Most entry-level phones in AT&T’s handset lineup have been able to send multimedia messages for years. Soon the most advanced will as well. The carrier on Thursday confirmed that it will offer MMS on Apple’s iPhone starting Sept. 25–about two months after the handset first began supporting the feature.
The first Android phone intended for AT&T may be scrapped before it’s ever released. Developed by HTC, the “Lancaster” had been scheduled to arrive at market this summer. But industry sources tell DigiTimes that the device hasn’t yet passed AT&T’s validation process and will be delayed or perhaps even abandoned.
The 3G wireless network infrastructure here in the United States may be subpar, but it keeps attracting new users. Indeed, research outfit TeleGeography reports that the number of 3G phone users in the U.S. will overtake Japan by 2011.
Looking over Motorola’s latest earnings, it’s hard to imagine that the company once claimed more than a fifth of global handset sales. Reporting a surprise second-quarter profit of a single cent per share this morning, Motorola said it shipped 14.8 million phones last quarter–down nearly 50 percent year-over-year.
During its post-earnings conference call last Thursday, Palm refused to say how many Pre handsets have been sold to date. Or how many it believes it will sell in the first quarter of production. The company would say only, in the words of CEO Jon Rubinstein, that “sales have been strong and growing.” So until Palm provides specific Pre sales figures, we have only the estimates of analysts with which to gauge the device’s impact on Palm’s moribund smartphone franchise. And the latest estimates, from Edward Snyder at Charter Equity Research, suggest that the impact is great.
The iPhone 3GS has been on the market just 10 days now, and already a growing number of Apple stores around the country are running short of the device. It seems that demand for the 3GS, which topped one million units sold its first weekend at market, has exceeded even the company’s presumably aggressive targets.
In a summer of handset debuts that already includes the Palm Pre, Apple’s iPhone 3GS, and soon, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Tour 9630, add one more: The myTouch 3G, T-Mobile’s second Google Android phone. The carrier officially introduced the device today and said customers can begin reserving it on July 8.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster was right. The iPhone 3GS didn’t sell as well as the iPhone 3G did during its launch weekend last year. But it did quite a bit better than he thought. In an investment note issued this morning, Munster estimated the company sold 750,000 iPhones over the weekend.
Palm has shipped 100,000 Pres since the device debuted on June 6. This, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Paul Coster, who estimates that more than 50,000 phones were sold in the first two days it was available and says the company may have sold another 50,000 in the days that followed.
Palm’s decision to increase the size of its previously announced public offering of common stock to about 23.125 million shares from 18.5 million shares turned out to be a wise one. The value of the company’s stock rose sharply this morning, topping out at around $6.85–an increase of well over 13 percent.
“Microsoft is not doing a phone.” That was Redmond’s terse denial of a report that it is preparing to launch a branded cellphone in the second half of this year. Put forth by analysts from Broadpoint.AmTech, the report speculates that the device would tightly integrate hardware and software, much like Apple’s iPhone, and that Microsoft may uncrate it at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month. The Broadpoint research note in its entirety after the jump.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
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