How do the different South African App stores compare? Apposition Consulting decided to monitor and track one of their apps called ExpenZa on the Android Market, Vodacom App Store and Samsung App Store. This is a summary of their experiences and while not necessarily applicable to all apps, does raise some interesting points.

ExpenZa is a free Android app and automates expense tracking by intercepting the expenditure SMS message sent by your bank. It uses the information contained in the SMS message to automatically populate your expense list. ExpenZa can also be used without a bank’s SMS service by manually adding expenses, for keeping track of the cash in your wallet for example. The app allows the user to create a monthly budget with different expense categories and a budget amount for each category. The total spent for each category is shown which gives the user a continuous overview of their spending throughout the month. This helps them to make adjustments necessary to keep to their budget.

All the app stores were configured to allow only downloads from South Africa. The app also went through five updates during the period under study. This was mostly to add the functionality to recognise a larger variety of sms’s, but some additional features requested by users were added (e.g. to be able to import historical sms’s from your inbox) and the un-escapable bug fixes. What is encouraging is the amount of user feedback received as well as the variety of users who forwarded sms’s not currently recognised by the app to be included. App downloads were tweeted daily from their account (@AppositionC) with hashtag #MarketDownloadChallengeZA.

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RIM CEO Thorsten Heins

After weeks of speculation (Research In Motion) RIM’s co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are resigning from their positions and will be replaced by company insider and former COO Thorsten Heins.

Heins, who also joins the company’s board, is already listed as President and CEO on RIM’s executive bios page. The change in leadership may be explained by a statement made by Lazaridis: “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim [Balsillie] and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now.”

However, it is far from a clean break as both Balsillie and Lazaridis will stay on as directors and significant shareholders as part of the company’s board and management shuffle.

2011 saw almost a solid year of indiscretions under the leadership of Balsillie and Lazaridis. While the beginning of the year seemed to get off  to a promising and exciting start with RIM’s introduction of the Playbook tablets, the launch was unsuccessful with key features like a native e-mail client being left out. Later in the year the company announced the name for a new combined OS only to learn they didn’t have rights to that name. More recently, the company frustrated a large amount of  Blackberry users globally when they suffered through an extended service outage and were heavily criticized for not providing sufficient feedback quick enough.

The company has also steadily slipped down the ladder in smartphone market share as Android competitors and Apple have released more innovative and well-received handsets.

RIM has also recently unveiled the new Playbook OS 2.0 which does feature its own email client.

Source: Mashable

Alan Knott-Craig

My Broadband has just revealed that the board of Cell C has announced today that it has decided to appoint Alan Knott-Craig as its new Chief Executive Officer. Mr Knott-Craig will join the company and its Board of Directors as he takes up this new position on the 1st April 2012 after a comprehensive search by the company both nationally and internationally. Mr. Knott-Craig takes over from former CEO Lars Reichelt who resigned in 2010.

Simon Duffy, the non-executive Chairman who has been the interim CEO for Cell C for the past 6 months has said, “Alan is one of the most capable and experienced leaders in the industry and I am confident that his appointment will significantly enhance Cell C’s ability to provide an excellent service to its customers and to compete even more effectively for their business. Cell C has carved out a strong position as an innovative alternative in the industry and, having made considerable progress over the past few years, is strategically well-positioned for growth. ”

Duffy continues  “The directors and I are delighted that Alan has accepted our offer and we look forward to supporting him as he brings his considerable knowledge and expertise, as well as his experience as a manager and a leader, to Cell C.  We are looking to him to drive and implement the company’s strategy in the next phase of its development. ”

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According to a study conducted by Nielsen, a global information measurement analysis company, the high profile and much anticipated launch of the iPhone 4S toward the end of last year had a significant impact on the proportion of smartphone owners who chose an Apple iPhone over other available mobiles.

