iPad Pre-Orders from Feb 25th?

Another AppAdvice prediction that Apple will accept preorders for iPad from February 25th. AppAdvice had a reputation for correct prediction when its about Apple but the recent ones on iPhone 3GS, on which they expected a OLED screen and a FM transmitter.


They says pre-orders will be for the U.S. Wi-Fi model initially, but Jobs already hinted that the Wi-Fi version would be coming out first. It was expected to hit market from last week of March. Also there are speculations of some unannounced software updates for the iPad as it happened for the iPhone. At last it's just another well celebrated and hyped product from the Apple stable.

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Plant a real tree using your iPhone

iPhactory, marketer for phone apps, join hands with The conservation fund to introduce an app for iphone or iPod Touch called iPhorest. What it actually does? The conservation fund plant real trees for every virtual trees that an iPhone user plant through iPhorest.

The app, which is expected to hit the store soon, would be downloaded to an iPhone or iPod. Users could then plant virtual trees in their device and can watch them growing! On later stage they could send seeds to their friends and so on... The conservation fund will be planting real tres for every virtual one starting from Gulf Coast by restoring its vulnerable wild life habitats. Sign up here  for more updates regarding launch.

What iPhorest is really upto? Is it an awareness program? or just attracting the headlines with the 'green' label? Any way yet another interesting mobile app!

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WinMo Overtakes iPhone Sales in Q4

Above all expectations Windows Mobile sold considerably more units than iPhone. Steve Jobs announced in their earning release that over 4.4 million iPhones sold in Q4 2008. But according to Ballmer more than 5 million units were sold in Q4, announced in Microsoft earning conference call. This news, we saw first saw in wmpoweruser, came as a surprise and contrary to the most reports. iPhone may be a popular phone even now but its sales went down from 6.9 million in previous quarter. The popularity of Android might have affected iPhone? Any way platforms like Android, Palm's Web OS etc wouldn't leave even Windows Mobile a smooth road ahead.

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PocketSurfer2, Fastest Handheld Internet Device, Comes to India

The World's fastest handheld internet device PocketSurfer2 lands in India. Eyeing the huge market in India Datawind, a provider of wireless web access products and services, in connection with HCL Infosystems bring the sleek mobile device in Indian markets.

How come PocketSurfer2 the fastest mobile Internet device? The answer is Datawind's own algorithm! Their server pushes web pages to the device on user request. The vital part is the compression algorithm which could compress the web content to a factor of up to 30. This make the device even faster than most 3G handheld devices, says Datawind.

Unlike other mobile devices where users surf in through a smaller screen and insufficient memory and processing power the PocketSurfer2 provides a really wide screen and offers web pages in its original form providing a desktop like browsing experience. It also sports a QWERTY keyboard with large keys. See full specification here.

Now Datawind offers both free and paid Internet access. A free usage of 35 hours per month and the unlimited service comes at a cost of just Rs. 99(approx. $2) per month for the first year. Second year of service will cost users Rs. 999 with 35 hours per month for year. The device is priced Rs.11,990 for Indian market. 

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Second Android Phone Heads Back For Redevelopment

After G1 we heard a lot of Android phones dressing up, but none showed up! We need to wait little more to see another Android. Now the news is that announced Android device Kogan Agora is indefinitely delayed. It seems due to some fast developments in the Android community Agora went for redevelopment.

All we know is the decision came after  a meeting with Google at its US headquarters "to ensure its compatibility with all future Android applications". Kogan signed a strict non-disclosure agreement signed with Google.They already took orders and had displayed a working model in CES. Kogan said:"One potential issue is that developers may create applications for the Android operating system at a higher resolution and screen size than the Agora provides in its current form." 

It seems Google does not like device specific apps in their Android Market? Do they expect every app in their appstore compatible for any device? The only live Android phone(G1) and other announced phones (Lenova's and HTC Hero) feature full-face touchscreen. The only exception was Agora and is send to redesign. We will come to know the full story only once more Android devices hit the market. Read

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Obama Branded Phone in Kenya

You may find Obama branded tees in US but such a phone could be spotted only in Kenya! Kenya is President-Elect Barack Obama's Father's homeland and have large fan following for Obama. 

