MobileCrunch

T-Mobile Makes G2x Official, Announces 42Mbps 4G In NY, Orlando, Vegas
More Patent Trolling, This Time Against Every Major Mobile Manufacturer
Welcome To The Post-Carrier Future
Supposed iPhone 5 Cases Suggest The Shape Won’t Change Much From iPhone 4
AT&T Gets Two New Toys: The HTC HD7S and the LG Thrill 4G

T-Mobile Makes G2x Official, Announces 42Mbps 4G In NY, Orlando, Vegas

Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:00 PM PDT

T-Mobile kicked off CTIA with a few announcements today, first confirming the G2x, a rebranded Optimus 2X with the specs we heard about way back in December. You can check out our hands-on with the LG original here, but of course the new device will be slightly more T-Mobileish. It’s running 2.2, no word on 2.3.

They’re leaning on 4G pretty hard: new 42Mbps networks will go live in New York, Orlando, and Las Vegas… well, soon. And they’ll expand to Chicago, Long Island, and Jersey later on. The only time frame given was 25 markets by mid-year, which leaves them plenty of wiggle room. I’d expect smaller announcements in the coming weeks, or perhaps friendly text messages to T-Mobile customers.

They also announced some new 4G mobile broadband hardware: a 4G Mobile Hotspot and a few new laptop sticks. The Rocket 3.0 will be taking advantage of the new 42Mbps service (wherever it’s offered), and the Rocket 4G and Jet 2.0 will top out at 21Mbps. That last one will be “free” with mail-in rebate and a two-year contract, which is to say not free at all.

Lastly, the Sidekick 4G will be hitting for $100 with contract and mail-in rebate. So there’s that.

No more or availability for the other gear was announced, though we’ve heard April 20th for the G2x and the press release says Spring.

More Patent Trolling, This Time Against Every Major Mobile Manufacturer

Posted: 21 Mar 2011 05:03 PM PDT

We just heard about a legal action by Microsoft against Barnes & Noble (to be fair, not quite trolling, but bordering on it), and now I’m reading about a new one, directed at pretty much every major manufacturer of mobile hardware. The patents allegedly infringed upon are related to the cameras used in the phones. And yes, it’s sketchy.

The company suing is one “Imperium Holdings,” based in the Cayman Islands. Yeah, that sounds legitimate!

Welcome To The Post-Carrier Future

Posted: 21 Mar 2011 10:20 AM PDT

For most of the last decade, the carriers have called the shots. Likened to “Soviet ministries” by Walt Mossberg, carriers had full control of their environment, from billing to customer service to device availability. There were four carriers and each competed on different platforms but generally handset manufacturers went to them, hat in hand, and showed off a crop of new devices. Like mad Caligula, the carriers would nod or give the thumbs down and go back to charging us $10 for texts overseas. The groveling, in many cases, was quite unbecoming of international CE firms but grovel they did, asking that their feature phones be given access to America’s lucrative cellular market.

The iPhone was the first phone to turn the tables on the carriers. Before, the carrier chose the phones. Now the manufacturer chose the carrier. Although rumor had it that Apple was about to stop by Verizon before it hit AT&T, in reality AT&T was the only carrier amenable enough to Apple’s seemingly draconian demands: control over distribution, supply, and support, control over the app and music store, and absolute control over release dates. Heck, many at AT&T didn’t even have or see the new devices before they were launched, thereby allowing Apple the run of their press cycle. AT&T, in short, was completely at Apple’s mercy – until Apple defected and moved to Verizon.

It’s now four years on and the mobile landscape has changed wildly. Carriers that once not only named the players but called the plays are now diminished in authority. Verizon is beholden to manufacturers to continue their Droid hegemony (and, most recently, their access to the iPhone) and T-Mobile is no more, swallowed up by the only GSM carrier in the US to sell the iPhone. Why? Because without a blockbuster phone, T-Mo was stuck and without bargaining power they’ll never get a blockbuster. The result, then, is a merging of the only two GSM carriers in the US, a major step for the technology and both companies.

Then Sprint and Google teamed up to supply Google Voice service to all Sprint customers. That’s right – instead of trying to jam home service down our throats, Sprint has given up. They’ve offloaded most of the calling features to Google and instead act as a carrier to Google’s traffic and assume that you’ll reorganize your life along Google’s terms rather than their own. How’s that for rolling up into a corner and whimpering for mercy?

