featuritis

Smartphones may be hot in the U.S. and U.K, but feature phones dominate in such countries as India and Russia, according to the folks at Nielsen.

Released today, Nielsen's "2013 Mobile Consumer Report" found that smartphone owners make up the majority of mobile phone users in nations such as the U.S., the U.K., South Korea, and China.

But in other countries, the networks required to support smartphones are still limited to large urban areas. As a result, the standard feature phone remains the top choice in regions such as India, Brazil, and Russia. … Read more

Smartphones are hitting the mainstream market. And that means old and young want a piece of the action. But at more than $1,000 per year for service, a smartphone may not be the best choice for every consumer.

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I help a reader decide if he should get his parents smartphones or if he should spare them the hefty monthly service fees and get them new basic feature phones. I also help another reader decide if there is a less-expensive alternative to Verizon that will allow him to keep his unlimited data plan.

Twitter has been pushing into the international market by making its service available on feature phones, according to Bloomberg.

The move comes as users in the U.S. are topping off and the microblogging service has to expand its boundaries in search of new members.

One of the ways Twitter is gaining new users is by partnering with wireless carriers in different countries that let people tweet on feature phones for free or for the cost of a text message. For example, the social network is now working with Turkish carrier Turkcell, according to Bloomberg. The partnership lets users tweet … Read more

The smartphone industry will ship more than 1 billion units before the year is over, according to a preview of a Deloitte report due out next week.

And that number could actually come closer to 2 billion, at least based on Deloitte's definition of a smartphone. Most analysts and industry watchers consider a smartphone a device that runs a specific operating system, such as iOS or Android. But Deloitte has expanded that definition to consider phones "smart" if they have touch screens, use full keyboards, and run apps, regardless of what OS they run internally.

"In … Read more

You know how most movies appear letterboxed on your iPad? Those black bars are kind of a waste of space.

So what if you slid the movie upward and filled the empty bottom area with, you know, stuff? Things like actors' filmographies, still images and art from the movie, little bits of trivia, sharing and social-media options, and so on?

That's the idea behind Men in Black 3: Movie Touch, a free iPad app designed to enhance the experience of watching -- wait for it -- "Men in Black 3."

Although the app is free, it limits … Read more

Apple's latest iTunes brings plenty of new features, but also puts some golden oldies out to pasture.

The software, which went out yesterday as a free update, comes with a redesigned player and a more extensive album view for browsing music. Apple's also more deeply integrated iCloud and its stores within the software.

But some of that march towards simplicity has come at the expense of some old features. Few of the deep-sixed features seem like logical deletions, and others are already bringing ire from longtime users who expected to see them on the other side of the … Read more

For some people, smartphones and their always-on Internet connections and apps is a waste of money.

If you don't need apps or games and you can live without fast, robust access to the Net from your cell phone, then a smartphone might be expensive overkill. All four of the major U.S. wireless carriers still offer basic feature phones, which don't require expensive data plans. In this Ask Maggie, I offer some advice to a reader who is looking for one of these phones.

I also offer some advice regarding the new all-in-one desktop computers.

Going retro with … Read more

Apple is once again rumored to be looking into carbon fiber as a material for use in a future product. Citing a source within a Japanese company that produces carbon fiber, Japanese Apple blog Macotakara today says Apple has ordered up "large" samples of the product.

The outlet didn't into specifics about where that carbon fiber might be headed, short of noting that Apple has filed for patents that make mention of carbon fiber, and is on the lookout for a senior engineer to work on carbon in Japan.

Rumors about Apple and carbon fiber have been … Read more

Apple quietly updated software for its second- and third-generation Apple TV set-top boxes today to make it work with iOS 6 features.

The new version of the software, dubbed iOS 5.1 (though not the same 5.1 iPhone, iPod, and iPad users got earlier this year), adds things like shared Photo Streams, search, and showtimes for local theaters through the trailers app, and a way to reorder the icons on the home screen (something that leaked out a few months ago in a developer build).

However chief among the items of interest is a way to switch iTunes accounts, … Read more