Category: Tech news

Short Version

Does bigger always mean better? It depends on who you ask of course, but more than a few major smartphone manufacturers would probably say yes. Even the notorious hold-outs at Apple are rumored to be working on something a bit larger than their usual — in short, the race to be the biggest doesn’t show any signs of letting up.

In a market where big smartphones reign supreme though, Verizon and HTC seem to think that a smaller device can still captivate some jaded consumers. As a result they’ve put together the Droid Incredible 4G LTE, a poorly named device that manages to squeeze a surprising amount of power into a relatively small frame.

Features:

• 4.0-inch qHD Super LCD display
• Runs Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich and Sense 4.0
• 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor
• 1GB of RAM
• 8GB of onboard storage, accepts microSD cards as large as 32GB
• NFC
• 8-megapixel rear camera, VGA front-facing camera
• MSRP: $149 with a two-year contract, available as of July 5, 2012

Pros:

• Great Super LCD display
• Plenty of horsepower for daily tasks
• Solid build quality

Cons:

• Screen may seem too small for some
• Verizon loaded it up with quite a bit of bloatware
• It’s not terribly handsome

Long Version

Hardware

The first thing I noticed about about the Droid Incredible 4G LTE is just how small it felt in my hands. After months of toting around a Galaxy Nexus, it was actually kind of shocking. The Incredible 4G is just a hair wider than the iPhone 4S, but its taller stature and slightly narrower screen make it seem leaner than it actually is. Even so, the device has a well-constructed feel to it — it has a comforting heft to it and a quick bit of bending yielded none of the tell-tale creaking sounds that plague lower-end handsets.

At its thickest point the new Incredible comes in at 11.7mm — a far cry from the slim waistlines of HTC’s One S or the iPhone 4S, but it never feels like too much of a handful. That’s mostly thanks to the device’s curved back — like in the HTC Rezound before it, that curve helps the device from feeling too chunky.

The name of the design game here is nearly the same as it has been for nearly every other HTC/Verizon device in recent memory — the Incredible 4G’s rear is swathed in a matte black soft-touch plastic (warning: it picks up smudges easily), and the signature red trim around the camera lens makes a return after being left out of the Droid Incredible 2. Probably the most notable aspect of the Incredible 4G’s back plate though is the grippy, ridged finish that covers most of it — yet another design cue from the Rezound.

Aesthetically speaking, it’s not all old news — while the back has a matte finish, the device’s face is lined with a glossy gray plastic that helps break up the monotony. Most of the real estate is taken up by the device’s 4-inch Super LCD display (more on that later, naturally), and sitting below that is HTC’s now-standard row of three Android navigation keys — back, home, and recent apps. The front-facing VGA camera sits just above the screen, and north of those are a handsome red speaker grill, sleep/wake button, and headphone jack. The microUSB port is located on the Incredible 4G’s bottom left side, just opposite microSIM and microSD slots (though you’ll have to pop off that back plate to get to them).

All things considered, the Incredible 4G is solidly built, but it pales in comparison to the One series when it comes to looks. It’s actually quite a shame — with the One series, HTC has proven that it can design phones that look as good as they are constructed, but little of what they’ve learned has made the transition to the new Incredible. And it’s not as though the devices weren’t in the works at the same time — a very early version of the Incredible 4G was spotted back in February, right around when the One series made its debut at MWC 2012 in Barcelona.

Software

Unlike the last device I reviewed, I’m pleased to report that the Incredible 4G runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, though it’s obscured a bit by HTC’s Sense 4.0 UI. If you’ve read Jordan’s HTC One S review, you’ll already have gotten the gist of Sense 4.0, but I’ll add that the latest version of Sense is far more tolerable than the versions that came before it.

That may not sound like much of a compliment, but coming from a person who thinks that Ice Cream Sandwich (and Jelly Bean, natch) are best left untouched, that statement carries more weight than it seems.

While previous iterations of Sense (especially Sense 3.0) seemed intent on wowing users with unnecessary graphical and UI flourishes that ultimately had a deleterious effect on performance, Sense 4.0 looks and feels much lighter and less obtrusive. There are plenty of thoughtful touches to be found here — the almost webOS-esque multitasking interface, the ability to edit the app tabs at the bottom of the launcher, the custom widget panel that pops up when long-pressing the homescreen, etc.

In a way, Sense has matured over these past few years, making it one of the better custom UIs that consumers. That being said, there are still some quirks to look out for and the device’s menu button situation immediately comes to mind. Unlike stock ICS, which often sees the menu’s soft key placed in either an app’s top or bottom navigation bar, HTC often gives the menu button a bar of its own to inhabit. It’s thoughtful, in a way — easy access to settings is always appreciated — but it just takes up more room than it’s worth. The keyboard is also remarkably similar to the Sense keyboard of yore, which I’ll admit I’ve never been a fan of.

What’s less tolerable is what Verizon has done to the Incredible 4G — unsurprisingly, the carrier has opted to load up the device with plenty of bloatware to contend with. Some of the offending bits like game demos are easily removed, but as usual preloaded Verizon utilities like My Verizon Mobile and the Verizon app store can’t be uninstalled. Fortunately, Sense allows for individual apps to be disabled and hidden from sight so it’s simple enough to clean house even though you can never really get rid of them (short of flashing a custom ROM).

Verizon seems to have done a bit of fiddling in other parts of the UI too: one of the tabs in the app launcher quickly brings up all of Verizon’s pre-installed nonsense, and users can keep their eyes peeled for persistent (and mildly obnoxious) notifications about their Wi-Fi status.

Camera

Here’s the thing about the Incredible 4G’s camera — it sports an 8-megapixel rear sensor and the ImageSense camera UI like its cousins in the One series, but it doesn’t seem to have the discrete ImageChip that HTC is so proud of. That said, though, images were sharp and colors were vivid, there’s some distinct graininess when light levels dip.

HTC’s ImageSense UI makes up for things a bit by putting plenty of controls at the user’s fingertips without becoming overwhelming. Settings and scene modes are aligned vertically along the left side of the screen, while the shutter button, video toggle, and a full array of artsy filters can be accessed with one touch.

The Incredible 4G also shoots some impressive video, though there’s plenty of room for improvement. There’s plenty of wiggle to be seen even with the video stabilization option turned on, so users will have to be extra mindful so their recordings don’t turn into wobbling messes. On top of that, auto focus is awfully slow when recording video, so be prepared to tap-to-focus more often than not.

The end result is a very solid camera that could have been so much more. One last thing worth noting is that the Incredible 4G lacks a dedicated physical shutter button. Sure, the One X and the One S don’t have one either, but if Verizon and HTC were going to run with a completely different design, they could’ve improved things for the better a bit.

Display

Let’s be real here: the screen is not going to work for everyone. It wasn’t that long ago that a 4-inch display would’ve gotten us phone geeks all hot and bothered, but those days have passed and the Incredible’s screen is left looking a little puny compared the flashy big guys on the market.

