Most of you reading this own a smartphone or two, or three. Having a smartphone, regardless of brand, has become almost like a human right in large parts of the world and no doubt, smartphone sales are booming. IDC expects 472 smartphones to be sold worldwide this year, with Android and iOS being the two dominating platforms.

But even with booming smartphone sales, let’s not forget that smartphones are still a small part of all mobile phones in the world. You could be forgiven to think otherwise reading the headlines in magazines and tech websites.

Almost 6 billion mobile phone subscribers

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) expects [PDF] 5.9 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide in 2011. I know it’s a bit of apples and oranges, but this means only about 8% of all mobile handsets in the world are smartphones.

No doubt, this share will just keep increasing. IDC expects smartphone sales to almost double to 982 million by end of 2015. That’s a lot of smartphones.

But some of the functionality of smartphones, like GPS, web browsing and email has trickled down to another type of mobile phone, usually called feature phone.  In fact, over 70% of mobile handsets that shipped this year were feature phones. This number is expected to at least remain stable if not increase.

So as much as us tech writers want to talk about smartphones, when you read some headlines about record smartphone sales, think again and remember that however smart they are, they are just a small portion of the market.

What is it that makes a smartphone so, well, smart? I would imagine that most of us are lured by the big and bright screens, the fast processors, large storage capacity, fast mobile data connections, and more. To me what makes the smartphone smart is the apps.

But more than anything, for most customers, we’re probably lured by the idea of having the latest and greatest. That’s the way it so often is with tech, wouldn’t you say?

Switching to feature phone?

I can admit that I’ve thought about dumping my smartphone at times, instead going for the week-long battery life that a feature phone can offer, and often better voice quality as well. But as much as those things appeal to me, whenever I’ve tried to live with a feature phone, there’s something I’ve missed from the smartphone and I ended up switching back.

Right now, I am still in love with my iPhone 4S. It fulfills a range of roles, and has in some ways taken over what I do with a computer as well as tablet.

But a feature phone will beat it on several key points. And for all its wonderful features, the iPhone 4S, as well as all other smartphones, are still a small percentage of all mobile phones sold in the world.

That’s a reality worth keeping in mind.

Photo credit re-ality.

That’s what I tried to tell her her anyway, to write this article for me, because it is a she isn’t it-that new voice control system that comes with Apple’s iPhone 4S? The name Siri doesn’t really give away the gender and the default voice is female, so let’s sick to that.

The day will come, although it’s still quite far away, when I can tell Siri to write a 500 word article on a particular topic and she will do just that. And I suspect I will get to experience that before I die, or at least I hope so.

Since iPhone 4S officially is just about to go on sale in UAE by both du and Etisalat, I guess many of you will be trying out Siri soon. Unfortunately, I suspect that the result will be varied.

Not my first attempt

I’ve dabbled with voice control and voice recognition before. In the early 90s I owned a Macintosh Quadra 660AV, which had something called PlainTalk. This was basically a simple system for speech control. You spoke into a special microphone and said things like “open window” and other similarly simple things.

Considering how long ago this was, it was really cool and it was always impressive to demonstrate to others. I could really say “get a Mac” to anyone who went “cool” when they saw how it worked. But as cool as it may have been, in the end, it was practically useless.

Since then I’ve used speech recognition a few times, trying to dictate to the computer and have had varied success. Most of the time, after going through the prescribed training of the software, it’s worked okay. With that I mean it understood most of what I’ve spoke, but there were enough issues to manually correct that it turned out to be a bit unproductive. To be fair, I’ve not had the patience to stick to one solution for very long.

Some people argue that it’s only with time that speech recognition becomes really good. That may be so, but with a mouse, keyboard and touch, I don’t have to train the computer and the software – it just works. And isn’t that how it should be?

Siri is clever

In my experience, so far nothing has come even close to being as clever and accurate as Siri.

Bless her heart, she doesn’t alway get my growling accent and when I’m in too much of a hurry she just packs up and leaves. But for the most part she works hard and tries to interpret my wishes. For Siri it’s truly a case of “your wish is my command.”

