Nokia plans to stick with Symbian as its main business phone platform even when MeeGo, its new top-end operating system, is released. On Tuesday, Nokia business smartphones chief Ilari Nurmi told ZDNet UK that Nokia had “great converged device plans based on the MeeGo platform” and that there were “different types of needs and wants …

On Call runs every two weeks, alternating between answering reader questions and discussing hot topics in the cell phone world. Almost every day we’re presented with a new study that tracks the success of various smartphone operating systems. Like so many pre-election polls, they make grand conclusions about which OS is ahead and which is not. And like so many …

Aussie electronics entrepreneur Ruslan Kogan today unveiled what he describes as a “revolution in online shopping”— a preorder option for electronics called LivePrice. (Credit: Screenshot CBSi) According to a press release from Kogan, LivePrice will offer customers the opportunity to buy a product well before it’s manufactured for a heavily discounted price. This retail price will increase during the different …

While Avatar may have had the public mildly excited about 3D movies, it was the Nintendo 3DS that had people throwing conniptions about the possibilities of “glassless” 3D. Sharp has demonstrated a 3.8-inch, 800×480-pixel display that would be perfect for use in future versions of the Nintendo 3DS. (Credit: Nintendo) To capitalise on this interest, Sharp has shown off two …

Android will storm past Nokia and the iPhone to become Europe’s number one smart-phone platform in 2011. This is according to an IDC analyst, the wonderfully named Francisco Jeronimo, speaking to Bloomberg. At the moment, Android phones are behind Nokia’s Symbian and the iPhone in terms of Western European shipments, but that’s going to change next year, if Jeronimo has …

Will the new iPad include front and rear-facing cameras? Apple DigiTimes reports that Taiwanese camera lens manufacturer Largan Precision will supply lenses for Apple’s forthcoming iPad 2, widely expected to support at least a front-facing camera for use with applications like FaceTime. With FaceTime available on every iPhone 4 and new iPod Touch, as well as on the Mac, there …

I hate, hate, hate getting stuck in traffic, especially on the freeway (where you’re usually trapped until the next exit). That’s why I always drive with a GPS that can receive live traffic updates and steer me clear of congested areas. Or a GPS app. CoPilot Live, MobileNavigator, and TomTom are among those that offer a live-traffic option, but all …

RIM is a serious company that makes serious smart phones. But a BlackBerry-sponsored design competition has produced a concept device that looks nuttier than squirrel droppings: the Blackberry Empathy. The Empathy is an angular phone that looks absolutely stunning — and a tad bonkers. Its front is home to an OLED touchscreen that’s transparent when not in use, and opaque at other times. It wouldn’t …

An AT&T Facebook account confirmed the existence of an upcoming Motorola handset yesterday, outing the Olympus for all to see. A Boy Genius Report reader asked the AT&T Share team whether he would be wise to wait on the Tegra-2-powered smartphone as he is eligible for an upgrade. The carrier’s response, which was quickly pulled, was that the phone will …

Apple has banned an app from the iTunes App Store, not because of violence or pornography, but because it was about Android. The publisher of Danish magazine Android Magasinet claims it was refused a place on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad because the bi-monthly title is all about phones and tablets using Google’s rival operating system. Apple even owned …