Say what you will about its size, but the Incredible 4G’s 4-inch Super LCD display is a very pleasant addition to the package. Colors were bright and well-reproduced, viewing angles were excellent, and visibility in sunlight was solid (though you’ll have to be mindful about cranking up the brightness).

Of course, some compromises had to be made. Unlike some of the 720p devices in roughly the same price range, the Incredible’s display runs at qHD resolution (960 x 540). It doesn’t squeeze as many pixels as some other device displays can — the Incredible 4G has a pixel density of 276 ppi, which bests the One S (256 ppi) but can’t touch the Galaxy S III’s 306 ppi. Still, that matters less on a smaller screen, and there was nary a jagged, pixellated edge to be found.

In the end, how much you or any other potential customer will like this phone depends a whole lot on your thoughts about screen size. That initial sense of screen-related claustrophobia subsided after a few days, but my heart ultimately still yearns for something bigger. If you’re thinking about picking one of these things up, do yourself a favor and play with it in person first.

Performance

Don’t let its looks fool you — the Incredible 4G may be small, but it packs some considerable power under the hood thanks to its 1.2GHz Snapdragon S4 chipset (the Adreno 220 GPU doesn’t hurt either). From a purely anecdotal standpoint, I didn’t see a single hiccup as I swiped though the Incredible 4G’s menus and scrolled through long lists of links on a handful of websites. Similarly, the Incredible handled my usual test suite of HD videos and games with aplomb — this little guy has plenty of oomph.

The Incredible 4G’s average Quadrant score was 4098 — understandably not quite as high as the HTC One S (4371) since it sports a more robust spec sheet, but it’s awfully close. Meanwhile, it put the Galaxy Nexus (2730) to shame, though that seems to be a recurring trend with the devices I’ve played with recently. In short, the new Incredible should have no trouble keeping up with your daily grind.

Network performance was equally solid, with the Incredible 4G hitting an average of 14.2 Mbps down and 5.3 Mbps up in my quiet little corner of New Jersey. It goes without saying that your results be vary from mine (unless you live down the road, in which case you should come over and say “hi”), but Verizon’s network continues to be the one to beat if you’re looking for strong, widespread LTE coverage. In typical HTC fashion, call quality was remarkable as well — clear, crisp, and always loud enough.

What does miff me about the Incredible 4G is that it’s ostensibly meant to be a music-friendly device, but it’s stuck with a rather wimpy speaker on its rear end. I realize I may be picking nits here, but I long for the day that I review a device with a top-notch integrated speaker so jamming out on the go isn’t so problematic.

Battery

I wasn’t expecting much out of the Incredible 4G when it came to its removable 1700 mAh battery. My iffy past experiences with the original Incredible subconsciously soured me for the Incredible 4G’s potential, but it ended up performing better than I hoped. While using the Incredible 4G as my daily driver, I was easily able to get through an entire day of taking calls, firing off emails/texts, and sneaking in the occasional YouTube video before my battery went critical.

If you’re the type who just likes to sit around and fiddle with your phone all day, your results will obviously be a little different. In our typical stress test — in which display brightness is set to 50% and the device is set to repeat a series of Google Image Searches — the Incredible 4G lasted five hours and 12 minutes.

That’s not too shabby at all, and it compares favorably to both the One S (4:51) and the Galaxy S III (5:15). When it came to our video stress test, the Incredible 4G put up similar results. With display brightness set to 50% and volume cranked all the way up, it managed to play just a hair over five hours of nonstop video before finally giving up the ghost.

I don’t need to tell you that these sorts of intensive test results shouldn’t be taken as gospel, but combined with my day-to-day experience with the device, anyone who takes the plunge probably won’t have much to worry about on this front.

Conclusion

I’ve come to really like the Droid Incredible 4G LTE, but it’s far from being a game-changer. That by itself isn’t a problem, but its lofty price tag doesn’t exactly help. At $149, the Droid Incredible 4G LTE is just a stone’s throw away from devices like the new Galaxy S III, which many have called the Android phone to beat.

It becomes difficult, then, to recommend something like the Incredible 4G when something exceptional can be had for nearly the same price, but bigger isn’t always better. If your mitts just can’t grapple with something like the Galaxy S III or Galaxy Nexus (or if you just prefer a phone that’s less conspicuous in your pocket), the Incredible 4G is an admirable choice in spite of its minor flaws.

Editor’s note: Lee Jacobs is founder of Colingo– An English learning service focused on Brazil.  Sometimes his alter ego Mr. Lee gives English lessons on Youtube, check out a recent one on “drinking words” here.

I have spent a lot of time in Brazil, working on my startup Colingo, about a month ago I was in Sao Paulo for Dave McClure’s Geeks on A Plane. Brazil is a hot market with many firms like Accel and  the famed Sequoia capital  searching for opportunities. Many of these investors are looking to fund   “copycat,” business that emulate successful American startups. Businesses like Peixe Urbano (Groupon), Elo7 ( Etsy), Kekanto (Yelp), and Shoes4You  (Shoedazzle).

Whenever I come back to the Valley, I often hear whining that clones are the work of unimaginative thieves — not real innovators. Genuine innovation requires brand new ideas, and is typically the work of a Stanford dropout (or at least Harvard).

This is bullshit.

As I alluded to in a previous post, this is just another example of how American entrepreneurs are grossly misinformed about what’s happening outside of U.S tech scene.

While the idea that innovation stems from the epiphany of a brilliant entrepreneur certainly is romantic, it rarely happens that way. Great ideas and companies have always evolved from what came before them. Even the archetype of a “true innovator,” Steve Jobs,  was famously  ‘inspired’ (some think copied) ideas for the mouse after his trip to Xerox PARC early in his career. Facebook, started as a  ‘clone’ of HotorNot, Google was inspired by search engines before it. Having grown from their initial roots, These two businesses no longer closely resemble their original inspirations. It is reasonable to assume many international clones will evolve on their own trajectory. In fact, to be successful they must.

Brazilian clones have had to do more than what Eric Acher of Brazilian VC firm Monashees calls “geographic innovation,” these companies have had to adapt to the local realities of doing business in Brazil. While the fast growing Baby.com.br is inspired by the American Diapers.com, Baby had to reinvent how shipping and order fulliment was done in Brazil to make up for lack of quality fulliment options. Helpsaude.com  is a Zocdoc for Brazil, unlike its American counterpart has gone with a free listing model. Founder Gustavo Guida Reis, tells me he needed to adapt the model to account for Brazilian doctors hesitancy to pay up front.

A common argument in the anti-clone camp is that cloning reduces the incentive for companies to innovate. “If my idea is just going to be copied, what’s the point?” For one thing, entrepreneurs should be building companies because they firmly believe in changing the status quo, and that in itself should be incentive enough. Furthermore, whining about competition reminds of me of the Winkelbrows complaining Zuck stole Facebook from them- as if scaling to a billion users is an afterthought. Building real companies is the hard part.

