Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement.
With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
As promised, the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N86 is now available at Rogers (NYSE: RCI) for $99.99 on a three-year contract after rebates. That price point is a sweet spot for a handset with an impressive 8 megapixel camera, full-bodied smartphone OS, and a form factor that still appeals to the feature phone crowd. Rogers is really going to have to bring it with their holiday lineup if they’re hoping to compete with the impressive selection Bell and telus are offering thanks to their shiny new HSPA networks. If Rogers’ “webphones” campaign pimping out the Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) X1, LG Eve, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold 9000, and the HTC Magic is their big holiday push, it’s clear they’re more interested in beating competitors on pricing rather than highest-end hardware. Interesting strategy – we’ll see if it pays off. You can pick up the Rogers N86 online right now, or check out our review before taking the plunge.
Previously, there were rumours that Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE)’s X1 would get an update to Windows Mobile 6.5 after a supposed leaked ROM hit xda-developers. Well, sources close to the matter are apparently dashing those hopes, saying that no official update is actually in the works. Considering the X1 already has a customized user interface, you aren’t really missing out on the facelift, and Marketplace is coming to 6.1 anyway, so the only substantial feature X1 owners won’t be enjoying is My Phone. Big loss? Not really.
The Motorola (NYSE: MOT) droid launched rolling large with Android 2.0, but for those with older Android devices, you can shelf away your jealousy; the biggest feature, voice-prompted driving directions in Google Maps, is now available on all Android 1.6 devices. Aside from a nice robot lady telling you when to turn, you can also set shortcuts for regular destinations, making it even easier to get to where you’re going. The update also includes Layers support, so you can keep an eye on specific points of interest, even when you’re on the way to your destination. The service is technically only available in the U.S, but there are workarounds. The Android 2.0 launch was hard enough on TomTom and Garmin, who make their business with premium versions of this service; I wonder how they’ll recover from this blow…
Gameloft had previously been very excited about Android, jumping into the market with twenty titles last February, but they have since changed their tune, and are pulling away from Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s mobile platform. Gameloft’s director of finance, Alexandre de Rochefort, had this to say about their performance on Android at a recent investor’s meeting:
“We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like … many others … It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue … We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android.”
Ouch. The iPhone has definitely made a name for itself in mobile gaming, and combined with mass consumer demand for the handset itself, it’s easy to see why a big name publisher would side with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s droid is certainly pushing hard with its marketing and preliminary sales have been decent, but odds are slim that it will put a significant dent in iPhone’s numbers. The bigger question raised here is “is this attitude prevalent across application segments other than gaming?” Gameloft is a pretty big deal; I can only imagine how many other major app developers are openly neglecting other mobile platforms as a result of the iPhone’s massive gravitational pull. With resources shrinking for a lot of companies, devs have to be especially picky about which camp they chose.
Update: I don’t if that financial director was talking out of line, or what, but Gameloft just issued a press release reiterating their support for Android, including that they have plans for 2.0. VP of publishing, Gonzague de Vallois said:
“The arrival of this new generation of phones will allow the development of High Definition games that make the most of the technological capacity and the speed of execution offered by the new Android phones. Consumers will benefit from a top quality gaming experience.”
Good news for those who have been following the rumors about the Samsung Omnia II i920: Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has set a pricetag and release date! Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface built on top of Windows Mobile 6.5, a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and dual-LED flash, GPS, and Wi-Fi all round out the Omnia II. Initially, we thought it would be launching with Windows Mobile 6.1, but it’s possible that originally-planned releasedates were pushed back to include 6.5. You can expect to pay $199.99 on contract after mail-in rebates to pick up the i920 from Verizon stores on December 2.
The upcoming Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) Kurara, which got a brief glimpse of last week, just got an extensive review. This is clearly Sony Ericsson’s competitor to Samsung’s OmniaHD i8910, and meets the challenge on a few levels, such as processor (Cortex A8) and camera (8 megapixels), but the display loses a few points for not being AMOLED. The Symbian-based OS is similar to the Satio, complete with Facebook and Twitter integration, but the reviewer’s final conclusion is that this handset’s success will depend entirely on the price point – there’s not a lot of innovation going on, but a 300 Euro price point would likely be enough to win over a few folks. Even with the pricetag taken into account, I’m not sure why anyone would pick up the U5 over the X10…
Heavy-duty social networkers will be familiar with the name “Seesmic“, a desktop and web Twitter client. It has officially gone mobile for Android and BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), with the expected features such as home screen notifications, picture sharing, timeline viewing, saved searches, and basic tweeting. The one thing I haven’t seen elsewhere on a BlackBerry twitter client yet is lists support; more specifics can be found on the BlackBerry page. The Android version has a few cool tricks, like saving tweets as drafts and video sharing, but to get a closer look, check out Seesmic’s Android page. To get downloading, point your mobile browser to seesmic.com or find it in the Android Market.
Between the opening of the Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1, and some leaks about the upcoming version 7, it sounds like Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is getting ready for a big push. Will is out judging Under the Radar, but we tap Windows Mobile blogger and Microsoft MVP Darren Humphries from MobileJaw for his take on the platform in the face of fresh competition on the smartphone circuit. We also talk about legal squabbles between carriers over “misleading” ads.
Of course, we never want to leave our listeners empty-handed – this week we’re giving out a Scosche reCOIL to one commenter in the U.S. It’s handy, simple car charger for the iPhone whose cable is retractable for easy stowing when not in use. Normally it retails for $29.99, but you can nab it for free just by leaving a comment.
Those who use GMail regularly be familiar with the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Talk sidebar showing which of your friends are online, as well as the wide variety of customization options available. A new one fresh from the labs is Android icons that let you know if your contact is currently online thanks to an Android device, complete with yellow Away robots, and red Busy ones. This would be a great option even if it were just extra eye candy for the Android-obsessed, but knowing someone is mobile definitely helps contextualize the conversation, and potentially avoids anyone getting offended at short, terse replies. You can enable the option in GMail over here.
Ow, did anyone else feel like their wallet just got kicked in the crotch? At a Swedish press event, Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) revealed that their Android-powered X10 to be released in February will be costing 6,000 Swedish kroner (which works out to $US 860 at the current exchange rate). Even among high-end smartphones that’s pretty steep, and considering SE’s history with selling the xperia brand unlocked, odds are we won’t see X10 carrier-subsidized for awhile. We’ve seen the super-slick user interface built on top of Android, 8 megapixel camera, slim profile, 1 Ghz processor, and 4-inch display, but it is a very small niche that will shell out that kind of money for this device. Anyone out there unfazed by the pricetag?
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Gameloft had previously been very excited about Android, jumping into the market 
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Between the opening of the Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1, and some leaks about the upcoming version 7, it sounds like Microsoft (
Those who use GMail regularly be familiar with the Google (
Ow, did anyone else feel like their wallet just got kicked in the crotch? At a Swedish press event, Sony Ericsson (
