Orange will launch its own application store this month. At first, the Orange App Store will be filled with 2,000 games, 500 applications and ringtones, and wallpapers for some Java-enabled phones. The App Store will become available on Android and BlackBerry devices during the first quarter of next year. Symbian and possibly WinMo phones will also be supported in the future.
During the past week, two new types of innovative mobile devices were launched, both answering current trends in the mobile and internet arenas.
The first is the LG GD910 wrist-watch phone that was launched by Orange in France. I can still remember the early days of the mobile phones, when the marketing pitch was that the mobiles will become an accessory that you always carry with you, just like your wrist-watch. Today, I only carry a mobile phone (actually two…) and no wrist watch…
Orange and LG are combining the two gadgets into one great looking watchphone. This “technological masterpiece”, as was described by Orange, has almost anything that a “bling-bling” gadget should have – it’s got a very elegant look, it’s a 3G/HSDPA compatible touch-screen video-phone with a VGA camera, MP3 player, diary, Bluetooth, speech-recognition and others. Oh, and it can also tell the time.
The price at the Orange shop starts at 899 € with an Orange contract.
The PR by Orange: http://www.orange.com/en_EN/press/press_releases/cp090807en.jsp
The second device is coming from INQ, and is designed to answer the extremely growing popularity of the Twitter service. To date, there are several applications for the various platforms (mainly for iPhone), that provide an intuitive interface, allowing to easily and quickly tweet from wherever you are. INQ Mobile took this trend one step further, and launched last week two models of 3G Social Mobile phones.
The INQ Chat 3G comes with a full qwerty-style keypad and has a new email client that was developed by INQ that incorporates free push Gmail. The INQ Chat 3G comes complete with the expanded suite of INQ applications; Facebook, Skype, email, IM and Twitter. It is equipped with a 3.2MP camera and a built-in GPS.
The smaller brother, the INQ Mini 3G, is a slimline Social Mobile that offers Twitter, Facebook, IM, Skype and web-based email services like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and GMail. This model is smaller in size, and comes with a more modest 2MP camera and no GPS.
Both phones have plug and play HSDPA modems enabling high-speed wireless broadband on PCs and Macs, and should come with Brew 4.0 and Java MIDP 2.0 for application development.
The INQ Mobile devices are not yet available, and are expected to be in the shops towards the end of the year. There is no indication about the expected price, but the company claims that it will be “affordable”.
The PR by INQ Mobile: http://www.inqmobile.com/media/press/#1443
