iPhone in China

Apple's launch of the iPhone in China doesn't have the sheen of its tightly controlled product launches in the U.S. and other parts of the world. In fact, it seems downright awkward. The company chose to launch a hobbled version of its hot product instead of waiting a few months to give consumers the real deal. And Apple made it more expensive than the fully functional iPhones already available on the gray market.

When Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) officially released its iPhone in China last week, it presented Chinese consumers with what could be a difficult decision: Pay more for the official device --which currently lacks WiFi -- or obtain a cheaper, WiFi-enabled device from the gray market.

With some 700 million mobile-phone subscribers, China is the largest untapped market for the iPhone, and holds the potential to expand Apple's global market share dramatically.

Yet the company's entry into that market has been fraught with challenges.



A Temporary Ban

There could be as many as two million unauthorized iPhones already in use in China, according to many press accounts. Those unlocked devices are WiFi-enabled and reportedly can be significantly cheaper than the 4,999 yuan (US$730) to 6,999 yuan ($1,025) prices set by China Unicom, Apple's authorized Chinese partner.

The Chinese government placed a temporary ban on WiFi in iPhone-type devices, which caused Apple to manufacture its first round of products without that critical feature. That ban was reportedly lifted in May, according to the Associated Press, but now Chinese consumers are faced with the result.

'A Fairly Severe Disadvantage'

"I think what they wanted to do was comply with the local government, but this is a lesson that governments are incredibly fickle, and anyone can end up on the wrong side of a government decision," Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst with the Enderle Group, told MacNewsWorld. "It could have happened to anyone, but this time it happened to Apple."

The result, however, is that "it will put them at a fairly severe disadvantage," Enderle added.

The good news, however, is that "Chinese buyers generally will pay more for brands they recognize as valid," Enderle noted. "There's so much junk in that market, and piracy levels are so incredibly high, consumers will often pay more for a bona fide brand."

A Line of 300 Buyers

Indeed, though Chinese consumers' reception to the release wasn't anything like the frenzy that met the iPhone's arrival in the United States two years ago, there were still significant crowds lined up to obtain the new, official device, Jeff Gamet, managing editor of The Mac Observer, pointed out.

Some 300 consumers lined up at China Unicom's flagship Beijing store, Gamet noted, despite cold temperatures on Friday night.

"The reason this first batch came out without WiFi is simply because Apple was already ramping up production when China decided to lift the ban," Gamet told MacNewsWorld.

Nevertheless, it seems likely the next batch of iPhones sold to China will have the feature built in, he added.

'That's Still Saying a Lot'

Overall, the partially handicapped nature of the iPhone's official Chinese debut will have a minimal impact on the device's prospects in the long run, Gamet asserted.

"A lot of the iPhones people can get through the gray market have WiFi, and lots of people will buy those," he explained. "But China is a really big country, and lots of people are still lining up to buy the device through legitimate channels, even without WiFi.

"For a country that's had access to gray market iPhones pretty much since the iPhone was originally launched -- and at cheaper prices -- that's still saying a lot," he added.

'A Big Boost' Globally

"China is one of the largest markets in the world for cellphones," Gamet concluded, "so this is going to be a big boost for iPhone market share worldwide."

Now that Apple no longer has to make a special version of the device for China, it could conceivably roll the next -- WiFi-enabled -- generation into production any time, he added.

Apple did not respond by press time to MacNewsWorld's requests for comment.

'Worse Problems to Have'

"Wifi is new and hot and has the potential to transform wireless for voice as well as data," wireless and telecom analyst Jeff Kagan told MacNewsWorld. "However, there are many questions and much uncertainty."

Apple wanted "to grow and move in China," Kagan noted, but the lack of WiFi won't hurt it in the long run.

"When this issue is put to rest, they will make whatever changes they need; in the meantime, they win market share," he explained.

"The worst that will happen is new customers then want an upgrade," he predicted. "There are much worse problems to have."

This article is from www.technewsworld.com

Verizon's Motorola Droid sells for 200 USD

Today is the official unveiling of Verizon's first Android-based smartphone. The Motorola Droid, scheduled for release next week, will be packed with high-end features, like a WVGA+ touchscreen, hardware keyboard, mobile broadband, Wi-Fi, and much more.

Verizon has been aggressively advertising this model -- it has been the subject of a TV ad campaign for the last several weeks that seeks to highlight its advantages over Apple's iPhone.

An Overview of the Motorola Droid

This smartphone will be a slider, with a landscape-oriented QWERTY keyboard. It is going to have a 3.7-inch, 854-by-480-pixel (WVGA+) capacitive Touchscreen with haptic feedback.

