WHERE IS NOKIA NOW ON THE SCENE?

I Just read this article online now..its so pathetic that the once famous cellular giant is no where to compete with the likes of others now. Am talking about Nokia!!.Everything that apple and Google are today,Nokia wanted to become

NOKIA SAW THE FUTURE, BUT COULDN'T BUILD ITThere was once a time when my search for a new phone would start (and likely finish) with a visit to Nokia.com. The Finnish company had the widest choice, the best designs, and the most respected brand around the world, so it was pretty hard to pick a bad phone from its catalog. Try doing the same thing today, however, and you’ll find every link on the Nokia homepage pointing to Microsoft’s Mobile Devices division — the new incarnation of the Nokia most of us knew and loved. It’s a vastly different mobile world we’re living in now, but what’s most striking about it is that Nokia saw it all coming.
The best phone in the world today is dressed from head to toe in aluminum and has an outstanding camera that protrudes from its body. So did the Nokia N8 in 2010.

The iPhone that’s collecting all the plaudits and sales now is basically the fulfilment of a vision Nokia had half a decade ago: combine the best camera with the best build materials and let others try to match you. The only thing Nokia didn’t do right with that phone was its software. The N8 design was ready to go in early 2010, when it would have been among the first with 720p video recording, but repeated delays of the new Symbian version pushed its release to September. The hardware was getting kneecapped by the software, which a Nokia employee told me at the time was being developed in separate silos that wouldn’t be integrated into a single operating system until the final weeks before launch.

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APPLE’S BEATS MUSIC SERVICE MAY BE IN FOR A SHAKEUP!

There are conflicting reports about what exactly will happen with Beats Music. The $10-a-month subscription streaming music service was acquired when Apple bought Beats for $3 billion. The service could be scrapped entirely, according to TechCrunch. Or the service could continue with its name slowly phased out, according to Recode.
An Apple spokesman said that the TechCrunch report that Apple will be scrapping the Beats streaming music service is "absolutely not true."
It's more likely, as Recode points out, that the streaming service could lose the Beats Music name, perhaps taking on the much more well-known iTunes brand and becoming integrated with Apple's overall iTunes package.
"I was going to be a bit surprised if they kept it and left it unchanged," said Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson, who said he always assumed Beats Music would adopt the Apple and iTunes branding.
That there's confusion about the ultimate fate of Beats Music underscores the questions and uncertainty raised when Apple first acquired the company. Beats Music is a paid service that is somewhat similar to Apple's own iTunes Radio streaming music service (which is free and ad-based). Beats' main business is its popular line of stereo headphones.
The TechCrunch report notes that the new iPhones didn't ship with a Beats Music app pre-installed, but last week's update to Apple TV added a Beats Music app for the first time.
Beats Music is a relative newcomer to the streaming music business, having launched in January with AT&T as its main carrier partner. Beyond iTunes Radio, which launched last year, it also faces entrenched players in Spotify, Pandora, and Rhapsody.
When Apple closed its takeover of Beats in August, it also installed the head of Beats' music service -- Ian C. Rogers -- as the leader of iTunes Radio. At the time, a person familiar with the matter said the two services would pool expertise and resources but would remain separate services, at least for a short while.

Apple also eliminated about 200 of Beats' 700 full-time positions, a person familiar with the matter said in August. The cuts largely come from human resources, finance, and other positions that overlap with current Apple workers, the person said. The people in eliminated positions have time to find other jobs within Apple, and some been given support for up to a year to find other jobs.
Apple launched iTunes Radio with fanfare in September of last year as its arrival to the streaming-music scene. Streaming music, while still a small part of the bigger recorded music industry, is growing rapidly. Global revenue from subscription and streaming services increased 51 percent to top $1 billion for the first time last year.
Though iTunes Radio notched 20 million users listening in to a billion songs in its first five weeks, the service has dropped off the radar since. Its prime competitor, Pandora, didn't see much difference in its audience growth in the months after Apple rolled out iTunes Radio. Other streaming services have also made splashy entrances to divert attention away, like Amazon Prime Music in June and, of course, Beats Music in January.
The addition of Beats Music to the Apple family was an about face for a company that for years dismissed a subscription model of payment for entertainment. Beats Music provides all-you-can-eat access to a catalog of 20 million songs for about $10 a month.
Dawson said there were likely parts of iTunes and Beats Music that were redundant, and that Apple could shut down elements of Beats Music without tampering with the core of the service. Apple could make a splash at its rumored October event, he said.
"That would be a good opportunity for them," he said. "There's no reason they couldn't resurrect that old theme of iTunes launches in the fall."

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SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 4 PREORDER CUT SHORT DUE TO HIGH DEMAND,S.KOREA CARRIERS REJOICE

In South korea today,High demand for the Galaxy Note 4 in Samsung's home country has completely exhausted preorder supplies for all major carriers (SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus), and has helped reinvigorate a domestic smartphone distribution market that has been dormant of late.

For SK Telecom, Korea's biggest network carrier with 50.3 percent market share, preorder units sold out in 9 hours, while it took just three days for KT and LG Uplus to sell all of their preorder supply. All three carriers had set a limited preorder time span, from September 18 to September 25.

Samsung has also expedited the official launch dates of the Galaxy Note 4, deciding to hold a press conference on September 24 and launch on September 26. Many industry analysts have speculated that Samsung is hurrying for early entry in response to Apple's iPhone 6 and Watch, which garnered significant attention when it was unveiled earlier this month.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is the company's latest phablet. Announced earlier this month at the IFA tradeshow in Berlin, the Note 4 brings about a new metal frame design while still packing in a stylus. It comes with a 5.7-inch Quad HD display with a super-sharp resolution of 2,560x1,440-pixels and a 16-megapixel rear camera. The Korean version of the Note 4 packs an Exynos 5433 octa-core processor, unlike the global version, which comes with a quad-core Snapdragon 805.

The Galaxy Note 4 has been marked with a list price of 957,000 Korean Won or $920. This price point is actually the lowest ever for any of the Galaxy Note iterations. Last year's Galaxy Note 3 cost 1,067,000 million won or $1,025 at the time of launch.

Korea's smartphone distribution market will likely see a substantial jump in sales with the launch of the Galaxy Note 4 and iPhone 6, a sigh of relief for Korean network carriers and retailers. Phone sales had been dropping consistently for the past year, in large part because of changes in handset subsidy regulations enforced by the government.

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