When you’re the biggest name in your particular market, you can go off and talk smack to just about anyone about whatever you feel like. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is most definitely the market-leader in the mobile phone industry, and they’ve got the, ahem, hardware (and software now) to back it up. With Nokia’s renewed push into the mobile gaming space, they’ve gotten a bit sure of themselves. And with good reason, the Finns in sunny Espoo have been working for years to perfect their mobile gaming platform, N-Gage, and are now ready to rock the mobile world with an onslaught of mobile games.

So, what does Nokia think about competitors to their N-Gage platform – by which we are mainly talking about Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) and their oft-rumored PSP-branded mobile phone? Jaakko Kaidesoja, head of games at Nokia, was caught taunting N-Gage rivals at a recent press event, saying, “I’m not scared about anybody. The real question is how do they do it? Can they create a link between the PSP games and a phone? Can they do the multiplayer and online stuff? We’ve been doing this for two years and it hasn’t been easy.”

Unfortunately, Nokia N73 owners will have to wait on getting N-Gage on their handset. “We promised the N73 earlier, but we found some memory issues, as it has a lower memory spec than other devices,” says Kaidesoja. “That gives some headaches, but we’ll deal with that, and will release for the device during the second quarter.”

As Nokia gets set to broaden N-Gage into a platform, rather than brand it to a single handset, we’ll see the Nokia N82 and N95 get the N-Gage treatment soon enough – joining the N-Gage N81 among Nokia’s stable of gaming handsets. And, Kaidesoja mentioned that as S60 Touch gets to become a reality, Nokia is working to bring touchscreen functionality to the N-Gage platform.

Them’s fighting words, Sony Ericsson. Nokia wants to throw down, you should give them a piece. And, maybe send one of them PSP Phones our way?

[Via: PocketGamer]

Motorola’s bread and butter is the mid- and entry-level handset market, and it looks like they’re not giving up that slice of the pie anytime soon. The FCC has unveiled yet another Motorola (NYSE: MOT) clamshell handset for the mid-range set.

CellPhoneSignal gave us a heads up on the Motorola W270’s recent FCC publication. As a mid-range handset, the Moto W270 features a dual-band GSM (850/1900Mhz) radio, MP3 playback, microSD card slot, and FM radio with RDS. The dual-band radio could be preparing to lock on to T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) towers, but that’s speculation at this point.

And, at 17mm thick, the Motorola W270 brings more slim style to the mid-range masses. Of course, you’ll be sacrificing everything but GPRS data speeds and a camera to get at the likely affordable price-point.

[Via: CellPhoneSignal]

Forget turning a profit, Helio needs to figure out how to stop bleeding cash (much like Sprint). On the upside, Helio’s fiscal 2007 revenues were $171 million, up from $46 million in 2006. But, what good is taking in more money when you’re burning greenbacks at a significantly faster rate?

Not much.

Helio posted a loss of $326 million in 2007, compared to $192 million in 2006. Albeit, Helio did increase their advertising out-go, but with $47.5 million advertising dollars in 2007, their advertising costs only increased about $25 million (from $21.6 million in 2006). In fact, Helio’s losing money so fast that once-parent Earthlink had to relinquish control of the MVNO venture to SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM), the other parent company that helped start Helio. 

Can Helio last? Time will tell. But, if history is any sort of predictor, MVNOs aren’t going to fare too well.

We can’t imagine Helio has more than another year and half to prove themselves (or run out of funding).

[Via: RCRNews]

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Sprint (NYSE: S) had better get their WiMAX/XOHM network lit-up right-quick, before they exhaust their financial means to do so. There’s a lot riding on XOHM, and a couple wrong moves could spell the end for Sprint.

