Filed under: cellular, James Quintana Pearce, mobile, Motorola, Nokia, Samusng
Nice piece in MocoNews by James Quintana Pearce today, “Motorola Doesn’t Need Another Hit Phone”. He argues that pundits who blame Motorola’s state on the lack of a hit phone are missing the point. Success in the industry has been driven by depth and variety in the product line, not a single hit phone.
Nokia today announced the latest member of the Prism Collection, the Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism, extending the fashion conscious product line. Featuring a crystal center key, and the diamond pattern keypad of the other Prism phones, the Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism is the product of Nokia’s partnership with designer Frédérique Daubal. Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism will be available in the first quarter of 2008, and the 3G phone features a 2 megapixel camera, 1 GB of internal memory and a music player with matching headset. The keypad is also user customizable into one of 49 different colors….
Filed under: Apple, EMI, iPhone, mobile, Music, Nokia, Sony, Sony BMG, Sony Ericsson, Universal, Vivendi, Warner Music
In a clear response to Nokia’s recent launch of a music portal with PC and mobile storefronts for purchasing and downloading tunes, Sony Ericsson has announced that it too will have a full-fledged music store for its customers by Q2 2008. S-E has always been able to sell tunes from the Sony BMG Music Entertainment, but has now reached agreement with the other three major labels (Universal Music Group (Vivendi), EMI Group PLC and Warner Music Group Corp). All of which means that Sony Ericsson customers will now be able to purchase the vast majority of the major label music that they can purchase through iTunes, Rhapsody, Nokia Music, etc.
The announcement yesterday was apparently timed to respond to both Nokia’s announcement last month, and the launch of the iPhone in Europe which takes place today.
Filed under: cellular, Google, Gphone, HTC, Microsoft, mobile, Motorola, Samsung
Google today announced its much anticipated cell phone strategy. Instead of competing with cell phone manufacturers, Google plans to provide the software to run on handsets manufactured by some of the worlds leading cell phone manufacturers including Motorola, HTC and Samsung, with additional partners anticipated in the future. There will be no Google phone or GPhone, rather, Google with license the software for free to handset manufacturers to encourage them to develop mobile computing and communications platforms that will surpass the Symbian and Windows Mobile smartphones that are currently available on the market.
Consumer electronics hype junkies will be disappointed, but may change their mind when the new handsets start rolling out in the second half of next year.
Sprint today launched Touch, the latest addition to its product line. Manufactured by Taiwan’s HTC, the phone has a full touch screen, an mp3 player, and e-mail support, and was touted as an answer to AT&T’s iPhone offering. Some of the phone’s features are very competitive with the iPhone in its first incarnation. The EVDO Rev. 0 network is a substantial advantage for Sprint, but the half Gig of SD storage in the base configuration is uncompetitive with iPhone’s 8 Gig onboard, and Pocket Internet Explorer is not a competitive mobile browser.
Sprint has a competitive product line overall, and Touch will certainly help, but it’s no iPhone.
PC Mag’s Detailed Review of the Touch
Whoever is doing product placement marketing for Nokia deserves a bonus.
The top two music videos in the UK this week both feature the Nokia Prism 7900 prominently, most notably the SugaBabes “About You Now” which focuses on two Prisms repeatedly throughout the video. The other video is Shayne Ward’s “No U Hang Up” which opens with a shot of the Prism and then shows glimpses of it throughout the video. Sexy, trendy, Pop artists loving their phones…. You couldn’t ask for better placement…..
News Corp., Sony Pictures and CNN have struck a deal to distribute video directly to Nokia handsets, sidestepping mobile carrier decks. The first phone supported will be the N95, already a multimedia superstar in the mobile market.
Read more at the Hollywood Reporter
MySpace mobile will work with any U.S. carrier, the AP article says. Initial advertising will include clickable sponsorships and banner ads. Eventually MySpace will try to sell more targeted advertising, using registration data from cell phone carriers as well as GPS data from phones with that capability.
The free service will be a stripped down version of the premium services offered by AT&T and Helio.
Apple has signed its first three deals for European distribution of the iPhone according to the Financial Times. O2 in Britain, Orange in France and Vodafone in Germany are the lucky partners who have agreed to hand over 10% of the voice and data traffic revenue from the iPhone customers in exchange for exclusivity in their respective markets.
The story was broken by FT Deutschland. The complete article at FT.com
OMG! Study finds iPhone texting 2x slower than QWERTY by ZDNet‘s Larry Dignan — A study has determined that iPhone’s touchscreen is two times slower than QWERTY phones when it comes to texting. OMG! This study was conducted by User Centric, a Chicago-based usability consultant. User Centric concludes: It took QWERTY users almost twice as long to create the same message on the iPhone as it did on their QWERTY phone. […]
The Nokia 7900 and 7500 are style conscious phones targeted to capture an audience just below the ‘cost is no object’ luxury crowd. The phones have a unique diamond shaped key design with matching etchings on the body, and sharp, clean lines all around.
The phones are full featured music players with MP3, AAC+ and WMA codecs and 1G of built in storage.
The new line can be found at its own microsite NokiaPrismcollection.com
Having lost my main phone in NYC last night, I can really appreciate the findings in this survey. According to research carried out by the Carphone Warehouse and the London School of Economics, one in three people aged 16 to 24 would not give up their mobile phone for a million pounds.
The noise cancelling champion Jawbone bluetooth headset will be offered for sale alongside the iPhone at Apple stores and at Apple’s online store. This is great news for Jawbone, as the high end Jawbone will likely appeal to trendy mobile fashionistas.
Filed under: Apple, Blackberry, Good Technologies, iPhone, media, mobile, Motorola, RIM
Corporate IT and Telecommunications departments are resisting employees’ attempts to bring the iPhone into the corporate infrastructure. Integration with RIM’s Blackberry enterprise servers and Motorola’s Good servers is one issue. But consumer familiarity with Apple and its hip appeal may still win the day for Apple…or at least a beachhead.
Filed under: cellular, media, mobile, Motorola, podcasting, Podcasts, Symbian, Technology and Gadgets
Big news this week at Podcast.com!
Yesterday Podcast.com and Motorola announced that they are partnering to bring podcasts to high end Motorola phones including the new Motorola MotoRizr Z8, Motorola’s first new Symbian phone with incredible video and audio capabilities.
The announcements are here: Motorola’s Press Release on the Z8 and Media partners including Podcast.com
and here: Podcast.com’s Press Release
Podsanity 
