MS Plots iPhone Rival, Vista PR, as MobileMe Draws Flak

Apple has been boosting sales of Macs with its Mac OS X operating system — seemingly at Microsoft’s expense, as more PC users turn up their noses at Microsoft’s Windows Vista. Apple also has had great success with its iPhone, but now that Apple is taking flak because of problems with its MobileMe service, an admiring Microsoft appears ready to go after some of Apple’s revenue.

In a memo distributed to Microsoft employees Wednesday, CEO Steve Balmer said Apple is good at “providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience.” As a result, he wrote, Microsoft will work with hardware vendors to make sure there are “absolutely no compromises.”

Sprint Nextel Sells Its Towers; Raises Around $670 Million

Sprint (NYSE: S – News) Nextel is ditching its cellphone towers. In a bid to raise some much needed cash, the troubled carrier has agreed to sell nearly all of its towers to the private-equity backed firm TowerCo for around $670 million in cash, the two companies announced Wednesday. Sprint will sell around 3,300 towers to TowerCo and lease them back from the firm for both its current CDMA and iDEN networks, as well as for its future WiMax efforts.

Nokia, Qualcomm settle long-running dispute

SAN DIEGO – The legal salvos between Nokia Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. stopped months ago, part of what officials at the wireless industry heavyweights described as a truce in a long-running battle that spanned three continents.

Peace came Wednesday as the two sides prepared for a courtroom showdown. Nokia, the world’s largest handset maker, and Qualcomm, the world’s largest maker of chips that run cell phones, agreed to settle a high-stakes licensing dispute and drop all legal complaints against each other in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

The agreement, announced after markets closed, thrilled Qualcomm investors. The company’s shares soared 18.7 percent, or $8.38, to $53.20 after hours. During regular trading, its shares rose 1.6 percent, or 72 cents, to $44.82 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

New version of Windows Live for Windows Mobile

Microsoft has just released an updated version of Windows Live for Windows Mobile, from the Windows Mobile Team Blog site “The latest bits for Windows Live Client for your Windows Mobile are available for download. To get yours now, point your mobile browser to http://wl.windowsmobile.com.

If you have Windows Live already installed on your device, you will need to uninstall it first. To do that, go to Settings->Remove Programs, select Windows Live entry from the list (if any) and click Remove. If you don’t find Windows Live on the list, then you are good to go.

Reports Of A Google gPhone Surface Again

Google executives reportedly said the company was making its own branded mobile phone to compete with Apple’s iPhone.

 

The Google (NSDQ: GOOG) phone lives. Sort of. Maybe. Perhaps. Although it’s still not clear that the much-ballyhooed device actually lives at Google facilities.The latest news on the Google phone stems from some comments made by Google executives at Allen & Company’s Sun Valley Conference. A reporter for The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Google executives talked of the company making “its own branded mobile phone as a replacement for the iPhone.” The story then took off this week, embellished soon by a report that the Ammunition Design Group could be working with Google to build the “gPhone.”

WM 6.1 Updates for Touch and Mogul are Official

Likely you’ve already managed to snag your update because these updates were leaked on various sites.  You can get the updates here;  Mogul Update and here’s your Touch Update. Both will get you EVDO Rev A, A-GPS, and some Sprint TV Action, but strangely the Touch gets an on-board Opera browser while the Mogul is left out.

Apple 3Q profit jumps 31 percent but stock drops

Macintosh and iPod sales helped boost Apple Inc.’s fiscal third-quarter earnings 31 percent, beating Wall Street’s expectations Monday, but investors pummeled the stock after Apple issued soft guidance for the current quarter.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, did not join the conference call with investors. Earlier in the day, the New York Post cited unnamed financial sources expressing ongoing concerns about Jobs’ health. Jobs has survived pancreatic cancer.

zCover ships iSAglove 3G cases for iPhone

zCover on Friday announced that it is shipping its iSAglove 3G cover for the iPhone. It costs $29.99 and joins zCover’s line of iPhone accessories.

The iSAglove is a silicone cover for the iPhone that comes in black, grey and ice clear. It features reinforced corners to support a natural hand position in horizontal mode along with a reinforced layer of silicone that works as a “crash cushion” if the iPhone is dropped or falls.

Google Android not as open as we think?

Google vowed that its Linux-based Android mobile platform would empower enthusiasts and amateur developers, but today we have seen compelling evidence that this is an empty promise. Third-party Android application developers, who have grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of SDK updates, were shocked to discover that Google has been secretly making new versions of the Android SDK available to the Android Developer Challenge (ADC) finalists under non-disclosure agreements.

This was revealed yesterday when Google employee David McLaughlin accidentally sent notification of a new SDK release to a public Android mailing list. The message, which was intended only for ADC Round two entrants, says that SDK build 84853 is available through the private ADC download site. McLaughlin later apologized for mistakenly sending the message to the wrong list. ADC Round two participants have confirmed that they have access to updated SDK builds but declined to provide further details because they are bound by non-disclosure agreements. We have contacted Google and asked for additional details, but we have not yet received a response.

Which Phone has the Sharpest Display?

The Pixel Per Inch measurement, or PPI for short, is a measure of screen clarity. The higher the value, the more pixels that can be found in one square inch of a screen, and the clearer and sharper the picture. Check out Wikipedia to see how this value is computed.