Is this T-Mobile's Samsung Bigfoot with Android, AMOLED, and QWERTY?

So this really doesn't look anything like that Bigfoot we saw a little while ago, but we can sorta see the familial resemblance if we squint really (really, really) hard. According to Boy Genius Report, what we're looking at here is allegedly Samsung's Android-powered Bigfoot for T-Mobile, said to be attacking the high end of the carrier's smartphone line thanks to a 3-inch capacitive AMOLED display, full QWERTY, 3 megapixel camera, and naturally, HSDPA. If we had to guess, this is probably a newer version of the same product concept that we'd seen in that roadmap a few weeks back -- Sammy probably started with its Beat DJ (or an Ocean 2) and worked backwards from there to get to the retail version they wanted to launch. We're told it'll launch "like, really soon," so would-be G1 or myTouch 3G buyers might want to hold on for a hot second.

[via engadget]

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PhonePoint Pen application is a hand-talkers' dream come true

Know someone who talks with their hands so expressively that you have to step back or risk catching a wayward exclamation point in the face? The video after the break will make their day. Students at Duke University have come up with a way to use phone accelerometers to capture gestures with surprising precision, allowing them to pipe those motions through a character recognition algorithm and, hey presto, turn flapping hands into letters and numbers. The prototype app is called PhonePoint Pen, and while right now the process looks painfully slow, with large, precise motions required, with a few months or years of refinements you might just be able to jot down a quick text to a friend while running between terminals, all without putting down the double latte that just cost you $8 at the airport food court. The future, dear readers, it's closer than you think.

[via engadget]

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Matching IDs suggest fake matte iPhones may not have been so fake

You'd think -- starting from the moment you saw the glossy sheen of the iPhone 3G S to the waning seconds of this year's WWDC keynote when you realized that there would be no magical second model announced -- that the near-constant drone of matte iPhone rumors leading up to this week's festivities were all fake. But were they really? It's been astutely noted by @cabel (yes, we just threw out a Twitter handle there) that the matte black backing seen last month has totally matching information -- model number and FCC ID alike -- with the actual device. We suppose it could just be an unfinished component, but as Daring Fireball notes, this could mean that Apple toyed with a matte finish early in the 3G S' design but ultimately abandoned it -- or even more intriguingly, it could've been a unique one-off trap designed to identify leakers who'd otherwise tried to hide their identities. It sounds like a pretty far-fetched conspiracy theory at first, yes -- but we're aware of at least one wireless carrier that actively puts out bogus information to achieve the same effect, and you might remember that Microsoft was rumored to have done the same thing with prototype Zunes back in the day. Either way, it's a crying shame, because that glossless finish has left an indelible mark on our hearts that won't soon heal.

[via engadget]

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Jon Rubinstein takes over as Palm CEO

You sort of knew this was coming after he shepherded the Pre to launch, but Palm just announced that Jon Rubinstein is taking over as CEO, replacing Ed Colligan after sixteen years in the top spot. After a short break, Colligan will join the very vocal Roger McNamee at major Palm investor Elevation Partners, so he won't be totally out of the loop, but the shuffle is still somewhat unexpected -- and the Palm / Apple bloodlines just got even deeper with the Rubinstein, the ex-head of the iPod and Mac divisions, now totally in charge.
[via engadget]

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Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 shows up again, this time in silver

Reaction to the rumored X2 pictures leaked this far has been lukewarm at best, but hold up -- it's looking a whole lot different (and arguably better) in silver. We can certainly buy that this is dead-on real, since... well, it looks real, and also because the X1's also available in both shades. We're still not convinced it outshines its predecessor for sheer sex appeal, but an 8.1 megapixel camera upgrade is hard to argue with, isn't it? Anyhow, with this many units seemingly floating around in the wild, let's hope we're not too far off from an official announcement.

[via engadget]

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Video: CTD's MID concept fits comfortably in freakishly large pockets

Sure, this isn't the sexiest MID render we've ever seen, but it does make for a fun little video. Cambridge Technology Development, known around MIT and environs for fluidic device design, CFD analysis, and a number of other things we know less than nothing about, have designed a collapsible, pocketable PC that they call the Dragonfly. This bad boy can take the form of a flip phone, a straight-up netbook, or it can lay flat, in "table mode," ideal for pen and touch input. Of course, this isn't a real device -- and there's no telling when or if it'll become available. But when it does, how about floating us a review unit? Check 'er out yourself after the break.

