Latest Mobile Phone News

Skype has released version 2.1 of its application for Android, which allows more smartphones and tablets based on Google’s operating system to use its video calling feature. The company published a list of 17 devices that can now make video calls. Users with Android 2.2-based smartphones that aren’t on Skype’s list should still be able to make video calls. The feature can be enabled by going into “Skype settings” after launching the application and selecting “enable video calling.” If a user can’t see the video calling settings, it means their Android device does not meet the minimum requirements needed, according to Skype. In addition, the new version of Skype has bug fixes and performance enhancements, which should further improve the user experience of Skype on Android-based smartphones. The updated application can be downloaded from Android Market or Skype’s website.

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The iPhone5 would be sold from September 5, but only in the U.S. However, countries outside the U.S. have to wait one more month. It is said that iPhone5 will carry A5 processor, frameless design, higher pixel and larger memory. Subsidy policy remains to be the urgent problem for China Telecom. The company will reduce its terminal subsidy in the forth quarter. It is learned that its talk with Apple Inc. (AAPL) has made some progress but yet to reach agreements in key issues, including profit sharing and buying out iPhone at a high price. Analysts believe that China Telecom’s final subsidy margin is possibly similar to that of China Unicom, because high terminal subsidy may lead to loss risks while low subsidy does not attract consumers.

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The Android platform is going great guns, with over 30 million activations in each quarter. It is expected that this number will only increase in the coming days. To give us an idea about the number of devices that run on each version of Android, Google has released a chart showing the percentage of Android versions that have accessed the Android Market. The smartphone numbers are encouraging, though the same cannot be said about the tablet version of Android, Honeycomb 3.x. The report suggests that Froyo (2.2) is still on top with the most number of activations, while Gingerbread (2.3.3 and 2.3.4) is still considerably behind. Gingerbread was launched in December last year with the Google Nexus S. However, other manufacturers were slow in rolling out handsets with the updated OS. This delay could be the reason for Gingerbread’s slow start. Froyo makes up for about 55.9% of Android devices the world over, while 2.3.3 and 2.3.4 make up for a mere 23.7%. Honeycomb, which now includes Android 3.2, has grown from 0.9 to 1.3% – a decent increase from Google’s previous numbers. It is believed that the slow start is mainly due to Android 3.x launching in the non-holiday season.

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A new Trojan horse app has emerged to target Android devices, and this one’s particularly creepy. The app records a user’s phone calls and then uploads them to a remote server. While this particular Trojan doesn’t appear to be a threat in the wild–at least not for North American users–it’s a good reminder of the growing threat of mobile malware. New smartphone malware emerges on a weekly–sometimes daily–basis of late, though most users have yet to take the threat as seriously as PC-based malware.  There are more mobile devices today than there were PCs connected to the Internet in 1996. Cybercriminals are realizing that, unlike PCs, mobile devices aren’t very well secured. In addition to outright malware, there are other ways that mobile devices can put your secure information at risk. “Smartphone users should indeed have a certain level of concern, or at least a security conscious mindset, when it comes to mobile malware. There are still other threats facing mobile device users that are a bigger concern than mobile malware, namely the loss or theft of a device.

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Back in June, Google announced that Android 3.2 would be arriving beginning this summer for Honeycomb tablets. Motorola, being Google’s launch partner for Honeycomb, was first to get the update. Next on the list was ASUS and as of late last week, Eee Pad users in the US started getting their version of Android 3.2. I updated my Eee Pad over the weekend and the process went seamlessly. As long as you’ve got more than 25% left on your battery you’re good to go. If you haven’t updated your Eee Pad since the launch you’ll need two updates to get to 3.2. The 3.2 update on the Eee Pad brings about a new splashscreen as well as a TegraZone app. TegraZone is NVIDIA’s custom marketplace that leverages the Android Market. TegraZone is used exclusively for games that are optimized for NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 SoC.

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The Motorola Photon 4G is an absolute powerhouse of a phone. It ships with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a dual-core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 4G WiMax speeds, a 4.3-inch qHD display, and a dual-mode GSM/CDMA chipset. Features include HDMI-out, DLNA support, Wi-Fi, Mobile Hotspot for up to eight devices, 720p HD video capture, 1080p HD video playback, and secure data encryption. We also like the kickstand. Call quality and overall performance were great. The Motorola Photon 4G has a large and bulky design, which might not be to everybody’s taste. The Motoblur interface isn’t for everyone, and we found Sprint ID to be an unnecessary add-on. The Webtop dock functionality is pretty cool, but it requires a $129 accessory. We expected better photo quality out of the 8-megapixel camera.

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