Do your kids want a smartphone? If you represent the majority opinion, then you’re likely telling your children they can’t have a smartphone until they can drive. A SodaHead poll of 1,066 parents shows that 66 percent of them believe kids shouldn’t have a smartphone until they turn 16 years old. More than half — 54 percent — say a regular cell phone is fine for 13- to 15-year-olds, while nearly a quarter of those polled feel even those kids 12 and under should have a basic handset.

SodaHead published an infographic with additional survey data — including trends showing that the number of cell phone calls made by kids are rising quickly — but here’s part of the data specific to both smartphones and tablets:

Interestingly, nearly the same percentage polled said the 16-and-up age group is also the right time for kids to have a tablet. Given the similar capabilities between smartphones and tablets, that shouldn’t surprise. And I suspect most parents would opt to buy their teen a Wi-Fi tablet due to the lower hardware cost and lack of ongoing data plan. That means the device is more likely to be used at home, where parents can keep a closer eye on what online activities kids are engaging in.

I’m curious to hear what our readers think of smartphones, tablets and kids. Because I’ve been reviewing mobile devices since my kids were just a few years old, my children are used to seeing a large number of cell phones, smartphones, and, more recently, tablets in the house. As a result, they’re on the younger side of the scale when it comes to using mobile technology and don’t represent the average household.

My wife and I decided that both kids would wait until the age of 10 before getting a phone. We find it helpful for them to have the ability to call us as needed, especially since one of them walks to and from school. But after seeing what I could do with a smartphone, both wanted to do the same, so neither started out with a feature phone. My stepdaughter took over my iPhone 3GS contract with a new phone number when I left iOS in early 2010, for example. My son ended up with an iPhone 4 when it debuted last year.

Both were into iOS apps, but eventually they got a pair of Android devices: the Sidekick 4G, which my son helped me review earlier this year. After a few months of using iOS applications, the kids decided that a hardware keyboard was more important to them, because they text far more than they use mobile software, hence the change. Perhaps the more interesting question then is, At what age do smartphone applications become a primary use case for kids?

Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr user criminalintent

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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has his work cut out for him Monday afternoon, as he faces investors for the first time since announcing plans to spin out and re-brand the company’s DVD service — and then quickly backtracking on those plans. Analysts and investors will be watching this earnings report closely, as it will be the first time Netflix has split out revenue and profit lines from its streaming and DVD businesses. The company will also announce subscriber numbers for the first time since changing its pricing and requiring users to pay $7.99 each for its DVD and streaming services — which meant a 60 percent price increase for those who used both.

Here’s what to watch for when Netflix reports its third-quarter earnings numbers later today:

How many subscribers left, and how many stuck around?
When Netflix first announced its price increase, there was some question about what effect it would have on the company’s fast-growing subscriber base. Prior to the announcement, Netflix had seen its subscriber base in the U.S. grow more than 60 percent year-over-year. The company expected some slowdown with the price hike, and estimated in the last earnings report that it would end the third quarter with 25 million subscribers. That was later revised downward to 24 million subscribers, with most of the difference being in the number of DVD-only subscribers who would stick around.

The domestic subscriber number is likely the first thing most people will look at when they examine the health of Netflix’s ongoing business. If subscriber additions were even slower than the company forecast, you can expect the sell-off of Netflix shares — which took the stock from over $300 down to about $115 today. Analysts will also be looking closely at guidance for the fourth quarter, which is typically a strong one for Netflix. Last year, for instance, it added 2.7 million new subscribers in that quarter.

Just how profitable is DVD-by-mail, anyway?
Ever since it first announced its streaming offering three years ago, Netflix has operated with a combined profit and loss numbers for both DVD-by-mail and streaming service. For the first time we’ll see it split those numbers out, giving a view into how profitable each part of the business is.

Since its DVD-by-mail infrastructure has long been built out and paid for, the ongoing costs associated rely mainly on shipping and fulfillment, with some money spent on content (DVD) acquisition. Meanwhile, the costs related to its streaming business are mostly around licensing content and increasing the number of titles available in its library.

