Mobile Phones News Blog

Apple has announced financial results for the final quarter of 2011, revealing record-breaking sales figuures for the company. Profits have also more than doubled to $13.06bn up from $6bn in the same quarter of 2010.

Sales of the iPhone stood at an astounding 37.04 million units, a 128% rise on the previous year, with Cook stating that more could have been sold if the supplies were there. iPad sales were similarly impressive with a record 15.43 million units over the quarter, more than double that of a year ago. Additionally, a 26% increase of Mac sales was recorded over the last 12 month period with sales of 5.2 million.

The only recorded decline in sales was with the iPod, which saw a 21% year on year decrease to 15.4 million units. However, Apple did make predictions that the smartphone would replace the iPod, so the sales decrease is not wholly unexpected.

These results will go some way towards relieving the pressure on CEO Tim Cook, who faced harsh criticism after the iPhone missed its forecasts in October and with launches for the iPad 3, iPhone 5 and Apple iTV all imminent, it seems that the California tech giant’s reign is set to continue throughout 2012 and beyond.

Amazon.com, which offers one app free each day, has announced that the ‘Keep Track Pro’ will be available for free today from its website. The app, which is otherwise priced at about Rs 100 in both Amazon App Store and Android Market, will be available for free only today.

Keep Track Pro is basically an organiser application.

“KeepTrack is generic and does not pre define the data you are collecting so whether it is your weight, training records, pills consumption, number of coffee cups or cigarettes you had today or any other data you can come up which requires tracking – KeepTrack can collect the data and show you the statistics,” its makers explain.

With the help of Keep Track Pro, users can always track the items important to them, make improvements with the help of the data, or simply keep themselves informed. For certain tasks, the app can also set an alarm to remind the users.

The app comes with 4.4 star rating in the Android Market and 4.2 star rating in the Amazon app store.

A rendered image of a new LG phone has been leaked, and is said to picture the X3, a phone that will introduce the quad-core processor to LG’s range.The device itself wouldn’t standout in a crowd of one at the moment, but is notable for the three buttons below the screen, rather than the usual four found on Android devices.

The X3 name is also most likely a code-name, as apart from already being used in the past by Nokia (and attached to the Sony Ericsson Rachael, which subsequently became the Xperia X10) LG has so far stuck rigidly to the Optimus brand name in Europe and the UK, while indulging their creative side for US launches. See the LG Nitro and Revolution for proof.

If they do decide to use a similar name though, it would make more sense to go with X4, as the phone is said to be one of the first run of smartphones to use the Tegra 3 quad-core processor. Exciting stuff, as the Tegra 3 chip looks very special indeed.

The leak also suggests the X3 will feature a 4.7-inch touchscreen with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, 16GB of storage, an 8 megapixel camera, NFC and Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The chassis will measure less than 9mm, and a considerably beefed up 2000mAh battery will keep the monster processor well-fed.

Rumoured for a summer launch, we could be seeing the LG X3 at next month’s Mobile World Congress, when it’ll probably join quad-core offerings from HTC and Samsung amongst others.

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Google has made its augmented reality Sky Map app open source, which will now enable independent developers to optimize and modify the app. It will help enhance the app for users.

Sky Map app is a combination of basic astronomical data and the camera of the smartphones to get information about heavenly bodies.

With Google Sky Map on your Android phone you can discover and browse the night sky just by pointing your phone to space. By using your Android phone’s orientation sensors, the application can show you a star map for your location. Through the search function you can find planets, stars and constellations. The application works on all Android phones and is available free of cost.

Sky Map uses your phone’s GPS , accelerometer and compass to create a window to the sky that moves with your hand. You can also browse a map showing the brightest stars, planets, sun and moon, constellation lines, horizon, cardinal directions-North, East etc, and Messier Objects (astronomical objects such as planets, stars, satellites and comets).

Sky Map app has already been downloaded over 10 million times by the users so far. Google is working with Carnegie Melon university for the project, and it can be safely assumed whatever developments would be made by the students there, it would appear in the Android Market.

The Google Research blog post says, “We are collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University in an exciting partnership that will see further development of Sky Map as a series of student projects. Sky Map’s development will now be driven by the students, with Google engineers remaining closely involved as advisors.”

Calling that thing in your pocket a phone is like calling a charging tiger a moving patch of colour: a valid description, but you’re missing vital factors which will severely affect your quality of life. Over the last month many people moved back home for a few days of family time before reconnecting to their real lives in the new year, and for international travel the “reconnection” is quite literal. Using your mobile in another country makes your phone bill look like your credit card number, but when before we used to leave the useless bricks behind, now we just turn off the phone functions. Because even without the talky parts, modern phones are seriously smart.

The easiest way to recognise such international gadgets is the “tricorder effect”. The X Prize foundation are offering ten million dollars to anyone who can build a hand portable scanner, but mobile phones have already done this for Wi-Fi. The visitor sweeps every new location with their beeping wafer, looking for the treasure that is an open Wi-Fi connection and sucking down as much mail as they can while in range. In the wilds of rural Ireland I found a pub full of wizened old farmers, songs about how things were better before the Fort of Tara fell, and a solid four-sector connection to use while sinking pints. It was a better ancient-meets-advanced adventure than an episode of Doctor Who.

Without the burden of always-on connection, it’s like even your phone is in the holiday spirit. You can play games without any risk of the silly thing ringing and ruining your mood. Sure, you’ve picked up a cheap dumbphone to tide you over the holidays (the great Nokia boom of the 90s ensures there will be £10 handsets floating around the back of friends’ closets until the sun explodes), but nobody can remember its new number. The only time people can contact you is when you deign to allow them – it’s like being an A-list celeb only without the paparazzi.

After a few blissful ringing-free days it’s time to return home. The instant any international flight touches down, more technology powers up than during the switching on of the Death Star. You’re once more ready to contact anyone in the world, including the people you just left, and you can talk to them without having to travel halfway round the world to do so.

So, you know, that “phone” part is pretty amazing too.

Nokia has slashed prices of its Lumia 710 smartphone. The Windows Phones operating system based handset is now available for Rs 15,500 through Flipkart and Letsbuy.

The Lumia 710 sports a 3.7-inch TFT LCD touchscreen display screen with 480 x 800 pixel of resolution and runs on Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) OS. It comes with a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm Scorpion Processor with 512 MB RAM and has Adreno 205 GPU.

Nokia Lumia offers a 5 megapixel camera lens with LED flash light. This helps you to click images and record HD videos. It supports 4x digital focus and 3x video zoom. The handset records HD videos with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution at 30 fps. Other camera features like Geo-Tagging, touch focus, continuous auto focus, exposure compensation, auto and manual white balance and image editor provides better quality images.

Lumia with its 1300 mAh Li-Ion battery claims to provide a talk time up to six hours in 2G and seven hours on 3G . The phone has an inbuilt memory of up to 8 GB which helps you store files of your choice.

With the price reduction, Nokia Lumia 710 becomes the cheapest smartphone with such high-end specification not just in terms of the processor but also in terms of screen and camera. If you look at an Android phone with similar spec you will have to shell out at least Rs 22,000.