The high price of the phone comes with an upside: service will start at $30 per month.
That means the phone, plus two years of service, will cost $1,269, excluding taxes. That's nearly $800 less than a subscriber would pay for the same phone, an iPhone 4 with 8 gigabytes of memory, if buying it under the Sprint Nextel Corp. brand. Sprint charges $100 for the phone and $80 per month for service, excluding taxes.
The iPhone has until recently been restricted to contract-based plans. Now, the floodgates appear open for the phone to enter the prepaid, no-contract market, which is aimed at people with low incomes and poor credit. However, the high initial cost of the phone is likely to be an obstacle. Virgin Mobile sells other smartphones for as little as $80.
Last week, Leap Wireless International Inc., the parent of the Cricket prepaid service, said it would start selling the phone on June 22, starting at $400 and $55 per month. Leap's CEO said the phone would likely account for about 10 percent of the phones it sells over the next few years.
For Apple Inc., the maker of the phone, expanding sales to the no-contract segment means a chance to reach buyers who don't have the credit for contract-based plans, or don't want to be tied down with contracts. The number of people on contract-based plans has plateaued, and actually contracted for the first time in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the number of people on no-contract plans is still growing.
In addition to the iPhone 4, Virgin Mobile USA will sell the iPhone 4S, the model launched last year, for $649 with 16 gigabytes of memory.
Virgin Mobile's cheapest plan cost $35 per month, with a $5 discount possible for buyers who set up automatic monthly payment with a credit card, debit card or PayPal account. It provides 300 minutes of calling per month and unlimited texting. Data usage is also "unlimited," but is slowed drastically after the customer has used 2.5 gigabytes since the start of the billing cycle. IPhones with "Sprint" service have true unlimited data.
Virgin Mobile just introduced its first "4G" phone, the $300 HTC Evo V 4G, which can use Clearwire Corp.'s data network in addition to Sprint's. The iPhone, on the other hand, is limited to Sprint's "3G," or third-generation network, which is slower than those of the big iPhone sellers: AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless.
Sprint started selling the iPhone last fall, after its two bigger competitors. Sprint said the iPhones it buys from Apple for Virgin Mobile will count toward its commitment to buy $15.5 billion worth of phones over three years. That's a big and risky undertaking for Sprint, which is in a precarious financial position. The company also said it doesn't expect Virgin Mobile's iPhone sales to materially affect its 2012 operating income before depreciation and amortization.
Sprint shares rose 7 cents to $2.79 in early trading.
Sprint, which is based Overland Park, Kan., doesn't say how many subscribers Virgin Mobile has. Sprint over all has 15.3 million subscribers on no-contract plans, under the Virgin, Boost and Assurance Wireless brands. It has 32.8 million subscribers on Sprint and Nextel contract-based plans.
Nokia plans to expand on AT&T Lumia deals - Seattle Times
Attempting a turnaround in North America after losing most of its smartphone market share, Nokia plans to expand on its initial deals with carriers AT&T and T-Mobile USA, the Finnish company's regional executive said.
Nokia, which decided to abandon its Symbian software last year in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, is selling its Lumia lineup in the United States through AT&T and T-Mobile.
"But that's just a start," Chris Weber, president of Nokia's North America unit, said in an interview. "We're back in the U.S., we're back in Canada — it's exciting, but there's more work to do," he said, without elaborating on the plan.
Nokia is counting on Windows phones to rebuild its cachet in the region, where it's lost ground to Apple's iPhone and devices running Google's Android. Symbian fell to a 6.8 percent share of the smartphone market last quarter from 26 percent a year earlier, according to IDC.
To promote the Windows-based comeback, Nokia and Microsoft have ramped up marketing, and the Lumia 900 is selling for $99.99 on AT&T's network — half the cost of the iPhone 4S.
North America was the only region where Nokia saw handset shipments grow sequentially in the first quarter, helped by the release of the Lumia 710 on T-Mobile in January. Still, the 600,000 units shipped marked a 50 percent drop from a year ago.
Sales of the Lumia 900 on AT&T started in April, after the quarter ended.
The key to getting more Lumia phones into consumers' hands is giving each carrier a "unique proposition," so they can show how the devices stand out from the iPhone or Android models, Weber said. While only AT&T and T-Mobile offer the Lumia phones now, Verizon Wireless has said it's preparing to add a new Nokia model to its lineup.
Most AT&T buyers opted for the iPhone last quarter, with the Apple device making up 78 percent of its smartphone sales. At Verizon, which added the iPhone to its network more recently, the product accounted for 51 percent of smartphone sales. That company relies more on models running Android.
Still, Windows Phone shipments are projected to increase in the next four years, giving a boost to Nokia. IDC predicts that the operating system will overtake Apple's iOS as the No. 2 smartphone software by 2016.
In the short term, the Lumia phones may struggle to compete with new Samsung and Apple releases this year.
"It looks like they are ramping up the volumes quite well, but the question is how they are going to address the Samsung Galaxy III launch and the next iPhone launch," said Mikko Ervasti, an analyst with Evli Bank in Helsinki. "They need to keep the Lumia 900 selling well and have new products in the pipeline."
Global smartphone shipments will grow 39 percent this year, with 5.2 percent on Microsoft software, research firm IDC said in a report this week. IDC predicts that Windows Phone will account for 19.2 percent of smartphone shipments in 2016.
iPhone 5 case caught on film - Techradar.com
There's been quite a bit of chat surrounding the upcoming iPhone 5 case and it seems it's now 'appeared' in a video.
