by arthur goldstuck • Tags • Page 3 of 5 •

Media Future: Switchboard in your pocket

New services from Neotel and Vodacom bring closer the ideal of bringing together a landline and mobile number, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

It is one of the great tragedies if telecommunications in South Africa that the number of landline phone users in the country has declined every single year since the beginning of this century. From a peak of 5.5-million users in 2000, it declined to below 3,9-million at the end of 2012. Telkom has always refused to acknowledge that there is a direct relationship between this slide and the fact that line rentals have been increased every single year since 2000.

There are other factors at play as well, of course. During this period, the cellphone user base has exploded from around 5-million to 40-million South Africans. Conventional wisdom, for those of traditional bent, has been that the landline is the first choice for making calls, because the cost of a landline call has always been below half that of a mobile call.

That has changed, though, as mobile call rates have plunged and per-second billing has become common. Now, it is a fairly easy decision to dump the landline and only have a mobile phone as a home number. After all, it can be carried everywhere the user goes.

Media Future: Tablet war erupts with choice

A quality low-end tablet from ASUS and the imminent arrival of Sony’s flagship Tablet Z brings compelling new choices to the market, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

The war for the South African tablet market took a new turn last week with the unveiling of two major new contendors.

On Wednesday night, Taipei-based ASUS made their biggest foray yet into this market, unveiling not only a compelling new tablet, but also announcing distribution and marketing partnerships that signal its intentions as loudly as do its devices.

To start with, it officially launched the ASUS Fonepad, a 7” tablet designed to be used as much for apps as for making voice and video calls. Yes, you do look silly holding a 7” tablet to your ear, but ASUS has spotted a trend that silly-watchers missed: younger users are increasingly using their tablets for communication, and that communication is increasingly visual.

It means not only that they are more open to video calls than the older generation, but also that they like to look at their device and continue playing with it while making voice calls. And because music is such an integral element of the way a younger user engages with a tablet, headphones are standard gear.

Media Future: Samsung scores big with Chelsea

A global initiative to give young boys a chance to be coached at Chelsea Football Club showed how sponsorship can go beyond return on investment, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

On the neon signs that flash day and night above Picadilly Circus in London, tourists have become accustomed to two brands that have dominated the iconic advertising space for this entire century so far: Coca-Cola and Samsung. This year, the Korean “newcomers” for the first time overtook the American beverage maker as the world’s biggest advertiser.

One would think, then, that the electronics giant’s tactics are all about making a bigger and bigger impact, dominating high-profile spaces like Piccadilly Circus and Times Square.

But this week, at a training ground just outside London, Samsung was making a different kind of impact: on the lives of a small group of children from around the world.

It was the culmination of the Dream the Blues campaign, launched in January this year across seven countries by Samsung Electronics and the Chelsea Youth Academy. 1400 children took part in initial youth training camps, from which the two most passionate from each country were chosen to fly to London and spend a week being trained by Chelsea’s own youth coaches.

The children, from Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, China and Thailand, spent much of each day being coached and melded into a team at the club’s Cobham Training Centre, culminating in a match against a local team.

Media Future: Samsung’s long shadow over Apple

Lurking behind Apple’s share-price woes is the manner in which the Samsung Galaxy S4 further eclipses the iPhone 5, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

This past week, when Apple reported its first drop in profit growth in a decade, much was made of the fact that the market was punishing it unduly harshly. Descending from a $700 high in September 2012 to a bumpy ride along a $400 floor in April 2013, it is hard to believe it’s the same Apple.

Yet, the company reported record iPad sales, up to 19,5-million in the second quarter of last year, from 11,8-million for the equivalent period last year. iPhone sales were also not too shabby, up from 35,1-million to 37,4-million. Analysts were unanimous that Apple was being punished because its pace of innovation had slowed, and there were no killer products on the horizon to follow in the market-shfting footsteps of the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

There is a more fundamental force at work, however, and that is called competition. When Steve Jobs presided over the launch of the iPhone 4 in 2010, Apple was so far ahead of other manufacturers, its fans could not even countenance the idea of anyone catching up.

Just two years later, when it launched the iPhone 5, it was fighting a rearguard action against the new front-runner. Samsung had released its groundbreaking Galaxy S3 in May 2012, giving it a six-month head start over the new iPhone. And even then, Apple produced a device that did not match up to the S3.

Media Future: The coming to SA of the Big 4 flagship phones

Four major new phones are about to be released in South Africa. Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) highlights the key differentiators in the devices from Samsung, Sony, HTC and BlackBerry.

By the end of this month, South Africans will have the most dazzling choice of high-end flagship phones yet seen in this country. The launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4 on April 25 will be the most high-profile, but it won’t be the only game in town.

And there will be very few surprises. The phones in question have all been officially announced, and their features trumpeted at length.

The big new contendors, along with the S4, are the Sony Xperia Z, the HTC One and the BlackBerry Q10. Time spent with prototypes or release versions of each of these does not, unfortunately, translate into being spoilt for choice; rather, it raises the bar on the confusion factor.

Media Future: You can’t bank on it

Absa and Investec both finally launched banking apps in the last two weeks – and both have taken a narrow view of the market, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

Two major banks have finally come out of labour and given birth to mobile apps to complete the South African family of financial apps. Both Absa and Investec showed off their long-awaited apps to the world in the last twe weeks, joining FNB, Standard Bank and Nedbank in the nursery of 21st century banking technology.