It will run Google Android 2.0 on a 550 MHz processor, and will come with a suite of applications that can wirelessly synchronize with this company's services, including Gmail, Calendar, Contacts, and Maps.

Verizon is promising advanced speech recognition to allow user to make calls and search the Web with voice commands.

For professionals, the Droid will offer Exchange ActiveSync and a Microsoft Office file viewer. For everyone, it will have video and audio software.

Android is known for its very powerful WebKit-based web browser, and the newest version is going to support HTML5, plus Adobe Flash 10.1 when it's released in 2010.

Verizon is going to bundle a 16 GB microSD card, and users will have the option of switching this out with a 32 GB card when these come on the market next year.

More Hardware Features

This smartphone will support Verizon's high-speed mobile broadband EV-DO Rev. A service. It will also include Wi-Fi b/g and Bluetooth for short range connections to the Internet and accessories.

The Droid will have a 5 megapixel camera, with auto-focus and dual LED flash. This will be able to handle high-resolution images and 720-by-480-pixel video at up to 24 fps.

It is also going to include a 3.5 mm headset jack, a GPS receiver, and an accelerometer.

This Motorola model will have a 1400 mAh battery, which Verizon says will be good for either 385 minutes of talk time or up to 270 hours of stand-by time.

Overall, this device will be 4.6 inches wide, 2.4 inches wide, and 0.5 inches thick (116 x 60 x 14 mm).

Additional details on the Motorola Droid can be found in the official datasheet (PDF)

Pricing & Availability

Those who are interested in the Droid won't have to wait much longer; Verizon promised today that this cutting-edge cell phone will debut next Friday, Nov. 6. It will be available exclusively at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online.

This high-end cell phone is going to sell for $200 with a new two-year customer agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate.

This article is from www.brighthand.com

Blackberry Storm2 Smartphone

Waterloo, Ontario -- Vodafone and Research In Motion today introduced the BlackBerry Storm2(TM) smartphone for customers in seven European countries as well as South Africa.

The second generation of RIM's innovative and award-winning touch-screen smartphone, the BlackBerry Storm2 significantly improves the BlackBerry touch-screen platform with new technology and new features to let customers stay easily connected to the people, places and things that matter most.

In the busy holiday gift buying period, customers in the UK and Ireland will be able to get the new smartphone first through Vodafone, and it will be offered exclusively by Vodafone in Germany, Netherlands and Spain. It will also be made available in France, Italy and South Africa in time for Christmas.

The BlackBerry Storm2 with BlackBerry OS 5 evolves the BlackBerry touch-screen platform with hundreds of hardware and software enhancements.

The BlackBerry Storm2 smartphone (model 9520) from Vodafone features:

New SurePress Technology

The BlackBerry Storm2 smartphone introduces a new SurePress(TM) technology based on an electronic system that provides the user with tactile feedback when the touch-screen is pressed. The new system responds equally to gentle pressure applied anywhere on the surface of the screen and makes clicking the display practically effortless. Typing on the smartphone's virtual keyboards is easier, more comfortable and more accurate. The new SurePress technology also allows the user to type a letter with one thumb even while their other thumb may still be touching or resting on another letter, enabling faster typing and multi-key actions such as Shift or Alt -key combinations.

Hardware Features

- Smooth design and premium finish with sloped edges, chrome accents, glass lens and stainless steel backplate

- Large (3.25"), dazzling, high resolution 360 x 480 display at 184 ppi

- Capacitive touch-screen with integrated functions (Send, End, Menu, Escape) and new SurePress technology that makes clicking the display practically effortless

- Global connectivity support: UMTS/HSPA (2100Mhz), quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM and Wi-Fi? (802.11 b/g) networks

- 3.2 MP camera with variable zoom, autofocus, flash and video recording

- 256 MB of Flash memory

- 2 GB of onboard memory storage and a microSD/SDHD memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB cards today and is expected to support 32 GB cards when available

- Premium and easy-to-access phone features, background noise suppression technology, loud distortion-free speakerphone and face detection (proximity sensor) that prevents accidental clicks and blanks the screen while the user is on the phone

- Media player for videos, pictures and music, plus BlackBerry Desktop Manager for both PCs and Macs, and BlackBerry Media Sync for easily syncing iTunes and Windows Media Player music with the smartphone(i)

- Vodafone's music client pre-installed, giving access to an extensive catalogue of artists

- A 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and dedicated volume controls

