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Again please back this up. After doing some research I've found that it won't work on AT&T and Rogers:

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/08/31/attrogers-3g-compatible-nokia-n900-not-so-fast/

Which are the two most notoriously bad carriers in North America anyways.

Also most of the world is not the US, and a lack of high-speed mobile Internet on a device with a WiFi adapter isn't a deal-breaker for everyone.

With a statement like that, you'd almost expect Amazon to be selling eBooks at a 60-to-1 ratio compared to rival Apple.

"1. The iPhone and iPad notwithstanding, Flash is beginning to show up on other mobile device platforms."

Yes, beginning to show up, but hardly widely adopted or even out of beta.

Adobe just released the final Flash 10.1 for Android yesterday

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/08/16/flash-10-final/

This article, admittedly using different measurement, says Android is now #1: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/08/04/npd-group-android-top-selling-smartphone-platform-in-u-s-for-q2/ I think it is funny how we can focus on a certain metric to get whatever results we want :)

Internals are a bit disappointing. Why are they only putting a 624Mhz processor in their new flagship device? HTC, Apple, Moto & Samsung are all using 1ghz ARM variants in their flagship phones--with higher speeds and dual core phones on the near horizon.

Get this... if you don`t spend all your processing time making animated zooming window borders and other GUI frills, you don`t NEED an insane processor. What does a cell phone need to do?

Make calls... doesn`t need much processing power.
Look up contacts. Make appointments. Access memos... doesn`t need much processing power.
Take pictures. Display low-res video. Encode and decode music... doesn`t need much processing power.

If your phone seems slow, it`s because it`s full of glitzy crap. My Bold 9700 does everything I ask it to do, immediately. It doesn`t lag. It isn`t slow. It doesn`t - in a nutshell - need a faster processor.

Internals are a bit disappointing. Why are they only putting a 624Mhz processor in their new flagship device? HTC, Apple, Moto & Samsung are all using 1ghz ARM variants in their flagship phones--with higher speeds and dual core phones on the near horizon.

Boy Genius and Engadget are circulating a report that says that Android has already overtaken Apple and RIM in the US. Android devices collectively represented a 34% share of the US market in the quarter, and with growth of 851% Android became the largest smart phone platform in the country.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/17/rim-co-ceos-apple/

Apparently this is blown out of proportion: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/15/reality-check-modding-the-droid-x-may-not-lead-to-a-bricked-phone/ "This breaking news may not be as dire as many are claiming, as a google search of OMAP3 and e-fuse reveals that current OMPA handset already have e-fuse in place as part of the M-Shield hardware security technology built into TI’s OMAP system on a chip. It is on the very hackable DROID and the not-so-hacking-friendly Milestone, but it is not being used by Motorola to lock the bootloader of the handset. " etc...

Is MS losing money ?

"Microsoft reports first YoY revenue slide in company history"
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/04/24/microsoft-reports-first-yoy-revenue-slide-in-company-history/ ...so I guess that would be a "yes".

Since when is having revenue that is less than last year but still positive considered "losing money"?

Is MS losing money ?

"Microsoft reports first YoY revenue slide in company history"
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/04/24/microsoft-reports-first-yoy-revenue-slide-in-company-history/ ...so I guess that would be a "yes".

no longer the biggest software company in the world ?

As of close on Tuesday 6 Jul 2010:

Microsoft market cap: 208.75B
Apple market cap:226.24B

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cq?d=v1&s=MSFT,AAPL ...so I'm guessing that one's a "yes", too...

retrenching ?

Well, you got me on this one. I guess if they were actually retrenching, they wouldn't be reporting losses in revenue or be only the second largest software company in the world. So that one's a "no".

Possibly they should get off their butts, and instead of throwing the chair they were sitting on, they should actually retrench.

-- Terry

most phone users do not really "own" they phones during the initial 2 years

You do own the phone (physically), but in consideration for the discount you got on it, the phone company pwns joo for a $350 early termination fee if you stop sending them their monthly ransom on the service contract. The phone is still yours to do with as you please.

Mobile phone carriers have just tried to give you the impression that you don't own the phone, by making the phone you own useless for doing anything other than connecting to their network and buying ringtones on their web portal that cost more than the full song download.

