By Mitchell Seholm - 12 March, 2010, 10:32 am
Apple’s iPad pre-orders are now available! For those that needed more specifics than “March 12th” you will be satisfied to know that as of 2 hours ago your pre-order page at apple.com has been live since 5:30AM Pacific and 8:30AM Eastern. Now all of you iPad future owners why don’t you spend some valuable time with all those things that will be collecting dust once your iPad arrives. Not exactly cell phone news, but we know that everyone is interested in all things Apple. You have around three weeks to say your good-byes to your books, laptops, and perhaps loved-ones.
By Mitchell Seholm - 12 March, 2010, 10:12 am
Vodaphone has come through with it’s statement made in January this year suggesting that the Nexus One would bring the Android-powered smartphone across the Atlantic. It was merely a waiting game, and today the wait is over. Vodaphone UK has put the Nexus One on their website and tagged it with “Coming Soon.” No official release date or pricing has been announced thus far, but for any of you that can’t wait to get your hands on this over in Europe, this cell phone news will certainly not be left untouched as more arises. For our full review on the Nexus One check out our cell phone reviews or click the post for the link.
By Mitchell Seholm - 12 March, 2010, 9:50 am
With the reign of free software becoming universal among carriers, Swedish mapmaker Wayfinder is the first casualty of war in mobile based navigation services. In January 2009 Vodaphone and Wayfinder were preparing to close a £20 million ($30 million) transaction to bring Wayfinders navigation services to Vodaphones mobile devices. Enter free navigation services such as Google Maps and Nokia’s Ovi maps with free turn-by turn directions and what’s left in the wake is plummeting TomTom and Garmin share prices and Wayfinder’s Anna Cloke left to give the statement “We could not charge for something that others gave away for free.” This will likely be a repeat performance for several corporations in the future as they aren’t left with a lot of leverage when their competitors are closing up shop and offering their services for nothing. Fantastic cell phone news for the user, and less than favorable for mobile navigation (and potentially other software) providers.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 4:51 pm
It seems our fears from a mere 7 hours ago are already coming to fruition. (viewed [here]) It seems between AT&T and Verizon that one of them will inevitably fold and adopt a tiered data plan and the rest of the lemmings will likely follow in their footsteps (Hopefully one or two will hold back to prevent total chaos). They have both been talking a lot about a necessary change in wireless broadband pricing models and trying to justify the changes as “fair.” They are both suggesting the increase is due to the billions they are dumping into building new networks, but in reality it is to compensate for their significant losses in SMS and mobile voice revenues. Verizon CTO Tony Melone stated “It’s one thing to say all you can eat is gone, but it’s another thing to have consumers worrying, ‘Can I stream this radio?” when in fact it hasn’t been “All you can eat” to begin with. NY’s Attorney General pointed this out rather aggressively in late 2007 that their “unlimited” service actually came with a 5GB monthly cap. For those that don’t mind the impending increase in prices, the new 4g LTE networks will offer 5-12Mbps speeds initially and will launch in 25 to 30 markets. Caps and pricing on the new LTE networks are all speculation at this point, but it doesn’t seem to fare very well for the average consumer. With even further losses due to the migration to open networks, mobile VoIP, push IM clients, and smartphones I don’t blame the titans for the chance to increase wireless data rates, but I certainly hope it does them more good than bad as this could perhaps lead down a dark path for the nations largest wireless providers.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 4:22 pm
Last December Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering for Google demonstrated a preview of Product Search for mobile devices with up-to-date local inventory which informs you about available stock based on your search results at local retailers. Well the wait is over shoppers, the ability to view stock live from your Google based web browser is now here. Retailers currently participating include Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery barn, and West Elm. If you see a blue dot(s) in your search results it is alerting you that the item is either in stock or has limited availability nearby. From this point it will provide you with the retailers location and number and you can proceed from there without spending valuable time checking endless stores via calling/driving around searching. If you have active GPS it will even show you how far you are from your shopping destination. This new feature is available on any iPhone, Palm webOS, or Android-powered device in the US. To access this feature you just need to go to Google.com, tap “more”, then tap “Shopping” and voila! If you’re a retailer that would like to participate in this program, just fill out [this form] and let them know you would like to be considered.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 3:45 pm
