The city of Berkeley, California, said CTIA cited outdated authority to argue the FCC doesn’t require providers to warn about the possible danger of RF exposure. CTIA is challenging in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the city’s cellphone warning ordinance for RF emissions. From 2001 to 2014, the FCC only encouraged RF exposure disclosures, but after 2014, it became a requirement, the city said Thursday in a surreply (in Pacer). "After a period of voluntary disclosure, the FCC now requires cell phone manufacturers to include in their manuals the same kind of information Berkeley would require retailers provide at the point of sale." CTIA acknowledged the requirement in the 9th Circuit and other courts, Berkeley said. Regardless, CTIA shouldn’t be able to make the argument because court precedent says parties can’t raise new arguments in reply briefs and courts can’t consider new arguments on appeal, Berkeley said. The court struck the city’s earlier attempt to strike the CTIA argument from the record (see 1608120062). CTIA didn’t comment Friday.

LG released additional details Wednesday about advanced audio capabilities in its upcoming V20 smartphone. The V20 will come with a “special” pair of B&O Play earphones from Bang & Olufsen and wallpapers displaying the B&O Play logo, it said. Earlier this month, LG said the V20 will be the first smartphone on the market with the Android Nougat operating system out of the box and the first with the ESS 32-bit hi-fi Quad D/A converter (see 1608110041). The Quad DAC up-samples music that’s saved on the phone or streamed -- along with video soundtracks -- for playback through “compatible wired headphones,” said LG then. It wasn’t clear whether the B&O headphones are the compatible headphones described, and LG didn’t immediately respond to questions. LG is working with B&O Play engineers to bring “natural and balanced sound” to a portable device, B&O said in a Wednesday announcement.

Analysis of the latest global smartphone sales trends spurred GfK to upgrade its forecast for the year, the research firm said in a Friday report. GfK now thinks 2016 smartphone sales will approach $426 billion in value, which would be a 5 percent increase from 2015, the company said. GfK’s previous forecast was for 2016 sales to approach $401 billion. The company cited strong Q2 sales of mid-range to high-end smartphones and a reversal of the “previous trend” in which low-end handsets priced on average below $100 had been gaining significant global share. But the North American smartphone market keeps trending downward, GfK said. It estimates Q2 smartphone demand there totaled 42 million units, down 5 percent sequentially from Q1 and 6 percent lower than shipments in Q2 of 2015. “Previous drivers of demand” in North America, such as the migration from 3G to 4G, “are having less of an impact now that the high growth phase is over, the company said. North America “will need to wait” until Q4 for “the next incremental driver of growth” to take hold, it said. “It is in the last quarter of the year that major product launches are expected to have a higher impact, compared to 2015. Consumers that have been waiting for big launches will be ready to invest in upgrades.”

Global sales of smartphones to end users jumped 4.3 percent in Q2 to 344.4 million units, from 330.3 million in Q2 a year earlier, Gartner said in a Thursday report. Demand for premium smartphones slowed in Q2 “as consumers wait for new hardware launches in the second half of the year," said the research firm. All “mature markets” except Japan had declining demand for smartphones, but all “emerging regions” except Latin America had growth, the company said. Q2 was an especially poor quarter for Apple, whose iPhone sales declined 7.7 percent globally, including a 26 percent decrease in China and mature Asia Pacific regions, it said. Market leader Samsung increased its Q2 share to 22.3 percent from 21.8 percent in Q2 a year earlier, while Apple’s share fell to 12.9 percent from 14.6 percent, Gartner said. For operating systems, Android increased its share to 86.2 percent from 82.2 percent, and the share of iOS devices fell to 12.9 percent from 14.6 percent, it said. Windows devices were the big Q2 losers, as their share plummeted to 0.6 percent from 2.5 percent, it said.

