Google halting Nexus One sales through official store after current inventory depleted
We knew this was eventually coming , and here it is: Google is giving everyone the heads-up that it just got a fresh batch of Nexus Ones in stock, and once they've been sold through, they'll no longer be offered directly through the company's online store. For what it's worth, the customer service lines will stay open even after that happens -- and you'll still be able to buy a phone through KT in South Korea, Vodafone in Europe, and "possibly other [retailers] based on local market conditions" -- but by and large, your average American is going to have a hard time getting one pretty shortly. If you're a registered Android developer, though, Google's looking at continuing to offer the device through some sort of sales partner -- a wise move considering it'll be just about the only thing you can buy unlocked running a clean-slate latest build
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, nexus one, Other Tags: breaking-news, clean, customer, engadget, entry, europe, giving-everyone, lines, official-store, online, slate, south, south-korea, stock, store
Microsoft talks Windows Phone 7 Series development ahead of GDC: Silverlight, XNA, and no backward compatibility
Microsoft is keen on unveiling the meat of its developer story around Windows Phone 7 Series at MIX10 in less than two weeks, but with GDC coming up next week, they're figuring that now is a good time to start dropping hints -- they'll want to be capturing the collective imagination of the gaming industry, after all, what with that Xbox Live integration they've got going on. To that end, Charlie Kindel of WinPho's developer experience team has outed a few key items at a reception in San Francisco this evening. The major points are that Silverlight , XNA , and .NET will figure prominently into the developer story -- not a surprise considering that Microsoft is heavily invested in both, gaming is central to the Windows Phone 7 Series story, XNA is a big deal on Zune HD already, and this all lines up with what we'd heard in the past.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: beast, charlie-kindel, clean, down-on-twitter, initial, mobile, operating, result, windows-mobile, windowsphone7series, winpho 7, xna
Adobe taking a pass on Flash 10.1 for WinMo 6.5, will go straight to 7
An Adobe employee over in the company's official forums dropped a bomb earlier this month that they've now decided to pass on releasing Flash 10.1 for Windows Mobile 6.5, instead moving straight to 7. The official explanation is that "WinMo6.5 does not support some of the critical APIs that we need," but frankly, this sounds like a load of crap -- since the project was announced last year , there's no way it took them this long to figure out that an official cut for 6.5 wouldn't be technically possible. If we had to guess, the real justification also explains why Adobe has been so quiet on the matter: 6.5's now viewed as a dead-end platform since 7 represents a clean break for Microsoft, and the company feels like it can't be bothered to invest the necessary time, energy, and money to see the project through.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: adobe, clean, flash, money, windows-mobile, windowsmobile6.5, wm 6.5
Bell scores 163K net adds in Q4, has HSPA launch to thank
Bell and Telus' massive, sudden addition of nationwide HSPA networks to succeed their legacy CDMA towers was an experiment unlike anything the wireless world had ever seen; at no other time had carriers that large jumped from one 3G technology to another, and it was anyone's guess how well it'd go and what effect it'd have on their bottom line -- clean-slate network build-outs aren't cheap, after all. We've got part of that answer now that Bell has reported fourth quarter earnings, and in a nutshell, it seems like this may have a huge gamble that paid off. The company's wireless unit saw a 2 percent decrease against the previous in EBIDTA -- and ARPU fell by CAD $1.48 to CAD $51.08 -- but here's where the bubbly gets broken out: it saw a 39.3 percent increase in gross activations to 523,000, up 11.3 percent year-over-year
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: ammo, clean, earnings, engadget, entry, fourth-quarter, handsets, iphone, launch, network, quarter, scores, sudden-addition, time, wireless-unit