Droid X May Be Best-Selling Android
July 28, 2010
Verizon Wireless estimated to have sold 300,000 Droid X smartphones, the powerful handset is fast becoming the best-selling Android-powered device. New adopters will have to wait until at least Aug. 4 to get one, since it is out of stock.
All this comes as Apple continues apple’s antennagate. Perhaps feeling a threat, the company posted on a web page a video of the Droid X supposedly having its own signal problems when held the same way that causes the iPhone 4 problems — with fingers touching the edge of the device. But several bloggers said they could not duplicate that in their own tests of the Droid X. Read more
Unlocking or Jailbreaking is finally LEGAL!
July 26, 2010
The FCC has made the controversial practice of “jailbreaking” or unlocking your phone — legal.
Unlocking — the practice of freeing the phone so it can be used on another network — has technically been illegal for years. However, no one has been sued or prosecuted for the practice.
Apple fought hard against the legalization, arguing that jailbreaking/unlocking was a form of copyright violation. The FCC disagreed, saying that unlocking merely enhanced the inter-operability of the phone, and was thus legitimate under fair-use rules.
The upshot is that now anyone can jailbreak or unlock any cell phone without fear of legal penalties, whether you want to install unsupported applications or switch to another cellular carrier. Cell phone companies are of course still free to make it difficult for you to do this — and your warranty will probably still be voided if you do — but at least you won’t be fined or imprisoned if you unlock a handset.
Smartphone shipments jump 43 percent
July 26, 2010
The second quarter saw 60 million smartphones shipped around the world, a 43 percent jump from a year ago, according to a study released Thursday.
Growth was driven by robust subsidies from carriers, strong competition between high-end vendors, and a rising selection of lower-cost phones running systems like Android and Symbian, according to the study. Overall, smartphones accounted for 19 percent of all handsets shipped during the period.
“The global smartphone industry is growing volume, but the industry’s value is beginning to feel the effects of intensifying competition,” Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics and the author of the study, said in a statement. “Dozens of vendors from the telecoms, PC and consumer electronics industries are piling into the market and driving down prices. Even established brands such as Nokia, RIM, and Apple are finding it increasingly hard to raise prices and profits in the face of such fierce competition.” Read more
Nokia Siemens to buy Motorola wireless gear unit
July 19, 2010
The long-planned breakup of Motorola Inc., one of the founders of the U.S. electronics industry, came a step closer Monday with a deal to sell most of its wireless networks division.
The deal to sell the division for $1.2 billion to Nokia Siemens Networks, a Finnish-German joint venture, sets Motorola up to separate its cell phone manufacturing operations from the police radio business early next year, essentially dividing the 82-year-old company into three parts.
The parts are aimed at different types of customers. The division that is being sold supplies wireless carriers such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. with the equipment they need to connect to cell phones. It’s not a big player in an industry dominated by LM Ericsson AB and Alcatel-Lucent SA, but it does have valuable relationships with U.S. and Japanese carriers that Nokia Siemens hopes to exploit.
Motorola co-CEO Greg Brown said the deal frees the police-radio and bar-code scanner division, which is leader in its field, from being associated with the networks division, which supplies mainly older-generation equipment and has seen declining sales.
The networks division, which covers most of the business being sold to Nokia Siemens, had revenue of $896 million in the first quarter, with 43 percent of it coming from Asia. Operating earnings were $112 million.
Rajeeve Suri, CEO of Nokia Siemens Networks, said no layoffs were planned. Motorola said about 7,500 employees will be transferred to Nokia Siemens. Of those, about 1,600 are based in Illinois (Motorola’s headquarters in Schaumburg). The division also has large development centers in India and China.
Nokia Siemens is a joint venture between Finland’s Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG of Germany. It’s seen dwindling profits in recent years, worsened by the global economic downturn. The deal, expected to be completed by the end of the year, would improve profitability and “have significant upside potential,” Nokia Siemens said.
Motorola has planned for years to spin off the division that makes cell phones, but steep losses in the unit have forced it to postpone the move. The spin-off is now scheduled for the first quarter of next year.
The handset division, to be called Motorola Mobility, would take with it the division that makes cable set-top boxes.
That would leave Motorola Solutions, the remainder, focused on government and commercial clients, with products such as police radios and bar-code scanners. It’s also keeping one part of its wireless network portfolio: the division that makes iDEN equipment, used in the Nextel part of Sprint Nextel Corp.’s network. Motorola invented that technology and is the dominant supplier of equipment.
Google to Stop Selling Nexus One
July 19, 2010
After a long and painful sales drop, Google has finally put the Nexus One phone out of its despair. The search company will stop selling its first – and possibly last – Google phone.
After a big launch back in January, the Nexus One went into decline. It was sold only through Google’s own web store, and the lack-of a handson, try-before-you-buy option kept consumers away from buying according to Google.
Google dropped the web store in May, putting the Nexus One into bricks-and-mortar stores, but it seems that even that couldn’t help. As soon as Google’s “last shipment of Nexus One phones” is sold out, you’ll only be able to find the handset via a few retail partners in (Vodafone in some parts of Europe and KT in Korea). Developers will still be able to buy the hardware, too. It will be available through an as-yet unnamed partner.
