Alltel adds messaging to My Circle
June 30, 2008
Filed under: Messaging, Alltel
This ain’t your grandpappy’s My Circle. Well, actually, it pretty much is, with one small change: customers signing up for a My Circle messaging plan of $7.99 or higher on Alltel will now get unlimited messaging within their Circle, while the non-Circle bucket starts at 400 per month. The $19.99 “All Access Pass” is still available too, which rocks unlimited messaging to everyone regardless of whether they’re cool enough to be in your Circle — and it includes mobile web access, to boot. The new plans are available immediately.
Popularity: unranked [?]
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iPhone roundup: iTunes remote, Apple ready for real software in the App Store
June 30, 2008
Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Apple, OS X
Who would’ve thought that rumored iControl app would not only turn out to be real, but survive the inevitable internal politics, delays, and feature cutbacks to make it all the way through to a summer release? Sure enough, iTunes 7.7 has been pushed out to developers in the past several hours, and the installer encourages iPhone and iPod touch owners to “use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.” No further details are given — and it’s not clear whether the “iControl” name seen earlier has been scrapped altogether — but we can guess that it’ll use WiFi to hook up with your mainframe, which really makes the idea of an AirPort Express appealing all over again.
On another note, Apple has released Beta 8 of the iPhone SDK and is using the occasion to kick off acceptances of applications to the real, live App Store in preparation for its July 11 launch. It appears that Beta 8 is actually required to complete the process, so don’t go jumping the gun now — goodness knows the rest of the iPhone-toting world doesn’t want your half-baked apps in a couple weeks, you shady developer, you.
Read - iPhone / iTunes Remote app
Read - Applications to App Store now being accepted
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O2 briefly shows off prepaid pricing for iPhone 3G
June 30, 2008
It’s a far cry from free, so just how badly do you want to avoid that postpaid contract? O2 had posted pricing for the iPhone 3G when purchased through its Pay & Go prepaid program, showing
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Two years and half billion later, Helio sells for a song. But why?
June 29, 2008
Filed under: Features, Helio, Virgin Mobile, MVNOs
Money-losing companies with interesting technology and a small, if rabid, customer base still frequently tend to sell for healthy chunks of change — especially in the wireless space. Look at Trolltech, for example, the mobile Linux company that never really made any money, yet somehow managed to be acquired by Nokia for its talent and IP, which apparently carried a value of over $150m. We know Helio was burning cash on a whole ‘nother level, but that doesn’t entirely explain why SK Telecom was so absurdly desperate to dump their $500m investment. At a $39m acquisition price, SK didn’t just lose its shirt — it lost that, the shoes, and then the pants. You know, the pants with a half-billion dollars in them.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Nokia unleashes Supernova series: meet the 7210, 7310, 7510, and 7610
June 29, 2008
Filed under: Handsets, Nokia, GSM, EDGE
Though they’ve already been well documented (heck, they’re already on sale in some parts of the world), Nokia’s just now getting around to making its foursome of Supernovas official. The new line reps mid-range fashion (think L’Amour, but not over the top) and comes in your choice of two candybars, a flip, or a slider as the 7210, 7310, 7510, or 7610, respectively. The 7210 features a tri-band GSM radio plus EDGE, a 2 megapixel camera, and an FM radio; look for it to launch in the third quarter for €120 (about $189). The 7310 apes the 7210’s look but adds support for changeable Xpress-On faceplates, TV-out, and support for GSM 850, and while all that extra kit adds €35 (about $55) to the price over the lesser model, it’s available now. The 7510 goes for the flip form factor but carries over most of the 7310’s spec sheet, waiting it out until the fourth quarter for a €180 (about $283) launch in scary colors like “Fatal Red”. Finally, the 7610 (no, not that one) moves up to a beefier 3.2 megapixel camera and hits next quarter for €225 (about $354).
