We all know by now that AT&T has secured the rights to furnish US iPad owners with 3G connectivity, but apparently the market desire for that service won't be quite as big as we might have expected. That comes straight from Randall Stephenson himself, AT&T CEO and eternal believer in the power of i-branded devices, so it may have some legitimacy to it. Surely Randall's dearest wish would be to announce his network is about to be overwhelmed by new subscribers, and the rather cooler news has already caused a small dint in AT&T's stock price. Then again, this is hardly shocking news given that 3G on the iPad can be had on a month-by-month basis without contract, and in truth any subscriptions related to it would have to be achieved by AT&T's own ingenuity -- which, judging by its CEO's comments, won't be suffering any undue exertions any time soon. Not only that, Randall's also taken the opportunity to advise us that higher data rates are likely for intensive users of unlimited 3G data plans -- whether on the iPad or on smartphones. Way to endear yourself to the masses, dude.

AT&T CEO: iPad will be mostly used on WiFi, won't drive many new 3G subscriptions originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here's a real interesting question from a recent Netflix survey: "How likely would you or someone in your household be to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on your iPhone via a Wi-Fi network?"

If you recall, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings promised that Netflix streaming would come to the iPhone "eventually" just a few months ago. While survey questions can be indicative of a company's plans—it wouldn't be the first time for this kind of company to tip their video hand via survey—I wouldn't get too excited. Not because of the tech, which is trivial (even considering the jump from Microsoft's Silverlight technology on the desktop) but because of the rights.

Netflix has already run into issues with studios afraid of it massing too much influence, too many eyeballs, squeezing the lifeblood remaining in DVD profits preserved by the window system—the journey a movie takes from the multiplex to DVD to PPV to HBO to cable— before the studios can extract the last final drops themselves. That disgusting 28-day window before you can rent a new Warner Bros. movie is a primo example. So, to get mobile streaming rights? That's probably a whole 'nother ballgame, and I don't expect the studios will play any nicer.

But we can dream, we can hope, we can pray. Even if it is only over Wi-Fi. [Hacking Netflix via SAI]

Looks like Apple's going on the warpath, kids. Just a few months after Cupertino got into it with Nokia over phone patents, Apple's filed suit against HTC, alleging that the company is infringing 20 patents "related to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture, and hardware." Steve, you have something to say?

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

Okay then. We're pulling the complaint filing now, we'll let you know the exact details as soon as we learn them.

Apple sues HTC for infringing 20 iPhone patents originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We'd already heard that Apple hoped to bring at least some TV shows down to the 99-cent mark on iTunes in time for the iPad launch, and it looks like CBS is now the first to officially come on board. While a final deal apparently isn't done just yet, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves has flatly told the Financial Times that there "are certain shows that will be sold on Apple for 99 cents" -- not exactly much wiggle room there. Other networks aren't speaking on the record just yet, but the Financial Times has previously reported that some have already agreed to similar terms, and are expected to start selling shows at the lower price -- possibly coinciding with the iPad launch.

CBS promises to sell some TV shows on iTunes for 99 cents originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today, RIM co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis, and Director of Developer Relations, Mike Kirkup, gave us a little taste of what the future of browsing on a BlackBerry will look like…and it’s much better. While the UI is familiar, the rendering accuracy is what really shines through. The browser, which uses the WebKit rendering engine, fully supports HTML 5, still uses RIM’s compression schema for data efficiency, and gets an impressive 100/100 on the Acid 3 browser test. Now, we’re not 100% sure,but…we do see a web ad at about 0:41 in the video that appears to be running in Flash; if you go to live4soccer.com, you’ll see that only Flash advertisements seem to run on that particular spot in the page (middle left). Will the BlackBerry WebKit browser deliver Flash support? We sure hope so. No word from RIM on a release timeline or supported devices, but our connects tell us it is coming relatively soon. We’ve got a video of the browser in action set up for you after the break.

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We’ve been able to independently confirm the following details, though we don’t believe we have all of the information surrounding this announcement yet.

