bright colors. The phone comes in orange, green, black and white, with the latter two coming in matte, while the more colorful ones in shiny finish. Our review unit was orange, and while the shiny plastic can be a fingerprint magnet, it’s also provides better grip, which should help reduce accidental drops.

Button layout should also be familiar to longtime Lumia users, with all keys at the right side of the phone: volume rocker at the top and sleep/power button at the middle. Sorry, no dedicated camera button here. Microsoft has done away with the dedicated capacitive softkeys, with on-screen soft keys that can be hidden and shown with a swiping-up motion. This can take some getting used to, especially for those more familiar with fixed capacitive touch keys.

Screen is a bit washed out in direct sunlight

The 3.5 mm audio jack is at the center top, while the USB port is at the center bottom. Pretty standard stuff, unlike the Lumia 830 we earlier reviewed, which had the USB port at the top.

The box comes with Microsoft-branded earphones, Microsoft-branded wall charger and a USB cable. Everything looked suspiciously the same as Nokia’s bundled accessories, only they now carry Microsoft branding.

The post Microsoft Lumia 535: Budget Smartphone Done Right appeared first on VR World.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has announced the Lumia 435 and 532, two sub-$100 smartphones aimed at enabling Internet access for first-time smartphone users, especially in the emerging markets. The two devices will be powered by the latest Windows Phone 8.1 Denim, promising decent performance even at low price points.

Both devices will have a 4-inch 800×480 pixel screen, 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage. While similar in form factor and in some specs, the two devices have their differences.  The Lumia 435 will feature a dual-core Snapdragon 201 chip and 2 megapixel camera and. The 532 will have a quad-core version of the same SoC, a 5 megapixel camera and support for the famed Glance screen feature. Both devices will come in single-SIM and dual-SIM configurations, with the latter being a popular feature in emerging markets.

The Lumia 435 will be priced at around $80, while the 532 will be around $95. According to Microsoft, the devices will be available in key markets in Europe, APAC and EMEA in February. As with most of Microsoft’s latest entry-level offerings, the devices are not likely to be marketed in the U.S.

This is not the first time Microsoft has announced a device meant to be accessible to the masses. The first Microsoft-branded Lumia — after its acquisition of Nokia’s mobile and services division — was the Lumia 535, a $120 device that touted as offering a “5-5-5″ experience: 5 megapixel main camera, 5 megapixel wide-angle selfie-friendly front camera, and a 5-inch screen. Microsoft also announced the Nokia 215, a sub-$30 Internet-capable feature phone.

A smartphone in every home

In its early days, Microsoft’s vision was to “a computer on every desk and in every home.” While the company has succeeded in making the desktop accessible to the masses, mobile devices are more dominant today. The Redmond company’s focus has shifted quite drastically: “to create a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most.” While this might be a mouthful, the company’s strategy for mobile devices is quite simple. It wants to focus on “connecting the next billion people to the Internet.”

This strategy is evident with how Microsoft has started focusing on low-end Internet-capable devices. While flagship devices have highlighted the Lumia platform especially in Nokia’s heyday, Microsoft is adamant at releasing devices priced within reach of the masses. While the market has been flooded with likewise cheaply-priced Android devices, the advantage of Windows Phone would be the platform’s focus on providing an almost consistent level of usability, with even low-spec’d devices offering decent performance. Windows Phones also come rich with Microsoft’s productivity offerings like Office, OneDrive and Skype.

The question now is whether Microsoft will be successful in this strategy, especially with developer and app support being the main concern with the Windows Phone platform. A rich app ecosystem has made Android a runaway success for Google. Apple touts the quality of apps on its own ecosystem, as well as tight hardware-software integration as among its main selling points. Windows Phone does have its own fanbase, but at about 3.5% market share, Microsoft will, indeed, have to focus on the next billion, in order to shore up numbers for the platform.

The post Microsoft’s Most Affordable Lumia Smartphones: On to the Next Billion? appeared first on VR World.

Chinese smartphone brands are vying for market share in neighboring Taiwan, where international brands and the island’s own HTC (TPE: 2498) have historically been dominant.

