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Mobile World Congress 2008

Yesterday, reports were surfacing that the iPhone had been completely sold out at the U.S. and U.K. online Apple stores. Apple confirmed the reports. No more iPhone for you.

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Research In Motion officially made the BlackBerry 9000 -- aka the "Bold" -- public today after months of it appearing on Internet rumor sites. As expected, 3G is on board, and in three flavors, making it the first BlackBerry that can roam from the U.S. to Japan and South Korea. It's a smartphone first, but its media capabilities aren't lacking, either.

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First the iPhone sold out in the U.K. online Apple stores. Now it has sold out in the U.S. Customers attempting to order one are met with a "Currently Unavailable" message. This includes both the 8-GB and 16-GB models. 3G iPhone around the corner?

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Who says the profit motive and Third World development can't work together? Wireless infrastructure giant Ericsson is trying to prove otherwise in remote areas of Sub-Saharan Africa.

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This is bordering on ridiculous. Last week, iPhone users (myself included) noticed that they could get free access to Wi-Fi service from AT&T at Starbucks locations. Later in the week, AT&T yanked the service. Early this week, it put the service back up, complete with information on the AT&T Web site. Today, any references to free Wi-Fi for iPhones is once again gone. What gives, AT&T?

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I pay $60 per month for my wireless broadband card with Verizon Wireless. Sprint and AT&T charge similar rates. Are the carriers keeping prices high to deter people from signing up, or is $60 for 5 GB of wireless data the fair market price?

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The web site CrackBerry, which bought the BlackBerry 9000 for over $800 on eBay, has filmed its own video review of the next-generation hardware from RIM. In this video, CrackBerry performs a walk through of the revamped user interface. Looks fantastic.

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U.K. network operator O2 has sold out of its supply of 8-GB and 16-GB iPhones. It has no plans to restock either model, suggesting that the 3G iPhone will soon be available. Also, purported spy shots of the 3G iPhone have emerged from Taiwan, where it is being manufactured. There are some subtle changes compared with the current model.

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It's a truism that smart money finds places to invest during a downturn. Today's Sprint-Clearwire deal is a perfect illustration.

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An unusual alliance of tech and media companies is betting billions of dollars on the as-yet-unproved technology known as WiMax. Will they finally usher in the wireless Web? Or is this fated to be another one of those cumbersome tech alliances that go down in flames with technology that doesn't work?

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The 3G iPhone reports are off the charts. We still have over four weeks until Jobsnote at WWDC, but everyone and their mother believes the 3G iPhone is going to hit store shelves in the very near future. Here's the latest scuttlebutt.

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It's almost poetic. Like a phoenix reincarnated from the ashes of its former self, Sprint and Clearwire have formed a new joint venture to roll out mobile WiMax to the masses. And this time its more than just words. The companies are teaming up with a handful of cable operators, as well as Intel and Google (man, Google is just everywhere these days), to forge a $14.22 billion entity known as Clearwire.

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Vettro has come out with an application for mobile devices that helps utility crews and excavators avoid trouble in the risky business of working around buried cables and pipelines. GPS devices can save money and lives in this sometimes dangerous occupation.

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Finally! T-Mobile officially made it official. Though users reported that the network was up and running late last week, T-Mobile announced the launch of its 3G services in NYC yesterday. Too bad it doesn't have any killer 3G phones to use on it.

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Today in London, HTC chiseled out its latest Windows Mobile smartphone, the Diamond. This stylish and powerful touch-screen device is super thin, carries HSPA, and a custom YouTube application for the video hungry. It will be available on most carriers later this year.

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Now that Steve Ballmer has taken his ball and gone home, three things have become clear about the failed Microsoft bid for Yahoo: 1) This deal is not dead yet; 2) Yahoo's future as an independent company is at any rate limited; and 3) Microsoft is playing in the wrong arena.

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I hate to admit it, but it is true. After 10 months (and untold thousands of messages), I still stink at composing text using the iPhone's software QWERTY keyboard. I make mistakes all the time, and have to edit and re-edit messages before sending them. Time to go back to a physical keyboard?

