Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 09:08AM GelaSkins are removable covers for protecting and customizing your portable devices. They feature stunning, photo-quality graphics ranging from fine art prints to contemporary urban images designed by our growing family of artists from around the globe.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 09:30PM 
Today appMobi announced the addition of new mobile web services to its comprehensive Platform as a Service (PaaS) mobile app ecosystem solution. Its free cross platform developer toolkit, the appMobi XDK, now provides mobile application and web developers a completely integrated set of hosted tools and services. The upgraded tools include frictionless payments, multimedia push notifications, analytics, and over-the-air app updates. These services will allow developers to effortlessly make changes to already existing apps or easily create new ones. The tools will be available to mobile web, Apple iOS, Google Android, and Blackberry devices.
AppiMobi's booth is currently on display on the Apps World floor (#3196); here attendees can view a demonstration of the entire appMobi PaaS. The appMobi's new 1Touch Frictionless Payments has opened the doors for more secure mobile transactions. Its system is so groundbreaking, it was
selected as a finalist in the CTIA's E-Tech Awards. The 1Touch system allows purchases within apps or websites to made with a "single touch" and is compatible with Authorize.Net, Paypal, and carrier billing.
The CTIA's E-Tech Awards honor the most innovative new products in 14 categories that span areas of mobile apps, consumer electronics, enterprise, and infrastructure. The winners will be announced tomorrow at 2 p.m.
Furthermore, appMobi's new pushMobi Multimedia Push Notifications will allow push messaging that can include video, audio, and HTML5 content. The upgrades also provide advertisers will key demographic information, allowing them to filter through to their target audiences. AppMobi's new analytic system tracks pertinent information crucial to advertisers and webmasters; this includes app starts, clickstreams, push messaging activity, and payment history. Users will not have to worry about constantly upgrading their app store with appMobi's new Live Updates OTA App Updating. The Live system allows for over-the-air updates to go directly to a user's device.
CTIAW11, appMobi, ctia, ctia wireless Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 07:00PM 
Retail giant Amazon is preparing to launch its own app store on the Android platform on Tuesday, March 22, a trusted source told Wired.com.
First leaked in September, Amazon’s Android app store will be a curated market, meaning Amazon reviewers will determine which apps are allowed inside, similar to Apple’s iTunes App Store. That’s a contrast to Google’s “anything goes” policy for apps that appear in the Android Marketplace.
Amazon has been less than discreet with its imminent app store. Earlier this week, an Android fan discovered that a webpage for the Amazon app store —http://www.amazon.com/apps — went live prematurely, revealing a horizontal sliding menu of about 48 apps and their prices.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 03:00PM 
The CTIA's first day got off to an interesting start with Tuesday morning's keynote. Though the CTIA's website announced that the CEOs of "the four largest U.S. mobile carriers" would share the stage, T-Mobile's representative dropped out of the lineup shortly after the AT&T/T-Mobile acquisition announcement.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse opened the session and wasted little time in announcing Sprint's contributions to the future of mobile. Hesse introduced Android's new program, DriveFirst, which was created to prevent texting and driving; once the phone senses that it is traveling over 10 mph, it will lock. Hesse went on to say that "the mobile ecosystem will soon be larger than the automobile manufacturing and pharma industries combined." He added, "cell phones are no longer going to be a gadget. In five years there are going to be what IT is going to be."
Hesse was followed by FCC Chariman Julius Genachowski, who joked "as you can see I have moved from a teleprompter to a tablet." Genachowski emphasized that unleashing more spectrum was the U.S's top priority and that wireless technology was key to our progress. He noted that the U.S.'s adoption of broadband was 67%, while countries like Singapore topped at 90%. Like Hesse, Genachowski touched on mobile's responsibility to safety, explaining plans to accelerate 911 capabilities on cell phones. Such advances would allow mobile users to text and send phones to 911 operators.
Following the Chairman's address, the keynote moved into the highly anticipated roundtable session. CNBC's Jim Cramer hosted Sprint's Hesse alongside AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega and Verizon CEO Dan Mead. Cramer's slightly comedic, slightly serious first question: "Do you guys hate each other?" The conversation then shifted to the evolution of 4G, where Hesse credited his competitors for their innovative contributions. Shortly after, the panel discussed on whether or not there should be caps on usage and the adoption of metered plans. De la Vega also went on to state that "video is the next big wave in the mobile industry." Finally, the AT&T and T-Mobile acquisition was addressed. Sprint's Hesse expressed concern that the acquisition would "stifle innovation [with 74 percent of spectrum] in the hands of just two." He then used humor to jab at the FCC's and DOJ's responsibility in the matter. AT&T's De la Vega continued to defend the acquisition's role in obtaining more spectrum. Perhaps the best burn came compliments of Hesse when Cramer asked "I get very angry when my phone freezes. Who's at fault? Why do things freeze?" Hesse wittingly responded, "because you have Verizon."
