Cell Phones, Mobile Software, Mobile Phones
Morning Xtra: New Samsung Instinct, BlackBerry App Store Live, Slacker Lyrics
This week, we're at CTIA, a bi-annual wireless convention where many of the latest cell phones and mobile apps are unveiled and shown. Keep checking Switched for the skinny on what your new phone (or the services on your old phone) may look like. Also, check Engadget Mobile for up-to-date hands-on reviews and news from the show. Here are some of the latest stories in wireless this week, with more to follow in the coming days.
Samsung Instinct S30 Announced
The slimmer, lighter and sexier successor to Samsung's Instinct (pictured above) will be out in the next two weeks with Sprint. Even though it's hard for us to take seriously any 'smart' phone that isn't a BlackBerry or an iPhone, we tried out the keypad on this baby yesterday and found it to be refreshingly responsive and accurate, which is really saying something in these days of touch-screen-glut. Check out Engadget Mobile for video and images.
BlackBerry App Store Now Live
Thanks to the iPhone's app store, the world has gone mobile-app-crazy, and RIM finally jumped into the fray with the official launch of the BlackBerry App store. Annoyingly, the service requires that you use PayPal to buy the apps, which start at a pricey $2.99 (versus a typical $.99 on the iTunes App Store). Fortunately, there are plenty of free apps (many of which you may already have, though). We'll get you a more thorough hands-on, but you can expect the store to grow and get better every day. In the meantime, check out Laptop's brief hands-on.
Skype Coming to BlackBerry in May
In addition to the launch of the Skype iPhone app, the Internet calling service announced that it would offer a BlackBerry Skype app next month. Unfortunately, though, you have to be in a Wi-Fi hotspot for voice calling to work on either version of the service, so you can forget about using 3G or Edge for anything other than Skype text chat.
Rocketvox to Help You Keep All Your Communications in One Place
If you're one of those folks who has six or more e-mail address, six or more instant-messaging accounts, several fax numbers, a cell(s), a landline(s), and numerous social-networking accounts (Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc), then Rocketvox may be for you. The online service -- which is essentially Pidgin or Adium, but for everything -- launches in public beta form next month. In the meantime, find out how much time you spend switching back and forth between all your various online accounts with the Rocketvox eCommunications Complexity Calculator. [From: RocketVox]
Slacker Radio to Add Lyrics
The online radio service is set to add lyrics to its Radio Plus service ($3.99 per month) this week, which means it'll also be hitting Slacker's iPhone and BlackBerry apps. So, now you can listen to over 2,000,000 songs on your phone (or on your laptop) and sing along at the same time. [From: Slacker]
Click here for more of the latest wireless news from CTIA.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Will said 5:51PM on 4-15-2009
Will this new instinct come with an application store if not which sprint phone will have a app store
Reply