RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky recently sat down in a meeting with Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer and chief operating officer Tim Cook to discuss a range of topics, from Apple’s patent battles to the possibility of a budget-priced iPhone. “Apple’s primary criterion for launching a lower-end iPhone is an innovative, category-killer experience,” Abramsky wrote in a recent note to investors. The execs said that the components sector is currently a “buyers mar...

Broke? Think your iPhone is faster than Usain Bolt? T-Mobile’s so confident that the Samsung Galaxy S 4G is quicker than the iPhone that it’s offering $1,000 to anyone who can walk into one of its ten Seattle stores and prove otherwise. Your iPhone just has to win in two out of three throughput speed tests  — using an app provided by T-Mobile – and you’ll walk away a cool $1,000 richer. The Galaxy S 4G is sure to be some stiff competition, though. After all, it does pack HSPA+ with supp...

That’s right, you’re looking at photos of an iPhone prototype with T-Mobile USA 3G bands. The actual internal model is N94, and if you remember, the Verizon model is N92 while the standard GSM variant is N90. We have verified that the phone itself is running a test version of Apple’s iOS, much like the one we saw in those videos from Vietnam, and it includes internal Apple test apps like Radar and Apple’s employee directory app. Additionally, the front of the white iPhone pictured look...

We don’t think we’re alone when we say we kind of miss the soft welcoming glow of the red buttons on the second generation iPod, and a new patent suggests Apple may be working on a new iPhone “Smart Bezel” feature that will bring some of those illuminated controls back. According to a patent discovered by Patently Apple, Apple may offer a new area around the iPhone’s primary display with controller buttons that glow and morph for work and play. Developers may even be able to cont...

For the fifth time running, Apple has topped J.D. Power’s smartphone customer satisfaction survey. The iPhone earned a score of 795 out of a possible 1,000 points. In line with the last survey published in September 2010, Motorola and HTC followed Apple with scores of 763 and 762, respectively. Here’s how J.D. Power weighs the various categories:Operation (30%); physical design (30%); features (20%); and battery function (20%). For smartphones, the key factors are: ease of operation (26%); operat...

Look, I have been dreaming about a Verizon iPhone since the original announcement was made in 2007. I’ve always admired Verizon’s insanely solid and reliable wireless network, even before it was Verizon (someone tell James Earl Jones I said what’s up). I had the first digital phone Verizon Wireless offered (following countless analog phones prior to that), and I’ve had many more since then. But I switched away from Verizon Wireless as soon as I saw that the handsets available in Europe...

Yahoo! has reportedly fixed an IMAP bug that caused the iPhone and Windows Phone devices to transmit loads of superfluous data over 3G. The bug worked like this: when a user went to check their email, the server would send more information to a user’s phone than was required to just check mail. This resulted in people accidentally consuming loads of rouge data each month. Microsoft first responded to the issue back in January after Windows Phone users began complaining about alerts stating that they...

At its Mobile World Congress press conference on Tuesday, Deutsche Telekom mentioned that it will soon begin deploying Near Field Communications (NFC) enabled mobile devices in multiple markets. The deployment starts this year and will ramp up until 2012 when most of Deutsche Telekom’s markets will be included. Phone Scoop is reporting that during the press conference, Deutsche Telekom execs handed out a slide deck featuring Apple and referred to them being included in the 2011 launch — seemingly co...

BGR exclusively reported on Wednesday that Apple is currently testing a variety of gestures on its iPhone. While the more interesting gestures are still locked away safely on the Apple campus, the task-switching gesture managed to come out to play in Apple’s recent iOS 4.3 beta software. Antoni Nygaard decided to laugh in the face of Apple’s developer agreement on Wednesday and show off these new gestures on camera. As we’ve pointed out in the past, these gestures are currently in place for ...

T-Mobile USA’s new CEO Phillip Humm confirmed at an event on Thursday that the carrier will soon launch a pair of new “4G” HSPA+ phones. Humm noted that T-Mobile will soon announce a 4G version of Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphone as well as a 4G addition to the popular Sidekick line that will run Android. “We will launch as new the Samsung Galaxy S 4G … and coming soon, will also be a Sidekick 4G. Everybody knows the Sidekick, and we’re going to relaunch the Sidekick and...

New estimates released Thursday by Japanese market research firm BCN place the Samsung Galaxy S at the top of Japan’s smartphone charts. The powerhouse it displaces is none other than Apple’s 32GB iPhone 4 — a handset that took Japan by storm when it launched earlier this year. For 18 weeks straight, the iPhone 4 had been Japan’s top seller. In its debut week, however, the Galaxy S managed to take the top spot, though only when considering the 32GB and 16GB iPhone models individually. Whet...

Like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, some claimed fourth generation iPhone parts have emerged from the corn fields business district of Olathe, Kansas. The supposed parts arrived at iResQ, an iPhone repair shop, and include a front panel which iResQ notes is 1/4 inch taller than the iPhone 3GS. This small increase in size could potentially translate into an iPhone with a 3.7 inch display, a size which is fast becoming the industry standard. The front panel also has a small reflective surface right above the ea...

The folks over at MOTO Labs (not related to Motorola) demonstrated a DIY yourself technique that allows the average person to easily compare touchscreen performance between multiple handsets. The test is performed by opening a drawing application on the test handset and drawing a diagonal pattern of straight lines very slowly on the screen. A good touchscreen will produce straight linear lines, while a poor touchscreen will produce wavy lines. To demonstrate the technique, MOTO Labs did a comparison test betw...

You never know what will pop up on YouTube and today it is a video of the HTC Touch HD in action alongside the Samsung Omnia and the Apple iPhone. The video is in French and we cant understand a word they’re saying but the device still looks hot! If this doesn’t make you want to fly over to Europe and big up this gorgeous phone, we don’t know what will.Thanks Franklin!