iPhone is not my Oyster 3G

Apple's iConic handsets started to fly off the shelves.
They do looks beautiful, provided you keep your gloves on. They have Apple fingerprints all over, but a rather black, Korean touch as well. They will give AT&T a boost, but on a 2G network and with a Blackberrish herd of servers to support the service. Jobs love Gates, but the iPhone uses the same H.264 video format as YouTube, and is meant to give Safari a boost in the nascent mobile browsing market*... are Steve and Bill considering keeping their marriage secret for another ten years ?

ip.access also offers good looking devices ; their Oyster 3G femtocells even won a GSMA's Global Mobile Award earlier this year. But Frost & Sullivan awarded IPWireless with a Technology of the Year label last march, and two months later NextWave Wireless (better known for PacketVideo and WiMAX) completed the acquisition of the TD-CDMA - TDtv champion...

What else ? 3 items picked (almost) randomly :

. The EC and Viviane Reding keep pushing DVB-H. Sorry, no spectrum. And no cash back for those insane 3G auctions either.

. Saudi Telecom, a laggard in booming Middle East, eventually joins the investing frenzy. Malaysia's Maxis is their first foreign target ever. What a coincidence... after islamic banking, there could actually be a big market for islamic telecom... Infrastructure Shariah anyone ?

. Wells Fargo & Company and Visa USA pursue their NFC mobile banking trials. After Phase I (this spring : employees, Wells Fargo Customer Experience Research Lab) and before Phase II (this summer : employees, Visa payWave enabled merchants), WFC released their new CEO Mobile services (that's Commercial Electronic Office). Real customers - 300-500 Wells Fargo Visa cardholders - won't be involved before Phase III (this autumn ?). After that, you should be hearing about some operator... beyond Visa, that is.


*Safari's web browser usage share is well below 5%, but has been significantly improving lately.