[via engadget]

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iPhone 3G S processor specs: 600MHz CPU, 256MB of RAM

Apple's being pretty cagey with the hard specs of the iPhone 3G S, but apparently T-Mobile Netherlands didn't get the message -- it's just posted up a specs page listing 256MB of RAM and a 600MHz CPU. That's up from 128MB and 412MHz in the first-gen and the 3G, and it's basically exactly what was rumored. Of course, the 3G S also has that new PowerVR SGX graphics chip that supports OpenGL ES 2.0, so the total speed boost is probably more than just pure clock speed, but we'll find out for sure when we get our hands on one.

[via engadget]

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Find My iPhone is live, totally found our iPhone

We wouldn't really say we "have it together" when it comes to remembering where we put our keys / phone / small children, so Apple's announcement of the Find My iPhone service for MobileMe users came as quite a relief. The service just went live, and with a quick toggle of a preference pane in iPhone OS 3.0 the phone is fully prepared for all sorts of lost and found scenarios -- along with acting as an incredibly intuitive (if pricey) stalking mechanism. Find My iPhone works exactly as advertised, giving us a fairly good location estimate from within our lead-lined underground fortress, and sending annoying messages to the phone complete with sound, even when the handset is switched to silent, though unfortunately the sound is a sort of sonar ping that strikes us as incredibly difficult to locate, unless of course our phone is taken by whale. The only other problem is that both the location function and the message service took a couple minutes to track down our iPhone -- not a deal breaker, but we don't know what the hangup could be. After the device is pinged, a confirmation of the event was sent to our MobileMe email address. A live, enthralling video demonstration is after the break.

[via engadget]

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Nokia hopes to one-up Touchstone, harness wireless power for "ambient" phone charging

Like a page torn right out of the government's top secret files on Nikola Tesla, a Nokia research team is working on a wireless energy harvesting mechanism, which sucks up all that cancer-giving RF floating through the air and turns it into electrical current. Their goal is about to capture about 50 milliwatts of power for "ambient charging" -- which would at least be enough to top off the battery while the phone is off. Unfortunately, right now their current prototypes are only pulling down 3 to 5 milliwatts, and many in the industry are convinced it can't be done (don't worry, Nokia, that's just The Man, keeping you down). To be honest, we're not totally sure were comfortable with the thought that there's enough RF floating around to make this even theoretically possible, but as we slowly come to grips with our own mortality, we imagine we'd gladly pay an extra $70 or so for the privilege of never having to charge our phone again. Nokia itself isn't over promising: they plan on supplementing this juice with solar power, and thinks it'll be three or four years until it makes its way into a handset -- probably around the time your existing iPhone contract dries up.

[via engadget]

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Roger McNamee says Pre launch was a "dream come true," hints that all Palm devices will have physical keyboards

There's never a dull moment when Palm investor Roger McNamee sits down for an interview, and his latest chat with Fox Business is no exception -- in addition to saying that the Pre launch was a "dream come true," he more or less implied that all future Palm devices will have hardware keyboards: "Our goal is to address all of those people who say I cannot have a real life without a keyboard -- I can't live doing one thing at a time." Yeah, it's not much, but taken in context it seems like he's saying that keyboards and multitasking will be Palm's major differentiators against the iPhone. That's not to say he thinks the Pre is destined to kill Cupertino's baby -- in addition to calling Apple "the most successful company in the history of Silicon Valley," McNamee also reiterated Palm's characterization of the iPhone as primarily a consumer-centric media phone: "If what you care about most is listening to music or playing back videos, the iPhone is probably the right phone for you." That's a pretty slickly-delivered backhanded compliment, if you ask us -- although from El Rog we'd expect nothing less. Check the whole interview after the break -- it's a good one.

[via engadget]

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Apple launching free iDisk iPhone app for viewing and sending stored docs -- still no substitute for a file system

Buried under the considerable stack of WWDC newness is news that Apple is launching an iPhone iDisk application for MobileMe users alongside iPhone OS 3.0. It lets users browse through and view their remotely stored docs, but there doesn't seem to be an offline component to the app (at least none is mentioned in Apple's brief writeup) -- though a feature that lets you email a download link to an iDisk file is welcome. Naturally, there are plenty of apps that already access iDisk, WebDAV, Google Docs and other online storage systems, and offer added functionality like local caching to boot, but it's at least nice to have a bit of first party support when it comes to basic iDisk browsing for users who are already paying for the privilege -- we just hope it grows into so much more.