And back to the topic of Siri writing this article. I guess she could have, but it is actually me typing it on my Mac. First, Siri has to get much, much better at understanding continuous human speech. Once that’s working, I could dictate to her. Then comes the next part where she would have to come up with the text herself.

That’s a nut that no one has cracked yet and we’ll have to see much more developments from speech recognition and artificial intelligence before we arrive at something that smart.

Picture credit Witness Design.

The results of this research were announced at an event held yesterday and a lot of data was sent our way. We thought we’d pick some interesting findings from their data and present to you but if you prefer, you can look at the entire data on their website. Before we get started, lets point out some information on the respondents- data was collected online from 2,950 respondents across the GCC and Levant areas out of which 73% of the respondents were male. In this article, we are mainly looking at results from the GCC.

Findings

41% of users in the GCC have more than one Smartphone. This is the highest percentage in the world and is not surprising as you see many people in the region carry more than one device. The most popular Smartphone was a Nokia with 44%, followed by BlackBerry at 34% and iPhone at 32%. Samsung and HTC were also sizable players with 14% and 7% market share.

What is extremely striking is that over 70% of the total users would like to upgrade their Smartphone within 12 months although sadly there was no research conducted on what Smartphone/manufacturer they would select for their next device. This would have helped us gauge brand loyalty.

When it came to Apps usage, Nokia continued the lead with 31% followed by Apple at 28% and BlackBerry at 23%. Considering that the Nokia OVI store and the Apple App Store have seen around for a much longer period than the BlackBerry App World, I would think that these stats would change considerably in the next few months. Also, English is still very much the primary language for using Apps with 62% people preferring it over Arabic.

The most popular type of Apps used in the GCC are “Communication” apps that consist of apps like WhatsApp, Skype and Viber. This is followed by Photography, Social Networking, Maps & Navigation and Music apps. Surprisingly, games and news apps are not as popular in the GCC as they are in the Western world. Out of the overall sample, over 51% use apps all day long- quite observable if you stop and look at the number of people using BBM, Facebook or Twitter on their Smartphones.

Interestingly, over 50% of the users recommend apps to friends and over 38% search for new apps using their Smartphones. Blogs/Websites like ours are used by 34% of users to find out about new apps, however, only 14% of the users take our recommendation when evaluating a new app. Most people would either download and evaluate apps themselves or get it if recommended by a friend.

The research closed with some data collected on tablets and amazingly 45% of the Smartphone users already have a tablet while 40% plan on getting one. Sure enough, the iPad is the dominant device in tablets making up for 58% of the market with the Samsung Galaxy Tab coming in at second with 18%.

The number one feature users look for in their tablet is Internet connection and amongst iPad owners, more than double have the 3G version versus the WiFi only version. This tells you that people prefer to be online and connected not just at their home or offices but wherever they go. Hopefully telcos in the region will see this and lower data usage costs.

Packaged in the now-familiar black box used by Samsung for their higher-end devices, the Galaxy S II comes with you usual assortment of a charger and a headset. I received the 16GB however a 32GB version is also planned. Expect the device to be available before the end of June. I don’t have an official price from Samsung just yet but if I was to guess, I would say that it would be just shy of AED 3,000.

The Galaxy S II is an incredibly thin phone which should not come as a surprise as the original was pretty thin at 9.9mm for it’s time. Samsung managed to shave over a millimeter on the S II which is now freakishly thin at 8.5mm making it even thinner than the iPhone 4 that stands at 9.3mm. Like the original Galaxy S, there is a bump in thickness towards the bottom of the phone to accommodate a USB connector and the loud speaker. The overall size on the Galaxy S II has also increased a bit- the original measured 122.4 x 64.2mm whereas the new one has dimensions of 125.3 x 66.1. Don’t let the size scare you though- the Galaxy S II weighs just 116g making it one of the lightest Super-phones.

One of my biggest complains with the original Galaxy S was the not so impressive build quality and thankfully, Samsung has fixed that up really well. The Galaxy S II feels a lot more solid in your hand with no creaking parts. The back cover has a textured mesh finish which looks and feels pretty awesome. My only complain, which could be a non-issue, is that I can see a tad bit of space between the frame of the device and the full glass front- possibly enough for dust to accumulate over time.

