iPhone 3G coming to a Walmart near you

There has been rumors floating around the blogosphere that Walmart is going to carry the Apple iPhone 3G. Today, Boy Genius Report was able to confirm that Walmart will indeed be carrying the iPhone 3G. However, there is a catch. The phone will not be available until after Christmas, beginning December 28, that too only at select stores. All told there will be 2500 locations where the phones will be available. Also, the phones will be available at 69 Sam’s Club stores too. However, the pricing is not known yet. So, it would be interesting to see if the  price will be discounted or not.

HTC Dream G1 slimmer than iPhone?

Correction: According to AndroidGuys, the G1 will have Bluetooth on board. However, there will not be an API available for developers to program the Bluetooth feature.

The HTC Dream G1 which has cleared the FCC hurdle is slimmer than iPhone. While G1 measures 115 x 55-mm, the iPhone measures 115.2-mm x 62.1-mm. However, because the G1 has a keyboard, it will be thicker than the iPhone. Despite these dimensions, the G1 is not the slimmest touch phone. That honor goes to another HTC product, the Touch Diamond which is 102 x 51-mm. The G1 should be launching on T-Mobile in the next few months. You can read the reviews and photos here and here. Thanks to the photo from AndroidGuys, you can see what to expect in the phone, including the slight tilt at the bottom and a trackball like Blackberry. However, as I had mentioned earlier, Google was having trouble trying to get all the features into the Android OS. Well, today, Dan Morrill, a Developer Advocate for Android, wrote on Android Developer Blog that they were not able to include the Bluetooth and GTalkService will not make it on the 1st version of the OS. Now, for those of us living in states and countries that have hands-free laws while driving, what are we to do?

Is GPhone a pipe dream?

Update (8/5): HTC’s CFO confirmed that HTC Dream, an Android based device will be out in Q4 2008. The Dream is similar in size and shape to the HTC Tilt, a candy-bar, slider. 

Given the recent developer discontentwith Android SDK from Google, it is clear that Google is learning what it takes to bring a quality Mobile OS to market. However, according to this report, analyst Jack Gold thinks, Google should tie up with the Symbian foundation and forget about Android. Now, that would make a lot of sense. Google could contribute its OS to the Symbian foundation, be a major player on the foundation and devote its resource to its core strength of developing multi-platform applications.

Google still contend that an Android-based device, aka the GPhone, will be out in the second half of 2008. Certainly, the pressure is mounting with iPhone 3G out in the wild, and RIM, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and LG announcing a stellar lineup for the rest of year (see this post for RIM, this post for Nokia, this post for Sony Ericsson, post one and two for Samsung, and this one for LG). Not to mention, yesterday’s Microsoft employee memo by Steve Ballmer hinting at a Zune phone on the horizon. So is GPhone a pipe dream? I think not, and blogosphere certainly does not think so. However, when will it launch is debatable. I believe that Google will most probably announce the GPhone in 2009 at their major developer shin-dig.

iPhone cravers: Prepare to see red

Several Mac-related blog sites are reporting that Apple is working with (PRODUCT) RED campaign to come out with a red iPhone 3G during the holiday season. By the looks of it (Photo via MacBlogz), the red iPhone does look hot. (PRODUCT) RED campaign is a charitable organization that uses the donations from its product sales to fight AIDS in Africa. So, if you have been holding out for an iPhone 3G and considering the shortage for it right now, you might want to wait until the holidays and buy it then. This way you will also be helping a good cause. However, this is just a rumor at this time. So, if the rumor is not true, you will still be seeing red, as in envy :).

 

Nokia takes on Apple and RIM

Yesterday, Nokia announced its 2nd quarter 2008 results. The results were impressive to say the least. The company sold over 1 million phones a day in Q2. Let me repeat, 1 million phones a day! Not over a weekend or 2 days. It made 1.4 billion euros in profit on revenues of 13.15 million euros for the quarter. It also increased its device sales forecast for the rest of 2008 stating that the mobile device market globally was up 10% over 2007.

However, the most exciting part of the presentation, if you can call it that given the nature of these calls, was the announcements of new devices for the remainder of the year.  First off, Nokia is working on several touch screen models aimed at all segments of the market that it plans on bringing out later this year. Secondly,  take a look at the devices below taken from the 2nd quarter earnings call presentation. There are a couple of devices that take on both Apple and RIM directly.

Nokia N96, which is an upgrade to the popular N95, will come with 16 GB memory, Mobile TV access, microSD card slot, and host of other features which put the iPhone 3G to shame. Granted, the N96 does not have touch screen, but it has a lot of other oomph that a lot of folks would consider and at a cheaper price-point than iPhone 3G. 

Nokia also takes on RIM with its E71 product which looks like the Blackberry Bold, but is sleeker, weighs less, has longer lasting battery and better 3.2Mpxl camera than the 2Mpxl camera in Blackberry Bold.

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Samsung Instinct: Great Phone, Weak Operator

Samsung Instinct is truly a phone that can give iPhone a run for the money. It is cheaper, $450 without contract as opposed to $599 for iPhone 3G 8GB version or $699 for iPhone 3G 16GB version. Also, Instinct comes with a 2GB microSD card and 2 batteries. Already, it is the best selling phone for Sprint in the last two years and is comparable to Motorola Razr in sales when it was released in 2006. Samsung realizes that and has been made great marketing efforts to push the product. Samsung just released a three-part web series featuring San Francisco, Boston and Chicago ballparks, all shot on the Instinct. In addition, they had previously announced a promotion asking filmmakers to post short videos on YouTube that feature Instinct for $20 each and  a chance to win $10,000. Clearly, Samsung knows it has a good product.

Unfortunately, for Samsung, they are stuck with a lousy operator. Sprint has been struggling to integrate Nextel and has been leaking customers since then. As this Engadget post in May, indicates, Sprint lost over a million subscribers in Q1 2008. It is still the third ranked carrier in US with 52 million subscribers. However, I believe its days are numbered. With persistent rumorsabout Sprint being bought by SK Telecom, which the market thinks is unlikely, and potential Nextel spinoff and WiMAX issues, I don’t see how Sprint can focus on keeping its market share.

Mobile Phone Software: Proof in the pudding?

Now that 1 million iPhone 3G (er, iBrick :)) are out in the wild, is Apple laughing to the bank? Certainly, but it is not the reason for that. According to TechCrunch estimate, Apple might have raked in $5 million over the weekend since iPhone was released. Apple has not revealed any numbers. These are just back of the napkin calculation by Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch. I am excited and looking forward to Apple’s quarterly results for this quarter. That is when the actual numbers will be revealed. If I were a betting man, I would bet on Apple posting bigger gain in revenue and profits due to the App Store than iPhone 3G.