Overall, it feels like the anti-clone attitude in the Valley, is borne out of a fear that a clone will out-compete them. Entrepreneurs should fear not, for business models, designs, and features can be copied. Teams cannot. True innovators should be confident in their own unique vision for how to push an industry forward and confident in their team’s ability to execute on it.  In the end, building a business comes down to the individual vision of the people running it and their unique ability to execute. As Fred Wilson recently pointed out, innovations  will inevitably be copied and it is up to innovative companies to push the envelope and continue to build new things. As we saw from the recent shut down of the Samwers brothers’s  Fab clone (the Samwer brothers’ dubious ethics seem to be an example of when cloning crosses the line- but that is for another post), staying focused and execute your vision is what matters.

Nokia’s troubles today will be all but forgotten come next year, according to Richard Kerris, Nokia’s global head of developer relations. By spring, he said during an interview in Sydney, Australia earlier today, people won’t talk about the problems the company is having now. That doesn’t mean the next months won’t be hard for Nokia, but in Kerris’ view, the company will come out of this phase stronger than ever before.

Kerris just joined Nokia a few months ago, making a big personal bet on Nokia and the Windows Phone ecosystem. Kerris previously worked for Apple under Steve Jobs and was the CTO of Lucasfilm before joining HP where he worked on that company’s ill-fated WebOS efforts. In our interview, Kerris was very frank about how he felt the WebOS project was mishandled by HP, especially because the company insisted on certain price points and “shiny black plastic.” HP’s entry in the market and its commitment to Palm was simply not “heartfelt” in his view. He called the end of the project a “bizarre scenario,” especially because many OEM orders still had to come in at the time HP killed the Touchpad.

As for joining Nokia, Kerris stressed how he wasn’t immediately enthusiastic about the idea of joining the company after Stephen Elop reached out to him. What changed his mind, though, was seeing prototypes of Nokia’s Lumia phones, which in his view, rival the build quality of Apple’s products. Kerris’ assessment of Nokia’s last few years was surprisingly frank, too. The company Elop inherited when he became the CEO, he said, had gone through a few years where it was arrogant and neglected obvious market opportunities, especially around smartphones. Looking ahead, though, it’s clear that Nokia is betting the company on Microsoft’s unified Windows 8 platforms.

The cuts the company made last month were necessary to help bridge the company over until the release of Windows Phone 8. At the same time Nokia made these cuts, though, it also announced that it was doubling down on Windows 8 and its efforts around location services and imaging (including PureView, which will soon come to Windows Phone as well). Around the same time, Nokia also announced the acquisition of Swedish imaging company Scalado and its products will likely be integrated into Nokia’s phone very soon as well.

As for Nokia’s bet on Windows Phone, Kerris argues that this wasn’t much of a gamble for the company. The choice wasn’t between Android or Windows, he said. What Nokia wanted was a distinct operating system, which only Microsoft currently offers. Besides this, the future, in his view, isn’t really about operating systems anyway, but about offering users the features and functions they want, whether that’s through phones, tablets, wearable computing or other means. Nokia, he said, wants to focus on what it does best, including location services and imaging and with Microsoft, it has a partner it can depend on for years to come.

The company’s U.S. headquarters in Sunnyvale, says Kerris, now has a very startup-like feel. Even if things don’t work out for Nokia in the long run, he said, “at least we’ll have fun and go down trying.” While Kerris warned that the next month would be hard, though, he also stressed that the company is committed to helping developers (with a focus on good apps, not just quantity). Just over the last eight months, he said, the app ecosystem for Windows Phone has grown 1,400% and over 300 new apps are added to the store every day right now.

For now, though, the company has to get through to next few months until Windows Phone 8 ships. That’s not an easy position to be in and one that Kerris likened to the dark days at Apple where the company was at the brink of bankruptcy. Most pundits assume that Microsoft will swoop in and help Nokia out if things really go sour (after all, Nokia is Microsoft’s strongest partner with regards to Windows Phone). Kerris himself seem to be optimistic that the company can make it through these hard times on its own, though, based on its strong patent portfolio (it’s making money of every iPhone sold, for example) and upcoming products (which will likely include tablets, too, though Kerris would obviously not confirm this).

Editor’s note: Dan Schawbel is the managing partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and management consulting firm. He is also the #1 international bestselling author of Me 2.0 and was named to the Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30 list in 2010. Subscribe to his updates at Facebook.com/DanSchawbel.

Colleges are starting to become startup incubators by offering a variety of classes and programs in order to help students pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions. This is good news for students because employers feel that they should gain entrepreneurship experience before graduating. Many professors are current or former entrepreneurs who act as mentors to students and teach them critical marketing, sales, and operation skills. The Kaufman Foundation estimates that more than 2,000 colleges and universities in the US, two thirds of the total, offer a course in entrepreneurship. There are now approximately 5,000 courses on entrepreneurship, up from 250 back in 1985. There are a few famous college dropouts, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, that didn’t need a business curriculum to start their companies, and a few lucky students who were selected as part of Peter Thiel’s “Thiel Fellowship” program, but they are outliers. Zuckerberg was in the right place at the right time and most students don’t get into Thiel’s program. Many students could use the education, network and support of an entrepreneurial institution.

Why are colleges creating these classes, programs and centers? Many students are passionate about entrepreneurship over full-time employment, the barriers to entry are lower to starting a business now because of the internet, and young people believe that entrepreneurs create jobs which are good for the economy. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) presented by Babson College (ranked #1 for entrepreneurship education) shows that there are 165 million early-stage young entrepreneurs age 18 to 25. More and more students are starting their businesses in college and graduating into full-time entrepreneurs.

College business plan competitions

One way colleges stimulate entrepreneurship, innovation, and gain publicity is by holding business plan competitions, where students present to a panel of judges in hopes to win a prize or get funding for their ventures. Bentley University, my alma mater, has been holding the “Bentley Business Bowl” for fifteen years. This year, they had 216 students competing in front of 90 judges. For this competition, the first place prize receives $200 to $350 depending on years in school. While that’s not enough money to fund a gumball machine, other schools like NYU’s Stern School of Business up the ante. At Stern, there are two separate Entrepreneur Challenges open to students and alumni – traditional ventures and ideas that address social programs. The winners of both can get up to $75,000 of funding. Columbia University, on the other hand, rewards students for outrageous business plans in the form of elevator pitches.
Entrepreneurship class offerings

At the University of Michigan, there are three types of classes: 1) engagement classes where students are made aware of the importance of entrepreneurship 2) skill-building classes 3) practicum classes in which companies and projects are launched. In total, they have 2,500 students in entrepreneurship classes each year. Thomas H. Zurbuchen, the Associate Dean for Entrepreneurship Programs, says that they try and hire entrepreneurs as teachers but in some classes they don’t have a current entrepreneur involved. At the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, they take students beyond the classroom, allowing them to actually test their ideas in real-world situations. Tracey Keller, an Associate Director of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship, says that students not only take courses, but participate in competitions and labs, which give them practical tools to help start, finance and manage their own businesses. At Boston University, Peter R. Russo, the Director of Entrepreneurship Programs, says that all of their professors have been entrepreneurs.