[via engadget]

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iPhone OS 3.0 gold release in pictures

It won't be available en masse until the 17th of the month, but the gold build of iPhone OS 3.0 is now available to developers -- a promising sign that apps taking advantage of a wide variety of 3.0's new features (push notifications, in-app payments, and the like) will be available by the time it's released to the general public. We've been toying around with the latest cut here and have noticed a few small changes from beta 5; nothing groundbreaking, but notable nonetheless. Most importantly, iTunes is now offering movie, TV and music video downloads directly from the phone, which has caused the bottom navigation bar to be rearranged a bit. We also noticed that the App Store's nav bar was rearranged a bit to accommodate a "More" button where you'll find Top 25 and Redeem links. The Store screen in Settings now shows a nicely-formatted account information screen -- nice, we suppose -- but unfortunately, MMS configurability is still missing, so it's unclear whether AT&T will need to push an update once it flips the switch. Dive into the gallery for a closer look.

[via engadget]

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Symbian looks to seduce iPhone devs with free Nokia 5800s, world destroying robo-duckie

Sure, we feign a lack of bias, but deep down in our hearts we only have one love: Symbian Foundation's robo-duckie mascot. Unfortunately for Symbian, it's going to take all the charm it can muster to win over the iPhone App Store's crop of cash-flush developers. Symbian was apparently at WWDC today, doing its best to woo, with all-day festivities involving coffee, food, a "hackathon," prizes, and free Nokia 5800 handsets for attendees. We're expecting Ovi Store to fill in with some solid €1.00 beer drinking simulators and Zippo lighter apps any second now.

[via engadget]

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Apple WWDC 2009: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Sure, Apple didn't really shock anyone with the announcement of the iPhone 3G S this morning at WWDC, but there was no shortage of news at the Moscone Center -- we also got new MacBooks, final Snow Leopard details, and a release date for iPhone OS 3.0. On the other hand, it wasn't all good news either: AT&T's iPhone upgrade pricing and service levels leave a lot to be desired, and Apple's unfortunate penchant for sealed-in batteries has finally hit the 15-inch MacBook Pro. Apple's posted its stream of the keynote if you want to relive things in real-time, but here's a quick rewind in case you missed anything:

The good

* Current iPhone owners will get iPhone OS 3.0 for free, although some features like video recording and voice control are limited to the iPhone 3G S. It's not perfect, but we don't really complain about free.
* Snow Leopard upgrades will cost just $29, instead of the usual $129.
* The original 8GB iPhone 3G is now only $99 for new AT&T subscribers. That's definitely going to make some waves in the smartphone market.
* We'd have loved to see some external design improvements and maybe some more surprising features that weren't rumored, but overall the iPhone 3G S is definitely in the "good" column -- it's a solid set of improvements to an already very good platform.
* MacBook Air and MacBook Pro (including the new 13-inch Pro) specs have increased while prices have come down, and glory be, FireWire is back on everything but the Air.

The bad

* As usual, iPod touch owners are going to get dinged $9.95 for the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade. Hey Apple -- maybe switch these guys over to subscription accounting as well?
* Let's face it, "iPhone 3G S" is a pretty clunky name.
* Sure, it's nice that the MacBook Pros now have an SD card slot, but losing ExpressCard hurts. And why not a multicard reader? Pro DSLRs still use CF.

The ugly

* Sure, new customers and qualified upgraders are getting some sweet pricing on iPhone hardware, but AT&T's basically flipping existing customers the bird -- they'll have to pay anywhere from $399 to a whopping $699 to get an iPhone 3G S. You'd think they'd have looked at how many people went from a first-gen iPhone to a 3G and realized those same people would want a 3G S, but apparently not.
* On top of that insult, AT&T isn't supporting all of iPhone OS 3.0's features out the gate: MMS is coming "later this summer," and tethering has been promised but there's no timeline and no pricing information. Thanks, AT&T.
* Sure, it's grand that the 15-inch MacBook Pro's battery now lasts for up to seven hours on a charge and won't lose capacity for five years, but a non-swappable battery on a workhorse professional machine just doesn't cut it for us.

