Nokia to unveil touchscreen phone next week

Reuters is reporting that Nokia will unveil its first touchscreen phone at a media event next week in London.
The phone, whose leaked pictures were posted on this blog earlier this week, is the result of plenty of market pressure since the iPhone’s debut more than a year ago. According to a Gartner analyst in the article, Nokia’s position as the leader of the mobile market has got the world waiting for their next move.
That move is reported to happen Oct. 2.
Nokia announced back in July that it would introduce its first touch-screen phone this year, and that it would be sold for a cheaper price than rival touch-screen models in order to tap into a higher-volume market.
Of course, the pressure’s on ever since HTC and T-Mobile introduced the Google Android-powered G1 this week, which retails for $179, slightly cheaper than the iPhone.
Would you buy a touchscreen Nokia phone? And for that matter, will touchscreen smartphones replace standard cell phones altogether? Tell us in TalkBack.

Windows Mobile 7 phones coming in Q1 2009?

Windows Mobile 7 may be closer than many think.

According to a report from at least one major handset maker, Microsoft is planning to make available the final bits of its next mobile operating-system release in time for them to start selling Windows Mobile 7 phones in the first quarter of 2009. If true, that would seem to imply that Microsoft will release the final Windows Mobile 7 by the end of 2008, in order to give phone makers time to test and preload.

As is the case with Windows 7, Windows Mobile 7 is a forbidden topic. Microsoft won’t talk about planned features, beta dates or how/when/if Windows Mobile phones will become more head-to-head competitors with the iPhone.

(I am wondering whether Microsoft might finally share some Windows Mobile 7 info at its Worldwide Partner Conference in early July, given that Andy Lees, the newly appointed Senior VP of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications business is on the keynote line-up. If Microsoft really is going to deliver the final Windows Mobile 7 bits later this year, one would think it needs to be evangelizing about it now.)

There have been a few leaks about what Microsoft is planning for Windows Mobile 7 and Windows Mobile 8. Not too surprisingly, multi-touch and gesture-recognition support are on the docket. The user interface for Windows Mobile phones is slated to get an overhaul, making it more consumer friendly. And, at some point, consumer-focused services beyond Windows Live — things like music and photo-management, will find their way onto Windows Mobile devices via Microsoft’s Project Pink and Danger acquisition.

Until now, the only target date for Windows Mobile 7 I had seen leak was “some time in 2009.” But the Phone Report earlier this week quoted an official with HTC saying the company planned to deliver a Windows Mobile 7 phone in Q1 2009, and an Android-based HTC phone in Q4 2008, by the way.

From recent executive remarks, it sounds like Microsoft is trying to get Windows and Windows Mobile to be more in sync. Might this mean with Windows Mobile 8 — which Microsoft has told certain folks will be built from scratch — Microsoft might make Windows Mobile a “real” version of Windows, with the same core as Windows client?

Time for LiMo and Android to stop talking

Ed Burnette has a great piece out today in Dev Connection about Google’s choice of Apache as the main license for its Android phone.

Some pieces will use Eclipse, some GPL V.2, and there will likely be some proprietary bits as well, he writes. That’s nice.

The LiMo folks have also been a-twitter since Verizon decided to join its camp rather than hang out with the Googlers. (The most recently-delivered LiMo phone, the Purple Magic (right) from Purple Labs, looked like a Razr with a penguin on it. Blech.)

But, as a fan of both systems, I would like to kindly ask both sets of developers to close their mouths for a while and get to work.

Press releases, alliances, and application possibilities won’t win this market. It’s designs that will win this market. If neither group can create something as compelling as an iPhone interface, neither will go anywhere.

It’s the proprietary iPhone which has changed the mobile game, demonstrating that with the proper interface people actually will go for mobile data in a big way.

What LiMo and Android are designing, now, is not a mobile phone, but a handheld Internet client. The winner will be the one who makes it most attractive to move the most data back-and-forth on a mobile network.

But as of now, neither group is really in the game. I have yet to see anything compelling from either group beyond press releases.

No more press releases, please. No more FUD. Send me a phone when it’s ready, and I’ll decide whether it’s worthy. By “I” and “me” I mean the marketplace.

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983.