Nokia N97

This is going to be one sweet phone…. Now we need wimax, connectitivity to power the new economy!

Specs:
2.5 inch touchscreen
3G Networking
Bluetooth 2.0

Busting at the seams with excitement over the HTC Touch Pro AT&T Fuze? We can’t blame you - it’s a pretty little piece. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like you have too much longer to wait. Tucked inside the latest batch of shipments to AT&T corporate stores is a nice little treat: Fuze demo units.

While this doesn’t necessarily mean a launch is looming around the corner, it’d be surprising if it didn’t go down within the next few weeks. If you’re dying for some QWERTY-enabled TouchFLO but just can’t see yourself with Sprint, start planning a trip to AT&T near the end of November.

[Via BGR]

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Much like you can always expect new iPods in September, you can always expect new Sony Ericsson announcements in November. Right on schedule, Sony Ericsson is expected to make an announcement tomorrow. A few details from the announcement have already leaked out and, from what we know so far, this one’s looking to be all about the Walkman series.

First up is the W705 (”Rika”), which looks to be a remodeled G705 doppelganger. It seems like they’ve polished up the body’s aesthetics a bit, so it wouldn’t be too surprising to see a few spec changes as well.

Also expected is the MBS-900 portable wireless speaker, which looks a whole lot like a Sony Ericsson branded smoke detector. (Pic after the jump)

[Via SEMCBlog]

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Jeez - busy enough day, FCC? Hot on the tails of the “white space” decision and approving Verizon’s buyout of Alltel, the FCC has cleared the merger of Sprint’s Xohm WiMax service with ClearWire - no doubt coming as a disappoint for some other carriers.

To recap the details announced back in May, Sprint will own 51% of the new company, which will take on the ClearWire name. ClearWire will have 27% ownership, while Google, Time Warner Cable, Brighthouse, Comcast, and Intel Capital will own the remaining 22%.

This is fairly huge news for 4G mobile broadband fans, as this merger essentially lays the necessary foundation for nationwide WiMax. If all goes well, ClearWire should be offering WiMax to half of the US’ population by 2010 - just as AT&T and Verizon are lighting up their competing 4G technology, LTE. When the battle for 4G technology king comes to a head, who will walk away the winner? The consumer, hopefully.

With the new company carrying on the ClearWire name, is the “Xohm” brand dead? I doubt it. When asked about the fate of the name, Xohm representatives have stated that “new management will be given the opportunity regarding how to position the Xohm name in the market”. While it’s not a household name by any means, Sprint has already done a fair amount of work establishing the brand and associating it with WiMax. I’d imagine that they’ll make use of it in the future, if only as a branding for WiMax dongles and other accessories.

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The FCC’s stamp of approval doesn’t come without strings attached, however. Amongst other conditions, Verizon will be required to maintain any roaming agreements Alltel has with other carriers for at least four years. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin originally requested that roaming agreements would be honored for two years, and Verizon responded with the offer to honor them for four. This still wasn’t quite enough for some; though the vote passed 5-0, 2 of those who voted yes dissented, feeling that the roaming agreements should be required for at least seven years.

Before the merger, Verizon had roughly 70.8 million subscribers. With Alltel bringing around 13 million new subscribers to their door, this brings Verizon’s total up to approximately 83.8 million, dethroning AT&T (with 74.8 million) from the number one spot.

What does this mean to Verizon/Alltel customers? Well, “the network” just got a whole lot bigger - Alltel customers will soon have an additional 71 million people or so they can call without gobbling up their minutes. Beyond that, both groups gain access to the other’s device lineup, with Alltel customers now able to take advantage of Verizon’s bring-your-own-handset “Open Development” program.

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We should probably stress that that the keyword in the headline up above is “possible”. While some crafty gents over at the Tmo News Forums have cranked out a way to let you use the T-Mobile G1 as a USB modem, it’s not exactly the simplest tethering solution we’ve ever seen. Flip some options, install the SDK, install an application on the device, move stuff around, change proxy settings, make brownies, fight crime, play Beethoven’s 9th backwards; it’s pretty deep.

That said, mobile broadband is the best thing ever made, ever. (Ever.) While the first solution for squeezing some broadband juice out of the G1 may not be optimal, everything has to start somewhere. If you’ve got a G1, are in a 3G zone (though it reportedly works with EDGE, if you’re a masochist), and have some time to tinker, give it a shot and let us know how it works.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

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While it’s all still hearsay at this point, Digitimes is reporting that China’s Commercial Times newspaper has sources indicating that HTC might begin pushing the G1 in China within the first 6 months of next year.

