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Talk about a sweet sounding and feeling headset!  

Ultimate Ears’ Super.Fi 4vi is designed for the iPhone and features voice integration with in-line microphone and control button.

(But it still worked great on other phones — like the BlackBerry Curve.)

The Super.fi 4vi incorporates the same speaker technology and sound signatures used in their custom personal monitors, which are used by some of the music industry’s top artists.  The phones deliver detailed bass with crisp and clean mids and highs. In addition, the noise isolating design reduces ambient interference and enhances sound quality.

The ultra compact and lightweight housing gives a very comfortable fit, while an inline control button allows you to answer and end phone calls and control music and video playback functions.

Oh, and did I mention you hardly know you have them on?

Price: $149.99

www.ultimateears.com

Tags: blackberry curve, iphone, super.fi 4vi, ultimate ears

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Let the holiday season smart phone wars begin!!!

Research In Motion (RIM) has introduced its BlackBerry Storm – with its new tactile touch-screen — that will be exclusively available on Verizon Wireless in a couple of weeks.

Both RIM and Verizon Wireless are expecting the Storm to seriously challenge Apple’s 3G iPhone as the hottest gadget under this year’s Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush.

With a look similar to Apple’s iPhone, the Storm comes with a 3.2-inch screen, preloaded with Facebook, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. The gadget features built-in GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera, video recording capability, a media player and a removable battery.

Additional applications will be available through a BlackBerry app store. (No surprise there! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 

The device is expected to sell for approximately the same price as an iPhone. 

The Storm was introduced in London, where Vodafone, a joint venture partner in Verizon Wireless, said it will exclusively offer the Storm in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand later this fall.

See more images of the Storm from eWeek here.

Tags: apple, blackberry storm, iphone 3g, microsoft, research in motion, rim, verizon wireless, vodafone

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Truphone today announced Geraldine Wilson as its new chief executive officer. Geraldine was the former Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo!’s European mobile division. Always nice to see a female CEO being appointed… to you know, “break the good ole boy network.” Yeah, I know, that phrase has been done to death lately by Sarah Palin.

truphone is a very cool VoIP app that works on many mobile phones, including the iPhone. In fact, they were one of the first to offer a VoIP app for the iPhone. Geraldine Wilson said: “Truphone has clearly established itself as a pioneer of next generation mobile telephony with ground breaking applications such as Truphone for the iPhone. But every successful disruptive technology must eventually become the norm in order to truly succeed, so the mass market is where the future must lie for Truphone.”

Previous CEO James Tagg, who originally invented and developed the Truphone service with CTO and co-founder Alistair Campbell, moves to the role of Chief Architect.

Tags: Geraldine Wilson, mobile phone, Sarah Palin, truphone, voip

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Original post by nafiz

Apple received a bit of a blow recently from a rather unlikely source. Co-founder Steve Wozniak, in an interview with the Telegraph, commented on a range of topics from how he started out to the state of the industry at present, but the highlights must surely be his comments regarding Apple’s most popular products. Reacting to the current economic crisis and the recent 20pc drop in Apple’s shares he stated that predictions of consumer spending slowdown on technology were correct. “It is time for the whole computer industry to maybe have a bit of a slowdown. For twenty years we have been in this replacement and upgrade market. It is very easy to postpone that when there are financial irregularities.” Fair enough, but what’s most surprising is that he went on to predict the death of Apple’s most popular product, the iPod. “The iPod has sort of lived a long life at number one. If you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, they kind of die out after a while.” He also had some negative things to say about the iPhone 3G, comparing Apple’s closed operating system to the flexibility of Google’s open-source alternative, though was hesitant to predict what devices may appear in the future. It’s highly doubtful that the iPhone will be as successful as the iPod in the mobile market, but while the latter has had more than it’s fair share of time at the top of the pile it’s difficult to think of something coming along that’ll have more appeal to its armies of dedicated fans. You can read the full interview from the link below. - Paul Lester [Telegraph] Apple iPod iPhone