Apple’s smartphone share in China plummeted 32 percent year over year in Q2 to 8.6 million units, said an IDC report, while the top three vendors -- Huawei, Oppo and vivo – had gains of 15, 124 and 75 percent. The top three totaled 47 percent of the domestic market in Q2, compared with 43 percent in Q2 2015 and 45 percent Q2 2016 on “aggressive marketing” and brand-building efforts, said IDC. “The iPhone SE was not a hit in China, where consumers prefer larger screen-sized phones,” said IDC analyst Xiaohan Tay. Nearly 90 percent of phones shipped in China in Q2 had screen sizes 5 inches and above, Tay said. Apple fans are holding out for the next wave of larger iPhones in Q3 “which could likely give Apple a boost in China,” she said. Oppo and vivo thrived on the strength of their offline channels, where their shops and advertisements cover most of the third-to-fifth-tier cities, providing a convenient option for consumers to visit stores for after-sale service, said Tay. In the first- and second-tier cities, smartphone vendors continued to focus on sponsorships of key entertainment events to win consumers over, Tay said. Oppo and Huawei took different marketing routes in Q2, with Oppo promoting its camera selfie features and fast-charge technology with the tagline, “Charge for 5 minutes to be able to talk on the phone for 2 hours,” she said. Huawei focused on the P9, one of the top-selling products in the quarter, promoting its thinness and the quality of the camera’s Leica lens, IDC said. Oppo went the celebrity route, hiring brand ambassadors to launch its R9 series. “After vendors witnessed Oppo’s success with its R9, they also started riding on the trend of hiring celebrity endorsers to represent their brand and appeal more to the young crowd,” said Tay.

Kyocera added to its military-grade smartphone line a 4G model with a wide-view 13-megapixel 1080p action camera. The DuraForce Pro is targeted to business users and consumers, said a Kyocera news release. The phone is dust- and shockproof, and the camera can operate underwater up to 2 meters for 30 minutes, said the company. Additional features are a Qualcomm Snapdragon octa-core processor, 5-inch display and push-to-talk functionality. Connectivity for the Android phone includes Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.2, near-field communications, Miracast and USB 2.0, and the phone can be a mobile Wi-Fi hot spot for up to 10 devices, Kyocera said. AT&T will sell the phone but pricing hasn’t been announced.

As rumors swirl about the next-release iPhone ushering in the age of the headphone jack-free smartphone, LG doubled-down on sound quality in its latest phone due for release Sept. 6. The LG V20, the first smartphone to hit market with Android’s Nougat operating system out of the box, also will be first with the ESS 32-bit hi-fi Quad DAC (digital-to-analog converter), said an LG announcement Thursday. The Quad DAC up-samples music that’s saved on the phone or streamed -- along with video soundtracks -- for playback through “compatible wired headphones,” said LG. The DAC, an upgraded version of the 32-bit hi-fi DAC used in LG’s V10 smartphone, can reduce ambient noise levels by up to 50 percent, said LG. Higher quality audio is “the natural evolution of the smartphone, as the industry moves toward a more holistic multimedia consumption experience,” said Juno Cho, president of LG Electronics and Mobile Communications.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., hailed the FCC’s move Thursday to adopt rules to make wireless handsets hearing-aid compatible within eight years (see 1608040046). The agency “moved” to “advance availability of hearing-aid compatible cell phones, boosting accessibility for vets and all w/ hearing loss,” Blumenthal, a member of the Commerce Committee and ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, tweeted Friday.

Sprint is putting new emphasis on pursuing business customers and hired a former executive from Vodafone to do so, it said Friday. Jan Geldmacher, who formerly led Vodafone Global Enterprise, is joining Sprint as president-enterprise, reporting directly to CEO Marcelo Claure. “Sprint’s network, now performing at its highest levels, is prepared to serve national business clients with many lines, devices and mobility issues,” Sprint said in a news release. “Under Geldmacher’s leadership, Sprint will begin aggressively targeting and serving enterprise companies of all sizes.”

A National Advertising Review Board (NARB) panel recommended that T-Mobile better disclose to consumers the terms of the company’s “Ditch and Switch” campaign. The panel said the language that T-Mobile uses in the ad on how a consumer would be reimbursed “was not sufficiently conspicuous and did not adequately explain how the reimbursement program worked,” said an NARB news release. AT&T had complained, NARB said. “A majority of the panel determined that, to properly qualify these claims and avoid an erroneous message, it is necessary to clearly and conspicuously disclose in the body of the advertisement that the ‘pay off’ comes as a trade-in credit and prepaid card." NARB said in a response that T-Mobile said it would "take the panel’s ‘recommendations into account in formulating its future advertising.’” T-Mobile didn't have further comment.