The new Super AMOLED Plus 4.3” screen is the center of attention on the Galaxy S II and is possibly the finest I’ve seen on a Smartphone. The black levels are incredible and colors look like they will pop out of the screen- watching videos on the Galaxy S II is better than any other Smartphone. What is even more impressive about the display is that it is still extremely readable in the bright UAE sun- an area where most other Smartphones show their weaknesses. I do wish that Samsung had increased the solution on the screen though- 800×480 seems a bit low on a 4.3” screen.

Below the screen, the Galaxy S II has three buttons like the original. The square click button on the center takes you home while the two backlit touch buttons on either side of the home button are for back and menu. Other than that, you have a volume rocker on the left, a power button on the right and a 3.5mm audio connector on top. On the back, you have an 8MP camera and thankfully Samsung has added an LED flash this time around. The front has another camera at 2MP which should be good enough for any video-calls.

Like the original Galaxy S, a dedicated search key is missing on the Galaxy S II- a trend we are starting to see on some other phones as well such as the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.That doesn’t bother me much as you generally have something onscreen to help you search. What I do miss is a notification LED that is present on many other Android based handsets but is lacking on the Galaxy S II- like the original.

Coming to the specs, Samsung certainly had a reputation to live up to because the original Galaxy S was the best Android based handset when it was launched as far as specs were concerned. And they deliver with the Exynos 4210 SoC which features a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor and the Mali-400MP GPU along with 1GB of RAM. Storage comes in capacities of 16GB and 32GB while a microSD slot is also present if you want to further increase the capacity on your Galaxy S II. On the radio side, you have 802.11 a/b/g/n support as well as Bluetooth 3.0 with high speed profile that makes transfers over Bluetooth much faster if the paired device also features Bluetooth 3.0. For data access, HSPA+ is supported to get the best out of your operator while the built-in FM tuner will keep you entertained for hours.

The following table shows you the performance of the Galaxy S II against some of the newer phones running SunSpider Javascript benchmark. We have yet to receive a Tegra 2 based smartphones which is why you don’t see one in the table below.

As you can see, the Samsung Galaxy S II is incredibly fast- finishing off the Sun Spider Javascript test in under 3500ms whereas Google’s Nexus One and HTC’s Desire S took over 5600ms to complete.

The foneswap program allows you to swap your current mobile phone and get some value back out of it towards the purchase of a new phone from their website. Foneswap does not have stand alone booth at stores, rather, they work along with either vendors or the stores themselves to create phone trade-in programs that are available from time to time at the outlets. On the other hand,you can call the toll free 800 7927 number of e-mail them at support@foneswap.com

The following interview with Pramod explains why you should think about foneswap- not only for getting some value back for your phone, but also from an environmental point of view.

LG and Microsoft will offer Windows Phone 7 applications across popular categories – including social connectivity, gaming and helpful utilities– ensuring that customers have access to the applications they value most. Ten free applications with a value of more than USD 30 will be given away every 60 days. LG’s Windows Phone 7 customers can download these applications for free (for a period of 60 days) via LG Application Store, which will be accessible directly from LG Windows Phone 7 models.

Selected Windows Phone application developers will be provided with exclusive marketing opportunities and resources to promote their applications with LG. Developers of selected applications will benefit from promotional support through LG’s marketing presence and Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace. LG will promote the new applications through in-store sales events and on the LG Mobile Global Facebook page (http://on.fb.me/bltMvp), creating a larger market for developers and bringing them closer to their audiences.

“When we pledged early last year to support Microsoft’s smartphone strategy, we knew we were making a decision that had the potential to generate ripples in the ecosystem,” said Chang Ma, Vice President of Mobile Communications (MC) Marketing Strategy Team. “Microsoft’s commitment to the developer community is well known and respected in the industry, and we look forward to seeing this partnership with Microsoft lead to greater things.”

“We built the new Windows Phone Marketplace to create new business opportunities for developers and partners alike,” said Brandon Watson, director for Windows Phone at Microsoft. “This collaboration with LG creates a win-win situation for consumers and developers and will further showcase the variety of quality games and applications available on Windows Phone 7.”

