iPhone 5 Rumors – What were they thinking?

Taking a quick detour from the world of Mobile VOIP, we’ve all been waiting patiently for news of the most recent update on Apples hottest product, the iPhone 5. Since the release of the iPhone 4GS last October, Apple has been very silent about any new updates on the phone. Over the past few weeks, speculation has increased as more interesting developments about the new phone have arisen. I’m also going to talk about why they have chosen such features, and how they impact you as a user.

Bigger screen

According to internal sources, Apple has already ordered larger screens from a variety of suppliers in Asia. This comes to most people as no surprise as the current iPhone models have had the same screen size since the original iPhone launched. Considering many competitors now have many phones with larger screens, it’s only logical that Apple follows this trend.

Some people consider the larger screens to be a burden and it may well be useful for Apple to create a second model with the same 3.4” screen they’ve been using the whole time. Many larger smartphones provide better opportunities to engage their customers within the phone. Having a bigger screen can make using your smartphone a lot easier.

Why this feature?

• More display space means more interaction possibilities
• Higher quality apps with more visual options available and better games
• Advertising will no longer take up a large amount of screen space
• Apps now can be developed with more features, using more screenspace
• More room for video conferencing and video chat

New Home Button & Smaller docking port

Both of these rumours come from product suppliers in China. These suppliers generally leak early products as Apple orders them and some have been correct in the past.

The first rumor is that supplier TVC-Mall posted an “iPhone 5” item in their replacement parts section. This was the only item posted, which was available in both black and white colors. The button is somewhat smaller in design, featuring a rounded button rather than the original circular design.

The second rumor is that the iPhone will receive a newer, smaller USB connector. These rumors stem from the supplier, who originally labeled the item as “Headphone jack, ear speaker and Wifi antenna”. In reality, the item is the bottom part of the phone, with the connector in the middle.

What can be learned from this is that there will be some sort of redesign to the phone as it will have to suit the new connector piece. The choice to make it smaller will allow for other components to fit within the phone.

Why this feature?

• New home button may signal a physical redesign of the device
• Switching to a new docking port will modernize the phone as most Android phones use a new smaller phone dock
• The new docking port will free up more space inside the phone to allow for other components to fit
• This almost guarantees that we will be seeing a new phone design

 

New Map apps and Navigation system

One of the more prominently talked about new feature on the next generation of iPhones is a potential realistic 3D navigation system. Apple recently purchased C3 technologies and plans to use it in their next generation of devices.

This may well be featured in the new iPhone 5 alongside the updated iCloud service.

Why this feature?

• Allow for a more interactive experience that Google Maps does not offer
• Cool new technology will test the new software of the device
• It will compete directly with the existing Android Navigation app

New Design

With all of these “leaks”, it’s fairly obvious to see that Apple will be focusing on a new design for their next iteration of the iPhone. While we don’t have the complete details, we are expecting to see more announcements for the iPhone 5 at the WWDC Apple Developers conference this June.

Why this feature?

• It’s completely necessary and somewhat overdue
• A bigger screen will require a design that makes it easier to hold on to
• Every new Apple product needs to be sleeker then the previous one

With all these features, we look forward to a new and exciting iPhone in June. Once those details are out, you can expect to see an IOS 6/iPhone 5 version of George Mobile that takes advantage of the new innovations.

Bill Shock, cramming and changing phone plans… What next?

Data will become the most prominently used mobile service

As more and more users begin using mobile Internet on their smartphones, it’s pretty clear that data will be more important than other wireless services. Over the past year alone, data use has grown by 123% in the US. Mobile carriers are taking note of this too, for Verizon mobile broadband revenues were $6.6 billion in 2011, which accounts for 42% of their mobile subscriber revenue.

Talk and text plans will be phased out

We’ve told you before that George Mobile can save you considerable amounts on your talk and text plans, simply by switching to the lowest tiered phone plan. data plans will become more and more popular as people will inevitably shift from relying primarily on talk and text to consuming data with their device. With the growing popularity of Mobile VOIP applications, carriers are going to start to have to offer other services with their data plans. While the change to data-only phones will not come quickly a time will come when people will only need to purchase a single service with their phone.

“Bill Shock” and “Cramming” will be no more

“Bill shock” and “cramming” are two hot topics which the FCC is attempting to crack down on. Millions of Americans experience bill cramming, which is unauthorized charges on your phone bill for services which you have not paid for. “Bill shock” is simply the effect of receiving a very expensive phone bill, whether for cramming charges or simply overage charges.