When Netflix announced that it would be separating the two — and creating separate business units — it would be able to gracefully manage the death of the DVD business and use the ongoing profits from the declining operations to fund future expansion on the streaming side. Now analysts will have a sense for the health of both and be able to model future financials more appropriately.

With domestic operations lagging, how goes international?
The bulk of discussion will likely center around Netflix’s domestic operations, especially given all the recent issues at home. But Netflix is betting big on its international opportunity, with expansion into Canada and Latin America already underway and plans for the U.K. just announced. With a slowdown in the U.S. expected, it’s more important than ever that Netflix can show it is making headway in other markets.

Netflix launched in Latin America in early September, which means that operations there will have gone on for less than a month before the end of the third quarter. As a result, it’s unlikely Netflix will have any real substantial subscriber metrics to report back from the launch there. However, we’ll be listening closely for any color around how Netflix views the opportunity and initial customer demand in its new markets.

Other topics of interest
Those are the big issues we’ll be paying attention to, but in addition, it’s worth watching out for nuggets of information around some other topics:

Social, user identity and authentication. Netflix has partnered with Facebook to enable users to connect their accounts and share what they’re viewing seamlessly through Facebook’s Open Graph initiative. While it’s rolling out the service in international markets, the plan is being held up by a decades-old user privacy law in the U.S. that restricts video services from sharing viewing information. We’re curious if Netflix has an update about its plans or the state of a bill proposed to amend the law.
Metrics around viewership. Every now and then, Reed Hastings provides some new info about how viewers are using its service, how much video they’re watching and on what devices. In particular, we’d like to know how many viewing hours the average user tunes in for now vs previous years, and which devices they’re watching on.
A big increase in SAC. Over the past few years, Netflix has benefitted greatly from a virtuous cycle of customer approval and good word of mouth. As a result, its subscriber acquisition costs (SAC) have dropped tremendously over recent quarters, as the amount it spent on marketing for each new subscriber declined dramatically. But with customer approval trending downward in the wake of the Qwikster debacle, Netflix will have to try — and spend — that much more to retain customers and bring new ones on board. Just how bad this increase is will go a long way to showing how healthy its domestic business is.

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The mobile web version of Nokia Maps now looks and behaves more like a standard native application on Google Android and Apple iOS devices, thanks to HTML5: The navigation service now provides offline downloading of maps. This ability can reduce mobile broadband data charges or allow map usage in areas that have limited or no wireless data service.

Enthusiast site Android Community noted the updates on Monday by way of the HandHeld Blog. In addition to the downloadable maps, the service — found at http://m.maps.nokia.com — also adds public transit directions to supplement the existing walking and driving navigation as well as points of interest (POI) and guides to the local area.

Nokia’s mapping service is arguably one of the best software products to come from the Finland-based handset maker, and this update makes it even better. Why else would Microsoft decide to integrate Nokia Maps in the Windows Phone platform going forward? I used the web version of Nokia Maps earlier on Monday, finding it to be so full-featured that it was almost difficult to believe it to be a web application.

 LoadingNextPreviousPicture 1 of 6 nokia-maps-1-save-local

The offline mapping mode is welcome, especially when many smartphone owners pay for set amounts of wireless data. Google, too, recently introduced downloadable maps, partially for this reason. Nokia’s implementation is somewhat limiting, though, at least in my short tests. The initial geographic area I wanted to map was too large, so Nokia Maps wouldn’t save it. I had to keep zooming and cropping before saving.

The end result was a reasonable size — about 15 square blocks of Philadelphia — and I had to boost the storage limits allocated to the service to get the 19 MB area map downloaded. Nokia calls these “neighborhood maps,” so if you’re planning to visit several areas, each neighborhood will have to be downloaded separately. That differs from Google’s solution, where I was able to grab a map of 10 square miles. Once you have a local map from Nokia stored on the device, you don’t have access to the guides and POIs, but you can zoom in for greater detail, just like Google’s version.

