Updates on Sprint new Phones

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

We heard a rumor last week that Sony was working on new handhelds to compete with devices like the iPad. It sounds like a great idea: a PSP with integrated telephony and e-book functionality could perhaps give everyone in the market a run for their money. But I’m a little skeptical — Sony’s Clié line once defined state-of-the-art PDA, but the company ceded the market to Palm long before the PDA was eventually reborn as the smartphone. If Sony’s seriously thinking about getting back to the handheld space, here’s some lessons it might learn from its efforts back in the PDA day.

1. Innovation is great but only when you really innovate. Sony led the market in innovation when it entered the PDA space. It offered the first Palm OS devices with removable storage, the first devices that could play back audio and video, and the first high-resolution color devices. All of these clearly drove the market forward. Then the innovations became less innovative and more “gadgetry.” There were 3D interfaces for the launcher that were confusing and awkward. Some devices had Bluetooth support but not others. Devices like the NZ-90 (pictured above) added so many features into the mix that it was big, bloated, and nearly useless.* In short, the innovations became less compelling and eventually stood in the way of. I’m worried that Sony’s meshing the type of functionality rumored to be its new device without any thought how it all has to work together.

2. Frequent product updates are good, but not on a weekly basis. Sony churned out more new devices from 2002-2004 than any other device manufacturer — the joke in the industry was that it was Tuesday, so it must be time for another new Clié. It was impossible to figure out what to buy or why to buy it. Buyer’s remorse ran high, as users quickly learned to wait to see what was coming next — there’s nothing worse than dropping $500 on a cool new gadget and then seeing it replaced with something better, faster and cheaper in less than a month. Retailers were confused and couldn’t push the models through nearly as fast as Sony released them. Buyers faced the “Akihabara” syndrome of too many choices, without direction.

3. Concept cars are cool to look at but not good to drive. Flashy concept cars at auto shows are neat, but there’s a reason they don’t get released: they’re not practical and they would cost too much to produce. But Sony’s PDAs were much like concept cars; devices like the NZ-90 and the UX-50 were amazing feats of technology. Problem is, the masses didn’t buy them, and the amount Sony spent on its hyped “handheld engine” processor could have never been recouped. Palm focused on a core set of features and refined them at lower prices, which is why the Treo, Tungsten and Zire lines sold as well as they did relative to the Clié.
I hope Sony brings new handhelds to market and gets this right. I’d like to see a new crop of handheld devices that drive the state-of-the-art forward and show us things that would have been impossible in the past. For all my comments, Sony’s handhelp products often showed a level of creativity and design that you just couldn’t get in another mediocre cloned design. With some real focus, a better understanding of the market and some lessons learned from the past, Sony could be a real contender in the handheld space. Will Sony deliver the next PSP or just another Mylo? We’ll just have to wait and see.

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Let’s step into the time warp, shall we? Specifically, we’d like to go back to our interview of AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega at MWC last year when we asked him about the carrier’s support for Android (or lack thereof):

Chris: Okay, and expanding on that a little bit, I heard you speak at CTIA last year and you mentioned that… you mentioned basically the same comments about Android at that time. You said that you thought that it was promising, you liked what you saw, but that was at a time when there were a lot of questions about why AT&T wasn’t in the OHA. I’m wondering if your thoughts, your opinions have changed since then. Has AT&T’s direction with Android changed at all?

Ralph: No, actually, I think that they have been somewhat validated in that… we like the Android as an operating system on its own, but we want to make sure that we have, and customers have the option, to put applications on that device that are not just Google applications, so when the G1 came out and T-Mobile launched it, it’s primarily a Google phone. And we want to give customers the choice of other applications on that device, not just the same Google applications.

Chris: So you’re basically waiting for Android to be de-branded, so to speak?

Ralph: Well, to be open. (Laughter.) Right? I mean, the whole idea behind Android is that it’s gonna be an open OS, and so I don’t wanna roll an open OS to market that has primarily Google apps on it, and I think that’s gonna happen. I mean, I see a lot of activity, I think it’s got a good future, and I think it makes a lot of sense that the OS is open-source, separate from Google apps that are also very good.

A year later, enter the Motorola Backflip — AT&T’s very first Android device. Does it hold true to de la Vega’s principles? Well, it depends on whose glasses you read the statements through. Yes, true, it definitely doesn’t have “primarily Google apps on it” thanks to the carrier’s questionable decision to remove Google search and replace it with Yahoo — but as for giving “customers the choice of other applications,” that’s another matter altogether. It seems that Backflips are being shipped without the ability to turn on non-Market installations, meaning that AT&T has effectively locked you into getting all of your content through the walled garden. Add in the Yahoo debacle and the egregious amount of unremovable crapware they’ve left in ROM, and we start to wonder: why did AT&T bother partnering up with Android if they weren’t going to take it seriously? Certainly doesn’t bode well for the Mini 3 and the rest of the pack, now, does it?

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

After the Windows Phone 7 launch passed without so much as a mention of Project Pink, Microsoft’s other new phone project started to fade into memory. Today, we can confirm: Pink’s coming, and Verizon’s the carrier. UPDATE: First live shots.
A tipster passed us a load of 3rd-party marketing materials, in which a promotional plan for Pink is laid out in detail. (Campaign specifics and most graphics have to be witheld to protect the innocent, but rest assured, they’re legit.) The documents don’t talk about specs or software details, or more importantly why the hell Microsoft thinks this weird little pebble is a good idea, but there’s plenty we can learn:
• The early Pink renders leaked to us back in September? Those are exactly the same ones included in the proposal.

• Of the two phones in prior leaks, only one shows up here: The Turtle vertical slider. It’s a messaging phone, basically—one part Pre, and two parts Sidekick. (Or maybe three.)

• Verizon is a launch partner for the device, and probably an exclusive carrier. The branding and marketing in the documents suggests a joint Microsoft/Verizon launch, but another carrier isn’t completely out of the question.

• The phones aren’t running Windows Phone 7, unless it’s hidden behind a different interface. Virtually all rumors around the Pink platform implied as much, and again, this appears to be something fundamentally different.

• Social Networking! It’s all over the proposal, and presumably, the phone.

• It’s suggested that the platform has apps of some sort. For a phone like this to share apps with Windows Phone 7 is pretty much impossible—the minimum hardware requirement for a Windows Phone look out of reach for this little black lump—so this one’s a big question mark. Is it another SDK? Or closed app development like we’ve seen on the Zune HD? Web apps?
Since the documents come from a party working with Microsoft, and not Microsoft itself, a few things are missing: there’s no mention of a release name for the product (Pink is the codename we’ve been using, but the launch title could be different.); stil no sense at all as to how the interface works; and no announcement or launch date. The documents are just days old, and hint at a near-term launch, which would be inline with what we’ve been hearing about a second Microsoft phone launch at or around CTIA at the end of this month. And remember, this are marketing materials, designed to promote a launch, not just an announcement. In other words, Pink, or whatever the hell it is, will likely beat Windows Phone 7 to market. So that explains all those Tweets, I guess.

All these missing pieces add up to a massive gap, not just in the phone’s feature sheet, but in our understanding of what it’s supposed to be. If it’s a replacement for the Sidekick, the obvious question is, is anyone asking for a replacement for the Sidekick? If it’s just a Microsoft-branded feature phone, er, why? Doesn’t the future of youth/budget phones all about scaled-back smartphones (see: Pixi, Backflip), and not glorified feature phones?

All credits and information was found on gizmodo.com

Rumors that LG is prepping one of the first Windows Phone 7 Series handsets have been bouncing around for well over a month now, so it is not surprising that Microsoft unveiled a pre-production prototype of a Windows Phone 7 Series handset from the Korean manufacturer recently. The hardware itself was rather bland, sporting a side slide QWERTY keyboard and a standard front face with an average-sized touchscreen and the three hard buttons required by the reference design. Let’s hope LG has additional Windows 7 Phone Series handsets under development that have a bit more “wow” factor as it would be a crying shame to have the latest OS on such unoriginal hardware.

