PhoneNews.com picks the phone which changed the industry the most in 2008.
What’s probably the most shocking thing about our pick is, not only is it not iPhone 3G, but it wasn’t even released this year. Read more to see what phone it is, and why.
Many don’t know the HTC Titan by its original name. But most have at least heard of Sprint’s HTC Mogul, the Verizon Wireless XV6800, or Alltel’s HTC PPC-6800. The phone originally shipped on Sprint in late 2007, and had a couple of GSM siblings; the AT&T 8525 (Hermes) and T-Mobile Wing.
But unlike its GSM counterparts, the Titan has changed the wireless industry, in several key ways.
First, the device made quite clear that software updates can add major new features, across carriers. iPhone set a new benchmark last year, where we coined the phrase iPhone wants to be updated. Apple’s iTunes-updating solution told the industry that they were wrong to make people buy new hardware in order to get new software. Unfortunately, most of the wireless industry did what it usually does: bury its head in the sand.
The Titan was the exception to the rule. No device, aside from iPhone, has received more software updates. And, it arguably received more new features than iPhone. When the device shipped, it carried Windows Mobile 6.0, and the original version of EV-DO 3G speeds. No GPS, no other modern features.
First, Sprint added their Music Store. Then came EV-DO Rev A. Then came Sprint Navigation, complete with unlocked GPS. Around this time, hackers spun off the EV-DO Rev A fun for Verizon Wireless. Sprint then issued Sprint TV, making the Mogul their most powerful phone, and the first smartphone to carry all of their consumer advanced features.
Hackers then uped the ante over on Verizon, combining GPS and EV-DO Rev A, before Verizon even offered their first firmware update. Then came Verizon’s first firmware update… and after hackers had done all of Verizon’s “hard” work, Verizon managed to step in, neutering their GPS only to their VZ Navigator.
Then Verizon claimed that they weren’t hindering it.
Then hackers deleted the hindrance.
Then Verizon admitted that they were hindering their customers.
Then they claimed that they weren’t hindering their customers… again.
Now they’ve promised to fix the problem… if you buy a new phone, and probably sign a new contract.
Got all that? Good. Thanks Verizon, you make our jobs even more secure with every customer you tick off. Nobody else in the mobile media was able to keep track of this saga, except PhoneNews.com.
So why does all of this add up to making the HTC Titan the phone of the year? Unlike iPhone, the industry did actually change because of the HTC Titan. Customers have shown that they want to keep a high-end device which has all of today’s network technology. I see no reason to pay full price, or sign a new contract, to upgrade… did I mention the phone is over a year old?
In such a fast-paced wireless industry, for a phone to stay current for that long, at the top of the feature set game, is simply shocking.
The other reason, is the iPod touch 2G. Thanks to it, you can have your cake and eat it too. Slinging Wi-Fi from the Titan to an iPod touch 2G is not only easy, the FCC appears to have made it free, too. Some said that was notion was taboo, but our readers (and staff) have found it to be the best of both worlds. You get an unlocked device that can run any app, and you get the benefits of the iPod touch’s web browser, email, iPod, and App Store.
On top of all that, the HTC Titan delivers turn-by-turn GPS navigation with not one, but seven different solutions. From TeleNav to Garmin, it just works (well, unless you’re on Verizon, then you need one more thing).
Oh, and one more thing. A Titan and iPod touch 2G wind up being cheaper for most too. In a typical case, rather than paying $200 to $400 for an walled-garden iPhone 3G, an iPod touch costs around $200, and an Titan runs for about $100 to $200 on eBay.
But, wait a minute, you forgot the real cost of wireless… your service plan. Sprint and Verizon deliver better data add-ons that cost less money. And, unlike iPhone, you can even opt for a data-only plan. Heck, you can even re-program it to work on MetroPCS if you’re willing to work for it.
In short, we would have given the award of Phone of The Year to iPhone 3G. But the Titan’s ability to be paired with an iPod touch, for less money, and more utility… not to mention its ability to change the entire wireless industry… made this an easy choice for us.
Nice try. But let’s all stop pretending what’s going on here. Everyone else in the industry is playing catch-up with the iPhone. Your lame attempt at getting another phone in line with the iPhone may have been noble in your own way of thinking, but it’s still way off base.
Media Supplier of the Year: Apple App Store
by Steve Smith, 12/18/08
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=96843
Business opportunities opening for Apple
Filed in archive Market Perturbations by Scott Wilson on December 17, 2008
Post edited… please do not copy-and-paste long, entire articles from other sites. A link is more than enough.
