WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

The Sprint Music Store reported its biggest single day ever, with 25 percent of the tracks sold belonging to Michael Jackson on Friday. Sprint Music Store sales have increased 21 percent on average since news of Jackson's death Thursday.

The week before his death, Jackson ranked 80^th in Sprint Music Store sales. Since he died, he's catapulted to No. 1. The most popular downloaded tracks are "Billie Jean" and "Thriller," both from the 1982 blockbuster album "Thriller." In addition, Jackson ringtones constituted 28 percent of total sales on Friday. Top three ringtones are "Thriller," "P.Y.T." and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough."

If customers aren't sure which Jackson songs they want, then they can turn to Sprint Radio, which is offering a Michael Jackson bonus stream through the end of July. The "Who's Bad" radio stream is available for any customer with a basic data plan and access to Sprint TV. The stream includes not only Jackson's vast collection of songs, but also tracks from his early years with the Jackson 5. It also includes songs from performers inspired by his legacy, including sister Janet Jackson and Fall Out Boy featuring John Mayer doing a cover of "Beat It."

LG the number two cell phone maker wants to be number two and had plans to create some very competitive products according toYonhap News Agency.

In an interview with Ahn Seung-kwon, LG mobile president. LG is planning on working their way into the number two spot in the next three years with production efficiency, and research.

• LG is planning to launch a full features “Black label” series phone to with an enhanced LCD display, Internet access and “pretty” user interface.
  
• LG “Prada” handsets are doing well and they are developing  another Prada handset.
• LG will focus on Windows mobile and Android smartphones with more than ten models.
  
• LG will be venturing into the luxury phone market with an extreme premium brand, in the branding realm of Toyota’s Lexus and Nokia’s Vertu.

PC World reports that iPhone users are getting angry and delayed visual voice mail messages.

Sometimes the voice mail messages don't turn up for days.  David Coursey wrote he had older voicemail messages he'd never seen before suddenly appear in his  iPhone's visual voicemail.

One commenter noted that sometimes his iPhone voice mail is slower than snail mail. The best work-around is for users to manually check their voice messages by calling themselves which then is not visual voice mail.

The iPhone guide defines visual voice mail this way:

On iPhone, visual voicemail lets you see a list of your messages and choose which ones to listen to or delete, without having to listen to prior messages or voice instructions.

iPhone use puts a lot of stress on AT&T systems. The South By Southwest music/film/interactive festival in Austin was attended by so many iPhone users, AT&T had problems keeping the network working.

AT&T is not offering tethering or supporting MMS messaging yet on the iPhone most likely due to high data stress on their systems.

As the battles between the Palm Pre , BlackBerry Storm and iPhone continuge on there's more news about the Palm Pre The Palm Pre will be coming to UK. Consumer Reports rated the Palm Pre higher than the iPhone for multitasking. Palm Pre phones should be easier to find in Sprint and Best Buy stores this weekend.

The Guardian has reported that  O2 will be the exclusive UK partner for the Palm Pre handset.

Consumer Reports in their latest smartphone study, reported that the iPhone 3G S rated higher than high-scoring competitors such as the Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm due to a superior display,  top-notch multimedia, navigation, web browsing, and battery life. While the Palm Pre, the BlackBerry Storm, and other BlackBerry models bested the iPhone in messaging, and the Palm Pre, with its new deck-of-cards handling of multiple applications, is a superior multitasker according to Consumer Reports. They've changed their rating system which lead the iPhone 3G and some other older phones have moved while the Samsung Blackjack II and BlackBerry Pearl Flip, have dropped in their ranking.

You should be able to get a new Palm Pre without waiting this weekend. JP Morgan conducted their third round of channel checks for the  Plam Pre. The gap between supply and demand has closed at Sprint and BestBuy stores, waitlists are eliminated or down, and most stores now have Palm Pre devices in stock. The believe that demand at Sprint channels seems to be hovering at 40K per week.

While PNDs and in-dash navigation device sales continue to suffer from the economic recession, handset-based turn-by-turn navigation is boosted by the rapidly growing smartphone segment. ABI Research expects the number of paying handset-based turn-by-turn navigation users to increase to 26 million by the end of 2010 with the Asia-Pacific region experiencing the strongest growth.

