Apple shows Nokia's N97 Mini can be force choked, too (video)

Nokia claims it always prioritizes antenna performance over physical design, and we'll take them at their word, but that apparently didn't exempt one Espoo handset from Apple's grip of doom. Here's the Nokia N97 Mini going down for the count, from a full seven bars to two. Of course, Apple doesn't mention whether calls or data drop when the handset's held this way. Video after the break.

Source - Engadget

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Tim Cook: Only Thing Limiting iPhone 4 Sales Is That We Can’t Make Them Fast Enough

During the Q&A session at the end of Apple’s Q3 earnings call, Apple COO Tim Cook fielded some questions about Apple’s new iPhone 4 product. Not surprisingly, there were a few about the antenna and the swirling controversy. According to Cook, it’s not dampening the demand for the product at all.

“Let me be very clear on this: We are selling every unit we can make, currently,” Cook stated. A follow-up question asked if there was a slow down in order rates or if there was an increase Apple was seeing in returns? “My phone is ringing off the hook from people who want more supply,” Cook said.

When pushed about returns specifically, Cook reiterated what CEO Steve Jobs said at Apple’s press conference on Friday. That is, returns of the iPhone 4 are less than they were for the iPhone 3GS. “For this specific issue, it’s extremely small,” he continued.

Someone else asked if Cook would respond to the thought that Apple purposefully creates a shortage of their products to build buzz. “We do not purposefully create a shortage for buzz. I’m not sure where that comes from,” Cook said. “Demand for iPhone 4 is absolutely stunning.

Source - TechCrunch

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HTC DROID Incredible to be updated to Froyo end of July, early August

We just received a juicy tip about the HTC DROID Incredible software update schedule that we’d like to share. One of our strategically placed Ninjas was kind enough to pass along an email from HTC that read as follows:

I wanted to pass along that the upcoming Incredible MR will also include Froyo (originally it was going to be two separate MRs).

We are targeting the end of the month/first part of August. As a reminder, below are the highlights:

• Froyo
• 802.11 n
• 3G Mobile Hot Spot
• HTC Widget: Email
• HTC Widget: News
• EAS Updates
• 720p Video Recording
• Amazon MP3
• Skype
• My Verizon

Obviously, the news here is that the Incredible update that began rolling out this weekend will — in all likelihood — be halted, and a sexier, Froyo-inclusive update will be pushed out in the coming weeks. The update will also include 802.11n Wi-Fi support, 3G Mobile Hot Spot, 720p video recording, and more. Not bad news for Incredible owners. What do you think? Is Android 2.2 worth an extra few weeks of waiting?

Source - Boy Genius Report

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Nokia Conducting Search for New CEO

Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. has launched a search for a new chief executive, people familiar with the situation said Monday.

The move comes as the current chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, struggles to find traction for the company in the market for high-end smartphones.

While Nokia continues to sell more cellphones than any other manufacturer, it has failed to keep up with advances by such rivals as Apple Inc. and makers of smartphones running Google Inc. operating software.

The Espoo, Finland, company's failure to get back in the race has taken a toll. Its stock rose eight cents to $8.82 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange trading Monday but is off nearly 42% since April 19.

Laurie Armstrong, a U.S.-based spokeswoman for Nokia, said Monday the company wouldn't comment on speculation. Efforts to reach spokesmen in Finland were unsuccessful.

"They are serious about making a change,'' one person familiar with the matter said. Nokia board members are "supposed to make a decision by the end of the month,'' that person said.

The CEO of a major U.S. high-tech company recently spurned Nokia's approach after meeting with Chairman Jorma Ollila, because the candidate wasn't interested in moving to Finland, this person said. Nokia also has flown in at least one other U.S. based executive to interview for the CEO job, the person said.

Mr. Kallasvuo has held the CEO job since 2006, the year before Apple introduced the iPhone and roiled the market for mobile phones. The company has stumbled several times in its efforts to catch up.

In May, a month after Nokia posted weaker than expected earnings in the first quarter, the Finnish company reshuffled top management, replacing a key handset executive and creating a unit specially tasked with making smartphones. That same month, it said it would launch a new line of smartphones later in the year.

In mid-June, the company again lowered its profit outlook, citing among other factors "the competitive environment, particularly at the high-end of the market."

Analysts say Nokia needs to beef up its operating system software and cast of supporting applications developers to compete with the iPhone and Google's Android operating system.

The company had aimed to roll out a new version of its main Symbian operating system in the second quarter, but now isn't expected to release the software until later this summer. Meanwhile, it has decided to adopt a separate operating system, developed with Intel Corp. and called MeeGo, to power its high-end smartphones.

Worldwide, Nokia has a 40% market share of cell phones in use, with strong positions in Europe and developing countries like India. However, most of the phones Nokia sells in those markets are lower-priced models, limiting its profit margins.

In the third quarter last year, Apple overtook Nokia as the world's most profitable phone maker, booking $1.6 billion in profit on the iPhone in the quarter compared to Nokia's $1.1 billion, according to Strategy Analytics. Nokia made 108.5 million phones in that quarter, while Apple sold 7.4 million.
Source - Wall Street Journal

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Nokia Siemens buys Motorola wireless network unit for $1.2B

Motorola has found a buyer for its wireless network equipment unit: Nokia Siemens Networks will pay US$1.2 billion for most of that business, the companies announced Monday.

The acquisition will bring Nokia Siemens around 50 new customers. The two wireless infrastructure vendors have few customers in common, although those they do are large ones such as China Mobile, Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Clearwire.