Students can become entrepreneurs through education

Students who take entrepreneurship classes don’t always have their own business. They are mainly taking these programs and classes to learn how to start one successfully. Zurbuchen of the University of Michigan estimates that only 10% of students own a company previously. William Baumol, the Academic Director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at NYU’s Stern School, says that about one third have their own business and Russo of BU, says about 10% undergrads, 20% MBA’s and an additional 20+% of students who have family operated businesses.

Justifying an entrepreneurship program

If you don’t have a business idea in mind but are interesting in eventually starting one, it might make sense to enlist in an entrepreneurship program. If you already have a business and it’s not doing well, then further education can help you improve. If your startup is extremely successful, it might be a waste. Baumol from NYU admits that many successful entrepreneurs don’t have an advanced degree but that it can help a student’s subsequent work and provide some improvements. He says “college courses are not enough to create entrepreneurship.” Zurbuchen feels that students gain more than classroom content – they learn how to work in a team and establish a network. Keller explains that a college education isn’t necessary to be successful but it can improve your chances. She views the degree as being a safety net if your business were to fail. “Should their business ideas fail, they still have their degree and an expanded network on which to build their future careers,” she says.

Recent graduate success stories

Students from entrepreneurship programs are creating their own future through their companies instead of having to apply to jobs. As a graduate of the University of Michigan entrepreneurship program, Jeff Williams started HandyLab, Inc., which develops and manufactures molecular diagnostic assays and automation platforms. He sold the company in 2009 to BD, a leading global medical tech company, for $275 million. Ashish Rangnekar graduated Chicago Booth last year with the idea to start a test prep application. He took entrepreneurship classes while working as a students, eventually starting BenchPrep and winning the 2010 New Venture Challenge. Since then, his company received funding from Lightbank and recently secured an additional $6 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associatiates with participation from Steve Case and Ted Leonisis’ Revolution Growth. Although they have already released 100 courses to an audience of approximately 250K users, BenchPrep has expressed the goal of reaching a million students with 500 courses by the end of 2012.

What kind of person clicks on ads? When I talk to ad companies, there’s a lot of discussion about how ads are supposed to be relevant, targeted based on user intent, and so on, but I’ve never entirely shaken the suspicion that the real answer is: Suckers.

That suspicion? A company called Criteo just released some research saying it’s pretty much a myth. Keep in mind that Criteo offers ad retargeting for e-commerce sites (which usually means targeting ads at people who visited a site but left without making or completing their purchase), so it’s not exactly surprising that the company would make this argument. On the other hand, the research is supposedly based on the 147 million unique browsers who saw a Criteo retargeted ad in the first seven days of March, so there’s some real data here.

Specifically, Criteo is disputing what it calls the “myths” about people who click on ads, as embodied by a 2008 comScore whitepaper called “How Online Advertising Works: Whither The Click?” Criteo argues that clickers are actually much more valuable than most folks in the industry think.

You can read the full paper embedded below, but here’s a quick summary of the myths (in bold), followed by Criteo’s refutation.

• “People who click don’t buy.” comScore’s research showed that people who click on ads are usually younger browsers earning less than $44,000 per year — “hardly an attractive target segment for most advertisers.” Criteo, however, notes that these demographics are just a proxy for more direct measurements of user value. The company says that in its study, it found that clickers buy three times more frequently than non-clickers.
• “Nobody clicks on ads anymore.” In Criteo’s research, it found that 43 percent of regular buyers on its clients’ sites click on the company’s retargeted ads. (The number is 33 percent for occasional buyers and 15 percent for non-buyers.)
• “A small number of people are responsible for a disproportionate number of clicks.” Criteo isn’t really disputing this idea, since it found that 20 percent of browsers accounted for 50 percent of clicks. However, it says this isn’t a problem, because it represents “a classic exponential distribution.” In fact, the company claims that a small number of people are similarly responsible for a disproportionate number of sales.
• “People who click a lot don’t buy a lot.” In Criteo’s data, the more people clicked, the more likelier they were to buy.

Are you convinced? Well, you might be thinking that Criteo is looking at a relatively narrow slice of the audience, so it’s hard to generalize. In fact, that’s almost Criteo’s point — it’s not saying that all clickers are valuable, but that clickers on the right kinds of ads are more valuable than you think:

“Nothing here should be taken to cast doubt on comScore’s original paper, which was based on the performance of low-CTR, branding-oriented advertising. However, the clear message is that their lessons cannot be applied to properly-executed performance display advertising.”

One of the more innovative moves in mobile commerce has been the rise of services like Square, PayPal’s Here, iZettle, Payleven, and mPowa, which are based around using a dongle to turn a smartphone into a payment processor. Now Prizm Payments, an India-based payments company, is eyeing up how to bring that concept to its home market’s 670 million+ mobile subscribers, by offering a similar service that will work not just with smartphones, but with the feature phones as well.

A limited rollout of its service, covering about 200 merchants, is expected to begin this month, with a wider-scale deployment coming down the road. The move comes at the same time that Prizm, which counts Sequoia Capital India as one of its main investors (others include Axis Bank and Silicon Valley Bank), has hit other milestones that point to a rising use of non-cash payments in the country: Prizm is on track to process $50 billion in transactions this year, up from $35 billion last year; and it now has 30,000 point of sale processing devices and 10,000 ATMs in the country.

And Prizm is also gearing up for a new round of funding that sources say could raise between $100 million and $200 million to help fund new payment innovations like mobile payments, as well as a bigger drive into e-commerce and international expansion. The Indian telecoms giant Tata Communications is among those that have been reported to be interested in making a strategic investment.

As with Square, Prizm’s dongle-based payment service would be targeted at those merchants that either currently lack the facilities to accept card-based payments already, or want added functionality to accept them on the go, such as in the case of deliveries, says Loney Antony, one of Prizm’s co-founders and managing director of the company.

Prizm has not yet spelled out many details about the service, although it’s already listed as a partner for one dongle provider in the country, mswipe. Antony says the move to offer mobile payment services is part of a bigger strategy to target mobile with other with other financial services like money transfers and bill payments — effectively a move to transform people’s phones into additional ATM terminals.

The decision to focus on feature rather than smartphones is down to the bare facts of the mobile economy in India, Antony says. Indeed, although Google has made some headway with Android in the country, people are still mainly using feature phones in India. In the first quarter of this year, smartphones only made up just over five percent of handsets sold in the country. Samsung accounted for about 40 percent of those, with Nokia at about 26 percent, according to CyberMedia Research.