HTC is also giving their home country of Taiwan a bit of handset love, albeit not in the form of an Android phone. The Touch 3G was just launched there yesterday, and a report out of the Economic Daily News indicates that the drool-worthy Touch HD is on the way by the end of 2008. So, to recap the Touch HD’s global status: Taiwan’s getting it by the end of the year, Europe’s getting it by the end of the week, and the US is getting it by the end of never.

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How can I put into words how I feel about the BlackBerry Bold? In short: I love it and never ever want to let it go, ever. For any BlackBerry user/fan the Bold is everything you’ve wanted and expected from RIM. Sure, it took a little longer than we all expected, but it’s definitely worth the wait. It’s far superior in every respect from anything that RIM has put out on the market. Of course, those of you with a hankering for a touch-screen need not apply. The Bold is for the hardcore CrackBerry addict or is it?

Let’s begin.

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Sending and receiving messages is easy enough. It’s just how you would expect it, although I strongly dislike how it throws all of your contact lists on one screen. I’d prefer to see them separated by service rather than one hefty list of buddy groups, or at least, let me make it that way through an option. Oh well - Some folks love the big collective list. That’s kinda worth twenty-dollars, right? No? Anyone?

With any new application, you’re likely to come across a bug or two. IM+ is no exception. The most notable issue we noticed is that if you switch screens or change the device orientation then go back to a conversation window, it occasionally doubles the text as seen in the picture above.

Are you one of those people who prefers to sign in and out of their IM client rather than just going away for a few minutes? Then you’re in luck. Otherwise, not so much. After many, many days of testing and trying, it just wouldn’t maintain the connection if the application wasn’t in the foreground. We were hoping that perhaps this was a limitation of the trial, with background connectivity saved for the full application. Again, nope. That’s totally not worth twenty-dollars. Once a nice background service has been developed for this app, then maybe, just maybe it will be worth it.

Unless Jabber, ICQ, or Myspace IM are crucial for your communication needs, skip out on IM+ - it just doesn’t bring anything to the table to make it worth the entry fee. Hopefully it won’t be too long before someone from the Pidgin or Adium camps grabs an Android handset and pushes out something worthwhile.

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According to the “Mobile Market View” study released today by The Kelsey Group, 18.9% of mobile consumers in the United States are now toting smartphones, with 49.2% planning to pick one up within the next two years.

Mobile search activity is also up across the board. When they surveyed mobile consumers on how they’d been using their handsets, they found the following:

• Downloaded or looked at maps or directions: 17.6 percent, up from 10.8 percent in 2007
• Searched the Internet for products or services in their local area: 15.6 percent, up from 9.8 percent in 2007
• Searched the Internet for products or services outside their local area: 14.3 percent, up from 6.4 percent in 2007
• Obtained information about movies or other entertainment: 13.7 percent, up from 8.2 percent in 2007
• Connected with a social network, such as MySpace or Facebook: 9.6 percent, up from 3.4 percent in 2007

To state the obvious, it’s quite apparent that consumers are more ready than ever to embrace mobile devices into their daily lives. What isn’t as apparent, however, is the responsibility the mobile industry has to get their act together and make use of this. Unless they’re damn sure they can come up with something worthwhile, it’s time to adopt open and royalty-free platforms. Drop the horribly misguided efforts to create new, proprietary platforms which do nothing but increase segmentation and confuse users. With only 19% of US mobile users owning smartphones and nearly 50% looking to jump on board, we’re going to see a whole lot of new smartphone owners soon - so lets make it as easy as possible for them to enjoy it.

(Image via Jacob Bøtter)

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The most obvious change is in its display - they’ve taken the 400×240 screen and replaced it with the 800×480 (WVGA) Samsung-made screen we’ve seen hit a few other handsets as of late. A bit less obvious, albeit still a nice touch, is the addition of a DMB TV tuner for satellite-based channel surfing. Of course, it hasn’t lost the WiFi, GPS, 7.2 mbps HSDPA, or any of the other stuff which made the original Omnia such a nice piece.

Oh, and no - we have no idea what the “T*” bit in T*Omnia represents, either. We’re guessing T stands for something special (Tasty? Tubular? Ooh! Ooh! Tyrannosaurus!), and they just put the * there to keep it from being the “Tomnia”.

[Via MobileBurn]

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With the first 21 days of October behind us, the G1’s “Official” launch day is finally upon us. With the first Android-powered handset now in the hands of giddy customers around the country, Google has provided long-awaited details about the Android App Market.

