smartphone

BARCELONA--If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Apple's biggest competitors are laying on the love a little thick.

It seems like handset makers aren't just trying to match Apple in terms of developing cool new touch screen devices, but now they're all clamoring to develop their own version of an application storefront, where users can easily discover and download applications for their smartphones and developers can easily create and monetize those apps.

Rumors have been flying around that Nokia, the largest handset maker in the world, will unveil its plans for its own application store … Read more

The team working on Microsoft's portable media player has been divided in two and put under Windows Mobile hardware and Media Center software and services. What will this mean for the future of the device? CNET News reporter Ina Fried talks about where the Zune is headed.

Also in today's podcast: It's 1234567890 day! Nerds rejoice! Plus, the gadgets that broke our hearts, and a cheap take on smartphones.

Today's stories:

Microsoft reshuffles Zune team

Midway Games presses reset with bankruptcy

Microsoft follows Apple into retail business

iPhone too pricey? Think smartphone-lite… Read more

Smartphones, such as Apple's iPhone, are all the rage these days. But as the economy worsens, these sophisticated devices and the expensive data plans that are required to be purchased along with them, are out of reach for most cell phone users.

A new handset maker based in the U.K. says it is developing phones that will offer similar functionality at a fraction of the cost. INQ U.K., which is owned by Hong Kong-based telecom giant Hutchison Whampoa, is developing a set of souped-up feature phones that will be loaded with all kinds of Internet and social … Read more

Well, here's the first disappointment of GSMA Mobile World Congress. Samsung will not be showing off its first Google Android smartphone at the show; in fact, we won't be seeing it at all until the second half of 2009.

Initial reports said Samsung would release its Android device some time in the second quarter of 2009, but according to an article in The Guardian, the head of marketing at Samsung's mobile division, Younghee Lee, said the company is "planning internally" for a release in the second half of the year. Lee added that Samsung is … Read more

On Thursday, Sprint stealthily posted specifications for the highly anticipated Palm Pre on its Web site. Of course, a lot of the smartphone's details were revealed at CES 2009 and the new information doesn't reveal anything earth-shattering, but we do learn a couple of things. First, the Pre will allow multimedia messaging. The integrated Bluetooth will also support the A2DP profile for stereo Bluetooth and dial-up networking (also via USB tethering). Finally, the device will offer about 7.4GB of user-available memory.

Now, some might take this as a sign that Sprint and Palm are prepping for an … Read more

Wi-Fi has come to the mobile phone, and people all over the world are taking advantage of the faster speeds to access the Net from their phones.

According to AdMob, a mobile advertising marketplace, mobile Internet usage on Wi-Fi picked up steam in January in the U.S. and Europe. Worldwide Internet requests originating from Wi-Fi hot spots increased 8 percent month over month to 6.8 billion, led by double digit growth in Western Europe and Asia, AdMob said in a recent study.

In Europe, Wi-Fi access on a mobile phone increased by 132 percent over the past year … Read more

Garmin-Asus is wasting no time on creating some pre-Mobile World Congress buzz. Last week, the companies announced their strategic alliance to collaborate on an entire line of Nuvifone GPS-enabled smartphones and revealed that it would debut a new Nuvifone model at GSMA 2009. We thought we'd hear about it on the opening day of the show, but on Thursday, Garmin-Asus took the wraps off the Nuvifone M20 and revealed full specs for the Nuvifone G60 (aka the original Garmin Nuvifone.

The Nuvifone M20 will run Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition with full e-mail support, document viewing, and Opera's HTML Web browser. The triband GSM (850/1800/1900)/dual-band 3.5G (HSDPA 850/1900) handset will also have integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Of course, navigation is a top priority and the Nuvifone M20 will come preloaded with maps and points of interest and will offer turn-by-turn voice-guided directions and automatic recalculation. To enter a destination, you can manually enter an address, search for a POI, or use an address from your phone's contact list.

… Read more

On Thursday, TeleNav announced that starting February 24, it will make its location-based service, TeleNav GPS Navigator, available to T-Mobile G1 owners, bringing real-time turn-by-turn navigation to the Google Android smartphone.

In addition to turn-by-turn driving directions, TeleNav GPS Navigator offers traffic alerts with one-click rerouting, business searches (with more than 10 million listings), gas prices, weather updates, and restaurant reviews.

Speech recognition is also supported, meaning that you'll be able to press a button on the G1, dictate an address or business, and TeleNav will then route to the destination. Alternatively, you can preplan trips through TeleNav's … Read more

Research In Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, warned investors Wednesday that it will likely hit the low end of its earnings forecast for the fourth quarter.

The news comes despite the fact that RIM also predicts strong subscriber growth for the quarter. RIM said Wednesday that it will add about 3.5 million new subscribers by the end of the quarter. This figure is about 20 percent higher than the 2.9 million new subscribers the company said it had expected on December 18.

So what does this mean? Analysts believe the fact that RIM is growing subscribers … Read more