“We are focused on moving away from smartphones and more on something that the majority of people can use,” Antony says of the emphasis on payment services that work with feature devices. “Any mobile payment service [in India] would have to work on a feature phone if we want it to become popular.”

India is, after China, the second-biggest mobile market in the world, and it’s growing fast, with some 6.5 million subscribers joining the ranks of mobile users in India in the month of April alone, with around 80 percent of them on prepaid services.

But approaching something like mobile payments will come in gradual steps. One of the bigger issues is that the market is still largely dominated by cash, with card payments still relatively nascent. Antony estimates that right now there are about 280 million debit cards in circulation in the country, with an additional 18 million credit cards on top of that. But with a total population of over 1 billion, “We have a long way to go,” he says.

Signs are pointing in the right direction, though. Antony says that currently the number of cards in the market is growing at a rate of 26 percent, with 50 million cards getting added last year. The fact that people are using them more for purchases, bill payments and other services is also having a knock-on effect to people getting more used to making other non-cash transactions around e-commerce. E-commerce, Antony notes, is a market that is currently generating around $10 billion in revenue annually in India and is growing at a rate of about 35 percent annually.

Outside of India, Antony says the plan is to extend its payments platform into Southeast Asia and Africa, specifically markets that have yet to see a lot of development in card-based payments and therefore don’t have any established leaders in the field yet, he says.

Editor’s note: Brad Spirrison is the Managing Editor of mobile app discovery services Appolicious, AndroidApps.com (which includes the Appolicious Android App) and AppVee. This is his third year of writing a semi-annual TechCrunch post on top mobile apps. 

Halfway into 2012, there are now more than 1.2 million mobile applications available to download to iOS and Android devices. With so many options literally at our fingertips – including dozens of worthy titles introduced to us each day – the task of compiling a mid-year “best of” list of new apps is more challenging (and enjoyable) than ever.

Out of the hundreds (if not thousands) of titles worthy of inclusion, our favorite 20 iOS and Android apps released so far in 2012 can do everything from appraise the value of a home merely by taking its picture, to supplying users with loyalty swag merely for checking-in to their favorite TV shows. We also salute a highly anticipated game sequel that somehow catapulted beyond its otherworldly hype.

A quick primer on our methodology before we get going. All apps picked were either released or significantly updated between January 1 and June 30 of this year. Titles that debuted on iOS or Android in 2012 that were previously available on another platform are eligible for inclusion. All of our selections were sourced, ranked and finalized by Appolicious Advisors and members of our community.  In all, about a dozen members of the Appolicious editorial team offered their favorites. We also surveyed the most active and influential users of Appolicious sites and applications. We did not account for the number of app downloads or overall popularity. Our qualitative assessment is based primarily on the production value, utility and creativity of baked into each cited application.

Let’s get going.

Best iOS apps

Camera Awesome (iPhone, iPod Touch: free)

While Instagram’s sale to Facebook dominated the headlines earlier this year, the best new app of 2012 so far is another photo-sharing service that actually helps you take better pictures. Created by 10-year-old photo-sharing site SmugMug, Camera Awesome is a revelation in iPhoneography and yet another reason why many of us can ditch our digital cameras. Beyond Camera Awesome’s stunning interface, there are several ways this app can “awesomize” your pictures, including automatic levelization and color adjustment. All presets and filters can be purchased in-app for $9.99 (or a la carte at 99 cents a pop). The ability to capture videos up to five seconds before you press record is also a great option. Finally, Camera Awesome makes it dead simple to share photos across your favorite social networks (Instagram included).

Pocket (Formerly Read It Later) (Universal: free, also available for Android)

Independent “read later” apps may become an endangered species this fall when Apple incorporates its Offline Reading List into Safari as part of iOS 6. Until then (and perhaps thereafter), the best bookmarking app for your buck (actually free) is Pocket. Formerly known as Read It Later, the app’s April rebrand involved more than just a name-change and price reduction. Pocket’s new features, which include the ability to seamlessly view videos and images as well as grid-based article lists, do not undermine the app’s simple and elegant interface.

Khan Academy (iPad: free)

The best thing about this app is how it doesn’t clutter or distract from the expert video tutorials that are produced by next-generation educator Salman Khan. The more than 3,200 educational videos that touch on everything from “Getting a seed round from a VC”, to  “Earth Formation” to “The Bay of Pigs Invasion” are categorized within a simple taxonomy. The YouTube-hosted videos that contain subtitles are extensively logged, allowing users to quickly and easily locate a phrase or passage that may have gone over their heads.

TouchTV (iPad: free)

From customized news provider SkyGrid comes TouchTV, which beautifully showcases video clips from broadcast and cable networks onto the iPad. TouchTV runs video clips (typically up to five minutes in length) from 16 official providers including ESPN, Bloomberg Television and Jimmy Kimmel Live. While downloading TouchTV alone is not enough to “cut the cord” from your satellite or cable provider, the app offers a glimpse of what an app-enabled television universe can look like. TouchTV joins video discovery services like Showyou and Squrl (which each received significant updates this year) as among the best iOS apps to currently watch on Apple TV.

Any.Do (iPhone, iPod Touch: free)

Our favorite Android app of 2011 in June finally made its way to iOS devices. And it was worth the wait. Any.Do, which is backed by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, is an uber-productivity app that lets you easily create and complete tasks with the swipe of a finger. The app’s voice-dictation technology reliably records tasks without a user needing to type anything. You can also share your to-do lists with friends in the hopes they might help out with whatever needs to get done.

Highlight (iPhone, iPod Touch: free)

Coming out of the South By Southwest bracket of the 2012 mid-year app tournament is this social mobile local app. Highlight alerts you when a Facebook friend or individual with similar interests is nearby, and lets you learn more about other Highlight users when they are in your vicinity. Like similar services including Sonar, Banjo and Kismet, Highlight is only effective if there is a critical mass of other users in your area. While each service has its strong points, Highlight looks to have the greatest chance of any to crossover to the mainstream.

Viggle (iPhone, iPod touch: free, also available for Android)

Receiving discount cards from the likes of Amazon, Starbucks and the Gap just for watching TV for many could be considered the American dream. Viggle makes it a reality by letting users check-in and earn loyalty points for watching their favorite programs.

The app performs reliably, while offering additional features including trivia questions, polls and curated tweets as gravy.

LinkedIn Update (Universal iOS: free)

The best thing about LinkedIn’s April iOS update is that the app is now finally compatible and optimized for the iPad. Presumably inspired by Flipboard (where it has a key presence), LinkedIn functions best as a social magazine on the iPad.

The magic of LinkedIn on the iPad is how it integrates content shared by your connections with the ability to map common relationships with the sender in ways not possible via any other app or site.

Clear (iPhone, iPod Touch: $2.99)

Clear is the to-do list for those who just want to get their stuff done and move on. While it lacks many of the features of heavy-hitter task-managers like Omnifocus and newer contemporaries like Any.Do, Clear excels in letting users quickly create categories and list the things they need to do that fall under those categories. The app’s beautifully designed interface also lets users sort these listed items by priority and quickly swipe to erase them when they’ve been completed.