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Reports wafting over the Atlantic Ocean suggest that Deutsche Telekom -- parent company of T-Mobile USA -- is considering Sprint Nextel as a take-over target. And why not? Sprint's share price is below $10, and the euro continues to dominate the dollar. Sprint's spectrum alone is worth it. That would make T-Mobile + Sprint the largest wireless operator in the United States. But could it work without falling to pieces?

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New research shows that a good mobile Web site will extend the reach of your standard Web site (and brand) by as much as 13%. Maybe this thing called the "mobile Web" could be useful after all.

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We all know that RIM enables mobile access to e-mail and other enterprise applications on its BlackBerry devices. SAP delivers powerful enterprise software that has typically been tethered to the PC. Today, the two companies announced plans to craft mobile versions of SAP's software for BlackBerry devices. For existing SAP customers, this is a good deal. But will it bring in new customers?

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What the what? A clamshell smartphone from Research In Motion? That's what pictures spied on the Internet lead us to believe. Unlike the BlackBerry Pearl, this one is a bit of a clunker in the looks department. I truly hope this is a prototype design from our friends over the border.

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Since AT&T is providing Starbucks locations with their Wi-Fi networks, it decided to do iPhone users a solid and give them free access to the Wi-Fi. The only caveat is that you have to be an AT&T subscriber.

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New reports are pointing to May 1 (tomorrow) as the official launch of T-Mobile's AWS 1700 MHz network in New York City. Some 20+ other cities will go live with T-Mobile's 3G network by year's end.

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This is the real deal, folks. No speculation here. An enterprising informer found an internal RIM document that highlights all the details of the forthcoming BlackBerry 9000 smartphone. Take a peek for yourself.

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The hullabaloo about Psystar is not nearly as cool as this. Sure, any geek can hack a desktop to run Apple's Leopard OS, but a member of the OQO Talk forum posted a video of his OQO model 2 running Leopard. Very cool to see Leopard on such a small device. What if Apple created a UMPC of its own?

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24/7 Mobile Solutions introduced a new product today that fools your cell phone into thinking it is unlocked. Using its SIM card add-on, you can basically unlock it and use it on other networks without actually changing the software on the phone. Now if it only worked with the iPhone...

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Well, whaddya know. "Free" services just might actually work. The U.K.-based MVNO Blyk -- which targets 16- to 24-year-olds -- recently met its one-year subscriber goal after just six months in operation. Blyk offers free voice minutes and text messages in exchange for ads appearing on cell phones. Does this mean mobile advertising has more traction than thought, or that kids like free stuff?

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Here's a trio of reports that festered over the weekend. First covers news of Foxconn's contract to build the 3G iPhone, second shows that the next iPhone will support true GPS, and the last tells us that the next version of the iPhone will have microvibration feedback -- otherwise known as haptics.

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Some interesting reports are surfacing of late that suggest AT&T is delaying the launch of the BlackBerry 9000 from June to August. The BlackBerry 9000 has been floating around Internet rumor sites for months, and is said to be the next-generation device from RIM complete with 3G. I'll give you one guess as to why AT&T might delay it.

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This story is disturbing. In what was described as a "common practice," White House staff and others attending a meeting with President Bush left their BlackBerrys sitting unattended on a table outside the meeting room. With the meeting in progress, a Mexican press attaché decided to lift six or seven of them and make a run for it. Thankfully, the Secret Service was able to catch him before he got too far. What I want to know is, what are government BlackBerrys doing sitting on an unprotected table?

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Nokia made some changes to its Web Run-Time offering that will provide S60 widgets with the brains to predict what you want and the power to have it available instantly. Sort of. The new Web Run-Time elements make it so widgets will be contextually aware. They won't quite think on their own, but close enough.

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Remember the line from the great Talking Heads song "Once In a Lifetime": "Well, how do I work this?" That was pretty much what I heard today at our Over the Air Mobility Forum on mobile device management.

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A T-Mobile executive has confirmed that the carrier will be releasing more than one mobile phone based on Google's Android platform before the end of 2008. What's more, the exec said he was "impressed" with the platform. But which company will be building these handsets?

