www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A trio of new services has been launched by AT&T bringing smart-phone like features to low-cost phones. Address books from a personal e-mail account to their phone can now be easily synced by the users and they can send photos to the cloud on devices that cost between $20 and $40.

The aim behind the launch of the new services is to train consumers to spend more on monthly data plans and to become more dependent on using their phone for more than calling. The three exclusive services include- AT&T Address Book, Next Generation Messaging and AT&T Mobile Share.

AT&T has also announced four new devices in the category of devices “quick messaging,” which is their most popular and fastest category of devices. Samsung Strive, Samsung Sunburst and Pantech Link and Pantach Pursuit are the three new devices. Samsung Strive which is arriving on March 21 will be the first phone with AT&T’s new services.

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The rise in the demand of Apple’s iPhone,  Google’s Android, Samsung’s Bada and Blackberry’s entry into the prepaid segment are some of the factors stimulating  smartphone sales, thus overtaking the sale of PCs. The sale of smartphones is expected to jump from approx 190 million in 2009 to over 490 million units by 2012 and touch a billion units by 2015.  On the other hand, the PC market will expand to just over 440 million units from the current approx 330 million in the same period.

Smartphones are getting more and more power everyday and with cloud computing, browser based and XMLised content and applications, it is estimated that in 2013, over 60% of the frontline content on the internet like news, email, social networking will be accessed via the mobile first rather than the PC.

This is also being steadily aided by the fact that

- Google’s android platform is taking good shape and is getting wide acceptance from consumers as well as phone manufacturers. The developer community is fast working to create apps for the platform.

- iPhone is improvising and with a huge number of apps and an ecosystem in place, it will flourish further

- Samsung’s Bada is likely to aid this as well

- Internet speeds on the mobile are finally becoming decent!

- More and more publishers are enriching their mobile offerings in a bid to ensure they don’t lose out on the 5th screen.

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The Rogers Samsung Galaxy ‘Spica’ has been officially launched with the pricing starting at $79.99, on a three year contract. The device is planned to ship with Android but it comes with a stock Android 1.5 experience.

The full pricing details of the phone are as follows: for a three year contract the phone will be priced at $79.99, for 2-year at $349.99 and for 1-year or monthly at $3999.99.

The Rogers Samsung Galaxy will feature Android 1.5 (blarg), 3.2MP camera with video, WiFi, 800MHz processor, 3.5mm headset jack, A-GPS, 3.2’’ touchscreen display and microSD expansion to 32GB. The box will also contain the battery with a talk time of up to 7 hours, travel changer, stereo headset, data cable and 2GB microSD card.

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The Samsung Gravity is expected to come to Fido on March 16 this year. Priced at a measly $25 on a 2-year contract, the official date of the launch has not been disclosed as yet. However the off-contract price tag can vary later. As Rogers originally launched the Gravity on their main network just over a year ago, the move to Fido would be sensible for it.

Most of the time big daddy Rogers will pass select devices down to his dog ‘Fido’ to make an end-of-life run at a discounted price. The few prominent features of the phone include 1.3mp camera with Bluetooth, Bluetooth, QWERTY keyboard and build-in MP3 player.

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New iPhone navigation app from Canada’s ‘Big Red’ is on its way to hit the markets very soon. After launching the Samsung Galaxy ‘Spica’ powered by android 1.5 and the new Rogers ‘RedBoard’ the Rogers is all set to launch ‘Big Red’.

The navigator for iPhone will be made available by March 26th and it will be priced around $4.99. The prominent features of the set will be voice turn by turn directions, real time traffic alerts, one touch reroute, 2D or 3D maps, business finder, listen to music while navigating, and integration with address books.

The turn-by turn directions is expected to be voiced by Kenny Rogers.

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Samsung has launched a handset, Anycall Clutch (SPH-W9500) exclusively for South Korean market. Anycall Clutch looks like a variant of the S7070 Diva phone and has the same quilted back. The distinct feature of the model is its diamond-shaped home button.

The set is an all-touchscreen device with a 3.2-inch display, 3-megapixel camera with “3D motion picture feature”, 1.3-megapixel camera for video calls, 3G connectivity (HADPA), GPS, T-DMB mobile TV receiver, SOS function, Bluetooth, e-dictionary and a microSD expansion slot that works with cards of up to 16GB. The 960mAh battery offers enough charge for up to 8 hours of talk and 500 hours of standby time.

The TouchWIZ 2.0 of Samsung is used for all the interaction providing users with a quick way to access the key phone features as well as popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Lady UI is the name of the UI variant on the Clutch and it comes with preloaded widget for party planning and some diet assistant app.

The Samsung Anycall Clutch will be available in three shades including Silver, Pink and Black on KT for 600,000 won, which is about $523.

Samsung unveils new Samsung Jet 2

www.WirelessFederation.com/news A new mobile phone has been added by world No.2 handset maker, Samsung in its Jet series roster, the Samsung Jet 2.

An enticing 3.1-inch 16M WVGA AMOLED display that offers users the most vivid and colorful touch experience is one of the unique features of this handset.

A powerful 800MHz application processor provides unprecedented speed and unrivaled performance while an English dictionary and an advanced Media Browser enables users to close several widgets at once through motion control.

Google Push Email is an additional feature and it also allows media content sharing technology among DLNA certified devices.

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Nokia continues its lead in the number of mobile phones shipped, in the report issued by a research company on worldwide mobile phone sales. Although Nokia and Symbian have been losing their market share by a few percent, in the smartphone sector they still lead by a comfortable margin.

36 percent market share is occupied by Nokia while Samsung is in second place with 19 percent of the market, increasing its share by just over 3 percent. 2% growth is also witnessed by LG which occupies the third position.

Motorola and Sony Ericsson emerged as the biggest losers with their sales plummeting and the market share dropping alarmingly. Motorola’s market share fell to just 4.8 percent in 2009 while Sony Ericsson fell from 7.6 percent to 4.5 percent during the same period.

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A new GSM mobile service, Inwi has been launched by Moroccan operator Wana. The third mobile operator in Morocco will cover three-quarters of the population. The GSM license was awarded to Wana in early 2009.

Prepaid offering with per-second billing as well as four postpaid plans with free on-net calls are included in the service along with a range of corporate offers.

Daily and weekly unlimited SMS plans, BlackBerry services, prepaid and postpaid 3G mobile internet using a USB modem, a Windows Live Messenger service, roaming are also offered by Inwi.

A wide range of handsets from Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola are also an exclusive offer to the customers. The company will compete against incumbent Maroc Telecom and Meditel on the GSM market.

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Samsung’ Wave’ which is first to sport Samsung’s Bada operating system will be offered by T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone and O2. The sharper and less reflective 3.3-inch ‘Super AMOLED’ display is one of the exclusive features of this handset.

April 2010 is the official release date of the Wave aiming affordable market and is expected to retail for less than £25 a month.

According to Samsung vice president for UK and Ireland Mark Mitchinson, the quality of the product has meant that all major networks will want to stock the Wave and the device is enabling them to offer customers a smartphone for consumers wanting a feature-rich experience at a lower price point.

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