Sprint and Palm just let the cat out of the bag: Come June 6th, you’ll be able to pick up a supposedly “decent” rival to the iPhone. The Pre will cost $199.99 after contract agreements and rebates, and will be sold Radio Shack, Best Buy and Walmart. Awesome? I guess, but does anyone use Sprint? I have zero friends with Sprint and don’t expect to be dicking around with a Pre anytime soon.
A freshly released Apple patent reveals that even though Apple isn’t saying much about the future of the iPhone, they’ve still got plenty of ideas up their sleeves over at Cupertino. The new patent reveals a tweaked UI which adjusts even further to assist the user’s needs, altering logo and interface-element sizes when you’re focus might be somewhere other than your phone. But the big news here is the appearance of a front-facing camera. What does this mean for the average iPhone user? We see video conferencing in your future (or at least just plain old video capability, if nothing else).
Video has been a long-rumored and desired feature on the iPhone. The front-facing camera at least proves that Apple is toying with the idea.
I’m sick of it. I can feel the steely gaze from a mass of haters as I whip out my iPhone. Their looks say one thing. “Poser!” Like I just joined the iPhone bandwagon yesterday. I’ve been rocking the iPhone since its debut, brotha. I’m not some sheep. As a person who totally derives his self-worth based on the opinion of others, I was in need of a solution.
The zweiPhone Stickers allow you to paste stickers of iconic cellphones from the past right onto the black background of your iPhone. No more following the crowd for me. I’m going to be a real trendsetter. More after the jump.
It seems like only yesterday I was using my 350 MHz HP desktop. It was the creme of the crop at the time and ran the original Half-Life like a champ. Combined with my 3DFX Voodoo 3 graphics card, I was set. Fast forward to the end of 2008 and Asus is unveiling a PDA phone with an 800 MHz Marvell CPU. You’ll also secure a 2.8-inch touchscreen, HSDPA 3G with GPRS/EDGE/GSM, 802.11b/g WiFi and a three-megapixel camera.
Come to think of it, this blows almost every non-Apple PC I’ve ever owned. I suppose Dylan was right when he said “the times are a changin’.”
Out of left field comes an announcement that ASUS is producing a Google Android-equipped cellphone. There’s not many details available on the device, except that it’ll launch during the first half of 2009. Until then, all we can do is wait and kill time by photoshopping Android screenshots onto HTC devices.
Cellphone power users love their Blackberry. I miss mine but alas, it took a spill a few years ago and never recovered. Maybe I should upgrade and get the just-released Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone. Is it just a Blackberry Pearl that folds in half? Ehhh, you could say that – if you’re a communist.
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Just got a tip from an insider at T-Mobile (or is it Google?) that tells me the HTC Dream will feature a keyboard and trackball almost identical to the Sidekick. Does this mean we could see a Sidekick competitor on T-Mobile? It’d be an odd move but the Android-based Dream will most likely be for the geeked out power user.
That’s about it for now. More information as it comes…
Two months ago we saw a design mock-up of a funny swivel phone from Nokia, the tension built up when a source showed us a leaked marketing picture. This was proven to be legit at the company’s announcement this morning, and as we were told, the funky device in the early pictures was indeed the Nokia 5700 XpressMusic phone.
What we do know now is that the phone will run a Symbian S60 OS with a revamped music interface; the dedicated audio chip, support for up to 2GB MicroSD cards and the reasonably good 2 megapixels camera would make this a fairly capable mid-range multimedia UMTS phone. Shipment is due in the 2nd quarter this year, suggested retail price is 350Euro or 460USD. –Sam Chan
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Nokia and Motorola are only two of the companies which have been rumored to be buying out Palm later this week for up to a cool $2 Billion. The acquisition of Palm would not only put the company purchaser ahead in the game with smartphone production, but would also wipe out a signifigant competitor, while gaining rights in using the well known Palm brand name.
Palm has also been rumored to be forming a private equity deal with either Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners, which any company would then acquire on purchase. All companies decline to make any statement, but something definitely seems to be brewing. Its worth mentioning that Palm stocks have increased 5% since the rumor mill has been turning on a buy out. The last few months show a 33% increase in Palm’s stocks worth. — Andrew Dobrow