In the wake of a continuous stream of eye-catching touchscreen smartphone launches, navigation software developers are rushing to port their solutions to as many new platforms as possible, such as Android (ALK, Telenav) and the new Palm webOS (Telenav). According to practice director Dominique Bonte, however, “The most significant driver for the uptake of handset navigation is expected to come from the iPhone, following Apple’s decision to finally enable turn-by-turn navigation on its latest 3.0 platform version.” Software from TomTom, Sygic, AT&T (Telenav), and Networks In Motion is already available from the iPhone App Store, with Navigon’s solution expected soon.

While application stores are expected to become an important channel for the distribution of navigation software, many carriers and handset manufacturers prefer to pre-install or bundle navigation software with their phones and offer plans based on strategic partnerships with navigation developers. Examples include Verizon/NIM, AT&T/Telenav, Vodafone/Telmap LG/Appello, HTC/ALK Technologies, and Samsung/Route 66. Market leaders Nokia and Vodafone have respectively opted to acquire navigation providers Gate5 and Wayfinder, allowing tighter integration of navigation and LBS services into their portfolios. Both approaches often coexist.

The BlackBerry Partners Fund today announced the first four (4) Finalists in the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Challenge. The winning apps include two games, a video viewer and one utility applicaiton.

• Fierce Towers by Nickel Buddy - Control the field to stop the waves of attacking enemies in the first ever tower defense game for BlackBerry. Place upgradeable towers around the field as you try your best strategies to stop wave after wave of invading enemies.(Fierce Towers BlackBerry Storm Only)
  
• Astraware Solitare by Handmark - Astraware Solitaire features 12 of the most well-known and best-loved single player card games.
•  Expense Manager by Total Wireless Solutions - helps keep  records of daily expenses while  on the move. You can generate and send customized expense reports in CSV format by email for easy integration with Microsoft Excel and export records in HTML format for printing or as a CSV file for backup on your desktop.

• Vision for YouTube by Metova - Vision for YouTube provides users with easy access to online YouTube videos. Vision is a free application and there is no purchase or registration necessary. You can download Vision to your device by visiting http://vision.metova.com/download.

Finalists were selected by a panel of judges based on the following criteria: compelling product or service; clearly defined value proposition; viable business model; and technical execution.

Each Finalist will receive a prize package that includes one week on the BlackBerry App World Featured Application Carousel; one BlackBerry Developers Conference pass; one BlackBerry smartphone; and, guaranteed participation in the BlackBerry Sweet 16 Demo Event at the 2009 BlackBerry Developers Conference

BeejiveIM for BlackBerry Storm Beta is now available. They say it is the first instant messaging solution which takes advantage of the Storm's touchsreen. It saves SMS costs by using the data network. We're naming it our BlackBerry Storm App of the Day for heavier Instant Messengers.

This BlackBerry Storm app supports AIM/iChat/MobileMe, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo!, MySpace, GoogleTalk, SameTime, ICQ, Facebook Chat & Jabber, enabling users to access all of their IM clients from one interface.

With BeejiveIM, users get  the connectivity and full features of desktop instant messaging from their BlackBerry Storm easier and more cost-effectively than by texting.

Features of BeejiveIM for the BlackBerry Storm include:

• Voice notes: Truly personalize your IM experience by adding voice to the equation via a smooth, direct transfer.
• More chat styles: Customize your chat style with various colors whilesetting custom backgrounds and wallpapers on the chat screen.

While more smartphones will be bought by confused consumers, the overall handset market will not be as robust as expected. The financial downturn will cause1.04 billion fewer devices sold in the next five years than had previously been expected, according to Informa Telecoms & Media's latest report, The Financial Crisis: Analyzing the impact on global mobile markets.

The global economic downturn has led Informa Telecoms & Media to revise device-sales forecasts for the next five years down 14%, but growth is expected to pick up in 2010, albeit at a lower rate than previously expected.

According to Informa, device-sales figures will once again hit 2008 levels in 2011, when year-on-year growth of 8% is expected. Sales of high-end devices are expected to grow faster than those of low-end devices after 2009, indicating a shift among users worldwide away from cheap devices to more feature-rich and expensive ones.

Users will buy 6.39 billion devices between now and 2013, according to revised figures from Informa Telecoms & Media that take into account the global economic downturn.

MythBusters' Adam Savage did not understand clearly the limitations and roaming charges for his AT&T data plan while in Canada, managed to run up $11,000 in data charges using a USB modem on a laptop computer.

