UPDATED 08:01 EDT / SEPTEMBER 11 2012

Nokia Conducts Ethics Review Over Questionable Ad

Today’s mobile news roundup features: Nokia’s plans to conduct ethics review; Google Drive for iOS updated; AT&T to launch $50 LG smartphone; and teens more interested in smartphones than feature phones (duh).

Nokia to conduct ethics review

Last week, Nokia unveiled two new smartphones, but the spotlight was on the new Nokia Lumia 920 PureView, boasting quality videos and photos because of the Optical Image Stabilization technology.  But just hours after the launch, eagle-eyed bloggers spotted that the video which Nokia used in their presentation was actually taken using a professional video camera, and not the Lumia 920 PureView.

Nokia was quick to confess and apologize for what happened, stating that they should have put a disclaimer at the end of the video.  The message they wanted to convey with the video is that if the OIS feature is used, Lumia 920 users would get the similar quality of photos and videos, they never stated that they used the smartphone to take the videos and photos.

The problem here is, if Nokia hadn’t been caught, would they have come clean?  And isn’t this an unethical trick?  That’s the question being raised by the public court, so Nokia is conducting an ethics review to understand what happened.

“What we understand to date is that it was nobody’s intention to mislead, but there was poor judgment in the decision not to use a disclaimer,” Susan Sheehan, a Nokia spokeswoman said, declining to name the company that produced the video. Nokia is dealing with the situation “quickly, fairly and privately,” she said.

Google Drive for iOS gets an update

Google updated the Google Drive for iOS and Android devices.  The consumer cloud service for iOS now features editing and collaboration tools, which are already present in the Android version of the app.  The iOS update now allows users to create new Google documents, edit them, and format text in Google docs.  iOS users will also be notified of other people’s edits of Google Docs in real-time, which has been available in Google Drive for PC users from the start.

Also, users can now create folders, move files, upload media like photos and videos to Google Drive from their devices.  And it now features Google’s presentation software so iOS devices can now view presentations on their smartphones and tablets, plus look at speaker notes, switch to full-screen mode, and swipe between slides, Sabharwal wrote.

As for the Android update, the Google Drive app can “now add comments, reply to existing comments, and view tables in your Google documents,” said the announcement.  The updated Google Drive for iOS can be downloaded here, and the Android version here.

AT&T’s $50 LG smartphone

AT&T plans to introduce the LG Escape on September 16 for only $50 with a two-year contract.  The LG Escape features a 4.3-inch qHD IPS display, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, NFC and LTE connectivity, 4GB onboard memory that can be upgraded to upto 32GB via microSD and a 2,150mAh battery.

“The LG Escape is perfect for consumers on a budget looking to transition into a powerful smartphone and pairs well with AT&T’s recently announced shared data plans creating a great combination of low- cost hardware and service for data-minded families,” AT&T said in their official announcement.

Teens opt for a smartphone than feature phone

According to a new study by Nielsen, young adults aged between 25-34 own smartphones more than any other age group, but teens aged 13 to 17 are more likely to grab a smartphone than a feature phone.

“Interestingly, teenagers between 13 and 17 years old demonstrated the most dramatic increases in smartphone adoption, with the majority of American teens (58%) owning a smartphone,” the Nielsen study stated, “compared to roughly a third (36%) of teens saying they owned a smartphone just a year ago.”


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