SkateNY, we have stopped pretending a long time ago, it’s you that is pretending to try to say that the rest of the industry is trying to catch up to the IPHONE. The IPHONE is the one that is trying to catch up with the phone industry.
skateny – the iphone doesn’t do bluetooth well (certainly not stereo), you can’t use it to tether your laptop unless you jailbreak it (and even then it’s an unreliable tether for some apps, and of course you can’t tether over bluetooth), You certainly can’t push a button and turn it into the equivalent of a linksys router and share your connection with a room full of friends (or strangers) and you can’t use it for skype calls and by the end of the year when 32gb micro-sdhd chips come out you can’t upgrade your phone just by dropping in a new chip. All of these things I can do with the mogul. I know the iphone does a LOT of stuff the mogul doesn’t do (vibrant games in the app store, better browsing, etc) but since I’m tethering my laptop I end up with a richer experience there as well.
The iphone is a great device and it’s changing the landscape for the better but it is not the perfect solution for everyone, if it was, I’d have one đŸ˜‰
I agree with the editorial, the mogul is very much an unsung hero in the phone-wars.
I have to say this article is a total cop out, just being controversial for the sake of being controversial. I think everyone knows the “Phone Of The Year” is the iPhone 3G. It easily garnered the most buzz and consumer interest of any phone released this year. Lets recap your review here. You say that the Titan is a better phone because you can use the iPhone lite(iPod Touch) for all features that the Titan lacks instead of just buying an iPhone. So for your phone of the year to be fully featured for browsing and media playback you need to have another Apple device in your pocket to get the whole package. Sure tethering is a big deal to the 5% of smartphone users who might need it on the go in the absence of a wifi connection. The iPhone does have its faults, no doubts there. But it comes very close to being the total package as a multimedia, multifunction cell phone.
I’ve had a cell phone since the first mainstream ones came out.. I’ve had a couple of “smartphones” too.. and myTitan is the first and only handset that’s become more than just a phone to me. It’s literally like having a mini-laptop with me wherever I go. It’s an amazing piece of kit, and I’m overjoyed to see it recognized like this.
I’ve had my Verizon branded Titan for a year now. I’ve watched my handset go from having a middle-of-the-road feature set to becoming a device that wow’s my iPhone toting friends. Not only have there been the upgrades that brought RevA and aGPS (crippled and the subsequent un-crippling), the Windows Mobile developer community has released a plethora of applications and UI skins to customize every nuance of the Titan and extend its functionality to unprecedented levels. Heck there’s even a little application that turns my Titan’s camera flash LED into a flashlight.. a quick tweak and I mapped it to a button on the right side of my phone.. hold the button down, instant light. Seems silly, but it’s just one cool thing in a laundry list of functionality that is my Titan.
@ Patrick – you’ve got it right about the games for iPhone being better, but the browsing on the Titan is fantastic with Opera Mini (or full Opera). I’ve been using Opera Mini for quite a while now and it’s just as good as Safari on the iPhone. And if you want to up the ante a little, you can get the latest build of Opera 9.5 WITH full Flash support which you can’t get on the mighty iPhone.
You don’t see this crap coming out on BGR or Phonescoop. Thank god–the idiots are taking over.
I agree with the editorial for the most part. I have an Iphone 3G and but sling Sprint data via Wifi since ATT’s network is far from reliable. The Iphone is definitely a stellar device but as pointed in the article it is too much of a walled garden. This is a pipe dream but had the device been on a more data centric network such as Sprint perhaps this contest would be a different outcome. As an Iphone owner it is refreshing to see a review without the “Jesusphone” hypnosis to skew the results.
two words: hardware keyboard
lol i have touch flo- best smart phone today screen, android running and stable- looks just like the g1, skyfire- plays any web video in browser NO other mobile browser does that, real gps, real bluetooth, real 3g, tcpmp lets me download and save youtube to my sd, wmwifi router, opera- honestly so close to safari it doesnt matter, sprint tv- iphone can not stream live tv from carrier, sprint music- iphone cant download songs on the road in 3g, cut and paste, remote desktop- lets you control your pc from your phone all computer programs work and are displayed on phone, video recording, mms, voice command, removable and upgradable memory and battery look i could go on.. everything i said is an unbiased fact. The iphone lags in major areas the mogul has flaws too but the article wasnt incorrect about anything..
and im not a hater i reccomend the iphone to most except my close fam because if your not close im not gonna set your phone up lol
Iphone is the phone of the year…..BBBAAWWWWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I let a friend tether his Iphone to the internet via my mogul during lunch at work. I can watch/listen to any media file via the card or the internet, surf the web and watch flash, and I have 16 gigs on my phone.. and dang I have another 8 gigs on my key ring card adapter! I use a cooked rom (No2Chem Rocks!!) I can listen to Sirius and XM via Bluetooth STEREO on my headphones or my pioneer deck (p7000bt) in the car. My phone also acts as a Bluetooth remote to my home media center. Sling box handles the entertainment will I am at work or on the road. Hell I turn my laptop on long enough to add media to the card and occasional surf the net via wmwifi router. oh yea did I forget the video recording and Microsoft office?