- Bluetooth (2.1) with support for Secure Simple Pairing, hands-free headsets, stereo headsets, car kits and other Bluetooth peripherals

- Built-in GPS for maps and other location-based applications, as well as photo geotagging

- Access to BlackBerry App World(TM), featuring a broad and growing catalog of mobile applications developed specifically for BlackBerry smartphones. Categories include games, entertainment, IM and social networking, news, weather, productivity and more. Applications developed for the original BlackBerry Storm are fully compatible with the BlackBerry Storm2

- BlackBerry Internet Service and BlackBerry Enterprise Server support

- Removable, rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery that provides approximately 6 hours of talk time on 3G networks and 280 hours of standby time

BlackBerry OS 5

- More responsive experience and includes usability and visual enhancements such as inertial scrolling, spin boxes that make it easier to set dates and times, gradient shading on buttons and more use of animation

- Typing accuracy and selection have been significantly refined

- BlackBerry Browser improved with faster JavaScript and CSS processing as well as support for Gears and BlackBerry Widgets

- Customers running BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5 will gain the ability to:

-- Set follow-up Flags on the handset like they can in Microsoft Office Outlook

-- Manage Microsoft Exchange email folders (Add, Rename, Move, Delete) on the handset

-- Access remote files shares (Windows Shares); Save, View, Edit, and Email documents from remote file shares

-- Forward appointments and view calendar attachments on the handset

-- Benefit from wireless sync improvements for Contacts, including sync for multiple contact folders, personal Distribution Lists and contacts in Public/Shared folders

(i) Certain music files may not be supported, including files that contain digital rights management technologies.

Pricing

Pricing will be announced by the individual in-country operating companies. As an indication, Vodafone UK will be offering the BlackBerry Storm2 free from GBP 35 per month on a 24-month contract that includes 600 minutes talk-time, unlimited BlackBerry Internet Service, unlimited text messaging, as well as unlimited access to VMI (Vodafone Mobile Internet) and broadband.

This article is from www.mobiletechnews.com

Upgraded Blackberry

The Storm was supposed to be the smartphone that would keep Verizon Wireless customers from deserting to Apple’s iPhone, which runs on AT&T’s network.

Research In Motion, the company that created the BlackBerry phones that business users find so addictive, gave Verizon exclusive rights to sell its first touch-screen phone in order to reach the vast consumer market.

But the Storm failed to live up to its name. About a million devices were sold, so it was not a flop. But many customers and some reviewers found it buggy and hard to use.

Meanwhile, the iPhone’s allure grew with new versions and a rapidly growing catalog of applications.

This week, Verizon and R.I.M. are trying again with a Storm do-over, the Storm 2. Among its many improvements, the new phone gives the user the sensation of pushing a physical button when pressing a number on the glass touch screen.

Lowell C. McAdam, the chief executive of Verizon Wireless, has been carrying the revamped device for a few weeks, looking for any evidence that this time it will catch on. Mr. McAdam said that while he was recently visiting the Verizon store in New York’s SoHo district, he started talking to a couple of students from New York University who were shopping for cellphones.

“I let them play with the second-generation Storm device,” he said. “They came back and said ‘Oh, my gosh.’ They were very excited. This is what they hoped the original Storm should be.”

If enough people share that opinion, R.I.M. could finally have the hit with consumers it has long sought. The Canadian company remains the top seller of smartphones in North America (and second to Nokia worldwide). But Apple is catching up quickly, and a huge crop of new smartphones is heading to stores based on new operating systems from Microsoft and Google. Even Verizon is hedging its smartphone bets with a major deal to develop handsets based on Google’s Android operating system.

R.I.M. has been slow to develop touch-screen technology, and its BlackBerrys are sluggish at browsing the Internet, industry analysts say. And developers have written only about 2,000 applications to run on BlackBerrys, compared with 85,000 for the iPhone and 10,000 for Android phones.

Investors are increasingly worried that R.I.M. cannot keep up with the pace of innovation. R.I.M.’s shares plunged 17 percent in one day last month after the company reported slightly less revenue than analysts expected for the quarter that ended in August.

Analysts were also alarmed because the company said the average price it expected to get from phones sold to wireless carriers would fall to $320, from $350.

“Times are getting tougher for R.I.M. as they move more into the consumer space,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst for the Gartner Group. “There is a lot more competition, and consumers don’t care much about the security and other things they sell to enterprises.”

Jim Balsillie, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive, said in a recent interview that investors were misreading the most recent financial results. Prices are falling largely because the company is moving out its inventory of old models in preparation for the new versions of the Storm and the Bold, its top-of-the line, keyboard-based phone.

