Cell Phone Hub

Filed under: Cellphones

[Thanks Andrew, Erica]

Update: Yep, it's an April Fool's joke. We're just going to go offline until April 2nd, peace.

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

Palm's miniscule and wallet-friendly Centro has managed to reach one million units sold since its launch last September. It got its legs working as Sprint and AT&T's gateway smartphone at that fantastic $99 pricepoint, and now it's making a bid for world domination in major markets in Europe and Asia. The one million sales have it nipping at the heels of recent superstar smartphones, the two million plus HTC Touch and the four million plus iPhone, not bad company in the least.

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

Don't look now, but mid-2008 is almost here, and for those waiting intently for the release of a LiMo SDK, you're one step closer to having your dreams realized. Announced today, the LiMo Foundation has made available what it calls the "first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices." According to Morgan Gillis, executive director of LiMo Foundation, the consortium is hoping that R1 will "spur rapid innovation and contributions from all LiMo members," and it's restated that software development kits for Native, WebKit and Java operating environments are set to launch during the second half of this year. Not one to sit idly, the entity has also announced that Release 2 is currently "being specified and developed," and should escape testing and greet the real world in late 2008.

[Via PhoneScoop]

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

So last week Deutsche Telekom, owners of the global T-Mobile brand, sent Engadget a late birthday present: a hand-delivered letter direct from their German legal department requesting the prompt discontinuation of the use of the color magenta on Engadget Mobile. Yep, seriously.

Granted, we get nastygrams from angry tech companies practically every day, but rarely regarding anything that's not some piece of news we published that they're livid about having out in the open. And irony of ironies, this whole use-of-magenta thing is precisely the topic we took up last year on behalf of DT.

We spoke with David Beigie, vice president of corporate communications for T-Mobile US, who offered: "As a trademark owner, from time to time Deutsche Telekom looks at usage that could lead to confusion in the marketplace. The letter sent by DT merely outlines these perspectives and is meant to simply open a dialogue. Engadget continues to pioneer forums for discussion of wireless industry developments and innovation. T-Mobile respects the role Engadget and its readers play in advancing dialog on these important topics."

So in the interest of that open dialog we've posted Deutsche Telekom's letter below (typo in the first word of the first sentence and all), as well as a handy guide to allay any confusion should you suddenly find yourself disoriented and trying to buy your next SideKick or MDA from Engadget Mobile.

P.S. -Not an early April Fool's joke.

	Deutsche Telekom	Engadget Mobile
Cellphone carrier	Yep	No
Distributor of telecom equipment	Yep	No
Likely to be mistaken for T-Mobile / Deutsch Telekom	We certainly hope so	No
Former state-owned monopoly	Yep	No
Has something against US 3G	Apparently	No
Has more than five friends	Might not anymore	Yep

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

Don't you dare say green wasn't already in style, as in all actuality, it's US Cellular and Alltel following the crowd yet again. As the run-up to CTIA 2008 continues, the aforesaid outfits have both announced that a lime green variant of the Motorola Q9c will soon be on their shelves. Aside from that, prospective customers can also snap up the WinMo 6-powered Q9c in licorice, and of course, they'll find a 1.3-megapixel camera, 2.4-inch display and 128MB of onboard memory. As for pricing, you can call Alltel's version your own for $99.99 on contract, and while US Cellular is being mum on the subject, both providers will have 'em available "this summer."

[Via CNET]

Read - Alltel's announcement
Read - US Cellular's announcement

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

After seeing it kicked around the Net for a few months, it's good to see the BlackBerry Curve 8330 finally go live on Verizon Wireless. Well, almost -- you'll have to wait until May to lay thumb to QWERTY while riding that cool EV-DO wave of data. It'll cost you $270 after a $50 mail-in rebate and two-year contract with further discounts available when signing up for eligible voice and data plans. Your cash will be rewarded with the wee 4.2 x 2.4 x 0.6-inches / 4-ounces curve sporting a 320 x 240 pixel display, 2-megapixel camera, media player, stereo Bluetooth audio, microSD / SDHC expansion, and 260 minutes talk / 11 days standby. Unfortunately, it's missing WiFi like the early prototype and GPS like the rumored Sprint version coming in April.

Update: Sorry, scratch that. It does have GPS which Verizon touts as VZ Navigator.

[Thanks, thatguy0109]

 

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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Video

Sony just revealed a bit more about AT&T's Mobile TV service launching in May. We now know that one of the two exclusive AT&T channels will be called PIX, Sony's new feature film channel for cellphones. The service is a first of its kind in the US... for good reason. Oh, it's not that we have anything against the roster of films including "Ghostbusters," "Philadelphia" and "Karate Kid." It's more the prospect of sitting in front of that tiny mobile screen to watch a full-length film without the ability to pause, fast forward or rewind. This is live broadcast folks. Nevertheless, Sony Pictures claims to understand the risk. According to Eric Berger, VP Mobile Entertainment at Sony Pictures Televsion, "We recognize that people are on the go with their mobile phone and coming and going. This isn't for people looking to view a movie for the first time. It's OK to miss the beginning." Films will run on PIX for a month with new additions added weakly weekly.

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

Looks like Apple's been passing around a new working version of the iPhone 2.0 beta firmware -- not too many changes since the last release we saw, though. So far, from what we can tell the build is now officially 2.0 (before it was registered as 1.2), the Cisco VPN settings got some tweaks, and the root-level mail / ActiveSync settings have been reshuffled a bit. We'll let you know if anything else pops up.

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

Those crafty kids on the iPhone Dev Team have already hacked the 2.0 firmware, but now they're getting ready to release the oh-so-creatively-named PWNED tool, which takes iPhone hacking to the next level by patching the bootloader to let you load any firmware image you want -- even images not signed by Apple. That means custom patched firmware can now be loaded directly from iTunes, which simplifies the jailbreaking / unlocking process tremendously, and also means that a patched version of the 2.0 firmware is coming soon. We're putting the tool through its paces right now and we'll have a hands-on with it (and the Dev Team's patched 2.0 firmware) as soon as we get it all working, but check out some highlights after the break, and hit the read link for more info.

Continue reading Video of the iPhone Pwned project in action

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

Having some BlackBerry troubles? You're not alone, we've been receiving some sporadic tips on the subject, and some forum users have reported outage trouble as well, though for other users it seems just fine. Let us know how your service is doing. Or don't -- this might be just the chance you were looking for to ditch work email and get a start on that spring tan. We won't tell a soul.

 

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