Since the introduction of the Apple iPhone on January the 9th, the world has gone touch pad crazy, touch pad technology is the way of the future and many companies have heard the call and made their own touch pad phones in direct competition with the iPod. Now is touchscreen, the iPhone has its own mobile category (The iPhone Killer), almost all manufacturers realize that if they want to sell their smartphones they should label them as “iphone killer”, it is not enough to have a full featured smartphone if is not a iphone killer and everyday you see how desperate they are just adding touchscreen to make their devices look like an iphone instead of adding new features.

Check the list and make your bets, I believe that the only smartphone that will push down the iphone is another iphone.

1. Samsung F700

Coming in at Number 1 is the Samsung F700 ultra slim phone, answering the call early Samsung have come up with a splendid touch pad phone. Main features of the phone include a 5 megapixel camera, touch pad technology, impressive downloads speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps and a cool slide out QWERTY Keyboard, which is something the iPhone is lacking. With their first deluge into touch pad phones Samsung seem to have hit a home run straight of the bat.

2. LG KE850 | Prada

The next touchphone coming in at a close Second is the LG KE850, this touch phone has actually been around for quite some time and is a smash hit in South Korea. It is widely believed amongst industry experts Apple based there design model around this phone. The phone features a 3-inch LCD touch screen display and 2 megapixel camera. The phone will be about $750. Any maybe available in Europe and America soon.

3. Nokia Aeon Concept Phone

At Number Three we see the Nokia Aeon Concept Phone. This phone is just a concept phone and not currently available to the consumer, it has been around for a very long time. Obviously Nokia was onto to touch phone technology from the very early stages, their long term research and studying into the technology, may see them if not in the form of the Aeon bring out a very advanced touch phone some time soon that will be available to consumers. If that happens you could probably elevated Nokia to Number Two iPhone competitor on this list.

4. Neonode N2 TouchScreen

Surprisingly at Number Four is unknown Swedish phone the Neonode N2 TouchScreen. This awesome little phone made it’s debut at 3GSM and plans to take it right up to the iPhone in a big way. Cool features include it’s size factor, it is alot smaller than other touchscreen phones which should make it easier to carry around than most other touch phones and also it features an interesting gesture controlled screen and runs off of an open source platform.

5. OpenMoko Neo1973

The OpenMoko Neo1973 has been dubbed the iPhone killer and it is hard to disagree it has some awesome features, such as a large, touch-sensitive VGA display, GPRS data, Bluetooth, 128MB RAM, AGPS (Assisted GPS), and 64MB of Flash. The best thing about this phone is that it is a open source project and anyone can contribute to making it into a great phone.

6. Asus Aura Concept Phone

At Six is another concept phone the Asus Aura Concept Phone. ASUS is mostly known for making computer parts and motherboards, however over the past year or so ASUS have tried there hand at making Cell Phones and their not doing to bad a job of it either. ASUS’s strategy is to make as many phones as possible in the hope that one will become a hit, there is not a day that goes by without ASUS releasing a new phone. This month they responded to iPhones call and made the Asus Aura Touch screen Phone, like the Samsung F700 this phone has a QWERTY keypad, features a 2-megapixel camera, 3.9-inch touch screen display and is only 9mm thick. Everyone better watch out for these guys they are a massive manufacturer and they are starting to make their mark in the cell phone industry, specially in countries outside of the US.

7. FIC-GTA001

The Linux based FIC-GTA001 smartphone fights it way to the Number 7 spot and actually comes bundled with a SDK (Software Development Kit). Sporting a 2.8-inch VGA display and
having nifty features like; multi-touch sensor recognition, GSM, GPS and MP3 playback capabilities, its no mystery why we think the phone is cool! The FIC-GTA001 draws it juice from a Samsung ARM9-based processor and the two finger scrolling is reminiscent of the Macbook.

8. BenQ-Siemens Black Box Concept Phone

Big on design but lacking in features, the BenQ-Siemens Black Box Concept Phone comes in at Number Eight. This phone is just a concept phone. BenQ is trying to make a impact in Asia cell phone market. This phones lacks all the cool functions the above phones have and just really has a nice design and big touch screen. Apple has nothing to worry about with this one.