As made apparent by those G1 pre-order handsets which arrived a day or two early, the Market is live at launch. Though there was a bit of a temporary dip in the number of available apps over the weekend, the count should now be back up over 50. That number will probably explode in just a few days: starting October 27th, developers can upload their own applications.

As we’ve known for some time, only free applications will be allowed on the App Market initially. According to today’s announcement, developers will be able to distribute paid applications beginning in Q1 of 2009. In the past, Google has said that they would not take a cut of the revenue, which many took to mean that 100% of each sale went to the developer. While it is still true that Google is not taking even a single percent for themselves, 30% will go to carriers and the folks who handle billing. This leaves 70% for the developer, matching Apple’s App Store revenue share model.

The decision to push for-pay applications back to Q1 of 2009 intrigues me. While it may be true that the infrastructure for taking payments just might not be ready yet, it really works out in Google’s favor to have a few months of free. They’ve ensured that the initial onslaught of users will gobble up applications without regard. This stress tests the market itself, puts a positive experience into the user’s mind (free = happy) and, of course, sends download numbers skyward.

This is where things get interesting, folks. With Apple and Google both having their own application stores, you’ve got two entirely different approaches to the concept: one closely moderate, the other relatively unrestricted. Will the latter prove to be the mobile paradise many are hoping for?

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A few years ago on April Fool’s day, Geeks.com put up a product page for a 15-inch circular LCD monitor for $199.99 (if memory serves). The monitor looked pretty cool and everyone had a good chuckle at the thought of being able to somehow manufacture a display in anything but the shape of a square or rectangle.

Fast forward to the present day and we now see that the upcoming Motorola Aura cell phone actually will have “the industry’s first circular display,” according to a recent press release. How do you like that?

Circular display aside, the phone itself looks pretty nice as well if you’re into phones that make phone calls and do little else. Moto says, “Sophisticated design, high performance racing engines and the quality of a photographic print served as the perfect muses to inspire the creation of AURA.”

The phone is made from over 200 parts and the display is sapphire crystal – apparently “one of the most scratch-resistant materials on earth.” So you could probably safely throw this in the same pocket as your keys. No word on pricing yet, but the front part of the phone is made by hand and takes two weeks to create, so it’s pretty safe to assume that this thing won’t be $49.99 with a two-year contract. Think more in the high hundreds to thousands of dollars.

It’ll be available worldwide in the fourth quarter.

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Feeling a bit spunky, Jobs’ mentioned that they’ve outsold some significant competition, saying “We’ve sold more phones than RIM.” While they’ve yet to figure out “how this economic downturn will affect Apple,” they’ve got “$25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt” saved up for a rainy day.

With growth up across the board, how much of Apple’s business is made up by the iPhone? A fairly crazy 39%. This makes Apple the 3rd largest mobile phone supplier in the world, behind only Nokia and Samsung (and followed by Sony Ericsson, LG, Motorola, and RIM, in that order.)

Growth has been monumental on the hardware front, and things are looking just as good on the software end of things. In August, Apple had pushed over 60 million application downloads since the launch of the App Store. By September’s MacBook event, that number had reached 100 million. By Apples estimates, the store will click past the 200 million download mark tomorrow.

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A few weeks back, a sneak peek of a still-in-the-works BlackBerry App Center made its way out. Now RIM’s gone and given it the official treatment by way of press release.

Unfortunately, there’s a bit of bad news right off the bat: While the BlackBerry Storm is expected to launch in November, the BlackBerry App Center won’t debut until March of 2009 - nearly five full months after the device’s release.

Developers won’t have to wait quite as long to get their apps approved, with RIM opening the submission process come December of 2008. Developers can set their own prices via the Application Center Storefront, retaining 80% of the revenue for each sale (Compared to the 70% offered by Apple). While they don’t specify what will be done with the remaining 20%, we assume that it’ll be split between RIM, the carrier, and Paypal (who will be handling the financial parts of the transaction).

That the launch of the App store is so late after the launch of the Storm is absurd. With a number of third-party groups (e.g Handango, BerryStore) already competing in the BlackBerry app-peddling arena, RIM’s going to have to buck for attention on their own platform.

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Android’s first handset, the G1, will be hitting the market tomorrow and with it comes a slew of useful and useless apps. One of those useless apps happens to be from MySpace. Being the first major social network to do so means nothing when it brings nothing to the table. It’s essentially a mirror image of the iPhone app, but it’s nowhere near as fast when loading your inbox or pulling up photo galleries. So why do we even bother informing all of you about it? To point out the flaws, of course.