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com

What better way to start your Saturday afternoon than with another Nexus One release rumor. Without further ado, today we’ve got whispers care of Neowin that the recently-FCC’d CDMA device is launching on Verizon’s network March 23rd, perfect timing for the beginning of CTIA. And while that fits pretty neatly into that initial “Spring 2010″ launch window, there’s really no way for us to corroborate at this point other than just taking their word for it. You can wait diligently, can’t ya?

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Google Nexus One owners today can download the first version of Google Earth for the Android platform. While a version of the app has been available on the Apple iPhone OS for some time, Google’s own Earth-sized mapping app has finally come to Google’s own OS. Most of the same features are available on the Android version, including layers for points-of-interest and terrain mapping, as well as a Panoramio layer to view user-submitted pictures of various spots around the globe. Unlike on the iPhone OS version, Google Earth users on Android OS 2.1 will not be able to sign into their Google profiles to load their own maps from Google’s My Maps service. The Android version also currently lacks the accelerometer support found on the iPhone. The Google Earth app, which appears simply labeled “Earth” in Android, is available for free from the Android Market.

All credits and information was found on phonescoop.com

In the US, the concept of a prepaid Android phone is about as foreign as the concept of an effective high-speed mass transit system, but abroad, T-Mobile is following up its Pulse with a cuter, smaller sibling in the Pulse Mini. Like the original the Pulse is sourced from China’s Huawei and offers Euro HSDPA, but the similarities end there: the new model will run Android 2.1 out of the gate, step down from an HVGA to a QVGA display, and sport a Qualcomm MSM7225 core. Look for it to launch in the UK and Germany in April; pricing will vary by market, but Britons can look forward to shelling out £99.99 (about $155) contract-free.

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Big news out of Barcelona today as RIM has announced BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express, the software we exclusively told you about a couple of days ago. Simply put, BESX allows SMBs with a Microsoft Exchange or Windows Small Business Server to take advantage of the following BES features without having to splurge on the pricey software:

• Wirelessly synchronize their email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks
• Manage email folders and search email on the mail server remotely
• Book meetings and appointments, check availability and forward calendar attachments
• Set an out-of-office reply
• Edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files using Documents To Go®
• Access files stored on the company network

Deployment of BESX shouldn’t be much of an issue for most SMBs as the software is compatible with Microsoft Exchange 2003, 2007 and 2010 as well as Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 and 2008. In terms of security, RIM says BESX has “the same robust security architecture found in BlackBerry Enterprise Server” whilst allowing IT admins to oversee over 35 IT policies and controls, including password controls and remote wiping. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express software itself will be free, but we’ve been told RIM will charge $5 per user per month. Furthermore, BESX does not need users to be on a BES data plan which translates to even more savings. Pretty damn awesome if you ask us. One huge downside we’ve heard? BESX will not support enterprise activations (OTA deployment).Look for the software to drop next month if all goes well.

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com

Toshiba’s K01 is exactly what we would’ve liked to have seen as a complementary set to the TG01. Happily, Toshiba’s given us a QWERTY option with the new model, added capacitive touch, and swapped out the earlier display for a swanky new AMOLED version. Key feel is a bit rough on the outside keys — shift, delete, enter — but this device still isn’t final, and with all that real estate, the layout feels just great. In fact, the devices being shown on the floor are just looping a demo video and not really showing off the UI as seen above; we couldn’t get any film of it, so the pics we got will have to suffice. We like what they’ve done here — in fact, this could make an excellent day to day set if battery life proves good enough. We also can’t help but notice the three buttons (soft touch) across the bottom that could quite easily be skinned for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series, could they not?

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

You’ve got to be one of the cool kids that shelled out a Benjamin to get into the iPhone Developer Program to get access, but if you’re already a card-carrying member, it looks like you’ve now got a green light to download beta 2 of the iPhone SDK for OS 3.2. We don’t know what’s new, changed, or removed, but presumably, most of the updates would center around the sundry changes Apple has made to support the iPad in the latest version of its mobile platform — so drop us a line and let us know what you find, alright?

All credits and information was found on engadget.com