Image Courtesy of Apple

Photojojo (photojojo.com/store), a popular photography accessories shop is currently selling SLR mount that can be used for iPhone 3GS as well as iPhone 4.  It essentially allows one to mount one’s Canon and Nikon lenses on the iPhone in order to have good control over photography.

Costing about US $190 for iPhone 3GS and US $250 for iPhone 4, it includes an aluminium case containing the SLR lens adaptor, the UV filter as well as a tripod mount.  The option of international shipping (of course, on payment of shipment charges) is also available on Photojojo’s site.

Sales figures of digital cameras are going down as smartphone cameras are becoming smarter.  Not that a smartphone is in any competition with a good digital camera, it surely solves the purpose that many people use it for.  One can immediately click a photograph using a smartphone and share it instantly with family and friends.  In fact, iPhone has been recognised by Flickr as the top most camera used by majority of its members.

Experts also mention that the number of smartphones, with cameras more than five-megapixel in resolution, may reach up to 361 million in 2011.  What a contrast to the traditional digital cameras, whose sales figures are expected to touch 130 million.

Not only does the smartphone offer the facility of instant upload, its gadget size is extremely attractive and can easily be slid into one’s handbag or pocket.  Well, this new gadget in town may be a ticket for those who would like to take photography more seriously.

Post from: Cash for Mobiles

Considering that majority of business users were using BlackBerry earlier, there was never an issue with it not being a cross-platform application.  Though BBM has managed to keep its users firmly within the BlackBerry camp, companies are now facing a problem of providing some means of low-cost and secured communication with more and more employees now switching to Android based devices and iPhones.

How is Apple addressing their customers on this front?  They have come up with their version of messenger, called iMessage.  Similar to the BBM, iMessage is a single platform application and will be a part of the new iOS 5.  Using this, iPhone users can communicate with no one else but only other iPhone users.

Though some apps exist which can connect users across different platforms, the level of functionality remains an issue.  None of these third party apps deliver what BBM does.

A rumour is doing rounds that RIM is planning to offer its BlackBerry Messenger to iOS as well as Android, though the probability of Apple doing so with iMessage is least likely.

We just hope that we do not lose such an excellent tool of communication in this war of big guns.

Post from: Cash for Mobiles

The survey approached 2,001 smartphone users out of which 28 per cent currently use an Android and 26 per cent are using Apple iPhone.  BlackBerry users in the UK constituted 14 per cent of this, while Symbian users stood at 6 per cent and users of Windows Mobile Phone 7 at 5 per cent of the respondents.  Nokia, as we know, is moving from Symbian to Windows Phone 7 beginning from the new year.

The most popular was the Android, as the survey results revealed, but undoubtedly iPhone users were definitely the most intense.  A whopping 18 per cent of the users claimed that they spent more than four hours a day on their iPhones, which is indeed a contrast to the 4 per cent of BlackBerry and Android users.

Now if you are wondering why the majority of Apple users are in-debt, it is due to the fact that over 42 per cent of people in London own an iPhone as compared to only 15 per cent of Android owners.

Post from: Cash for Mobiles

If you think that Apple is the first one having stake in the viability of this new NFC technology, you surely are wrong. Nokia and RIM both have been making statements of offering NFC smartphones to their customers in the near future. Google too, is not far behind and its new Nexus S already is NFC-enabled as it is banking on this technology as well.

Gween Bezard, who is the co-founder and research director of Aite Group, the technology research firm, quoted to ABC News that it is simply a matter of when Apple wants to time the entry of NFC and not whether it will ever do so. It remains to be seen whether it will be sometime this year or the next or the one after next. Gween even has a strong belief that Apple along with other companies will definitely push NFC payments.

Aite group has even predicted that US alone will make up to about $22 billion pay-by-phone transactions by 2015.

Post from: Cash for Mobiles

According to recent findings doing the rounds, Android has now occupied the throne for the most revered smartphone platform in US. iOS is not lagging far behind though. This leads to a precarious situation for HP and RIM, while Microsoft and Nokia can bid farewell to the market and the competition altogether.

However, the point of many recent theories is not just about how completely iOS and Android have dominated the smartphone market. There is another point of discussion that is slowly growing from whispers and murmurs into something more substantial. It is about whether this smartphone market has been eating into the PC market pie. There are predictions of Google and Apple overtaking PC giants, Microsoft Windows in the next 5 – 10 years.

RIM still has some time to recover and would do well to focus on specialty features allowing it to hold on to the 3^rd place in the smartphone industry. Gruman believes that HP would do well to forget entirely about the tablet and the mobile market and concentrate on other areas instead. This is substantiated by hints that HP’s WebOS is likely to be used for printers and devices with multifunctional abilities. It seems like the mobiles are taking hold of the imaginations of a world that is changing fast.

Post from: Cash for Mobiles

• The primary mobile platform in the US would be divided between Apple iOS and Google Android. I agree to this completely; Android sales figures are still rising in the UK and the US, but it is worth noticing that Nokia’s Symbian still dominates the scenario worldwide.
• The sales of tablets would first trickle and explode thereafter. In fact, Apple banked highly on the novelty aspect to take it sales figures up the slope to where they stand now, However, the craze of the new is now gradually wearing off. The tablet is presently very pricey for what it is offering. Thus, if the tablets are really to catch up, they would have to be better as well as cheaper.
• More apps, and more useless ones. Mr Maney mentioned that while juggling through 350000 Apple apps and 150000 Android apps, what really comes to the fore are a couple of really good applications, while the rest are just a bunch of copycats.
• Private location sharing is very likely to become popular. Although location apps such as Foursquare are gaining popularity, several others seem to be reluctant to disclose their whereabouts. Nevertheless, displaying the location to a chosen few is a different matter altogether. Private location sharing apps such as Neer have already started appearing.
• Regardless of the device we use, there would just one charger for all. Ironically, though this seems to be the most insignificant of all the developments of 2011, for me this is surely the best.

Post from: Cash for Mobiles

Apple apparently is doing away with a traditional SIM card. Experts predict that this will entirely transform the manufacturing and usage of smartphones.

Website GigaOM has said that Apple has started working with Gemalto, a manufacturer of SIM cards, in order to create its own version of the SIM card which would mean European buyers could purchase the new iPhone 5 in an Apple Store or on the web and getting it to work by using Apple’s app store.

Subscriber identification information’ will also be included in the SIM card’s new version for the users. Customers, when purchasing the handset would then be able to choose their network either in the shop or via an app store download.

You might be wondering about its significance. It seems that this will allow Apple to control its retail operations more efficiently.

It is assumed that the networks will keep making money for the calls and data transfer but supposedly less from iPhone sales.

Obviously, it is highly like that other network operators and smartphone manufacturers will closely follow all these developments.

Some of the analysts think that this will force the networks to be more competitive and offer better packages for the customer.

Post from: Cash for Mobiles

However it’s not all over as there is a controversy “brewing” after a software developer who makes a ‘virtual beer’ application for the iPhone announced he is suing Molson Coors, the company that makes Carling lager, for alleged copyright infringement, that should be interesting!  Although the two versions differ slightly, virtual beer uses the handset’s built-in accelerometer to mimic the motion of beer suds swilling around a pint glass and mimic drinking by tipping it back, the Carlsberg version shows beer rising up the iPhone screen, as though it’s been poured into a pint glass, as well as allowing users to pretend to drink it. It appears that Molson Coors approached the software developer a few months after he released iBeer, asking if it could use the application and it was refused.

Apparently the most downloaded app in the rest of Europe is a music related app called Shazam, whilst in the USA it is the Facebook app, need we say more?

Post from: Cash for Mobiles