rebound off a pretty rough year in which it
found itself overshadowed by its rivals.
Its U.S. presence has become more
common at the low end of the Android
market and at prepaid carriers as the
high-end market has been dominated
by the likes of Samsung and Motorola.
LG is hoping to improve its fortunes,
starting with the Viper, a $99 LTE
phone for Sprint. Among the markets
LG hopes to target is busy parents.
"This is really easy to use and still has a
ton of features," LG spokesman Chaz
Abbott said, showing off the phone.
To highlight its family-friendliness, LG
has come up with a storytelling app
that lets parents record a fairy tale
using their own photos, sounds and
words — sort of a Mad Libs for the
digital era.
The Life's Good Fairytale will
eventually be free for all Android
phones, though Viper owners will get first crack
at the app, which is slated to be available for
them starting April 27.
LG is showing off the phone and app later today
at an event in New York. Unfortunately for LG,
the N.Y. launch party market is almost as
crowded as the Android smartphone one. Its
event is up against both T-Mobile's HTC One S
launch and a party for Spotify.
The Viper, too, will find itself challenged to
stand out. It launches at the same time Sprint is
pushing out the Galaxy Nexus, a more high-end
phone that also runs on the carrier's nascent
LTE network.
LG faces similar challenges outside the U.S.
amid a host of Android competitors at all
segments of the market.
Globally, LG is counting on a new line up that
includes a quad-core phone, a "phablet" and a
new-look mainstream line.
Abbott said that LG has yet to announce U.S.
plans for any of these devices, which were shown
off at February's Mobile World Congress in
Barcelona .
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