Verizon Deal May Expose IPhone Flaws
With this week’s announcement that Verizon Wireless is going to begin selling the iPhone — something its customers have been panting for ever since AT&T got that first, exclusive iPhone contract four years ago — it’s time for me to face the music. Nobody really cares that the iPhone is flawed. After this column, I’m going to stop caring too. I swear it.
Its design is undeniably elegant; both the iPhone and its sister device, the iPad, stand at the pinnacle of modern industrial design. The iPhone offers some 300,000 apps that delight its users. Photographs look gorgeous on an iPhone. “It is the first and best implementation of a highly mobile computer,” said Roger L. Kay, the president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a market intelligence firm.
Yet for all that it offers, the iPhone has always been plagued by serious drawbacks. The “phone” part of the iPhone has never worked very well, dropping calls with annoying regularity. Even when the phone works, the sound quality is often substandard. You would think in an age when fewer people are using landlines this would matter. Apparently not.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Coming to Best Buy for $499
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is coming to Best Buy in November, starting at $499 for WiFi, $599 for WiFi/3G units from Verizon Wireless and Sprint.
Best Buy is preparing to launch Samsung’s Galaxy Tab in the United States in November, offering WiFi-only and WiFi/3G combinations beginning at $499.
Gadget blog Pocketables found these Best Buy signs advertising the Galaxy Tab silver WiFi-only variety and WiFi + 3G versions from Verizon Wireless (in black) and Sprint (in silver).
Best Buy said the WiFi/3G versions are available from Verizon and Sprint with a contract or a month-to-month plan. Pocketables did not mention whether or not the WiFi/3G versions would cost $599.
Android leader Motorola still well behind Apple’s iPhone
Motorola reported a phenomenal 600 percent leap in earnings this quarter, but is still behind Apple in mobile units sold and is far behind in smartphone sales, leaving Apple the top US phone vendor by units for the second quarter in a row.
Motorola has greatly increased is profits due to a its push with Verizon Wireless in selling the Android-based Droid, also marketed as the Motorola Milestone. The latest model, Droid X, is currently the model being held up against iPhone 4.
Motorola’s quarterly sales of 8.3 million phones is still behind Apple’s 8.4 million units in the second calendar quarter of 2010, which ended in June. However, only 2.7 million of Motorola’s sales were smartphones, meaning Apple sold more than three times as many smartphones as the leading Android maker.
Verizon to open app store next week
Verizon Wireless, the largest carrier in the United States has announced today that it will open its own mobile app store next week, March 29th.
The app store will allow Verizon subscribers to purchase apps that will be billed to their end-of-the-month phone bill, unlike other stores that must have separate accounts such as Google Checkout or an iTunes account.
The clear market leader is Apple however, with 150,000 apps which have seen 3,000,000,000 downloads.