AT&T, CTIAW11, Mobile Life, TMobile, ctia Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 11:00AM 
One of the questions on lots of folks minds, especially T-Mobile customers, is whether the deal to sell to AT&T means T-Mobile will finally get the iPhone.
Well, if they ever become part of AT&T, clearly the combined company will have the device. But that doesn’t change things for now, T-Mobile said, adding that the company remains independent (and iPhone-less) until the deal closes, which should take about a year.
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 05:35PM 
Twitter’s official iPhone app, formerly Loren Brichter’s Tweetie and an otherwise awesome client, got a lot of negative reactions from the recent addition of the Quick Bar, a mandatory trending-topics banner on top of the tweet list. A lot of people really hate it, calling it the “dickbar” and often abandoning the Twitter app entirely because of it.
Its initial implementation as a floating overlay over anything you were doing in the app was far worse. Now, it’s just at the top of the main timeline, and it scrolls with the list. But it’s still offensive to most people who hated its debut, because making it scroll with the list didn’t solve the problem of it being there and being mandatory.
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 05:31PM
Today marks the beginning of the International CTIA Wireless Conference 2011 in Orlando, Florida. The conference begins on the brink of news that AT&T has acquired T-Mobile for an astonishing $39 billion from Deutsche Telekom. This move makes AT&T the largest carrier in the United States by a landslide. AT&T was often criticized for its inability to keep up with other rapidly developing networks; the acquisition is expected to put the company up to par with the evolution of 4G technology. Despite an overwhelming response from consumers hoping for T-Mobile's production of the iPhone, AT&T insists that T-Mobile will remain an independent company for the next year. The announcement has also raised questions on market competition and whether or not the acquisition will be beneficial to consumers.
Another name sure to be heard regularly during CTIA's conference is Android. In the last six months of 2010, Android smart phones held 46% of the market share (via Neilsen Company numbers.) Prior to the conference, Android announced the release of Adobe Flash Player 2.0. The March 18th announcement stated that Flash will now be available for the Android 3.0.1 Honeycomb and the Motorola Xoom. The updated capabilities hope to “to ensure tight integration and optimization between Flash Player 10.2 and new OS and browser capabilities.” The latest version is available for download in the Android Marketplace. Furthermore, muvee Device Solutions Group will be demonstrating its new suite of HD video editing tools for Android operating systems at CTIA App World Pod #2895A. The new tools will allow users to trim video, resize content, set videos to music tracks, record voice-overs, overlay text and images, and tweak video speeds.
Terence Swee, CEO of muvee stated, "We don’t expect consumers to suddenly want to make their next Hollywood blockbuster on the smaller screens with a touch interface. However, what consumers will want to do are simple quick edits to package the video they have shot. We enable them to do just that, using radically fast technology to reduce drain on battery and remove the need for large main memory on device.”
AT&T, CTIAW11, ctia wireless in CTIA News Monday, March 21, 2011 at 05:00PM 
The lull of my lazy, rainy weekend was broken by the news that AT&T plans to acquire T-Mobile USA for a whopping $39 billion in cash and stock. Who wins and who loses in this deal? It’s hard to find winners, apart from AT&T and T-Mobile shareholders. Here is a list of who loses, in my opinion, in this deal:
Consumers. The biggest losers of this deal are going to be the consumers. While AT&T and T-Mobile are going to try to spin it as a good deal to combine wireless spectrum assets, the fact is, T-Mobile USA is now out of the market.
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 03:00PM 
Three carriers, that is, with the proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T. Big deals like this remind us of the stakes at the consumer endpoint of the mobile web. I only hope this consolidation doesn’t impair consumer freedoms when it comes to the app ecosystem, which I wrote about late Friday. More as we go to the links:
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 11:00AM 
When Motorola’s Xoom hit Verizon stores last month, it was missing some of the features that promised to make it the iPad’s first formidable rival–including its much-touted support for Adobe’s Flash Player. That got fixed today when Adobe released Flash Player 10.2 for Android, a version which supports phones and tablets running versions of Android dating back to last year’s 2.2 Froyo.
