Author: Greg Kumparak

I usually avoid posting rumors started by analysts, because it seems like most have the batting average of a dizzy, blindfolded toddler. Alas, with CES just days away, everything worth writing about is being kept under tight lock and key; at this point, any big leaks would be like somebody ruining a surprise party by shouting “THERE’S A SURPRISE PARTY IN THERE” as the special guest walks up the driveway.

Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry,who at least has some sort of history with Motorola predictions, has a few guesses as to what Motorola will be announcing next week.

Chowdhry claims that Moto will be launching two Android-powered handsets at CES: one for AT&T, and one for Verizon. The AT&T kit will have a physical keyboard, OLED screen, and might be running stock Android rather than the Moto BLUR UI, while the Verizon piece would lack the physical keyboard — or, at least, so says Chowdhry.

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There have been whispers around the rumor mill for roughly a week now that Google was planning on throwing a press shindig right before CES – and sure enough, the invites just went out.

Google’s not saying much about the event, outside of the fact that it’s focused on Android — but really, what do they need to say? Google’s Nexus One handset has been given to employees, documented from just about every angle, spec’d out, and confirmed by T-Mobile; at this point, the press conference is a formality.

Either way, expect the TechCrunch network to be there with cameras in hand and live-blogging on the mind.

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Looks like one more Android-phone wanted to sneak onto the radar before 2009 was over, though we’re probably not going to hear much more about it until CES next week.

Spotted in the depths of Sprint’s inventory system, there’s only so much to be said about it thus far: it’s made by LG, it’s running Android, and the model number is the oh-so-non-descript LG LS680. Considering that just about every Android device in existent runs behind a touchscreen, that’s probably a safe bet; throw in some wishful thinking that it also has a physical QWERTY keyboard and, as PhoneArena points out, we might just be looking at a CDMA version of the LG GW620, pictured below.

[Source: BGR]

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After the xpPhone was announced back in May, word of its development went surprisingly quiet – enough so, in fact, that I’d been convinced the project had gone the way of Duke Nukem Forever.

With this recent media dump, however, the xpPhone is looking more real than ever. ITG released a handful of prototype images just weeks ago, and followed it up shortly thereafter with a video of the Windows XP-powered handset booting up. This latest video goes on to show a bit of what the phone can actually do — that is, make phone calls in Windows XP.

With that, there’s not much doubt left in our mind on whether or not this thing will make it to the shelves; whether or not anyone will actually buy it, however, is still up for debate.

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Pre-toting people around the Internets have been hoping and praying that Palm would add video recording support to the Pre ever since the device launched. When Palm’s CEO Jon Rubinstein mentioned that webOS 1.3.5 would be hitting the Pre in just a few days, people started getting antsy; surely this would be the one that brought video, right?

No such luck. While it does fix a handful of issues (most importantly, they’ve upped the number of apps you can have installed at once), the lack of video isn’t one of them.

The official patch notes are pretty minimal, but here’s what Sprint has to say:

* Improvement in battery life optimization when in marginal coverage areas.
* QCELP capability fix to allow play and audio of video sent via MMS.
* Launch Google Maps or Sprint Nav when tapping an address from contacts.
* Minimized package of MR size through binary difference. Customers can now download over 2G connections if necessary.

We’ve heard a few reports of 1.3.5 hitting handsets already – let us know when you get it, would you?

[Via PreCentral]

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Google’s semi-secret Nexus One handset has been more or less exhaustively leaked at this point, with very few cats left to let out of the bag. The only two major points left were the tech specs and the release date – and now, even those have made their way out.

Our friends over at Engadget just had a chat with someone who could spill the beans – and spill they did. Not only did they share the above spec sheet, but they also mentioned that Google’s planning on selling the Nexus One on an invite-only basis come January 5th.

What exactly that entails, we’ve got no idea. Who gets an invite? Certainly not Google employees – they already have the handsets. Long time Google app users? Members of the Android development community? Dudes named Greg who write about cell phones on the Internet all day? Either way, we just Google opens up sales to everyone before too long.

Highlight-worthy Specs:

• 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED Screen – Should be mind-blowingly gorgeous
• 119mm tall, 59.8 mm wide, 11.5mm thick – A hair thinner than the iPhone 3GS
• 512 MB RAM and 512 MB rom, with up to 32GB storage via microSD (4 GB comes in the box)
• HSPA 900 / 1700 / 2100 – It’ll work on EDGE on both T-Mo and AT&T, but 3G will be T-mobile only
• 802.11n Wi-Fi
• 5 Megapixel camera with Autofocus and Flash
• Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR

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The rumor mill has been cranking way too hard over Motorola as of late for us to feel confident in taking a stab at what they may launch, but Motorola has just more or less confirmed that they’ll be launching something at CES.

