Mobile

German phone giant Deutsche Telekom is looking to jump into the 4G wireless market in the U.S. through partnerships with U.S.-based service providers, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that Deutsche Telekom is looking to beef up its presence in the U.S. wireless market by investing in Clearwire, a company that is building a 4G wireless network using a technology called WiMax. Sources also told Bloomberg that Deutsche Telekom is also talking to Metro PCS, which recently acquired spectrum to build its 4G wireless network.

Deutsche Telekom already owns T-Mobile USA, the … Read more

Apple has approved the first two iPhone apps dedicated to the careers of popular (or, ahem, so we're told) porn stars.

Developed by GrindHouse Mobile and the stars, the two apps mark the first time that Apple has allowed the porn industry into the store in such an obvious way.

While these apps may be more in-your-face than some of the apps showing bikini-clad women that are already on the App Store, the content of these apps is relatively tame. They appear to show no more than suggestive photos--the same as the apps that preceded them.

In other words, … Read more

Apple now has the support of a USB industry standards group in its battle to keep the Palm Pre from using the iTunes music service.

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) said in a statement Tuesday that Apple can block the Pre from connecting to iTunes. The group issued a letter to both companies warning Palm that further attempts to use iTunes would violate the group's policy.

The voice of the USB-IF is strong in this case since the group is responsible for issuing Apple the hardware vendor ID that lets its devices connect to iTunes via USB. Palm has … Read more

South Koreans will soon join the millions of others worldwide as its government on Wednesday approved the sale of the iPhone there.

For years, the Korea Communications Commission used technical rules to stifle competition, allowing homegrown companies like Samsung and LG to take over the market, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

With an estimated 93 percent of South Korea's population subscribing to a mobile service, Apple should be able to overcome one of the biggest barriers to smartphone success in South Korea--applications. Apple has been able to entice developers worldwide to build apps for the iPhone, with … Read more

12seconds.tv, a micro video messaging service dubbed by some as "Twitter for video," is bringing the same short format to private video messaging in its second iPhone app, 12mail.

The basic gist of the app, released this week, is that you can record a video, up to 12 seconds, and send it off to one of your friends. Your friend then gets a push notification and can watch it.

Unfortunately, in order to take advantage of the video recording part of this app, you have to have an iPhone 3GS. Those with the 3G or original iPhone … Read more

When I sat down to write an article about the unreliable cell reception my iPhone gets on Monday, I knew I wasn't alone in my frustration. Friends and acquaintances often joke that the iPhone is a cool computer but a lousy phone.

But judging from the response I received from the "AT&T takes the phone out of iPhone" story published on Tuesday, I definitely struck a nerve with a lot of iPhone users, not just in San Francisco but around the country. The overwhelming majority of them reported similar problems of frequent and consistent dropped … Read more

Updated 5:45 p.m. PDT with more details about e-mail push.

Some of you who have been restlessly awaiting the arrival of Google's official Gmail push solution for mobile phones can relax now. On Tuesday, Google expanded the over-the-air syncing capabilities in its Google Sync service to include Google's e-mail--but only for the iPhone and iPod Touch (version 3.0), and for Windows Mobile phones.

Google Sync began as a beta service to sync Google calendar items and contacts to iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Symbian Series 60 phones. Owners of iPhones, iPod Touches, and Windows Mobile phones … Read more

Three weeks ago, I got a call on a friend's iPhone while in the middle of a desert; cell phone coverage had come to Burning Man. By contrast, several calls I made last night to my parents from my San Francisco apartment were dropped and a subsequent connection became garbled.

That happens daily when I try to converse on my first-generation iPhone in my apartment and in certain other neighborhoods. I've come to anticipate that if I can even make a call it's likely to be short-lived or poor quality.

Frustrated by the numerous interrupted calls, I … Read more

The wireless industry is gearing up to fight new Net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission is formulating to keep the Internet open.

On Monday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gave a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., outlining plans to turn the agency's principles for open Internet access into official regulation.

In addition to making sure that network operators cannot prevent users from accessing lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, or attaching unharmful devices to the network, Genachowski wants to add two more rules.

The first would prevent Internet access providers from … Read more