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Motorola has unveiled its first phone using Google’s Android system, banking on it to power features that will attract consumers looking to use their phones to connect with friends, family and colleagues.

The Cliq comes with a touch screen and a standard, “Qwerty” keyboard that slides out from its side. Software on it will let users aggregate contact information from various social networks and e-mail accounts. Small application “widgets” will show such information as your friends’ Facebook status updates on the home screen.

The Cliq, which Motorola unveiled Thursday during a GigaOM mobile internet conference in San Francisco. Pricing information has not yet been released.

The Cliq and other Android-based handsets that Motorola plans to release could be the key to luring consumers back to its handsets. The Schaumburg, Ill.-based company hasn’t produced a hit since the wildly popular Razr phone in 2005.

Sanjay Jha, Motorola’s co-CEO and head of mobile devices, said Google’s free Android software is a modern, well-architected operating system that allows people do many different things with their handsets.

It also allows handset makers like Motorola to customize their handsets and offer distinctive features – something that will be key as the company tries to convince cell phone shoppers that the Cliq is more worthy of their dollars than Apple’s iPhone and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices.

Motorola plans to unveil a second handset in the coming weeks that will also be available for the holidays.

Samsung Electronics has said it is making an Android phone as well.

Source: Reuters

Sprint Nextel Corp said on Tuesday it would buy out Virgin Mobile USA Inc in a deal that values the small wireless carrier at $483 million and pushes Sprint deeper into the low-end prepaid mobile market.

Sprint, which already owns 13.1 percent of Virgin Mobile, will pay a mix of shares and cash to buy the rest of the company from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, South Korea’s SK Telecom and public shareholders.

The No. 3 U.S. mobile service also plans to retire all of Virgin Mobile USA’s debt, estimated to be no more than $205 million by September 30.

Virgin Mobile USA shares jumped 23 percent or $1 to $5.21, close to the $5.50 per share that Sprint is paying in shares to public shareholders.

The price is a 31 percent premium over Virgin Mobile’s closing price of $4.21 on Monday, though Sprint said the share swap ratio was subject to a collar of 1.0630 to 1.3668 Sprint shares per Virgin share.

While Sprint already rents space on its network to Virgin Mobile, some analysts were puzzled by its decision to buy the small carrier. Sprint already has its own prepaid unit, Boost, which offers consumers unlimited calls for a set monthly fee.

The deal will make Sprint more exposed to the toughest part of the prepaid market, in which customers pay in advance for calls on a per minute basis.

Analysts said the deal could be an indication that Sprint was having a difficult time turning around its main postpaid business, which serves high-value customers who pay monthly bills. Sprint is set to report quarterly results on Wednesday.

“I think Sprint is looking to delve deeper into prepaid possibly because the postpaid segment remains extremely challenged,” said Soleil Nelson Alpha Research analyst Michael Nelson. “It could be indicative of how tough things are in the postpaid side.”

Boost, Leap Wireless and MetroPCS have seen strong growth in prepaid services that offer unlimited calls for a monthly fee.

Sprint, which has been struggling to stem customer defections from its own mobile service over the last few years, said the deal would increase its free cash flow but did not give a specific forecast for the impact of the transaction.

“Sprint will continue to be challenged, as Virgin Mobile has been in the last few quarters, to retain their pay-per-minute subscribers,” said Nelson.

Source: Reuters

T-Mobile USA will begin selling a new smartphone using Google Inc’s Android operating software in August, facing off against high-end devices such as Apple’s latest iPhone and the Palm Pre.

T-Mobile, an arm of Deutsche Telekom and the No. 4 U.S. mobile service, said the myTouch 3G phone is a slimmer and more advanced version of the G1, which was also made by Taiwan’s HTC Corp and based on Android technology.

The new phone will cost $199, the same as the 16-gigabyte model of Apple Inc’s iPhone 3GS and Palm Inc’s Pre after a rebate for a two-year service contract.

MyTouch’s advantage is that the phone can be personalized, such as with custom home screens and widgets, T-Mobile said. The Android platform can also learn user preferences and offer recommendations.

“The story is personalization,” said Andrew Sherrard, vice president of product innovation at T-Mobile. The iPhone had a “beautiful aesthetic, but you can’t change it,” he said.

Cupertino, California-based Apple introduced the iPhone two years ago, and it quickly became a consumer phenomenon and upped the game for other phone makers, including the more business-oriented BlackBerry from Research in Motion Ltd.

Apple’s latest iPhone, 3GS, hit stores last Friday with new features and faster speeds, intensifying competition in the high-end mobile device market. Apple and its U.S. carrier partner, AT&T Inc, also cut the price of an older iPhone model.

With more and more models on the market, there are questions what the market can support.

An outlook by RIM on Thursday that fell short of some investors’ expectations stoked concerns about consumer spending and fears that the smartphone market has become more cluttered with alternatives.

T-Mobile’s Sherrard acknowledged the economy has been weak, but said consumers will continue to seek feature-rich phones.

“We’re still living in a recessionary environment,” he said. “But people have hung onto their wireless devices. It’s become the way they communicate.”

The myTouch features a touch-screen display, and a 3.2-megapixel camera, a music player, and video capabilities to make it easier for users to share pictures and videos on sites like YouTube and Picasa.

The phone is also more lightweight in design compared to the G1, and will have longer battery life, T-Mobile said. It will come in white, black and wine red.

Customers already using T-Mobile can pre-order myTouch from July 8 onwards, and begin receiving the new gadget from July 29, the company said, adding that the price for upgraded users has not yet been finalized. T-Mobile expects more than half of the new phone’s buyers to be existing customers.

Source:  Reuters

As expected, Apple announced a third version of the iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 3G S (the S stands for speed) today at the keynote for WWDC 2009. This new version has several updates over the iPhone 3G model, and here they are:

- As the name implies, the new iPhone 3G S is supposed to be faster. Apple boasts that you can load Web pages and launch apps twice as fast as the previous model. It also promises improved 3D graphics for games.

- A 3-megapixel camera with autofocus. You can also focus by tapping on the screen. It will also have settings for white balance, exposure, low-light sensitivity, and a macro mode for close-up photos.

-  A camcorder. You can shoot VGA-quality video in 30 frames per second, and after you’re done, you can trim the video by adjusting the start and end points. You can then send the video via MMS (included in iPhone OS 3.0) to a friend, to your MobileMe account, or even to YouTube, directly from the phone.

- Voice control, but not just for calls. Not only can you manage phone calls with your voice, you can use your voice to play music. You can ask the phone what song is playing, ask it to play a particular song from an artist or an album, and even to play songs that are similar to the currently playing track.

- A built-in digital compass. It automatically reorients the map to the direction you’re facing. It works in conjunction with Maps to give you street view as well.

- Voiceover, an accessibility setting on the new iPhone 3G S that acts as a gesture-based screen reader.

- Compatibility with Nike+ iPod, where it detects the Nike+ sensor in your shoe to track your runs.
- Improved battery life. Apple promises that the iPhone 3G S can hold up to 9 hours in Wi-Fi, 10 hours on video playback, 30 hours on audio playback, 12 hours talk time on 2G networks, and 5 hours talk time on 3G networks.

-  The 16GB model will be $199 with a new contract and the 32GB model will be $299 with a new contract. They will be available June 19, 2009.

Of course, this is in addition to the iPhone 3.0 features that were promised earlier this year, which include copy and paste, voice recording, Internet tethering, and stereo Bluetooth. Older iPhones will be able to get the iPhone 3.0 update for free. The iPhone OS 3.0 update will be available June 17, 2009.

Source: Apple