Got any guesses as to what it is? Drop it in the comments. We’ll come back on January 7th, run through all of them, and pick someone at random from those who got it right and send them a box of fun stuff we’ve got laying around the office.

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The iPhone is already touted for its gaming prowess almost endlessly, but it looks like things are about to take a pretty big leap forward. Epic Games has been crackin’ away at an iPhone port of their Unreal Engine 3 — the engine that powers such jaw-droppingly beautiful games as BioShock, Mirror’s Edge, Gears of War 2, and a bunch of others — and they’re now far enough along that they’re looking to show it off.

The first person lucky enough to get some hands-on time with the engine was Anand over at Anandtech, who seems to have walked away impressed. The stuff we’ll see on the iPhone obviously aren’t going to be pixel-for-pixel matches with that found on the current generation of consoles; textures will be downsampled, lighting and shading effectswill be toned down, etc. With that said, it ought to be pretty dang gorgeous.

It’ll still be a while before we see any games powered by the engine. Epic currently has no plans to get into the iPhone space for themselves, though they plan to license the engine some time in the near future. Epic has been been far more aggressive in pricing their engine licensing lately than they have in years prior, going as far as to give it away for free for noncommercial/educational use. Will they keep things cheap for the iPhone variant? We sure hope so.

Lastly: They’re not giving any specifics, but Epic’s also planning on showing off the engine running on a different mobile platform at CES. All things considered, it’s probably not webOS or BlackBerry OS – and that only leaves so many options. Any guesses?

[Via Engadget]

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Ranking cell phone companies is a tough thing to do. Some of these companies have a bunch of popular handsets, whilst others have just one or two yet manage to sell as many or more. Rank the companies by cumulative sales across all of their lines and the results will swing one way; rank them model-by-model, and they might look completely different.

Such is the case with the iPhone, according to the latest numbers from The Nielsen Company. While RIM’s marketshare with their BlackBerry line is still nearly double that of Apple’s, the iPhone has now surpassed everything else to become the most popular phone in the US.

The iPhone’s lead is fairly tight, coming in at 4.0% of all mobile phone owners while the BlackBerry 8300 series follows closely behind at 3.7%. The rest of the list is made up primarily of feature phones, outside of appearances by the BlackBerry Storm and the BlackBerry 8100 series in 7th and 10th respectively. As the iPhone 3GS doesn’t make an individual appearance on the list, we’re assuming that they’ve combined the 3G and 3GS into one product line.

A few more interesting tidbits gleaned from the Nielsen report:

• The most popular reason people pick pre-paid phones isn’t because the lack of contract — that’s actually #4 — but because the plans are more straightforward. It’s followed by “No monthly bills” and “Emergency use only”.
• 21% of households now use mobile phones only, with no land line to call their own. This is up from 15% in 2006
• 15% of households now own at least one smartphone

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As stringent (and arguably overzealous) as Apple’s App review policy is, things still slip through the cracks from time to time. I mean, who can forget the infamous baby shaking simulator slip-up? The latest bit of contraband to hit the App Store isn’t nearly as offensive – that is, unless you’re Nintendo.

Earlier today, an application called “Nescaline” popped up on the App Store. Everything about the application, from the name, to the copyrighted icon, to the very functionality of the application rang of something that Apple would generally deny without batting an eye.. and yet, there it was – for all of one day, at least.

You see, Nescaline is an emulator of 1985’s living room king, the Nintendo Entertainment System. By duplicating the functionality of the system’s hardware in software form, Nescaline would allow you to play NES games on your iPhone. You’re stuck with slightly frustrating touchscreen controls instead of the sharp-cornered, palm-destroying original controller – but hey, it was old school gaming on the go.

It’s worth noting that Nescaline didn’t include any copyrighted games out of the box, instead providing just a handful of community-made home brew games. However, if the user just so happened to know the URL of another ROM — be it another home brew game or an unlicensed copy of Super Mario — Nescaline would download the ROM to its internal library.

The legality of applications of this sort are endlessly debated, and remain in a bit of a legal gray area. Apple avoids any potential copyright battles by banning “executable code”, a term just vague enough to work wherever its convenient. They’ve thus far denied all emulator submissions, including those that had their licensing in order. If you want an emulator on the iPhone, you’ll have to jailbreak first.

