The crux of AT&T's recent complaint to the FCC regarding Google Voice was that Google -- not being subject to the common carrier rules that help facilitate fair, open telephone networks -- was blocking customers from accessing numbers managed by rural carriers that charged higher connection fees, thereby giving it a leg up on its Old Guard competition by saving cash in ways AT&T and others are legally barred from doing. Google's hitting back today, not by agreeing to submit to common car
There's no such thing as a perfect mobile app store strategy -- you're either too draconian, too arbitrary, or too loose in your policies, and as far as we can tell, there's no way to find a balance that isn't going to trigger an alarm here and there or get a few people worked into a lather. If you're too loose, for instance, you're liable end up with the occasional bout of malware, which is exactly what appears to have gone down recently in the Android Market with a few fake banking apps publis
A solid third-party app ecosystem is going to be absolutely critical to Windows Phone 7's commercial success -- and Microsoft clearly knows that, having spent nearly as much (if not more) energy talking to developers since the platform's announcement than it has directly to potential end users. In particular, one area where Microsoft really wants to play ball (pardon the pun) is with a rock-sold gaming experience -- and to that end, it seems Redmond isn't being shy about putting its money where
AT&T's preaching about the mucho dinero it's dropping into renovating its network to pretty much anyone who'll listen these days, and a veritable cornucopia of press releases this week start to go into detail on some of the upgrades we'll be seeing over the course of 2010. We're counting at least a dozen here, covering everything from New York City to Florida to Oklahoma, but the message is basically the same in every one: more cell sites, more 3G coverage, more backhaul. AT&T liberally
We've been around this rumor pretty much since Palm started looking competitive again, so take it for what you will -- but a bunch of fat cats down on Wall Street have been going ape today over renewed "chatter" that Nokia might be taking an interest in acquiring Palm. Palm's share prices are up well over 5 percent on the day, though we wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there was some behind-the-scenes manipulation going on here -- an acquisition would make less sense now than ever with sui
Google has taken much of the wind out of the turn-by-turn navigation industry's sails this Fall thanks to the introduction of fee-free Google Maps Navigation, but it's got a fatal flaw for the moment: it's only available in the States. Navigon must be banking on the fact that Mountain View is going to take its sweet time spreading the love around the world, because it has announced at iCE Amsterdam today that it'll be releasing its own app for Android on December 10. Pricing hasn't been reveale
We had a chance to catch up for a minute with the man tasked with turning around Moto's phone business, Mobile Devices CEO Sanjay Jha, just moments before he went on stage to introduce the Backflip this week at CES. With Android getting more attention than ever before, it's never been a better time to sit down with a guy who's gone all-in with the platform, right? He talks Nexus One, Google, firmware updates, Blur, and more, so don't be shy -- read on for the full transcript!Continue reading A q
Say, for a moment, that you're Microsoft and you're on the cusp of releasing a version of the much-maligned Windows Mobile 6.5 that actually made it touch-friendly for once -- but like all WinMo versions before it, you're relying on carriers and manufacturers to wage an inexcusably slow, arbitrary, incomplete upgrade campaign. Wouldn't you think that quietly burying its launch amongst a sea of more interesting (and less controversial) products might be a good idea? Indeed, that appears to be th
Maemo's already pretty open as open platforms go, but what's better than a single open platform on your open phone? Two open platforms, of course, creating a vortex of pure, unadulterated openness the likes of which the world has never seen. Hacking is par for the course with Nokia's N900, so it comes as no surprise to see that a motivated individual has managed to get his unit set up in a trick dual-boot configuration with Maemo on internal storage and Android on a separate partition loaded fr
Moto appears to be continuing its long, arduous road toward recovery on news of its financial results for the fourth quarter of '09 -- or, at the very least, it's not losing any ground. Overall, the company posted a meager profit of $142 million for the quarter on revenue of $5.723 billion, $14 million better than a quarter prior and a staggering $3.799 billion better than the same quarter a year ago. Breaking it down by division, Mobile Devices is still in the red, but not by terribly much -- i
As we'd figured out last night, Symbian's big reveal for today was the completion of its move to a fully open, royalty-free platform -- meaning you no longer need to be a paid-in-full member of the Foundation to see all the code -- and they're ready to talk about it and spread the word far and wide. Though Symbian's certainly not getting as much share of the mobile discussion these days as some of its smaller competitors, it's certainly important to keep in mind that these guys have software dep
Last time we got a look at the Nutec WristFone -- a brainchild of Canadian company Neutrano -- the year was 2009, we were at CTIA, and the prototypes were looking pretty rough and chunky. Sure, the common ancestor of these watchphones is the same typical China-sourced model that you're prone to see in SkyMall every month, but we admired Neutrano for putting some time, energy, and money into customizing the thing and making it just a little more desirable for the North American market. Anyhow, w