While the Taiwan market is small, its cultural similarities with China makes it a logical choice for ambitious Chinese smartphone makers like Huawei Technologies (SHE: 002502). and Xiaomi Inc., who are in the midst of international expansion. Xiaomi has an 11% share of Taiwan’s handset market and Huawei 2%, according to IDC, a market-research firm. Chinese brands are searching for new growth opportunities overseas as their home market – the world’s largest for mobile phones – becomes increasingly saturated, analysts say.

“Chinese brands can use Taiwan as a stepping stone to other global markets,” says Sophia Chen, a handset analyst with the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC), a research firm affiliated with the Taiwanese government.

Upgrading ‘Made in China’

In the Taiwan market, where they are newcomers, Chinese smartphone vendors must build brand awareness and counter the stigma that their products are of dubious quality. To that end, they are offering both inexpensive feature-packed mobile phones and flagship high-end handsets to Taiwanese consumers.

This year, Shenzhen-based Huawei, the world’s fifth-largest smartphone manufacturer by shipments, aims to double its 2013 Taiwan sales to 200,000 units. In July, it launched the Honor 3C, a 4G LTE-enabled handset in partnership with the Taiwan carrier Chunghwa Telecom (TPE: 2412). Priced starting at $564 (NT$16,900), the device competes in Taiwan’s premium handset market.

The high-end market will be difficult for Huawei to penetrate, says Alan Chen, an analyst at TrendForce, a Taiwan-based market research firm. “Made in China means low and mid-priced products to Taiwanese consumers,” Chen says. “Taiwanese consumers are very brand conscious. They are likely to choose a comparable Samsung phone instead.”

But high-end handsets may help Huawei build brand awareness in Taiwan, says Carlos Peng, an analyst at Fubon Securities in Taipei. “Huawei wants to show Taiwanese consumers that as a Chinese brand it is capable of producing a high-end smartphone that in theory can compete with HTC, Samsung or LG,” he says. For that reason, Huawei is content to sell premium handsets in small numbers for now, he adds.

Oppo, which was founded in 2004 as a manufacturer of Blu-ray video and MP3 players, is another Chinese brand targeting Taiwan’s premium handset market. Oppo launched its flagship 4G Find 7 in the third quarter through Chunghwa Telecom at a cost of $566 (NT$16,990). The Dongguan-based firm says it expects overseas revenue to comprise more than 50% of its total sales by 2017.

Oppo is touting the Find 7’s camera, which features a Sony camera module designed for taking selfies. Oppo may have a niche market opportunity with selfie fans, as no comparable product exists on the Taiwan market now, says Joey Yen, a research manager with IDC in Taipei. But if an international or Taiwanese competitor launches a similar product, Taiwanese consumers will choose that device over Oppo’s, she says, adding: “Taiwanese consumers still have reservations about the quality of Chinese brands.”

The post Chinese Smartphone Brands Test Taiwan’s Waters appeared first on VR World.

Soon, patients in Japanese hospitals may be monitored 24/7 using smartphones.

That is according to a new proposal recently announced by Japanese IT giant NEC. The new system, called as the Application Platform for Healthcare, will primarily focus on the concept of using smartphones to monitor hospital patients via wireless video feed. The system will be offered and catered to medical institutions nationwide towards the end of October.

Traditionally, nurse call systems are often made of pre-installed communications equipment that is simply set up throughout the medical establishment. If medical attention is required, users are to speak through the comms units, and a nurse on standby will arrive to assess the situation. The Application Platform for Healthcare, in terms of active monitoring, is fundamentally the same, but is significantly different in that the assessment can be done before the nurse even takes a step towards the room.

If for example, a patient calls for attention, the system can easily show a live video feed of the patient wirelessly through the smartphone. Aside from visual data, the system can also coordinate and synchronize with other existing monitoring equipment to provide the on-call nurse with the appropriate data, which may be critically necessary to quickly determine the best course of action for the patient.

