This isn’t going to come as much of a shock to most, but T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) Germany has confirmed that they have indeed been in talks with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) over the upcoming European (specifically, German) release of the iPhone. Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile Germany, said that they “have held talks with Apple but have nothing more to say at this time,” at a press conference.

So, aside from the almost accepted fact that T-Mobile AG will most likely be bringing the Apple iPhone to the land of fast cars and hardcore porn (what? we already mentioned the sauerkraut and Autobahn), there’s not much here that we didn’t already know. But, since there is no official word on the outcome of said negotiations, we’re going to wait for T-Mobile or Apple to announce an official deal before we declare Deutsch Telekom (which owns T-Mobile Germany) the iPhone winner in the German market.

Akhavan also stated that Apple will be bringing the iPhone to its European partners “well ahead” of the holiday shopping season – which sounds to us like a sly confirmation that T-Mo AG will indeed be part of the party. And, just to make it clear. We still have no idea what’s up with the 3G European iPhone – will it, or won’t it, make it to Europe?

[Via: Yahoo]

We love the iPhone’s ability to easily and quickly transfer music from our iTunes’ library. There’s nothing like a little plug and click simplicity to take any and all inconvenience out of make accessing your music a breeze. But, there’s just one little catch – you can only synchronize the music from a single computer’s iTunes library.  That is, until now.

The newest third-party native application available through the Nullriver iPhone Installer (Installer.app) is SwapTunes. Wait, you do have Installer.app installed, right? With the AppTappInstaller, there’s no excuse not to. Anyway, this nifty little app basically allows you to store two separate music libraries on your iPhone – and lets you switch between the two libraries once they’re loaded up on your iPhone. Sync your iPhone with the first iTunes library (disconnect afterwards), then run the SwapTunes app from your iPhone, then sync with the second iTunes library, and then run SwapTunes to switch between your two media libraries. It’s that simple.

SwapTunes is readily available through Installer.app on your iPhone. Find the SwapTunes.app under “Utilities” and click install.

These third-party native apps are really starting to fill in all the gaps that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) failed to address yet. We’re rooting for all the developers out there – go out there and show Apple how it’s done!

Vodafone Germany must be feeling a little left out of the iPhone party that’s sweeping through Europe right now. With T-Mobile Germany rumored to be getting exclusive dibs on the iPhone in the land of hefeweizen and sauerkraut (oh, and bratwurst and the Autobahn – can’t forget those!), Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Germany must be thinking that the next best thing to actually carrying the iPhone would be to offer some of the iPhone’s best features.

No, we’re not talking about multi-touch or accelerometers. Vodafone Germany has launched their own “Visual Voicemail” service – they’re callin git “Visual Mailbox”. The service lets you visually peruse voicemails and delete skip over the ones that you just don’t care to listen to at the moment. But, unlike AT&T (NYSE: T)’s Visual Voicemail system for the iPhone, the Vodafone Germany Visual mailbox system will route received voicemails to the user’s MMS inbox. It’s kind of a round-about way to get visual access to your voicemail, but it sounds like a decent plan.

We’ll just stick with the iPhone’s integrated Visual Voicemail feature. We like being able to rewind, call back, delete, and view caller info at a whim. Oh, and the iPhone doesn’t have MMS support yet, so this method wouldn’t work on the iPhone anyway.

Source

Now this is one amazing mobile phone concept. Designer Seokwon Hong brings us the sleek and sexy Brix modular phone concept. By itself, the Brix concept is beautiful – the full front face of the device is occupied by the display. But combined with the ability to connect to other Brix handsets, this thing has endless possibilities.

The borderless-displays of the Brix handsets can be connected in modular fashion to form one giant display, as you see above. When connected, the handsets can share pics, vids, music, etc. and a temporary media folder is created to share files between the Brix phones until they’re disconnected.

This thing is just incredible. Who wouldn’t want a media phone with a full-face screen? The fact that these things can connect in different configurations, share media, and turn into a giant TV are just icing on the cake. Mmmm, delicious mobile-tech icing. We like cake.

[Via: Yanko Design]

Nokia’s on a press junket craze like no other recently. The Nokia N81, the Nokia N95 8GB Black, all those Nokia (NYSE: NOK) accessories, and not to mention the Nokia 5310 and 5610 Xpress Music Phones – it’s a lot in such a short timeframe. We’ve barely had time to process the results of the Nokia GoPlay event in London and we’re getting word that the US-spec Nokia N95 is headed for Yankee shores next month! That’s right folks, the N95 with US-friendly 3G frequency support (850/1900Mhz) is bound for your favorite 3G GSM provider (read: AT&T (NYSE: T)) Unfortunately, T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) and their 1700Mhz 3G frequency is a definite no-go.

We already saw the Nokia N95 US pass through the FCC’s testing regimen, so it was only a matter of time before this beauty hit American airwaves – but who knew it would be mere weeks after all this product launch craziness.

For those of you that were patient enough to hold off on pulling the trigger on an unlocked European Nokia N95, you’ll be happy to hear that the US-spec N95 will not only rock its HSDPA radio on US 3G spectrum, but will sport a bumped up battery (up to 1200mAh), 100% more RAM (128MB, up from 64MB), a recessed camera lens to help protect those amazing Carl Zeiss optics. And, don’t forget, the N95 is still packin’ that integrated GPS, WiFi, stereo Bluetooth, and TV-out.

Sadly, the 8GB capacity or 2.8 inch screen isn’t in the cards for the US. But, getting the GPS-equipped N95 on US 3G networks is enough for us. Color us excited!

