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 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 16 - 8:55am EDT   Nokia today ended a rash of leaks by announcing two high-end Eseries smartphones. The E71 is the company's new flagship and aims to improve on the earlier E61 both inside and out. The E71 has both a more upscale steel design and a narrower profile that allows it to be used one-handed while still fitting a QWERTY keyboard; it also marks the first full Eseries phone to support 3G over AT&T's HSPA network and introduces assisted GPS to the smartphone design. [full story]

June 9 - 12:00am EDT   Sling Media today made official that it has been developing a version of its SlingPlayer Mobile software for the Apple iPhone. The software is described as a "proof of concept" developed using jailbroken iPhones but offers much of the same functionality as the released applications for Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, and other cellphone platforms. Users can navigate a Slingbox network streaming hub connected to a home TV feed and choose channels through a visual guide as well as stop or skip through playback. [full story]

May 28 - 8:35am EDT   Samsung hoped to draw extra attention on Wednesday by unveiling the L870, its latest slider phone. The handset is said to not only use a full HTML web browser but allegedly uses the mobile version of Apple's Safari web browser. The company doesn't mention receiving permission from Apple for the product and also fails to explain how the software would be used on the device: aside from the need to port from OS X iPhone to the Symbian Series 60 OS used by the phone as well as changing controls to use a conventional directional pad as the interface instead of the iPhone's multi-touch display. [full story]

May 27 - 11:40am EDT   Microsoft expects sales of phones with Windows Mobile to grow at least 50 percent per year for the company's next two fiscal years, according to statements made by the company's Asian OEM manager Eddie Wu on Tuesday. The company reiterated that it hopes to sell 20 million phones over its fiscal 2008 but also expects that number to grow by another 50 percent to 30 million for 2009. Such growth is considered the "minimum" and should ideally climb higher, Wu says. [full story]

May 25 - 9:10pm EDT   Nokia's E71 today has received a review ahead of its official release date that suggests it may be the cellphone maker's best device yet. BGR notes that the QWERTY keyboard smartphone is more polished and slimmer than the E61i it replaces without sacrificing features; confirming earlier leaks, the device sports 3G for North American HSDPA networks as well as GPS and Wi-Fi. It also brings a large-capacity battery that lasts through more than a whole day despite "heavy" usage, according to informal tests. [full story]

May 19 - 11:35am EDT   iPass on Monday announced that its iPassConnect and Mobile Office services now officially support Windows Mobile 6 phones. The addition lets owners of supporting smartphones with Wi-Fi access hotspots on both their individual and work accounts without first turning to a computer. Adding the support could be crucial for workers traveling abroad, who may either exit a 3G cellular coverage area or face roaming charges, the company says. Over international 100,000 hotspots already tap into iPass today and include those run by Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott hotels as well as those run within McDonald's and Starbucks. [full story]

May 13 - 4:35pm EDT   Despite its reputation as a web-focused device, the iPhone is still clearly in the minority on the web, according to a tracking study by advertising startup AdMob. Using April ad requests as a means of gauging phone web use, the company finds that the iPhone accounted for just 1.1 percent of cellphone traffic in the US and 0.8 percent worldwide. Both results are dominated by Motorola and Research in Motion phones, with the four-year-old RAZR V3 leading the ranks at 5.3 percent worldwide and 9.1 in its home country; the BlackBerry Pearl (2.6 percent and 5.1 percent) and BlackBerry Curve (1.5 percent and 2.9 percent) were fourth and fifth, the study notes. [full story]

April 28 - 8:20am EDT   Nokia this morning stepped out of its routine to launch three new minimalist cellphones that target the new mid-range. The 6600 fold has some of the company's most advanced displays and centers around a hidden screen on the outer shell: while the surface appears blank, double-tapping the shell lets users check for the time or missed calls. Inside is one of Nokia's first OLEDs which provides a full 16 million color palette. Like the 3555 and 6555, the clamshell creates a seamless back which is reportedly more comfortable than on traditional flip phones. [full story]

April 24 - 4:05pm EDT   Nokia today revealed to Ars Technica that it will soon add support for new apps and also a new version of Linux to its Nseries tablets, such as the N810. Following the company's acquisition earlier this year of Trolltech, the Finnish device maker now says the Linux-based Maemo operating system on the Nseries will support apps written for the Qt framework; this will permit not just apps written for Qt on other versions of Linux but also cross-platform apps. Eventually, a single program should work with both Symbian phones (such as Nokia's N95) and Maemo devices, the company explains. [full story]

April 21 - 5:05pm EDT   Market research company ABI Research says in a new report that a Linux-based mobile operating system will find its way into in almost one out of every five mid- to high-end cellular phones by 2013. The study cites efforts by the LiMo Foundation, Google's marketing of its Android OS, as well as Nokia's Maemo and Trolltech purchases as some of the reasons the open-source OS system will grow. ABI's findings also conclude that despite the added cost of hardware necessary to support open-source operating systems, the move will offer better value because of the greater number of supported applications. [full story]

April 11 - 4:55pm EDT   Nokia may be withdrawing its efforts to actively contribute to the WebKit browser engine, according to an exchange on the official developer list. After noticing that the Finnish cellphone producer had been inactive for at least eight months in developing a version of the code for Symbian Series 60 phones, contributor Eric Seidel has been told by Nokia representative Bradley Morrison only that the company is closing off discussions of any outstanding bugs rather than fixing or improving code. [full story]

April 11 - 3:25pm EDT   Continuing a string of research on the cellphone industry, ABI Research today said in a new report that it expects the use of mobile webbrowsers to grow ten times its size in the next five years. The analysis firm estimates that 76 million copies of browsers were in use by the end of 2007 but that this should grow to 700 million by 2013. The surge is credited to a surge in smartphone use, which is expected to bring full web browsing as well as a greater number of mobile-oriented websites. [full story]

April 1 - 12:30pm EDT   The release of Apple's iPhone has helped to buoy the smartphone market in general, analysts pointed out at yesterday's Smartphone Summit in Las Vegas. Mark Donovan of M:Metrics observed that the number of American with smartphones doubled last year, reaching 14.6 million. This is notable not just because of previously lackluster sales, according to Donovan, but because it represents a faster growth rate than that for cellphones overall. As a gauge of the iPhone's influence, it is remarked that although 188 million Symbian phones have been sold since the OS' birth in 1999, Apple managed to sell 3.7 million iPhones in the space of six months during 2007. [full story]