Koushik Dutta, a member of the team behind CyanogenMod and the creator of ClockworkMod, announced that he is in the process of creating an app store that will be home to apps that have been banned from Google’s official Android Market. That will include customs ROMs, retro gaming emulators pulled due to copyright complaints, unofficial tethering apps, Visual Voicemail apps, one-click rooting apps, and, well, whatever else Google says can’t feature in their store.

This will, I’m sure, be of most interest to those who have already rooted their Android handset, as it will provide a one-stop shop for the customs ROMs and apps those devices can make use of. There’s no denying that having all that stuff in one place will be more useful than having to trawl the web. Those who haven’t rooted their handset will still be able to make use of the store though, as there are plenty of normal apps that have to be banned from Google’s store, especially if they violate copyright or a mobile operator’s need to generate revenue from value-added services, like tethering.

I just wonder if it can completely avoid being shut down. One of the reasons that such a wide range of unofficial ROMs and apps continue to survive is that they’re so broadly distributed that it’s difficult to hunt them all down. Put them all in one place and that’s no longer the case.

[Koushik Dutta via TechCrunch]

Largely based on Nokia’s strong support, Windows Phone is set to regain the No. 2 rank in the smartphone operating system in 2015. Finnish-based Nokia in 2009 lost its second-place worldwide ranking because of rising competition from Google Inc.’s Android and Apple Inc.’s iOS.

In 2015, however, Windows Phone will account for 16.7 percent of the smartphones shipped, up from less than 2 percent in 2011, according to the IHS iSuppli Mobile & Wireless Communications Service at information and analysis provider IHS (NYSE: IHS). This will allow Windows Phone to slightly surpass Apple’s iOS to retake the market’s second rank behind Android, as presented in the table below.

Meanwhile, Nokia stands to stem its plunge in smartphone market share.

Once the perennial leader in global smartphone shipments, Nokia by the second quarter of 2011 had fallen to the third rank in the market behind Samsung and Apple.

“One of the hottest new products unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show was the Lumia 900, a Windows Phone-based smartphone sporting a flashy set of features that makes it competitive with the best alternatives offered by the Android camp,” said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS. “This hot product represents Nokia’s first step to reclaim its market share. Combined with Nokia’s efforts to drive the development of the Windows Phone ecosystem, the Lumia 900 and its successors will help Microsoft to reclaim its No. 2 ranking in smartphone operating system market share in 2015.”

Coming to America
The Lumia 900’s flashy feature set, along with Nokia’s strategy for selling the product, shows that the company is targeting the North American region, a market that, even in the height of Nokia’s dominance, historically had been an Achilles’ heel for the company.

“The introduction of the Lumia 900 shows that Nokia believes the road back to smartphone dominance runs through North America,” said Francis Sideco, senior principal analyst for consumer and communications at IHS. “And the way to win North America is through its operator channels.”

The Lumia 900 was developed with North American market dynamics and smartphone users in mind, with the product having been designed in and launched first in the region—another departure from Nokia’s historical approach of repurposing devices designed in and for other parts of the world. The smartphone’s large 4.3-inch organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) touch screen display, 12-megapixel camera as well as partnerships with Rogers, Telus, AT&T and T-Mobile are concrete examples of Nokia executing on this strategy.

LTE to the Party
Another feature of the Lumia 900 also illustrates how serious Nokia is about addressing the North American market: its support of the high-speed Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G standard.

“In the past, Nokia always introduced new technologies in its home European market first,” Sideco said. “However, for the Lumia 900—Nokia’s first LTE phone—the company initially is rolling it out in North America. This demonstrates Nokia’s commitment to re-enter the region.”

Furthermore, Nokia is targeting the mobile network operator (MNO) channel to sell its phones in North America. Nokia previously eschewed the MNO approach, limiting its penetration into the region.

The company likewise is leveraging Microsoft’s business/enterprise sales channels to appeal to corporate customers in the region, offering value-added services in a play for the enterprise sector. Such moves will position Nokia to compete with Research In Motion Ltd., whose Blackberry phones are popular among corporate users.

