Apple waiting on 4G?

Though there is apparently an iPhone heading to Verizon, and in all likelihood, a new model iPhone next summer, neither model will run on any wireless carriers' 4G networks, according to a report in TechCrunch today.
The post cites "sources" that say that the iPhone Apple is making with CDMA chips won't support the Long Term Evolution, or LTE 4G standard, and neither will the iPhone 5 -- or whatever Apple calls the next-generation device it builds. CDMA is the the wireless technology used by Verizon and Sprint.
That's because, according to the report, Apple doesn't want to have to work with the first round of LTE chips and is concerned that they'll be "bulky" and "power hungry."
Instead, Apple will reportedly make an iPhone that has a combination of GSM and CDMA chips next summer, which will allow one phone to operate on all carriers.
It's not out of character for Apple to skip brand new technologies in its products. The company did the same thing with its first iPhone in 2007, opting to introduce the phone on AT&T's 2G Edge network and not 3G, even though it was available in dozens of markets across the U.S. at the time.

4G networks are becoming available in many markets, but the roll out won't be near completion until near the end of 2011. At that point, 4G will be standard and Apple probably won't need much convincing to offer an compatible iPhone by 2012.

Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 7 devices

Microsoft on Monday unveiled its plan to battle the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smartphones with its new Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system.

At a press event in New York, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that Windows Phone 7 smartphones would be available in the United States on AT&T's (T, Fortune 500) network.

"When Microsoft first showed us Windows Phone 7, we knew it was going to be a winner," AT&T CEO Mobility and Consumer Markets Ralph de la Vega said at the event. "It was different than anything we've seen."

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) also announced partnerships with Samsung, LG and HTC, which will make devices to run the new smartphone software.

Samsung's phone, called the Focus, will be available on November 8, and the Surround from HTC and Quantum from LG would be in stores in time for the holidays, Microsoft said. All three phones will cost $199.99.
The Windows Phone 7 lineup will eventually include nine phone models available in 30 countries, Ballmer said.
"It's a different kind of phone," he said. "It gets you in, gets you out, and back to life as fast as humanly possible."
Instead of the typical smartphone user interface -- a series of small icons to launch applications -- Windows Phone 7 uses large, dynamic tiles that Microsoft hopes will be both intuitive to use and easy to navigate.

Social networking is baked in, with a "people hub" that tracks updates across a user's contact list. A camera button wakes the phone into shooting mode quickly, so that it is able to almost instantly begin snapping photos. Games are a focus: Xbox Live players can take their accounts on the go, and Electronic Arts is a launch partner, bringing the Sims game to the phones.
Windows Phone 7 integrates deeply with other Microsoft products. Notes taken on phone with OneNote automatically sync to the cloud with Office Live. Along with top-notch support for Microsoft Outlook and Exchange -- which should make corporate IT departments very happy -- the phones offer a spell check that automatically underlines misspelled words with the red squiggly line familiar to Word users.
But one feature was noticeably missing at launch: copy/paste. Microsoft didn't put that in the original code because it didn't think it would be needed, thanks to auto-links between applications, a company executive said. But developers demanded it, and Microsoft plans to add it in an update in early 2011.

Battling rivals: Microsoft has struggled to sell smartphones since Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone and Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android came storming onto the scene in the past few years. Windows Mobile commands less than 11% of the U.S. smartphone market, down from nearly 20% at the same time last year, according to comScore.

Over the past several years, many consumers thought that Windows Mobile began to feel outdated, both in the software itself and the phones that ran it, compared to its suddenly more successful rivals.
As a result, Microsoft opted to scrap its mobile operating system entirely, giving it a new name, a unique look and some compelling features that differentiate it from the competition.

The phone is also important for AT&T, which in all likelihood will be ending its exclusivity agreement with Apple for the iPhone in January.

AT&T is looking to bolster its lineup by the end of the year, and is very committed to throwing a tremendous amount of marketing muscle behind the Windows phones, according to Lloyd Walmsley, senior analyst at Primary Global Research. That should be good news for Microsoft, especially as consumers start to plan holiday gift purchases.

But Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up against its rivals. Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry now has more than triple the market share of Microsoft, and the iPhone and Android are both twice as big.

"Microsoft is way behind, and knocking Android and the iPhone out of the top spots will be almost impossible," Walmsley said. "I think it's even going to struggle to be a No. 3, but you can never count them out."

To succeed, Microsoft will have to convince potential customers that its unique offerings are compelling enough to pass up an iPhone, an Android phone or even a BlackBerry. 

Facebook unveils new Groups tool



PALO ALTO, Calif. (CNNMoney.com) -- Facebook unveiled three new features on Wednesday to give users better tools for communicating with sheltered groups and increased control over the information that they share on the social network.
"Until today, we've made it pretty easy to share with everyone on the site publicly," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO. "But for a lot of people, just your friends isn't actually private."


One new feature, called Groups, allows users to target their updates to specific sets of friends, without posting the information to everyone in their network.
Facebook created what it called "a social solution" to the problem. Users can create groups on the fly, similarly to how they tag photos on Facebook, and other group members can add additional friends.
"Sometimes you don't want to post something to all of your friends, not because you don't want them to know, but because you don't want to annoy them," Zuckerberg at a press gathering at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. "The naive solution is to do something like friend lists. Almost no one wants to make lists."
Users can manually create friends' list subsets on Facebook today, but Zuckerberg said that fewer than 5% of the site's users have done that.
Instead, Facebook's new Groups approach will mimic its photo system.
"The majority of Facebook users do not upload photos -- but 95% have a photo of them that they've let users tag," Zuckerberg said.
Another new Facebook application, called "Download Your Information," allows Facebook's 500 million users to export all of the personal information that they upload to Facebook to a file on their computer. The app lets Facebook users port their information to another social network or simply browse everything that has been uploaded to their online profiles, including photos, status updates and wall posts.
"Philosophically, that's a core thing that people want from Facebook," Zuckerberg said. "People want to be able to easily take their information to another service and do that in safe way."
Facebook also introduced "Dashboard," which gives users the ability to see all of the apps that they use on one page. Dashboard can help users to monitor and manage all of their Facebook tools, including adjusting the privacy settings and deleting unwanted apps.
Both new features are very similar to privacy functions that Google added in 2009.
The new features will begin rolling out Wednesday, and Zuckerberg said more product updates will be released soon. Facebook employees have been in "lockdown mode" for the last two months, cranking out a blizzard of across-the-board enhancements.

"We just wanted to double down," Zuckerberg said. "We had a really productive summer improving the quality of a lot of things we've been working on."