Original post by nafiz

If you’ve ever been frustrated by Apple’s stubborn reluctance to let you replace the batteries in its products then you’ll be pleased to hear of a new European directive that could force its hand. The ‘New Batteries Directive’ says that electrical equipment must be designed to allow batteries to be easily removed so they can be disposed of for environmental reasons, so if passed it doesn’t look like the company will have a choice.Aside from ‘design constraints’ *choke* there doesn’t seem any reason why Apple prevents you from doing this other than the fact that in a few years when a device becomes all but unusable you’ll be forced to shell out for a new one. If strict enough this would mean Apple would have to create different designs for Europe. This seems unlikely and we can hear its legal team tapping away to try and find a loophole right now. The company does currently offer a recycling service for its products but the new directives seem to indicate that this wouldn’t be enough. - Paul Lester [AppleInsider] Apple iPod battery

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Cellphones

No need to defog your spectacles, what you just read there in the headline is the truth. Astoundingly enough, Motorola’s nearly archaic (in cellphone years, anyway) RAZR V3 is still the top-selling handset in the United States. Of course, it helps that it’s highly subsidized on practically every carrier from coast to coast, but we’re still a little stunned that it’s selling this well nearly 2.5 years after Moto moved its 50 millionth unit. The rest of the top five isn’t nearly as shocking, with Apple’s iPhone snagging the silver, RIM’s BlackBerry Curve grabbing the bronze, LG’s Chocolate at number four and the BlackBerry Pearl at five. With the original RAZR still selling so well, one would think Motorola could just tweak it slightly and issue a second iteration for even more windfall profits. Er, wait.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Wireless

Fresh off an extensive corporate decaffeination downsizing and a scaling back of its foray into music sales, it’s a fair question to ask: just how ironclad is Starbucks’ commitment to rolling out iTunes WiFi Music Store integration across its entire chain? We just happened to notice that the Starbucks page on Apple’s site is now stone-cold gone, redirecting to the standard iTunes 8 stuff. You might say “no big deal, Apple’s just playing down an agreement that’s now been in place for a full year,” but there’s some other weirdness, too — the company’s iTunes WiFi Music Store at Starbucks FAQ, for example, still references the dead link. The partnership was kinda ill-conceived to begin with; getting access to the store meant hooking up to AT&T WiFi, which you wouldn’t normally have configured unless you actually had an AT&T WiFi account. We haven’t heard any official word here that the deal is in danger, but really, would anyone be welling up if it fell apart?

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Vodafone has officially announced the Blackberry Storm for the UK and will be rolling it out next month. In the above video, Vodafone’s chief marketing manager, Frank H. Rovekamp, takes you through the key features. We had a crappy internal video from the US a few weeks back but this is a bit better and there’s even the official Vodafone ad video after the jump. The Storm is a bit of a chunky monkey but then this is a revamped business device that’s had a consumer-friendly overhaul. it boasts the first-ever ‘clickable’ touch screen, which happens to be a yummy 3.25in and has a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels. The accelerometer switches the display from portrait to landscape as you turn the phone and the keyboard changes accordingly, so that those of you with bigger digits will find typing a whole lot easier. There’s a 3.2MP camera, with video capture, and music playback of audio files downloaded from your PC or off the Net. There’s no prices yet but this looks like the Blackberry you’ll want to squeeze through on expenses.-Martin Lynch . phone blackberry mobile phone

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Cellphones

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Blackberry_Storm_Runs_iPhone_OS’; We can’t put our finger on it, but there’s something vaguely familiar about this new Storm 9500.

In case you’re reading this after these images get taken down — which they inevitably will be — this was the official marketing material posted tonight by RIM’s Storm launch partner, Vodafone.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Vodafone’s BlackBerry Storm art department all soon to be fired

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Cellphones

It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve finally found a KIRF suitable to become the one and only successor to our very first “Keepin’ it real… WTF?!” This here iPhone — which is little more than a familiar chassis with a lead weight and a small amount of internal hardware — is reportedly used by scammers in Russia in order to barter for train tickets, grub, etc. In essence, the phone has just enough electronics within it to give the appearance of a “boot up” sequence, complete with the Apple logo; the scammer in possession of it then explains that the battery is simply drained, but that it will work perfectly fine once charged. After any given sucker hands over something quite valuable in exchange for this heap, he / she proceeds to crush it into a million pieces while cursing the unknown name of whoever fooled them in the first place. Moral of the story? Stay sharp, street traders.

[Thanks, Abhijit]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Bringing another piece of the mobile future to today, Social Line Connect is a simple iPhone game with a cross-platform backbone.

