The MoPR Blog

Jailbreak Community Battles Apple for Control of iPhone

Wired has an interesting article from Brian Chen in its Gadget Lab detailing the history of the jailbroken (jailbreaked?) iPhone, Apple’s efforts to thwart hackers and even a link to an application that will easily jailbreak your iPhone in two minutes.

And while you’re on the Wired website reading this article, be sure to also check out Brian’s article from August this year, “6 Reasons to Jailbreak your iPhone.”

Bada, Samsung’s New Open-Source Operating System: What’s the Beef?

“Does the world really need another OS?” asks Addy Dugale at the start of this Fast Company article about a new smartphone operating system from a handset manufacturer that already produces devices running Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android and LiMo. With four smartphone OSs in their lineup, why would Samsung launch its own operating system? Perhaps the Apple iPhone’s 17 percent share of the smartphone market has something to do with it? Read Addy’s article to get all the details, and be sure to watch the Samsung Bada video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlUCPcos3o4:

For a little more detail in video format, Mobile Gazette has its own explanation of Bada http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpjxHGvnevc:

Coming to CES…

“In case your smatphone/netbook ain’t cutting it” was Engadget’s rhetorical statement last May regarding smartbooks, a new category of devices that are slightly smarter than a smartphone and slightly phonier (as in more phone) than a netbook. Some news out this week from Qualcomm and some Engadget discovered from Mobinnova are profiled in two articles that gives us a little more detail about this new device category certain to make — or at least attempt to make — a splash at next January’s Consumer Electronics Show.

In case you miss it

Verizon and AT&T have been having a war of words that seems to be escalating into a war of attorneys over Verizon’s “There’s a Map for That” advertising campaign. The Verizon campaign, which plays off Apple’s “There’s an App for That” iPhone campaign, shows two maps, a red Verizon map of the US indicating robust wireless data coverage and a blue AT&T map indicating sparse coverage. Eric Zeman at InformationWeek shares a letter that AT&T posted publicly refuting Verizon’s claims. This tit-for-tat battle between the two largest wireless carriers in the US is just ramping up and will certainly produce more fun moments as the two companies fight for new customers and ARPU in a market reaching saturation. When you choose your carrier, TheMoPRBlog wants to know: are you a red stater or a blue stater?

Google looks over shoulder after Nokia Symbian buyout. Big news this week with Nokia taking control of Symbian. Nokia is riding on the hopes of increasing the sales of mobile phones while boosting revenues from its wireless web services.  According to InfoWorld Daily’s Tom Sullivan, the move could damper Google’s Android. Still wondering what this means to the industry? Read “Seven things you need to know about Nokia-Symbian deal.”

If you think your broadband is slow, you’re probably right. Enter InternetforEveryone.org led by the FCC [?!] that wants universal access to high-speed, broadband Internet throughout the US. Thirty-five percent of homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed Internet connection in the U.S. Moreover, nearly 20 million Americans live in areas that are not served by a single broadband provider; tens of millions more live in places where there is just a single choice for high-speed Internet service.

We’re in Awe: 15-Year-Old Girl Sends 15,000 Text Messages A Month. According to WEWS in Cleveland, a 15-year-old Ohio girl discovered her true talent recently – the ability to crank out 15,000 text messages in a month and keep an 3.0 GPA- all under a 9:00 p.m. curfew. According to WEWS, she didn’t realize how many text messages she sent every month until she went to the cell phone store to get her phone fixed.

“I just don’t look. I guess I had the phone a long time and I just know where the buttons are and I just hit them,” said the speed texter.

Mobile coupons finally a reality? According to MediaPost, Yahoo! is teaming with Coupons Inc. to offer mobile coupons through its Yahoo! Mobile service. The initiative would “create a national platform for large brand advertisers to distribute mobile coupons, which so far have mostly been tested only in local markets or niche categories.”

Mobile coupons, says the article, will rely on solely electronic means, such as a secure bar code system allowing shoppers to swipe mobile devices at the point of sale to get discounts or special offers.
Distribution of the coupons would involve different methods, such as e-mail, banner ads, SMS text-messaging and apps on Yahoo!’s mobile portal.

McMobile McMarketing. The Mobile Marketing Association newsletter landed in our mailbox this week. A mix of industry news, trends and upcoming events, the newsletter is always an informative read. Our favorite section is successful case studies of mobile marketing in action, such as a recent story on McDonalds and its use of SMS in Germany.

Via the SMS Lounge, McDonald’s invited customers to text their information which then registered them at their local McDonald’s. In the following months, users received a mobile voucher directly from the restaurant onto their phone every two weeks. The coupons – embedded in code – could be redeemed by scanning them at the restaurant.

Since its launch in July 2007, more than 10,000 participants have used SMS service. This first of its kind mobile couponing pilot achieved response rates up to 29% throughout Germany according to the MMA. Using SMS and mobile technologies to extend and build your brand is something we can get behind!

Wind Charged Cell Phones. Folks toting mobile phones to this year’s Glastonbury Festival 2008 in the UK later this week will have a free and green way to recharge their phones thanks to a charging station being set up at the festival by Orange. Measuring more than 7 meters tall, the free-standing recharge pod is a self-sufficient unit that taps into a wind generator and solar panels to charge as many as 100 mobile phones per hour. It’s actually the next iteration of a portable wind charger Orange tested out at last year’s festival through a partnership with Gotwind and will serve as a trial for using renewable energy sources on a larger scale at future festivals. Orange expects the recharge pod will charge thousands of mobile phones over the course of the three-day festival. [See Grace's post for more on Gotwind.]