Mobile

If you looked around the room at the C4 conference this past weekend, you'd certainly see no lack of iPhones--it seemed like every attendee had at least one. But just because the indie developer crew were all packing Apple's handset for personal use doesn't mean that their professional opinions were quite as enthusiastic.

Attention, suckers: Verizon Wireless will soon offer a Gateway LT2016u netbook with the carrier's Mobile Broadband service built into the device. The Gateway mini-note costs $150 after a $100 mail-in rebate, and the deal requires a 2-year 3G contract. The plan is available starting Oct. 4.

If the iPhone is the "Jesus phone," it now appears as if the still-sheathed Apple tablet may become the "Jesus reader."

Separating the iPhone App Store's wheat from its chaff is suddenly all the rage, with Apple launching its own App recommendation Web page, and a third-party service called Yappler Sync turning app discovery into a social experience.

Motorola's entry into the Android game, the Motorola Cliq, is coming just in time for the holidays. The Cliq will be available to existing T-Mobile customers October 19 and everybody else on November 2. The $200 pricetag is comparable to the iPhone 3GS, but $20 more than Sprint's HTC Hero (also an Android phone) and $100 more than the Palm Pre. With less expensive options out there, will the Cliq shake up the competition?

Call it the deal that wouldn't die. Amazon has begun selling the Palm Pre smartphone for $100 -- OK, $99.99 -- provided that the buyer signs up for a two-year Sprint service plan. The discount knocks $50 off the standard price. At Sprint's web site, the Pre goes for $150 after a $100 mail-in rebate.

The yearly Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco is a great place to catch up on not just the chip giant's plans but also the entire trajectory of the PC and consumer electronics industries. Dominating the 2009 show were the usual announcements and demos of "smaller and faster." If this year's gathering saw any significant difference, it was Intel's vision of x86 IA (Intel Architecture) chips everywhere, in PCs, mobile Internet devices, phones, TVs, set-top boxes--you name it.

Keeping the HD on mobile trend alive, Sprint and Samsung today announced the aptly named Instinct HD. Instinct fans who were disappointed by the Instinct S30's minor updates will be pleased with the HD's new features.

Seven years ago, this blog you're reading now was an online column offering advice on such things as traveling with a PDA in lieu of a laptop. On that particular topic, I wrote that accessing the Internet on a PDA was like "driving cross-country in a Pinto with a cracked windshield--painfully slow and monumentally irritating." One of the main options for checking e-mail on a handheld, I explained, was to connect the PDA to "a dial-up modem and a landline connection."

After talking to wireless carriers, handset makers and analysts here, I believe we'll be seeing an Android smartphone (possibly made by Samsung) and sold by Sprint next year. Sprint openly confirms plans to sell a 4G smartphone next year, but is quiet on the maker of the phone and the mobile OS.