HomeSnap (iPhone, iPod Touch: free)

While HomeSnap can’t do much to bring the nation’s housing market back to pre-crash levels, the app – with an assist from augmented reality – can help users determine the value of a home merely by taking its picture. In addition to financials, you can also see school information, historical data and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in a given home. HomeSnap is not 100 percent reliable, but neither is information provided by a seller or broker.

Best iOS and Android games

It’s no accident that most of the top games to come out so far in 2012 are available on both iOS and Android devices. While there are constraints involved in making sure games are compatible across myriad Android form factors and operating systems, developers realize they need to embrace the platform in order to achieve a critical mass of users.

Draw Something by OMGPOP (Universal: $2.99, also available for Android)

While the momentum for this touchscreen-based and unofficial variation of Pictionary slowed down after it was acquired by Zynga in March, there are reasons why Draw Something generated tens of millions of downloads in only its first few weeks (faster than Angry Birds, Instagram, and any other app in history). It’s really fun to play! The premise of the game is simple enough for a five-year-old to pick up. Further, Draw Something’s social integration via Facebook and email makes it easy to play the game with a friend or stranger regardless of what kind of iOS and Android device they own. Don’t own a device on either platform? No worries, you’ll soon be able to watch the upcoming Draw Something primetime game show.

JAZZ: Trump’s journey (Universal: $2.99, also available for Android)

Loosely based on the life of Louis Armstrong, JAZZ: Trump’s journey plays well as a “greatest hits” for platform games. With beautiful graphics that capture 1920’s era New Orleans, great controls, and of course a killer soundtrack, Trump’s journey has enough features and depth to appeal to established gamers while also serving as a spirited and soulful introduction to newbie players.

Angry Birds Space (iPhone and iPod Touch: $0.99, iPad: $2.99, Android smartphones: $0.99, Android tablets: $2.99)

With a launch promotion that was literally out of this world, there was a concern that Angry Birds Space wouldn’t live up to its hype, or just be a slight variation of previous versions of the game. That fear was flung into the stratosphere once we actually began playing it. With new gravity-based mechanics, awesome new birds, a darker color palate and bizarrely amusing space aesthetics, Angry Birds Space is arguably the most refreshing and enjoyable title in the franchise.

N.O.V.A 3 (Universal: $6.99, also for Android)

If you are a fan of first-person shooters, than this is the game for you. Developed by Gameloft, N.O.V.A. 3 more than any other title available on mobile devices moves and feels like a console game. N.O.V.A. 3 has you blasting aliens and enemies through a number of planets (including a war-torn Earth). The multiplayer aspect of the game will have you sharing your battle with as many as 11 other players. Each beautifully animated level takes about 30 minutes to complete, offering a lot of bang for your seven bucks.

Spellsword (Universal: $0.99)

With furious and addicting gameplay, unique mechanics, and retro graphics and music, Spellsword is a fresh new platform game contained within a sword and sorcery kind of environment. Use your single sword to strike down enemies, and launch fireballs along the way. As you proceed through the missions and maps, new spell cards will be introduced along with new enemies. The best thing about Spellsword, at least for more competitive gamers, is that it contains no in-app purchases, and all of the achievements must be earned by the player.

Best Android apps

Many of the best new releases on Android – including three of our five favorites – were originally created for iOS devices. When the best titles are finally available on multiple platforms, we all win.

Flipboard (free)

Our favorite iPhone app of 2011 finally and officially arrived to Android in June. The socially curated magazine – which beautifully presents news, photos and status updates shared by your social graph – included YouTube integration as part of its Android launch (Google+ integration arrived a few days earlier). Flipboard is also the best way to read content from third-party publishers on mobile devices, including the New York Times which on June 28 debuted its NYT Everywhere service to subscribers within the app.

Instagram (free)

Instagram’s arrival to Android was a positive development to say the least for the photo-sharing pioneer. Within one week, Instagram attracted more than 5 million downloads. A few days later, the company was acquired by Facebook for what was at the time a 10-figure valuation. The company’s immediate triumph illustrates how apps need to be available for both iOS and Android devices to emerge as a true pop-culture sensations.

Google Drive (free with subscription, also available on iOS)

In our two months of using the service, we are finding that Google Drive is a superior and more cost-effective solution for storing and sharing documents than Dropbox. For individuals and organizations that already rely on Google Docs, migrating to Google Drive is a no-brainer. The app works seamlessly across all of our Android devices.  Now that the service as of June 28 is available to download to iOS devices, there is not much else standing in the way of market domination.

Airbnb (free)

Airbnb’s arrival to Android in January, after previously being available online and via iOS devices, was more than just a copy and paste job from one platform to another. The service, a vacation-rental marketplace, for the first time made it possible for property owners and travelers to quickly instant message each other for questions or go over any issues that arise during a stay. There are more than Airbnb 200,000 listings across the world, as well as curated travel recommendations from the likes of Ashton Kutcher and Jack Dorsey.

Chrome (free on Ice Cream Sandwich devices only, also available on iOS)

If you use the Chrome desktop browser and own an Android smartphone or tablet powered by Ice Cream Sandwich, owning this app is a no-brainer. The Chrome mobile and desktop apps interact seamlessly with one another, meaning you can access your bookmarks and browsing history on the app. The app also lets you swipe between tabs without ever having to go to the tabs menu. The Chrome app also supports voice search, bookmarking and private browsing. Like Google Drive, Chrome launched on iOS devices on June 28 during Google I/O 2012.

Tmura, an Israeli non-profit, is closing on its 10-year anniversary. In a decade’s worth of work it has contributed a whopping $6.3M+ to educational programs.

The extraordinary amount isn’t the result of efficient fundraising, rather, of having been allotted small amounts of options by early-stage startups. Tmura then exercises these options when the startups see a liquidation event.

Out of a portfolio of 240 companies, 40 saw exits, the most recent of which XtremIO’s acquisition by EMC netted Tmura $450,000.

Baruch Lipner, Executive Director at Tmura, attributes the good fortune these companies have seen to a combination of karma and an improved corporate culture in participating startups. Why argue with success, right?

Over 100 educational organizations have received contributions from Tmura in its 10 years of activity. These include:

• College4All: An enrichment program focusing on students with potential to excel.
• Krembo Wings: A national youth movement for children with special needs.
• Machshava Tova: Computer centers in peripheral areas aimed at ‘narrowing the digital gap’.
• Shiur Acher: Volunteers from the hitech industry delivering lectures in schools.

Participating companies can decide themselves to which project(s) funds from their exits are allocated, or allow Tmura to do the choosing itself.

Are there similar organizations in your area that make use of startup exits for good in the community? Share with us in the comments below.

Disclosure: I’m on the Advisory Board of Tmura.