With cramming and bill shock being a regular occurrence to approximately 20 million US phone subscribers, the American Government has been working to create consistent billing and transparent billing practices. What they hope to achieve is to help consumers fight back against many of the ridiculous billing practices that many telecoms have used in the past.

This doesn’t mean you’ll be paying less for your phone bill, it simply means you’ll be altered before receiving a charge. Many people will continue paying too much for their monthly bill, but at least they won’t be surprised at how much they’re charged! In the meantime, users should take charge of their cell phone bills but using services like George Mobile which help eliminate ‘surprise’ charges like costly long distance calls and international texts.

Your phone will continue to be less of a phone and even more of a personal device

Smartphones have clearly changed the way people use their phones. The proliferation of new apps and services are enabling users to create a device that represents who tey are and who they interact with the world. A great example of how this is changing is Instagram. Instagram has always been a “mobile-only” app, where the only place you can upload photos is through their app. Much like Instagram, George is a mobile only application, which is focused on connecting friends. Many apps are moving towards sharing and earning rewards, simply for using the application. You can share these with your friends and compete in leaderboards, bringing an incentive to continue “playing” the app. All of these features are creating a more unique and interactive experience for anyone that uses George or many modern apps available.

All in all, what does this mean for you? The times are a changin’ and I hope you’re ready for them!

Sources:

• TelecomTV - US mobile data traffic increased by 123 per cent last year
• PCWorld – Verizon Revenue up on Mobile, Broadband Growth – @GrantGross
• MSNBC – FCC Cracking Down on phone bill cramming - Herb Weisbaum

Canada 3.0 and George Mobile – My Experience

As a fairly new member of the George Mobile Team, I was lucky enough to embark upon a business trip to Canada 3.0 with Stephen. During our 4 day stay in Stratford we were introduced to some interesting start-ups and companies. From large companies such as Opentext to a variety of small startups, we were able to showcase George Mobile to many different people. Here are a few startups I found particularly interesting:

 

BufferBox

My favorite start-up idea was BufferBox. BufferBox is a parcel delivery replacement service. Instead of shipping a parcel to a home address, the user would ship it to the BufferBox address. They would then enter a pin at the box and receive their parcel. What is most interesting about this service is that it can be set up entirely online and very quickly. While there are some limitations such as a maximum parcel size, the service would be extremely convenient for online shoppers and people with day jobs. If the service makes it out to Vancouver, you can be sure I’d use it.

Openera

Openera is a “cross-cloud content manager”, essentially a service for consolidating all of your cloud based file services (Dropbox, Google Drive) into one place. What is very cool about it is that it’s also designed for your mobile phone, with a web based user interface. Their goal is to allow people to access files as easily as possible, in as few clicks as possible, from any service. I would strongly recommend anyone who uses a variety of services to store their files online to try out Openera.

Sitomic

Our booth neighbours, Sitomic is a small start-up focused around developing mobile landing pages and unique offers. It’s nice to see clean and simple landing page with social media integration. One of their primary products is landing pages which incentivize social media sharing. Users are directed to a landing page offering them a discount to a service or product, and if they share it through social media, the offer is upgraded as a reward for sharing the offer. The service is good for both people and companies as it does not completely undercut businesses for creating a discount, much like Groupon does.

 

As for me, I was primarily manning the George Mobile booth, promoting the application to anyone who was keen on learning about what we do. George got a lot of positive feedback and suggestions. Being able to speak about George and practicing my pitch was an excellent experience. I’d love to return next year to see what people are doing then!

5 reasons video chat could become the next big thing

Many people consider video calling to be more of a novelty rather than an actual feature on smartphones. While video chatting is perceived to be  a novelty, NDP predicts that video calling will grow from 63 million in 2010 to more than 380 million by 2015. In this post, I’ve laid out 5 different reasons video chat is growing so rapidly.

1) Growing Wireless networks

People are using their phones to browse the internet more than ever now. Online mobile web traffic has grown 230% over the past year, and has been doubling for the past 4 years. In turn, your phone provider wants to make sure it can support the amount of new people using their mobile internet so they are investing heavily in new and more robust networks.

Faster mobile speeds will allow for more intense internet activities such as mobile video calling. Video now accounts for more than 50% of mobile online traffic, which includes making video calls.

In short, faster mobile internet will allow for high quality video calling to be a standard feature on all smartphones.

2) Socially engaged users

Instagram was recently purchased for $1 Billion, it’s no surprise to see that many people and businesses are seeking ways to engage with people on a personal level. Instagram provides people with constant content about their friends in real time. It’s clear to see that the next level of personalized sharing will be focused around video.

