It's All About Mobility

(See http://www.william-garrity.com/blog/tag/mobile.) In case you need more evidence that mobility is where it's at. 

Frederic Filloux, in Monday Note, captures current trends in mobile computing; it continues to overwhelm personal use of information and communication technologies, social, and publishing in general and news in particular. 

News: Mobile Trends to Keep In Mind

Dec 2, 2013

For publishers, developing an all-out mobile strategy has become both more necessary and more challenging. Today, we look at key data points and trends for such a task. 

#1 The Global Picture

• 1.7bn mobile phones (feature phones and smartphones) were sold in 2012 alone

• 3.2bn people use a mobile phone worldwide

• Smartphones gain quickly as phones are replaced every 18 to 24 months

• PCs are completely left in the dust as shown in this slide from Benedict Evans’ excellent Mobile is Eating the World presentation:

 

The yellow line has two main components:

• 1 billion Android smartphones are said to be in operation worldwide (source: Google)

• 700 million iOS devices have been sold over time, with 500 million still in use, which corresponds to the number of iTunes accounts (source: Asymco, one of the best references for the mobile market.)
• 450 million Symbian-based feature phones are in operation (Asymco.)

Continues at link.

Our Mobile Behavior

I know that I manifest many of these behaviors; I'll bet that most of you do, as well.

At TalkAndroid.com, Macky Evangelista reports on a survey LG did of smartphone users -- 

How connected are you with your smartphone?

Nov 12th 2013

With smartphones being as popular as ever, it begs the question as to how much we truly use them in our daily life tasks. LG took it upon themselves and took a relatively small survey to determine our smartphone usage in several different situations that most of us would find ourselves in on a weekly basis. The survey contained 1,100 participants ages 18 and over, which is a small pittance as compared to the 170 million smartphone users in America, but it still gives us a fairly good sample size. The survey determined how we use our smartphones during several weekly activities as well as several social situations that we commonly find ourselves in. Hit the break for the results that you may or may not find surprising:

• Places of Worship: 48 percent of smartphone owners confess they would be comfortable using their devices in a place of worship.
• In the Bedroom: 77 percent of smartphone owners admit they would openly use their phones while in bed with someone else.
• On a Date: 28 percent of smartphone owners have used their phones while on a date with a significant other.
• During Quality Time: 58 percent of smartphone owners have used their phones when spending time with their family, and 62 percent of smartphone owners have used their phone around friends.
• In the Bathroom: 75 percent of smartphone owners wouldn’t be ashamed to use their phones in a public restroom
• Social Saviors: More than a third (35 percent) of smartphone users admit to using their devices to avoid talking to someone, and 33 percent confess to using their phones to appear busy while alone in a restaurant or bar.
• Personal Paparazzi: Nearly half (48 percent) of the smartphone users say they have relied on their devices to take funny or shocking photos or videos, and 36 percent of smartphone users own up to using their devices to take “selfies.”
• Conversation Lifelines: 41 percent of smartphone users divulge that they have used their devices to research a topic to avoid not knowing it in conversation.

Article -- and LG press release with the survey results -- at the link. 

Click for full-size infographic

"Mobile is Eating the World"

That phrase is just too good to not use. . . 

Benedict Evans has an excellent and thorough (73 slides) presentation about mobility -- it is organized around the scale of that economy, tablets, ecosystem, and social and discovery. Highly recommended. 

Here are five slides that I find very notable -- see link for full deck.

How Does Texting Work?

Geek Level: MEDIUM HIGH. 

Texting -- SMS; Short Message (or Messaging) Service -- has got to be one of the most intensively used communication modalities. 

Via Android Authority -- 

What is SMS and how does it work?

by Robert Triggs on October 13, 2013

We’re all familiar with SMS messages, after all it’s one of the oldest and most commonly used methods of mobile communication. But there’s a surprising amount of co-ordination and technology working in the background to send such seemingly simple messages. So let’s take a look at how it all works.

For a start – SMS stands for short messaging service, a protocol used for sending short messages over wireless networks. Unlike many services in use today, such as MMS and other data driven services, SMS still works on the fundamental voice network, and is based on the big three GSM, CDMA and TDMA network technologies, making it a universal service.

SMS allows for text messages of 160 characters (letters, numbers and symbols) in length. Or for other alphabets, such as Chinese or Arabic, the maximum message size is limited to just 70 characters. Part of the reason for this is that SMS messaging was original considered as an afterthought added on to the spare bandwidth available on wireless voice networks. There was always a limit on how large these messages could be, hence why certain characters, such as foreign alphabets or obscure letters, still take up multiple spaces of the 160 allowance.

The 160 limit was eventually decided upon by Friedhelm Hillebrand, who observed and tested the typical number of characters in the average sentence, combined with a compromise on the available bandwidth at the time. Nowadays bandwidth isn’t so much of a concern, and messages can easily be sent back to back and recompiled on the receiving handset. The, now considered, low-bandwidth requirements of transmitting these short alphanumeric strings allows for worldwide messaging with very low latency.

Article continues at link. 

LTE Is Not Officially 4G

Finally! A cogent treatment of LTE versus 4G wireless! 

Via Android Authority, Robert Triggs writes about LTE and whether it is really 4G or not. 

4G vs LTE – key differences explained

October 4, 2013 

Anyone who’s been in the market for a new smartphone recently isn’t just spoilt for choice when it comes to awesome Android handsets, but there’s an ever growing range of data packages and network types to choose from as well.

Of course, you’re likely familiar with the older 3G standard, but newer handsets are often listed with a variety of “next generation” communication technologies, advertised as 4G, LTE, and sometimes 4G LTE. While that may make them appear virtually identical on the store shelves, there are actually some drastic differences between the technology advertised and the actual 4G mobile communication standard.

The 4G standard

All the way back in March 2008, the International Telecommunications Union-Radio (ITU-R) decided on a set of specifications for its new 4G standard. The ITU-R is the United Nation’s official agency for all manner of information and communication technologies, and aims to help promote and regulate various communication standards across nations.

The ITU-R decided upon a set of requirements for bandwidth, spectral efficiency, and a load of other technical points, for future 4G networks. But the most important point for us users is the peak download speeds, which are defined as 100 Mbit/s for high mobility devices, such as mobile data speeds on your smartphone while driving in car, and up to approximately 1 Gbit/s for low mobility local wireless access. To put that in some perspective, typical current download speeds are often in the range of 10Mbit/s, while 4G should offer 100 times faster downloads at a rate of 1Gbit/s.

Article continues at link. 

Update on Thursday, February 6, 2014 at 04:36AM by williamgarrity

TechHive -- FAQ: How is LTE-Advanced different from regular LTE?