In aChina, there were reports of people selling their kidney for Apple's iPhone smartphones and iPad tablets. Meanwhile, on the streets of Manila, some mobile subscribers are getting killed by murderous thieves who see the former's smartphone as money that will pay for their food or daily fix.
Incidents like these are either testament to how effective mobile vendors' approaches to marketing are or a symptom of how twisted our moral values have become.
Have we really gone so low? Or have we always been like this, only not as brazen as we are now?
Backup, Safety Phone
Its lineup of features and capabilities seems like a scammer's wish list. For example, it offers up to 10 hours of talk time powered only by an AA battery. And if the phone is not used, it will store the battery for up to 15 years. Yes, folks, the SpareOne mobile phone is more than a phone. It is a battery-storage device.
Put on display at the 2012 Computex exhibition in Taiwan by its maker, a subsidiary of TennRich International, the mobile phone weighs about 75 grams and comes with a 120 x 60mm body, about the size of an ordinary candy bar.
It does not have a screen. Neither does it come with a charging port or any connection ports. All it has are the bare minimum requirements for it to be called a mobile phone: a number keypad, dial and hang-up buttons, and volume control.
A small flashlight and an emergency-call button, which can dial on its own the local safety authorities, reveal its designed-for-emergencies nature.
It is not as flashy as any of the late-model smartphones in the market. But I guess every home in this country should have one or two units of this no-frills but potentially life-saving mobile phone.
Smartphone Duopoly
If the report issued by market research firm Cannacord Genuity has got its forecasts right, I am sure every government's anti-unfair competition agencies would be coming after today's two hottest mobile phone makers — Samsung and Apple.
Already the most popular and strongest vendors in the smartphone space, Samsung and Apple are forecast to account for 52.3 percent of the worldwide smartphone market by 2013, according to Cannacord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley.
Walkley believes that, combined, the two companies control 48.1 percent of the market as of end of the second quarter 2012.
More specifically, Walkley asserts that Samsung, in 2013, will control 31.3 percent of the market with 304.4 million in shipments, while Apple will ship 204.1 million units of the iPhone, or 21 percent of the market.
No wonder these two companies are saving their biggest and strongest legal punches for each other. After all, none of the other smartphone vendors matters as much as they do to each other.
I think, however, that the market is big enough to accommodate other vendors, such as Nokia and HTC. Also, I think China-based vendors ZTE and Huawei, with their capabilities to mass-produce low-cost but high-quality gadgets, can hold their own against Apple and Samsung.
That's all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.
source: mb.com.ph