Apple’s negative stance on emulators is something that fans of Android love to poke fun at, considering that emulators are amongst the most popular on Google’s platform. While Google’s not about to come out and officially support console emulation, the only apps they won’t sell are those that are malicious, explicitly illegal, or adult in nature – none of which fits the bill for most emulators.

Nescaline went up on the App Store early this morning, and was pulled by the end of the night. Assuming that this was an accident and not some App Store reviewer’s way of resigning, we’re left wondering: how’d this happen? The app’s description clearly explains everything – and even if they didn’t read a word of that, the app’s icon was a friggin’ Super Mario mushroom. Maybe the “Approve” and “Deny” buttons are just right next to each other.

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Call us crazy, but we don’t think you’d host a “Mobile Launch Party” at CES unless you were planning.. you know, a mobile launch of some sort – and when it comes to mobile launches, companies generally don’t co-host parties unless they’re launching a phone together.

So when we get a heads up letting us know that Sprint and LG will be throwing a party at CES, it’s a pretty clear sign that somethings up. While we can’t be 100% sure what they’re launching, we can make some pretty well educated guesses.

What it might be, but probably isn’t: LG and Sprint are pitching the party under the tagline of “Celebrate Style”. When it comes to LG phones, it doesn’t get much more stylish than their Prada line. Fortunately for us, they’ve already confirmed a Prada III is in the works. Celebrities, lavish parties, style – it all just fits together too well.

Alas, the fact that Sprint is involved makes it significantly less likely. If Sprint were to carry the Prada phone, it’d be the first time any of the Prada line appeared in CDMA form — not to mention it’d be the first time a Prada phone appeared on a US carrier, period.

What it might be, and probably is: The LG Lotus 2. We scooped all the details on the LG Lotus 2 back in October. Launching in January? Check. Heading for Sprint? Yep. Whether or not you think the original Lotus was all that stylish, Sprint certainly does; right out of the first line of the original press release:

Fans of the fashion runways will appreciate the couture style of LG Lotus, exclusive to Sprint.

So there you have it, folks. Until further evidence arises, consider our bets hedged on Sprint/LG launching the Lotus 2 at CES.

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Outside of a completely simulated appearance in a commercial, we’ve been hard-pressed in finding any video of the LG eXpo’s projector attachment in action. We expected to see some hit the Tubes after the handset launched last week – alas, the projector accessory still hasn’t hit the shelves.

Fortunately, the guys over at MobileSyrup have managed to scrounge one up north of the border. Their verdict? It “looks good” (looks a bit dim to us, even in the blacked out room) but the projection unit gets surprisingly warm with use. That’s probably pretty unavoidable given the concept of slamming a projector into an itsy-bitsy box – just be sure to give it a minute or two to cool down before you stuff it back into your pants. There’s sensitive stuff down there, you know?

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Man, that was a surreal headline to write. Two baked goods in one sentence, and we’re not even talking about Android.

With over 10 million units pushed, the Cookie is LG’s best selling device ever. It should come as no surprise, then, that it’s getting a sequel.

According to information leaked to PhoneArena, the second coming of the Cookie is tentatively titled the “Muffin”. We’re not sure when it’s set to come out of the oven – but when it does, it’ll reportedly pack a 3″ capacitive touchscreen, 5.0 megapixel camera (as compared to 3.0 on the original), WiFi and HSDPA, Dolby Mobile Sound, and LG’s signature S-Class user interface.

If LG’s going about the Muffin with the same mindset as the original, we can probably expect this to launch somewhere between $250-$350 before taxes and carrier subsidies.

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Unlike here in the States, the iPhone exclusivity deal for the UK wasn’t a big pile of absurd. O2 got exclusivity for 2 years. Once that was up, it was an open game where just about any carrier was free to hop on the iPhone – and hop they have.

Looking to stay competitive with the likes of O2 and Orange UK, Vodafone has just officially confirmed that they’ll be launching the iPhone on January 14th of 2010. £35 a month will get you a free 8GB 3G, while a 32GB 3GS will set you back an additional £239 up front.

[BBC via EngMo]

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It’s just after 12 o’clock here on the left coast, which means Operation Chokehold should now be in full effect. What that means (if anything at all) is still up in the air — which is why we’re turning to you for a status report.

For the uninitiated: Operation Chokehold is a sort of cyber-protest against AT&T, as conjured up by some dude playing a dude disguised as another dude. For one solid hour between 12 and 1 Pacific, angry iPhone owners are supposed to gobble up as much data as they can in an “attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees.”

The discussion on the merits of this bit of disobedience have already been done into the ground, so we won’t dive into that. The FCC and ATT have already condemned the whole thing, and Fake Steve has back-pedaled a bit to make it clear that the whole thing was intended as a joke. Joke or not, its taken off with a life of its own now – some people are taking this pretty dang seriously.