9. Meizu M8

At Nine is the Chinese only Meizu M8 which is also known as the miniOne. It’s claim to fame and the reason why is it so well known in the tech world is because it is believed that this company knocked off the iPhones design. They plan to confuse the Chinese market and cash in big time by selling the phone on the cheap in China, which is just wrong, really wrong.

10. Sagem WA 3050

We searched everywhere but couldn’t find a tenth touch phone. There is sure to be another one soon, any help would be appreciated. We just couldn’t hold off on posting this awesome article any longer .

So thats it. This is only just the beginning of the Touchpad Phone revolution. The companies above have all heard the call and acted fast on this new phenomena. LG, Apple and Samsung in particular are in good positions to capitalize on early on sales of touch phones and establish themselves. Don’t expect Sony, Nokia or Motorola to stay on the side lines for too long, they will come out with their own touchpad phones soon no doubt. 2007 is looking like the “Year Of The Touch Pad Phone!”

Touchphone technology is not new, it has be evolving for several years. Believe it or not Micorsoft were the first makers of a touchpad phone, back in the year 2000 they made the Sagem WA 3050.

11. Blackberry Bold

The Blackberry Bold is an sleek designed full featured smartphone that provides everything that corporate users will need while on the road, it has a ultra powerfull processor, georgeous display, full qwerty keyboard and works on 3G networks, something that all iphone users are expecting in the next iPhone OS 2.0. While the Bold’s design is similar to the iphone it main target remain at corporations.

12. Blackberry Thunder (Touchscreen smartphone)

Image courtesy of www.boygeniusreport.com

The Blackberry Thunder will be launch in Q3 of this year, it is a full touchscreen Blackberry with no slide out keyboard. It comes with just 4 physical keys for Send/End, the Menu key and the Back key. There is not much information available, but it is rumoured to be a CDMA EV-DO device with a 4G implementation.

It is the real Blackberry threat to the iPhone and it will come with a more powerfull processor than the Bold and all the multimedia features and corporate stuff that RIM supplies.

13. Nokia N95

The Nokia N95 8GB comes with the advanced feature set expected from a state-of-the-art Nokia Nseries multimedia computer. The new Nokia N95 8GB offers a class-leading five megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and autofocus, WLAN, and a full eight gigabytes of internal memory, allowing for storage of up to 20 hours of video* or up to 6000 songs**. Complete with captivating 3D graphics, the Nokia N95 8GB will also offer compatibility with the upcoming N-Gage games service. It is also a full-featured GPS device with assisted GPS (A-GPS) and a large map database covering more than 100 countries, including a number of US state maps preloaded. The Nokia N95 8GB will also support Nokia Share Online 3.0, which will be made available via Nokia Download! and will enable consumers to upload photos and videos with one click to Flickr or Vox, allowing them to quickly share content with their social communities.

14. Nokia N96

The Nokia N96 supports common video formats including MPEG-4, Windows Media Video and Flash Video, making favorite videos easy to view. Transferring and accessing videos is even faster with the high-speed USB 2.0 connection and WLAN and HSDPA support. In select markets, the integrated DVB-H receiver offers live broadcast TV with an automatically updating program guide. The massive memory can store up to 40 hours of video content. The storage capacity of the Nokia N96 can even be further expanded with an optional microSD card, such as the new Nokia 8GB microSDHC Card MU-43 which increases the available memory of the Nokia N96 to a total of 24 GB. For added convenience, the Nokia N96 features a ‘kickstand’ on the back cover that allows for hands-free viewing.

The Nokia N96 boasts a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, flash and video light. It allows DVD-like quality video capture at 30 frames per second. Further, with the integrated A-GPS, consumers can now ‘geotag’ their pictures with location data and share them with their online communities.

The Nokia N96 naturally supports the Ovi family of Nokia internet services, including maps, music, media sharing and more.

15. Sony Ericsson Xperia

Powered with Windows Mobile® inside, you can enjoy your favorite entertainment and work efficiently on the move. XPERIA™ X1 is a premium mobile experience, Arc slider design, 3 inch Wide VGA display and premium metal body: with its sophisticated and distinctive design, XPERIA™ X1 redefines premiumness.