The Mi-Fone, an African company, brings Mi-Obama for the spirited Kenyan customers. Its written 'OBAMA' and his famous 'YES WE CAN' on the rear side.

Mi-Obama is an entry level phone with 128 x 128 pixels display, FM radio and a Led torchlight. The candybar is available for $30 only in Kenya. Check Mi-Fone site. Source

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World's First Watch Phone- A Potential Spy Device?

Here is some really exciting gadget! You might have seen this in some sc-fi spy movies - a watch phone! The watch include a mobile phone with 3G connectivity and a camera. LG unveiled world's first of its kind device in CES.

The device, named LG-GD910, is actually a follow-up to the prototype that LG introduced at CES 2008 and is first available in European markets sometime this year. LG made no compromise - high-speed 7.2 Mbps 3G HSDPA compatibility, Video Telephony (VT) service and GSM Quadband Network capabilities - it has everything you expect from a moderate mobile phone.

Even smartphones are struggling to meet the input method expectations, then how would this small device meet them? The solution they found is Voice command! Voice commands can be made with or with out Bluetooth headsets and make it easier to place calls or to look up contacts. If you find it difficult reading text messages from the watch screen it have Text to Speech (TTS) to read out texts loud.

The primary input method is its 1.43-inch totally touch sensitive screen and LG’s intuitive Flash Interface. The device is fully capable of sending messages, making phone calls and playing back music files. It has an built-in speaker and support A2DP. See more pics, press release and more here. Phone, cam, text... this all make it a good spy device?

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HTC's 2009 Line-up Leaked

HTC's 2009 line-up for mobile phones are leaked out and is now spreading out through out the web. See the pics of the full line-up here.There are 25 handsets in the line-up, some are just updated from current versions of Touch Diamond and its like while others are new offerings. Among the list are The new HTC Touch HD Pro (Verizon and Sprint), the HTC Iolite and Iolite II, HTC’s Tungsten (T-Mobile) and the HTC Jasper(Sprint). AT&T may take the Topaz and the Barium, says BGR.

Sapphire 2.0

The spotlight is on the Sapphire 2.0, which would be the next Android phone, T-Mobile G2. Earlier there were rumours about the launch of T-Mobile G2 by this January. Another rumoured Android phone is also included in the Hero.

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Vodafone Brings BlackBerry Storm in India

Vodafone and RIM have launched first BlackBerry touch based model Storm in India and will be available for Indian customers from 15th January. The second largest country in population has the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world.

Indian customers are relatively new to BlackBerry platform. By this launch Indian users can experience the BlackBerry's unique platform through the first ever SurePress Touch-screen. Speaking at the launch Frenny Bawa, vice president, India, Research In Motion, said:

“The BlackBerry Storm is a truly unique touch-screen smartphone with its powerful combination of communications and multimedia features. It is a marvel of engineering that meets both the business and personal needs of our customers.”

Vodafone has already spread Storm in many countries like UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain. In India Storm will be available for Rs27,9900. See more about the launch. 

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Sony Unveiled its iPod Touch Competitor

Sony announced its new Walkman NWZ-X1000 with 3-inch AMOLED touchscreen. This could give tough competition to the iPod touch with its better screen.

The 432X240 pixel AMOLED screen is more brighter and have a better contrast than that of an iPod, though it is half an inch smaller. Other specs are support for many music and video formats, Wi-Fi and built-in noise cancellation (Read more). This marble painted device comes in both 16GB and 32GB variants. More details including pricing is yet to come.

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'Tetris' Leads Nielsen's Top 10 Mobile Games Chart

Here is the list of their top 10 mobile games or the U.S. operator market in 2008. Tetris lead the list with a overall revenue of 7%. The list also has one more Tetris related title, which reveals its brand value.