So, it’s refreshing to hear that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse say that a partnership with WiMAX provider Clearwire is still possbile. In an earnings call today, Hesse said that ,”We have had wide ranging discussions with Clearwire on potential relationships but no final agreements have been reached.” Hesse wasn’t too forthcoming with Sprint’s WiMAX plans, but he did say that the XOHM network’s soft-launch in the Baltimore, Washington DC and Chicago markets were encouraging, adding that “Sprint has an enormous asset—nearly 100 megahertz of un-utilized spectrum—and we have the opportunity to have a three-year head start with our Xohm service, true wireless broadband with multi-megabit speed.”

And, to kick off their XOHM network, Sprint will be launching their first dual-mode WiMAX / CDMA handset later this year. Combined with those WiMAX routers from Zyxel, Sprint should have a good range of WiMAX/XOHM offerings when it goes live with the network.

That is, if Sprint can make it that far. Good thing they have Intel’s bankroll to play with.

[Via: MocoNews]

We can’t say we’re surprised. Steve Jobs wanted to control every single aspect of the iPhone experience, and with the introduction of the iPhone SDK next week, we can expect Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to control all sides of the third-party iPhone application equation.

iLounge cites sources that are “familiar with Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch software development kit (SDK) plans” as saying that the iPhone SDK will ensure that third-party iPhone applications will be required to go through iTunes as a means of distribution.

• No side-loading or OTA (over-the-air) downloading of applications, you’ll have to connect your iPhone to iTunes to get any official iPhone apps loaded up. Apple is really doing this whole content-portal thing right with iTunes-based synchronization.
• Apple will have the absolute last-say in which iPhone applications make the cut and which hit the rubbish-bin (Did I just say rubbish bin? I meant “trash can”). Only approved iPhone applications will find their way to the iTunes Store to await distribution to iPhones worldwide. However, it’s not clear if Apple will have to re-approve updates and bug-fixes to previously approved applications.
• The iPhone SDK will keep the iPhone dock connector off-limits. There will be no fooling around with the docking port, which kills our hopes of cool new iPhone accessories. The iPhone’s phone, camera and WiFi are open to all developers. Let’s just hope the iPhone has a restricted Bluetooth module that can be opened up to support Bluetooth 2.0 and A2DP. We’ll see.

Just another week of waiting and pondering…

[Via: iLounge]

It’s not one of the high-end monsters that we like to talk about so much in our little corner of the interweb, but we’ve got to give a respectable hand to Samsung for their sleek and slim Samsung SGH-i200 smartphone. At 11.8mm thin and trotting along with Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard (that’s non-touchscreen, unfortunately), the Samsung i200 candybar is quite a looker.

It’s just too bad the Samsung i200 is a decidedly mid-range offering. It doesn’t sport Wifi, it lacks GPS, it’s only tri-band GSM/EDGE (900/1800/1900Mhz) and boasts only a single band of UMTS/HSDPA (2100Mhz) – so the mainstream US market isn’t in the cards for this little guy. Still, the 2.3-inch QVGA display, 2 megapixel camera (with front-facing VGA camera), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 64MB RAM/128MB ROM, and microSD expansion slot, the Samsung i200 offers a good feature-set.

Corporate types will probably appreciate the Samsung i200’s thin profile, and it turns out that is exactly the demographic that Samsung is targeting with the i200.

Keep reading for a few more pics.

Read the full article »

While we wait for Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s press event next week, let’s speculate on what we’ll hear. We know that “cool new enterprise features” are going to be part of the “iPhone Software Roadmap,” but just what kind of enterprise features can we expect?

How does some Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s Exchange server and IBM Lotus Notes software support sound? Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Well, Shaw Wu, an American Technology Research analyst, cites his “industry and developer sources” who indicate that Apple will unveil some significant business-oriented software support for the iPhone on March 6th.

We’ve been pining for Apple to endow the iPhone with Microsoft Exchange Server support. The iPhone has seen limited success in the enterprise landscape, mainly because of its lack of business-software. IBM has already announced its intention to release Lotus Notes email for the iPhone, so the announcement that Apple will finally bring IBM into its stable of support software is no big surprise. But, allowing MS Exchange to work with the iPhone is a huge step, and a pleasant surprise.

