Amy Eichelberg

As expected with the big unveiling of Apple’s iPhone 4S, the company dramatically slashed the prices for some of its current iPhone models.  The 8GB 3GS is now free with a contract. Yes, we said free, but if the iPhone 4 is more your style then the 8GB iPhone 4 will now only set you back $99 on contract. No word yet on if bargain hunters can expect any other iPhone models to be reduced in price, but we’ll take these discounts in the meantime. Source

After much anticipation, we can now welcome into the world the Apple iPhone 4S. So what can we expect with this device? To start, the handset shows off a retina display, glass in front and back, with the same form factor as the iPhone 4, but “inside, it is all new.” It houses an A5 processor, which is an Apple designed chip, dual core processor, dual core graphics and it is up to 7x faster than previous iPhone. Apple also uses that A5 chip, to store an Apple designed image processor. This is where the face detection lies, and it has 26% better auto

Now onto the good stuff. After an appropriate kickoff by Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook, the ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event has now changed courses onto what we can expect with iOS 5. Scott Forstall takes the stage to outline the top ten features of iOS 5. Safari, will have a new feature called Reader. It makes it easy to read, like Instapaper. If you don’t have time to read a story, you can add it to Reading List, and read it later. Reading List syncs to iOS devices. Tabbed browsing has been added to the iPad so you can quickly switch

Tim Cook, Apple’s new CEO, has taken the stage at today’s ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ keynote event, and has just started to discuss the iPhone and how it is currently dominating the global mobile market. Here are the highlights so far:  So “Customers love iPhone, and it’s consistently rated #1 in every satisfaction rating I can find.” The iPhone has 5 percent share of the worldwide mobile phone market. That’s one in 20 people, worldwide. The market is 1.5 billion units annually. The iPhone 4 makes up over half of the total iPhones sold since the iPhone was first introduced. It’s become

We can’t say we’re surprised to see that the Apple Store goes down just before the ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event is scheduled to kick off. While we don’t know why the store is down, we’re sure to find out soon enough. Hold onto your seats everyone. Things are about to get crazy. Source

Good news for anyone with commitment issues, as the unlocked Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray has just graced US soil. Thanks to a partnership with NewEgg, you can score the device unlocked for MSRP at $425, although it is currently priced at $380 with your choice of gold, black, white, and even pink as color options. If you’re concerned about carrier compatibility, the device features quad-band GSM support, alongside 3G capability over the 2100 / 1900 / 850MHz airwaves. This means its best fit will be AT&T here in the US, or Bell, Rogers and Telus for our friends in Canada. Spec highlights include a 3.3-inch FWVGA

After months of rumors, reported leaks, and the usual dramatic hype that typically surrounds an iPhone launch, it looks as if the wait is nearly over. With Apple’s ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event scheduled for tomorrow, we’ll soon be able to put all the rumors to rest, and simply sit on the edge of our seats to see what Tim Cook has in store for us. Will Steve Jobs make an appearance? Will Sprint finally get their very own iPhone? Will Apple reveal a cheaper iPhone 4S? Maybe the tech giant will just shock us all with something that no one is expecting.

Even though the newly unveiled Amazon Kindle Fire won’t be available until November, that sure hasn’t stopped consumers from securing the Android-based tablet now. Reportedly, the budget friendly slab has already blazed through 95,000 pre-orders since its introduction. While the Kindle Fire still has a ways to go before it catches up with its arch rival, the Apple iPad, this initial buzz certainly indicates that the device is heating up the competition. While the iPad sold approximately 300,000 units when it first launced, we’ll be interested to see if Amazon’s $199 price tag is the Kindle Fire’s ticket to success. Source

If you can’t beat them, then you might as well join them right? Well, it appears as though Sony Ericsson understands this sentiment as they have shown their support to the FreeXperia dev team recently. FreeXperia is widely known for their valiant efforts to bring Cyanogen Mod 7.1 to various Sony Ericsson devices. According to the Sony Ericsson blog, the company has provided the group with 20 phones, in addition to debugged and rebuilt camera library binaries to ensure a proper user experience. If that wasn’t cool enough, Sony Ericsson hopes to extend this support to all developers under a special EULA in the future. Sony

Verizon’s upcoming Samsung Stratosphere has been a bit of a mystery when it comes to the juicy spec details, but now thanks to a leaked spec sheet, we know exactly what to look forward to in Big Red’s new QWERTY slider. According to the screen shot, the device will indeed sport a 4-inch Super AMOLED display with WVGA resolution, an assumed single-core 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage and a pre-installed 4GB microSD card. Earlier rumors of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and a 5MP rear / 1.3MP front cameras seem to be spot on, alongside LED flash and video capture in 480p. All in all, the

Even though Nokia has put all their wireless eggs into the Windows Phone 7 basket, the company is now rumored to be working on a new operating system all together. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new platform codenamed ‘Meltemi’, will be designed specifically for Nokia’s low end handset category. As low end handsets made up nearly 47% of Nokia’s device and service earnings in the second quarter, ‘Meltemi’ could be the logical key to solidify the company’s future success in the emerging markets. Now that Nokia has passed off all Symbian related tasks to an outsourcing company, we wouldn’t be surprised if

With the start of a brand new month, Virgin Mobile was originally slated to flip the switch on its promised data throttling. Instead, the prepaid carrier changed their strategy and chose to launch some new devices instead. As announced in two press releases (below) the carrier introduced the LG Optimus Slider and the HTC Wildfire S as their highlighted devices for the month of October. Oddly enough in the same press release it also offered up the intel that its data throttling plans will now be postponed until 2012. No reasons were given as why the change in course, but we’re not

It wouldn’t be a normal week in the wireless industry without some legal drama to report about. This time it’s AT&T in an attempt to fight off recent lawsuits filed by Sprint and C Spire Wireless (formerly Cellular South). Both lawsuits against AT&T were filed in an attempt to block AT&T’s pending merger with T-Mobile. In AT&T’s request to the court, the company explains that the two carriers are simply fueled by their own motives and not the best interest of the consumer public. AT&T explicitly reveals that C Spire Wireless was actually involved in earlier discussions which supported the merger, providing AT&T agreed not to

The updated SwiftKey X application, v2.1 is now officially ready and available for Android users everywhere. Version 2.1 brings touchscreen smartphone and tablet users a variety of new features and bug fixes sure to be a crowd pleaser. Integrating valuable user insight from v2.0, the new SwiftKey adds blog personalization, insights about your typing, which can be shared with your buddies. Additional highlights include heat-map visualization, localization / language enhancements, and an auto caps toggle. User reports also note that typing speed and accuracy have significantly improved. Pricing remains the same at $4.99 for SwiftKey Tablet X and $3.99 for SwiftKey X. Interested? Read on

When Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said the company would eventually phase out its Symbian platform, we just weren’t sure how and when it was all going to go down. It appears that the day is finally here as Nokia has officially handed over all Symbian related duties to Accenture, a company who specializes in outsourcing and consulting. As part of the transition, 2,300 former Nokia employees will also be shifted over to Accenture to fulfill Symbian related tasks. Nokia claims the arrangement with Accenture will remain in place until at least 2016, and loyal Symbian users can look forward to regular updates