People are using social media to communicate with their friends and family. Many of these apps create disconnect between users as they don’t provide a human level of engagement. Video chat is appealing to people as they can see how the person on the other end reacts and feels. George integrates both social media and video chatting into the application. Even though social media is very popular, people are still looking to engage on a one to one level.

3) Bigger screens

When the iPhones original 3.5” screen came out, it was considered to be one of the biggest screens on a phone and it was one of the first phones to have the screen completely take over the keyboard. Now many phones have grown into the 4.3 inch area, becoming more like small tablets rather than just a phone with a big screen. A great example of this would be the Samsung Galaxy Note with a 5.3” display making it a small tablet phone, some people call them “phablets”.

Bigger screens mean that there is more room for a better quality video chat. With a traditional “feature phone” (small screen and keyboard) the details in the image are so blurry that it’s hard to see who you are talking with. Larger screens can allow users to communicate in more detail and actually create more interaction possibilities. For example, you could show your friend the view from a certain location and they would be able to actually see the detail in the picture.

4) Better Cameras

About 5 years ago, the standard camera on a phone was less than 1 megapixel, providing poor quality and detail. Camera phones were almost a novelty at the time, allowing people to share low quality images with one another through MMS. Now it’s become almost standard to include an 8 MP camera as well as a lower quality front facing camera for video calling purposes. Both of these cameras are significantly better than what has been traditionally offered on phones. Phones on cameras are now used to share moments with friends through social media and now more than ever, video calling.

5) More Apps

Finally, the increase of new smartphones has helped the growth of Apps on phones. There are many different app stores depending on which smartphone you may have. Phone applications generally attempt to increase the functionality of the phone or entertain the user.

The success of an app is dependent on a variety of factors, which usually revolves around how well it uses the phone to accomplish a task. As mentioned before, Instagram is successful as it allows for people to share pictures they took on their phone instantly. Using two simple phone features (internet and camera) it turns your phone into a personal photo album with all of your friends on it.

Video chat aims to do much the same as Instagram. By using your camera and the internet, you can now connect to your friends instantly. George Mobile allows for friends to engage in Video Chats for free, as long as they both have the George App. Video chat will become more frequently used as the technology has finally caught up, enabling us to communicate on a very human level.

Unlimited talk and text plans a Rip Off?

Many carriers offer “Unlimited” plans but at what price?

In my first post, I wrote about voice plans and how they are usually quite expensive. Unlimited talk & text plans are generally designed to grab consumer’s attention offering a perceived sense of freedom in exchange for a fixed price.  That all-inclusive price sounds great, but is it really?  What if you could get unlimited talk and text to any phone in North America at 80% savings?  Let me explain.

Carriers tend to package their unlimited plans with a variety of add-ons such as voice-mail, some data (usually 2GB), and a few other features. Most have “fair usage” policies that put meagre limits on your usage.  And I’ll bet you forgot about the dreaded roaming. Yeah, they still charge you for that too.  As a customer, wouldn’t you rather just have unlimited minutes you can actually use anytime?

To add to this confusion, carriers are constantly creating new limited time offers to find ways to get more interest in their offerings. They generally offer very similar plans with simply modified additional features or something similar in order to create extra value.

How can you get unlimited talk and text for just $7/month?

With the number of Mobile VOIP users potentially growing to 83 Million by 2015, its clear that this will change they way people communicate similar to how VOIP has transformed landline communications.  So, why wait?  You can get your carrier’s basic voice and data plan and adding a Mobile VOIP membership with George Mobile will still save you $20-50 per month.  George can also be used to extend the ways you use iPod Touch and iPads by converting these typically passive devices into active ‘smartphones’. Simply connect to Wi-Fi or wireless broadband on iPad and you can easily make and receive calls through George.. Don’t forget, if you call long distance numbers frequently, replacing your old phone plan with George will also reduce the cost of making long distance calls.

The math is as follows:

Using AT&T
	Voice Plan	Text Plan	Data Plan	Add George	Total Price
“Unlimited Talk and Text plans”	Unlimited Voice Plan $69.99	Unlimited Text Messaging $20.00	3GB Data $30.00	N/A	$119.99 a month
Low-cost plan with George Mobile	450 Minutes $39.99	No Text Plan	3GB Data $30.00	George Mobile $7.99	$77.98 a month
Total Monthly savings: $42.01

Adding George onto almost any phone plan can start saving you money now.

How Much Data Do You Need To Make Your Smartphone Really Awesome?

