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But you know, with all that said, the fact that the word SAMSUNG is in bold, right there on the front leave little question as to whether or not it can be mistaken for an Apple device. This is just ridiculous.

While I agree with most of the rest of what you said, the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 - the one that started the lawsuit - only had the Samsung logo on the back.

Then the iPhone came, and everyone changed their designs.

You know, Apple wasn't the first with a touchscreen phone.

Even if we ignore things like the decade-old Handspring Visor GSM module and focus on "modern" touchscreen phones, I can point to the LG Prada (announced in Dec. 2006, released Jan. 2007). You'll not that it had a capacitive touchscreen. (LG even claimed that Apple stole their design after they won a design award in Sept. 2006)

Before the Prada, we had a whole bunch of touchscreen phones -- so many you may even be interested in this Top 5 article from Dec. 2006. (Pay particular attention to the design of the 8525 -- you can clearly see the shadows of the iPhone.) Of course, the Prada is the first truly iPhone like phone -- I can only assume that LG used their time machine to beat Apple to the punch.

http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/cell-phones/samsung-believes-iphone-5-could-be-nexus-s-copy/12060.html

Also interesting speculation that Samsung could keep its new ultra high resolution display screens away from Apple for a period of time to keep them behind the curve.

These are interesting times...

The first Android 3.0 device shipped back in February 24th.

I call bullshit.

iPhone sales:
By Apr 8: 50M (Official)
By Aug 31: 67M (Estimate)

Also...

"Apple has seen strong growth in sales this year, however, a significant part of new iOS device purchases are expected to have been made by people who already own one or more iOS devices. In other words, the number of active iOS users should be well below 100 million on a worldwide scale, which basically means that Apple's reach may not have increased dramatically this year."

source

In other words, 100 million unique logins is impossible for iphones (unless each iphone has an average of 1.5 users and _all_ of them use it w/ FB), and a hell of a stretch even for all iOS devices. I'd say it's more likely that they're counting IPs, which would make more sense because mobile devices are probably connecting to many different LANs over time.

That said, it is true that Flash performs terribly on everything but Windows PCs. Just from my own experience, Flash on a CD 1.83 Ghz Mac is comparable to a 1.3 Ghz Celeron with XP, and you can forget about almost any portable device under .9-1 Ghz. Even so, I'm not sure the solution is to lock down your platform and act like a pompous ass about it by pretending you're doing your users some huge favor.

To quote from:
http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/internet-tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab/11309.html

"In design, its light build provides portability, with its svelte dimensions making it easy to grip and use."

If they can't even design a press release, how do they expect to create a tablet with as much attention to detail as Apple does with the iPad.

Lots of tech specs on the hardware, but probably a big fail on the software environment.

But, I might consider it if it came with wheels so I could 'Skate and Surf".

Yeah, except plenty of useful information has in fact been released:

http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/internet-tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab/11309.html

It's just the price we're waiting on.

Linky.

The Samsung SGH-D730, like every other Series 60 device is a smartphone.
http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5902.html

iOS and Android don't define what it is to be a smartphone, they came along a long time after the smartphone category was defined. The smartphone category is defined as a phone which is capable of running native 3rd party app downloads.

Because having a large square shaped bulge in your pocket isn't dorky looking... Besides how many times have you or someone you know dropped that device into the toilet, onto concrete, etc. or accidentally left it somewhere? A wristband makes a lot of sense for a communication device. For instances where you need to have larger display real estate it is entirely conceivable that it could have a built in projector. They're already getting small enough. The over sized, entire front is a display, pocket bricks didn't solve the real-estate problem.

How about this one?

With the exception of syncing with iCals directly, and comprehensive flash support, the Nokia N95 does all of that. Adobe's Flash Lite 2.x app is pre-installed, and you can sync your calanders with iSync. I'm not aware of online syncing, though it may exist. Not a feature I'd use much personally. Anyway, pretty darned close to what you want. The Nokia antenna is legendary. I've never been able to get a signal indoors at work before I purchased my N95. It does the Youtube/Flickr bit out of box. If you want facebook, you'll need to install Shozu. Installing Shozu will give you the additional benefit of geotagging with the built in GPS. The web browser is even built on the open source Safari code base. Nokia has a podcast app. The headphone jack is also A/V out, so get some video glasses to go with it. Get a folding bluetooth keyboard and it might only leave your pocket for those 5 megapixel snapshots. It syncs your Mac address book and calendars nicely with iSync. It's pretty much the most awesome phone available on the market. It'll set you back about 700 bucks though.

That's why people are campaigning for Verizon to open up non-Verizon activations- so you can get phones like the MOTOFONE without having to wait for Verizon to sell it (you know they won't- they make a killing off their internet, games, ringtones, etc).

