TamsIJungle

Skype is well on its way to the iPhone – Reuters reports that a technology preview of the product will be made available in a few hours:

…
Skype, the Internet telephone unit of eBay Inc, is planning to launch its service for iPhone users on Tuesday
…

PCWorld managed to get some hands-on time with a beta, and put online a thorough preview with a large bunch of screenshots.

Unsurprisingly, calls can be made only via WiFi in order to keep carrier partners happy:

You can also chat with your Skype friends, but unfortunately this is the only thing (besides seeing who’s online) you can do over a cellular network. Skype for iPhone places calls only via Wi-Fi, not differentiating itself much from the other voice apps in the App Store

As of now, no further information is available – stay tuned!

This is NOT an April Fool’s joke!
Dear Readers,
Our recent growth has caused major issues for our host Brainsware: there are now so many of you that our server architrcture needs to be changed in order to allow us to serve all of you as good as we aspire to do.

In order to do this, a maintenance downtime will take place on the 1st of April, from 22h to 23h local time. This translates to 13h00 in San Francisco or 16h in New York. During this time span, the following web sites may not be accessible:

• TamsPalm – the Palm OS / Web OS blog
• TamsPPC – the PocketPC blog
• TamsS60 – the S60 blog
• TamsWMS – the Windows Mobile Smartphone blog
• TamsIJungle – the iPhone / iPod touch blog
• TamsBlackBerry – the BlackBerry blog
• TamsPalm Germany

Afterwards, the Tamoggemon Content team will be honoured to welcome you again on our news services!

All the best
Tam Hanna for the Tamoggemon Content Team

I have no idea why handset designers keep playing around with their handset’s keyboards…the latest victim is a device designed by Samsung for Verizon (who will peddle it as Alias2):

The image above hits us via PhoneArena, with Engadget Mobile claiming that the keys are “identified” via an underlying E-Ink display.

As of now, no tests have been performed to determine the usability of this new input method. While I personally fear that the usability will be bad due to sub-par materials (this is said to be a cheap handset), I dare to say that this is the first keyboard idea which has impressed me.

Future devices using this technology could allow customers to dynamically adapt the keyboard layout of their devices, for example by replacing unpopular special characters with others he needs more often (I’d love to ditch some weird chars on my XPERIA’s keyboard for < and >, for example).

What do you think?

Mobile-Stream, the makers of the excellent Meteor Breakout for iPhone, have traditionally been extremely talkative.

Their latest statement is about Apple’s return policy: as usual, their spokesperson remains unnamed and anonymous…and his claim is as humble as can be: meh!

The full scoop is below:

The fact is that exactly this text (item 6.3 about refunds) has been from the start, nothing has changed. Many months ago it went unnoticed, I do not understand what brought it to light now. Maybe because of Android refund policy people are too much concerned about refunds and start discussing this old Apple passage about refunds.

I’ve not seen refund abuses. Apple very rarely approves refunds, so that’s no problem at all.

Carriers have traditionally disliked Skype: insiders have reported that Nokia’s plans to include Skype on its N97 flagship were met with a small “rebellion” from carrier partners.

I am thus unsure about how credible GigaOM really is – they claim the following:

A tipster — a very reliable one — tells me that Skype is almost ready to launch that iPhone version, perhaps as soon as next week. CTIA Wireless, a large mobile industry trade event, kicks off in Las Vegas next Wednesday, so perhaps the announcement will be made there. I am working on getting more details, as well as screenshots of the service.

While the iPhone (and, even more so, the iPod touch) would theoretically be more than powerful enough to handle Skype with ease, Apple’s carrier partners won’t be happy.

Either way, let’s stay tuned…

Even though Krusell does not have the strong online presence of other case manufacturers, they can easily be considered one of the largest case makers currently on the market.

As their products are mainly sold in brick-and-mortar stores, I am a fan of their monthly sales stats as they provide an insight into what “normal customers” (aka folks who don’t read pages such as this one ) buy.

Enjoy:

• 1. (1) Samsung SGH-i900/i910 Omnia
• 2. (7) Nokia 3109
• 3. (3) Nokia 6300
• 4. (2) HTC Touch HD
• 5. (8) Nokia E71
• 6. (4) Nokia E51
• 7. (10) Nokia 3120
• 8. (8) Nokia 5800
• 9. (5) Blackberry Storm
• 10. (-) Samsung M8800
   () = Last month’s position.

The top selling list for March reflects the growing trend where we see an increased demand for a well designed protection for smart phones, says Ulf Sandberg CEO at Krusell. The Omnia as well as Touch HD and the E-series from Nokia are good examples of precious devices that the user is anxious to protect, and to do it with style. The consumers are becoming more demanding and they don’t except solutions that doesn’t combine protection, user-friendliness and good design.
 
The Swedish manufacturer of carrying cases for portable electronics, Krusell, releases its “Top 10″-list for March 2009. The list is based on number of pieces of model specific mobile and smart phone cases ordered from Krusell during March 2009. Krusell’s list is unique due to the fact that it reflects the sales of phones on six continents and in more than 50 countries around the globe.

The BBC reports that the rumored plans for a next mandatory price cut will be decided upon in a full session of the EU Parliament April 24th the latest. Should the legislation pass, roaming mobile phone users can look forward to the following benefits:

by July 2009
Roaming costs, outgoing call: 43 cents/minute
Data: 1Euro/MB

by July 2010
Roaming costs, outgoing call: 39 cents/minute
Data: 0.80 Euro/MB

by July 2011
Roaming costs, outgoing call: 35 cents/minute
Data: 0.50 Euro/MB

Furthermore, SMS costs will be capped at just 11 cents for a single SMS transmitted all over Europe. Call billing will be per second, with an initial 30sec charge permitted.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Lars Aronsson

China always had a pretty weird attitude towards all things digital: censorship and the development of non-standardized networks seem to be popular hobbies among China’s (communist) leadership.

Rumors claiming that the iPhone was delayed due to it not being compatible with their favourite standard de jour have popped up frequently in the past, but were neither confirmed nor denied (altough web sites carrying them were probably censored).

Instead, it looks like the device is now well on its way to China. TMCnews claims that the device will drop on the 17th of May for an unspecified amount of money…

The folks at AdMob’s are no strangers to long-term readers of TamsIJungle: we have covered their metrics reports in the past. Sometimes, interesting data which is not in the metrics pops up on their blog…the chart below is a popular example:

When looking at it carefully, we see that more than 80 percent of all Apple devices get updated to the “latest” firmware version about three months after its release. One week after release, things look worse: the adoption rate is just 30 percent…

Even though their data is convoluted for iPhone and iPod touch devices, I personally fear that the fun times are over: with iPhone OS 3.0 being yet another paid upgrade, I dare to predict that quite a few iPod touch heads will not update…

The folks at AdMob’s have just released this month’s Mobile Metrics report, which can be downloaded here (PDF file). Unsurprisingly, iPhone market share has grown like wildfire:

The iPhone is the top smartphone both worldwide(chart here) and in the USA(see below):

iPod touch users seem to be very avid surfers, too – they manage to get the second place:

In the UK, the gap between iPhone and iPod touch is smaller:

Cutting a long story short: the iPhone OS growth continues…