July 4 - 1:30pm EDT   Sony Ericsson's first Android smartphone will be a very high-end touchscreen device most likely taking the iPhone head on, a Danish scoop shows. Codenamed the "Rachel," the phone would fit into the XPERIA line occupied only by the X1 but would emphasize speed, according to Mobil. Like the Windows Mobile-based Toshiba TG01, it would have a very high-end 1GHZ Qualcomm Snapdragon processor at its heart; it may also compete against the iPhone 3GS through "great" 3D graphics capabilities. [full story]

June 15 - 10:55am EDT   Sony Ericsson's fourth touchscreen phone and its second Windows Mobile device, the XPERIA X2, could be made public as early as Wednesday thanks to a leaked invitation to a press event that day. The Singapore gathering appears to focus on entertainment but has been linked to the smartphone, which may also appear at the same time as a Bluetooth headset based on FCC data. The possibility exists for other phones but hasn't been supported by other rumors. [full story]

June 3 - 4:20pm EDT   A leaked photo reveals a new handset that is said to be the eventual successor to the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 smartphone. The spied device apparently goes by the codename Vulcan, though little other information is known about it. While the low-resolution image does not reveal much, similarities between the new device and the old one are clearly visible. [full story]

May 27 - 3:25pm EDT   Internal Rogers documents reveal that the Canadian wireless provider will soon offer the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1a smartphone to customers, according to a Tuesday BGR report, effectively becoming the first North American provider to subsidize the device. Starting June 9th, the X1a will reportedly be sold in Rogers' retail locations, but only in areas with historically high data device sales and usage. The quad-band 3G handset was released in the US last fall as a carrier-independent unlocked model. [full story]

May 22 - 8:35am EDT   Sony Ericsson's Asia marketing VP Peter Ang today said that the company's first Android-based phones will use Android 2.0 rather than earlier versions of the operating system. Speaking at the launch of several phones in Taiwan, he didn't provide details of the phones themselves but did say to DigiTimes that Android 2.0 would have "more multimedia support" than 1.5. Leaks have suggested the Google OS will also have much tighter integration with social networks, including Twitter. [full story]

May 19 - 4:15pm EDT   Sony today said that its cellphone joint-partnership Sony Ericsson is likely to ask for 100 million Euros ($136.5 million) before the end of its current fiscal year in March 2010. The injection, which could come from either Sony or Ericsson themselves, would be prompted both by Sony Ericsson's own struggling health as well as Sony's own dropping sales, which resulted in its first loss in 14 years and has reduced the Japanese firm's ability to support its phone offshoot. How Sony Ericsson will raise the funds will be decided by the two parent companies. [full story]

May 7 - 10:05am EDT   Sony Ericsson chief Hideki Komiyama today said that his company had made several key mistakes that have contributed to the company's rapid decline in market share. Speaking to FT, the executive now says that the XPERIA X1, once intended as a flagship that would rival the iPhone, is one of these. The full touchscreen Windows Mobile phone was "a kind of experiment" and is no longer expected to carry Sony Ericsson's high-end phone business. [full story]

April 27 - 12:05pm EDT   The iPhone is pushing the demand for location-based services, claims Skyhook Wireless. The company produces software which unites GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular information in order to deliver location data; the technology is integrated into the iPhone, which it notes is amassing a dramatically escalating number of location-based apps. Whereas only a few dozen existed in August of last year, there are now over 2,000 as of April, and it is predicted that 2010 could see five times that number. Some 200 million location queries are served by Skyhook each day, the company comments. [full story]

March 20 - 2:50pm EDT   Sony Ericsson concluded its week with a warning on Friday that it will likely record a loss of between $461 million and $529 million for its current financial quarter, which ends at the conclusion of the month. The cellphone designer directly blames the shortfall on "weak consumer demand" and in clearing stock for its existing supply and sales chain. It also expects to ship just 14 million phones with a typical asking price of about $163. [full story]

March 18 - 12:05pm EDT   German magazine Manager claimed on Wednesday that Ericsson plans to back out of phone maker Sony Ericsson. The Swedish half of the partnership has reportedly brought up a split with Sony, which has "expressed interest" in talking to banks for help buying out Ericsson's 50 percent stake and leaving Sony in full control of the company. [full story]

February 15 - 2:10pm EST   Continuing its introductions, Sony Ericsson provided an early glance at the Idou, its second-ever full touchscreen phone. The handset will be one of the firm's first to be based on pure Symbian instead of UIQ and will use a custom touch interface with an emphasis on media playback. Appropriately, it will also have a 3.5-inch, 16:9 ratio display and appears to rely solely on the screen for keyboard input. Sony Ericsson can also claim to be the first with a 12-megapixel camera onboard a phone and will give the device both a xenon flash and a retractable lens cover. [full story]

January 29 - 2:00pm EST   Apple has met and pushed past its target of 1 percent of world cellphone market share in 2008, according to an ABI Research study. iPhones now represent 1.1 percent of the entire cellphone market and grew in dramatically from just 0.3 percent during 2007, when the iPhone was only available for half of the year and only in a limited number of countries. The number puts Apple on par with phone veteran HTC and slightly ahead of Sharp. [full story]

January 16 - 8:30am EST   Sony Ericsson finished its week on a low note with word of significant declines in the last quarter of 2008. The cellphone maker reports having shipped 24.2 million phones in the three-month span, a 6.2 percent drop versus the summer and a 27.3 percent plunge versus the same period a year ago. Its phone shipments for the year also registered a decline and fell to 96.6 million phones for all of 2008 compared to 103.4 million in 2007. [full story]

December 29 - 10:20pm EST   The upcoming XPERIA range of handsets from Sony Ericsson will be built in conjunction with Taiwan's Mobinnova, which itself has recently introduced its Windows Mobile based smartphone, the ICE. It features a 3-inch touchscreen that responds to users' touch with a tactile response courtesy of Mobinnova's mobiFeel technology. The quad-band GSM handset also supports the 900MHz, 1,900MHz and 2,100MHz WCDMA/HSPA bands. High-speed HSDPA download speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and HSUPA upload speeds as fast as 2Mbps are supported. [full story]

December 26 - 8:10am EST   An initial 2009 roadmap for phones at Canadian provider Rogers and its sub-label Fido has leaked and provided clues not only to devices coming to the West for the first time but a new BlackBerry device. A new Pearl Flip will represent a quick turnaround for RIM and will add HSPA-based 3G for faster Internet access; it will also be the first non-QWERTY phone from the company to have both GPS and Wi-Fi at the same time. The new Flip is due sometime in the first half of 2009 and will be available only through Rogers. [full story]