More new phones for Mobile World Congress

This time Sony Ericsson are rumored to announce a new range of touch screen phones under the G-series name at 3GSM next week. The Sony Ericsson G900i is enabled with Wi-Fi and a 5 megapixel camera. The Sony Ericsson G700i a lesser featured model with 3.2 megapixel camera and no Wi-Fi connection. More details as we get them.

Google phone by Dell

Rumours of a Google mobile phone have been around for a while, but the latest twist has only a short period of wait to see if it's true. The recent launch of the Android operating system proved Google sees a future in being more active in the telecoms market but it seems Dell are now to step in to the mobile phone arena to make the Gphone a reality.
Senior industry sources are expecting an announcement at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona next month.

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Liscio designer phone

Some teaser images of a new designer mobile phone due to launch in February have been posted here.
The handset is called Liscio and boasts a sleek design, gloss black finish and music keys in the centre of the keypad.
But wait, the smart guys over at Engadget have spotted this 'new' phone before! Is it, as they suggest, in fact a re-branded Haier Elegance?

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New Sony Ericsson handsets on the way

News of a Sony Ericsson press event in India this week have lead to details of some new handsets appearing. The most interesting of which is the yet unnamed K-series Cybershot phone pictured. It contains a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, a screen with 16M colours and QVGA resolution, as well as 3G including video calling.

Other handsets are expected to be announced. These include the Sony Ericsson T270 and T280, both of which contain Bluetooth, an FM radio and an as yet unspecified camera. Both these phones are aimed at the lower end of the range.

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Samsung i900

Sorry for the ridiculous image, it's meant to be a picture of the rumoured Samsung i900.
Looking like a close relative of the F490/F700 this particular touch screen phone runs the Windows Mobile 6 operating system and benefits from a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, 8GB memory and 7.2Mbps HSDPA.
We wait to see if it will be officially announced, with the Mobile World Congress coming up in February the stage could be set.

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Nokia S60 Touch user interface

Details of a Nokia patent covering the rumoured Series 60 touch UI have appeared over at Unwired View. In it are ideas for an advanced interface seemingly capable of not just touch based operation but also 3D gesture recognition.
Both one and two finger commands have been developed for selecting and zooming functions or moving files, but to go beyond this and create a touchless 3D device control interface, Nokia suggest using Ultrasonic Transducers (USTs), positioned around the perimeter of the display.
Ultrasonic transducers emit ultrasonic sound waves through the air. When a finger gets into the path of these waves, the signal is reflected back and detected by the transducer. These movements can then be interpreted as various three dimensional gestures.

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Video recording on the Apple iPhone

If it has been one of the irritating omissions that make you think twice about buying the much revered wonder gadget then help looks like its on the way.

We have found reports that suggest a third party application is under development to allow the camera built in to the Apple iPhone to record video at up to 2 megapixel resolution. Clips in testing have been limited to 5-10 seconds and at a low 10fps rating but up to 30fps is promised, along with unlimited file length.

Lets hope the coders get this app finished before the second generation iPhone comes along next year.

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New iFilms rental service for iPhone?

I stumbled across an interesting article today; it seems that some busy little bee has cracked the coding of the latest iPhone firmware update. Apart from the expected security patch, there was the following section of code:

pumpkin:~ pumpkin$ strings /usr/local/share/iphone-filesystem/usr/libexec/lockdownd grep -i rental
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not initialize FairPlay context
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not verify the rental bag response: %d
load_rental_bag_request: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
load_rental_bag_request: Could not initialize FairPlay context
load_rental_bag_request: Could not generate rental bag request
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create mutable dictionary
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFData from request message
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFArray
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFNumber from indice
RentalBagResponse
RentalBagRequest
pumpkin:~ pumpkin$

This ties in with various references to rental in code from iTunes 7.5 and seems to suggest that we might be getting an online rental service, as previous rumours have suggested. Speculation on pricing is still rife, but it would have to be quite cheap to tempt us away from our existing rental services.

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Unlocked iPhone - 999euro from T-Mobile

Following Vodafone's recent court order against T-Mobile in Germany hindering the sale of Apple iPhones on contract only, T-Mobile have responded by offering an unlocked iPhone for sale.

Priced at 999euro, the SIM free Apple iPhone will only be available through T-Mobile stores in Germany and is not open to telephone or internet orders.
The good news is mostly for the customers who bought the iPhone between the 19th of November and the day the first unlocked handsets are released. Their iPhones can be unlocked for free.

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8 megapixel Samsung camera phone in 2008

Expect the imaging capabilities of mobile phones to continue to improve as Samsung announce it has developed an 8-megapixel CMOS module for use in a mobile phone.

The module is the same size as Samsung's current 3.2-megapixel module at 10.5 x 11.5 x 9.4mm, which bodes well for a continuation of slim slider phone designs. The 8-megapixel module captures 3264 x 2444 pixels, has autofocus capabilities and will be able to produce 300dpi picture output for prints as large as 10 x 8-inches.

The module is expected to go into mass production in the first half of 2008 and should be available in high-end Samsung phones later in 2008.

Apple says more iPhone features in future

Apple has confirmed that it has plenty more upgrades to come for the Apple iPhone.
They claim the complaints and feature requests can be fixed and added by software upgrades.

"We didn't want to include something for something's sake. For the average mobile phone most people only use around 10%, Apple didn't want that to happen with the iPhone."

Some believe that not including all the software features from day one will allow Apple to entice new customers over the next few months.
Others think if the reason to upgrade the software each time is compelling enough, then you are less likely to hack the software, meaning Apple gets to earn the substantial revenue agreement it has with the official operator.

We here at TMPC look forward to seeing the iPhone develop in to its full potential!

10 iPhone Tips

Further to the ongoing news and rumours about the UK launch of the Apple iPhone this Friday (9th November), mobile magazine have published some user tips that will be useful to know for those of you planning on purchasing an iphone over the weekend...

See the "Top Ten iPhone Secrets"

UK iPhones to be re-locked in firmware update

T3 magazine report that any Apple iPhone bought through official UK channels (Apple stores, O2 and The Carphone Warehouse) will be supplied with firmware 1.1.2. This will mean the current 'known' unlock methods will not work.
It closes the so called 'TIFF exploit' and ability to use third party applications.

Apple are also expected to release the new firmware for existing iPhones through an iTunes update on Friday - the day the handsets go on sale in the UK.

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Truestory - next Nseries launch could be N82?

Nokia have another "preview" web page complete with countdown clock, similar to
our story here from last month which turned out to be for the launch of the Nokia Music Store.

Continued rumours around the Nokia N82 music phone and recent leaked images of this 5 megapixel camera device on the net lead us to believe that this page is the lead up to its launch.

Only time will tell, the clock is due to run out on Wednesday 14th November...

Link - Nseries Truestories