What’s more, LG will also be offering its Windows Phone 7 customers free access to even more applications developed directly by the company. These applications will also be available from the LG Application Store and will span social networking services, such as Type n Walk and Voice SNS, as well as practical tools like Subway AR.

LG and Microsoft’s developer program will kick off in November. For more information, please visit www.facebook.com/LGMobileHQ.

I do realize that this has its drawbacks- for one thing, no idiot in their right mind would hold a 7” device up to their ear to make a phone call. In fact, when I told people that the Galaxy Tab could be used as a phone, they instantly held it up to their ear and started laughing. I can easily see the humor in this – why talk about your device having phone capabilities when you know that people already envision a phone as something you can hold up and use.

You need to use a compatible Bluetooth headset or a wired one in order to comfortably make a phone call. If no headset is connected to the Tab, then it defaults to using its in-built speaker to broadcast your conversation to the entire world. While the speaker works well for conference calling, I highly recommend using a headset if you’re going to use the Tab for making phone calls.

The Tab did pair up easily with my Nokia CW-15 Bluetooth car kit, and showed all my contacts without a glitch, which was great. It supports Voice Dialing, but the problem with it is that you still need to tap the screen to confirm the number you want to dial, so it’s not truly hands-free say when you’re driving and need to make an urgent call.

Honestly, the Galaxy Tab is just a pain to carry around as a phone. At the press event, one of the Samsung staff casually mentioned that “You can put it in your pocket” and encouraged me to try and fit the Galaxy Tab into my already ludicrously skinny jeans. Even the video for the Galaxy Tab shows people sliding it effortlessly into their back pockets or their suits. Are these people serious? Are you really going to be walking around with a honking 7 inch device sticking out of your pocket?

Don’t make the assumption that the Tab will replace your phone – it’s probably the most uncomfortable thing to lug around. When I had to nip out for groceries, I couldn’t leave the Tab in car in case I missed a phone call. And I couldn’t put it into the shopping basket in case I put something on top of it. I stupidly weren’t wearing pants that were big enough to hold the Tab, so in the end I had to just tuck the thing under my arm just so I could have two free hands. With a cell phone, you slide it into your pocket and you forget about it. With the Galaxy Tab, you’re always mindful that you’re carrying this great piece of tech, but you don’t have any place to put it.

For the record, Apple’s iTunes accounts for 70% of worldwide online digital music sales even though it doesn’t officially exist in the Middle East. Global giants such as Nokia, Amazon and Apple are aggressively vying for an increasing share of your wallet through the sale of digital music- through online stores and over-the-air download. This obviously doesn’t go down too well with traditional music stores that are facing an unpleasant truth of declining sales. However, if they don’t change their business model radically to reflect the new digital world, they will soon be out of business.

This global reality is starting to touch UAE – following the unveiling of Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ offering earlier this year. However, bandwidth restrictions and the insane costs of mobile data communications do not necessarily allow the digital segment to grow as fast as the rest of the world. That has to, and will change over the next few quarters. The sale of digital music via over-the-air downloads onto the mobile phone is definitely here to stay, and at least Nokia expects the take-up in UAE and across the region to be swift and the volumes to be significant enough to make this a viable alternative to the traditional model.

According to Frederic Copper-Royer, Music Manager, Nokia Middle East and Africa, the global music industry has accepted that the digital distribution channel is the way forward. “Big music groups, including Universal Music Group, Sony Corporation’s Sony Music, Warner Music Group, EMI and thousands of independent labels are opting to sell songs and albums electronically with global organisations including Nokia.”

He says the opportunity for local artists opting to distribute their music digitally in UAE and across the region is important. “While online distribution (via your computer’s internet connection) is at the center of the digital music experience as we know it, the real new opportunity is selling music via the mobile device.” says Copper-Royer. “Now that these users have the very real possibility of making over-the-air music downloads we expect to see significant penetration in a relatively short time frame.”

I agree with Mr. Copper-Royer. OTA downloads to your device is certainly the way forward with Smartphones getting smart enough to become your primary connectivity tool to the Internet. What do you think?

