PocketGear has acquired Handango, the announcement was made just a few days back. This might come as a surprise but the benefits are truly amazing, at least for PocketGear, quite simply because this lone move now gives it access to some 140,000 apps of various categories. This includes paid as well as free titles. This might as well be termed as  the creation of so far the largest cross platform, open app store on planet Earth.

The two stores are known to have generated over $ 400 million in revenue resulting from sale of mobile apps. This they say is spread across 175 countries, and the variety of mobile devices supported is well over 2000 in number.

PocketGear’s developer base alone has expanded to some 32,000 strong giving it more variety and reach. This will help improve its stats further as the company has already worked in conjunction with Samsung, Microsoft, LG, Sony Ericsson, RIM, Verizon and AT&T. Simply put more developers and more companies mean more variety and hence more revenue. And remember this is for a variety of devices unlike Apple.

PocketGear supports supposedly all brands less the “i” category Some of the brands under its belt are Java, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Android, Palm, Blackberry and the ever present Symbian.    

PockerGear’s strength comes form its business model which supports developers more than other competitors. PocketGear’s developers get to keep up to 90% of the share as against 70% in case of other models. Besides this the company CEO Jud Bowman says it has perfected its systems in a big way and Handset manufacturers or carriers can now launch their own customized stores in weeks.

The Google Android made by HTC, being dubbed as Droid Eris that is hitting the shelves on Friday 06 November 2009 is devoid of Data Tethering facility. Data Tethering allows smart phones to be connected to to laptops for fast Internet access on the go, like EV-DO. Verizon Wireless says high speed access for PCs/Laptops will come later.

How much later? Well Verizon has this facility lined up for the Motorola Droid which is poised to be released in 2010. Essentially this is a network specific feature also. Apple’s iPhone for instance has AT&T as its sole carrier, and so far they haven’t given Data Tethering, although it has been announced but is yet to come and no confirmed timeline has been laid.

Most smart phones of the day Blackberry for instance have this feature. Data services cost a bundle and tethering is an overlay costing even more depending on one’s carrier. So before you make the plunge, do some homework.

We have heard about Nokia plunging in to the NetBook field, that was certainly a news maker, now it is Dell that plans to launch a mobile phone somewhere in 2010. This isn’t one bit surprising because we were always wondering why hadn’t Dell done this before? And now Michael Dell has unveiled plans to launch a smart phone for the US market. The announcement was made at the FiReGlobal a few days back by the CEO himself who went on to talk about the importance of a mobile device for the company’s ever bright future.

Much details aren’t known about the device, the specs and whether it will be Android based or will run on  Windows Mobile 7. Dell has a sizeable share in the PC market and a mobile device will not only augment its share but have a good impact on the overall business also. It has been made public that China Mobile will launch the device and rumors about AT&T might well be unfounded. Surprisingly the last Dell Mini 3i was also launched in China for China Mobile this time now they are setting the US market in the crosshairs.

October 2009 happens to be a very important month, somehow. We have Microsoft releasing Windows 7, Ubuntu releasing Karmic Koala and now it is HTC’s Android based Hero Smartphone hitting the shelves on 11 October in connivance with Sprint. The Hero is no ordinary phone, it is smart by all standards. Upon release and further use it will become clear how it fares against the iPhone, Blackberry or even the Windows Mobile 6.5 based devices. The phone has WLAN, GPS, a 5 MP camera, 3.2” screen, 2 GB memory (expandable via microSD card), USB support, Bluetooth, handwriting recognition, trackball, ability to sync with Google services like Gmail/Google maps, push email, music download from Amazon’s mp3 store and stereo Bluetooth to name a few.

It seems Android is going strong, if the media reports are anything to go by. We have Motorola’s Cliq coming out somewhere in November, Samsung’s Moment, and even Dell planning an Android based device in collaboration with AT&T, besides Sony eying the Android. As if all this wasn’t enough there is even talk of Google and Verizon teaming up for more Android based gizmos. This sounds really good for Google, things are looking up we guess. Dell’s party may also include T-Mobile. The buzz is that Google is coming out be a strong contender for iPhone, in the coming years off course. We are keeping our fingers crossed, everything takes time!

Apple has been notoriously rebuffing VOIP applications from its app store but no explanation was available. But now it seems it wasn’t Apple which was refusing VOIP applications instead AT&T did not allow VOIP traffic through its network. Finally AT&T is saying that it will allow VOIP traffic through its 3G network, means go ahead for Skype and Google voice and many more VoIP applications.

This is because FCC  has scrutinized how Apple and AT&T handle VoIP apps for the iPhone , specifically, Apple’s continued rejection of Google’s Google Voice app. In short FCC is pushing for "net neutrality," which prevents carriers from blocking Internet communications, even on wireless networks and AT&T had to yield to mounting pressure.

At the moment this might sound a good news, but the load of new VOIP traffic might strain even less stable AT&T network which is causing many dropped calls and less stable VOIP calls, but our fingers are crossed and we are hopeful that now Google Voice and Skype will prevail on iPhone and users will be able to expand their communication horizons.

The breaking news of today is that the most awaited MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) on iPhone finally goes live on AT&T. MMS allows users to send graphics, audio clips, locations, contacts, and video clips via an SMS-like messaging system on their iPhones.It has been found out that MMS is not very popular on other phone devices but iPhone users tend to make more use of multimedia features as compare to others.

 How to get it?

To prepare for the iPhone MMS update, download iTunes 9.0.1 and make sure your iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS is using iPhone 3.1 firmware. If you have iPhone 2G or 1G, it will not be able to get the MMS update. For more details see below

Stepwise procedure:

(1) Download iTunes 9.0.1 if you don’t already have it on your computer.

(2) Connect your iPhone to your computer then open iTunes

(3) When the MMS update is available, you will see a message asking you if you want to install and update to your carrier settings- click Update Settings

(4) iTunes will then inform you that your settings have been updated. CLick OK in the message

(5) Reboot your iPhone by powering it off and then on again. MMS is now enabled.

When is it actually going live?

AT&T has started the service across U.S today in which text messages will be send, beginning at 10 am Eastern. Let’s see how people respond to this new service. Will the heavy traffic of iPhone owners crash the service? For all this and more, we would have to wait and see..Stay tuned to Biggtech!

The wireless carrier announced Thursday that it will launch its multimedia messaging service (MMS) for the iPhone on September 25. AT&T said it understood customers are “eager” for an update on the plan’s rollout schedule.

Earlier Apple announced before the the iPhone 3.0 operating system was updated this summer to allow the popular smartphones MMS capability. Although iPhone carriers outside the country began MMS network support immediately, AT&T said it was going to wait.

“We’ve been working for the past several months to prepare our systems and network to ensure the best possible experience with MMS when it launches, and that launch date is September 25 for iPhone 3G and 3GS customer,” read a statement on AT&T’s Web site. “We know that iPhone users will embrace MMS. The unique capabilities and high usage of the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and ensure an excellent experience from Day One. We appreciate your patience as we work toward that end.”

Well this is an much awaited and interesting update and will certainly help both AT&T and Apple to soothe the disgruntled customers. iPhone lacked MMS capability in the initial release and in the final hardware and software upgrade this functionality was promised.