GWJamaica

Apple today filed a lawsuit against HTC for infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. The lawsuit was filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

Apple reinvented the mobile phone in 2007 with its revolutionary iPhone®, and did it again in 2008 with its pioneering App Store, which now offers more than 150,000 mobile applications in over 90 countries. Over 40 million iPhones have been sold worldwide.

[Press Release]

With all the hype and anticipation I thought the Google Nexus One sales would be off the charts but I guess the Sexy Nexy doesn’t have what it takes to win the smartphone popularity contest. Comparing the Nexus One sales statistics to the iPhone and the Droid you’ll notice that no one really wants to be trapped in Google’s ridiculous policies.

The relative sales results, shown on the chart above and using estimates by Flurry Analytics, aren’t pretty for Google. Granted, it’s not an entirely fair comparison. Droid and the iPhone were marketed within an inch of their lives, and had better carrier support than the Nexus One does on T-Mobile. But even taking that into consideration, 80,000 phones in a month? That’s borderline embarrassing.

If you think upgrading 3G speed was AT&T’s only plan for 2010 you have another thing coming. Announce today at a Press Conference in Las Vagas, Nevada, AT&T is launching five new Android-based devices in the first half of 2010, including devices from Motorola, Dell, and HTC.

The Motorola device is described as having a “unique form factor,” and running Blur, and Dell just announced that’s it’s bringing the Mini 3 to the US. So that leaves three devices for HTC, and possibly one device will have a keyboard and one without – AT&T says they’ll have an “exclusive” device, but that could mean a familiar phone with a new name and a tweaked case.

Las Vegas, Nevada, January 6, 2010

AT&T today announced plans to launch five new devices from Dell, HTC and Motorola based on the Android platform. The company also announced a major initiative to expand the universe of mobile applications beyond smartphones to more mobile phones – and spur future app development for emerging consumer electronics devices, its U-verse TV platform, and enterprise and small business workplaces.

At the 4th annual AT&T Developer Summit in Las Vegas, executives outlined details including:
Read the rest of this entry »

I hope my signal don’t drop, can you hear me now? Good.

AT&T today announced a software upgrade at 3G cell sites for faster speeds, but should they be thinking about speed or coverage? AT&T’s deployment of the HSPA(High-Speed Packet Access) 7.2 technology is the first of multiple initiatives to provide customers with the best possible mobile broadband experience, and again “coverage”. This software upgrade also prepares the network for faster speeds and increases network efficiency. How much time must it be said; RAISE THE DAMN BARS.

AT&T is in the midst of this second initiative to dramatically increase the number of high-speed backhaul connections to cell sites, primarily with fiber-optic connections, adding capacity from cell sites to the AT&T backbone network. The combination of HSPA 7.2 technology and enhanced backhaul will support theoretical peak maximum speeds of 7.2 megabits per second, though as with any mobile broadband network, actual speeds will be lower than the theoretical maximum and will vary due to a number of factors.

In addition to the HSPA 7.2 software, initial deployment of backhaul is already underway in the six U.S. cities announced in 2009 as initial HSPA 7.2 markets – Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami, with capabilities being turned up on a site-by-site basis beginning last month. Further backhaul deployment will continue in these markets and begin in additional markets across the nation. We anticipate that the majority of our mobile data traffic will be carried over the expanded fiber-based, HSPA 7.2-capable backhaul by the end of this year, with deployment continuing to expand in 2011.

These efforts have resulted in AT&T continuing to deliver the nation’s fastest 3G network, and in delivering 3G national call retainability of 98.92 percent, meaning that only 1.08 percent of calls are dropped nationwide, based on 3G-specific, internal data.