Moreover, since R.I.M.’s component costs are falling, profit margins are holding steady. “I have never felt more enthusiastic about our business,” he said.

Despite its consumer push, much of R.I.M.’s effort is still tilted to pleasing business customers. Mr. Balsillie said the company planned to shake up the market in November when it will open its private communication network, which will allow BlackBerry users to receive their e-mail and a constant flow of social network updates and entertainment content from other sources.

“The way people love the BlackBerry, e-mail is the way they will love doing a lot more with it,” Mr. Balsillie said.

R.I.M. has been written off many times before. Skeptics said that its first gadgets, which were little more than glorified pagers with keyboards, could not survive in a world of cellphones. Instead of failing, R.I.M. was the fastest-growing company in the world from 2006 through 2008, according to calculations by Fortune magazine.

R.I.M. was not hard hit by the recession, which has forced some of the big companies that have been the heart of its market to lay off workers. And R.I.M. was helped because BlackBerrys have started to become a family phone, too.

The company has also cut the manufacturing cost of BlackBerrys by using variations on its existing designs that have allowed retailers to sell the devices at prices matching much simpler phones. For example, the BlackBerry Curve, R.I.M.’s most popular phone, is offered at Wal-Mart for about $50 with a contract. About 80 percent of R.I.M.’s sales this year have been to consumers, not to employers.

Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M’s other co-chief executive, says that the low cost of BlackBerrys allows cellular carriers to make more profit from the BlackBerrys than from other touch-screen handsets.

“We help carriers be profitable,” he said. “We gave them a way to get into the data business. Now we are giving them a way to manage their costs when they are worried that all they have to sell is highly subsidized smartphones.”

Mr. Lazaridis said that R.I.M. was about to release version 5.0 of its BlackBerry software, which promises to be easier to use, with a better Internet browser and longer battery life.

Applications remain a weak point. Developers say it is harder to write programs for the BlackBerry, especially ones with spiffy graphics and multimedia features. “When you create an application for R.I.M., you have to put in 30 to 40 percent more effort to make it look like what it would look like on the Android or the iPhone,” said Walter Doyle, the chief executive of uLocate Communications, which makes applications to locate businesses on maps.

“Yes, it is a little more difficult to develop on R.I.M.,” Mr. Lazaridis said. The company is working on new tools that will speed the work of applications programmers. But to serve the needs of its big corporate clients, he said, applications will still have to comply with sometimes cumbersome security procedures.

“It’s not a free-for-all,” he said.

That security is a crucial selling point for many customers, including President Obama, probably the best-known BlackBerry user. Mr. Lazaridis says R.I.M.’s precautions protect everyone.

“You’re starting to do banking on your handset,” he said. “Which would you rather use: something that can be hacked in five minutes or something the F.B.I. uses?”

This article is from www.nytimes.com

Is it true that Apple iPhone 3GS easily overheats?

 

"It's not yet clear how badly, if at all, some iPhone 3GS devices are overheating. Also unclear is the number of handsets affected. Assuming that number is greater than zero, the cause of the sizzling phones remains a mystery. Some users are blaming GPS, while others are blaming game playing. Some are speculating it's a battery issue, while others suspect faulty power management in the iPhone 3.0 software.

 ...there are accounts percolating in the Applesphere that suggest 3GS batteries are quick to overheat. A French Web site -- Le Journal du Geek -- included a photo of what appears to be a 3GS that overheated to the point of scorching."

To read more on this, click here.

Compare: Apple iPhone 3GS VS Nokia's N97

Wanna see how an iPhone 3GS is cracked open?

 

"There are three cables holding the LCD and digitizer to the rest of the logic board. Disconnecting them is as easy as 1-2-3.
• 1: LCD panel
• 2: Digitizer
• 3: Ear speaker  "

If you wanna know more about what's inside your iPhone 3GS, click here.

What's in a Samsung Omnia II?