This week at the annual Game Developers Conference, Palm and Epic Games have teamed up to demonstrate the Unreal Engine 3 on Palm webOS. The Unreal Engine 3 graphics engine powers Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War along with several other titles from leading game developers. Just imagine having graphics on your Palm resembling the screen-shot to the left. I’d say that for some this more than makes up for NFL RedZone not being offered on the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. In the very near future developers that are licensed will be able to build games utilizing the Unreal Engine 3 for Palm webOS. Combined with Palm’s announcement earlier this week about the Plug-in Development Kit (PDK) for developers it seems there are an abundance of tools at their fingertips to begin creating some long awaited aesthetically pleasing games to Palm webOS. Developers can download Unreal Engine 3 here. More information about Palm’s PDK can be found here.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 2:32 pm
Better late than never as it seems to have been worth the wait. Novothink has finally announced the long awaited (Promised to arrive November ‘09) Solar Surge charging cases for the iPhone/iPod are available. Surprisingly affordable I might add considering the nifty technology, running at $79.95 for the iPhone 3G/3GS version and $69.95 for the iPod touch (2nd gen only). So far the cases are only available in black and white, but additional colors will be arriving soon. The Solar Surge will add between four to eight hours of talk time, or up to 20 additional hours of audio playback when fully charged. Novothink stated that 30 to 60 minutes of talk time should be expected after just 30 minutes of exposure to direct sunlight. Quite the “Green” conversation starter in my opinion.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 1:57 pm
With the addition of 19 more airports accepting mobile boarding passes, American Airlines has brought the total amount of airports in participation to 27. The boarding passes work with both mobile phones and PDA’s and display a scannable 2D bar-code, allowing the user to bypass the check in desk or having to print your boarding pass from home and proceed directly to security. Participation is not a complicated procedure, all that needs to be done is for the customer to simply choose “E-mail for use on Cell Phone or Other Device” option and then you can retrieve the boarding pass from your email on your handset. The 19 new airports include Albuquerque International, Charlotte Douglas International, Cleveland Hopkins International, Denver International, El Paso International, Houston George Bush Intercontinental, Jacksonville International, Little Rock Adams Field, Memphis International, New york La Guardia, Oklahoma Will Rogers World, Orlando International, Phoenix Sky Harbor, Salt Lake City International, San Antonio International, San Diego International, San Francisco International, Tulsa International, and Washington Dulles International. Those join the first airports, which included Austin-Bergstrom International, Chicago O’Hare International, Dallas-Fort Worth International, Los Angeles International, John Wayne Orange County, Las Vegas McCarran International, Jackson Atlanta International, and Minneapolis-St. Paul International.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 12:12 pm
The Swiss Army Knife of the mobile world has arrived. Verizon Wireless and CASIO have released the extreme-condition resistant CASIO G’zOne Brigade (water, dust, and shock resistant). The Brigade is the jack of all trades mobile device that can be perfectly utilized by all business professionals in industries such as construction, public safety, and utilities that need both extensive functionality and sturdy durability. The Brigade offers high performance mobile technology, including not only a numeric keypad on the front with dedicated music and messaging keys as well as a full QWERTY keyboard, but also an abundance of other excellent features such as; microSD card support, 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, 2.5mm headset jack, Blue-tooth and 3g, and let’s not forget the push-to-talk capabilities. The Brigade also supports business based applications such as the Document Viewer and Verizon’s Field Force Manager software, and of course complete support for VCAST services. This rock solid all-in-one phone can be yours for $250 after rebate with a two-year agreement.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 11:38 am
It is a sad day for Sprint users and their beloved NFL app. Verizon has bought out the rights to the popular NFL RedZone by offering 50% more than Sprint was paying the NFL. Verizon users can now satisfy all of their NFL needs thanks to the four-year contract they have just signed with the NFL for exclusive rights to many special features such as live video and audio. The deal was made at $720 million dollars and thanks to that Verizon users are going to get even better access than Sprint previously did now having access to EVERY NFL game and enough content to satiate any football lovers appetite. Sprint users may not be at the top of the food chain anymore when it comes to exclusivity in the mobile NFL arena, but there is no need to panic as Sprint will be launching a new app called Football Live to replace the previous NFL RedZone. They’ll be able to obtain live coverage of the NFL draft, games, and more, but in the form of raw data, news, and commentary. Sprint Football Live is scheduled to launch by the end of the month and will likely be implemented with the next webOS update for all Sprint mobile devices. Bad news for Pre Plus and Pixi Plus users though as Verizon’s marketing chief John Stratton stated the new NFL service will only be available on Android and BlackBerry devices. A win for Verizon, Android, and Blackberry users and tough luck for Sprint, Pre Plus, and Pixi users.