Facebook and Yahoo are calling off their heated patent lawsuit battle, and in fact have just signed a deal to cross-license their entire patent portfolios to each other without money changing hands, sources directly familiar with the deal tell me. The deal will likely be formally announced later today. Sources also confirmed that the two web giants are entering into an ad sales partnership, as first reported by Kara Swisher of AllThingsD this morning.

However, Swisher noted the companies would only cross-license “some key patents”, and Facebook might have to pay to license others from Yahoo. The patent deal is actually much larger. It encompasses their entire intellectual property stockpile such that they won’t have to pay be able to use each other’s patents, and won’t be able to sue each other over them either. Investors in both companies should rest easy.

Details on the advertising sales partnership are still scarce but sources said it will likely center around the two companies working together to secure big ad buys and spread placements across their properties. This way, if say Ford was having a massive launch for a new car, Facebook and Yahoo could help the auto-maker distribute ads across Facebook.com, Facebook’s mobile site, and all of Yahoo’s news sites, portals, and utilities for maximum impact.

Sources confirmed that a long-standing contact sharing partnership between Yahoo and Facebook will continue. It allows users that sign up for Facebook to automatically import that Yahoo Mail address book to make it easy to find and become friends with those they email with.

We’ll have more details shortly.

If you get a sudden hankering to watch Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” (who hasn’t?), and the only device handy is your iPhone, starting today there’s even less standing between you and instant gratification.

Vevo (the joint venture music video site from Sony Music, Universal Music, and Abu Dhabi Media) already has a strong mobile presence, with apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry Playbook. Previously, however if you visited the site on your mobile device, you wouldn’t have been able to watch videos — instead, it directed you to download one of the apps. Now, thanks to the launch of Vevo’s new mobile Web experience, you can watch directly form your mobile browser, no downloads required. (You can also watch a bunch of music videos, including “Call Me Maybe”, via YouTube’s mobile apps and mobile website, but with Vevo you get a music-focused experience and access to a library of 50,000 videos.)

I checked out the mobile website on both my iPhone and my iPad, and it worked fine. The browsing and searching experience are pretty straightforward, and the videos played smoothly over my home WiFi.

Beyond being a general sign of the increasing importance of the mobile web, this could be important for Vevo as more and more social sharing moves online. As the company notes in its blog post, when someone sees a link to a Vevo video on the mobile version of Facebook or Twitter, they can now tap on the link and the mobile website should start playing the video within seconds.

“Under most existing laws, if our findings were extrapolated nationally, several million teens could be prosecuted for child pornography,” explains a new study on teen sexting, which finds that a whopping 28% of teenagers text fully-nude pictures of themselves. We took a deep dive into the much reported Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine article, and found some weird insights into a 21st century trend that is quickly becoming the norm among teenagers.

1. White kids love sexting. More than any other demographic (Hispanic, African American, and Asian), white students reported sexting in the highest percentage (35%), nearly double that of Asians (19). African Americans were a somewhat distant second at 27%, followed by Hispanics (21%), and Asians.

2. “Several million” teens could be held liable for child pornography, as some states do not define inappropriate sexual behavior as only between an adult and a minor. The prevalence of sexting has put some experts in the awkward position of pressing for laxer child pornography laws, so that curious teenagers aren’t branded as pedophiles.

3. If you find sexting pics sent from your kid’s phone, there’s a strong possibility that he or she is sexually active. 77% of girls and 82% of boys who had reported sending a sext were also no longer virgins.

4. Gender stereotypes hold true with new technology: boys are bothered by being asked to sext much less than girls. Nearly all girls (~95%) were at least a “little bothered” by sexting requests and roughly 30% were bothered “a great deal.” Yet, nearly half of all boys didn’t mind “at all”, and less than 5% were bothered a great deal. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

5. The suburbs aren’t safe from the trend either: socio-economic status had virtually no effect on whether teens sexted. Parents with a high school diploma or less were only 2% more likely to have sexting teens compared to those with at least some college.

As sexting moves closer to becoming the norm, it begs the question of whether sexting will be seen as deviant to the next generation, just as out-of-wedlock sexual relations became the norm for previous generations. Until such time, sexting still poses distressing risks for teens whose pictures end up in the wrong hands, and suffer dangerous psychological damage from their cruel peers. In other words, talk to your kids about responsible use of technology.

I don’t know too many people who would look at the Galaxy Note and its 5.3 inch display and say “y’know, it would be great if this thing was just a little bigger,” and I now I know why. As it turns out, those people live in Korea, work for Samsung, and may have decided just that.

According to their usual unnamed sources, Korea’s MK Business News reports that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 will sport an even larger 5.5-inch display when its unveiled at Germany’s IFA 2012 trade show in August.

Naturally, the display isn’t all they’re said to be upgrading here. The next-gen Galaxy Note is also rumored to pack an unspecified quad-core processor (most likely an Exynos 4 Quad), and a 12 or 13 megapixel camera around the back instead of the 8 megapixel shooter as seen in the original. To top it all off, it’s said to run on Google’s newly-revealed Jelly Bean version of Android, though it’s unclear at this point how the company will be tweaking their UI to account for Jelly Bean’s new features.

So how much of a handful is thing going to be? Well, while the display has been stretched out a bit, the device itself isn’t expected to be significantly larger than the current Galaxy Note. Frankly, this seems like both a blessing and a curse — users who can comfortably wrap their mitts around the original model should do just fine, but that slightly larger display may make one-handed operation even less feasible than before.

Now I’m all for pushing limits and whatnot, but this just begs an obvious question: how big is too big? Most tablet manufacturers are loath to dip below the 7-inch barrier, and if this report holds true then Samsung is eagerly chipping away at the other side of that limit. Samsung’s success with the Galaxy Note has also prompted companies like LG to take up the super-sized phone challenge, so it’s very possible that phone screen sizes haven’t topped out just yet.

Good news, Android fans. A developer over on the forever awesome XDA Developers forums has figured out how to extract Google Now from Android Jelly Bean and port it over to devices running Ice Cream Sandwich. The process for doing so requires a slightly geeky skill set, of course. You have to have a rooted device and you’ll need to be comfortable navigating through the Android file system, for starters. But assuming that’s you, then you can be among the first to try Google Now in (nearly) all its glory.

In case you’re wondering what the big fuss is about, Google Now is only the most innovative, futuristic, and even downright creepy updates to Google’s search service ever to come. Instead of presenting a blank box where you type in text and hit enter, Google Now flips the search paradigm on its head. It alerts you to things you’ll want to know about before you search for them. Yes, really. Billed as a smart personal assistant to rival Apple’s Siri, Google Now comes pre-loaded on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean devices (the most recent version of Android, introduced at Google I/O), and proactively alerts you to things like weather changes, flight times and delays, sports scores, interesting places near you where you might like to eat, shop or visit, and more.