Here is the list:

1. 7.0% Tetris
   
2. 4.0% Bejeweled
   
3. 3.6% Guitar Hero III
   
4. 2.6% Wheel of Fortune
   
5. 2.5% Pac-Man
   
6. 1.9% The Oregon Trail
   
7. 1.7% Ms. Pac-Man
   
8. 1.6% Are You Smarter Then...
   
9. 1.6% Tetris Mania
   
10. 1.2% Surviving High School
    

Read more here.

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Rolls Royce Turned Mobile Store in India

A Rolls Royce Phantom has been visiting Indian Cities for months selling mobile phones! The Mobile Store, leading telecom retail chain in India, is behind this 'Mobile' Store.

This is not a new stuff actually, as it started its journey in 2007. Now it got world wide attention as autoblog spotted it from nfscars. See more pics and stories here.

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WinMo HTC Touch Pro Running BlackBerry OS

Now HTC Touch Pro can run a BlackBerry OS, but a virtual OS that runs as a Windows Mobile Application. BerryReview has some pics showing BlackBerry Application Suite running on a HTC Touch Pro.

In near feature this could turn to be an upgrade to HTC Touch Pro (and many other WinMo smartphones) as many of the BlackBerry applications are available through the application suite. BlackBerry is reportedly not afraid of extending its services to WinMo phones, which is now available only in BlackBerry handsets. 

Berryreview.com later came up with more details. The application suite, which is 32 MB in size based on OS 4.2.1, could be programmed to load as soon as WM boot up. It has almost everything in a BlackBerry, its email, PIN messaging, calendar, tasks, address book and memos. BES synchronization also works perfectly. GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi are among the features which it fails to support so is the video playback!

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First Official Pics of Motorola i9

This may not the first time you are seeing a pic of i9, but here we have more detailed official pics from Motorola. The phone looks like a blend of RAZR and Rapture VU30.

i9 is designed to work in iDEN (Integrated Digital Enhanced Network), a mobile telecommunications technology, developed by Motorola. Nextel provides the iDEN service for this phone, as you can see Nextel logo in some pics.

Other information available are its 3.1 megapixel auto-focus camera, dedicated multimedia buttons, GPS and Wi-Fi. See more pics of this good looking phone from engadgetmobile.

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Now Palm has Its Own App Store

Now every one else has it, from Apple to Android. But, the pioneer in smartphones, Plam has no app store till now. Making a good handset and distributing over a good carrier is not enough, services like app store and music stores are essential now a days. They says Better late than never, any way Palm has one now.

The palm's appstore is available here. Palm partnered with PocketGear to enable this service. PocketGear has been supporting smartphones with applications over various channels, with T-Online, AOL, Sony Ericsson and Softwareload among other distribution partners. Now they have about 5000 apps including games, over 1000 of them are free. Read more about Palm Software Store on jkOnTheRun. 

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New Samsung Pixon to Go 3G for U.S. market

Samsung's another 8 megapixel phone, Samsung M8800L Pixon, will come with 1900 and 850 3.5G, compatible with AT&T bands. Along with its refined touchscreen and stylish slim design it could compete with Apple iPhone 3G.

The phone is rich Specs wise. The first thing to mention, of course, is its camera, the 8 megapixel cam has auto-focus, flash and everything from face, blink and smile detection to advanced shake reduction. Other key camera features are Camera geo-tagging and auto-panorama shot. There is a secondary cam for video-call. The 3.2-inch TFT screen comes in 240x400px with 256k colors. Its 200 MB in-built memory could be expanded to 8 GB using microSD. 

The phone was available in Europe and Asian markets as Pixon M8800, now it is renamed to Pixon M8800L. This would be a good news in US market, which has not enough camera phones in the stores. After T-mobile signed Samsung Memoir, another 8 megapixel, AT&T is expected to grab the deal for Pixon.

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Microsoft Released its First iPhone App

iPhone has its first app from Microsoft, Seadragon Mobile. Seadragon is primarily a high-tech photo display software with advanced zooming features especially for high resolution images. The app is now available for free in Apple app store.

