Texting becomes more popular than talking in Britain, average Briton sends 50 texts a month

We’ve heard a couple of times in one form or another for the United States and now it’s growing into Europe - we’re calling less, and exchanging direct communication for texts and social networking. At least that’s the conclusion at which British communications regulator Ofcom arrived at in its annual report after surveying UK citizens. 

The youngest crowd including people from 16 to 24 leads the way and is the first switching to more text and social networking interaction. What’s really interesting though is that the average Briton sends 50 texts each week, or more than 7 text messages per day. 

Also, tablet adoption has really picked up recently and from 2% last year, now 11% to 12% of people in the UK own a tablet. That’s probably even faster than the smartphone adoption. In the UK, two out of five adults own a smartphones and a record 49% of people are now on contracts. For the first time, more than a half of all phone calls were made on a mobile phone as opposed to a stationary one. 

Britons spends an average hour and a half in social networks each week, The whole Ofcom report is full of interesting facts, so you can check it all out at the source below. 

source: Ofcom via BBC

Samsung Galaxy S II sales reach 28M, Galaxy Note scores 7M

The Galaxy series has been a huge hit for Samsung - the Koreans recently announced that the line of Android smartphones has surpassed 50 million sales globally. What's even more impressive, the bulk of that is from the flagship devices.

The first one, the Samsung Galaxy S scored over 24 million sales in two years. Its successor, the Galaxy S II sold much faster - it reached 28 million sales in just 13 months, which made it the fastest selling device for Samsung. That's 8 million more unit sales since late February this year.

The half-smartphone, half-tablet Samsung Galaxy Note did very well for itself too - since it went on sale in October last year, 7 million Notes have been sold. That number was 5 million in late March.

Other Galaxy droids didn’t make the statistics, which is a shame - we're really curious about how well entry-level phones like the Galaxy Ace and Galaxy Y sold. Also, we'll keep an eye on the Galaxy S III sales - it got 9 million pre-orders so we assume it's going to break quite a few of the company's records itself.

Source

Here’s what the color of your smartphone says about you

Cyan, fuchsia, yellow... we’re not talking about fashion here, unless it’s smartphone fashion. In a greyish universe of mobile devices, Nokia is bringing a splash of color as one of the biggest differentiators for its Lumia Windows Phone series, but interestingly enough the color of your smartphone actually reveals more about your personality than you might think. Well, at least if we take the conveniently overgeneralized perception of color below.

With that healthy sense of doubt, here’s what the smartphone colors actually say about you as a personality.

Cyan is for the thinker as the color itself is very balanced, so it’s likely that happy people would pick a cyan device.

“However, it has all sorts of properties because it’s such an interesting combination of colors. It communicates that you know what you’re doing and that you’ve thought things through. The color red acts on the physical, but blue acts on the intellectual and it helps you to focus your thoughts and clear your mind,” according to the head of London-based Color Affects company.

White on the other hand is for the sophisticated person, one with high standards.

“White is all colors totally reflected, so if you’re wearing white clothes you’re actually creating a quite powerful barrier. It’s sort of ‘touch me not’, but in the case of smartphone it’s manifests itself as: ‘don’t touch this, it’s mine!’,” now Nokia informs us.

Fuchsia (yes, that’s a color too) characterizes the “angry lady,” is the color of “militant feminism.” Talk about your phone as a gateway for people to assess you!

And finally black is the color of the protector as it itself has all colors contained in it. It’s a safe choice. Others say it underlines more the hardware sophistication of a phone.

What color is your phone and do you agree with the message the experts above say it brings?

source: Nokia Conversations

Purported design schematics for the iPhone 5 confirm an opening for a 4" display

Purported design schematics for the next iPhone have emerged, confirming what the leaked parts yesterday showed, namely an opening for a display that is roughly 4" in size.

Back-of-the-napkin calculations from the engineering blueprint return about 7mm taller and slightly wider front panel part than what we have now, which is not much at all, and certainly preferable than increasing the width too much and messing up with one-handed operation.

CEO Tim Cook said yesterday they will double-down on secrecy about Apple's upcoming products, which might have something to do with the current leaks, or it could just be an elaborate decoy and Apple unveils something totally out of whack - these schematics look rather legit, though.

source: MacRumors

Screen shots of Apple's new 3D Maps app leak

It appears to be an Apple-heavy news day today. After the leaking of new iPhone parts from several sources, BGR has also obtained screenshots of Apple’s 3D maps app, which is expected to debut in iOS 6 (and will presumably be announced at WWDC during the June 11th keynote address). 

We’ve been reporting on Apple’s interest in creating their own mapping solution for a while now – with the success of Google’s Android operating system Apple became concerned about how much they relied on Google’s iOS apps for supplying basic features. Apple has always made the front end of the Maps app, but up to now they’ve relied on the Google Maps backend for the data.
 
While Apple started the project as a way to become self-sufficient, the competition for offering location-based deals has been heating up, with Google and others moving to leverage their platforms to take on GroupOn and other deals-based websites. That’s lucky timing for Apple, who will now control all of the location-based data that is collected.

Unfortunately the images captured by BGR’s “trusted source” were made in a hurry and aren’t the most beautiful things to look at, so BGR created a mockup of what to expect based on them. It appears that the app has moved from the blue theme seen in the current Maps app to the silver theme seen in the iPad, leading to the speculation that iOS6 may shift the UI towards the iPad’s aesthetic.

Also, you can see a little arrow key in the lower left corner – that button lets the user pop into or out of the 3D navigation mode. According to the source Apple is currently field testing the app now. Check out the mock up and blurry-cam snapshots below.