They do this through technical hindrance such as unique protocols (cdma vs GSM), unique frequencies (3G on 1900MHz vs 2100MHz), carrier SIM lock (or no sim at all), or vendor-specific firmware (see CDMA phones), auto-jamming your phone with their service books and restriction software (i.e. put the carrier's SIM card into the unlocked Blackberry you bought outright [don't even need to connect to their network] and your phone's wi-fi & GPS mapping software is disabled so they can sell it back to you for $10-$30/mo), and by black-listing the device's IMEI if they didn't like how you left their service.

They are not lying.

The DROID Incredible stores it on internal storage, while the rest of the Sense UI devices store it on the SD card. For reference, http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/06/18/htc-confirms-droid-incredible-browser-issue-plans-fix/

I've never actually had a "smart" or otherwise fancy phone before, so this is by far the nicest I've owned.

What kind of technologist bought his first smartphone a little over a year ago? And declares his very first one, The Best! It makes me question his methodology for making decisions, at the very least.

Do you ever read smartphone related websites like Boy Genius Report, for example? These people live and breath smartphones, and actually carry and use the devices they review and blog about. There are numerous people that are infinitely more qualified on smartphones than Tim Bray will ever be.

I'm sure Tim is a fine fellow otherwise, and would make an excellent neighbor, who if he borrowed your rake, would return it promptly in good condition.

Maybe I am not aware of the incident you are referring to, but if it is this you will note that it was user error (choosing to make messages public) not a bug. In other words you should have said "google voicemails which users chose to make public were indexed and made public", which is hardly "misusing customer data".
If you are talking about something else, excuse me; A quick google search didn't immediately turn up any other incidents.

I also halfway wonder if some of this is at the behest of AT&T.

That would be suicide, then. AT&T is rumored to be bringing out android-based HTC smartphones this year, and the rumor mill says one of them will be the HTC Desire. Also, Apple's exclusive contract with AT&T will be done in June, meaning they'll be free to go with other carriers if they do not extend the contract.

If Apple does indeed go with other carriers, AT&T will want to do everything possible to keep manufacturers such as HTC happy.

I like fact checking, so I typed "RIM Market Share" into google.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/28/rim-and-apple-top-u-s-smartphone-market-share/

RIM: 40%
Apple: 30%

Or this one, for Wi-Fi enabled handsets, 2Q 2009:

Nokia 9300
Apple 5200
RIM 4125

Or this one from August 2008, under the awesome headline: RIM Nearly Triples Q2 U.S. Market Share
RIM captured 11% of the U.S. market -- selling some 4.6 million million phones

What's that? The iPhone 3GS moved 1.6 million phones during its first week of sales?

Oh. Never mind.

Where'd you get the 4%? Currently, it looks like Apple has 10+% of global smartphones and almost a third of the US market.

I just hope the people buying these phones do the research. In Canada, Rogers (one of the big three cell providers here) has said that they're not going to provide an upgrade for the HTC Magic (literally the same phone as the myTouch3G) to Android 1.6 - they think 1.5 provides a "good user experience" and so they're not going to bother. Just how do you think all these people buying new phones are going to feel when they get it home and discover a bunch of the bells and whistles they've been promised don't work? And there are already apps out there that require 1.6. That's one big difference between Android phones and the iPhone - Rogers is supporting the iPhone.

Source: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/12/19/rogers-htc-dream-and-magic-to-be-deprived-of-donut/ (as well as the HTC website)

What the heck are you talking about? <-- Note the pretty pie chart.

You're ridiculous. The chart you started this thread with is GLOBAL market share. The blurb clearly delineates US-based market share preference for the iPhone, and given AT&T is a US-based carrier, the share of Symbian OS globally is a silly thing to compare against. Note this chunk:

"Considering Apple's gadget is currently the most popular handset in the U.S., its exclusive carrier's inability/unwillingness to support the device in the country's largest market is pretty huge news. If this proves true, I'd expect curtains for AT&T's exclusivity deal when it comes up for renewal.""

