Sharp is releasing an Aquos Android clamshell phone with a 16-megapixel camera running Gingerbread. This is the latest step in Android’s quiet and gradual takeover of the Japanese phone market. I believe that Japan will eventually become a strategic stronghold for Android and in turn this will serve to shore up Google’s historically weak performance against Yahoo in search and online services in Japan.

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Read the rest of Why Android will dominate Japan (933 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: android, docomo, google, japan, kddi, keitai, mobile phone, sharp, softbank

How the mighty has fallen. Once upon a time, Microsoft could sell garbage and people would still buy them because it was the only garbage in town. Now it’s desperately playing catch-up to iOS and Android with its late-to-the-game abysmally-named Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Naysayers are already predicting a Kin-like premature demise for WP7 and that may very well turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But for this ethereal moment, I am happy with my LG Optimus 7.

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© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: lg, microsoft, mobile phone, optimus 7, windows phone 7, wp7

Google has finally come up with an official mobile version of Gmail! Hurray! The normal version works okay in a phone browser, but it wastes too much bandwidth and some phones (like mine) can’t handle the weird javascript multiple redirects that it uses, so it’s good that there’s finally a mobile version.

Gmail Mobile
Now you can access your Gmail account from your mobile phone or device. Just point your phone’s web browser to http://m.gmail.com. Your Gmail account stays synched, whether you access it from the web or the mobile interface. It’s easy to use and it’s free (but yes, your wireless plan could still charge you).

It also has these cool features:
• Automatically optimizes the interface for the phone you’re using
• Opens the attachments you receive in messages, including photos, Microsoft Word documents and .pdf files
• Lets you reply by call to people whose phone numbers are in your Gmail Contacts list

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2005. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: gmail, mobile phone