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The fun folks over at SimulScribe have decided that the company's name is a bit too obscure, obtuse, or just plain dumb. Beginning this Friday, the provider of visual voice mail will hence be known as PhoneTag, a name more befitting of the personality of the company. (P.S. -- Free 30-day trial offer within.)

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In what is surely a micro blow to Intel, Apple has chosen to buy a boutique microprocessor company called P.A. Semi. The company specializes in ultra-low-power microprocessors that fit into devices such as mobile phones. Intel has been pushing its Atom platform and hoped Apple might use it in future generations of mobile devices like the iPhone.

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Apple was recently granted a patent that shows an interesting new application that looks eerily similar to the iPhone's SMS feature. There are some big differences that set it apart, though. It includes new methods for interacting with ongoing conversations, including a word predictor. This could be the eagerly-hoped-for native instant messenger app.

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Motorola recently announced an investment in VirtualLogix, a company that lets multiple operating systems run on the same piece of hardware. This means you could have a single phone in your pocket that runs Windows Mobile, the BlackBerry OS, and Google's Android OS.

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According to a recent poll taken by Samsung, 61% of respondents of legal voting age said they would be interested in voting for president via text message. Apparently working up the energy to go to the polls in person is too much for some. Could such a system ever work?

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IBM has decided that it doesn't want to be left out of the mobile realm. It has fired up a number of programs (instant translator, social networking, and mobile health care) that will make mobile phones even more useful for everyday tasks than they already are.

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San Diego, home of cell phone chip giant Qualcomm, is finally being blanketed by Qualcomm's MediaFlo mobile TV network. This comes some 14 months after Qualcomm's partner, Verizon Wireless, launched its branded V CAST Mobile TV service in other parts of the country. Why the long delay?

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I am beginning to despair that Nokia will ever understand the U.S. market. As its recently revealed quarterly earnings tell us, its share of the market here dropped yet again. Despite the fact that Nokia is building a touch-enabled device that looks eerily similar to you-know-what, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo called the iPhone a "niche" product.

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Turns out cell phone users are jerks the entire world over. On top of this week's proposed ban on in-flight calling in the United States, the mayor of a city in Austria has demanded that cell phone users on public transit keep their phones in silent mode. These are signs that a mobile society is not a polite one...

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Using others' Wi-Fi is apparently like speeding: As long as no one notices, it's OK. Problem is, both are against the law (in some regions). That doesn't seem to bother 12% of U.S. and U.K. users, who think nothing of hopping onto unsecured Wi-Fi networks. You'd better hope it's not your employees.

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Among the cool iPhone features touted by Apple is its "self-localization" ability: Turn it on, and it tells you where you are! Turns out, though, it's a simple matter to phool an iPhone.

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Rep. Peter DeFazio stood up and said what we're all thinking: "The public doesn't want to be subjected to people talking on their cell phones on an already over-packed airplane." Couldn't have said it better myself. Now, will Congress listen, and actually pass a law?

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This is the first I've caught wind of the most recent rumors regarding the next generation of iPhone. A Macenstein writer says that Apple envisions a line-up of iPhones, including a "Pro" version, the current version, and a smaller, "Shuffle" version. Guess which one gets all the good specs.

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Yet another site has crafted an iPhone-specific version of itself -- this time we're talking AOL's mobile search portal. It breaks up search results into those for the Web, Images, and then a separate section for local results. Is it any more usable than Google or Yahoo's search platforms?

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Aside from the wealth of business-friendly features that will be added to the iPhone come firmware version 2.0, seems Apple has a number of other nifty upgrades to the iPhone's feature set. You'll now be able to search your contact database, as well as save photo attachments or Web images directly to the iPhone.

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Before today, it was illegal for everyday citizens in Cuba to purchase and use a cell phone. President Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, has relaxed some policies, much to the joy of many. People lined up by the hundreds outside Cuba's government-run telephone offices today to be the first to join the mobile community. Welcome, Cubans!

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Of all the national wireless operators, Verizon was charging a bit more than any other for smartphones and PDAs to access vital things such as e-mail and the Web. As of today, Verizon changed up the rates it charges Small Office/Home Office users, and is even offering a new hosted Exchange-based e-mail service to boot.

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