Smartphones

Thorsten Heins: Not the right CEO for RIM

The troubled phone maker's new CEO has had a very bad introduction. Here's why he may not be right for RIM right now.

By Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE -- If only they hadn't released that video.

The good news, the part that investors had been clamoring for, came first. Mike Lazaridis, who co-founded Research-in-Motion (RIMM) in 1984, and Jim Balsillie, who joined the company in 1992, were stepping down as co-CEOs and co-chairmen of MORE

Personal tech gets down to business

After seeing executives jury-rig consumer gadgets and software for work, companies like Google and Apple are suiting up for success in the office.

By Richard Nieva, contributor

FORTUNE -- In recent years employees have been bringing their personal smartphones and tablets to work and tricking out their gadgets (sometimes without the tech department's okay) with productivity-enhancing apps and software. Now, instead of standing by as savvy individuals co-opt their technology for the MORE

Android sells the smartphones; Apple makes the money

Three graphs from Oppenheimer's 2012 Handset Guidebook

In the following bar graphs, lifted from a report issued Sunday to Oppenheimer clients by Ittai Kidron and George Iwanyc, may tell you all you need to know about where the smartphone market is headed.

Keep your eye on the magenta bars representing Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and the light blue bars representing Samsung, the leading vendor of Google (GOOG) Android phones. See who is gaining MORE

BlackBerry's business problem

Slow browsing, few apps, and an embarrassing service outage. Can BlackBerry recover from its biggest crisis yet?

FORTUNE -- Addictions are tough to break, yet Research in Motion seems to be doing whatever it can to help users cast aside their CrackBerrys once and for all. Consider just a few of the reasons the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry smartphone is ailing: an international outage in mid-October; the Playbook tablet, a MORE

Siri does stand-up

Memorable quotations from the new  iPhone's intelligent assistant

I was worried before the launch of the iPhone 4S -- with its built-in "intelligent assistant"  named Siri -- that Apple (AAPL) might be in for another round of "Egg freckles" moments.

Siri has certainly had her share of those in the Elmer-DeWitt household. But what early iPhone 4S adopters seem more taken with are the canned phrases with which Siri parries personal, ridiculous or MORE

BYOD - Bring your own device to work

Employees who choose their own gadgets are a headache for tech support. But new software is here to help.

FORTUNE -- Life was a whole lot simpler for IT departments back when BlackBerrys ruled the workplace. Today's offices are populated with iPhones, Android-powered gadgets, and a slew of tablets -- and a growing number of companies and institutions even encourage employees to "BYOD" (bring your own device -- i.e., buy whatever MORE

HP's PCs: The handwriting was in Léo Apotheker's resumé

The board sealed the fate of HP's personal systems group when it hired the CEO of SAP

What the hell happened to Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) last week?

The simplest explanation is the one suggested Thursday by Techcrunch's MG Siegler and picked up Sunday by Daring Fireball's John Gruber: HP's board put an enterprise software guy in charge of a low-margin PC business and a high-risk play to outflank Apple (AAPL) in smartphones and tablets. When MORE

Put on your 5-D glasses!

Visualize four years of mobile phone warfare through Asymco's snake-like bubble charts

Horace Dediu, who has been pushing the envelope of data visualization for more than two years, has outdone himself with the interactive chart he posted on his Asymco.com blog Sunday afternoon.

Most conventional graphs display data over just two axes, X and Y. If you want to see how the data in those dimensions change over time, you end up having to draw a MORE

Rumor: Low-cost 'iCloud iPhone' to accompany iPhone 5

Using iPhone 4 parts and less memory, Apple might bring the subsidized cost to $0.00

There's been much speculation over the past year about the possibility of Apple (AAPL) shipping a lower-cost phone to compete in markets where the top-of-the-line iPhones have proved too expensive.

Writing in Apple'N'Apps Thursday, Trevor Sheridan -- a writer whose track record we can't vouch for -- offers what nonetheless seems like a plausible scenario.

Citing three unnamed MORE

Nokia patent settlement a 'sweet defeat' for Apple

Having overpowered the iPhone's design patents, Nokia likely now to go after Android

The settlement of its epic 20-month patent dispute with Apple (AAPL) that Nokia (NOK) announced early Tuesday could spell trouble for the makers of Android phones.

There's no question Apple lost the legal battle that pitted its significant intellectual property holdings against Nokia's even deeper patent portfolio. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but they require MORE