The carriers are on the run. They have, for quite a long time, been able to control consumer desire by reducing the availability of smartphones and talking up what amounted to feature phones. However, with the vast majority of – albeit, younger – consumers flocking towards one or two specific phones and sites like this one talking up (or excoriating) lesser Android phones, that status quo is bust. No one wants a garbage handset when there are so many better devices floating around and even bargain hunters can afford an iPhone 3GS at $49. The real money, then, is in selling data in minuscule chunks and even that’s going out of vogue with the rise of ubiquitous Wi-Fi and LTE.

To paraphrase Mark Antony (the Roman, not the singer), I have come to jeer at carriers, not to praise them. They’ve held an iron grip on the American telecoms industry for almost twenty years and while Europe enjoyed contract-less connectivity, 3G, and even video calling back in 2001, our carriers sat back selling RAZRs and feeling fat and sassy. With these partnerships, however, our carriers have finally met their match and T-Mobile is the first to fall from their former hubristic heights.

I worry, however, that this roll-up will reduce consumer choice and slow the release of new handsets. While for many this may be a welcome thing because there is less of a need to upgrade constantly, I think we will suffer in the end because devices like the Xoom and the Galaxy Tabs just won’t make it to market for fear of low sell-through while the blockbusters prop up the manufacturers bottom lines and add to carriers network congestion.

However, I am glad that the carriers are losing the upper hand. They’re still making plenty of money for wildly sub par service they’re still charging us out the jacksy, but they’ve finally met their match and maybe that’s the first step in improving this nation’s telecoms infrastructure.

Image from Big Dog Little Dog, which is an excellent book, incidentally, if you’re two.

Supposed iPhone 5 Cases Suggest The Shape Won’t Change Much From iPhone 4

Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:00 AM PDT

Just about every time Apple gets close to launching the new iDevice they’ve been brewin’ up, some third-party manufacturer releases a shot or two of a case purportedly built to the new device’s top-secret specs. We pretty much always say the same thing: “Take it with a grain of salt”, “they might just be guessing, or it could very well be a typo.”, etc — but a surprisingly solid chunk of the time, the leaked cases end up being spot on.

Well: a third-party manufacturer slingin’ their wares on Alibaba has just posted a set of cases, specifically highlighting that these cases will fit both the iPhone 4 and the as-of-yet announced iPhone 5. While case manufacturers do tend get dimension specs long before the devices are official, take these with a grain of salt; these guys may just be guessing, or it could very well be a typo.

If these cases do end up being legit, the dual iPhone 4/iPhone 5 compatibility suggests that the two generations should be pretty much identical in shape. This holds true to the rumor mill’s latest whispers, which have all been suggesting that while the shape and size will go unchanged, the screen will be getting a minor size upgrade (very likely either 3.7″ and 3.75″.)

[Via GizChina]

AT&T Gets Two New Toys: The HTC HD7S and the LG Thrill 4G

Posted: 21 Mar 2011 08:36 AM PDT

Man! Here I am sitting in the airport on the way to CTIA, and the news is already breakin’. Lookin’ to get in before any noise that the show might generate and possibly ride the tide of their absolutely monstrous merger with T-Mobile, AT&T has just announced that they’re picking up two new toys: the Windows Phone 7 powered HD7S, and the Android-powered, glasses-free 3D-enabled LG Thrill 4G.

Hop behind the ol’ jump for all the deets*.

HTC HD7S:

You know the T-Mobile HTC HD7? Take it (and its 1 GHZ CPU, 5 megapixel camera, 4.3″ display, and Windows-Phone-7-poweredness) and bump the screen up to a super LCD. Oh, and add a fancy S at the end. That’s the HD7S.

LG Thrill 4G:

Finally! A glasses-free 3D smartphone comes to the US! Everyone was waiting for that, right? .. right? Anyone?

Ah well — Love it or Hate it, the 3D smartphone train is a comin’, and it looks like AT&T’s going to be first off the block. It’s got a dual 5-megapixel camera setup for 3D stereoscopic photos, a dual-core 1GHZ CPU, 16 gigs of internal storage (plus 8 GB included out of the box on microSD), and HDMI out. It’s runnin Android 2.2

Alas, AT&T makes no mention of price nor specific dating for either handset, outside of saying the HD7S will launch (in the coming weeks.)

* Yeah, I said deets. Cut me some slack; I could have gone with “411″.