Motorola is hanging on to its wireless patent portfolio and to its iDEN trunked wireless system, used by U.S. operator Sprint Nextel, among others.

However, Nokia Siemens will acquire manufacturing operations for all the major wireless systems, including GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access), WCDMA (Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access), WiMax and LTE (Long-Term Evolution).

Motorola was a rarity in the mobile phone business, producing both handsets and network infrastructure. Most of the other big players have already split their operations. Ericsson retained its network business but formed a joint venture with Sony to make phones; Alcatel sold its handset manufacturing operations (although it still sells those handsets under its own brand in France), and Siemens got out of both businesses, selling its mobile phone subsidiary and pooling its infrastructure business with Nokia to form Nokia Siemens Networks, the company buying Motorola's infrastructure activities.

Around 7,500 Motorola employees will join Nokia Siemens Networks when the deal closes, the companies said. They expect this to happen by year-end, if they get the necessary regulatory approvals.

Motorola isn't done with its break-up yet. As a first step to a sell-off, it has created a subsidiary called Motorola Mobility to handle its mobile phone unit and home networking business, which makes set-top boxes.

Source - BusinessWeek

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Apple Is Not Expected to Recall Troubled iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO — As Apple prepared to address the mounting controversy surrounding the antenna of the iPhone 4, one thing appeared clear: the company does not plan to recall the popular device.

A person with direct knowledge of Apple’s plans said it would not announce a recall at a press conference scheduled for Friday at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. The person was not authorized to speak for Apple and asked to remain anonymous.

The iPhone 4’s antenna is built into a steel bracket that surrounds the device. Soon after the phone went on sale, buyers complained that holding it a certain way caused reception problems. On Thursday, Apple denied a report in Bloomberg BusinessWeek that a senior Apple engineer and antenna expert had warned Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive, and other senior managers about problems with the antenna design last year. It did not comment further on the controversy.

One person with direct knowledge of the phone’s design said Thursday that the iPhone 4 exposed a longstanding weakness in the basic communications software inside Apple’s phones and that the reception problems were not caused by an isolated hardware flaw.

Instead, the problems emerged in the complex interaction between specialized communications software and the antenna, said the person, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

The person said the problems were longstanding but had been exposed by the design of the iPhone 4. All cellphones can be affected by the way a hand grips the phone, but well-designed communications software compensates for a variety of external factors and prevents calls from dropping, the person said.

Mr. Jobs did not learn about the software problem until after the iPhone 4 shipped last month, the person said.

The glitch could presumably be fixed with a software update, and it appears to be unrelated to one that affected the display of the phone’s signal strength.

Two weeks ago, Apple said that while looking into customer complaints about reception, it had discovered that a longstanding software bug was causing the iPhone 4 and its predecessors to display signal strength incorrectly. It promised a fix, which it released Thursday. But Apple continued to say that the iPhone 4 had better wireless performance than any previous iPhone.

Apple’s headaches mounted on Monday after Consumer Reports called into question the veracity of Apple’s response. The magazine said its testing had led it to conclude that the iPhone 4 suffered from a hardware design flaw. Consumer Reports said it could not recommend the device to its readers until Apple fixed the problem. In a seeming contradiction, Consumer Reports also said that despite the flaw, the iPhone 4 was the best smartphone it had tested.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, wrote an open letter to Mr. Jobs on Thursday demanding that Apple give customers a “permanent fix” to the problem at no cost.

Source - The New York Times

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HTC, Samsung Refute Apple’s Claims

By Owen Fletcher

Asian handset makers HTC and Samsung Electronics on Monday cast the latest rebukes to the assertion by Apple that the iPhone 4’s reception problems are shared by other smartphones, something the company showed in a video as it came under fire for the iPhone 4’s controversial wraparound antenna design.

“Apple should face its own problems,” HTC Chief Financial Officer Hui-Meng Cheng said Monday. ”The reception problems are certainly not common among smartphones…they (Apple) apparently didn’t give operators enough time to test the phone.”

Cheng added that Apple blaming other competitors for its own problems “is not acceptable.”

The sharp comments from Taiwan-based HTC come as the company is embroiled in a legal fight with Apple over smartphone technology patents. Apple this year has launched lawsuits against HTC over its alleged violation of more than a dozen Apple patents, including a patent for “slide to unlock” start-screen technology. HTC has struck back with a complaint filed to the U.S. International Trade Commission alleging that Apple violated five HTC patents, including patents related to power consumption in smartphones and how cellphones dial contacts from an address book.

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, the world’s second-largest handset vendor by revenue behind Nokia responded on Monday to the antenna issue as well – but in softer tones, perhaps because Apple is major client. Samsung makes NAND flash memory chips that go into products like the iPod and the iPad.

“Based on years of experience of designing high quality phones, Samsung mobile phones employ an internal antenna design technology that optimizes reception quality for any type of hand-grip use,” Samsung said in a statement. It also said it will remain committed to designing smart phones that meet strict design and quality standards. A Samsung spokesman said separately the company “hasn’t received significant customer feedbacks on any signal reduction issue for the Omnia II” smartphone which was featured in Apple’s video.

At a new conference Friday, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs admitted the iPhone 4, which launched in June, loses reception when touched in the lower left corner and drops slightly more calls than its predecessor. He said Apple will offer free cases to iPhone 4 owners to alleviate the problem.

At the news conference, Apple showed videos of tests it conducted that indicated similar signal drops for phones from HTC, Samsung and BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion.

Source - Wall Street Journal

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