AT&T talks about linking iPhone with U-verse, home control

We've already seen that Apple's iPhone is a mighty fine home controller, but it looks as if AT&T bigwigs are just now getting wind of that. At a recent event where the company showcased some of its newly developed technology, it talked up eventually linking the iPhone and its fiber-based U-verse service. More specifically, the iPhone could be used "as a remote control," and iPhone owners could also listen to voicemails on their television or watch recorded shows on their handset. There's no word on when said features could eventually be rolled out, but may we implore AT&T to spend more on U-verse expansion before making it even more awesome for those lucky enough to have it?

HTC Touch HD: Now Here's Some Sexy Hardware!

NEW HTC TOUCH HD RAISES BAR FOR MOBILE INTERNET AND ENTERTAINMENT

Large, 3.8 inch wide-screen VGA display, HTC TouchFLO 3D, desktop-class broadband browsing and a 3.5mm audio jack and more provide the ultimate entertainment combination

Taoyuan, Taiwan - September 16th, 2008 - HTC Corporation, a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design, today unveiled its latest handset, the HTC Touch HD, an entertainment focused mobile handset that will transform how people experience multimedia on the move. Integrating a large 3.8 inch wide-screen VGA display (WVGA), a standard 3.5mm audio jack and a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, the HTC Touch HD is the perfect device for multimedia fans.

Shifting the boundaries of design and innovation
The HTC Touch HD combines high performance capabilities with a stylish, sleek design that has made HTC a global leader in mobile phone design and innovation. Its large 3.8 inch WVGA touchscreen offers users stunning clarity and vibrant colours, providing an unrivalled experience when watching movies, browsing the Internet or even scanning through photos taken with the 5 megapixel auto focus camera.
The stylish new device also features HTC's beautiful TouchFLOTM 3D user interface to provide quick and intuitive access to the people, messages and content that are most important. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack has also been designed-in, allowing consumers to use high-performance headphones with the device for the best possible sound quality.

"Today, Widescreen TV, Internet and video have become the standard so there is no reason to compromise when you leave the house, the Touch HD delivers that uncompromising multimedia and Internet experience," said Peter Chou, president and CEO HTC Corporation. "We are living in a time where the concept of entertainment has radically changed. The internet is so much more than just email and our customers expect to be able to access the Internet and high quality multimedia content no matter where they are in the world."

Getting the most out of the Internet
The large high resolution, widescreen display combined with download speeds up to 18 times faster than standard 3G, enables the HTC Touch HD to render websites quickly and in full-page width. This provides a comparable Internet experience to that of home broadband in terms of both speed and page layout. This true mobile broadband experience allows users to navigate more easily, leveraging the mobile internet in a variety of ways. For example, browsing to favourite websites, using Google Maps to find a restaurant for lunch, searching for and streaming video from YouTube or even catching up to the minute news, blog posts and video podcasts with the integrated RSS reader, will be more intuitive for consumers familiar with desktop browsing.

No compromise
The HTC Touch HD has been conceived for both business and consumer users alike, who demand style and performance and do not think the two are mutually exclusive. The HTC Touch HD is the ideal handset for people who are embracing the mobile multimedia shift but who do not wish to forgo quality, simply by being on the move.

Availability
The HTC Touch HD will be available across major European carriers in Q4 2008 and be introduced in other global markets shortly following.

Key Touch HD product specifications:
• Size: 115 x 62.8 x 12 mm
• Weight: 146.4 grams/5.164 oz with battery
• Connectivity: Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHzWCDMA / HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
• Software/Operating system: HTC TouchFLO 3D with Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
• Display: 3.8 inch Wide Screen VGA screen (480 x 800 WVGA)
• Camera: 5.0 megapixel with auto focus - Second Camera: VGA
• Internal memory: 512 MB flash; 288 MB RAM
• Memory card: microSDTM memory card (SDHCTM capable)
• WLAN: 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth®: 2.0 with EDR
• GPS: GPS/AGPS
• Interface: HTC ExtUSBTM (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 High-Speed)
• Battery: 1350 mAh
• Talk time: WCDMA: Up to 390 minutes*** / GSM: Up to 310 minutes***
• Standby time: WCDMA: Up to 450 hours*** / GSM: Up to 390 hours***
• Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM7201aTM 528 MHz

About HTC Corporation
Founded in 1997, HTC Corporation (HTC) designs, manufactures and markets innovative, feature rich smartphone and PDA Phone devices.

Since its establishment, HTC has developed strong R&D capabilities, pioneered many new designs and product innovations and launched state-of-the-art PDA Phones and smartphones for mobile operators and distributors in Europe, the US, and Asia. These machines are available as HTC devices and as products individually customized for operator and device partners.

HTC is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile device market. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about
HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

HTC's Touch HD unveiled in very much official glory

We're still sans a press release, but a friendly tipster found this quite official page at HTC's very own site, depicting the sexy Touch HD from every angle, with every spec exposed. The rumors were naturally spot on, but that doesn't mean we're any less enthused about the 3.8-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera, and 3.5mm audio jack. Connectivity-wise we've got Europe-friendly HSDPA, GPS / A-GPS, 802.11g WiFi (we weren't clear on that one before), Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR and a microSD slot. On the software side there's TouchFLO 3D on top of Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro. There's also a front-facing VGA camera for video calls, 512MB of ROM and 288MB of RAM. HTC expects the 1350 mAh battery to score you 390 minutes of 3G talk and 450 ours of 3G standby, with 120 minute video calls just for kicks. The phone measures 12mm thick. Still no word on availability, price, or how you're ever going to stop us from cramming Android onto this thing.

T-Mobile to sell Dream starting late October, sez WSJ

Lining up nicely with most (but not all) of what we've been hearing, the Wall Street Journal is spouting off about some "people familiar with the matter" who are claiming that the Android-christening Dream will go on sale late in the month of October. What's more, these same folks say that we can expect a formal announcement about the worst kept secret in Seattle on September 23, though exact pricing is yet to be determined. That would leave about a month for anticipation -- "Dream Fever," if you will -- to build to a nice, rolling boil, which is important considering rumors that HTC looks to push somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 Dreams before the year's out. Assuming the sticker shock is kept to a minimum, there's only one question left to be answered: white, black, or brown?

iPhone 2.1 update: the aftermath

Now that 2.1's out, your iPhone 3G is finally perfect -- right? Well, that all depends on your definition of "perfect," but odds are you still have a niggle or two poking out from behind that heaping pile of bugs and security flaws that were smoothed over with Cupertino's putty knife in last week's update. Here's a quick look at what we're hearing so far:

* Excluding those of you who don't know where you are, our poll on claimed reception improvements in 2.1 suggests that the majority of iPhone 3G owners (by a slim margin) are seeing no improvement or -- gasp! -- a degradation in signal strength since 2.0.2.
* Given that 2.1 patches up some bugs with third-party apps, it comes as no surprise that a few of 'em are apparently breaking with the new firmware (a disappointment, yes, but not a surprise). It sucks that Apple whacked the ball into developers' courts on this one, and we're hoping for the sake of users and devs alike that it's not going to take many sleepless nights of re-coding and debugging to get the affected apps back on the straight and narrow.
* We're now hearing some reports of email buffoonery ranging from an inability to add new accounts to 2.1-equipped phones, to failures of existing accounts that had previously worked, to total Exchange breakage. Are you folks seeing anything there? Any corporate types freaking out that they've lost access to their beloved ActiveSync setups?

We actually found another bug in 2.1 ourselves: we can't find copy / paste anywhere. It's anyone's guess how that one slipped by the testers.