Mobilestead Blog

Just a few days ago I wrote about the upcoming launch of the Skype iPhone App. Today I noticed that on their blog they state: In less than two days, Skype for iPhone has been downloaded more than one million times – around six downloads every second. That's amazing growth for these type of applications and it's obvious that Skype will dominate in mobile VoIP as well. Read More

Crunchgear posted that tomorrow, March 31st, Skype will be added to the Apple App Store. This also gives iPod Touch users an ability to make calls over the WiFi network. They will need to purchase an external mic to do this. Its also worth noting that Fring and Truphone had Skype integration for months, but now we have a native Skype app which allows for IM, loading the avatars and more importanly to make the "callout" calls. Read More

The TechCrunchIT post by Vic Gundotra who is the Vice President of Engineering for Google’s mobile and developer products, presents a lot of interesting data: 4 billion global mobile subscribers (ITU, 2009) In 2009 half of all connections to the internet worldwide will come from a mobile phone. (eMarketer, 2008 and 2009) This is a bit hard to believe even for me, as I would imagine that most cellphone customers don't have a data plan. MetroPCS is a prepaid cellphone company which offers fully unlimited ... Read More

GigaOm has gathered financial results of major U.S. carriers. AT&T and Verizon are the obvious leaders. The iPhone has definitely helped AT&T to retain and gain new customers. Below is a copy and paste. Original data here. T-Mobile (reported Feb. 27) •    Wireless Revenue: $4.9 billion •    Wireless Net Income: $483 million •    Wireless Data Revenue: $905 million •    Net Prepaid Adds: 355,000 •    Net Postpaid Adds: 266,000 •    Total Subscribers: 32.8 million •    Blended Churn (contract and prepaid): 3.3 percent •    ARPU: Postpaid $54, prepaid $23 Sprint (reported Feb. 19) •    Wireless ... Read More

This is a great event for companies focusing on Windows Mobile. Microsoft has lost the mindshare with mobile application developers and has been slow to move. Google and RIM have been following Apple's footsteps closely. Microsoft is sponsoring the first-ever “Mobile Incubation Week” to help startups incubate outstanding ideas. Read More

With a background in finance – not in technology, and a limited understanding of incubators, I was unsure as to what to expect from “TechStars for a Day” even after studying the TechStars’ website (blog) and reading a number of blogs relating to it. So about a week ago, after it was confirmed that we were to attend this exciting event, I asked my partner, Ilya (a ‘tech’ guy with entrepreneurial experience), if he can give me an idea of what “TechStars ... Read More

No doubt that the smartphone, whether it’s an iPhone or the Blackberry, is a revolutionary device with limitless potential. Marc Andreessen, in an interview with Charlie Rose, acknowledged that the iPhone is a first cell-phone that is truly a computer which will create and encourage new ventures, and that “mobile has arrived.” The article, Smartphones to go: Five apps you'll want to pack illustrates just that. The new applications, both free and paid versions, offer to a traveler valuable, convenient, and on-the-go services ... Read More

Analyst firm Gartner has just released a report that highlights 8 mobile technologies which they predict will impact the mobile industry over the course of the next two years. We picked three that have most potential and utility: Location Awareness Location-sensing technologies (powered by GPS as well as Wi-Fi and triangulation) provide live information on users' locations to enhance mobile social networking applications. Over the next two years, this sort of technology is expected to become more mainstream. There are still a bunch of privacy ... Read More

The latest Mobile Advertising Report from market research agency GfK (and mobile social network Limbo) finds that users of Apple's iPhone were more likely to recall and respond to ads than other mobile phone users. Some other interesting findings from the study: iPhone users are four times as likely to recall LBS (location-based service) ads as non-iPhone users. Calling a toll free phone number published in the ads is the most common means of response; iPhone users called twice as much as non-iPhone users One in ... Read More

After keeping quiet on its stance of Jailbreaking, Apple has formally come out saying that this is an illegal practice. Before today, they simply said that this modification would simply void the warranty. More info on the legal context at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As we all know, Apple's iPhone comes with restrictions that prevent owners from running applications obtained from sources other than Apple's own iTunes App Store. Prior to iPhone 2.0 and AppStore, which came out in July 2008, jailbreaking ... Read More