The Xperia is a powerfull, beautifull smartphone with a 3.2 mp camera, full featured with all the Sony Music stuff, wifi, bluetooth and the network features we expect, it has a 800 X 480, 65,536 color TFT screen, up to 400mb of internal memory and support for microSD, gps, wlan, lan and more

16. Sony Ericsson M600i

Slim design and features such as jog dial navigation and handwriting recognition make a device you’ll be proud of anywhere – or slip it in your pocket. High speed 3G Internet and a huge screen make multitasking a joy – stream the latest news, send email and listen to music while you talk handsfree.

17. Sony Walkman W880i

Funnel your favorite music into the ultra slim W880i Walkman® phone. Store up to 900 tracks – enough to give your musical taste buds whatever they fancy. The W880i kit contains all you need for a full musical experience. It includes a stereo handsfree, PC software and a 1GB Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™).

Shortcuts to more music
Click the PlayNow™ icon to browse the latest hits. Or check out potential future megastars at m-buzz.com, a site for unsigned artists.

18. HTC Touch Cruise

The HTC Touch Cruise™ is sleek, stylish, and compact, but big on features and with an LCD screen size that gives you an excellent multimedia experience in a mobile device. Featuring HTC’s innovative TouchFLO™ interface, the Touch Cruise is extremely easy to use. Using ordinary finger gestures, you can quickly browse through e-mails, web pages, messages, music, and images, making navigation a breeze.

The dynamic 3D Touch Cube interface enables you to quickly call contacts, open applications, listen to music, and browse media files. Built-in GPS functionality and the included software enable you to find the fastest route to your direction, locate restaurants and services on the way, and never get lost. Avoid traffic and delays, and take detours to visit points of interest and local attractions.

19. HTC Touch Diamond

2.8-inch touch screen, with four times the pixels of most phones.
Vibrant TouchFLO 3D user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media… all vividly displayed as photos and artwork powered by the 3D graphics processor.
HTC Weather – providing a constant view of weather at home and abroad.
Surf and download at broadband speed with HSDPA internet connectivity.
3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera for quality stills and video.
4GB of internal storage to preserve more photos, music, files and exchanged data than ever before.
Integrated GPS for use with maps software for a full turn-by-turn satellite navigation experience.

20. Philips X800

Philips is entering the iphone killer arena with the X800, a touchscreen smartphone that features a 2G Network GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900, TFT touchscreen, 256K colors, 240 x 400 pixels (Wide QVGA), 2.9 inches, Camera: 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels, autofocus, video, USB, bluetooth, MP3/MPEG4/WAV/AAC player.

The launch date is not available yet, but the Iphone Killer Category is getting better day by day.

Some information is powered by Mobilewhack.com

Users who apply the patch — available for manual download since Monday and scheduled to be automatically downloaded to all machines running QuickBooks 2006 for Mac starting Thursday morning — are still at risk if they run the accounting software while in range of a wireless hot spot, said Ian Vacin, offering leader for Intuit’s Mac finance line, in a posting to the product’s support forum Monday afternoon.

Two weeks ago, QuickBooks 2006 users discovered that a buggy automatic update from Intuit wiped all files on the Mac desktop. The company warned customers against using QuickBooks, then recommended that they shift files from the desktop to other folders.

On Saturday, Vacin announced on the QuickBooks support forum that a patch would be available Dec. 31. The patch, he said, fixed the flaw by permanently disabling the software’s upgrade mechanism.

Monday, however, he had to post a follow-up warning.

Full Article here.

-
Whataboutmac.com

Office for Mac includes Word, Excel for spreadsheets, PowerPoint for presentations and Entourage for email and time management. There’s no Microsoft Access database application for the Mac, although FileMaker’s upcoming release of Bento offers Mac users a new choice.

Unlike Microsoft Office 2007, the interface changes don’t look radically foreign next to the 2004 edition. That’s good news for anyone who doesn’t want to relearn the locations of common functions. The 2007 applications for Windows arrange functions within tabs, while the 2008 Mac software largely clusters functions within the same drop-down menus including File, Edit and View.

By and large, most of the changes focus on attempting to help users craft more attractive documents. For instance, Office for Mac features the same templates and Smart Art graphics as the Windows counterparts, including 3D and translucent designs. These are pre-built templates with 3D and translucent designs.

Full Article here

-
Whataboutmac.com