Iphone might catch up next year…NOT! When you are tiered of asking steve jobs for permission to do stuff to your phone, come to the dark side! Stop into PPCGEEKS.com and see what the real phone of the year has to offer!!! CBM
CBM -salute-
My old roomate has the new 3g iphone…..yea its pretty,shiny and has plenty of games….bla bla bla….
Has nothing on my tricked out Mogul.
how can the mogul be phone of the year? it had way too little memory causing it to freeze all the time. a terrible design blunder! it was simply impossible to run more then one program at a time without serious problems or stalls!
also lets not forget htc’s serious build problems. some moguls were great. others were all loose fitted like a new chrysler.
agree! and what about the overheating battery? and the case so fragile even a finger nail would scratch it!
I agree the iPhone is WAY over rated and should NOT be phone of the year. I disagree that the Titan should be though.
I went from a Titan (Sprint Mogul) to an AT&T Tilt. The Tilt is basically the Mogul on steroids. Faster data (AT&T’s 3G is way faster than Sprint’s, and coverage here is good for both, so no worries there), it has more RAM, and the tilting screen is awesome. I love to sit it down like a laptop when I am watching the slingplayer.
Basically everything the Mogul does, the Tilt does better. The Tilt also had software updates (adding WM 6.1).
I just don’t see how you can say the Mogul was more deserving than the Tilt. I actually still own my Mogul (but it doesn’t have any service). I am planning on using it as a stand alone GPS device. But the Tilt is by far the best phone I have ever owned.
In fact, the only reason I haven’t bought a Fuze (Touch Pro) yet is because of the lack of tilting screen. I don’t know if I can get by without it now that I have got used to having the tilting screen.
the tilt is an upgrade but the mogul started this round of development and hacking that the upgraded tilt and touch enjoyed.. i think thats why.. and the only real upgrade was the ram so essentially its the same phone.. and at&t is not faster than sprint maybe just where u live but most people would say that its way slower..
Wow, celz you are so wrong on almost all points i don;t even know where to begin…
1: The Titan did NOT start this trend. People have been hacking and upgrading HTC devices since the first one. Go over to XDA and see how many devices they have there- most of which are older than the Titan.
2: If you’re talking about the Titan being the first phone of that style, that is also incorrect. The Wizard was before the Titan. It also got hacked up and had all sorts of development for it.
3; AT&T’s 3G IS faster than Sprint’s. This is not debatable. If you have equal coverage AT&T’s will be faster. If it isn’t faster in your area, it’s because coverage isn’t as good. But AT&T’s HSPA network is capable of over 20 meg downloads. None of the phones support that, but it’s still much faster than Sprint’s EVDO rev A.
4: The Tilt is not essentially the same phone as the Titan. Yes, it does have more RAM, as you said, but it also has the awesome tilting screen. And that may not seem like a big deal to you if you haven’t used one for any period of time. But read any message board and you’ll find there are tons of Tilt owners (myself included) who can’t bear the thought of “upgrading” to a device without a tilting screen. I like to tilt my screen up (like a laptop) and sit it on my desk. It makes watching slingplayer (or anything else) much better.
It also has push to talk (I never use it), AT&T’s video calling (I never use it either), a better camera (the Tilt has a 3 megapixel- the phone encyclopedia here incorrectly lists it as a 2 megapixel), and USB 2.0 (faster than the Mogul’s USB 1.1).
So there are a number of improvements on the Tilt (in addition to the one you mentioned- it has double the RAM of the Mogul). You can see a good comparison here:
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=pdacomparer&id1=861&id2=771
I’m seeing a trend of people raising the HTC Kaiser (AT&T’s Tilt) as a phone that’s better.
Keep in mind we weren’t picking the “best” phone, that’s something that can be argued all day long. We picked the phone that changed the industry the most in 2008.
HTC attempted to continue the perpetual upgrading of handsets with the Tilt/Kaiser. If the HTC Hermes (the Kaiser’s predecessor, aka the AT&T 8525) got half the official firmware updates that the Tilt did, most people would still be happy with their AT&T 8525/Hermes.
In short, the Titan got updated, while the Tilt forced customers to buy a new phone, in order to get software updates (HTC promised updates to Windows Mobile 6.1 and A-GPS, for example… and never delivered on those promises to the AT&T 8525/Hermes, adding “incentive” to upgrade to the Tilt).
That’s wrong in our view, and it’s more of the same from the wireless industry. The HTC Titan bucked that trend, and that’s why it got our praise… for making a difference in the wireless industry.