How did he bust the myth "You can't win with the phone company"?

He twittered about his disgust with tweets such as "AT&T is attempting to charge me 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada. Pls RT!," "Almost forgot: Hey AT&T! I will fight this bull****," and then "They're claiming I uploaded/downloaded 9 million kilobytes (9 gigs) while in Canada. Frakking impossible."

Savages' twitter feed titled donttrythis has 68,000 followers on Twitter which AT&T could not ignore.

Eventually, Savage busted that phone company myth and tweeted, ""Today the tweeps became twoops. Just got off the phone with AT&T and they've taken care of everything to my great satisfaction.#twitterrules."

Before traveling to another country this summer be sure to check with your wireless carrier if you will be charged roaming charges or additional fees. 

pen Source Operating System Research from Juniper Research found that operating systems and applications are playing an increasingly important role in the differentiation of new smartphones and a key factor in the choice of which handset choice by users.  They predict Smartphones shipped with open source operating systems (OS) will increase from 106 million this year to 223 million by 2014

The last three years has seen a revolution in the OS market with market leader Symbian moving to open source and Apple leading the way in the distribution of applications through their innovative, but now widely copied, AppStore approach. The move to open-source OS has also encouraged developers to design new and attractive applications and with over 60% of the OS market is now based on open-source, and a sizeable pool of software design talent out there, there is a massive opportunity for innovation.

However, the real key is not whether the OS is open-source but whether it's easy for a developer to design an application and make money from that effort. The combined changes of Apple's open route to the market and LiMo, OHA and Symbian's open-source OS approach have generated a tidal wave-like effect which even the economic downturn has been unable to reverse.

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) released the latest version of its U.S. Consumer Best Practices Guidelines for Cross-Carrier Mobile Content Services.

They say that their guidelines are the industry standard for cross-carrier mobile content services such as text messaging (SMS), multimedia messaging (MMS), shortcode programs, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and mobile Web.

In addition to incorporating carrier standards, the new guidelines include revisions and additions to key areas such as:

• Standardizing the language "Msg & Data Rates May Apply"
• Allowing for more flexibility with PIN location in message-terminated (MT) messages
• Modifying the STOP requirement in Opt-in MT messages

The guidelines also feature a new reference ID system designed to make it fast and easy to navigate the document and find information. The guidelines help standardize practices across the industry which provides a better experience for customers by ensuring the consistency of mobile marketing campaigns across the four major U.S. carriers.

The guidelines are available for download at www.mmaglobal.com/bestpractices.pdf.

A Best Buy Mobile survey conducted by GfK shows that many adult Americans plan to buy a smartphone in the next 12 months and they are confused.  They do value their mobiles and would go to great lengths to keep their mobiles. Their texting habits are regrettable.

Six in ten (60%) of those surveyed said they would rather abstain from alcohol for a week than give up their mobile phone. One in three would give up television to keep their mobile phone. If caught in the rain with a choice of a mobile phone or an umbrella, nearly 37 percent of Americans would choose their mobile phone. A passionate minority of 15% of Americans said they would rather have their teeth drilled at the dentist's office than give up their mobile phone for a week.

Nearly half (47%) of adults who do not yet own a smartphone, claimed they are too confused by the vast assortment of models and features. Barriers to smartphone ownership include the difficulty with the shopping experience, confusion about models and expense.

• 39% do not own a smartphone because they hate shopping for electronics products, with 45% of women in particular expressing this concern.
• 52% of women and 42% of men are confused about which model smartphone to buy, and more than half (53%) of adults over 50 express this confusion.
• 64% of Americans say they do not own a smartphone because they believe the devices are too expensive. This sentiment is particularly felt in the South.

About one in five of adults surveyed already owned a smartphone with a large segment of those in their 20's and 30's plan to buy a smartphone this year.

We finally have the official word on the Verizon 3G BlackBerry Tour which will be in Verizon Wireless stores on July 12. The notice also shows price drops for all BlackBerry smartphones.

The BlackBerry Tour is a 3G world phone, allowing customers  to make phone calls in 220 countries and to access e-mail and Internet in any of the 175 countries with Verizon Wireless  data roaming

The BlackBerry Tour offers push e-mail; messaging (IM, SMS, MMS) and social networking; a 3.2 megapixel camera with geo-tagging and video recording; advanced multimedia capabilities; built-in GPS; full HTML Web browsing; and support for Verizon Wireless' Mobile Broadband Connect tethering service.

