Earlier this year, a new law was passed in the United States that prevented owners of mobile phones from unlocking their devices and using it on another network without carrier authorization. The law also prevents users from taking unlocked phones abroad and using them on local carriers there. However, the law is now being protested by many users who believe that they should be able to switch their mobile phones to any carrier they choose.

Soon after the law went into effect, a “We The People” petition was created which stated that if 100,000 people signed, the White House would release a response on the issue. As of Monday, the Obama Administration is fully supporting the petition and White House advisor R. David Edelman issued an official response, mentioning that consumers should be able to unlock both mobile phones and tablets without facing penalties.

The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties. In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.

This is particularly important for secondhand or other mobile devices that you might buy or receive as a gift, and want to activate on the wireless network that meets your needs — even if it isn’t the one on which the device was first activated. All consumers deserve that flexibility.

Despite Edelman’s response detailing plans for negotiation on the issue with both the Federal Communications Commission and mobile carriers, the Library of Congress is defending its position on the issue. Unlocking mobile phones, particularly Apple’s iPhone has been a major issue that has affected many users. This is an issue that is now being taken to a governmental level, although it is arguable that this is an issue that can be solved between the consumers and carriers.

{Via MacRumors}

On Sunday, a report by research firm comScore revealed that Apple Inc. (AAPL) has officially surpassed LG to become the number two phone maker in the United States. According to the report, AAPL gained 1.5% in mobile subscribers from August 2012 to October 2012 to claim the second spot.

Samsung currently remains the number one phone maker in the United States with 26.3%, with Apple coming in second at 17.8%. LG isn’t too far behind, only .2% behind Apple at 17.6%, however, it did drop in percentage over the past several months alongside Motorola and HTC.

Apple poses a threat to Samsung which has fiercely been promoting its mobile phones to compete with the iPhone and gain new customers. In the past, Apple surpassed Motorola to claim the 3rd spot and now threatens to become the world’s leading phone maker. It is interesting to note that Apple only sells the iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, and limited supplies of the iPhone 4 and has been competing with LG and Samsung which produce hundreds of different cell phones.

comScore tracks the installed base for a phone maker, as opposed to sales figures, which allows them to accurately determine how many users a phone maker currently has. With Apple jumping two spots in less than a year, it is only a matter of time before they lead as the number one phone maker in the US.

{Via MacRumors}

Just a year ago, the only carriers in the United States offering the iPhone were AT&T and Verizon. Since then, three major carriers have picked up the iPhone including Sprint, as well as a number of smaller regional carriers, such as C-Spire and Alaska Communications. On Thursday, Virgin Mobile announced that they will be offering the iPhone 4S, starting on June 29. Virgin Mobile is a prepaid brand operated under Sprint and offers a number of plans for a range of mobile phones. With the iPhone, Virgin Mobile is offering no contract service plans under $30 for customers that opt in for automatic payments.

Virgin Mobile’s Beyond Talk unlimited data and messaging plans for iPhone start at $35 per month for access to Sprint’s Nationwide Network, and customers can receive a $5 per-month plan discount when they register for automatic monthly payments with a credit card, debit card or PayPal account, making iPhone available for as low as $30 per month. Customers can also use their iPhone as a mobile hotspot through Virgin Mobile for an additional $15 per month.

Although Virgin Mobile is offering cheap plans and is not forcing a contract on customers, it is not subsidizing the iPhone and is offering it full price, at $549 for the 8GB model of the iPhone 4 and the 16GB iPhone 4S at $649.

Early last week, San Diego based carrier, Cricket announced its own prepaid plans for the iPhone and offered the hardware under subsidy, a $150 cheaper than Virgin Mobile’s current price. With Cricket charging less for hardware and more for service ($55 unlimited talk, text, web), the two carriers balance out in terms of price, when considering Virgin Mobile is charging far less for the service. Virgin Mobile is currently offering customers a variety of choices, $30 (300 minutes), $40 (1200 minutes), and $50 (unlimited minutes) and a data cap of 2.5GB.

Virgin Mobile will be selling the iPhone at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and other retailers around the country. Virgin Mobile’s adoption of the iPhone shows the popularity of the device, especially when considering that its parent company, Sprint also offers the iPhone with a contract. The iPhone is now offered on a range of different carriers, national, regional, and prepaid networks, Virgin being the latest to carry it.

{via MacRumors}

According to the latest Nielsen report, Android and iPhone make up majority of the U.S smartphone market. Both Android phones and iPhone did not exist or were not popular about 5 years ago, and were introduced into a Nokia and Blackberry dominated market. Since then Google and Apple have become fierce competitors and the data proves that they are in fact, at the top of the smartphone market. According to the report, Android’s increase in market share was a whopping 53% from January to October, up from a solid 42%. Apple’s iOS, although trailing behind Android also experienced an increase, from 21% to 29%.

With Android and Apple leading the pack, Blackberry’s RIM has been seeing a steady decline in shares, holding on to only 11.6 percent of the smartphone market, which is substantially less than both Android and Apple. Other smartphone companies, such as Motorola once held over 36% of the smartphone market but have since dropped to below 1%, as of March 2009. This is due in large part to Apple’s massive success with the iPhone’s adoption, selling more of the device each quarter and the widespread adoption of Android OS in a number of smartphones, including Motorola’s Droid line.

Nielsen’s report also mentioned new smartphone purchases, where 48 percent of users surveyed in February said they purchased an Android phone and 43% said they purchased an iPhone. These are staggering numbers, especially since both of these companies have not faltered with their takeover of the U.S smartphone market and have increased their annual revenue with each passing year.

Google is developing a new wireless home entertainment system, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal which could compete with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). The report, published on Thursday suggests that the new platform would be marketed under Google’s brand and will be based off their Android operating system, which also runs mobile phones, and parts of Chrome OS. The hardware for the entertainment system is expected to manufactured by Google Inc., something that is new to the company, as they usually include a third party in that process.

For example, Google branded and sold the Nexus smartphone, but it was manufactured by HTC. This allows Google to stay focused on the OS as opposed to hardware solutions. This is the first time that Google would handle both hardware and software, putting them directly in competition with AAPL.

Google’s Android unit has led a multi-year effort to develop the new entertainment device, which may possibly stream other digital media besides music and is expected to be unveiled later this year, people familiar with the matter said.

The new device, along with Google’s pending purchase of device maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., shows how serious the Internet giant is about wanting to control both the software and hardware process, a formula used by rival Apple Inc.

The system is expected to allow users to download music and stream it to Google-branded wireless speakers and other devices, putting it in a competitive market with other devices such as the Sonos home entertainment system, and even Apple’s own AirPort Express, AirPlay, and Apple TV, while not a full entertainment system in itself, it would include many of the features.

WSJ did not report as to when Google is planning to announce, let alone release the system, however, it is very likely that users will see it sometime this year. Streaming is becoming an increasingly competitive market, and Google, being pros in online services, will not give up an opportunity to dominate.

{via MacRumors}

The guys over at Net Applications recently released some interesting information about various operating systems, both mobile and desktop, and how they compare to each other with regards to web share. Apple’s iOS platform, with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices combined, rose to 1.18% of all web usage. When you consider mobile browsing in total reached an all-time high of 2.8% that’s impressive stuff.

Why did Apple’s iOS see its highest score to date? The smart money is on the release of the iPad and iPhone 4’s continued high demand drawing in new users to mobile web browsing.

As for the competition, Android handsets accounted for just 0.24% of web use – turns out having more handsets than apps doesn’t automatically get you great results! is it possible Android users use their phones differently?  Maybe they are just too busy scanning QR codes!

The report also measures desktop usage and it’s not great reading for Microsoft. Internet Explorer, the Redmond company’s own internet browser, saw its share fall to 59.65% – still nothing to sniff at. Windows in general also suffered a loss, with a result of 91%. Still remarkably high.

For the second quarter in a row Motorola reported shipping less mobile phones than Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). To give you an idea of how the smart phone industry has been turned on its head since the arrival of Apple, Silicon Alley Insider have produced some great statistics.

In Q2 2007, for instance — the quarter when Apple first started selling the iPhone — Motorola shipped 35.5 million units, including the 100 millionth Razr.

In June this year Apple shipped 8.4 million iPhones. Compared to the 8.3 million phones of all types that Motorola shipped.

Of those 8.3 million, only 2.7 million were Android based.

If the iPhone business fails for Apple for some reason, then they have many other arms of Apple to fall back on. All, apart from the iPod Touch, are growing exponentially. And the iPod business is only being impacted by Apple’s own iPad business. So no biggie.

Motorola’s business, however, is the phone business.

Do you see some big companies like Motorola failing in the future? Or do you think they will fight back with Android? Have your say in the comments…

Here is what they have to say:

It’s official. Consumer Reports’ engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception. When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.

Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4’s signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that ‘mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.’

Does this take the shine off your new iPhone 4? Or is it going to put you off buying one? Should Apple now, finally start giving away free Bumpers with iPhone 4s? Let us know your thoughts in the comments…

Further lawsuits also challenged Apple’s right to control what software you could put on your iPhone, and alleged that Apple and AT&T were dishonest when they sold 2 year contracts to customers for iPhones, when they knew that they had an exclusive 5 year deal to sell the device together.

Over the past few years a few of these lawsuits have built up, and Apple has sold some 50 Million iPhones.

Today a Judge in California has disallowed some of the claims (pertaining to more spurious arguments), and said that others can be consolidated into one class action suit. Furthermore, anyone who bought an iPhone with a 2 year contract on AT&T since 2007 can also join the action.

The ultimate aim of the lawsuit is to stop Apple selling locked mobile phones in the US, and also controlling what software is installed on them.

All this seems a little bit like bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted as the iPhone will more than likely be on other carriers in the US early next year.

I am guessing that somewhere along the line lawyers and customers will be looking to line their pockets with some kind of compensation for “pain and suffering”, or other similar ludicrous claim. And at the end of the day this is another “financial fishing trip” at Apple’ and AT&T’s expense.

Do you think this will open iPhone contracts up for other carriers? Or do you think this could bring Apple’s App Store tumbling down? Let us know your thoughts in the comments…

Battery Go [rating: 3.5/5]

Utilise your remaining battery efficiently with this handy utility

Battery Go! and is a utility which helps you determine the amount of talk, internet, video, and music time you have remaining on your current battery charge. We also show your current charge percent and let you play around with the number using a slider to kinda see what your hypothetical battery life would be if you were to keep using your phone for a while or whatever.

The iPhone has always received a lot of criticism for it’s battery life by the media, which in part is justified when compared to the many days/weeks standby you get from normal mobile phones these days, but generally for a smartphone it is perfectly ok as long as you don’t go too mad with it. Enter Battery Go! which gives you important stats based on your battery level, handily expressed as a percentage for higher accuracy, broken down into four categories which covers the core functions of your device. Web, Phone, Music and Video are labelled with the amount of time on each so you can judge if you should make that phonecall or continue watching last weeks tv show!

Also present on this screen is a slider control that shows you the same information but at a battery level of your choice, handy I suppose for deciding when to charge up your iPhone but I personally can’t think of much reason to use it. I would have liked to have seen a battery health indicator here, so you could perhaps pre-empt a battery replacement and would like to think the time calculations are based on this somehow.

On pressing the (i) button on the bottom right corner of the screen will reveal “tips” for improving your battery. Though brightness control is best left to be controlled by the built in sensor which has saved me the most battery over having it at a fixed level.

Price: $0.99

(as of 09/08/09 version 1.0)

The Good

• Battery life expressed as a percentage
• Simply lets you better utilize your battery
• Slider for custom charge level calculator

The Not So Good

• No battery health indicator…
• … and can’t tell if this is taken into account

Reviewed by: TylerDurdan

Battery Go! (Battery Life Tool) Screenshot