OK, here's the US-based share: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/28/rim-and-apple-top-u-s-smartphone-market-share/

Given this, RIM is actually the favorite. I did no digging into the source of the data, but it appeared in numerous places and seemed to be well reviewed. It does not include Droid as it was published in late October 2009.

It also proves wrong the 1-2% commenter. iPhone is quite popular in US, but RIM still holds the edge.

If you look just at smartphones, then you see why. Andriod is still a relatively new platform, so the fact it doesn't have much much market share isn't surprising.

Global Market share from early this year puts Nokia in the lead(50.3%), followed by RIM(20.9%), followed by Apple(13.7%). It looks like Apple and RIM are still gaining ground, with Apple at 11% of the global market.

US marketshare is harder to find good numbers for, but it looks like RIM and Apple are beating Nokia in the US. Plus, people actually use their iPhones a lot.

If having a much bigger market share (e.g., Nokia at 40%, to Apple's few per cent) does not count as a "real threat", I am curious to hear what does?

In the US (yes, /. is international but the iPhone is a bit US-centric) smartphone market, Nokia is close to a non-player.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/28/rim-and-apple-top-u-s-smartphone-market-share/

RIM has 40%, Apple has 30%, Palm has 7%.

Worldwide Nokia had 40% of the smartphone market in Q4 2008 but that was with a 10% drop from the previous quarter.

But see how I specified the hardware/software package? Symbian is dying and Maemo has yet to catch on (witness the sales of the iPod touch compared to the Nokia handheld tablets). How many people do you know who will say that developing for Symbian and Nokia phones is easy and a joy to do? Look at the user interface experience. Just about everyone who has an iPhone loves the interface. The UI in most other phones is something that the user grudgingly puts up with, not whips out to show off to their friends.

(And if you have that low opinion of your potential customers - that if they modify their own product to get basic functionality to work, that Just Works on all other phones, then they must be pirates - then I have no sympathy if Apple rejects the "app" that you've spent months or years developing.)

As much as I love a good rant, I feel compelled to point out that I neither own an iPhone nor develop apps for them.

If you want the basic functionality that "just works" with everything else, buy that everything else. Apple and AT&T don't allow tethering. So buy a phone that does. No one is forcing anyone to get an iPhone. Don't like the features? Don't buy it.

As I linked to above (reproduced here), there is a lot of piracy on iPhones and so far as I know, the only way to pirate on an iPhone is to jailbreak it. There is a chunk of jailbreaking users who are pure of heart and are merely trying to violate the terms of service with Apple and/or AT&T, but they're part of a demographic that is not all pure and shiny and a side effect of that is that they're not going to be highly sought after as customers.

'Wake me up when Google voice is available outside the US.'

Well, your messages might be available pretty much everywhere:

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/19/random-users-google-voice-mail-is-searchable-by-anyone/

Is the rumored soon to be released Verizon Droid good enough?
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/19/motorola-droid-hands-on/

At around 10am, a comment on the same page linked by OP revealed what the parent has pointed out, and even linked to a GV forum post explaining as much.

And yet, at 5pm, Slashdot posts this as news...

Meet the Motorola Shules: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/07/30/renders-of-android-powered-motorola-shules-fly-in-from-mother-russia/ Yes it's a render, but from what I've read on different sites the current live shots of it don't reflect how it currently look compared to the renders. Also, this phone is coming to Verizon (along with another Android Morotola phone). Docs leaked by Best Buy put this phone as coming out in late Oct.

Verizon Android Phones Are Officially Coming.

There exists a pretty strong misunderstanding that Verizon "locks down" their phones. They did, yes. But in the past year, they've stopped disabling GPS on their phones (including the Omnia, Storm and Tour), said that all future Blackberries will have Wifi, and launched their Open Development Initiative to get data devices (among other things) on their network.

Oh, and their next generation network (which is launching 2+ years before AT&T's) is LTE, based off the GSM standard.

But I don't blame you, they've definitely had restrictive tendencies in the past.

The iPhone is definitely -not- reasonably priced. Last year's was $600 or $700 ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25478296/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/ ) and this years is $800 ( http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/06/15/rogers-fido-no-contract-iphone-3g-s-pricing-revealed-eh/ ). That's not -reasonable- at all.