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It’s the architects of smart phones that are really pushing the envelope for energy-efficient computing. On Wednesday, processor licensing company ARM announced it has designed an ultra-efficient processor core, the Cortex-A7, as well as an energy-efficient method of processing that jumps back and forth between two processors to minimize the energy use of the phone.

ARM says the Cortex-A7 processor is the “most energy-efficient processor the company’s ever developed,” and in the 2013/2014 time frame will be able to deliver entry-level (under $100) smartphones with the equivalent processing performance of today’s $500 smart phones. ARM says the A7 is five times more energy-efficient than its previous processor, the A8, though it is one-fifth the size of the A8.

In addition to the new green processor, ARM says it has developed a method of processing that uses the efficient A7 processor and a high-performance A15 processor on a single system on a chip, and manages the processing across the two processors in an energy-efficient method. Called “Big.LITTLE processing,” essentially, the system selects the efficient A7 processor (little) for any job that doesn’t need high performance (like background tasks), and then when the phone needs a high performance task (like mobile web use) it uses the A15 (big).

ARM says phone and chip companies like Broadcom, Compal, Freescale, HiSilicon, LG Electronics, Linaro, OK Labs, QNX, Redbend, Samsung, Sprint, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments have already shown interest in both of these technologies.

Phone architects are toiling away at efficiency gains like this as a way to create smartphones and tablets that last as long as possible between a charge. In an increasingly mobile world, consumers are doing more and more intensive tasks on their mobile devices, but also expect to be able to have their devices disconnected from an outlet for even greater periods of time.

ARM’s innovation also shows how mobile companies are focusing on future growth in low-end smartphones, particularly in developing countries. Basically, last year’s smartphone tech is getting pushed down into cheap devices for feature phone owners to easily transition to web-connected handsets.

It’s a good thing that phone designers are thinking about energy efficiency and power management in this way; the batteries themselves certainly aren’t getting better very quickly. While the progress of Moore’s Law continues to make computing smaller and faster, there’s no Moore’s Law for batteries, and battery technology has basically stayed the same over the decades (darn you chemistry!)

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Turns out Sprint isn’t the only new U.S. carrier allowed to sell the iPhone this year. On Wednesday, regional carrier C Spire (formerly known as Cellular South) announced pre-order instructions on its website to buy Apple’s latest smartphone.

What’s sad, though, is that Apple bypassed more well-known T-Mobile in favor of a carrier whose name most people would have to look up. And it’s not that the carrier hasn’t made it clear it wants the iPhone. At our GigaOM Mobilize conference several weeks ago, T-Mobile CMO and EVP Cole Brodman said T-Mobile has asked to sell the popular smartphone, but the ball was in Apple’s court.

Apple hasn’t yet responded why they went with C Spire, but if you look at C Spire and T-Mobile’s respective voice and data coverage maps on their sites, the two are either tied or C Spire has a very slight edge. So that may be one clue.

During Tuesday’s earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said Apple wants to “make the iPhone more accessible to a broader market,” so going with a smaller, regional carrier like C Spire does fit with that strategy. It’s certainly not a household name the way AT&T and Verizon are, but if Apple intends to expand the market for its smartphone — and in effect, the rest of its product line — reaching customers where they live is important.

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The iPhone 4S is due out Friday, Oct. 14, but already the early reviews are pouring in. They’re easy to sum up (people like it) but it’s also worth zooming in on some of the individual takes from the better reviews popping up around the web to get a sense of what exactly is and isn’t pleasing about Apple’s latest.

David Pogue of the New York Times  says Siri, Apple’s new voice-powered virtual assistant, is so good it has demoted the on-screen keyboard to “a glorified Plan B,” but he also reveals some interesting tidbits about how much it owes to voice recognition software company Nuance:

Apple won’t admit that it’s using a version of Dragon Dictation, the free iPhone app, but there doesn’t seem to be much doubt; it works and behaves identically. (For example, it occasionally seems to process your utterance but then types nothing at all, just as the Dragon app does.) This version is infinitely better, though, because it’s a built-in keyboard button, not a separate app.

