Mobifun’s Weblog

• 50% of US mobile phone owners own a cameraphone rising to 63% of French mobile owners and 3 out of 4 (or 75%) of us in the UK - seems we Brits like our cameraphones (good news for the guys at Moblog!)
• Figures for using MMS have remained stable for the last 6 months with about 30% of UK phone-owners using MMS
• 85% of UK users use text-messaging vs 39% of US mobile phone owners so the US has a little way to catch up, but I have no doubt they will over time.
• Mobile internet browsing is a little bit down in most countries vs the last quarter but it’s still . (Hmm, I wonder if poxy data charges and slow speeds have anything to do with that?)

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AT&T’s wireless unit has posted its second quarter results, which include a net gain of 1.5 million wireless subscribers (partially thanks to the iPhone) to reach 63.7 million. “Mobility is a major growth engine for AT&T,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said. “Our launch with Apple of the breakthrough iPhone has quickly redefined customer expectations for their wireless experience, initial response was unprecedented, and sales in July continue to be strong. On June 29, we also announced an agreement to acquire Dobson Communications, which will further expand our wireless coverage in key rural and suburban areas.” Here are some other key metrics from the quarter:

• The June 29 iPhone launch allowed for less than two days of sales and activations before the end of the quarter, but AT&T activated 146,000 iPhone subscribers during those two days.
• Total service ARPU in the second quarter was $50.63, up 3.6 percent.
• Total churn, including prepaid and reseller results, was 1.6 percent, down from 1.7 percent in the year-earlier quarter.

Worrisome iPhone users, are you dreading the day when your battery inevitably fails and sticks you with an $85.95 bill after you send it in to Apple to have it replaced? If you’re not afraid to try something new, you can start saving a little less each month because ipodjuice.com is hocking a replacement battery for $45 ($65 after shipping). But will you get what you pay for?

The technicians at ipodjuice seem to think so. They’re so proud of their 1400 mAh lithium-ion product (in 4Gb and 8Gb iPhone flavors) that they’re backing it up with a ten year guarantee from the date of installation. If you think you’re up to the task, they’ll even send you the battery for $25 and let you tinker with the installation process on your own. Though you’re probably years away from needing a replacement battery (knock on wood), developments like this could bode well for your eventual out-of-pocket expenses when the time does roll around

via Gizmodo

On Tuesday, July 17th, Research in Motion (RIM) announced that the BlackBerry 8820 would be the first dual-mode BlackBerry to provide wireless voice and data access over both cellular and Wi-Fi wireless networks.

Much like the new Apple iPhone, the BlackBerry 8820 can switch between EDGE, GPRS and GSM networks and 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. However, in contrast to the Apple iPhone, the 8820 does have built-in GPS support

In addition to these major drawbacks of the iPhone, our venture capitalist cites the following as reasons to prefer the BlackBerry:

• The BlackBerry 8800 possesses GPS, which makes Google Maps much more useful, especially for turn-by-turn directions
• The iPhone lacks basic cut and paste capabilities
• Despite Apple’s reputation for superior user interface design, the BlackBerry possesses keyboard shortcuts that make navigation around and between applications a breeze
• The BlackBerry’s phone quality is better than the iPhone’s
• The Safari browser is certainly more stunning than the BlackBerry’s primitive browser, but the iPhone seems to load even text-only pages more slowly than the BlackBerry over the EDGE network
• The BlackBerry possesses a general contacts application that makes contacting people by any given method more convenient
• The battery runs out faster on the iPhone simply because it is used for more tasks. This makes it less reliable for when one must take the device somewhere overnight without the opportunity to recharge.