Opening Windows of Opportunity
Although Nokia is not the only seller of Windows Phone smartphones, the company is expected to dominate the market, accounting for 50 percent of all Microsoft OS-based handsets sold in 2012, IHS iSuppli predicts. The company’s share then is set to rise to 62 percent in 2013. Nokia’s portion of the market will begin to decline in 2014, as other companies increase their sales of Windows Phone products.

Nonetheless, Nokia will drive the development and expansion of the Windows Phone market, opening up opportunities for other players, Lam said. “Because of Nokia’s support, apps developers will eagerly shore up the Windows platform. This will cause other makers of Windows Phone devices, such as Samsung and HTC, to offer more products supporting the OS—further expanding the market.”

Paul’s an extremely bright software guy.  It’s unusual for someone with his seniority to go on the record with criticisms of his former product, and I applaud him for it because it helps us all learn.  If Paul says Web OS was unready, I’m sure it was.  But respectfully, I don’t think that’s why Web OS failed. I think the company’s business strategy was fundamentally flawed, in ways that would have almost certainly doomed Web OS no matter how it was built.

The point is important because other companies planning similar products might take away the wrong lesson from Palm’s demise.  (For example, Information Week concludes that it’s too hard for any startup to play in the mobile device market [link]; MIT Technology Review says the lesson is that you have to retain key employees [link].)  To explain what the right lesson is, I need to give you a little background on the dynamics of creating a new operating system.

New operating systems always suck

Sorry for my language, but sometimes it’s best to be blunt.  An operating system is an incredibly complex piece of software, just about the most complex software you can write.  In the first version of an OS, the list of features you want to add is always much longer than what you can implement, there are always bugs you can’t find, and performance is always a problem.  What’s worse, there is a built-in tension between those three problems — the more features you add, the more bugs you create.  The more time you spend fixing bugs, the less time you have to improve performance.  And so on.  As a result, every new operating system, without exception, is an embarrassing set of compromises that frustrates its creators and does not deliver on the full promise of its vision.

Remember these beauties?

–The original Macintosh can’t create a word processing document longer than 10 pages.

–The original version of Windows can’t display overlapping windows.

–The original iPhone doesn’t allow third-party native apps, and lacks 3G and MMS support.

The operating systems that succeed are the ones that survive long enough for their big flaws to be fixed.  That happens if the OS’s supporter has a deep, multi-version commitment to it (Windows) or if the OS does something else so compelling that customers are willing to buy it despite its flaws (graphics on the Mac).  Your chances are best if you have both patience and differentiation.

Palm’s problem: Lack of a compelling advantage

The Palm Pre and HP TouchPad had neither advantage.  Palm was not rich enough and HP was not patient enough to keep investing after the first versions showed a lot of flaws.  And more importantly, there was nothing compelling enough about either product to make people buy it despite those flaws.

Think about it, what was the one special thing Web OS devices could do that absolutely compelled you to go out and buy them?  And don’t say “multitasking;” I’m talking about a genuine, easily explained benefit that would appeal to normal people, not technophiles.

I wrote about this problem back in 2010 when the Palm put itself up for sale (link).  To recap: you don’t run TV ads featuring a Borg hive queen if you have something compelling to say about your product (link).

Hi, I’m here because the ad agency couldn’t figure out anything concrete to say

Contrast those ads to Apple’s current iPhone ads in the US, which are basically a 30-second demo of Siri (link).

The original Palm OS succeeded because it made a great appliance for managing your calendar and address book.  That jump-started the market, and all the additional stuff empowered by the OS came later.

iPhone succeeded, in my opinion, because it was the first device to make PC-style browsing work well on a smartphone.  That killer feature bought Apple the time and market credibility it needed to enable native apps, fix the phone’s problems, and add a raft of additional features that fleshed out the product vision.