 

Samsung Omnia II Specs:

• Network: HSDPA 7.2 Mbps/HSUPA 5.76Mbps; EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900MHz; UMTS 900/1900/2100MHz

• 65K WVGA AMOLED Display (3.7-inch, 480 x 800--largest AMOLED display yet in a phone)

•  Advanced R-type Touch Screen

• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional (upgradeable to WM 6.5)

• 5-megapixel CMOS camera with autofocus and face-detection, plus geotagging and a photo editor 

• Video recording at 30fps@720x480, plus video editor (trim video, audio dubbing, live dubbing, add subtitle)

• Audio supported: MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WMDRM, OMA DRM 2.1, plus FM radio

• Video supported: DivX, XviD, H.263, H.264, WMV9, MPEG4

• A-GPS with Navigation (3D Map)/LBS

• TouchWiz 2.0 UI with Mobile Widget/3D Media Gate

• Multitask manager/3D Interactive Games

• Bluetooth Stereo Headset (A2DP)

• WiFi

• 2GB/8GB/16GB of internal memory (3 different models)

• microSDHC expansion slot (up to 32GB)

• Up to 10 hours (3G) talk time

• Up to 430 hours (3G) standby time

• Dimensions: 4.65 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches (HWD)

Source

Meet Samsung's newest smartphones: OmniaPRO B7610--- OmniaPRO B7320 --- Omnia II --- OmniaLITE B7300

 

"Samsung has released details on the new line of Omnia phones it will show off at the CommunicAsia show in Singapore, including new OmniaPRO models that feature the standard candy bar form factor and the slide-out QWERTY design. The OmniaII has a large AMOLED screen, and the OmniaLITE sports Samsung's own TouchWiz 2.0 interface."

 The OmniaPRO comes in two form factors: a standard keypad/screen arrangement on the B7320 and a touchscreen design with slide-out QWERTY keypad on the 7610.

OmniaII

The OmniaII's features include video recording/playback capabilities and a 7.7-inch active matrix OLED display.

Samsung will likely market the OmniaPRO line first in Asia.

 To read more on this, click here.

 

Skyfire Lets Fly With Speedier Mobile Browser

Skyfire stirred up the smartphone world further on Wednesday with the release of a full 1.0 version of its mobile Web browser.

More than 1 million mobile phone users have installed and used the beta version of the browser over the past five months, according to company officials.

The new browser supports Windows Mobile(versions 5 and 6), as well as Symbian with Nokia's platform. A new version that also supports BlackBerry platform may be released in beta form soon.

"We just launched a private closed alpha version of the browser for BlackBerry devices. We are working towards a public beta this summer," Tracy DeMiroz, vice president of marketing for Skyfire, told TechNewsWorld.

Feature Rich

Skyfire's full-function Web browser for mobile phones supports popular Web standards and plug-ins such as Flash 10, Silverlight 2, Ajax and JavaScript, DeMiroz said.

Its ability to provide users with a means to view the rich media on Web sites from their smartphones may give Skyfire an edge. The browser lets users watch any Web video and live event on a small-screen mobile phone.

Skyfire users can customize their start pages with RSS feeds from their favorite Web sites. They can also integrate their Facebook and Twitter accounts to import status updates and tweets and easily publish their status to these networks with a single click.

What's New

The architecture stayed the same from the beta to the full first release version, according to DeMiroz. As they built version 1.0, however, developers focused on two things: user experience and speed.

Power optimization and search functions were also improved from the beta release.

"What is unique is that the complexity of processing the Web page takes place on our servers. That's how we get the faster performance and quicker page loads. That's how we can render the full Web page on the mobile phone," said DeMiroz.

Job One: Speed

Having previously delivered rich media and text readability on a small screen, the focus of the latest release was to help users get to content they want more quickly, added DeMiroz.

For example, users can enter a search term or Web site location while Skyfire is connecting to the network, she noted. After a Web page loads, the user can scroll and zoom; the experience is much like using an iPhone. Also, users can click on links on the first page load without having to zoom first.

"People say that we give an iPhone-like browser experience on other platforms," said DeMiroz. "We actually take that a step further by supporting Flash 10. Many Web sites are built with Flash and Ajax, and the complexity of the Web continues to grow."
Big Deal?

Though Skyfire joins the likes of Opera Software, which has offered a mobile browser for years, and Mozilla, whose Fennec mobile browser is just beginning to get off the ground, it remains to be seen whether an impending mobile browser battle will be anywhere near as fiery as the fight for desktop supremacy.

"My first response is, better than what browser? Especially with handsets, you have multiple browser functionality already," Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist for In-Stat, told TechNewsWorld.

Many applications running on smartphones can access the Internet. While these apps are usually not general browsers that people will use to surf the Web and look at various sites, most people do not use their mobile phones for the same kind of surfing they'd do on a desktop. Instead, they use very specific application functionalities that are tied to the Internet in some way, he explained.

"So it begs the question: OK, is it really that important? I have several browsers on my various mobile phones, including Opera. Surfing on most cellphones still is not a very pleasant experience," he argued.

(by Jack M. Germain of TechNewsWorld)