The Milestone comes packaged is a nicely sized box that includes a Quickstart guide in English and Arabic, a Wall charger and a Smartdock. The device uses the now-standard flat USB connector to charge itself and to connect to your computer. The dock that comes is pretty interesting and its part of what Motorola describes as their Smart Accessories about which we’ll talk later. Also included was a CD with the Motorola Media Link application that, unfortunately, is Windows only for now so Mac users (myself included) will need to rely on a third party application to sync their data. An 8GB microSD card comes inside the device for syncing your music, pictures and other data.

The Milestone measures 115.8 x 60 x 13.7 mm and weighs 165grams which I believe is a good size- especially for a phone that has a slide-out keyboard. Motorola claims it to be the thinnest slide-out keyboard in the Middle East and I believe them. Featuring HSDPA, 802.11 Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and a GPS receiver, the device is pretty impressive as far as specifications are concerned. Although you only have 133MB internal storage, an 8GB MicroSD card is included for your applications and data. For your capturing needs, A 5MP camera is present on the back along with a dual LED flash that takes decent pictures as well as videos. This wont replace your DSLR but it is decent as far as quick and casual pictures are concerned.

Looks wise, the device is drop-dead gorgeous and construction quality is top-notch. The phone feels extremely rigid. The large battery cover on the back has a rubberized finished that not only feels good but allows for a good grip on the phone while the sliding mechanism is pretty tight in its place. You can tell that Motorola has paid close attention to detail as the Milestone feels like a finely crafted device.

The front of the device has a 3.7″ multi-touch capacitive screen with an incredibly high resolution of 854×480 pixels making it one of the sharpest screens I’ve seen. The text looks crisp and the images beautiful. Although you wont have an issue using the device indoors, the Dubai sun managed to pale the screen outdoors even when it was set to the brightest level. Below the screen you have four touch buttons common to most Android devices- Back, Menu, Home and Search. A notification LED sits above the screen while a charging LED is placed next to the USB connector on the left that lights up when the phone is charging. The top of the device has the lock switch and headphone jack while the right side has the volume and camera buttons.

Below the screen sits the slide-out keyboard for which you have to turn the device into a landscape/horizontal orientation. The first time I tried such a keyboard was back in the days of JasJar by i-mate and didn’t like it much. So it took me a while to get used to the Milestone’s keyboard and although its pretty ok, I still prefer using the touch screen for typing quick messages etc. The keys feel a bit flat but that’s what you would get for making a thin device.

Android’s soft keyboard is almost as good as the iPhone’s so I didn’t have much of an issue. Also, Arabic is present on the hardware keyboard as well as the soft keyboard. Since Android does not support Arabic out of the box, Motorola had to use a third party application to handle this. It generally works well, however, I could not figure out a way to switch languages in the middle of a sentence. You have to complete your text input in the language you start it in.

Using the device is pretty speedy- thanks to the latest version of Android that Motorola is using. The Cortex A8 CPU of the Milestone is clocked in at 600MHz which is certainly lower than 800MHz and 1GHz models found in other Smartphones of late but you will not feel much lag on the Milestone. Scrolling is reasonably smooth and features the inertia effect while the accelerometer is pretty responsive with switching between portrait and landscape modes. The following video gives you a small tour of the interface.

As you saw from the video, Motorola hasn’t done much to customize the UI of the launcher but the amount of third party apps available for Android are plenty. Speaking of apps, the Milestone will not come with the Android Market on it and I’ve been told that this goes back to Google and TRA in the UAE that have yet for finalize Market content for the country. So, its not just the Milestone but any official Android handset will not have Market on it. To tackle that, Motorola is planning on including a repository known as Slideit which also has a decent number of Android apps available for it.

There are few apps that Motorola has bundled with the Milestone such as Exchange support for syncing your contacts, calender and email with an exchange server. Although I was able to sync my information with an Exchange Server, Searching email did not work. It worked for my GMail account but not for Exchange at the moment. Quick Office is also included for editing Microsoft Office formatted documents and spreadsheets. A sixty day trial version of Motomaps can be found for navigation using the built-in GPS receiver.

