Generator Research carried out an analysis showing that Nokia could give the palm to Apple in smartphone manufacturing and delivery of mobile services. Apple is engaged in mobile business for a short time but it is already possible to look into the future of the company. Generator Research explains excellent prospects by the fact that Apple is holding all the aces presented by a fully integrated platform with rich application programming interface (API) open to third party developers on favourable commercial terms. The fact of the matter is that these platforms have become crucial in development of mobile industry. Generator Research has come to a conclusion that iPhone and App Store are very promising and will be developed like Apple’s digital music platform that includes iPod and iTunes Music Store. Andrew Sheehy, head of research, states that with cash reserves exceeding $25 billion, 33% gross margins and iPhone about to enter the phase of the fastest growth, the company has everything to invest in the mobile sector. Moreover, Apple is granted this opportunity when the economic climate is forcing many mobile manufacturers to reduce the pace of development. Apple competitors may suffer a very strong blow. For instance, Nokia’s share...

  A tiny radio transmitter is built in a small tag working in the range of 100 meters from a cell phone. This simple device and your cell phone will help you to find lost keys, purses and so on. The Nokia Locate Sensor works in the following way. Special software should be installed on your cell phone enabling it to “see” the tag and show its location by an arrow on the display. It should be mentioned that a single phone supports 100 tags at once. However, it is not clear yet how to find what you really want to, and not a purse instead of keys for instance. The location tag can also keep an eye on your cell phone so that you’ll never leave it somewhere. To use the Nokia Locate Sensor in this way you should place it in your pocket and set the acceptable distance between the tag and your phone. Once you go too far from your cell phone, you hear an alarm, and the application disables the handset until it reenters your close vicinity. So far, there is no information of whether the Nokia Locate Sensor is just a prototype or a device ready for shipping. ...

  According to unofficial sources, Motorola is going to fire some of its handset division staff this week. And the scale is really large – the layoffs may amount to 50% of the handset division staff, other divisions being unaffected. Besides, we have learned that Motorola is planning to reduce the number of new phones to just a dozen per year.    

  Nokia.mobi, the popular mobile Internet site, has launched a new section called Here and Now that provides the latest world news, celebrity buzz, music, downloads and information on Nokia products and services. Nokia.mobi is bookmarked in every new Nokia device and is accessed by millions of people across the globe. The director of Nokia.mobi says that by providing quality content from Reuters and Rollingstone.com, the new section allows people to get more out of mobile services in general. Nokia.mobi is also a great launchpad for mobile advertising campaigns and is already popular with brand advertisers including Universal Pictures, BMW, and American Express.  

  Today Motorola announced two new mobile devices: MOTO™ W233 Renew and MOTOSURF™ A3100. MOTO™ W233 Renew is the world’s first mobile phone made from 100% recyclable plastics comprised of recycled water bottles. The package size is reduced by 22 percent and the box and all of the materials inside are printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Renew will first be available at T-Mobile USA in Q1 2009. As for MOTOSURF™ A3100 it is a high-speed touch tablet with a customizable home screen. The phones will debut this week at the CES in Las Vegas.  

  Clevertexting, an Indian company, has created a predictive text input system that works without any dictionaries unlike T9 for instance. Faster typing is achieved by a virtual keyboard with shifting letters that change their position when you type a message. The system predicts the next letter you need and places it near your right or left thumb that increases typing speed.    

  CrunchGear says that Palm is presenting its new slider smartphone with a large touchscreen display and full QWERTY keyboard, running under Nova operating system. As expected, the new phone functionally resembles iPhone and as for the capabilities of the operating system and supported software, there will be a great speech about them at CES this Thursday.  

  In an event held today in Nanjing Nokia unveiled the new Nokia 6208c aimed at the Chinese market. The touch screen of the 6208c is optimized to write Chinese characters with a pen, and the stylus attached to the back of the phone resembles bamboo slips and works with the large color display perfectly. Added to the Chinese language support, the Nokia 6208c features a number of different languages and characters. The new device has a stainless steel back cover, 3.2 MP camera with 4x digital zoom, dual LED flash, and supports microSD cards up to 8GB. The Nokia 6208c is expected to start shipping in select markets in the first half of 2009.  

  LG Electronics reports that during the first five weeks 150 thousand KP500 phones were sold. According to the latest data, 6-7 thousand phones are sold daily and their number is expected to increase. The cell phone LG KP500 is so popular not only because of its attractive price and perfect functionality so far met only in Premium class cell phones, but also because of its practical user interface.  

  LG announces LG-GD910, the first 3G HSDPA wrist phone ever. The phone features a 1.43” touchscreen LCD, Bluetooth, Text To Speech (TTS) capabilities for easier reading of text messages, MP3 playback, video call option, and voice dialing with speech recognition. Speaking about HSDPA, LG company claims download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps. The new device, which is made both for Korean and European markets, is scheduled for an official debut at the 2009 CES in January. The retail price of the LG-GD910 has not been announced yet.    

  LG KS660 seems to hit the market of China, Korea, Russia and its several satellites. As for the US market, the manufacturer is not thinking about it yet. Americans are upset about it, and hope that LG will change their decision and release the phone to the international market. The fact that KS660 is given so much attention can be explained not only by dual SIM support, but also by a 5 MP camera with autofocus and flash, 3” WQVGA display, and a stylus.  

  Even in the beginning of November the Touch Diamond and T-Mobile G1 were very profitable for the company. Communicators still are in demand – HTC profit for November increased by 10% in comparison with October. And if we compare the increase with the same period of the previous year, will see that HTC profit has increased by 22%.  

  Chinese government is likely to grant operators permission to launch 3G network. The ministry for industry and information technology plans to grant operators 3G licenses in January of 2009. It is already known that according to one of the conditions of the licenses the three operators (China Mobile China Telecom and China Unicom) must develop the network together and share deployment costs. 3G network is expected to bring $30 billion to the government that will be felt in the economy of the country.