The best mobile browser has finally gone beta 2.0 ! We love the Opera Mini 4 Dimension browser for our non-touchscreen handsets – and the Opera team has just released their second beta. Dimension was initially released in beta form to much fanfare and anticipation. Our resident Nokia (NYSE: NOK) fanatic, Stefan, tested the hell out of the Opera Mini 4 Dimension beta and came away quite pleased. Although, he did have a few suggestions for future versions of the mobile browser – and those suggestions didn’t fall on deaf ears. The Opera Mini team has been hard at work to add a few missing features, accomodate community suggestions, and bring more innovation to the Opera Mini platform.

According to the Opera Mini team’s blog, the new Opera Mini 4 Dimension beta 2 (we love long names) brings:

• Landscape mode – change the screen’s orientation to make viewing wide web pages more convenient
• Multi-search Start Page – your one-stop page with all your favorite search engines ready to scour the web for whatever you want
• Custom search engines – just like the full-fledged desktop Opera browser, you can customize your search preferences to your tastes and needs
• Exclusive BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) support -the new Opera Mini beta includes many enhancements for our BlackBerry users including better menus and a new user interface

Head on over to Opera’s download page and hit up the new Opera Mini 4 Dimension beta 2 (we just had to say it again, we love long, technical names).

Oh, and here’s the full change log from the Opera Mini team blog:

• Now you can add the search engine of your choice to the start page, just like in the Opera desktop browser. Hey, now you could put Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Search on the start page.
• Shortcut keys
• Browse in landscape mode — view the Web on a wider screen (Shortcut key: ‘#’ and ‘*’)
• Native menu for BlackBerry phones
• Lots of optimizations for BlackBerry phones
• Content folding – Collapses long menu lists (like those found on sidebars of webpages), so you don’t need to scroll through them to get to the page content. Note: This only works in “Fit to width” mode, not desktop.
• Supports secure connections for banks, eBay, etc.
• Small fonts have been enabled
• Simplified setup process
• Improved image quality
• Improved cookie support
• Ability to edit the current URL
• Added ‘Full screen’ mode
• Dialogs now use web 2.0-ish look and feel
• Added support for more phones
• Fixed a ton of bugs

Opera is committed to bringing us the best possible mobile web browser, and as such, they’ll be releasing another beta to work out all the bugs and what not before Opera Mini 4 Dimension goes final.

It’s finally here folks. After much speculation and a handful of spy pics, HTC has finally gone official with their HTC P5500 Touch II (codenamed “Nike”) Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional smartphone. Unfortunately for those residing within US borders, the HTC Nike is making its debut on Japan’s DoCoMo network, renamed (just like carriers love to do) as the HTC HT1100.

How could HTC possibly improve on the original HTC Touch smartphone – enough to justify an HTC Touch II? Well, we’re glad you asked. The new HTC P5500 Nike Touch II (whew, that’s a lot of names) is actually HTC’s first foray into the world of vertical sliders. With a numeric keypad hidden under that vertically slidingtouchscreen, we can say that this is one sweet, sweet piece of kit. And the HTC Nike P5500 lives up to its “Touch II” namesake by rocking the TouchFLO interface that was debuted on the HTC Touch not long ago.

But it doesn’t stop there. On top of that snazzy vertical slide, the DoCoMo HT1100 Touch II rocks both HSDPA (for use on Japan’s FOMA network) and GSM radios (for international roaming), making this thing a bona fide 3G handset. What else? Well, how about a 2.6 inch touchscreen, 802.11a/b/g WiFi, SIP support, Bluetooth, 2 megapixel camera with a 1 megapixel front-facing shooter, and microSD card slot – all wrapped up in a 112 x 51 x 16.9mm, 130g package, powered by Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional.

We’re glad HTC decided to do away with the awkward, square shape of the original HTC P5500 Nike that we saw in that leaked product roadmap. Now, we just need it to come Stateside in September, that would be nice.

[Via: Akihabara News]

Chinese have did it again. This time I’m not talking about a clone device — or at least I think I’m not — but about the first China-made device which sports the slide out keyboard. Although, it DOES resemble some smartphones from the HTC portfolio, it’s kinda hard to patent the slide out mechanism, hence I’m not considering it a ripoff.

Anyway, the device measures 112×60x20 mm, weighs 110 grams, and in terms of specs boasts the huge 3.4″ 16 million color QVGA touchscreen, 1.3 MP camera, TV Out, as well as the standard microSD expansion slot. Too bad the camera isn’t better, although the overall specs are not bad at all… More photos and a video after the jump.

Read the full article »

We’ve already talked about Samsung SGH-i620 and discussed that it will most probably be carried by Vodafone across Europe. Now, the smartphone has been officially announced and soon we could expect it to hit all major European markets.

Apparently, the QWERTY (or AZERTY or QWERTZ – depending of the country) keyboard equipped slider will see its debut in Germany somewhere next month. Users can expect some 3G love, alongside with the 2 MP camera, front facing camera for video telephony, 2″ QVGA screen, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0. As expected, Windows Mobile 6 Standard edition is running the show…

[Via: the::unwired]

No, this isn’t some exclusive eco-friendly exclusive handset. Rather it’s an old Ericsson phone made out of wood and it’s coming from Russia. Actually, everything outside has been replaced with wood except buttons and display. Also, I doubt there are any changes in terms of device’s hardware — it remains the basic phone that can take and make phone calls, and send and receive text messages. On the second thought, this baby will make its buyers truly stand out, even though the device is ugly as hell.

[Via: uberphones]