July 18 - 12:05pm EDT   Sony Ericsson on Friday reported spring quarterly results that confirm a continued drop in the company's influence. The cellphone designer today said it has largely met its lowered predictions and shipped 24.4 million phones between April and June, or a two percent drop from the same season a year earlier. Net income for the company was also near-flat at the equivalent of $9.5 million, while the firm also warned that the average selling price for one of its phones dropped from approximately $198 to $184. [full story]

July 17 - 9:00am EDT   Nokia today announced largely positive results for its spring quarterly results. The Finnish company says its net sales climbed by four percent to a total of $20.9 billion based largely on the back of its staple cellphone business. About 122 million phones were shipped during the three-month period, which represents a spike of about 21 percent versus the same quarter in 2007. The rush of extra devices is estimated to give Nokia about 40 percent marketshare based on a predicted 303 million cellphones shipped worldwide during the season. [full story]

July 11 - 2:35pm EDT   Sony Ericsson is developing a more music-oriented version of its C902 Cyber-shot cameraphone, according to leaked shots obtained by S-E Blog. Codenamed "Patty," the device would ship as the W902 and would have the same 5-megapixel camera and LED flash of the C902, but with a much more music-oriented layout: users would have quick access to the full Walkman media playback software through side music controls. Accordingly, it would also have a more rugged-looking and simpler all-black design. A flush headphone jack may also be evident in one photo [full story]

July 10 - 4:15pm EDT   Motorola is likely to fall to fifth place in world cellphone marketshare based on shipment estimates allegedly leaked from companies involved in making the phones in Taiwan. They now predict that the American phone creator will have shipped a relatively low 22 million to 23 million phones in its spring quarter. The number would drop Motorola from fourth to fifth place and give it just 7.3 percent of the market while Sony Ericsson would take over the new spot, climbing to exactly eight percent. [full story]

July 9 - 1:10pm EDT   Early images of a new Sony Ericsson phone are available, a French site claims. The site says it has obtained photos of a device called the W595, which may be a successor to the W580. Although little is known about the product, images show a slider with a new, rounded top, a larger numberpad, and different navigation buttons. The phone is also believed to have a built-in accelerometer and FM tuner, as well as a preloaded copy of Google Maps. The accelerometer is likely meant to rotate the screen view along with the phone. [full story]

July 9 - 11:35am EDT   nova media has published the v2.1 update to FoneLink, its phone sync utility for Macs. The app is designed to support phones which are otherwise incompatible with Mac OS X, and sync content including photos, videos and music, as well as contacts, bookmarks, notes and text messages. The program integrates with Sync Services to share data with apps like Address Book and Entourage, and can additionally create backups and ringtones. [full story]

July 7 - 8:35am EDT   T-Mobile's 3G network could expand to the national level as quickly as this fall, according to reports. The fledgling high-speed cellular Internet access is claimed to launch on October 1st in T-Mobile's "top markets" and will be accompanied by multiple phones at or near launch: one of these will allegedly include the Google Android-based HTC Dream smartphone, which is already confirmed for T-Mobile in late 2008 but hasn't been tied to T-Mobile's 3G network until now. [full story]

July 1 - 1:55pm EDT   iPhones have the potential to take almost a sixth of the entire US cellphone subscription market by the end of next year, according to a new report by Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi. He estimates that the up-front price cut on the phone and its new features will potentially give Apple as much as 15 percent of all US postpaid (traditional subscription) business during calendar 2009. The higher service fees may affect what the phone designer can do to change its pricing, but most customers are "unlikely to do the math" that would deter them from picking up what is superficially a less expensive phone, the researcher says. [full story]

July 1 - 5:40am EDT   Nova Media has released the latest version of its quick-dial/quick SMS cell phone-to-Mac integration application, Phone Plugins 2.1. The application allows users to easily link their Mac to their phone via Bluetooth, and with 'one-click', send a text message to that number from any application in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Phone Plugins 2.1 brings compatibility with over 165 cell phones, including the latest models from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung. Feature changes in 2.1 include the addition of visual confirmation of sent SMS messages within OS X, a unique 'one-touch' Bluetooth connection wizard (that does not require a Mac restart), and also the addition of 'dial ... [full story]

June 27 - 2:10pm EDT   Sony Ericsson today warned that its income and shipments will have shrunk this quarter over expectations. The cellphone producer now expects its pre-tax income to only "break-even" when reported in mid-July and says it will ship fewer cellphones over the three-month period than it did a year ago, with about 24 million phones shipped worldwide. The company also expects the average selling price to drop further still from the last quarter, dropping from roughly $192 at the start of the year to about $181, earning the company less for each device. [full story]

June 26 - 6:25pm EDT   Mark/Space on Thursday unveiled a new product for Windows that allows iPhone users to transfer contacts and calendar information from most BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS devices, as well as select units from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola that use the Symbian OS. Mark/Space says that The Missing Sync for iPhone works with both current generation and 3G iPhones. The Missing Sync for iPhone is available from the company's website for $40. [full story]

June 25 - 4:05pm EDT   Sony is reviving talk of a PlayStation-branded gaming phone that may also mark a split between itself and Ericsson for at least one model, according to multiple sources speaking to Marketing Week. Separate contacts in Sony's native Japan as well as Korea tell the magazine that the phone would include elements of the PSP gaming handheld and that the process would be relatively simple, as components such as Wi-Fi are already well-suited to the device. [full story]

June 25 - 12:20pm EDT   Apple has slipped in terms of environmental friendliness, claims Greenpeace. The activist group has published a new edition of its Guide to Greener Electronics, and whereas in the last rankings Apple jumped from 2.7 to 6.7 -- due to the release of the less toxic MacBook Air -- the company has since slipped to just 4.1, marking it as an offending company. [full story]

June 24 - 7:35am EDT   Nokia this morning changed the mobile industry by purchasing the remainder of Symbian that it hasn't previously owned and establishing the Symbian Foundation, an organization meant to unify and promote the Symbian OS for cellphones. The group includes phone makers that already produce Symbian phones such as LG, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson; it also includes carriers such as AT&T, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone as well as semiconductor firms STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments. Despite Nokia's purchase, the company is putting Symbian and Series 60 in the hands of the Foundation and will give any current or future member royalty-free rights to use the platform. [full story]

June 20 - 11:50am EDT   Sony Ericsson finished its week today with the launch of the Sharapova Design Collection, one of its first themed case lineups. The four cases are influenced by tennis player Maria Sharapova and were custom-designed by London fashion teams to be useful both inside and outside of sports. The Courtside Case and Exercise Case both attach to bags and arms respectively and keep the phone completely protected in less than ideal conditions; the Party Case and the Travel Case use handbag and wallet shapes that are more appropriate for after-hours. [full story]