With that said, according to multiple RIM employees, RIM’s co-CEO Mike Lazaridis will be making a “huge” announcement on Tuesday in Barcelona. The announcement is said to be about (at least in part) BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express. We’re told this will be relaunched as a free and unlimited user BlackBerry Enterprise Server. You heard that right — a completely free and unlimited user BlackBerry Enterprise Server. We are under the impression BESX will use a user’s existing BIS data plan and not require the more expensive data feature, though this isn’t confirmed. Hit the jump for more!

Additionally, we’ve been told that “BlackBerry Shield for BIS “might get a shout out, too.” I don’t know what that service is, but maybe it’s a remote lock/remote wipe feature for BIS subscribers, or possibly ties into what we describe below? RIM employees have been touting this new BESX offering as an “ActiveSync killer” and while we’re sure it will help small businesses and other users hooked on ActiveSync, this might not help all that much if you still need that second server for the BES. The thing is, that’s kind of why we feel we don’t have the full story at this point — what if RIM is going to do something like a BES in the cloud for BIS users? Give them full OTA syncing, backups, remote wipe/lock, all while not requiring a dedicated BES server? That seems much more sexy to our ears and eyes, but again, that’s just speculation based on the limited amount of information RIM employees have shared with us.

We actually had a RIM employee go on record and give us a quote. When asked about thoughts on the announcement, the employee said, “Internally we are pumped about it. Perfect for SME, and people who are looking at using ActiveSync with other smartphones. It’s not quite RIM-like, giving software with unlimited users away, but a great move.”

Look for this new service (or services) to launch March 1st. More info as we get it!

Warner CEO: iTunes price increase led to lower sales, recession might also factor in originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You don't need that rumored Toshiba phone that "acts like a secretary," or even Maggie Gyllenhaal (though that would be nice), to have help when organizing your social life. Siri uses "speech recognition with a brain," according to its CEO.

To use the iPhone app, you just have to say aloud a command like "Book a table for six at 7pm at McDonalds" (I'm sure you're classier than that, but let's stick with it for now), and then using speech-recognition technology and the iPhone's GPS capabilities, your command is translated and processed by the app, responding with confirmation of booking—or lack of availability.

Siri, which has ties with Stanford Research Institude and DARPA, has collaborated with OpenTable, MovieTickets, StubHub, CitySearch and TaxiMagic to help with bookings and information, which pretty much wipes out the reason why you'd want to download any of those services' apps individually.

It's free to download on the iPhone now, but fear not, Android and BlackBerry users of the world—Siri plans on giving you a little phone secretary of your very own at some point. [Siri via NY Times]

It makes total sense for a CEO to be optimistic about the future of his or her product. But predicting that netbooks will grow from 10% of the PC market to 90%? Warren East, you've gone and lost your mind.

ARM's head honcho made the remark in an interview posted today at PC Pro. His reasoning? Well... there wasn't really any. Not that was reported, at least. Probably because it's an indefensible (though attention-grabbing!) position.

This is nothing against netbooks as a category! They obviously scratch an itch, especially during a down economy. But unless they get significantly more powerful, there's no way they're going to make up the majority of PC sales, much less the super-ultra majority East proposes. And if they do become that much more powerful, are they still netbooks? Or are they ultraportables? Or neither, since all these categories are pretty much arbitrary marketingspeak anyway? [PC Pro via Slashdot]

If you had any doubts about Steve Jobs’ confidence and convictions after returning to Apple from his sick leave, it’s time you leave those at the door. The revered CEO announced a hotly anticipated device last week and followed up by burning the competition. On Google, Steve Jobs said that its motto “Don’t be evil” is bullshit (Steve’s words, not ours). Clearly, Steve-o isn’t phased by the Nexus One while he boasts the three billion apps sold from the Apple app store. Regarding Adobe, Steve apparently went on to say they’re lazy and are squandering so much potential. Wow. And Flash? According to Steve, no one will be using Flash in the future; it’s going to be all about HTML5.