Synthesis: the act of putting different representations together, and of grasping what is manifold in them in one act of knowledge. http://www.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/concept1.html

why do they have to have screens or physical input devices..
little projector
http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/07/toshiba-pocket- projector-for-cellphones/
little keyboard
http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5731.html

Big news, Japan has had cell phones with VoIP support since 2004. nice technology .

You want an asus A6k or an ASUS z92k.

http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5970.html

its a bit old, but it runs debian like a breeze.

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How much memory do PDAs have now-a-days? I just checked the specs for the Treo 650 and it said it had 23 MB. That doesn't sound like a lot of space for music files. Any idea on filetypes / memory considerations?

you will pretty much be better off waiting for the nokia N70 which will pretty much be the same phone but with a cheaper price. supposedly it will also have the 2-way PTT (like nextel) but with video also so you can actually see who you are talking to. here is a good review of it: http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/n/6234.html

...then they might have produced something like this :

http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5944.html

Once it comes out where you are, I guess the best option would be the T-Mobile MDA Pro (currently just available in Germany):
http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/n/6142.html

It has about everything you would ever want (640x480 screen, large thumb keyboard, ssh, vnc, UMTS, ...), but is expensive and a bit large.

• the invitation said "1000 songs, here we go again", so it will probably have 4GB of memory
  
• Adding a 4GB harddisk will make the phone look fat (Nokia N91: 160 grams)
  
• Apple is rumored to buy up large quantities of RAM
  

snippet:
"At its annual MOTONOW event in Chicago, Illinois, Motorola today introduced the A910, a clamshell smartphone powered by Linux and Java. The handset is Motorola's first to integrate the standards-approved Unlicensed Mobile Access, or UMA, technology, which aims to enable the delivery of mobile services over unlicensed spectrum such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. "

I've heard it from a reliable commentator that the Sharp Zaurus is the most popular PDA in Japan...

The interesting thing is that the latest Zaurus, the SL-C3100, the successor to the C3000 (which was the first ever PDA with a built-in hard drive), is marked as FCC approved. Hopefully Sharp will bring the Zaurus back to the North American market sooner than later, to make up for pulling the much missed 6000L model (which they initially rebutted but later turned out to be effectively true when they disappeared from retail sellers like amazon).

What about this badboy? http://www.dpreview.com/news/0503/05030901samsung_ schv770.asp http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5879.html

Convergence device including the 3 = $400 + $500 + $600 = $1500?
Would you be willing to pay that much if it were technically possible? The issue is people primarily want one device and are willing to pay a specific amount for it, say 500 bucks for a great phone, some manufacturers will distinguish their offering by adding on a crappy camera (50 bucks?) as technology improves their will come a point where the crappy camera will be good (cheap) enough for general use, ditto on the mp3 player etc. Until the incremental cost for a great add-on is more then what the market will bear of course they'll put in crappy stuff. For me the new 2 MP cameras seem to be at the point where it could actually be fun having one around, check out the K750i by Sony

There is a link. It's at the top: CommWarrior.a.

After many a mess with Sprint, and an unwillingness to use any of the other providers, I have been considering using VoIP on a PDA/Cell Phone for some time now.

The idea is that I would get something like the MDA/XDA III which is a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Pocket PC that also has a GSM phone radio in it, and install a prepay card for when I need to make a call and there is no Wi-Fi around.

I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods, but where I live, even the local hick bar advertises that they have Wi-Fi now. I rarely go somewhere where there is no open Wi-Fi signal.

I'm going to start by testing using Wi-Fi on my laptop before I get the PDA.

Does who has done this, use VoIP on a PDA like it's a cell phone, have any tips?

.

A separate domain for mobile device access is directly contrary of what the W3C is working towards with web standards.

Says Tim Berners-Lee.

Since this.

You're right.

Another thing however is the fact that Cingular has combined both the backbone platforms for both TDMA and GSM for other services such as SMS.

Therefore, I would not be surprised that with the advent of this merger, we may see a rise in the numbers. The customer does not care which one s/he gets -- all that the customer cares about is the quality of service and cheaper rates, nothing more.

While TDMA maybe able to provide cheaper rates, the advent of 3G and the like, as well as need for international compatbility, may drive them to make GSM a little more popular than it is.

Hopefully, that is.