The video comes via ETrade Supply, which thinks that it's in possession of the back plate of the sixth generation Apple iPhone.
In the video we see the supposed case compared with the iPhone 4, revealing a taller dimension that's likely to house a larger screen – thought to be around 4 inches.
Familiar design
We've already seen pictures of the case featured in the video, which confirms the relocation of the headphone jack to the bottom of the handset, with a smaller connector dock and redesigned speaker grills.
The case also sports the two-tone metal-glass construction we saw in the original photos, which we reckon has something to do with NFC under the hood.
The SIM port on the side appears to be smaller that the one found on the iPhone 4S, suggesting that the iPhone 5 may use nano-SIM technology.
Of course, case manufacturers often chuck out any old rubbish based on leaked 'specs', so this could be just a case of another brand trying to cash in on the forthcoming iPhone hype.
So without further ado, here's the video – we'll let you make up your own mind on the legitimacy of this, and let us know your thoughts in the comment box below.
You can keep up to date with all the latest with our iPhone 5 release date, news and rumours article.
From ETrade Supply via SlashGear
Samsung Galaxy SIII reaches SA - Beeld
Duncan Alfreds, News24
Johannesburg - Samsung launched the highly anticipated Galaxy SIII in South Africa on Thursday.
The latest version of the South Korean-based manufacturer goes on sale in SA, joining over 145 countries by July, but Apple has gone to court to try to prevent the device from being sold in the US.
The Galaxy SIII has a 1.4GHz quad core processor and features Google's Android 4.0 operating system (Ice Cream Sandwich).
The device has a large 12cm high definition screen with Gorilla glass and includes an 8 megapixel primary and 1.9 megapixel secondary camera. On board is up to 64GB of memory which can be expanded with a micro-SD card.
Apple and Samsung have been embroiled in legal wrangling over intellectual property in several countries. The South Korean manufacturer leads the Android market in overall sales.
Samsung said that it has received nearly 50 000 orders for the device as the company moves to cement its dominance of smartphones based on the Android operating system.
"In South Africa, and I'm going out on a limb here by quoting a number, before this phone was even shown to people, the orders that we received were very close to 50 000," Samsung SA managing director Deon Liebenberg told News24.
Samsung has outsold Apple, shipping over 44 million versus Apple's 35 million, in the first three moths of 2012.
The Galaxy SIII has a recommended retail price of R7 999.
Samsung plunges $500k into Linux Foundation - The Register
Samsung plunges $500k into Linux Foundation
P-p-p-picks up a different penguin in Apple struggle
Posted in Developer, 7th June 2012 17:06 GMT
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Samsung has opened a new front in the mobile wars against Apple by upping its investment in Linux and its mobile software. Samsung will plough half a million dollars into the Linux Foundation and get a seat on the not-for-profit's board of directors by becoming a Platinum member of the Foundation, it has been announced.
Linux doesn't state how much its corporate Platinum members donate for the privilege of top-tier membership - but Apple Insider reports that the amount is circa $500,000.
Samsung joins The Linux Foundation's six other corporate platinum members: NEC, IBM, Fujitsu, Intel, Qualcomm and Oracle.
Samsung's interest in operating systems is not a surprise. As the biggest mobile handset maker in the world, and manufacturer of many other devices including tablets, TVs and white goods, the company has a vested interest in the software on its hardware. We imagine Samsung will be particularly interested in the new Linux for mobile operating system Tizen, a potential rival to iOS and Android.
Google's Android OS is based on a Linux kernel, but even so it would seem worth the Korean company's time to investigate alternative flavours.
And it's not just mobile phones that use Linux, software will become an increasingly important part of devices such as TVs as the era of smart gadgets dawns.
In the short term, Samsung have committed to work with The Linux Foundation on streamlining its participation with the kernel community and adopting open source best practices.
Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation said the the partnership would be good for Samsung and good for Linux:
The company’s commitment to Linux and investment in its development firmly plants it in a position to continue its achievements in the mobile, embedded and consumer electronics markets. This is a strategic business decision that will result in advancing Samsung Electronics’ success and accelerating Linux development work.
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Nokia lines up slew of launches to increase market share - NDTV
Aiming to increase its market share in smartphones category, Finnish handset maker Nokia has lined up a slew of launches in the coming months, according to a top company official.
"You have to be innovative all the time. You have to lead the consumer through innovation.. We need to set a new benchmark (in the smartphone category)..." Nokia IMEA Senior Vice-President D Shivakumar said.
Observing that the company though entered in the dual sim phones segment ''late'' but had become a market leader, he said they were on the right ''path'' with a right ''strategy'' (to increase the market share).
Shivakumar said the launch of ''Lumia'' range of smartphones were highly ''successful'' and added that they have two more new models in the offing.
Nokia India Director, Smart Devices, Vipul Mehrotra said, "There are two in market and two more models will come".
Besides enhancing this segment, Mehrotra said they would be expanding the mid-phone Asha range by adding seven models.
Asked whether the company would make investments in the Indian market, Shivakumar replied in the affirmative saying India was one of the bigger markets for Nokia and the company has already made huge investments.
"We also have our manufacturing plant here which is one of the largest for Nokia. It has created good job opportunities for the locals and 60 per cent of the employees are women", Shivakumar said.
The two new models launched today are manufactured from the Sriperumbudur facility, a company official said.
About their future launch plans, Vipul Mehrotra said they would be launching Nokia 808 PureView, Lumia 900 and Lumia 610 range during the second quarter of this year.
"We believe the launch of Nokia Lumia 900, Lumia 610 and PureView solutions will deliver a computing experience to our consumers...", he said.
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