NEC stresses that the system can be a very important tool during medical emergencies, where each second counts in saving a patient’s life. Instead of knowing what to do after visiting the room, the nurse can assess the situation beforehand to prevent any unnecessary complications. On certain situations, the system can even provide ample allowance to prepare the necessary equipment as the nurse or medical professional heads towards the patient’s room. When necessary, the system can also be integrated in a standard nurse call system, with nurse calls directly sending alert notifications to any system-connected smartphone.

The Application Platform for Healthcare will be available in single OS/database/software packages. Base price starts from an equivalent price of $82,000, with the complete system to be offered around $140,000 per establishment.

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As per BlackBerry’s (NASDAQ:BBRY) latest quarterly earnings call, the company exceeded expectations by posting a narrower loss than analysts have forecast. For the second fiscal quarter ended August 30, 2014, the company’s net loss has narrowed to 2 cents per share (after one-off items), which is better than the 16 cents loss per share forecast by Thomson Reuters.

BlackBerry has posted a loss of $207 million or 39 cents per share, compared with a loss of $965 million or $1.84 per share in the same period last year. Non-GAAP loss is reported at $11 million. This comes amid lower quarterly revenue figures for second quarter of FY 2015: $916 million, compared with $1.57 billion the same period the previous year.

“We delivered a solid quarter against our key operational metrics, and we are confident that we will achieve breakeven cash flow by the end of FY15,” says Chen in a statement. “Our workforce restructuring is now complete, and we are focusing on revenue growth with judicious investments to further our leadership position in enterprise mobility and security, driving us towards non-GAAP profitability during FY16.”

According to Chen, BlackBerry expects its handset unit to return to profitability with as few as 10 million devices per year. Meanwhile, Chen also expects revenue from software to double from $250 million to $500 million by FY 2015. Software and other revenue account for 8% of BlackBerry’s revenues, while hardware and services account for 46% each.

BlackBerry has just launched its latest Passport smartphone, squarely aimed at the enterprise market with the hopes of revitalizing its weakened smartphone business. The device has a decidedly different form factor compared with popular smartphones today (a square screen and a wide form factor reminiscent of an actual passport). Executive Chairman and CEO John Chen says the Waterloo, ON-based company has sold 200,000 units so far since its launch on Wednesday.

Along with Passport, BlackBerry also launched its Blend feature, which enables sync and bridging of messages and content across different devices based on different operating systems. The company has also made a string of acquisitions in the past few weeks: UK-based Movirtu, which makes virtual SIM solutions for mobile operators, as well as voice and data encryption firm Secusmart.

BlackBerry stock rose 4.6% as of closing Friday, and the stock has risen about 22% over the past 12 months.

The post BlackBerry Narrows Quarterly Loss, Expects to Double Software Sales by FY2015 appeared first on VR World.

Top PC maker Lenovo is now shipping more smartphones than PC units.

Lenovo’s PC industry may be as booming as ever, but its smartphone industry is finally getting a few steps ahead. In its financial report for the second quarter of 2014 submitted just this week, it was shown that the number of smartphones that the company has shipped has now exceeded the number of PCs that it had distributed during the same quarter.

For the previous five consecutive quarters before the first half of 2014, Lenovo has enjoyed the highest global market shares in the PC industry, eventually accounting for at least 19.6% of all PC shipments around the globe. This is equivalent to about 14.5 million shipped units, representing a 15% increase in total shipments since the beginning of its steady rise in sales.

But despite being the top PC maker in the world however, smartphone shipments for Lenovo eventually topped with its 39% total shipment increase during the same time period. With an equivalent value of more than 15.8 million shipped units, the number of smartphones effectively surpassed the number of PCs distributed.

Part of Lenovo’s current smartphone business road plan is the distribution of low cost Android units locally and internationally, which may provide an explanation to the increase in its smartphone shipments. Then there’s also the recent agreement with Google to re-purchase Motorola Mobility, though that may be of another issue entirely.

On the flip side, Lenovo’s tablets also enjoyed a huge increase in shipments, almost at 67% for the past few quarters, albeit only at an equivalent of about 2.3 million shipped units.

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