iPhone Definitely Coming to Verizon in Early 2011, Says Fortune
Apple‘s first entry into the mobile smartphone market was with the iPhone. While many speculated that the device wouldn’t take off considering it was the first to feature nothing more than a touchscreen. However, once the iPhone actually made its way onto the market it was met with positive reception despite its initally high price tag.
Now that the iPhone line up has matured quite a bit and is on its 4th iteration. Many have wondered when we will be seeing the iconic phone hit carriers other than AT&T in the United States. Many have speculated that it will be hitting Verizon Wireless at some point but we’ve yet to actually see Apple make the swtich.
Today, Fortune has come forth to say that Verizon Wireless has secured the iPhone for an early 2011 release. Of course, this isn’t official confirmation but Fortune seems pretty sure about this rumor.
Luckily, we don’t have long to wait so we’ll have to keep you posted until anything more is made known.
Today Samsung announced its latest phone for MetroPCS, the SCH-r360 Freeform II.
The Freeform II is a messaging phone that offers a full four-row QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard also offers buttons for quick access to messaging, the calendar, and the speakerphone.
The Freeform II has a 2.2-inch QVGA display and a 1.3 megapixel camera. It offers a music player, and has a microSD card slot that supports up to 16GB cards for adding more storage.
Samsung says the Freeform II should be good for up to 5 hours of talk time on its 1000mAh battery.
Samsung says the Freeform II should be available in MetroPCS stores and online now, however, the MetroPCS website has not yet been updated to include the Freeform II or pricing.
Today HP officially announced the Palm Pre 2, a smartphone that runs Palm’s latest webOS 2.0 operating system.
The Palm Pre 2 offers a 3.1-inch glass touchscreen display with a 480 x 320 pixel resolution. It has a slide-out keyboard design similar to that of the original Palm Pre. It’s also the first webOS device to make use of a 1GHz processor.
The Palm Pre 2, which measures 59.6mm x 100.7mm x 16.9mm (2.35in x 3.96in x 0.67in) and weighs 145g (5.1oz), is equipped with a 5 MP camera with LED flash, extended depth of field, geo-tagging support, and video capture. For multimedia storage, the Palm Pre 2 has 16GB of storage, although it doesn’t appear that a microSD card slot is included. 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR connectivity are also supported.
The new webOS 2.0 offers a host of new features. The Just Type feature lets you type and then choose whether you want to email, text, search the web, or more. HP Synergy in webOS 2.0 will allow developers to offer multiple messaging, contact, and calendar application sources. A new “Exhibition” feature also allows users to display an application of their choice while the phone is charging on a Touchstone Charging Dock.
The Palm Pre 2 will make its U.S. debut on Verizon Wireless in the coming months. It will launch on SFR in France on Friday, and HP said that it will also be released in Canad
Today Sony Ericsson announced the Spiro with Walkman feature phone. As the name implies, the phone runs the Sony Walkman media player functionality to users.
The 92mm x 48mm x 16.75mm (3.6in x 1.88in x 0.65in) Spiro comes equipped with the Walkman music player, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 2 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth support, the Obigo Q7 web browser, and a 2.2-inch 320 x 240 pixel display. It also supports microSD cards up to 16GB in size.
The Spiro will be available in contrast black, sunset pink, spring green, and stealth black and is expected to be land on retail shelves in select markets in the third quarter of 2010. Sony Ericsson did not provide carrier or pricing details.
Winamp, the popular media player, is now available in beta for Android 2.1 or newer smartphones. Winamp for Android supports both USB and Wi-Fi sync, offers playlist management, a widget player, and scrobbling with Last.fm.
For wireless sync, you’ll need to install the desktop version of Winamp. Winamp forums. Winamp for Android is available for free in the Android Market.
According to a new report from Strategy Analytics, Apple now has a greater global smartphone market share than Research In Motion (RIM).
The report, according to GigaOm, says that Apple shipped 15.4 million devices during the third quarter of 2010. That’s in comparison to RIM, which shipped 12.3 million devices. Nokia still reigns supreme; it shipped 26.5 million devices during the quarter.
RIM’s global market share fell from a 19.6 percent hold to a 16.1 percent share. Meanwhile, Apple’s global market share increased 1.3 percentage points from a 17 percent market share to an 18.3 percent one