“If true (which we believe is), this will prove key in having more enterprises and SMB adopt iPhone as their mobile platform,” states Wu. “What isn’t as clear to us is how Apple will accomplish this, whether this is from internal development (most likely), third-parties including Microsoft (next likely) with its ActiveSync technology, or Research in Motion Blackberry (NSDQ: RIMM) Connect (possible but less likely), or a combination of two or more.”

Once the iPhone gets some official business support from Apple, the iPhone could really shine as a true enterprise smartphone. After all, a ChangeWave survey showed that enterprise customers are more satisfied with their iPhone than corporate users toting RIM BlackBerry handsets.

“Nearly three-in-five (59%) of Apple’s business customers say their company is Very Satisfied with the iPhone.”

“RIM (maker of the Blackberry) ranks second with a Very Satisfied rating of 47%, though we note this represents an unusually large 8-pt decline from the previous survey.”

The results make sense, seeing as how 72% of iPhone customers are satisfied, making the iPhone the top pick in planned purchases.

Let’s see what happens on March 6th…

[Via: Apple Insider]

It’s been a nice, long dry spell without Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM)-related patent-battling news. We were getting a little too comfortable with the absence of the two company’s legal bickering.

Well, it was too good to last. The latest round in the Nokia vs. Qualcomm debacle that has spilled into high courts the world over and even managed to drag the US International Trade Commission into the fight, vindicates Nokia of any wrongdoing. The US ITC will uphold their previous ruling that Nokia did not violate any of Qualcomm’s patents.

We’re sure Qualcomm is none too pleased with this particular ruling, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see another appeal. Go Qualcom, er, go Nok, I mean, can’t we all just get along?

[Via: CNN Money]

No, it’s not the Top 10 iPhone web-apps list that I put together yesterday – although, you should check it out (and leave a comment if you like/dislike any of the web-apps on the list).

This time around, the iPhone has, like a hunting dog that runs into the field and returns with a dead gander clenched between its teeth, gone and secured Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s position as a Top 10 global handset vendor. According to market research by Gartner, Apple has taken up a cozy home on the Top 10 list – with less than 1 percent of the global market – among Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Motorola (NYSE: MOT) (yes, they’re still in the Top 10), RIM and ZTE (China is huge, remember?).

The achievement is notable not so much because Apple is playing with the “cool” kids now, but because it illustrates just how competitive the mobile phone business really is. Nokia dominates with 37.8% or 40%, depending on who you trust with your market share numbers, and Motorola’s global presence is dropping like a rock (from  21.5% to 11.9%), but Apple managed to score a Top 10 with just 0.6% market share. Apple’s got a long way to claw it’s way to the top-ish region of the Top 10 list, but with the 3G iPhone on the horizon, maybe Motorola could make some room for Apple?

And you thought the code-warriors working on iNdependence were on their game…

Check out this video demonstrating the “iPhone Unleashed” as it’s updating from a jailbroken iPhone v1.1.1 straight to the iPhone v1.1.4 firmware. The kicker here is that the update process, via iTunes, automatically and seamlessly jailbreaks, unlocks, and activates the iPhone into v1.1.4. What you see is an iPhone “that are belong” to the “iPhone Unleashed” team, running a jailbroken iPhone v1.1.4 and locked on to T-Mobile (NYSE: DT)’s network.

The team has also “PWNED” the restore screen to their liking. Not to mention replaced the startup Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) logo with their own. The iTunes-based jailbreak was made possible by hacking the iPhone firmware restore file (that file that ends with the extension .ipsw). This jailbreak is not ready for primetime yet, but we can only hope that there are plans to release it soon.







Oh, and they did all this without any official iPhone SDK support from Apple. These guys are amazing! Props to roxfan, Turbo, wizdaze, bgm, pumpkin and the iPhone Dev Team.

YouTube