Oh OPhone, you somber siren. You’ve managed to steal the throne from the HTC Touch HD in the realm of phones we want but will probably never get. You’re just as pretty, but with the added bonus of running Android rather than Windows Mobile. Alas, you’re probably never going to find your way out of China. Why must you tease us so, Lenovo?
Looking to make our hearts pang a bit harder, the chaps over at Sina have taken the OPhone and put it hip-to-hip with the iPhone and iPhone3G. The OPhone is just a wee bit (around a millimeter) thicker in every direction over the original iPhone, but it makes up for it with a 624mhz CPU, removable battery, 3.5mm headset jack, and a microSD slot.
How about sneaking one of these things our way, Lenovo? More pics after the jump.
Apparently tired of having to conform keyboards to the shape of their devices, RIM is looking for ways to break out. According to a patent that just started its trek through the approval process, one concept floating around the is a fold out “Wing” keypad.
Yo dawg – Rogers heard you liked smartphones, so they put smartphones in your smartphone so you can smartphone while you smartphone.
But seriously, if you’re a smartphone fan on Rogers/Fido, your brain might just melt in 2009. HoFo-goer clearskies08 managed to sneak spy shots throughout the entirety of the recent employee-only roadmap presentation, bringing back just shy of 30 shots for all to see. Your super spy achievement certificate is waiting for you at the front desk, clearskies08.
Do you loves you some Sling Player Mobile? Ready to toss your old WinMo handset for a fresh one, but feelin’ a bit worried that Sling wont play friendly with the new guy? Good news! Sling Media has bumped up their Windows Mobile support, adding compatibility for 4 new resolutions across at least 15 new devices.
Sick of the lack of flash on the iPhone? No, not that flash – the other one. The one for pictures. Snapture has come up with a new solution: the SnaptureFlash, a slip-on case with a Xenon flash built-in. While the idea is novel, the execution isn’t without its faults.
We remain dubious of the existence of an iPhone Nano, but case manufacturer XSKN has gone and taken things out of the concept renders stage we saw last week. It’s one thing to draw up some mockups based on rumors and put them on your site – even if it ends up not existing, you’ll get a sudden spike in traffic and whole bunch of Google Juice. But to actually put cases up for sale? That’s pretty risky, unless you’re real sure a product to fill those cases is on the way. Read More
CrunchGear has been around for a few years now and we know that a lot of you have been following us since the beginning so we wanted to reward those folks. Think of it as our version of Best Buy’s Reward Zone program. Otherwise known as the CrunchGear Loyalty Rewards Program. TeleNav has always been supportive of us and so we’ve teamed up to give away a years worth of free service for your Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Storm. So how do you win?
Sure – for all I know, it may be a while before we see a whole lot of support for the iControlPad gamepad making its way into various applications (besides the emulators, many of which already support it). And, yes, Apple might never, ever acknowledge its existence in any official manner. All that said, man do I want one.
Tired of lugging around paperbacks, but don’t feel like dropping the extra change for a standalone e-book reader when you already own an iPhone? ScrollMotion has announced that they’ve partnered with Random House, Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin, Penguin Group USA and Hachette to begin selling e-books repackaged as iPhone applications, or “books-as-apps”.
Serving as the core of all of these app-books is ScrollMotion’s Iceberg Reader, which they promise provides a “natural book-like reading experience”, with pagination, cover art, adjustable text size, and margin notes. To turn the page, readers swipe across the image as they would to jump between pictures in the on-device Photo app. Each book is self-contained, with both the reading application and the book itself built-in.
Nokia’s maps caused a big stir in Jabalpur city, India, because they show Kashmir as being part of Pakistan. Led by members of the youth wing of BJP, one of India’s political parties, an angry mob seized Nokia handsets from a local store and set them on fire. Take that, Nokia!
The local BJP legislator claimed Nokia’s transgression was “a case of anti-nationalism. We demanded that the Nokia and other people involved in the conspiracy be booked for spreading anti-national activities. We will intensify the protest if this case has not been registered.”
We’ve seen plenty of firmware updates hit plenty of devices in our time, but the newest N79 update puts them all to shame. Seriously – it’s fourteen pages long, by print preview’s count.
Besides new versions of N-Gage and Mail for Exchange, the rest of the list is made up of bug fixes and tweaks. Now, one might be tempted to give Nokia a bit of flack for letting so many issues-needin-fixing slip through to the N79 in the first place – but anytime someone brings a small novel of improvements to anything, they’re cool in our book.