Like Pogue and many other reviewers, Walt Mossberg of AllThingsD  focused on Siri in his appraisal. Mossberg’s reaction to Siri is generally more level-headed than Pogue’s, and in fact, early on he sums up his take on the 4S in general in very moderate tones:

Despite Siri, the iPhone 4S isn’t a dramatic game-changer like some previous iPhones. Some new features are catch-ups to competitors. I sense Apple chose to focus more on software and cloud service than on hardware. But, in my tests, the iPhone 4S performed very well. It’s a better iPhone for the same $199 entry price, at a time when some competitors are pricing their flagship smartphones starting at $299.

Macworld editor Jason Snell dives headlong into the issue of cellular signal attenuation, which was a problem with the iPhone 4′s design. He talks about the extensive media storm that surrounded, and then notes that Apple seems to have paid attention:

In all my tests, the old iPhone 4 “death grip” had no impact on the speed of cellular downloads on the iPhone 4S, nor did a reverse grip at the top of the phone. Only when I took both hands and performed a “death grip” that covered the entire phone (or at least touched all four corners of the phone simultaneously) did I see any signal attenuation.

Joshua Topolsky of This is My Next looks at the classic body design of the iPhone 4S (which is the same as the iPhone 4, unless you look very, very closely) and finds nothing wanting about it:

That said, the iPhone 4 design does stand the test of time (or 16 months in this case). Compared with most (if not all) of its Android  competition, this industrial design looms tall. Though enthusiasts might be bored of seeing the same hardware for more than a year, this still feels like the phone to beat in the looks department. The glass back — while incredibly prone to shattering on impact — feels as sleek and sexy as ever. The metal antenna and solid, machined buttons feel high-end, expensive even. If this were a car, it would be a Mercedes.

TechCrunch‘s MG Siegler notes that despite some disappointed reactions from onlookers, this is definitely “the best iPhone yet,” and starts off his review with a focus on the things that make that true. His first subject of praise is the new dual-core A5 processor:

Apps that used to take a longer time to perform a task — applying a filter in Camera+, for example — now work much faster. More generally, every app seems to load quite a bit faster. The best way to see this is to load the Settings app that is built into iOS. On the iPhone 4, it can take up to 3 seconds to load. On the iPhone 4S, it loads in less than a second. And the 4S is faster at switching between apps when multi-tasking.

Finally, Vincent Nguyen at SlashGear expresses some shutterbug love for the new iPhone 4S’s improved 8-megapixel rear camera. Discussing the improved sensor, as well as the refined aperture and new infrared filter, he says:

Does it all work? You bet it does. There are two noticeable improvements – quality and speed – and the best thing is that they’re clearly evident from the start. Sharpness and detail are significantly boosted in the iPhone 4S when compared to what the iPhone 4 can achieve; there’s less noise and less color bleed evident. Aberrations such as fringing around the edges of the frame are cut right back, a benefit of that five-lens array.

So is the iPhone 4S a hit? Judging by the tone of these reviews, I’d say it definitely is. Almost all start out talking about the unrealistic expectations that observers had for the iPhone 5 ahead of launch, and then go on to explain why those expectations don’t matter, and why Apple has managed to hit one out of the park yet again. Bottom line: No matter which phone you’re upgrading from, you’re sure to find something that makes you feel good about the decision.

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The press may have been disappointed in the iPhone 4S that Apple announced last week. But it doesn’t seem the same can be said for early buyers, who first crashed preorder servers then overwhelmed AT&T, Verizon and Sprint with orders. Now Apple has announced that it’s officially the fastest-selling iPhone ever, with more than 1 million preorder sales recorded in the first day it was available.