The free app, which looks similar to Connect Four, was added to the App Store over the weekend.

The real point of the no-frills game is playing it with friends — even if they don’t own an iPhone. To that end, it’s a also proof-of-concept title for SocialDeck, a new middleware startup that’s created a server architecture for people to play games across several platforms.

Based on the premise that “social interaction is much more important than the actual game play,” SocialDeck’s games can be played between people using an iPhone and on the web via Facebook, with a Blackberry version said to be on the way as well.

More at GigaOM.

Tags: app store, blackberry, connect four, facebook, gigaom, iphone, social line connect, socialdeck

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Laptops

The European Union already initiated a Battery Directive in 2006 that aimed to make it easier to dispose of and recycle old batteries, but it looks like it’s now taking things one big step further with its “New Battery Directive,” which proposes that batteries in all electronic devices should be able to be “readily removed” for replacement or disposal. New Electronics’ Gary Nevison further adds that “the requirement is clearly intended to ensure that users can remove batteries by opening a cover by hand or after removal of one or two screws,” which would obviously pose a bit of a problem for the iPhone, not to mention every iPod and even a few non-Apple devices. Then again, this wouldn’t be the first time that Apple has tangled with the EU, and we have a sneaking suspicion that it won’t be the last.

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Original post by Donald Melanson

It looks like the iPhone could be a whole more popular than we already think it is, with eagle-eyed trackers suggesting that the trendy phone has topped the 10 million mark for 2008 a full 3 months earlier than predicted. Writers for Bullish Cross based their claim on an analysis of IMEI numbers -the unique 15-digit code assigned to each individual iPhone found on the back of the box. The IMEI number not only identifies individual phones but also the batch they came from and can indicate just how fast units are shipping. The data collected from Mac Observer’s Apple Finance Board and other sources indicate that the Apple iPhone in Q4 [calendar Q3] managed to shift over 7 million units, not the predicted 4 million units. This means Apple has topped its stated goal of selling 10 million in 2008 very early indeed. The writer’s say: “The consensus estimates for iPhone sales figures for Apple’s Q4 (calendar Q3) were calling for approximately 4 million units. It now appears that Apple has sold at least 7 to 7.5 million iPhones in Q4–that’s nearly 80% above consensus. Apple has far surpassed even Gene Munster’s bullish estimates of 5 million iPhone sales in Q4 according to the data.” Of course, Apple’s saying nothing yet. At least until Steve Jobs recovers from his recent fake heart attack.-Martin Lynch [Bullish Cross] iphone apple

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Cellphones

Just when you think you’ve escaped the darkened woods of firmware 2.0.2 and previous ilk, along comes 2.1, wrapped in faster-loading-contacts-finery to convince you all is well in the iPhone world. That isn’t entirely the case, it seems, if you’re user of POP or IMAP mail accounts which are set to fetch messages. Apparently, a maddening bug exists in the new software which — in the interest of battery power conservation, we assume — stops the device from pulling down new emails while sleeping… unless the phone happens to be plugged in and charging. An ever-growing thread on Apple’s support forums has been barraged with reports of the problem, and editors here at Engadget have certainly felt the burn. So we’re putting the question to you, dear readers (and hoping the folks in Cupertino are paying attention). Are you noticing email issues with firmware 2.1? Let us know in the poll below!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

View Poll

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

fring for iPhone has arrived! I’m a huge fan of fring, which I like to call the Swiss Army knife of VoIP/IM communications since fring works with AOL/AIM, MSN

Messenger, Google Talk, Skype, Twitter, Yahoo! Messenger, and SIP registrars/IP-PBXs. I’ve used fring on my Windows Mobile 6.1 phone to connect to an Asterisk-based IP-PBX using SIP which enabled me to remotely make and receive calls. fring is a currently a free pre-release app free on iTunes.

VoIP using fring is of course restricted to WiFi connections - it won’t work over 3G, but still cool nonetheless. Further, according to the apps description in iTunes you can IM over 3G, GPRS, EDGE, or WiFi, so you can use fring as your centralized IM application on your iPhone.

Features:
• VoIP (Voice) Calls over WiFi
• Instant Messaging
• Integrated dynamic contact list 
with real-time contact availability
• SIP integration
• Multiple Connection types

Download fring for iPhone here.

Tags: fring, iPhone, voip

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz