Tablet, schmablet: Who needs one?

Everyone seems tablet crazy, or at least tablet-rumor crazy. But why? Who needs or wants a tablet when we already have a huge array of smartphones, netbooks, e-readers and a crop of new lightweight laptops that provide the same features and more?

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Smartphone data recovery can be costly

Hope that you never have this experience: You get in a fight with your spouse or partner, they fling your smartphone 26 stories down a high-rise building's garbage chute and you pray that the data on that phone survives, even if the device itself does not.

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Are you ‘app-noxious’?

With an app for this and an app for that, iPhones and other smartphones are now capable of all kinds of amazing feats. But while our technology has developed by leaps and bounds, human nature — specifically our tendency to become obsessed with shiny new toys — hasn’t changed a whit.

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Not your mother's Garmin or Nokia

Cisco recently announced plans to buy Pure Digital, maker of the popular Flip video camera. Nokia may make a netbook. Garmin is teaming up with Asus to create a cell phone.

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2009:The cell phone dominates

If 2008 was the year of the “smartphone,” 2009 may be the year of the smarter consumer looking to save on phone costs by reducing service where they can, including in some cases, losing their land lines, using alternative wired line-options or moving to prepaid cell phones that don’t require a contract.

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Smartphone wars and hype heat up

The smartphone wars — and hype — appear to be in full heat. Two weeks before the second-generation iPhone goes on sale, the Samsung Instinct, dubbed a potential iPhone “killer,” looks like it’s appealing to buyers’ instincts.

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Smartphones heeding the call of consumers

At a time when sales of cell phones are slowing in the United States, there's one kind of mobile device that appears to be defying the trend: smartphones.

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Everyone seems tablet crazy, or at least tablet-rumor crazy. But why? Don't we have a wide enough range of gizmos already, from smartphones to netbooks, to serve our needs?

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Adobe on Monday announced plans to roll out mobile versions of its Flash platform to several smartphones. Apple's popular iPhone, however, is gaining a lesser Flash experience.

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I really didn't want to beat up on WinMo here, because at this point it just feels tired. But man, come on Microsoft, you're giving me no choice. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't just a letdown—it barely seems done.

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I've had the chance to use both an AT&T HTC Pure and Pharos Traveler 137 running Windows Mobile 6.5 and I have to say Microsoft disappoints me greatly with this release.

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We went into this review with the full hopes of emerging with a generally positive outlook. Sorry, Windows Mobile 6.5 – it's just not going to happen.

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It isn't really our area of expertise, but we've gotten word that Microsoft will unleash two new Smartphones, probably at CES in January 2010.

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Frustrated programmers have highlighted what they believe to be double standards, strange policies, and flip-flopping among Apple's App Store guards.

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When you're smartphone shopping, consider shopping for phone insurance before you buy the phone. Insurance offered via wireless carriers may not be the right choice for you. There are options.

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Porting my phone number to Google Voice was a three day process, which I was pre-warned about. The mobile carriers in the U.S. have made the porting process between them fairly easy, and it occurs over a couple of hours.

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A study by mobile security company SMobile Systems claims smartphones running the Symbian operating system are breeding grounds for spyware, viruses, worms and Trojans. SMobile says most users of the infected Symbian smartphones are unaware of the infections.

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AdMob released their mobile metrics report for June and Android usage continues to grow. Request from the Android operating system grew 25% month over month. This now gives Android a 5% worldwide OS share and marks the first time they have pulled ahead of Windows Mobile.

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Augmented Reality allows for an increased awareness of your surroundings and is slowly being integrated into smart phones. One of my clients has an app coming out in a few weeks that uses this and it's quite cool.

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In my mind, the most recent AT&T failure is completely inexcusable. Its visual voicemail system — which is the only way to be notified of voicemails on the iPhone — has been down for many users for days, if not weeks. And AT&T apparently didn't bother to tell anyone.

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iPhone 3G S buyers are still experiencing delays activating their new smartphones, but Apple apparently wants to make it up to them.

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Google predicts that some 18 to 20 phones, from eight to nine manufacturers, will come with Android OS installed on them by the end of the year.

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Chalk it up to the fact that the Curve is available on the four biggest U.S. carriers, not to mention a two-for-one sale on Verizon Wireless. Also in the top five for the first quarter of 2009: The Storm and the T-Mobile G1.

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In the face of competition from the likes of Apple, Symbian hopes to run its mobile operating systems on netbooks, e-readers, GPS, and other mobile devices.

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Free TV service could soon be coming to a cell phone near you.

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Palm investor Roger McNamee recently stated that when the phone contracts of the initial iPhone owners expire this summer, they'll all be jumping ship for the Palm Pre - which should be shipping by then.

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It seems like cell phones have a market lifespan as long as the average American's attention span, especially for cell phoneaholics who dream in CDMA and GSM.

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Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi, who doesn't have the best track record on Apple prognostication, thinks Apple is missing out by not making a mobile phone that plays music but lacks heavy data requirements. The problem is that Apple doesn't want to compete in that space.

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iSuppli took apart Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm to determine the cost of its components. Guess what? The iPhone parts are cheaper.

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There are any number of glitches that could keep the Palm Pre from totally knocking our socks off when it launches sometime this year. But allow us to suggest that the most likely source of disappointment will be the Pre's battery life.

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Apple and Palm kicked a lot of dirt at each other last week -- acting Apple CEO Tim Cook flatly told analysts that "We will not stand for people ripping off our IP" when asked specifically about competition like the Palm Pre, and Palm responded with a similarly-explicit "We have  …

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An equity research note discussing a possible Dell bid for cell phone market share is the latest sign of a company shifting its strategy to better compete against Apple and others.

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