A 1GB Data Plan will give you around 4,100+ minutes of voice or about 266 minutes of video using George Mobile. Is that awesome, or would you like more?

How much data does Voice use?

Consuming expensive data is one of the biggest concerns for people when they are thinking about choosing a Mobile Voice-Over-IP (“mVOIP”) application. Most VOIP applications are optimized to only use a small amount of data when making calls.

For example, when making a voice call, you consume around 0.24 MB per minute¹ giving you 4,100+ total talk minutes for 1 GB of data. Most carriers offer 1 GB of data per month with their wireless packages. This allows for virtually unlimited talk with a mVOIP service like George. And, George Mobile includes a variety of options for voice call quality including 32Bit HD.

What about Video?

When you make a video call, it’s compressed using a video encoder. A minute of video uses around 3.75MB, which translates to about 266 minutes of video time for 1 GB of data.

To compare, 1 GB of monthly data can get you:

• 4,166 minutes of talk time on George
• 266 minutes of video calling on George
• 67 minutes of HD Youtube Video
• 429 minutes of streaming HD music
• 2000 HD Pictures
• 5000 Webpages

Are you ready to make the switch to MVoIP?

As David Pogue said “More and more people avoid using up their cellular minutes by relying on the Internet to carry their voices, using apps”. While your carrier’s voice plans may not be improving, competition is heating up around data packages and network speeds. George Mobile uses significantly less data than many people expect, it can easily replace your voice plan while saving you money each month.

¹Math for nerds:

• Audio: George uses a variety of codecs, but by default it uses G.729so I used that codec.
  • 31.2 Kbps^A (includes headers) = 4KBps * 60 seconds = 240KB = 1000 MB / .24 MB = 4,166 total minutes
  • G.711 is used for higher quality calls
• Video: George uses H.264for video compression
  • 500kbps^B for 320×240 resolution = 62.5KBps * 60 seconds = 3,750KBps = 1000 MB / 3.75MB = 266 total minutes
• HD video on YouTube – 720P @ 625KBps
• HD Streaming music – 192KBps
• HD pictures – 1024×768 = 500KB
• Webpages – with images ~200KB

Justin Laberge is the Community Manager at George Mobile He can be reached through @getgeorgemobile

Saving Money on your wireless plan

Have you noticed your friends using Skype or Viber on their smartphones?

Are you confused about these applications?

You’re not alone. Mobile Voice over IP (VOIP) is the preferred method for affordable voice calling on smartphones. As smartphones become more and more popular, it’s not surprising that people who use mobile VOIP services will increase from 9 million to 29 million this year¹. People generally use their phones to talk and text, although many phone plans with Talk and Text are expensive. With smartphone costs increasing, VOIP is a solid alternative to traditional voice plans.

Mobile VOIP – The affordable alternative

The tables below briefly demonstrate the difference in costs, when comparing several traditional phone plans with three different VOIP offerings.

Canadian Voice Plans
Provider
Provided Minutes	150	50	Unlimited Local Calls	Unlimited International Calls	Unlimited International Calls	Unlimited International Calling
Monthly Cost	$42.75	$25	$25	$13.99	$12.95	$10

 

USA Voice Plans
Provider
Provided Minutes	450	450	500	Unlimited International Calls	Unlimited International Calls	Unlimited International Calling
Monthly Cost	$39.99	$39.99	$39.99	$13.99	$12.95	$10

With a wide range of Mobile VOIP services such as Skype, Truphone and George Mobile; it’s easier than ever to save money. First off, you should purchase a basic mobile plan. This allows you to select a  VOIP service that offers much cheaper or even free calling. On top of that, Wifi enabled phones will be able to make calls through that connection, which reduces overall data use. Carriers are continuously improving their wireless networks, which means they can provide higher quality voice and video calls.

VOIP is much more than talk and text

While the focus of most VOIP applications is to provide free unlimited talk and text, some of the providers also integrate SMS and social aspects into their applications. Virtually all major VOIP services allow for free messaging/calls between their applications. George Mobile fully integrates SMS, Twitter and Facebook, allowing for social networking and unlimited talk and text – all in one application. George also includes game features where users can earn rewards, badges and virtual currency which can be used to unlock premium services or donate to charitable causes you care about. Ultimately, the more you use the application, the more you earn.

Remember not every VOIP service is the same (just like cell plans and providers) so do your homework and select the service that meets your needs.

Justin Laberge is the Community Manager at George Mobile He can be reached through @getgeorgemobile

¹ @npdtech and @npdgroup.