About Seadragon: Microsoft acquired Seattle-based Seadragon Software in 2006. Now it is a part of Microsoft Live Labs. Microsoft Photosynth photo-browsing program is based on the Seadragon technology, in which images of multiple resolutions are stored and only the bits needed to present the view on any given moment are delivered.

Seadragon Mobile Menu

Microsoft released this Mobile version to check the viability of the high-tech photo display technology on mobile platforms. Why they choose iPhone? They says it's because iPhone has a Graphics processing unit and is the most popular phone featuring the same. Yeah, iPhone is not the only smartphone with a GPU but they know an iPhone app could generate more headlines. Microsoft's another rumoured iPhone app 'Tellme voice-recognition service' is not expected until next year.

Another feature that make iPhone suitable is its 'multi-touch input'. The Seadragon app comes with about 50 sample images of 10 gigapixel range. The iPhone multi-touch screen would be handy for zooming in and out the high resolution images. Along with zooming around users can also make up limited Photosynth collections and can view uploaded 'deep zoom' images. Read more about Seadragon Mobile. 

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Korea's Pantech Aims to Become a Top U.S. Cellphone Maker

South Korean companies are making their mark in US market? Recently it was Samsung, which hits the news as it surpasses Motorola to become the number one mobile phone provider in terms of market share. Now it is Pantech, aiming big in the US market. Presently, holding only 1% of the market share they aim to become one of the top US cellphone provider while the big players like Nokia and Samsung warned a slash in the market.

Pantech Duo C810 Dual Slide phone

Pantech groups' Atlanta based subsidiary has close tie-up with major carrier AT&T and they are now promoting 2 of its handsets. In last quadrant they brought 4 handsets to the market. The main strategy of Pantech Wireless (PWI) are reasonable pricing and its elegant sleek design.

PWI already have some fine pieces of cost efficient handsets in the market. They call their 'C3' as 'world's smallest camera flip' while with a QWERTY keypad 'Matrix' and 'Slate' attracts teenagers. Last october they launched dual-sliding WinMo smartphone 'DUO'. Their costliest phone DUO is just $79.9.

It may take time for PWI to establish as a good brand but the close partnership with AT&T could help them. They are very excited about the upcoming DUO 2, with more sleeker design, better cam and updated Windows Mobile, which is expected to hit the market by early 2009. Read more-forbes.com.

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BlackBerry's First Ever Clamshell

Here is the first Clamshell from Blackberry, Pearl Flip 8220. So finally, Blackberry wanted a change? These guys are now thinking differently, targeting those customers who don't need their phone for work.         

This stylish clamshell has a 27x34mm outer screen displaying an analogue clock and a 240x320 pixel main display. The keypad is in BlackBerry SureType way, that is 2 letters per key arranged in QWERTY, as we explained in BlackBerry Storm's keypad options. 

Both Blackberry map and Google map are included. As there is no GPS you have to adjust with the 500m tolerance resulting from the cell site triangulation technique, which they use to estimate where you are. There is no 3G but the quad band. Wi-Fi and bluetooth connectivity are provided.

 

Pearl comes with BlackBerry OS along with a decent Web browser, email client and facebook app. 2 megapixel camera, decent audio player, 128MB in-built memory, 16GB microSD slot, 3.5mm audio jack are among other features of this good looking clamshell. Read Techradar.com review. 

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Loopt in HTC Android G1 Superior to that of iPhone

Ever since Android G1 is out it is being compared with none other than Apple iPhone, which sets the present trend in the smartphone market. Now the news is the Loopt, now available in Android App, which on a G1 has practically more features than Loopt on an iPhone. But its actually not the Loopt, but the fact that iPhone do not allow background processing for third-party apps.

Loopt is a popular social networking service for smartphones featuring social mapping, currently available in various smartphones in US. Among other features Loopt alerts users when a friend is nearby, it is called location updating. Here the iPhone fails, as it do not allow background processing for Loopt, user will get the alert only if the application is running. 

G1 users can revieve the alert in real time. Switching between map modes for a satellite view, sharing information with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are among other features. Read more. 

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