Blackberry, Cell Phone | featured news

Microsoft announced today via its Windows Phone Developer Blog the release of a new tool designed to help developers migrate iPhone applications to the Windows Phone 7 platform.

Research In Motion shares were sharply lower Friday, after the company issued a steep first-quarter earnings warning late Thursday, heightening fears that the BlackBerry maker is buckling amid competition from Apple and Google.

Politicians and privacy experts demanded answers of Google and Apple Friday following the discovery that smartphone software from the tech giants regularly transmits information about a user's whereabouts back to the companies.

Samsung accuses Apple of violating its patent rights, days after Apple accused it of "slavishly" copying designs of its iPad and iPhone.

Verizon reported on Thursday that it activated 2.2 million iPhones during its first fiscal quarter for 2011. The cell service provider revealed the information as part of its quarterly earnings report, a day after Apple and AT&T shared their quarterly earnings data.

The search-engine giant is facing complaints in South Korea as mobile phones using its Android software gain dominance.

So, it might be a while before Apple fans can get their hands on the iPhone 5. But the elusive white iPhone 4 might finally be on the way.

The Flip video camera had been one of the great hardware-start-up successes of the previous decade, but it lost traction as the smartphone came on the scene.

Apple will remain firmly in control of the tablet market through 2015, according to market research by Gartner, which also shows Google’s Android will take the baton from Nokia’s Symbian to dominate the smartphone market through the same time period. Experts agree, though, that it will be strong ecosystems, allowing for tablets and smartphones to deliver a combined experience, which will take the day, possibly weakening Research in Motion’s capacity to deliver in a new environment.

Much attention in the battle between Android and iPhone goes to the availability of apps on each platform. But one of the most important feature of a smartphone might not be the availability and performance of native apps but the performance of the mobile web browser.