SYNAPSE CIRCUIT THE GSMA AWARDS 2014

LG makes beautiful handsets. There's no doubt about it!

SYNAPSE CIRCUIT
THE GSMA AWARDS 2014
#GSMAAWARDS2014 #GSMA

Good evening, Synapse Circuit Readers! I hope all is well with you and yours!

The Mobile World Congress 2014 is proving to be the best ever! The ante is being upped and I love it! Let’s see the winners...

GSMA ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF THE 2014 GLOBAL MOBILE AWARDS
25th February 2014, Barcelona: The GSMA today announced the winners of the 19th Annual Global Mobile awards, held at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The winners were honoured in an afternoon ceremony hosted by British actor, writer, presenter and comedian James Corden.

The One certainly shook up the Android handset design world and after the reveal of the Galaxy S5 has shown Samsung emulating Apple in their more of the same ethic to design, HTC could very well cause another upset!

Corden entertained nominees and attendees with a comic introduction to the ceremony. He was joined on stage to present the awards by Jon Fredrik Baksaas, Chairman, GSMA and President and CEO, Telenor Group, Anne Bouverot, Director General, GSMA and John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd., as well as representatives from category sponsor Maxim Integrated, media partners CNBC, Fortune and Time and members of the judging panel who co-presented awards.

“Now in the 19th year, the Global Mobile Awards once again showcase the outstanding level of innovation and creative products and services being developed across a diverse and growing industry,” said John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd. “With more than 680 high calibre entries this year, the competition was stronger than ever and it is a significant achievement to have been honoured today. The GSMA would like to warmly congratulate all Global Mobile Awards winners and recognise all those who took part for continuing to drive mobile communications into the future.”

The winners of the 2014 Global Mobile Awards are:

Best Mobile Health Product or Service
Energize the Chain for Econet Wireless Vaccine Project in Zimbabwe

Best Mobile Education Product or Service
Enable Mobile Technologies for Magic Pencil

Best Mobile Product or Service for Automotive
Nuance Communications for Dragon Drive

Best NFC/Mobile Money Product or Service
Telenor Pakistan and Tameer Micro Finance Bank for Easypaisa

Best Mobile Publishing Product or Service
Wibbitz for Text-To-Video Technology

Best Mobile Innovation for ‘Smart Cities’
Accenture plc and RCS MediaGroup S.p.A. for City1Tap

Best Mobile-Enabled Consumer Electronics Device
AT&T and Filip Technologies Inc. for FiLIP

Best Enterprise Mobile Service
AirWatch for AirWatch Enterprise Mobility Management, Version 7.0

Best Consumer Mobile Service
AT&T for AT&T Digital Life

Best Advertising or Marketing on Mobile
Hindustan Unilever Ltd., Lowe and Partners for Kan Khajura Tesan

Best Network-Based Solution for Serving Customers
GMCR Inc. for Globe Prepaid GoSakto: Create Your Own Promo

Best Mobile Product, Initiative or Service in Emerging Markets
Vodafone Foundation in India, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (CBFW) for RUDI Sandesha Vyavhar (RSV) project

Best Mobile Product or Service for Women in Emerging Markets
Telenor Pakistan and Tameer Micro Finance Bank for Easypaisa

Best Use of Mobile in Emergency or Humanitarian Situations
Smart Communications for Smart’s SafePh: Yolanda Response

Best Mobile Product, Service or App for Accessibility or Ease-of-Use
Turkcell for Turkcell My Dream Partner

The Green Mobile Award
Grameenphone Ltd. for Climate Change Program

Best Entertainment App (Gaming, Music, Sports, Video)
Device 6

Judges’ Choice – Best Overall Mobile App
CityMapper

Most Innovative Mobile App
PointGrab for CamMe

Smartphone App Challenge
Akbank T.A.S. for Akbank Direkt Mobile App

Best Smartphone
HTC One 

Best Low-Cost Smartphone (sub-$150 wholesale price)
Nokia Lumia 520

Best Entry-level or Featurephone
Nokia 105

Most Innovative Device Manufacturer of the Year
LG

Best Mobile Tablet
Apple iPad Air

Best Mobile Infrastructure
Nokia Solutions and Networks with Telefónica O2 UK Limited for iSON Automation for Operations

Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough
Sensory Inc. for TrulyHandsfreeTM 3.0

Best Cloud-Based Technology for Mobile
Xively for Xively Cloud Services

Best Mobile Identity, Safeguard & Security Products/Solutions
SecureAuth IdP – 2 Factor Access Control for the Mobile Enterprise

Best Solution for Growing Smaller or Independent Networks
Reach-U for Demograft

Outstanding LTE Contribution
KT Corporation for Wideband LTE-A Commercial Service
SK Telecom for Commercial LTE-Advanced Network

Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology – The CTOs’ choice
KT Corporation for Wideband LTE-A Commercial Service
SK Telecom for Commercial LTE-Advanced Network

Previously announced were the winners of the Government Mobile Excellence Awards, the GSMA Chairman’s Award and the GSMA Lifetime Achievement Award:
Spectrum for Mobile Broadband Award
The Government of the United Arab Emirates

The Economic Policy for Sustainable Mobile Growth Award
The Government of Spain

The Connected Government Award
The Government of Lebanon

Government Leadership Award
The Government of Botswana 

GSMA Chairman’s Award
Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Qualcomm Inc.

GSMA Lifetime Achievement Award
Rob Conway, Former CEO of the GSMA (Posthumous)

The full list of winners and finalist for the 2014 Global Mobile Awards is available at: http://www.globalmobileawards.com/winners-2014

The shortlist for the ‘Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet at Mobile World Congress 2014′ will be announced between 10.15am and 10.30am (CET), Wednesday, 26th February on both Mobile World Live TV and the Global Mobile Awards website. The winner will be honoured in a live presentation on Mobile World Live TV between 9.00am and 9.15am (CET) on Thursday, 27th February.

In total more than 175 independent analysts, journalists, academics and subject matter experts throughout the world participated in the judging process, including the chief technology officers of 14 mobile operators who took part in judging the “Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology” award.

Full information on the Global Mobile Awards can be found at www.globalmobileawards.com.

What do you reckon?
I think the awards are just about right. I wouldn’t have given the HTC One the best smartphone award. Uh-uh! I would have given HTC One the best smartphone design award. I honestly think that the best smartphone award should have gone to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and / or the Galaxy Note 3. Both handsets are superlative where technology advancement is concerned. Last year Samsung won that prize for the Galaxy S3.

The best low cost smartphone should have gone to either the Motorola Moto G or the Nexus 5. Ok, the Nexus 5 isn’t quite level entry but when you consider what you’re getting for the money... WOW!

The best entry level handset should have gone to the Moto G. Perhaps it was released too late in 2013 to be considered.

Yes, I would agree that LG wholeheartedly deserve this award has they have been coming up with some great looking designs. I have to say that I do not like non-removable batteries; once you start using the handset for a Facebook and photography the battery is on its way out – let alone watching YouTube content. However, now that Android KitKat has become smaller it is more battery efficient that these non-removable batteries may not be a bad thing. That said, Samsung has done so remarkably well that the batteries can be removed in their flagship models!

The fact that Samsung hasn’t gotten any awards ties in to what I was saying about Samsung being too precious about their flapship designs; they may feel as though they do not want to rock the boat with a new design that could alienate the consumer. I hope that Samsung will make a comeback where design is concerned!

Do you think I am right?    

Take good care!

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