MySpace has been able to stay relevant because of their recent push into the music space and they were able to stream well over a billion tracks within a few days of launching back in September. That’s no small feat and it was executed well, but why not bring that to mobile handsets? If Last.fm, Pandora and even Imeem can do it then why not MySpace? Is it in the works? More than likely, but Imeem is already in the Market and the rest are sure to follow. This looks like too little/almost too late.

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Love it or hate it, it’s pretty safe to assume that just about all of the big boys in the handset world are tinkering with the idea of bringing an Android device to the market (Well, except for Sony Ericsson. Or Apple.) Joining the confirmed list today is Kyocera, with an announcement that they are working with software optimization house Wind River to adapt Android to their needs.

According to today’s announcement, Wind River’s job is “to provide software systems integration services, including middleware and user interface integration, optimization of Android, and custom integration for technologies from other Open Handset Alliance members and third-party developers.” Based off of Kyocera’s lineup history, I’d wager that this means much of Wind River’s job is to prep Android for use on the smaller screen of a flip phone, or one of Kyocera’s QWERTY folders (a la Wild Card).

Kyocera’s not exactly known for wallet-destroying handsets, so it’d be surprising to see any devices come out of their labs with specs rivaling that of the G1 - we probably won’t see a touchscreen, at least. If nothing else, this solidifies the idea that we’ll be seeing CDMA Android handsets in the low-mid range market before too long.

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Yesterday morning, a sizable chunk of the T-Mobile G1 pre-orders showed up prior to their expected arrival date of October 22nd. Filled with new-toy glee, the new Android users tore their boxes open, poked and prodded at the screen.. but something was wrong.

Reviews said something about there being 50+ applications already available in the Android App Market. Even immediately after the device was announced, there were 18. By a count yesterday morning, there were only 13. As was to be expected, the internet quickly filled with conspiracy theories. Was Google shaving down the list to save bandwidth? Were they pulling off a significant chunk of the applications so that they could be rolled out over the days after launch, making the content stream seem torrential?

Nope - turns out, they were just giving things a quick once-over before the big day. By mid-day yesterday, the count was back up to 20. This morning, it’s hovering right around 30. Google’s official statement on the matter:

The demo devices give an early version of the Market since it hasn’t been launched yet. We needed to be sure that a few of the 3rd party apps are final for consumer use in the Android Market when the T-Mobile G1 officially launches on October 22nd. We’re replacing the preview applications with final versions today. After October 22nd, developers will be managing their own applications.

Update: T-Mobile’s response:

We anticipate there will be 40 to 50 applications available on Android Market when the T-Mobile G1 launches on Wed (10/22) and that number will continue to grow as additional applications are added daily.

With that, the panic bells are slowly fading, and all is returning to normal. When the G1 officially launches tomorrow, all should be well in the world, with at least the majority of applications nestled right back in their original spots, now with that final stamp of approval.

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Lets face it: By and large, gaming on mobile handsets sucks. Sure, no one’s expecting (or even desiring, perhaps) an experience along the lines of a couch-camping session - but even the simplest of games are hindered by, amongst other things, the lack of intuitive input methods. While we’re able to quickly rewire our noggins to play Tetris on a number pad, it just never feels right. Why? Because a number pad (or a touchscreen, mind you) wasn’t meant for gaming.

Whether or not a separate Bluetooth controller is the best solution is arguable, but the guys at Zeemote think so. With Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and countless mobile game development companies already on board as partners (with the first two going as far as to bundle the controller with a few of their handsets), they’re looking to expand the family a bit: just about an hour ago, they announced that they will be releasing a software development kit for the BlackBerry platform. They’re not saying when, just yet - just that it’s on the way. Interested? Hit up Zeemote’s booth at the BlackBerry Developer Conference (Oct. 21-22), or pitch your pre-registration inquiries to bizdev@zeemote.com.

At the moment, they’re not selling the Zeemote JS1 as a standalone unit, nor are they partnered with RIM. With this announcement, we’ll go ahead and assume that one of these matters (probably the former) is set to change sometime soon. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to add JS1 compatibility to your game be it that no one will be able to make use of it in the foreseeable future.

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Been putting off that Windows Mobile 6.0 upgrade for your HTC 8525? You’ve only got about 9 days left.