Is Steve Jobs’ boisterous attitude completely without warrant? Or is he just telling it like it is? Let us know your thoughts.

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In its Q4 2009 financial conference call with analysts, Motorola’s Co-CEO Sanjay Jha confirmed that Motorola will be bypassing the traditional telco route and working with Google to sell an Android handset directly to consumers, similar to HTC and the Nexus One. This handset will be one of twenty smartphones that Motorola hopes to offer in 2010 as it attempts to shake off its lagging performance. Despite selling twelve million handsets in Q4 2009, two million of which were Android-based, Motorola continues to slide slowly downward with handset sales falling from $2.35 billion to $1.8 billion, a 22% year over year decline. Motorola also anticipates a first quarter loss of up to 3 cents per share which is far below the 3 cent per share profit expected by analysts. As of the writing of this post, Motorola’s stock has fallen 11% from yesterday’s close.

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File this one under "Annals of Passive-Agressiveness": At today's iPad event, Apple scratched McGraw-Hill from the presentation slide displaying the various educational partners for the iPad, after McGraw Hill CEO Joe Biden Harold McGraw III blabbed to MSNBC about the iPad the day before the event. WAY TO SHOW THEM, STEVE! [Venture Beat]

It wasn’t what McGraw-Hill CEO, Terry McGraw, said; rather it is that he said it at all. When asked by CNBC’s Erin Burnett about the Apple Tablet, McGraw had this to say: “They’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one… And the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now is we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format…The tablet is going to be just really terrific.” This is either a planned PR stunt by McGraw-Hill/Apple or an enormous flub by MG’s CEO. We have the video queued up for you after the break; the magic begins around 2:49.

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Oh, Henri Crohas, you tease. In an interview with French site L'Expansion, the Archos CEO made reference to fate of the Archos phone tablet, saying that the company has built a device with strong multimedia capabilities... but it's not gonna see the light of day without the support at least two major operators.Sad to hear, as the proposed specs -- Android OS, 4.3-inch touchscreen, 1GHz ARM processor, 3.5G bands, 10mm titanium casing, and a possible front-facing camera -- were mighty intriguing. In the meantime, keep dreaming of that Android-powered HTC HD2, k?

Archos phone tablet in limbo, awaiting 'at least two major operators' to sign up originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Native app multitouch, you say? It's a dream that most US Android users have failed to experience, but Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha has let loose some promising words. In an interview with Laptop, he asserted that the company will be more proactive in getting the two-finger (or more) shuffle into its Google devices -- more specifically he said, "I think you will see us deliver multitouch in the majority of our devices going forward. There's a complex set of factors, not all of them technical." That last bit's pretty ominous, but nothing we haven't surmised before, and frankly, it all sounds a lot better than "we'll consider it." Also discussed in the interview is the inevitability of tablet experimentation, and the (un)likelihood of a Motoblur phone landing in Google's online store. "I think clearly the bias is towards Google Experience devices." Perhaps, but we'll be interested to see what HTC has to say about that.

Multitouch coming to 'majority' of future Motorola devices, says CEO originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Echoing statements made by CEO Sanjay Jha earlier in the week regarding the Droid and CLIQ, Motorola's European division is letting everyone know that its own Android devices are in for their own updates pretty shortly. Android 2.0.1 is apparently "on its way" for the Milestone already with users being advised to keep an eye on Moto's Facebook page for more details; as you might recall, this is the same version the phone's American cousin got a few weeks ago. This will be followed on by 2.1 -- the version introduced on the Nexus One -- "in the next 2 months." Oh, and DEXT owners, don't worry, you're not being left out in the cold -- Moto says you're on track to get 2.1 as well, though there's no timeline just yet

Motorola Europe says Milestone getting Android 2.1 soon, 2.0.1 even sooner originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We're live from Sprint's "4G Experience" event here at CES, which leaves little to the imagination -- or does it? We don't know what the company intends to unveil here, but we spied Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo wandering around outside, so it could be an extraordinarily surprising get-together indeed. Here we go!

Live from Sprint's '4G Experience' event at CES 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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