Along with the phone, Motorola is releasing “Smart” Accessories for the Milestone that are basically recognized by the phone. So for example, when you dock the phone on the included docking station, the phone switches to a landscape format showing time and temperature as well as an alarm to be used on your bedside. Along with that, you also have a button to play music or show pictures as a slideshow. Similarly, when you connect the GPS car accessory, a map mode should automatically pop up with controls for blue-tooth etc.

My only real disappointment with the Milestone is the battery life- it sucks. If you enable push email, expect the device’s battery to die in about eight hours. With push disabled, I managed to get about twelve hours out of it which is still on the lower side. It could be because I had Twitter being updated every 15 minutes as well as some browsing and IM’ing sessions but when you buy a phone like the Milestone, you don’t expect it to use it simply for phone calls and text messages.

Priced at AED 2,500, I feel that the Milestone is an excellent buy. It’s not only the best Android device that I have ever used but its also the second best touch screen device. Yes, the comparison to the iPhone is inevitable- and although there are areas that Android excels in, for me, iPhone still offers a better overall experience and a lot of that has to do with the closely knitted hardware and software by Apple. But not everybody likes the iPhone and lots of people still prefer a physical keyboard and if you’re one in that crowd along with wanting a device that pushes the limits of technology, the Milestone it is.

“Mobile users in the Middle East are increasingly looking for customised functionalities and value-added features. The Tattoo, which is equipped with HTC Sense, makes it all possible for customers to have a truly enjoyable, satisfying and personalised mobile experience. This new innovation represents HTC’s firm commitment to respond to the emerging demands of our clients, particularly here in the Middle East where HTC’s diverse range of powerful mobile solutions have been warmly received over the years,” said Nikitas Glykas, Regional Director of HTC South Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Peter Chou, Chief Executive Officer, HTC Corporation, said: “Everyone wants their own phone to feel like it was specifically made for them. The Tattoo, with HTC Sense represents an easy way to shape your own distinct mobile experience and really make it your own. The HTC Tattoo ensures that you can create the most engaging and appropriate mobile experience through simple yet powerful personalization.”

HTC Tattoo is the first Android-powered phone in the region to embody HTC Sense, a mobile experience focused on putting people at the centre by making the phone work in a more simple and natural way. Designed by listening and observing how people live and communicate, HTC Sense revolves around three fundamental principles: ‘Make it Mine’, ‘Stay Close’ and ‘Discover the Unexpected’.
With HTC Tattoo, mobile users stay close to the important people in their lives by integrating communications tools and applications including voice calls, emails, texts, photos and status updates into one consolidated view, providing innovative and fun phone experiences.

Customization is the key word that one would associate with the HTC Tattoo as the phone enables users to customise the screen to perfectly complement their current activity. For example, in the office, the user may opt for a sober wallpaper that features the usual applications such as contacts, time, date, email, calculator and other similar applications that would be used in an office environment. However, while driving, users can select the screen which gives them faster access to GPS and contacts, and likewise while commuting via public transport; users can opt for the screen that features applications such as music, SMS, games, internet and social networking websites.

The HTC Tattoo also features a stylish, small and compact design, fitting snugly into the user’s hand or pocket. People are also able to design and purchase their own unique covers or search and select from popular cover designs, allowing them to alter the look of the phone to reflect their mood or individual tastes. For instance, companies can go for the corporate themed covers wherein they can have the company logo placed on them, while the youth or family themed covers can have pictures of friends or family members.

HTC Tattoo integrates Google’s innovative mobile services including Google Maps, Search, Google Mail, and many more applications that run on the Android operating system localized for the Arabic users. It also comes complete with a broad variety of hardware features including a 3.2 megapixel camera, 3.5mm stereo headset jack and expandable microSD memory.

HTC Tattoo is available in the UAE at leading electronic stores such as Carrefour, Sharaf DG, Jumbo, Jacky’s, I2/Compu me /Virgin Megastores, Plug-ins and eMax at a retail price of AED 1,599 and AED 1,699 (inclusive of a colour cover and a voucher for cover customization).