Posted on Nielsen’s blog site, research results reveal that among those who acquired a smartphone within the last three months (recent acquirers),  44.5 percent of those surveyed in December said that they chose an iPhone, compared to the 25.1 percent in October. Furthermore, 57 percent of new iPhone owners surveyed in December said they chose to get an iPhone 4S. However, Android continues to take the lead among all smartphone users with 43.6 percent of all smartphone users that were surveyed in the fourth quarter of 2011.

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Recent rumours have begun to circulate that Research In Motion (RIM) was interested in selling off to Samsung after a supposed rough year. Now, Samsung spokesperson, James Chung has clarified rumours by saying that not only is it not interested in buying the firm but that it hasn’t even been approached with an offer. Chung told Reuters that “We haven’t considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in (buying RIM).”

The rumours began when Boy Genius Report quoted a source from RIM revealing that it was looking for a buyer in Samsung. The report said that, We have heard that Jim Balsillie is actively meeting with almost every company that might be interested in either a part or all of RIM, in addition to having talks about licensing. “Jim is going hard after Samsung,” said a source with knowledge of the negotiations.

The reason given for the deal having not been struck was due to the asking price by RIM’s CEO.

While this does not completely eliminate any rumours that RIM may be looking to sell, it does take Samsung out of the picture as a potential buyer.

Source: The Next Web

At CES 2012 in Las Vegas, Pocket-lint witnessed what was a regular iPhone being repeatedly dunked into a fish tank filled with water. This demonstration served to show off the capabilities of a new nano technology that will likely save your smartphone from getting water damage and may be included in the next wave of smartphones by Apple and Samsung.

Called HzO, the technology that has already been applied to a number of devices such as the iPhone and Samsung phones for testing, creates a nano-scale film barrier that has special water repelling properties once applied to the inside of electronic gadgets. The technology is already installed into the phone during its manufacturing process, rather than by the consumer once the phone has been purchased.

A company representative has said “We expect HzO to be in next season’s phones,” referring to Apple’s interest in the technology. Samsung is also reportedly “very excited about the technology.”

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Japanese automaker Nissan has announced that it will be introducing a new line of self-repairing  “Nissan Scratch Shield” iPhone cases.

The case utilises the company’s pioneering special paint technology that enables them to repair themselves quickly once damaged. The self-healing paint finish, developed in 2005, has already been put to use on a number of Nissan Infiniti models.

Created by Nissan in collaboration with the University of Tokyo and Advanced Softmaterials Inc., the case that appears gel-like is crafted from ABS plastic which allows it to be highly flexible and assists with providing a better grip.

Nissan launched the case at an automotive event in Dubai and distributed some of them to a number of journalists and customers for beta testing. Should the case get a positive review and demand proves to be strong they will look into general sales at the end of this year.

Nissan has explained that “The outer ‘paint’ is made from polyrotaxane, which means that when damage occurs to the coating in the form of a fine scratch, the chemical structure is able to react to change back to its original shape and fill the gap – ‘healing’ the blemish.”

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Neotel might have gone silent in recent months (or their marketing team is not doing a great job), but their latest prepaid data deal is not bad at all. Neotel is offering their NeoGo package which includes 24GB of data for R799. Users will have the option of getting that 24GB upfront, or have it split up into 2GB per month for 12 months. This will also include Neotel’s CDMA modem.

So what is the catch? Firstly – that CDMA modem might not be of much use once the contract runs out. Even though it might not be network locked, Neotel says nothing about it being GSM compatible like the rest of SA 3G networks. Secondly – Neotel’s information on the contract is next to useless. There is no info on the brand of modem used, or the coverage offered. Neotel does not offer much in the way of coverage information on their website, and they require you to enter your complete address before they can tell you whether you will have coverage or not. In most cases it will not find the addresses we tried to enter into it. So it might be best to consider phoning them regarding coverage in your area.

The image below carries the extent of information available to customers interested in the NeoGo contract deal. Once more information becomes available we will update it here.

Source: MyBroadBand