iPhone Customers Report Touch-Screen Dead Spots

Many customers reported bringing the phone back to an Apple store, where in many cases they received a loaner phone at no charge while the broken handset was being repaired.

Apple’s iPhone customers have reported dead spots on the handset’s touch-screen interface, which is considered the most innovative component of the pricey gadget.
The problem, which appears to have affected only a small number of customers, was reported on the discussion forum of Apple’s support site this week. The dead spots were in a variety of locations and occurred irrespective of the software being used.

Many of the customers reported bringing the phone back to an Apple store, where in many cases they received a loaner phone at no charge while the broken handset was being repaired. Apple, according to the reports, was not handing out new phones as replacements.

A minority of customers, however, reported less than satisfactory service at the stores. “I went to the iPhone bar a couple weeks ago, and the guy told me this was just how the screen is, and that it was the length of my nails!!” a Chicago resident who used the name Newtype said.

Another customer reported taking his broken iPhone to an Apple store in Westchester County, N.Y., where a manager denied such a problem existed and refused to waive the $29 fee for a loaner phone. “He denied that he had the discretion to replace the phone or waive the loaner fee. Great product, support not so great,” the person who went by the name Tjrubeo said.

Apple was not immediately available for comment on Friday.

The iPhone’s unique touch-screen interface is among the innovative features that Apple has used in justifying the high cost of the iPhone, which is as much as $600. Other vendors sell less-expensive smartphones that are also capable of surfing the Web and contain similar software.

An advantage of the iPhone, however, is it sleek design and large screen that displays Web pages pretty much as they appear on a PC. According to recently published patent applications, Apple is working on an interface for “computing devices” that would respond to voice commands.

The initial success of the iPhone, which hit the market June 29, has attracted the attention of lawyers. IPhone-related lawsuits have included one for alleged patent infringement, and another over Apple’s decision not to include a user-replaceable battery in the device. Buyers have to ship the phone to Apple to have the battery replaced.

Nokia locates first “satellite” studio in India to design mobile phones

Finnish mobile-phone maker Nokia on Wednesday opened a global design studio in India to stay ahead of rivals such as Motorola in the world’s fastest-growing wireless market.

The studio will be located in Bangalore, known as India’s Silicon Valley, and will be the first of a series of “satellite” design centres being established by Nokia, which plans to open the next in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The world’s second-most populous nation is adding six million mobile-phone users every month, and the location of the studio testifies to the impact that India is having on the development of handsets, Nokia officials said.

“Design is not just about the look and feel of the handset but equally important is what it can do for people and how it fits into their lives,” said Hannu Nieminen, head of innovations at Nokia Design.

“Designers must be exposed to how people live and work in different places around the world,” Nieminen told a news conference here.

India’s mobile revolution is mainly confined to cities, but the real prize for phone companies is the vast rural market where nearly 70 percent of the population lives, analysts say.

Telephone penetration is around 25 per 100 people in urban areas, and as low as 1.6 per 100 in rural areas, leaving vast room for growth.

Nokia designers will work with students at the Bangalore-based Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology to conceive new handsets for India and global markets in the Internet era.

The studio will explore design trends and themes including research into colour and material trends in India, mobile use of the Internet and its implications for design, including new features and uses for mobiles.

“The first experience of the Internet for many future users will be on the mobile phone,” said Nieminen. “India will play a crucial role in designing handsets for them.”

The Indian studio involves a “considerable investment,” said Bangalore-based Jan Blom, senior designer manager at Nokia Design.

“We really want to optimise the way our product is geared to Indian needs,” said Blom, adding the Bangalore centre would help Nokia tailor products for the local market.

India, along with China and the United States, is among the three biggest markets for Nokia.

The first mobile-phone call made in India in 1995 was on a Nokia phone on a Nokia network.

The Finnish company introduced the first Hindi-language mobile menu in 2000, following it up with the first camera phone in 2002, and Hindi short messaging system in 2004.

“Nokia’s decision to open its first design satellite studio in India underscores our commitment to the market and strengthens our presence in the country – distribution and sales, research, manufacturing and now design,” said D. Shivakumar, vice-president and general manager of Nokia India.

Nokia, with a 6,000-strong workforce in India, is competing with global handset makers including Motorola of the US and Ericsson of Sweden in an expanding market that has 157 million cellular subscribers.

Ericsson in July won a US$2 billion order from Bharti Airtel, India’s biggest mobile-phone services provider, to expand its network into rural areas.

It came on the heels of a US$900 million memorandum of understanding that Finnish-German joint venture Nokia Siemens struck earlier in July with Bharti to expand its network

Can RAZR2 shave stubble off Motorola?

Motorola said Friday the next generation of its hugely popular RAZR thin clamshell phone — one of the Schaumburg company’s great hopes to spark a turnaround — will be available from all major mobile phone carriers within 60 days.

RAZR2 (far right) will be available starting in the next two weeks. Tracey Thiele, Motorola spokeswoman, said that by October, the new RAZR2 will be sold by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, the top national carriers, and Alltel and Chicago-based U.S. Cellular, the regional carriers.

The RAZR, introduced in the fourth quarter of 2004, set new standards for design, with sales since then of more than 100 million phones — an industry record — and rivals copying the thin design.

The new RAZR2 is thinner than the original: 19 millimeters vs. 21 millimeters. It has a larger, clearer and brighter internal screen, a larger external screen, new technology to tune out background noise, the ability to download songs from over-the-air services and to store several thousand songs and a 2 megapixel camera.
Thiele said each carrier will have its own take on the phone. Carriers in part competed on colors with the original RAZR. This time Verizon will offer the phone in black espresso, Sprint in pearl gray and AT&T in mahogany, Thiele said.

AT&T, which introduced the RAZR, and Verizon announced on Friday they are charging $299 for the phones with two-year contracts.

RAZR2 is part of a new product lineup, which Motorola hopes can turn around the company. Motorola, which invented the cell phone in 1973, has suffered a series of setbacks, dropping in the last quarter to No. 3 in the industry.

A single product, RAZR the First, made a difference, with buzz and market share. Will RAZR the Second save the day?

Neil Mawston, associate director of the global wireless practice at Strategy Analytics, a Boston research company, is skeptical: “The RAZR1 was a revolutionary design. The RAZR2 is evolutionary. It is an incremental improvement. We expect RAZR2 to make less of an impact than RAZR1. The timing for the RAZR2 is at least a year late. It should have been launched in 2006, when it was already clear that the life cycle for the RAZR1 was peaking.”