Android succeeded (in part) because Apple stupidly left a void in the marketplace that Google could fill.  In the wake of Steve Jobs’ death, there has been a lot of well-deserved praise online for the brilliant decisions he made.  But I think one of Steve’s biggest mistakes ever was the decision to wed Apple exclusively to AT&T in the US for multiple years.  That forced Verizon to find an iPhone competitor and market it aggressively.  Verizon’s choices were Windows Mobile (unpopular with customers, and a vendor with a history of shafting its partners), Nokia/Symbian (unpopular in the US, and a vendor with a history of shafting operators), or Google (sexy web brand, believed at the time to be open and non-controlling).  People outside the US don’t realize this, but in the US Verizon was the main marketing muscle behind the success of Android.  It forced the product into the market and kept pushing for a long time, giving Google the time it needed to improve Android and get it past the crucial first release.

The Pre and TouchPad had no patient sugar daddy.  And they had no breakthrough feature that would compel people to buy the first versions despite their inevitable flaws.  I think Palm’s product strategy was broken, and so Web OS was probably doomed no matter how well it was implemented.

The lesson: Who’s your daddy, and what’s your killer feature?

Two companies are working on new mobile platforms scheduled to ship in 2012:  Nokia’s next-generation Windows phones, and RIM’s BlackBerry 10.  In both cases, the press has been focusing on their development schedules.  The schedules are very important, of course.  But the real questions to ask are:

1. Do they have the financial backing to complete versions 2 and 3, which will be needed to fix the inevitable flaws in version 1? and

2. Will the products do anything unique and compelling that will cause at least some customers to prefer them even if they have other drawbacks?

I think Nokia can probably say yes to question 1; RIM is in doubt.  And as far as I can tell, neither vendor has even started to address question 2.  If they don’t, in a year or two we’ll probably be doing more post-mortems.

SHANGHAI, Jan. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ — Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in 2G and 3G wireless communications standards, today introduced a 1GHz Android smartphone platforms for TD-SCDMA (SC8810) and EDGE/WiFi (SC6820) and announced that both products are now sampling with customers. With these two new solutions, Spreadtrum is redefining the performance standard for low-cost smartphones, enabling OEMs to deliver 1GHz performance at US$100 retail prices.

“Our 1GHz Android platform sets a new bar for low-cost smartphone performance,” said Dr. Leo Li, Spreadtrum’s president and CEO.  ”The graphics and web browsing performance of the SC8810 and SC6820 compares favorably to one of the most popular smartphone models globally, delivering a high performance applications and gaming experience for consumers. This type of experience has previously been available only in mid- to high-end handset models and can now be delivered by OEMs in US$100 smartphone models.  This will reshape the definition of and consumer expectations for a low-cost handset.”

Spreadtrum’s 1GHz platform is the most highly integrated, lowest power smartphone platform for the TD-SCDMA market. The solution delivers the lowest chip count with a multimode single-chip RF transceiver supporting TD-SCDMA, EDGE, GPRS and GSM and integrates power management.  The platform’s Cortex A5 processor architecture delivers more than 40% lower power consumption compared to ARM11-based products and more than 70% lower power consumption than Cortex A9 products, delivering differentiated standby and talk time performance relative to other smartphone models.

Designed with 40nm CMOS silicon technology, the SC8810 and SC6820 baseband platforms are powered by a Cortex A5 1GHz processor and incorporate an advanced multimedia subsystem which includes a Mali GPU with 3D/2D graphics acceleration and supports high definition video playback, a 5 megapixel camera, a WVGA touch panel and connectivity features including Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS. The SC8810 supports TD-SCDMA with HSDPA at 2.8Mbps, HSUPA at 2.2Mbps as well as quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE with dual-mode auto handover, while the SC6820 supports quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM.  Both products combine silicon hardware with turnkey Android software that reduce both the design time and design resources required to deliver new handsets to market.

Spreadtrum’s expansion of its smartphone platform coincides with rapidly increasing demand in China for smartphone products.  Industry analysts expect the smartphone market in China to exceed 100 million units in 2012, leading global demand for smartphone products.

About Spreadtrum Communications, Inc.

Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum”) is a fabless semiconductor company that develops baseband and RF processor solutions for the wireless communications market. Spreadtrum combines its semiconductor design expertise with its software development capabilities to deliver highly integrated baseband processors with multimedia functionality and power management. Spreadtrum has developed solutions based on an open development platform, enabling its customers to develop customized wireless products that are feature-rich to meet their cost and time-to-market requirements.

Safe Harbor Statements:

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the ability of SC8810 and SC6820 to enable OEMs to deliver 1GHz performance at US$100 retail prices; the ability of SC8810 and SC6820 to deliver a high performance applications and gaming experience for consumers; the effectiveness of SC8810 and SC6820 in reshaping the definition of and consumer expectations for a low-cost handset; the ability of SC8810 and SC6820 to reduce both the design time and design resources required to deliver new handsets to market; the rapidly increasing demand in China for smartphone products; and the expectation of the Industry analysts with respect to smartphone market in China exceeding 100 million units in 2012, leading global demand for smartphone products. The Company uses words like “believe,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “estimate,” “expect,” “project” and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. These statements are forward-looking in nature and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual market trends and the Company’s actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements for a variety of reasons. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the pace of commercial deployment of SC8810 and SC6820, market acceptance of SC8810 and SC6820, continuing competitive pressure in the semiconductor industry and the effect of such pressure on prices; unpredictable changes in technology and consumer demand for Android platform smart phones; the rate at which the commercial deployment of TD-SCDMA and EDGE/WiFi technology will grow; the state of and any change in the Company’s relationship with its major customers; and changes in political, economic, legal and social conditions in China. For additional discussion of these risks and uncertainties and other factors, please consider the information contained in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and the annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 6, 2011, as amended, especially the section under “Risk Factors” and such other documents that the Company may file with the SEC from time to time, including on Form 6-K. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this press release, and does not intend to update any forward-looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise except as required by law.

This is from www.prnewswire.com

The Smarterphone operating system promises a smartphone-caliber user experience across more basic feature phone devices and is designed to run on limited-resource hardware. Smarterphone (previously known as Kvaleberg) also touts greater flexibility for tailoring handset software to different markets. Partners include Taiwanese manufacturers Compal Communications and Wistron NeWeb.

Although Nokia has made substantial bets on smartphones running Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone operating system, the manufacturer has vowed to continue building lower-end feature phones, with an emphasis on emerging international markets. In September, The Wall Street Journal reported Nokia is building a new Linux-based OS to advance its feature phone aspirations.

Some analysts have questioned the longevity of the feature phone business, however. Low-cost, feature-rich smartphones running Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system are becoming increasingly commonplace, with Chinese manufacturer Spreadtrum poised to introduce Android devices priced below $50.

Over at WindowsITPro, Paul Thurott outlines some details of Microsoft/Nokia’s (purported) marketing plans for Windows Phone in 2012. Amongst them: a $10 to $15 commission for retail sales people who sell Windows Phone handsets over Android or iOS.

In turn, John Gruber asks: “If this strategy was on the table, why didn’t Microsoft start this a year ago?“

Here’s why: because it’s an admission of failure.

Microsoft’s obstacle isn’t an easy one. When people walk into a phone store in search of a new smartphone, the sales dude generally offers up two choices: iPhone or Android. Meanwhile, the only people being handed Windows Phones are the ones who asked for them right off the bat.

Now, why is this? Is it because Apple and Google are coughing up piles of cash to get the sales reps to push their phones? Nope — while carriers and specific OEMs might offer spiffs for the sales of certain handsets, I can’t find evidence that Apple or Google themselves ever have. (I’ve been asking sales folks and carrier reps if they ever got a cut from either company all morning, and the only answer I got besides a bunch of “No way”s was a “Hah! If Apple paid me a special commission, I’d be rich.”)

It’s because, for the time being, Windows Phone just isn’t good enough.

That’s not to say that Windows Phone isn’t good, period — it is! But it also came out incredibly late in the game. When you’re the last one off the line, you have to do something so amazing, something so much better than what the folks leading the pack are doing, that you change the race entirely.

iOS did this by making smartphones simple, embracing the concept of “Apps” better than anyone else had before, and by riding that massive wave of momentum that comes from being Apple’s next shiny thing.