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LiPS and LiMo mobile Linux groups join forces, acronyms
June 29, 2008
Filed under: Linux
Looks like there’s only room for one mobile Linux standards body in these here parts, and LiMo’s current momentum and partnership deals have apparently swept up the members of the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) — the two groups just announced that as of July, LiPS will be folded into LiMo. That’ll give the Foundation even more ammunition as it gears up to do open-source battle with Android and that fruit-flavored mobile whose name we keep forgetting. There’s no word on what’s going to happen to LiPS’s 1.0 specs, but we’d guess they’ll be folded into the LiMo platform — now all we need are some actual phones.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Half fake Sony Ericsson, half fake iPhone seeks asylum with FCC
June 29, 2008
Filed under: Handsets, Others, GSM
Each so often, a company with a hot ripoff on it hands will roll the dice and send its wares through the FCC approval process, look around while whistling innocently, and hope beyond hope that no one notices anything uncommon about the goods. The latest sneaky little son of a gun comes courtesy of Ezze Mobile Tech, the creatively named “MEGA4″ with quadband GSM, a touch display, TV-out, and Bluetooth. Screen off, the design reeks of Sony Ericsson’s cues, but turn it on, and, well… you can pretty much tell where this is going. We guess it’s nice to get a tiny taste of the buffoonery we’d be treated to if Apple and Sony were to merge, but with just GPRS data on board, a set of FCC documentation is about as close to the flavor as we want to get.
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Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 hands-on, sorta
June 29, 2008
Filed under: Handsets, Features, Sony Ericsson, Windows Mobile, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS, HSUPA
So here’s the scene. We’re at the Digital Experience show, trying to get our hands on a powered-up Sony Xperia X1. Sure, we found a unit that wasn’t powered up, but that does you — and us — no good. Sony told us to come back in 15 minutes, so we grabbed some press kits, made a round of booths, and came back.
Sure enough, when we came back the X1 was powered up, but the nice booth lady tried to tell us that things weren’t working just right and the unit was stuck on the config screen. After some jiggering, we determined the tiny X1 was just stuck on the touch screen calibration, and we were cruising through menus within minutes. It’s pretty clear this unit wasn’t ready for primetime — you’ll even see some HTC test apps in the below gallery — but we were impressed by the screen’s resolution and brightness. Windows Mobile 6.1 showed it face often in the UI, but the phone app and general utilities were looking good.
Overall, the X1 is a pleasure to behold — it’s one sexy device. That said, we’ll have to wait how Sony Ericsson’s user interface shapes up and just look at the pretty photos in the gallery until mid-September.
You can find the gallery over here at Engadget Classic.
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Hey Vodafone, Verizon called, it wants its Wireless back
June 28, 2008
Filed under: Verizon Wireless, Vodafone
Verizon chief Ivan Seidenberg gave a particularly candid interview with the Financial Times recently, revealing that he’d like to see Verizon take full control of Verizon Wireless — a joint venture with Vodafone in which Verizon holds 55 percent — given that Verizon is “doing 100 percent of the work.” Zing! Despite saying that Voda’s “been a great partner,” the bulk of the conversation makes it sound like relations are definitely strained between the two telecom giants, and Seidenberg thinks that once bigwig Arun Sarin hands over the Vodafone reigns to Vittorio Colao next month, “maybe he’ll want to do something different.” You know, “different” as in “sell off $60 billion worth of Verizon Wireless to Verizon Communications.” Also interesting is Seidenberg’s revelation that Sarin wanted Verizon to snap up Alltel last year before it sold to private equity firms, but thanks to Verizon’s majority on the VZW board, they were able to put the kibosh on the plan, apparently over concerns that they’d end up in a nasty bidding war. Alas, all’s well that ends well, we suppose.
[Via mocoNews]
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Nokia rolls out N78 firmware update over the aether
June 28, 2008
Filed under: Software, Nokia, Symbian
Nokia pushing out a user-installable firmware update to one of its S60 handsets is certainly nothing new — and unfortunately, pushing out stated update to the European model before the North American model is nothing new, either — but what is new is how this particular update is being distributed. The company is finally taking advantage of S60’s over-the-air update capability, allowing users to nab the 2MB binary for the European variant of the N78 right over a WiFi or 3G connection (GPRS / EDGE too, we envision, but that’d be pretty painful). Version 11.043 is stated to imbue handsets with “improved stability with Bluetooth (headsets and car kits) and music (playback over a long time and content refresh)” alongside “optimized Camera performance and Naviscroll sensitivity improvements,” so we’d state it’s pretty much a no-brainer to grab — particularly since it doesn’t mean sitting down in front of the Personal computer with a USB cable and an iron will.
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