So all in all we'd say that the good outweighs the bad, although AT&T really disappointed here. Of course, that's just scratching the surface -- check out the rest of our coverage after the break and let us know what you think!
[via engadget]

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Nokia N97 available tomorrow at US flagship stores

Sorry, preorderers -- you've once again gotten gamed by the quick-draw Nokia flagship stores in New York and Chicago who've received stock of the black version of the N97 today. You can't buy the units just yet, but they'll be available tomorrow morning -- the only catch is that there are established waitlists at both locations, so you might have to wait for those folks to burn through stock before you get your own. It'll run $699.99, so, you know... do what you've gotta do tonight to make sure those funds are available by sun-up tomorrow.

[via engadget]

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Pre sets first day and first weekend device sales records for Sprint, almost ruins a wedding

As of late Sunday, the new Palm Pre became the fastest starter ever for Sprint, setting records both for best first day sales and best first weekend sales, according to a Sprint press release. Unfortunately, Sprint doesn't mention a specific number of devices sold (the best estimate so far is around 50,000), or what device the Pre knocked off the top spot -- we'd say the Instinct, if we had to guess. The rest of the effusive PR is spent on extensive self praise, with CEO Dan Hesse calling the launch "the coming out party for the new Sprint." In between plugs for the Ready Now experience, however, unfolds the bizarre story of a groom-to-be standing in line 15 minutes before his wedding. We don't want to spoil the ending, but let's just say it's got "feel good romcom of the summer" written all over it.

[via engadget]

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Video: iPhone 3G S gets a guided tour

Sure, you think you've learned all there is to know about Apple's new iPhone 3G S, but have you had its every feature explained and demonstrated for you by an unrealistically calm, factory-fresh ApplePerson over the course of 14 minutes in one of the company's trademark guided tours? Trust us, it's like taking a bubble bath in technology. Hit the read link for video.

[via engadget]

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AT&T: we'll offer tethering on the iPhone

It's been known since day one that iPhone OS 3.0 would support data tethering, and Apple took the opportunity at WWDC today to drive the point home by saying that it'd be launching the service with 22 carrier partners in 44 countries. Of course, it's easy to have assumed that AT&T wouldn't be one of those partners, but we've been told today by a company spokesman that it will be offering tethering on the device -- it just doesn't have any announcements to make at this time. Whether that means availability will be delayed (perhaps until the 7.2Mbps upgrade is built out) or they're just trying to hammer out pricing, we don't know, but it's a promising sign.

[via engadget]

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Poll: iPhone 3G S or the Pre?

Alright folks, we know you were all waiting to see Apple's hand before you made the big Pre / iPhone decision, and now you know -- so what's it going to be? Hardware keyboard and true multitasking or video recording and voice control? Sprint or AT&T? The Clash or The Sex Pistols? Let us know!

[via engadget]

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iPhone 3G vs. iPhone 3G S: the tale of the tape

The very first thing we want to know about this newfangled iPhone 3G S is exactly what we're getting for our extra Benjamin (or two, depending on the model you spring for). We don't have all the answers just yet -- Apple's being coy about processor specs on the 3G S, for example -- but here's what we do know so far.

Basics
	iPhone 3G	iPhone 3G S
Price	$99 8GB ($299 for ineligible upgraders)	$199 16GB, $299 32GB ($399 and $499 for ineligible upgraders)
Processor	412MHz ARM 11	Unknown, "on average up to twice as fast"
Graphics capability	OpenGL ES 2.0	OpenGL ES 2.0
Camera	2.0 megapixel fixed focus	3.0 megapixel autofocus with macro mode and auto white balance
Video recording	None	30fps VGA with on-device editing capability
Voice control	None	Dialing, music control
Nike+ support	No	Yes
Wireless technologies	3.6Mbps HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR	7.2Mbps HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Water- and oil-resistant finish	No	Yes
Integrated magnetic compass	No	Yes
Included headphones	Standard	Inline remote for music control
Battery life	Up to 5 hours talk time / data on 3G, 10 hours on 2G Up to 6 hours data on WiFi Up to 24 hours audio Up to 7 hours video	Up to 5 hours talk time / data on 3G, 12 hours on 2G Up to 9 hours data on WiFi Up to 30 hours audio Up to 10 hours video
Dimensions	115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3mm	115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3mm
Weight	133 grams / 4.69 oz.	135 grams / 4.76 oz.

[via engadget]

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