Android did it by becoming the anti-iPhone. One handset? “Heck no! Put it on all of them!” said Google. A tightly monitored, “walled garden” for an App Store? “Nope! Do what you want!” Google did everything that Apple would not (for better or worse), for the consumer and everyone else in the industry.

Windows Phone, meanwhile, has very few tricks that anyone could inarguably say that it does better. Oh, it does plenty of things — and it does them all differently. But different isn’t better; it’s just different.

When phone guys sell phones, they’re selling whatever they think will be the easiest sale and make their customer (and their managers) happiest. They do this not necessarily because they’re wonderful people who have deep compassion for everyone who sets foot in their store — but because dealing with angry people (and their returns) sucks. For now, this means iPhone or Android. Both do all of the snazzy things people see in the commercials. Both have a bazillion apps. Both have such massive user bases that few would ever look out into a crowd of people all with smartphones in hand and think “Crap. Did I pick the wrong phone?”

By offering up a chunk of change for each sale — especially when it seems that no one else is — Microsoft is essentially saying “Yeah, we know you don’t really want to sell this. We know that we don’t really have any killer features yet. How about some cash?”

Find your killer feature, Microsoft. Don’t just buy love.

It’s only right that the creative individuals behind a multi-billion dollar industry should have access to their own professional body, but for some reason the idea has yet to take hold. That could change at CES, when Jon Potter — formerly of the Digital Media Association — will start selling membership to a new outfit called the Application Developers Alliance. His pitch will open with the concept that “there’s an interesting space in the application developer community that isn’t really organized” and then move on to offer services like an online collaborative network, shared product-testing facilities, discount training schemes and cloud services, and even government lobbying over issues like privacy and IP. Who knows? That sort of thinking could ultimately lead to a fully-fledged union movement to stand up to fat-cat platform owners and let them know who’s boss, but first things first eh?

Android : Samsung is currently the overwhelmingly largest Android manufacturer, grown far bigger than number 2 in Android: HTC.

bada : Samsung promised 10 million cumulative bada sales in its first year and only did about 6 million. Samsung shook up its bada organization but has not recently given public statements of its intentions with bada. The global average price for smarpthones continues to decline, and bada is well poised to capture the mass market side of smartphones in emerging markets from China and India to Egypt and Nigeria. Samsung will also be monitoring the statements that came from Sony(Ericsson) and Motorola both which boast high percentages of migrating dumbphones to smartphones – Sony will complete its migration to all smartphones by 2012. For Samsung to do that profitably and with a long-term view, they will need to bring bada to full status. We may well see Samsung numbers shift so, that bada becomes the biggest OS on Samsung smartphones and if that happens, bada will definitely become the third ecosystem during 2012 (not Microsoft Windows Phone with Nokia).

Tizen : Intel and Samsung announced the end of MeeGo and the launch of its replacement smartphone operating system, Tizen. Tizen phones should start to appear during 2012 and those are likely to be high-end smartphones similarly to how the N9 and N950 were high-end MeeGo devices. Tizen would be the logical high end OS of preference for Samsung if and when it wishes to move away from building Google’s Android army. Expect Tizen to be built with plenty of family ecosystem thinking with bada and Samsung’s app store, much like how Nokia’s MeeGo strategy was supposed to work with Symbian and Ovi.

According to research aggregated by wearesocial.net, there are more than 898 million mobile subscribers in India, 292 million of these living in rural areas.

The same data showed that 346 million Indian mobile users had subscribed to data packages, with more than half of all internet users in the country accessing the web via their mobile phone.

“The mobile phone will drive internet use in India in 2012,” says Mr Agarwal the editor of the Indian gadget blog onlygizmo.com. “Computing begins with the mobile and its growth is fast in India.”

He believes that the increase in smartphone and internet capable phones, selling below Rs5,000 (£61; $94)and built by Indian manufacturers, is making it easier and more affordable to own such devices.

According to CBS News, patent number 8,082,523 called “Portable electronic device with graphical user interface supporting application switching” was granted to Apple.

[via The Inquirer]