HTC has announced that they will be removing all Windows Mobile 6.0 upgrades from their site. For our US readers, the only devices you need to worry about are the AT&T 8525 (HTC Hermes) and the T-Mobile Dash (S621). As PhoneNews points out, neither of these handsets have been given the 6.1 treatment yet (at least, not officially) - if you don’t get to upgrading, it’ll be a bit tougher to get’em up and running on WinMo 6 before you know it.

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Yes, we know you can get Qik for your jailbroken iPhones now, but this is the App Store version and Mr. Rose, personal hero of mine, gets a look at it before all of us. Jealous? Didn’t think so. Anyway, Rose pontificates that the version he has is near final and that it should be coming soon for free. Would you want your Qik followers to know exactly where you’re streaming from?

Also, you better order that Mophie Juice Pack now because this is going to suck the life out of your iPhone 3G faster than a paparrazo’s shutter when Lohan slips a nip.

Update: Bhaskar Roy, Co-founder of Qik, has commented on the matter:

Hi all - wanted to clarify that we are looking into having Qik be available on App Store, but at present are not sure when and how this will happen.

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T-Mobile has added the entry-level Nokia 1680 to its lineup of phones. The 1680 is a bar-style phone that has a VGA camera with video capture, speakerphone, and basic SMS, MMS and IM messaging features. It costs $15 after …
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Motorola has published details about the forthcoming Q11. The Q11 makes some styling changes compared to the Q9, but still has a full QWERTY keyboard and will run Windows Mobile 6.1. It will have quad-band GSM/EDGE radios, as well …
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Runtriz, a software firm out of Hollywood, CA, is aiming to bring hotels up to speed. Following a series of quiet test runs at other LA hotels, they’ve debuted a product called “Hotel Evolution” at the Malibu Beach Inn in Malibu, CA. When a guest checks into the hotel, they’re asked if they have an iPhone or iPod Touch. If they do, the hotel staff will load the Runtriz Hotel web application to the device. If they don’t, they’re given a 16gb iPod Touch (with the application pre-loaded, of course) to keep for the duration of their stay.

Once you’ve punched in your room number and security code, all of the hotel’s service offerings are but a click away. Straight from the device’s screen, you can order room service, set a wake up call, request your luggage, dry cleaning, or car (or if you’re going all out, a limo), request linens or toiletries, check your messages, or set your room to “Do Not Disturb”. They also provide information about nearby nightlife, attractions, and shopping.

Rather than attempting to jailbreak each and every guest’s iPhone or brave their way through Apple’s app store approval process, they opted to go with a web application. Beyond simplifying installation, this also allows them to upgrade and maintain the application remotely by modifying the site, without any sort of manual upgrades required on the hotel’s end. It also facilitates portability; when they add support for other platforms (such as Android, or BlackBerry) in the future, it’s a matter of simply tweaking the layout for each browser, rather than rewriting an entire application.

The cost of getting such a system up and running varies on a hotel-by-hotel basis. According to Matt Allard, president of Runtriz, the cost of the first month is generally about double that of the standard monthly fee of $10 per room.

While I like the idea already, where it truly flourishes is in its scalability. At the launch party, I overheard talks of migrating the idea to a sports arena, or otherwise extending it beyond the realm of hotels - still good ideas, but the concept can extend far beyond implementation at individual locations. Imagine in just a few years, when all of the major browsers will likely be location-aware (via a “This website wants to know your location” security prompt), and more consumers are comfortable and familiar with the idea of location based services on mobile handsets. Something like this could be a full-blown concierge for your life, adapting its offerings based on your location. It could offer the basics regardless of where you are, but step into an established (via partnership) geofence, and the functionality expands to include location-specific options, with the application icon lighting up to alert you of the changes. It wouldn’t happen overnight (current technical limitations aside, it would require a ton of partnerships to be truly useful), but I imagine such things making our lives a whole lot easier within the foreseeable future.

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As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of Yahoo’s oneSearch. When a carrier make the effort to implement it into their WAP deck, it makes the generally convoluted process of searching for something on a mobile handset a whole lot less painful. Looking to strip the mobile search process down even further, Yahoo has announced that they have integrated voice-enabled search into a couple of oneSearch-powered applications.

Nokia S60 owners are gettin’ the most out of the announcement, with both the oneSearch homescreen shortcut and the the bigger, badder Yahoo! Go 3.0 application getting the voice overhaul. Owners of select BlackBerrys can get in on the fun, too - but only with the Yahoo! Go 3.0 app. The new goods are available to folks in the U.S., UK, India, Singapore, Philippines and Canada.

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