• AximSite - Axim X50V
• PocketNow - Axim X50 & X50v
• infoSync - Axim X50v
• infoSync - Axim X50 Advanced
• infoSync - Axim X50 Standard
• PDA Buyers Guide - Axim X50v
• Read - Brighthand - Axim X50v
• CNET - Axim X50v
• Pocket PC Thoughts - Axim X50
• BargainPDA - Axim X50 & X50v
• Geek.com - Axim X50 & X50v

• AximSite - Axim X50V
• PocketNow - Axim X50 & X50v
• infoSync - Axim X50v
• infoSync - Axim X50 Advanced
• infoSync - Axim X50 Standard
• PDA Buyers Guide - Axim X50v
• Read - Brighthand - Axim X50v
• CNET - Axim X50v
• Pocket PC Thoughts - Axim X50
• BargainPDA - Axim X50 & X50v
• Geek.com - Axim X50 & X50v

• AximSite - Axim X50V
• PocketNow - Axim X50 & X50v
• infoSync - Axim X50v
• infoSync - Axim X50 Advanced
• infoSync - Axim X50 Standard
• PDA Buyers Guide - Axim X50v
• Read - Brighthand - Axim X50v
• CNET - Axim X50v
• Pocket PC Thoughts - Axim X50
• BargainPDA - Axim X50 & X50v
• Geek.com - Axim X50 & X50v

PC Mag and Forbes have reviews and InfoSync has a detailed news article. Forbes provides some perspective to the objective of integrating personal organizer with phone. PC Mag reads a bit like a spec list. I found the MSNBC review provided already more interesting, but you can look for yourself.

I dislike the idea that mobile phones are becoming the convergence point for mobile devices. The easy examples are cameras and MP3 players being integrated. Treo and others have tried integrating PDA powers into the phone, as well.

I wrote a journal entry about this a while back, asking for a PAN (personal area network), based on Bluetooth something else, that would allow me to have dedicated devices that all work together seamlessly (and wirelessly).

But I think the phone as the convergence point is wrong. I would rather see the PDA be that point. Why are cell phone manufacturers going out of their way to come up with proprietary OS's for their cell phones (or, even worse, some rebranded Windows version for mobile phones)? It is reinventing the wheel that was created with PalmOS and other PDA OS's.

Of course, then we get back to the argument against most PDA cell phones - size. The screen would have to be big enough to do most normal PDA functions, which immediately becomes a minimum size for the device. That is where the PAN comes in - just have the cell phone device be a dumb device controlled by the PDA.

An article on infoSync described the phone well:

It should have number and dialing buttons, it should have phone configuration features (and an easy-access vibrate mode switch), it should have a small emergency address book, a digital data connection, and a Bluetooth connection.

ObTopic: No, I do not think Apple has anything to really fear from cell phone convergence. In a few years I think you will see wildly different convergence devices that actually take the best from each of their ancestors and not the worst (size of PDA, camera of a cell phone, battery drain of a 802.11 device, etc). Right now the best MP3 player on the market is the iPod (or, at least, the most popular), so I think you will see other manufacturers wanting to jump on the iTunes/AAC bandwagon.

Well, if you could hook your phone up to a full screen display and a keyboard & mouse, and you would have all the software you liked, would you still not want to use your phone as a computer? How long till handhelds have enough firepower to run things like KDE? Of course you might not be able to run Doom3, but even that might one day be feasable. Things like the PSP show 3D graphics can be put into mobile devices.

You would of course have KDE mode going for full screen displays, and something like QTopia when using the phone display.

You say you just want a phone that can make calls. Well guess what, that's not how most other people feel. Convergence of devices is inevitable. I don't want to carry around my laptop, ipod, phone, PDA, digital camera, gameboy etc around with me all the time. If a company can provide all these features in one device, they've got me as a customer!

Do one thing and do it well is someting we hear all the time these days on slashdot. However, the PC as we know it is the most clear example of a multi-purpose device! You just want to run Make, emacs and ical. Other people use it for totally different purposes.

The PC will probably be with us for a while yet, but eventually I do see smartphones replacing them. It's just a matter of time.

Yeah, unfortunately, most IrDA transmitters in PDA type hardware isn't strong enough to control AV equipment very well. You end up having to get really close to the TV to use the PDA (or cellphone) based remote, and at that point you can just stick your arm out and use the buttons.

I've tried using various AV remote software on Palm 3, Palm V, and (most recently) my Nokia 3650 phone. The results have always been disappointing.

On the other hand, a Bluetooth based remote would rock.

(Warning: beer-swilling geek trivia/rambling follows)

When I throw a party, I hook my laptop's video out up to my TV, audio to the stereo, and load up a 3-5 hour playlist and some XMMS visualizations. With Bemused and KDE Bluetooth, I can control the media player from my Nokia from anywhere in my apartment. Line-of-sight is not necessary, so I can be in the bathroom vomiting and queue up my favorite vomit music with ease.