The G1 is about $450 outright, which is still too high to be called 'reasonable', but it's a lot closer.

These new toys are expensive. Period.

On the downside, this review says the keyboard is lousy.

Yup. I got that from the first time they mentioned it in the summary. But anyway. So I clicked on the link actually. And the review isn't really worth anything since they couldn't actually use the phone as, well, a phone. Looking at the picture of the keyboard, I have to agree that it would probably suck to use. And in my opinion that's a deal breaker. the buttons are really close together, but that's expected for such a narrow a phone. It probably should have had the keyboard come out to the side and use the phone in a landscape position. It's also quite apparent this guy is biased towards the Blackberry.

• Self-contained PC / keyboard combo with integrated 5-inch touchscreen display
• OS: Windows XP Home Edition
• 1.6GHz Intel Atom microprocessor
• 1GB of DDR2 DRAM
• 16GB or 32GB SSD
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Ultra Wideband HDMI
• USB 2.0 x2, VGA, HDMI, headphone and mic ports
• Weight: 2 lbs

yes, i did get past page 3. We'll see.

BTW, I wonder if this environment is the reason for the stripped user agents described here

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/gallery/devices/amazon-kindle-2/

.. but if you "copy image location" and remove "thumb_" from the name of the .JPG you can still see the larger (but still suprisingly fuzzy) full size images.

I'm not sure if this is the competition you're referring to:

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/03/28/os-x-first-os-to-be-hacked-in-pwn-2-own-contest/
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mac-OS-X-Hacked-Vista-SP1-Hacked-Ubuntu-Linux-Survives-Unscathed-82079.shtml
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39375171,00.htm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9906001-37.html

On day two things turned around when contests were allowed to instruct contest organizers to visit a web page or open an email. Within two minutes Miller had prepared his exploit code and instructed organizers to visit a web site. Game over. Miller had seized control of the MacBook Air and landed himself a nice prize, seemingly using a hole in Safari as contestants were only permitted to take advantage of preinstalled software.

The attackers didn't have direct physical access so much as taking advantage of the weakest element of security, the user.

Both the Boy Genius Report and Engadget are fairly skeptical that this is the "final" Dream, mostly because the phone in this video isn't nearly as attractive as HTC's other recent phones.

I hope it's not final. Why would HTC release something that looks like the generic phone in this video for their first android handset when the company is perfectly capable of making something as attractive as the Touch Diamond?

Also, I know that Youtube comments are generally about as useful as catshit, but the uploader claims in the comments below his video, "i Think Semi-final but not Sure. And there is a black one. i'll upload the live demo of it."

AT&T will carry this phone, according to this

The upcoming Nokia E71 would be good, its well built has a keyboard, isn't a massive brick like the E90.

An initial review is here http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/05/25/nokia-e71-review/

When you accuse others of not having their facts straight, it helps to, well, have your facts straight:

The quote above is pulled from the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines document available on the SDK site. Translation: no true multitasking.... Apparently however, third-party app developers will not be granted the necessary rights for their apps to make use of background processes.... Symbian for example, grants developers rights to restricted attributes for additional fees.

I apologize for not linking directly to those guidelines mentioned, as it appears you have to be registered in some way...

Sorry, I accidentally left out the citation.

It's not designed by T-mobile of cause (if it was sarcasm on the part of TFA, it was too veilded IMO) It was designed by HTC. It is in fact HTC Juno. As the HTC is a part of Google led Open Handset Alliance may be their next phones would fare better.

No, instead we will have TheVideoBay. We won't even need to worry about the content being taken down.

I couldn't find any numbers, but I did find some interesting information. GSM is the world-wide standard, with about 3/4 of the mobile phone users being on GSM. CDMA is mostly a US thing apparently.

Also, Verizon recently chose GSM for their new '4g' stuff.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2007/09/21/verizon-adopts-gsm-standard-for-4g-network-cdma-limelight-fading/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/21/verizon-dumps-cdma-for-gsm-based-lte-in-4g-networks/

This is an odd move by any account, and nobody really knows what it means yet, but it doesn't look good for CDMA right now.

So while you may be correct about the US counts (and that's what the GP was talking about), by worldwide counts, GSM makes more sense for Apple to use.