The proudest parents this week were the members of the Absa team who had climbed into bed with their, err, parent company, Barclays, to produce an app with clear African credentials.

Media Future: Here comes the tablet killer

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) A new entrant in the ultra-low-cost tablet market is also a global brand name at the high end. That could make all the difference.

While the world watches the battle for the high-end tablet market being waged between Apple and Samsung, a surprise attack is being mounted on the low end of the market.

Acer is best known for quality notebook computers, but late last year announced a series of tablets and Ultrabooks that positioned it alongside the equivalent high-end devices from Apple and Samsung. However, its pricing was so out of kilter with the competition at that level, it in effect wiped out the rest of its differentiating factors.

It seems that Acer won’t make the same mistake again. This week, it announced the imminent arrival of a tablet targeting the entry-level. That’s the arena dominated by no-name generic 7” tablets running the free Android operating system, imported from the East and given local branding. Prices range from R1000 to R3000 but, at the low end of that range, devices are barely functional for high-speed or interactive use.

Most quality name-brand tablets competing at this level, such as the Huawei Ideos, came in at around R3500. Its successor, the Mediapad, ran to R4300. However Apple shook up that market segment with the 7.9” iPad mini, starting here at R3400 – cheaper than buying the device in Europe.

That left Asus as the last international brand standing at the entry level, with the 7” MeMO Pad. It carries a reported R2000 price tag on a tablet running the Android Jelly bean operating system, weighing 358g, sporting a single-core 1GHz processor, 1GB of memory, 8GB or 16GB storage, and the option to expand storage via a microSD slot. A microUSB port also offers easy escape for files.

Samsung sales figures for Africa shows strong appetite for top-of-the-range phones

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) Thursday night will see one of the biggest product launches in the history of the technology. Samsung’s new flagship phone, expected to be called the Samsung Galaxy S4, has already been declared the new all-things-to-all-people smartphone, further dethroning the faltering Apple iPhone 5 even before the S4 is unveiled.

It’s easy to see why so much is expected of it: the current top-of-the-pile, the Galaxy S III, was declared by many (including this column) the 2012 phone of the year. Its successor, due out as much as six months before the next iPhone, will rule the roost by default.

As a result, many will see the phone market as a war between the S4 and the iPhone 5, with the Sony Xperia Z and BlackBerry Z10 scrapping with each other for the number three position, the Nokia Lumia 920 fighting for the scraps, and the Huawei Ascend P2 as the dark horse.

But that is only the top end of the market, where the flagship phones play. While these phones also represent the highest profits on phones, and shape market perceptions, to take them as the whole would be a massive misreading of the cellphone market.

For one thing, the Galaxy S III remains, for now, the most popular high-end phone in the world, as well as in South Africa. By mid-January, it had sold 40-million units, making it Samsung’s best-selling phone yet. Now, for the first time, sales figures for South Africa and the rest of Africa have been revealed.

Media Future: Z10 is BlackBerry reinvented

The first phone of the new BlackBerry era will be released in South Africa a month from now. Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) gives his initial impressions of using the Z10.

The long-awaited resurrection of BlackBerry has begun, with a single phone model released. Another is on the way, with promises of half a dozen to follow, all on the back of the new BlackBerry 10 operating system on which the company has staked its future.

The first of the new generation of BlackBerry devices, the top-of-the-range Z10 touchscreen phone, was unveiled last Wednesday night. A second model, the Q10 with QWERTY keyboard, was briefly introduced but not demonstrated. The Z10 was released in the United Kingdom on Thursday, but will only arrive in South Africa on 1 March. The crucial US market will receive the device at the same time as South African outlets.

Meanwhile, a few advance units arrived in the country last week, providing the opportunity to get to know the device through using it in the real world, rather than through prototypes and demos. Consider this a preview, ahead of more in depth and comparative reviews.

The most surprising feature of the Z10 is not how well it lines up, visually, alongside the rival high-end phones from Apple and Samsung. That was always a minimum requirement.

The big surprise is how appealing BlackBerry has made the user experience.

Media Future: Watchwords for consumer tech in 2013 will be “thinner” and “bigger”

y Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) The watchwords for consumer technology in 2013 will be “thinner” and “bigger”. If that sounds like a contradiction, it’s only because the hi-tech industry itself is wrestling with contradictory demands in two key areas of gadgetry: TV sets and cellphones. In particular, the consumer is demanding ever-thinner and lighter devices, while expecting ever-bigger screens.

That is a given when it comes to TV sets, but there has long been an assumption by market commentators that phones would always get smaller.

Apple, for example, clung tenaciously to its 3.5” screen size through the iPhone 3, 4 and 4S, it only relented a little in expanding the iPhone 5 to a 4” screen. It was trounced in the market, however, by Samsung’s Galaxy S3 with its 4.8” screen. At the same time, the first so-called “phablet” (phone/tablet), the Samsung Note, was a surprise success with its oversized 5.3” screen.

One of the big questions that the recent International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas was expected to answer was whether this push for higher screen sizes was a firm trend, or whether small remained cool.