Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
This week: A BB10 update, webOS gets sold to LG, more Mobile World Congress, and more!
This is the Mobile Nations Monday Brief!
TITLE GRAPHIC
Greetings mobile delegates, I’m Ashley Esqueda, and you’re tuned into the Mobile Nations
Monday Brief. Windows Phone Central kicking things off this week with new devices headed
to different markets. Last week at Mobile World Congress, Nokia announced four new phones
designed for specific types of users: Two Asha phones reminiscent of Nokia’s classic
candy bar design, aimed at emerging markets and sold with low price tags; and two new
WinPhone8 devices, the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720. The 520 is pretty similar to the Lumia
620, a phone our own Danny Rubino really loved in his review, but the 520 has a larger screen
and wireless charging cases available! The Lumia 720, on the other hand, is a step up
from the 520, with specs closer to the 820, but with a microSD expansion slot. These are
two Lumia devices the WPC team is really into at the moment, so if you’re interested in
the when and how much on each, head over to wpcentral dot com for all the details.
Android Central caught an interesting story at the tail end of last week involving the
huge damages awarded to Apple in their lawsuit against Samsung last year. It looks like Judge
Lucy Koh has reviewed the jury’s road to that damages award, and decided it was arrived
at incorrectly. She’s cut 450 million bucks off of the original award of 1 point 05 billion
dollars, and ruled that a new trial is required to properly assess accurate damage amounts.
That’s kind of a big deal, but it’s not necessarily good or bad for Samsung. If a
jury finds for a higher damages amount, Apple will get more than the original judgement,
plus interest. On the other hand, a jury may decide Samsung should pay much less than the
initial amount awarded, which would of course make Samsung happy. Either way, it’s just
more patent drama shenanigans from two companies who also do business with each other. These
are the phones of our lives. Keep up with the saga on android central dot com.
Oh, webOS. After we reported on a rumor about HP’s desire to move forward with Android-based
tablets and potentially phones a couple weeks back, it looks like those rumors are going
to come true, as Hewlett Packard appears to be selling webOS to LG. That might seem exciting,
considering LG’s experience with mobile hardware, but they’ve made no indication
they might develop webOS phones in the future. It looks like this purchase was made for the
webOS-powered LGTV webOS Nation exclusively reported last October. There’s no official
word from either HP or LG about the sale, but Derek’s sources have independently verified
the rumor. The sale includes the HP Global Business Unit’s employees, webOS’s source
code, and the patents originally held by Palm. Who knows what LG might use webOS for, but
if we’re being real here... don’t hold your breath, unless you’ve been secretly
praying at night for a webOS TV to show up in your living room.
Crackberry let everyone know the first software update for the BlackBerry Z10 is live and
available for Z10 owners on Canadian carriers Rogers, Telus, and Fido. The changelog was
posted on the Inside BlackBerry blog, and touts updates like 3rd party app performance
increases, various phone, calendar, and contact fixes, an adjustment for the camera in low
light situations, video playback improvements, and battery life tweaks. This is obviously
the first of many updates from BlackBerry, and the fact it’s going OTA so soon is a
good sign that they’re committed to making changes quickly. We’re sure the update will
hit other carrier devices as soon as they pass testing, so keep checking Crackberry
dot com for up to the minute information on new updates.
Last week on iMore, there was a podcast team up, with Debug and Iterate joining forces
to discuss human interfaces of various software
implementations, and their potential futures. iMore’s Rene Ritchie, Marc Edwards of B-jango,
Guy English of Kicking Bear, Loren Brichter of atebits, and DoubleTwist’s Sebastiaan
de Witt all sat down to brainstorm about where they each think human interfaces are headed,
and if we’re hitting a “future tech” tipping point with them. The guys chatted
about software and hardware, including Siri, Google Now, Kinect, Leap, MYO, Project Glass,
Oculus Rift, and the hypothetical iWatch. There’s so much to think about in this particular
podcast, and it’s also really fun to listen to two podcasts collide, so head over to iMore
dot com and give it a listen.
That’s it for your Mobile Nations Monday Brief. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel
at youtube.com/mobilenations, check out our dazzling and informative podcasts at mobilenations.com/shows,
and you can follow me on Twitter @ashleyesqueda. Nations, you have been briefed!