The Verizon BlackBerry Tour supports Verizon Wireless' V CAST Music with Rhapsody and VZ Navigator services.  The BlackBerry Tour has all the BlackBerry security profiles that make this an efficient business tool. A model of the BlackBerry Tour without a camera will also be available.

Email and Web for BlackBerry plans start at $29.99 when added to any Nationwide voice plan. For information on Verizon Wireless' voice and data plans for BlackBerry smartphones. Verizon  says customers can pre-order the BlackBerry Tour for $199.99 after a $70 mail-in rebate with a contract. 

Comcast launched high-speed wireless data  in Portland as the company kicks off its nationwide rollout of Comcast High-Speed 2go.

Comcast's High-Speed 2go is a 4G wireless high-speed data service that they claim provides the fastest available wireless Internet in the nation via wireless data cards. Comcast will be selling this wireless service bundled with one or more of its popular Internet, phone and television products, providing mobile broadband where ever and whenever customers need to be connected.

Comcast is selling two different data cards and service plans:

• Comcast High-Speed 2go Metro service uses a 4G-only data card giving customers the fastest wireless service within the 4G metro coverage area. The Metro device operates only in a 4G service footprint.
• Comcast High-Speed 2go Nationwide service delivers the fastest metro 4G service plus coast-to-coast access on Sprint's national 3G network. The Nationwide device automatically switches between available 4G and 3G networks.

A survey from Sprint and Harris Interactive shows that the majority of vacationers are not using helpful travel applications because of budget concerns. Wireless phone are the most popular item to pack,

Aside from laptops (50 percent), MP3 players (38 percent) and portable DVD players (17 percent), wireless phones (79 percent) are the most popular item for travelers to pack.

Use of Travel Apps

Eighty-nine percent of young adults (ages 18-34) would ideally like to have access to travel-related applications on their wireless phones, including social media web sites (34 percent), online/wireless games (19 percent) and restaurant guides (51 percent) while away. Thirty-five percent of males (ages 18-34) and 24 percent of females (ages 18-34) already use at least some travel applications on their wireless phones.

More than half of vacationers (56 percent) do not use available travel-related features on their wireless phones because of cost concerns. Sixty-one percent of these women and 65 percent of these young adults (ages 18-34) believe that the fee to run travel-related applications on their wireless phones is a deterrent to using them.

The Mobile Advocacy Coalition (http://www.mobileac.org) was formed in June 2009, in response to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's ruling in Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster, Inc.

They claim that the Court's decision to remand includes instructions that twist the meaning of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 in a way that imperils the entire mobile marketing industry.

According to the decision, any computer that sends texts is effectively considered an auto dialer, which puts any mobile marketing campaign on the wrong side of the law.  

MAC is comprised of mobile marketing firms, mobile software providers, and SMS aggregators, all working together to lobby the FCC.

There is more Palm Pre news today and momentum for the Palm Pre is growing. Numbers of shipped Palm Pre units were greater than expected.  Other webOS devices are coming including a GSM version.  Production has almost doubled and developers have more chapters to read. They can also get a leaked MAC SDK. 

According to Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder, Palm sold 300,000 units of the Palm Pre smartphone in June and 70,000 in May . While selling 15,000 devices a day the Palm Pre is still in short supply due to the Palm Pre's unexpectedly high demand.The initial inventory of Palm Pre smartphones of 120,000 units sold-out in the first few days.

Snyder expects another webOS-based device to launch with Verizon in early 2010, and a webOS-based "Centro like" device with AT&T soon after that.

With numbers like thesed Palm is expect to sell million Palm Pre smartphones within the first quarter of its availability.

In other Palm Pre news, a GSM version of the Palm Pre was shown in a Palm Pre forum in Vietnam.

StreetInsider.com reported that an OTR Global report suggests that sources in the Taiwan handset supply chain claim that Palm has almost doubled its order of the Palm Pre to assembler Foxconn from 650,000 units to 1.2 million.

For developers there are new chapters of the official Chapters 10 and 11 of Palm webOS Rough Cut from O'Reily covering background applications/notifications and localization/internationalization issues. The book is available online at Safari Books.