By Jon Dychko - 11 March, 2010, 11:09 am
Thanks to the reports over at 9to5Mac supplying us with some good cell phone news about the upcoming iPhone OS, more and more files are being discovered that indicate more gestures will be available on the next operating system. These files have the following names, “3Tap.plist” and “LongPress.plist”, and are both located in the gestures library folder. According to this particular report both of these files are not present on the previous version of SDK. This gives us some insight, and we know now that “three taps” has no defined OS-wide function currently in the iPhone OS. It seems that a “long press” will bring up and display a contextual menu that can be copied, cut, and pasted on to other things. More after the JUMP!
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 11:09 am
According to a recent study completed by Juniper Research, the mobile retail market is anticipated to exceed $12 billion by 2014. The rapid growth in the industry can likely be attributed to 1:1 marketing and the whirlwind of smartphones taking over the market. Some additional factors that are not to be forgotten are the evolution of high speed mobile networks, mobile web, and a utilization of SMS marketing. Juniper Research believes that until 2013 the market will be a mixture of mobile coupon redemption values, smart poster fees, and advertising expenditures until mobile advertising exceeds that which is projected to happen sometime in 2013. Some other notable findings from Juniper suggest that technology such as price scanning in live situations, a growing usage among today’s youth, and the ability for retailers to change campaigns quickly and track their success and customer acquisition rates are all contributing factors to the mobile retail markets growing success. Further information can be found in Juniper’s report “Mobile Marketing & Retail Strategies: Advertising, Coupons, & Smart Poster 2009-2014″ from their website.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 10:06 am
Good news for Opera browser fans. Opera announced today that Android smartphones now offer the Opera mini 5 web browser BETA. The new browser offers several features such as speed dial (to help you access your favorite pages quickly), tabbed browsing, password management, and bookmarks. The statement made by Vice President of Products Dag Olav Norem was,”Android users should not have to compromise when it comes to surfing the Web on their phones. Opera Mini will give Android users a fast and cost-efficient access to their favorite Web sites and services.” The Opera web browser compresses data by up to 90 percent before sending content to your mobile device in order to significantly increase page loading and speed. You can download this application today at m.opera.com/next in your Android browser.
By Mitchell Seholm - 11 March, 2010, 9:54 am
Ever since the Titantic sized free-speech debate/pull out from Google in China, it’s no surprise there has been some backlash against Google. Motorola is definitely taking advantage of that situation to further it’s own interests and defend itself in one of the largest markets in the world with around 700 million internet users most of which use mobile web. Motorola stands to make a great deal of money by distributing their Android smartphones in China with Bing search and Bing maps replacing Google search and Google maps. The change will also be retroactive and an update will be issued to devices currently owned and sitting on shelves to bring this change about. Microsoft and Motorola seemed to have created an alliance to mutually benefit each other in China and perhaps in the US. Perhaps Google will become a silent martyr in all of this as several of it’s competitors stand to gain from their loss and aren’t willing to jeopardize their place in the China markets.