Check for the full list after the jump. (Remember – it’s 14 pages long. If you’re still on 14 baud, your setup might explode)
Can Palm’s upcoming operating system, Nova, revive the fortunes of the flagging company? Palm’s biggest investor, Elevation Partners, is putting $100 million into that Nova, after already spending $325 million for 25 percent of the company last year. Maybe all Palm needs is a really good tune-up, but it is going to be tough to go up against all the newly-polished goodness coming from the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.
When Elevation first invested, it brought in former Apple hardware chief Jon Rubinstein to head up the company. The fruits of his labors may now be just about ready to be unveiled. But will it be enough?
Nova is supposed to bridge the smartphone gap between the hard-working Blackberry and the upmarket iPhone, and is expected to be announced at CES in January. Everyone else (from Android to WinMo to Blackberry itself) is also trying to bridge that gap.
The stock is up 20 percent on the news to $3 (Elevation is buying its new shares at $3.25). Did Elevation just sink another $100 million into a clunker, or is the Nova going to be a sweeter ride than anyone expects? I’m thinking clunker.
Earlier this morning, Nokia released a public beta version of its Mail on Ovi service, which enables users to sign up for a free e-mail account directly from their Series 40 handsets. The new service is available worldwide and available in a dozen languages, after a test period of one month during which users in India, Malaysia and the Philippines were able to try out the service.
Mail on Ovi gives users all the features and functionalities of a PC-based e-mail account, and functions on some 35 different Series 40 handsets. Nokia claims to have shipped over 110 million of such devices globally as of October 2008, so this is definitely a major announcement, particularly for countries where mobile devices are the main digital communication hubs instead of computers. These so-called ‘emerging markets’ represent a big growth opportunity for mobile device manufacturers and service providers, so it’s no wonder Nokia is so focused on creating new services to go with lowered-price devices. (Its more advanced phones are in the Series 60 line).
Be warned, folks: the video contains so much action-packed keyboarding that your face might just blow right off your head. There’s keyboarding car chases, keyboarding shoot-outs .. it’s a non-stop fiesta of fingermashing fury.
Fine. It’s none of that. It is a video of the new on-screen keyboard from the work-in-progress “Cupcake” roadmap for Android, running on a G1. That’s pretty cool too – but let’s get some Michael Bay stuff in there next time, okay?
2009 is set to be Google’s Androids big year with more and more manufacturers jumping on the open-source platform. Garmin has at least one smartphone slated for the second-half of ‘09 release and with perhaps more on the way.
We’re still too far away from the launch for exact details. There is a chance that the mobile might not see a Stateside release as the tidbit doesn’t mention that side of the Pacific at all. This comes Tony An, Garmin’s Asia Pacific Marketing Director,
Garmin will launch Nuvifone, its first GPS-enabled handset, in the Taiwan market in the second quarter of 2009, An noted. Garmin also plans to launch self-developed Android handsets in the second half of 2009, with production to be outsourced
Chances are though, the device will be available here in Garmin’s home country – hopefully. Perhaps, 2009 will be a big year for Garmin as well. We would love to see more mobile devices from the firm with their industry-leading GPS support, something the G1 is notoriously lacking.
The Nokia E63 has surfaced on Amazon.com for a pre-order price of $499, unlocked. You’ll remember the E63 as the tie-loosened, top-button-unbuttoned little brother to the more polished, business-oriented Nokia E71.
I spent a few minutes earlier this week chatting with Tracy DeMiroz, the VP of Marketing for Skyfire. Skyfire is a free mobile browser for Windows Mobile and Symbian, and the only browser of the bunch to support Flash, Silverlight, and a number of other technologies generally reserved for desktop browsers.
With Skyfire now open to the world and quickly approaching a 1.0 release, I figured it was time to sit down and ask them a few questions. While Tracy has to skirt around some of my inquiries, she was able to drop some hints about Skyfire’s business model, the future of Skyfire on other platforms, and when we might be able to expect version 1.0
If this one turns out true, it looks like T-Mobile’s followup to the G1 might be on the shelves as early as next month. Note the emphasis on “might” there – while there’s nothing red flagging it as false, we’re taking this one with the finest grain of salt we have to spare.
Be it that the specs pan out, the G2 should be a pretty substantial step up from the G1. Not only would the camera get bumped up to 5 megapixels (from 3.2), but it’d be sporting a secondary (and presumably front facing) VGA camera as well. The list also claims Stereo Bluetooth connectivity and Video Capture, indicating that the G2 might be the first we see of the the “Cupcake” release we heard about yesterday. Curiously absent is any mention of a physical QWERTY keyboard, though “Full Touch screen” is right up there at the top; the “Cupcake” docs do mention onscreen keyboard support – might the G2 drop the input method that made the G1 so appealing to many touchscreen naysayers?
Tired of lugging around paperbacks, but don’t feel like dropping the extra change for a standalone e-book reader when you already own an iPhone? 
