“Yesterday we reported that Google’s long awaited own-brand phone, the Google Nexus One, hadn’t enjoyed the best start in life, having only sold 20,000 units in its first week in the US,” Adam Bunker reports for T3.

The Nexus One “has just had its price slashed,” Bunker reports.

“Up until today, anyone in the US who’d wanted to upgrade to the Nexus One on T-Mobile had to pay out $379,” Bunker reports. “With the price cut in effect, this figure stands at $279… Not only that, but anyone who’s already upgraded receive a $100 refund.”

Full article here.

Source: MacDailyNews

Today, Apple’s MobileMe introduced a new Gallery app for iPhone and iPod touch.

The app features iPhone- and iPod touch-optimized controls and gallery displays that make browsing photos and videos easier and more interactive.

The Gallery app is free for MobileMe members and available now on the App Store in iTunes here.

Source: MacDailyNews

“Apple’s iPhone user base is now the second-largest in the U.S. smartphone market, passing Windows Mobile-based models to slip into the spot behind Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, research firm comScore said today,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.

“In the three months ending in October, Apple’s iPhone was used by nearly 9 million Americans as their primary phone, said Mark Donovan, senior analyst with Virginia-based comScore,” Keizer reports. “That compared with the almost 15 million who identified RIM as the maker of their primary smartphone in the monthly surveys comScore conducts of U.S. mobile subscribers over the age of 13. Phones powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, meanwhile, were used by an estimated 7.1 million people during the same period.”

Keizer reports, “According to comScore, approximately 36 million Americans own a smartphone, while around 196 million rely on a traditional cell phone.”

Full article here.

Source: MacDailyNews

As one of the largest research universities in the United States, the University of Washington brings together 65,000 students, faculty members, and administrative staff. From the laboratory to the dormitory, this thriving academic community stays connected with iPhone and the university’s proprietary m.UW app, which gives students and staff mobile access to campus maps, news, directories, course schedules, and lectures.

“In a note to clients issued Wednesday, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster suggests three ways Apple can stay ahead of the coming wave of smartphones powered by Google’s Android OS,” Phillip Elmer-Dewitt reports for Fortune.

• Build an iPhone for Verizon. Munster continues to believe there’s a 70% chance Verizon will get an iPhone before the end of 2010.
• Give the iPhone a battery that lasts longer than one day.
• Turn the iPhone into a digital wallet via RFID technology.

Full article here.

Source: MacDailyNews

Brian X. Chen (wired.com) reports that Abilene Christian University has just finished the first year of a pilot program in which 1,000 freshman students each received a free iPhone or iPod touch to explore how the always-connected devices ”might revolutionize the classroom experience with a dash of digital interactivity.” Says Bill Rankin, a professor who helped plan the initiative: “I think this is the next platform for education.”

“‘There’s never been anything like this experience for mobile software,’ Freeverse’s Ian Lynch Smith says of the App Store boom. ‘This is the future of digital distribution for everything: software, games, entertainment, all kinds of content,’” Jenna Wortham reports for The New York Times.

“As the App Store evolves from a kitschy catalog of novelty applications into what analysts and aficionados describe as a platform that is rapidly transforming mobile computing and telephony, it is changing the goals and testing the patience of developers, bolstering sales of the Apple motherships the applications ride upon — the iPhone and iPod Touch — and causing Apple’s competitors to overhaul their product lines and business models,” Wortham reports. “It even threatens to open chinks in Apple’s own corporate armor.”

“Thanks in large part to the iPhone, introduced in 2007, and the App Store, which opened its doors last year,smartphones have become the Swiss Army knives of the digital age,” Wortham reports. “They provide a staggering arsenal of functions and tools at the swipe of a finger: e-mail and text messaging, video and photography, maps and turn-by-turn navigation, media and books, music and games, mobile shopping, and even wireless keys that remotely unlock cars.”

Wortham reports, “‘Apple changed the view of what you can do with that small phone in your back pocket,’ says Katy Huberty, a Morgan Stanley analyst. ‘Applications make the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend — one we haven’t seen in consumer technology for many years… The iPhone is changing our behavior. The game that Apple is playing is to become the Microsoft of the smartphone market.’”

Full article here.

Source: MacDailyNews