There is now a leaked version of an SDK for webOS for the Palm Pre on the MAC.

There have been reports that the new iPhone 3GS is too hot to handle, the super-fast processor's temperature is so very warm, owners claim it can hurt.  

Photos of white iPhone 3GS posted in forums show heat scorch marks, like the kind you see when the iron stays too long on a shirt, except this one looks reddish pink.

The Journal de Geek in France shows a photo of a hot pink mark in the shape of a battery, with the metaphorical question "Isolated case or what?.

PC World's Melissa J. Perenson reported that her Apple iPhone 3GS "became very hot. Very, very hot -- not just on the back, but the entire length of the front face, too." While she was playing the Oregon Trail game and surfing the web browser via a Wi-Fi connection. "Toasty doesn't even describe how surprisingly hot it got. It was too hot to even put the phone against my face."

A MacNN staffer has encountered the "hot"problem independently, with discoloration noticeable on the back of a white 32GB unit.

Aaron Vronko of Rapid Repair, Apple iPhone repair specialist, told us that the overheating is likely due to faulty battery cells which could spur a recall.

"The safety concerns of this lithium ion battery in the Phone 3GS is less likely to pose as great a risk of fire or danger as with larger cells in a laptop battery."

If you notice this problem, if your iPhone 3GS is not too hot to touch, shut off the iPhone immediately. Charging or using current will exacerbate the reaction. (There is no way to turn off an iPhone without touching it with bare skin or using a specialized stylus like the Pogo.) 

There is a new update to the webOS for the Palm Pre 1.0.4 which addresses several security issues with Palm webOS software. It also causes some homemade apps not to work because those apps used security flaws in order to be installed. Townsend Ladd Harris a Palm Pre homebrew developer reported the flaws to Palm.

Just before the Palm Pre webOS SDK leak, Palm opened their SDK to new developers.

The Palm Pre webOS developers blog reported that e first batch of invites went out on July 26 and the webOS developer community was double.

This is just the first set of new members -- they plan is to double the size of the program again in the next week, and then continue the growth as fast as they can until everyone who wants the SDK has access to it. 

If you need help installing the Palm Pre update 1.04 please read our article, "How to Install Palm Pre Update."  Other Palm Pre articles you may like are:

• Top Best Coolest Helpful Palm Pre Tricks Tips Suggestions.
• Palm Pre Apps.
  
• Review of Reviews: Palm Pre.
• Top Ten Facts You Need to Know About the Palm Pre.
• Palm Pre: Best Features - Why So Hyped, Why So Good.
  

Most Recent Articles in the Category Palm Pre.

There is a big difference between the top BlackBerry apps for the BlackBerry App World and the top iPhone apps on iTunes we also reported today. 

There's not a single game on the top BlackBerry applications list. It is interesting to note that many people thought that keeping the pricing at a minimum of $2.99 would hurt RIM's app store, but in fact, it's keeping the apps to business and news functions. Because the BlackBerry apps are downloaded from BlackBerry Application World, they are usually  compatible with all new BlackBerry smartphones including the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Curve 8900.

The top paid application is gwabbit which has received the top paid ranking for the fourth week straight. We named gwabbit a Wireless and Mobile News' App of the Day in May.  Gwabbit automatically searches and identifies contacts embedded in emails on your BlackBerry smartphone, and adds or updates that information to your BlackBerry Contacts, in a single click. For those users syncing their contacts to Outlook, gwabbit's automated capture keeps contacts updated globally.

Top Apps (Free and Paid) on BlackBerrry Application World

1. Bloomberg Mobile - Free - Bloomberg news app.
   
2. Flashlight - Free - turns BlackBerry into a Flashlight.
   
3. The Street - Free - get the latest market news and analysis from TheStreet.com delivered automatically to your BlackBerry.
   
4. gwabbit - $9.99 instant contact updater.
   
5. SalesNow - Free - sales management software.
   
6. ZDNet -  Free. - tech news.
7. WebMessenger IM - Free - Business-class mobile Instant Messaging for access to AIM, MSN, Yahoo and Google from your BlackBerry.
   
8. BNet - Free - news app.
   
9. Salesforce Mobile - Free - mobile access to Salesforce CRM.
10. AlertMatrix - $29.99 - never allow an important e-mail, phone call, or text message to go unnoticed again. Create custom repeating alerts for messages that match your watch-for rules.