We asked you a week ago if the Apple iPhone should be afraid of the newly announced WinMo 6.1, HTC Touch Diamond. If we had a poll, I am betting a significant fraction would say yes. Chinese Engadget did more than compare photos of the two devices; they actually had an HTC Touch Diamond in hand and didn’t hesitate taking a few photos of the phone next to the iPhone. The VGA screen and solid black body definitely made an impression on us. It’s smaller, narrower and has generally looks more attractive than iPhone. Heck, looking at the photo above makes one change one’s mind about Windows Mobile as a mobile platform. In fact, we like what HTC did to WinMo 6.1, especially the new TouchFLO UI.

[via engadget chinese]

Apple has finalized a deal with Globe Telecoms for Philippine iPhone distribution, Singtel for Singapore, Bharti Airtel for India and Optus for Australia. No details are available yet except the announcement of the exclusive distributors for the various countries.

[via yugatech]

Apple has had it with the HiPhone, the most successful iPhone clone out of China and they have given notice to a European distributor of HiPhone-branded iPhone clones. The possible penalty for distributing HiPhones is stated as 25,000 Euros, which is quite hefty for a HiPhone retailer (yeah, we’ve asked one such retailer). Not only that, but legal fees amounting to 15,000 Euros is included in the possible suit. There’s more, the notice actually demands that every unsold HiPhone should be destroyed and proof of destruction be sent to Apple. More from Engadget thru the link below.

Update: the fine, apparently, is 25,000 euros for EVERY HiPhone. Wow, geez!

[read]

Engadget - Firmware 2.0 for iPhone shows 3G network

Informationweek - iPhone out of stock at O2

Gizmodo - Currently unavailable iPhones a marketing ploy from Apple

[via cellphones]

The iPhone SDK will finally bring YouTube to the safari browser on your iPhone. For the unitiated, this is not the same as the YouTube Player in your iPhone, which is a wholly separate app. This isn’t even real Flash support as YouTube is played via a plugin that allows you to play embedded YouTube videos. Pointing your browser to YouTube.com, however, is just more disappointment.

[via bgr]

If the purported leaked Picture of 3G iPhone nabbed by Apple Insider is authentic, the Philip Xenum 800 may have a competitor on the e2e front. The photo also suggests that the iPhone is moving toward the PDA form factor with a more squarish shape and sharper edges. I’m thinking, they keep increasing the size of the screen everyone has to bring a purse with them just to carry one. I’ll wait for iPhone Nano.

[via appleinsider]

I know some people who were disappointed when they found out the Apple iPhone was black (take the poll below). They will rejoice if this rumor turned out to be fact. Coming from a Chinese forum, they don’t seem all that reliable but that doesn’t mean we cannot feast our eyes on the elegant new casing, the additional connectors and sensors - from WeiPhone.

 Loading …

[via appleinsider]

Never mind that the iPhone does not have a Chinese distributor and perhaps never will in the foreseeable future, but that does not stop some Chinese iPhone enthusiasts from conjuring up functions like Chinese handwriting recognition, which to my mind at least is a brilliant firmware upgrade. A screen shot of the interface was posted on wretch.cc. Apparently, Japanese is supported as well though that does not include handwriting recognition. What is left hanging by the screen shot is the input method. Does the Chinese iPhone user grow his fingernails long, or does Apple finally decide the iPhone could use a stylus after all.

[via engadget]

It looks like the FW8800 is one iPhone knockoff that isn’t too impressed with Steve Jobs’ first phone and went to add the missing ingredient. While Fillwinn Enterprise Holdings International Ltd. has retained the iPhone’s famous multi-touch user interface and other features like the 3.5-inch 320×480 pixel 160 ppi screen, 2.0 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and EDGE, it had to give up OS X for Windows CE 6.0 in order to add the extra feature that everybody wished iPhone had: GPS.

Besides the aforementioned details, the Fw8800 is every bit an iPhone. See for yourself after the break.

[product] (more…)

Rumor - AT&T will increase its subsidy on the iPhone. Not only will it give up a significant portion of its earning for each iPhone subscription, it’s going to shave off $200 on the iPhone 3G price with no loss for Apple. That’s how desperate AT&T is in making the iPhone a true RAZR replacement. AT&T posted a $2 billion increase in profits after it launched the Apple iPhone and it makes sense that they work on their market share this year. But, then again, having the distribution rights of the iPhone and, we assume, all iterations and spin-offs of the brand, will cement their lead in the market without taking a big $200 hit.

[via tuaw]