14 DAY TRIAL // The first week of 2010 has already ended, with a great deal of news emerging around the Internet, especially since the International 2010 Consumer Electronics Show kicked off in Las Vegas, but only offering us a glimpse of what to expect for the remaining over fifty weeks of the year to bring. The end of 2009 showed that the competition on the mobile-phone market was tightening up even more than before, and the beginning of 2010 has already proved exactly that. Google went official with the Android-based Nexus One by HTC phone, and announced that the device would be sold via its own web store, a new approach towards the marketing of mobile phones that will make other industry players rethink their strategies, that's for sure.
And since we've started with Nexus One, as the new year in handsets kicked off with the phone's official arrival, we should continue with it. Most of you have certainly learned already that the device is set to make the first appearance on the market in four countries around the world, including the US, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong, and that there will also be a series of carriers to support it, such as T-Mobile USA, which has it subsidized with select plans, yet it seems that Google also plans on extending its reach shortly. Thus, a CDMA variant of the phone will arrive on Verizon's airwaves in the US, UK carriers 3 and T-Mobile already confirmed plans to have the phone available for their users, and we also learned that WIND planned on bringing it to Canada, so it's all only good news for users in the end.
Even if it is available for only a few days, the Nexus One has been already torn to pieces by enthusiasts, and we had the chance to take a look at the 1GHz processor it kept hidden under the hood. The phone comes with Google's Android 2.1 operating system on board, which brings around a a series of new features to users, including Google Maps Navigation, Quick Contacts, transcribed voicemail with Google Voice integration, and more, including support for Adobe's Flash Player 10.1.
The are no details available on whether Flash 10.1 will come to other versions of the Android platform too, yet it is known that Android 2.1 will be delivered to handsets running under older flavors of the OS. Motorola already confirmed the move, and also said that Flash 10.1 would come to its devices, Rogers and HTC would bring 2.1 to Magic, and most of you might know already that Sprint said last year that it would update the HTC Hero and Samsung Moment to the new OS flavor.
Still in the Android area, we should note that the operating system is expected to soon power a wide range of devices. Wireless carrier Sprint has recently expanded its developer support program to include iDEN-enabled devices, and there are great chances that a device sporting the technology will arrive running under Google's operating system. Moreover, the supposition is also sustained by the recently leaked roadmap of the carrier, which shows a Motorola i1 device that includes both iDEN and Android on board, and that might be none other than the previously leaked Motorola Opus One device. Motorola unveiled the Android-based Motorola BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR, a series of new phones with Android are expected to arrive from LG during 2010, Sony Ericsson is said to be working on a mini version of its Xperia X10 handset, and HTC is also expected to launch a new such device, which will be available exclusively via AT&T in the US, along with Dell's Mini 3 and the BACKFLIP.
As stated above, some of the already available Android-based mobile phones on the market are expected to see an update to the latest flavor of the OS, and some carriers or manufacturers already confirmed the move. Google's mobile OS was the leader in Internet usage growth in December, and Austria's A1 confirmed that it planned on delivering both the Android 2.0 and 2.1 updates to the HTC Magic, while Acer Liquid A1 is expected to taste Eclair in about two months from now. For what it's worth, the platform seems set to prove it is successful during 2010 too, after showing a rather great performance in 2009, and with more and more applications being launched for it (like NAVIGON's MobileNavigator), along with new phones being released via more carriers around the world (such as Xperia X10, which will land at Rogers, or the Motorola Devour, which should become available in the US via Verizon in the near future), it is certainly poised for growth.
Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system also made it to the headlines during this week, though the much awaited WM7 flavor of the OS is still a no show. However, the already rumored / spotted Windows Mobile 6.5.3 version of the platform seems to be nearing its release date, with new features like the threaded email, as yet another leaked build surfaced into the wild, Build 28205, and was also caught at CES 2010 running on two mobile phones, the Toshiba TG01 and the Pharos Traveler 137 GPS. The next-gen Windows Mobile 7 was mentioned during CES in Las Vegas, but is expected to be detailed only at MWC next month, though it should arrive before the end of the year, possibly on older phones too, like HTC HD2, which, by the way, will soon come to the US market exclusively via T-Mobile, and which just received another software update from its maker.
Some of the last year's devices have gotten updated to the WM 6.5 version of the OS, including the Touch Pro2 and Ozone available from Verizon Wireless, or will get updated, such as T-Mobile's Touch Pro2, which saw a leaked shipping WM 6.5 ROM, which follows the leaked ROM for Ozone that emerged at the beginning of the week. Unfortunately, not all went well for all Windows Mobile-based mobile phones out there. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2, which came to shelves this week, will not make an appearance on Vodafone UK's airwaves. The device was expected to become exclusively available in the country via this carrier, yet was removed from the company's website on Monday, and Sony Ericsson confirmed a few days later that the X2 “does no longer fit” with Vodafone's plans.
Sunnyvale-based handset vendor Palm also had a pretty busy first week of 2010, one should agree. The company delivered a new software version to its webOS users on Sprint's network, and also released an important update for Canadian Palm Pre users on Bell, the webOS 1.3.5.1. With a great deal of fixes and improvements, Palm's mobile operating system is much more appealing at the moment, and is even capable of running 3D games. The company announced officially at CES that Verizon Wireless would launch the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus on January 25, new, improved versions of the handsets that are currently available for purchase from Sprint, as their specs showed, and also opened the webOS platform to all interested developers out there. The move should result in an even larger number of applications being built for the webOS platform, which already sees over 1,000 solutions available in the company's App Catalog, which will soon deliver paid apps to European users too.
Among the other news that might be of interest we should mention that the first mobile phones running under Qualcomm's Brew MP operating system are set to arrive on the market during the ongoing year, and that one of them is the HTC Smart. Moreover, Qualcomm also plans to launch 1.3 and 1.5 GHz Snapdragon CPUs in 2010, meaning that smartphones will soon become more powerful than before, just as Intel underlined at the event. Mozilla released the Firefox Mobile 1.0 RC browser for Maemo-based devices earlier this week, with the final version expected to arrive in the near future, Vodafone UK will have the iPhone available for its users both via direct and indirect channels shortly, and Samsung showcased Moment with Mobile DTV and Corby, CorbyPRO and Galaxy Spica for the US at CES. Verizon and its partners demonstrated LTE at the event, while Nokia's CEO talked about the company's approach on the mobile-phone market, and also announced the launch of new developer competitions, such as 'Calling All Innovators 2010.'