With all that said, we want to know: has Operation Chokehold affected the quality of your AT&T connectivity? Here in San Jose, CA things seem as good as ever — that is, they’re not all that great, but certainly don’t seem worse than normal. Let us know where you’re at and how the 3G network is acting in your area down in the comments.

[Image via Kakiseni]

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Samsung already managed to get the Samsung Corby down to a surprisingly dirt-cheap price tag, packing in a 2.8″ touchscreen, 2 MP camera, and FM radio for less than $200 bucks — unlocked, and without contract. It seems that wasn’t enough, however – according to the latest whispers from the rumor mill, they’re aiming even lower.

According to Unwired View, Samsung’s cracking away at a new uber-cheap handset called the Corby Pop. There aren’t any pictures of the Corby Pop yet – in its place, please accept this picture of a ham sandwich.

The new handset purportedly maintains the touchscreen display and FM radio, but bumps the camera down to 1.2 megapixels. It’s about as low on the totem pole as new phones come nowadays – but at a rumored unlocked price of around $150 bucks, we doubt the buyers will be complaining.

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If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve never played Doodle Jump. Why? Because if you had ever played Doodle Jump, you’d probably still be playing it. The game is addictive gaming at its finest; it’s drop dead simple, yet ridiculously tough to put down. If I had to babysit a kid, I’d just hand them Doodle Jump and then go off and do something else for a few hours. They wouldn’t even notice I left.

Being insanely catchy has paid off. This morning, Doodle Jump’s developers, Lima Sky, are announcing that they’ve smashed through the 1 million download mark – an especially impressive feat when you consider the circumstances.

You see, Lima Sky isn’t some huge development company – they don’t have a massive advertising budget, a team of artists, or PR flacks to do their bidding. Lima Sky is made up of two brothers, Igor and Marko Pusenjak, who do everything from writing the code to reaching out to the media. With each of the 1 million copies sold at 99c a pop, the two brothers are probably swimming around in about $690k after Apple took their cut – not too shabby for a two-man operation.

Lima Sky didn’t just rest on their laurels and ride their way to the top of the App Store. While they did put some of their revenue back towards small ad campaigns, a significant chunk of their downloads stems from the brother’s constant care. Doodle Jump has seen nearly constant updates since launch, with each update adding in a new layer to the game. One update gave the player the ability to shoot, drastically changing the entire mechanics of the game and giving people a reason to strive for a new high score. A more recent update which overhauled the graphics with a Christmas motif (if you named your character “Snow”) was surprisingly well-received, pushing it back into the Top Paid section in countries where it had gone unnoticed.

Of course, a mention on a popular TV show didn’t hurt either.

You can find Doodle Jump on the App Store here.

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Hot on the heels of the launch of their Dragon Dictation app (and a short-lived and mostly overblown privacy scandal), Nuance has just launched a second iPhone application: Dragon Search.

Heralded by Nuance as the “fast, accurate, and smart way to search online content on your iPhone”, Dragon Search allows iPhone users to search across Google, Yahoo!, Bing, iTunes, Twitter, Wiki, or YouTube by speaking their search terms.

Dragon Search is powered by the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine, just as with Nuance’s other offering. If you’re having good luck with Dragon Dictation, you should see similar results here.

The design of the application is rather clever; while you’re only shown one search engine’s results at a time, you can flip between them on a whim via the carousel at the top. You can search for Dr. Dre’s Wikipedia page, then flip over a few boxes on the carousel to check out Dre’s music videos videos on YouTube.

Like the Dragon Dictation app, Nuance is saying that the app is available for free for “a limited time”. We’re not sure when they’re planning to bump it up to for-pay, nor the price they’ll charge – but in the meanwhile, you can nab it here for the always-welcome price of free: App Store link.

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Apple just pushed out a new, Holiday-themed commercial. Playing on the classic “12 Days of Christmas” song, they rattle off a different type of application for each of 12 days. They make no mention of baby shaking applications, which isn’t too surprising – “baby shaking” has way too many syllables to fit the tune.

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I’m not sure if there were anybody was waiting in lines outside of AT&T stores when the LG eXpo launched last week – but if they were, they left sorely disappointed. Without much notice or acknowledgement, the eXpo’s December 7th launch date came and went.

Just shy of two weeks later, the eXpo is now available on AT&T.com. Alas, the flagship feature — the optional, detachable projector — is nowhere to be seen. I guess for the time being, there really is “no such thing as an LG Phone and Projector“.

[Via WMExperts]

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