While the hardware dies, though, the software is still going strong. Android continues to grow, and its open-source nature means that handset makers are doing all sorts of great things like adding unremovable bloatware or preventing the user from running an unapproved version of the OS on their own handset (Motorola’s eFuse).
Now that the Nexus One is gone, it’s looking like the Motorola Droid (pictured), Droid X, or HTC Evo are the likely front-runners in the Android race.
Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/google-to-stop-selling-nexus-one/#ixzz0uBr503tT
Quick Fix – Quick Scam
July 14, 2010
Ever since last year I (Ramon at Dominicana Enterprises) have sent Quick Fix Cell/Advance Cell Phone Repair 50 phones to repair and I paid them $1000 in advance. Read more
Scammer: Berry Smartphones
July 14, 2010
On April 28th we made a payment to Berry Smartphones for 210 Blackberry 7100 refurbs and 18 Blackberry 7230 refurbs. Berry Smartphones shipped 210 Blackberry 7100i’s, but 48 of those units were broken, damaged, and unusable. Read more
Warning: African Electronics fraudsters land in Europe
July 14, 2010
One thought that electronics and cell phone fraud was limited to African countries: But today Electronics fraudsters have evolved by masquerading themselves as European companies – mainly, as French companies. The outline of the fraud is known: a company posing as an Electronics distributor contacts vendor by mail or fax in another country. It asks to open an account with them, to purchase Electronic goods. On first effective delivery (sometimes the second, in order to better lull their victim), a 30-day payment is asked. Once products are delivered, the buyer disappears forever. Read more
Apple faces backlash over latest iPhone
July 14, 2010
Apple is facing a growing backlash over poor iPhone 4 reception issue after the technology group blocked links on its user-support pages to a negative review by an influential US consumer watchdog.
Consumer Reports, the non-profit magazine, on Monday published a review online where it tested three iPhone 4s in controlled settings and found that touching the lower left corner “can significantly degrade” the signal, causing dropped calls.
Apple deleted references in several online forums to the consumer group’s online posting, leading investment blogs to pounce on what they described as censorship in the Apple-hosted forums.
Apple shares declined 3 per cent in midday trading to $250.
Most Wall Street analysts said they did not think the antenna issue would seriously hurt sales of the iPhone 4. “In our experience, concerns around product issues tend to be overblown,” Ben Reitzes, Barclays analyst, wrote to clients on Tuesday. “We do not believe these issues will materially impact Apple’s product momentum.”
Apple last month sold an industry record 1.7m units in the first three days of availability, topping even the most optimistic projections. It is expected to update that figure when it releases earnings results on July 20. Consumer Reports praised other features in the iPhone and actually ranked it higher than any other smartphone it tested recently.
Apple has maintained that all phones have some areas where contact will decrease connectivity and told buyers either to avoid holding the iPhone 4 in a way that covers the corner in question or to buy a $29 accessory – a bumper that wraps around the metal edge of the phone.
But Apple’s new design is the first of its kind. “The reality is that the antennas are now external, meaning there is no layer of insulation between a user and the antenna”, said Shaw Wu, Kaufman Bros analyst. He warned that increased focus on the issue “could create risk” to sales estimates.
Apple had earlier fanned the flames by denying there was any reception problem.
It originally said the real culprit was software that displayed a higher number of “bars” than appropriate, indicating greater signal strength than was warranted. Touching the left corner therefore showed a precipitous drop in connectivity instead of a minor pullback, Apple said, and it promised to fix the display issue with a software patch.
Consumer Reports faulted that explanation in its posting this week, saying that “Apple needs to come up with a permanent – and free – fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4.”
SOURCE: FT.com
Sprint CEO Sees “Logic” In a T-Mobile Merger
July 13, 2010
The network is using an alternative 4G wireless technology called WiMAX, but Mr Hesse said Sprint and Clearwire had sufficient radio spectrum to also deploy an infrastructure involving LTE.
“We have the spectrum resources where we could add LTE if we choose to do that, on top of the WiMAX network,” he added. “The beauty of having a lot of spectrum is we have a lot of flexibility…”
Mr Hesse accepted there was a “logic” to a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile USA if they were both using the same 4G technology, but declined to comment about deal activity.
From a sheer competitiveness standpoint, the deal would be a no-brainer for Sprint and T-Mo, both of whom have recently lagged far behind AT&T and Verizon. The only sticking point really is the network; Sprint would have to either abandon WiMax for LTE or operate both simultaneously, while T-Mobile has thus far stuck with their speedy HSPA+ 3G network instead of committing to a 4G technology.
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| Apple Inc. | 459.68 | ||
| Brightpoint, Inc. | 10.40 | ||
| Lm Ericsson Telep | 9.51 | ||
| Mot | 0.00 | ||
| Nokia Corporation | 5.12 | ||
| Research In Motio | 16.88 | ||
| Utstarcom Holding | 1.29 | ||
| __________________ | 0.00 | ||
| America Movil, S. | 24.58 | ||
| At&t Inc. | 29.95 | ||
| China Unicom (hon | 18.51 | ||
| Leap Wireless Int | 9.45 | ||
| Metropcs Communic | 9.44 | ||
| Ntt Docomo, Inc A | 17.91 | ||
| Sprint Nextel Co | 2.32 | ||
| Telefonica Sa Com | 17.70 | ||
| Verizon Communica | 37.84 | ||
| Vodafone Group Pl | 27.87 |