It would be great if I could control my regular AV setup with Bluetooth. I could do it from my PC, laptop, cellphone, PDA, or whatever else. Even better would be something like this, but more universal. It would be great if I could stream audio from my PC to my stereo via Bluetooth, controlled by another BT device.

Be even better if BT had enough bandwidth to do video.

Bill Gates claimed he never said that and, since then, no good evidence has sufaced that disproves this.

but in this case I believe he is at least partially correct.

I think you're right too. If you replace "DVD" with "CD" in his quote you can see that we are starting (albeit slowly) to move away from carrying around a bag full of CD's to a hard disk player than contains many more than we could possibly hold.

DVDs would be the next logical thing and we're starting to see the portal media centres arrive. Like this rather nice looking Archos AV400.

The article talks about the MDA III yet the photos show an MDA I and II which have been out for ages and a reasonable amount of time respectivily. The most noticable thing about the MDA III is that it has an integrated sliding keyboard.

Photos of the MDA III can be found here.

I have one in my desk drawer and although I haven't had a proper play with it, it's rather heavy, thick and the back is made of cheap feeling black plastic. The OS is Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.

However it does come with an impressive line up of software - fonix voice apps, album, clearvue pdf, enroller, clearvue ppt, kse truefax, midlet manager, photo contacts, video mms and xBackup to name a few.

I've had a Verizon phone for about 4 years now. I'm ambivalent.

One one hand, I'm *very* happy with reception. I get few dropped calls, and probably 99% coverage.

But, they just can't seem to get billing right. Ever. At least 4 times in the past 6 months I get a $300 bill, only to call and complain, and they correct it down to $110 or whatever it was supposed to be in the first place.

Pitiful that they repeatedly count "in network" minutes as "anytime" minutes...

When I got my phone, I got the Audiovox 9155 GPX phone. I asked specifically for good reception at the cell store, and that things like downloadable ringtones, color screen meant squat to me.

It seems that the phone makes a HUGE difference, as my friend owns a bike shop downtown at which his Verizon phone didn't work at all, while mine worked perfectly. (his worked when he stepped outside)

So, even the decent reception I can almost ascribe to the phone as much as the company.

considering that the price for buying 3G bandwidth financially crippled many Telco's, wifi with VOIPcould be a good way to deliver on the promise of high bandwidth phone technologies.

You want to be away from a computer, but you want an electronic way to take notes? Does Not Compute.

Honestly, get yourself a Palm and the Palm UT Keyboard or even the wireless IR keyboard they sell. OK, so it's electronic. It's still the most convenient you'll find, and has a ton of other features as well. Like reading ebooks on the plane on the way to your vacation, then taking notes while on the vacation, then playing games on the way back from your vacation. It works out quite nicely. :-)

These guys can give you great advice on which model you want to get. They've reviewed just about every handheld in existence.

Disclaimer: I am one of "those guys". :-)

Unfortunately, most pizza places don't have pizza-ordering web pages that are easy to use on a cell phone. But I wouldn't be surprised if that changes in the next year or two.

It's stuff like this (value added services?), Cingular's comics and instant messaging that are turning cell phones into more than just a handset you talk into.

I like it, but I fear that it'll get to the point where it's too hard to figure out how to access a given extra feature. Obviously they'll have to work on the UI to select from all these (marginally) useful features.

That said, I'm still just using my phone as a phone, so maybe they already have that solved, but I wouldn't know.

... sure, we do it this way, but Nokia targets it's phones to everyone,
including for an important part (and this is not meant discriminative, nor stereo-typing) women .
And they happen to fancy phones that look nice, rather than those with pure functionality.

As research shows that more women own mobile phones than men,
you better be giving that group the advantage.

It'll probably be a temporary thing though.
Once every phone is fashioned with a touchscreen like the SE-P900, you can make your own key-layout :)

They probably aren't using GPS - they're just tracking which cellphone tower you're communicating with. And that's something you can do that using minigps

I don't get it. My phone already has this ability.

I got it for free from Verizon Wireless when I signed up for another 2 year contract. Is this special?

I do not understand this obsession with tiny form factors. CF is about the minimum easily handled size storage medium. Memory stick is so-so, but feel quite breakable. SD (24mmx32mm)and XD engineers should have gotten a clue. SD cards are barely finger manageable, and xd is so freaking stupidly small that they should have fired all the idiot marketing and engineering geniuses who came up with it. It is barely larger than a US penny. With "potential" to go up to 8GB. Well, my wife has potential to go to a bra size of 50G but you don't see me paying for that do you?

The Neonode N1 with it's associated M$oft OS is certainly feeling like vapourware. Another annoucement deems it unlikely to arrive by christmas either!... contrary to previous announcements.