The Mobile Fun Blog

Well yes, if the rumours are to be believed! TechDigest picked up on a story that came from Samsung Hub, regarding the SCH-W960 – apparently this device can do 3D via its screen, and not only that, can up-convert from 2D to 3D (now I think I’ve heard it all!). The device is apparently packing a 3.3 inch WVGA AMOLED screen, which is 3D capable – along with a comparably less impressive 3MP in the camera department. One other trump card it does have to play though is dual TV tuners – quite what standard really isn’t very clear though.

Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre owners in the UK will be happy to hear that EA Mobile is giving away three free 3D games with every handset: The Sims 3, Monopoly, and Need for Speed Undercover.  Palm has been hitting GDC hard with their new plug-in development kit, which will allow games to be written in C++ and enabling 3D graphics on their webOS smartphones – this giveaway should punctuate what it all means for end-users.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has a new report titled “Change is in the Air: 2009 North American Wireless Industry Survey” highlighting the trend of the mobile industry in the U.S. Here are the highlights:

• Retention: Large carriers invested more than 0 per subscriber in the 2009 survey, which is 30% more than in 2008.
• Prepaid: Due to bad economy, consumers are moving towards prepaid plans. Use of prepaid minutes increased more than 147% in the past four years, from 270 minutes in 2006 to 667 minutes in 2009.

There’s nothing worse than plunking down a wad of cash and investing some emotional currency into a shiny new Windows Mobile smartphone, only to have it become nearly obsolete a few months later when Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s new Windows Phone 7 Series comes rolling through town. Microsoft knows this, and they’re apparently going to allow certain handsets to be upgraded to Windows Phone 7 at some point after the mobile OS’s launch later this year. The only catch? It’ll be up to Windows Phone OEMs to determine if they want to spend the extra cash in licensing and porting Windows Phone 7 to work with existing hardware.

Sprint is really pushing the green approach. Its Buyback program that gives credit to customers with old phones has been extended to three phones per account. Sprint (NYSE: S) hopes to increase the rate of mobile phone recycling by offering more incentive for customers. That will probably work.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

At the end of January, the Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer Task Force launched an inquiry into the Early Termination Fees (ETFs) of the major wireless providers with a special focus on the Google Nexus One handset.

The Nexus One is unlike other smartphones in that it is sold only by Google and available on multiple carriers. As such, if a customer terminated his contract, he faced early termination fees from both Google and his wireless provider.

Samsung expects that its handset shipments grow 19% to more than 270 million units this year, helped by demand for smartphones. In other words, that’s more than double that of the industry, according to the company’s president of the mobile-communication division – J.K. Shin.

Last year, Samsung shipped 227 million mobile phones and this year their big bet is on smartphones – the plan is to go from 2009’s 6 million devices to 18 million. In addition, the Korean company also plans to cover other market segments.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Today, the first major carrier of phones with Android support, T-Mobile, announced that doubleTwist media manager is now available across all of its Android smartphones, and that the music, video, and photo sync software can now be downloaded directly from T-Mobile for Windows XP and above and OS X 10.5 and above.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Mobile telephony used to be about voice communications first and foremost, but not any more.

As we head toward the 4G era, and smartphones take the leading share of mobile phones sold, data plans will ultimately take precedence over voice plans.

Today, Verizon Wireless made this shift a little more evident as it unveiled new pricing for its plans which will launch on January 18. These plans cut the cost of voice by as much as 30%, but tack on an additional data consumption fee for all but the simplest feature phones.

ALK Technologies announced at this year’s CES 2010 show in Las Vegas that its CoPilot® Live™ v8 Sat Nav app for smartphones has been downloaded by over 200,000 customers globally in its first six months since launch – that includes Android, iPhone, and WinMo Operating Systems!