Analysis

Nexus One still plagued with 3G issues after OTA software patch

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 22 d 0 h
 

Nexus One owners have been griping about the device’s 3G connectivity issue since its release, and Google felt your pain and came to the rescue (even though they did sorta blame T-Mobile’s small 3G footprint for this). Or so we thought. After releasing an over-the-air update which was intended to resolve this problem, users are still reporting bugs.

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Booyah! MyTown hits 1 million users before Foursquare or Gowalla

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 23 d 20 h
 

Booyah, the Kleiner Perkins iFund company, just announced that its hit location-based social game, MyTown, has passed 1 million registered users. MyTown is an extremely successful free iPhone game that enables users to buy and sell real world locations.

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Motorola takes two steps back, says DROID update isn’t coming this week

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 23 d 19 h
 

Earlier this week we reported that Motorola would be gearing up for an Android 2.1 update for the DROID. Oops! It turns out that it might not be coming that soon after all. And here we were etching notches into the wall as we counted down the days.

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Garmin-Asus announces Android-powered nuvifone A50

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 23 d 18 h
 

After building their own operating system for the Garmin nuvifone G60 caused the handset to take roughly a decade (in smart phone years, that is) to come out, it’s no surprise that Garmin-Asus is steering clear of that route. They announced back in June of last year that they’d be bring Android into the mix, and this latest handset reflects that.

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Skyfire acquires Kolbysoft, developers of the popular Steel browser for Android

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 23 d 17 h
 

Considering how many times I’ve written about it, it probably goes without saying that I’m a fan of Skyfire. By way of server-side magic (read: proxied data compression), it’s still the only smartphone browser that can reliably play both Flash and Silverlight content. Its only fault? It’s only available for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60.

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iPhone 3.1.3 firmware unlock coming soon

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 23 d 14 h
 

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Verizon spent $1.3 million dollars each day to improve 3G in California last year

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 24 d 22 h
 

This is Verizon’s 3G coverage map. See those little white spots amongst the green? More specifically, the ones in California? Those are the spots where Verizon’s 3G coverage is completely absent or mostly lacking. And, well, Verizon hates them – so much, in fact, that they’ve been spending millions of dollars every day to get rid of them.

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AT&T starts LTE field trials later this year, commercial deployment in 2011

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 24 d 19 h
 

Are you as excited as I am about LTE and the blazing fast data speeds it promises? Sure you are. And while you’re undoubtedly holding your breath waiting for 4G service and handsets, AT&T is moving forward with field trials after announcing that Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson will be providing its equipment. What’s in store for AT&T in the near future?

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The world is all a buzz over Google’s new social networking service

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 25 d 21 h
 

Over-sharing the minutiae of your life is already difficult, so why complicate things with Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare when you only need one service to rule them all? That’s where Google Buzz comes in and makes annoying your friends with news about your snacking habits that much easier.

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Google dials down early termination fee for the Nexus One

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 25 d 0 h
 

No one likes early termination fees, but for one reason or another they can sometimes become a necessary evil. When Google introduced a new channel for buying the Nexus One, I was excited at the thought of grabbing a phone without being hassled by a retail sales rep. The only downside was that if I bought it at the subsidized price and wanted to cancel within 120 days, Google would charge a $350 device recovery fee… on top of the carrier’s cancelation fees!

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BlackBerry Curve, iPhone, and Moto Droid lead smartphone sales in Q4 2009

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 26 d 21 h
 

Market research firm IDC has just released their quarterly report on the top selling smartphones (or “converged mobile devices”, as they call them) in the US for the fourth quarter of 2009. RIM and Apple dominate the list in an almost absurd manner, but a few welcome surprises managed to sneak their way in.

Want to test your mobile expertise? Make a mental list of what you’d wager were the best selling phones at the end of 2009, and then click through to see how many you got right.

Top 10 Best Selling Phones of Q4 2009:

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Motorola DROID to be blessed with Android 2.1 in coming update [UPDATED]

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 26 d 21 h
 

When the Nexus One was announced, many folks were questioning Google’s game plan and why it would release such an amazing device shortly after the Motorola DROID’s release. If that wasn’t enough to make some DROID owners envious, the Nexus One received a multitouch update last week which allowed pinch-to-zoom gestures within Google Maps, the Android browser and photo gallery. What could possibly quell all this Nexus One envy?

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T-Mobile isn’t ready to touch your trackballs just yet

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 26 d 21 h
 

If you’ve been camping outside of your local T-Mobile store ever since word first got out that they’d be replacing busted trackballs on a handful of BlackBerry models, you should probably run to the store and grab some more supplies. Looks like things have been pushed back a few days.

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In a stroke of genius, Vertu preps pink phone for Valentine’s Day

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 26 d 20 h
 

Vertu, French for “virtue,” has a pink phone just in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s the Constellation Ayxt, only it’s pink. Fascinating.

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HTC Legend spotted in the flesh, looks exactly as expected

Posted in www.mobilecrunch.com - 26 d 19 h
 

There isn’t much to be said about a few in-the-flesh images leaked about a device we’ve all heard of other than the confirmation of a few things. To start, it looks identical to renders seen in the past, and the images depicted in HTC’s handset line-up which was leaked back in early December.

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