That puts this iPhone ahead of the pace that was a record last year, when the iPhone 4 sold 600,000 units total in the first day of preordering through all carriers combined.

“We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S,” said Apple SVP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller in a press release on Monday. “The first day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched and we are thrilled that customers love iPhone 4S as much as we do.”

Schiller’s note confirms a good sales start for the iPhone 4S, something AT&T first hinted at when it reported selling 200,000 iPhone 4S units in the first 12 hours that it began taking preorders on Friday. Verizon is currently showing at least a one-week delivery delay on all models of iPhone 4S, suggesting that its preorder stock has already been accounted for. Sprint has already run through its preorder stock of $199 16 GB iPhone 4S units. Its website does show that 32 GB and 64 GB versions of the phone remain in stock.

Think back to about a week ago. While several analysts, along with members of the press, freaked out that the 4S announcement was “underwhelming” and/or that Apple was “slipping,” it’s pretty clear the people who are buying the phone aren’t taking that into account. So it’s not called an iPhone 5? That doesn’t seem to matter that much.

And keep in mind, this is only accounting for preorders in the handful of countries that will deliver the iPhone 4S on Oct. 14. There are dozens of other countries still to come. As UBS analayst Maynard Um says, this could be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to potential massive sales of the iPhone 4S:

We believe these data points should ease concern over 4S demand and expect further major carrier launch expansion beyond this year to be catalysts. We continue to view our estimates as conservative, particularly as the preorder data does not include any iPhone 4 and 3GS demand, which we believe are also strong.

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It looked like an ordinary Friday afternoon for Chris Huhne, Britain’s secretary of state for energy and a member of the British coalition government. The day was ending. Things were wrapping up for the weekend. And then it all went haywire.

A mysterious message appeared on his Twitter stream: “From someone else fine,” it said. “But I do not want my fingerprints on the story C.”

It was rapidly deleted, but by then, of course, it was too late. Some of his 7,500 followers — some of them reporters — had picked up the message and began questioning it.

Was it genuine? Almost certainly: The message, obviously sent by mistake, apparently came in by text. But what was the story he was referring to? Was it a leak? Was it an attempt to undermine a rival… or even an ally? In these fractious political times, the mere hint of conspiracy was enough to send the political machine into overdrive, while Huhne himself appears to have gone silent.

This mini scandal will probably blow over, but the idea of a public figure being skewered by private messages let loose is far from new. Technology can accelerate leaks and slips; just ask Anthony Weiner, whose groin probably has spent as much time on the air as the man himself, or British prime minister Gordon Brown, who called a supporter “bigoted” without realizing his microphone was still on.

But these leaks have always happened whenever somebody fails to control their message or the people around them. Just look at the famous Zimmerman telegram, which hastened America’s entry into the First World War.

Some argue that these slips — in the long run — are no bad thing, since everything should happen in public. In a way, the “frictionless sharing” Facebook has championed is a euphemism for precisely that. And it’s an idea that media critic Jeff Jarvis argues forcefully in favor of in his book Public Parts.

But here’s the problem with slips like Huhne’s: They aren’t failures of control; they are failures of technology.

Regardless of the content of his message, the real issue is that Twitter’s architecture makes it incredibly easy to make the same mistake. There can’t be many of us who have never sent a direct message to our public accounts by mistake. Twitter has made changes to the system over the years, but day after day, people are still making this mistake.

Will Twitter ever fix this? Can it?

I don’t know, but I fear if they don’t, the service risks losing people who worry about these kind of mistakes happening. Whatever you think about Twitter’s value to the public sphere, it’s been refreshing for many people to be able to contact their representatives directly this way. But every slip-up makes it a little harder for conservative politicians and public figures to make the decision to sign up.

Can you blame them? I doubt any of us would press send so hastily if there were a button labelled “IMPLODE CAREER”.

But it would be a shame to lose out simply because politicians and public figures get too worried about pressing the wrong button. So please, Twitter, do something. You may regret it otherwise.

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