Google Now works best in a situation where it’s deeply embedded in the Android operating system itself, as in Jelly Bean, which may be why Google has made the decision not to release it as a native app for older versions of Android (either that, or the native build is still in progress. Fingers crossed!). But serious Android fans don’t have to wait to upgrade their OS to get most of the functionality Google Now offers.

XDA Developers forum user febycv figured out how to extract Google Now from Jelly Bean, and, by modifying the build.prop file, users can install the modified APK file.

He posted the instructions here on the original thread which detail the steps involved.

1. Open Root Explorer & navigate to /system
2. Now Open build.prop in Text Editor.
3. Edit ro.build.version.sdk = 16 & save.
4. Now go to /system/app & Rename GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk to GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk1
5. Now reboot & install the app from the download link (mirror).
6. Now edit build.prop & change ro.build.version.sdk = 15 & reboot.

There’s also a second method in another forum thread which doesn’t involve editing the build.prop file. The link for that one is found on post #142 on this page. The news made its way through the Android developer community just prior to the holiday, thanks to post on XDA itself. (But now we’re all finally sober enough to try it out.)

Depending on your device, and your general good luck, you may experience some issues with the hacked app, including an inability to use voice search and other bugs.

Regardless of which method you attempt, keep in mind that rooting your phone and making modifications like this is something you should only attempt if you understand the risks involved. If you don’t know your way around Android, you can do some serious damage.

However, if you have been searching night and day since Google I/O for a hack that lets you install and run Google Now, then you’re definitely in luck. I’m even digging out my old Android phone (the sad little one with the cracked screen) just for the hell of it in order to see how well this hack works. If you’re bold enough to give it a go, let us know how it turned out for you.

There might be a new new iPad soon. Apple is reportedly retooling the new iPad to feature a different battery and LCD backlighting scheme, resulting in a device that’s less hot and with the thickness and weight similar to the iPad 2. This new model will hit sometime before the holiday season and, since we’re already aboard the rumor express, let’s assume it will launch alongside the iPad mini, also rumored for the same time.

The word comes from Digitimes relaying several Chinese news reports. Apple is apparently looking at several different ways to reduce the device’s internal temperature. Reportedly, this upcoming model will employ an improved battery and a single LED backlight rather than the two used in the new iPad. The report’s sources indicate that this shouldn’t impact the luminosity and clarity of the iPad’s Retina display.

In addition to the slight reworking of internal components, the so-called iPad 3.5 will use Sharp’s IGZO touchscreen rather than a Samsung-sourced panel like in the current model. This matches up with the reported component lists of the heavily rumored iPad mini.

If this rumor turns out to be correct, it would mark a stark departure from Apple’s usual release cycle, which through the first three generations had a yearly release cycle. It’s entirely possible that this full-size iPad update was not planned, but rather in response to the harsh criticism to the new iPad’s excessive heat and slightly thicker design. It’s a different story for the iPad mini, though, which if it really exists, was likely in the pipeline for more than a year. Either way, you might want to leave a spot open at the top of your Santa wish list ’cause all signs point to some sort of iPad launching prior to the holidays.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire has done a remarkable job carving out its own niche in the tablet space, and it seems a sequel is already barreling down the pipeline for a release in the coming months. That new tablet may not be alone though, as rumblings of yet another Amazon hardware project have started up once again.

After conferring with their sources, Bloomberg reported late yesterday evening that Amazon is working on a new smartphone that they hope will go toe-to-toe with the iPhone and Android smartphones.

For those keeping tabs on rumors of Amazon’s potential forays into hardware, this doesn’t exactly come as a surprise — Citi analysts Mark Mahaney and Kevin Chang first pointed at the possibility of an Amazon smartphone after a series of supply chain checks with Chinese hardware manufacturers last year. What’s more, they also fingered Foxconn as one of Amazon’s conspirators in the project, a tidbit that Bloomberg’s sources confirm.

Sadly, the report is light on some of the juicier details — what OS it runs, how far along the project is, etc. — but there’s enough smoke here that it would be a surprise if there wasn’t any fire. Bloomberg’s report goes on to say that Amazon is bolstering its patent portfolio to give themselves some cover (sadly, this is a must for smartphone players), and Amazon’s acquisition of 3D mapping service UpNext suddenly makes a lot more sense.

That said, at this point Amazon’s potential smartphone play yields more questions than answers. There’s the issue of carrier support for one, something that Amazon luckily didn’t have to deal with when they launched the Kindle Fire.

Comparatively speaking, tablets are easy — slap a Wi-Fi radio in there and you’re off to the connectivity races. That approach obviously doesn’t cut it if Amazon plans on making a splash with a smartphone, and the company will need to link up with one (or more) wireless carriers in order to give their new device some legs. There’s also an argument to be made that carriers aren’t exactly fans of rocking the boat, and the prospect of selling a phone simply because it has Amazon’s name on it may not be the most comforting one to mull over.

Successful smartphones also require a hook — be it thoughtful design, a strong spec sheet, or forward-thinking features. Again, we don’t know what Amazon has planned on any of those fronts, but for their sake it had better be something good. What they almost certainly can’t do though is what they did with the Kindle Fire.

The Kindle Fire is a completely adequate device, but what really made it shine when it launched was its low price tag. Its sheen has begun to wane a bit since Google’s superior Nexus 7 was revealed at I/O, and Amazon is bound to face a similar situation if they branch out into the smartphone space.

Just being cheap isn’t good enough there — most smartphones are attached to multi-year contracts and have their price tags slashed as a result, so there’s literally no shortage of solid devices at nearly every price point. There is of course the possibility that Amazon will try something really novel like selling a super-cheap unlocked smartphone and let users choose their own GSM provider, but I suspect that’s a bit too off the beaten path for them.

Arguably, Amazon’s hook is their ecosystem. Easy access to Amazon’s vast stores of content combined with thoughtful integration of services like CloudDrive could make Amazon a real contender. Still, that won’t appeal to everyone, and it becomes a question of positioning at that point — serious workaholics and power users may want to find something different, but pitching the device as a one-stop shop to everything Amazon has to offer could be a boon for the all-important first time smartphone owner segment.

Much of the device’s potential appeal also rests on the operating system it runs on, and Android is a very likely choice considering their track record with the Kindle Fire. The question then becomes what will Amazon do to Android — the heavily tweaked fork seen on the Fire bears very little resemblance to the mobile OS that most of us know, and it’s not impossible to think that Amazon would do something similar for a new smartphone in an attempt to make it stand out among a sea of competitors.

All things considered, Amazon has a chance at successfully cracking the smartphone market, but they’ve got a long road ahead of them. Plenty of established players still have trouble crafting a formula to satisfy users, and Amazon has more than a little hubris going on if it thinks it can make a name for itself in this terribly competitive space. Then again, hubris is sometimes exactly what it takes pull something crazy off, so the rest of us will just have to wait and see what happens.

[Image via Shutterstock]