Well the Tilt had many more updates than just the OS and A-GPS. It had all sorts of hardware updates too.
I’m with you that if software can be upgraded, it should. But the Tilt had a few software upgrades too. It didn’t lauch with all of the features that it currently has. I know for sure it had updates to add WM 6.1, and video calling. It also had an update giving it HSPA (it launched with UMTS). So that is basically the same as going from EVDO rev 0 to EVDO rev A. I don’t know if it launched with GPS or if it was an update because I didn’t own one when it launched (I was using a Mogul at that time).
I totally understand wanting to reward the guys who do it right (letting you max out the device before forcing you to buy a new one) but the Tilt also had updates to max it out. You should fault them for launching a device that already had certain features built in at launch (and it launched around the same time as the Mogul).
Both are great phones though. The Mogul was the best phone I ever owned until i got my Tilt (and I have been using PDA phones since the Hitachi G1000).
On a side note: how great is it that we can even have this discussion? A couple years ago there was never even a debate about the phone of the year, or best PDA phone. We were lucky if we had 1 great device released every year- most of the time it was 1 great device every 2 years. Now we’re seeing several great devices every year. And the price of these devices is getting cheaper and cheaper. I paid $650 for a Hitachi G1000 about 6 years ago. It was the hands down best device on the market for about 2 years (until the PPC-6600 was released). Now we’re seeing 2 or 2 great devices (or more) every year, and you can get them for a lot less money than the $650 (with contract!) that I pais for the G1000.
On that note- I am not an iPhone fan by any stretch, but i think their $200 price point was definitely a game changer. It made PDA phones affordable for the average joe, and all the other guys had to be around that price range to compete. And with all the hype and sales of the iPhone, it brought a lot of new players into the game who wanted a piece of that pie. Now it’s pretty common and expected to get a top notch PDA, and have several to choose from, for $300 or less on any given carrier (with contract).
So the “best” phone is probably either the Tilt or the 3G iPhone.
But I disagree that the Mogul changed the industry the most. One isolated incident that a device was supported with upgrades is not a trend but rather more like an accident that I have zero confidence will be repeated so I’m not breaking out the champagne just yet.
I do respect the efforts of this website as a consumer watchdog to try to control the unregulated abuses of power of these wireless carriers. Keep up the good fight as we are all the beneficiaries of your diligence.
Kudos should also go to Apple who gets my praise for continually upgrading the software on their phones.
Criticism also goes to Apple for profiteering on every little piece that they control and restricting the innovation of others. Additional criticism goes to Apple for not having the following: video camera, stereo bluetooth A2DP, turn by turn gps, tethering, etc,,,
Kudos goes to the Mogul and others for pushing the envelope of device features.
COMPARE THE TWO
removable battery: htc
windows mobile: htc
custom apps: htc
slingplayer capability: htc
ir: htc
office mobile: htc
updates: htc
keyboard: htc
cheapest data and phone plan: htc(sprint $30+$15)
internet sharing(hook up phone to laptop to browse internet w/o paying
any more than $15 for data plan: htc
big screen: iphone
fast processor: iphone
memory: iphone
web browser: iphone and htc (opra browser installed)
wifi: iphone & htc
i had the ppc6800 for 7 months and the only reason y i just sold it was because the htc touch pro came out. the screen maybe 2cm smaller but its faster and snappier. a true upgrade to the mogul. So i can see y htc ppc6800 is the phone of the year. phone of the year 2009 iphone3g or htc touch pro…or htc touch HD.
This feature-fest is fascinating BUT:
All iPhones works with iTunes. This opens up a world of content for your average user which can’t be matched (easily) by any other mobile phone. Yes, we could all join Netflix and rip content to our iPhones but how many average folks will do this? How many average people even knows about newsgroups? Secondly, most people already have most of their CD collection ripped into iTunes because they own an ipod. Please don’t bother posting that you own a Sandisk-Something. Apple outsells every other competitor in this arena by leaps and bounds.
The Apple App Store demolishes all competitors…period. Yes there are plenty of apps available for other platforms but none of them are even remotely resemble the Apple App Store. 10k+ apps available in the first six months. The iPhone is no longer just a phone. It has launched an entire computing platform.
The iPhone 3G institutionalized the revolution the original iPhone started in 2007. 10 million+ units sold in 2008 and counting…we can only guess what the final numbers will be. Picking anything but the iPhone 3G as Phone of the Year is just being silly and intentionally contrarian in some vague attempt to be original.
So every Apple phone should be awarded the phone of the year because of iTunes? Uh, no. iPhone 3G made no changes over the original iPhone in regards to iTunes. We give points for advances in phone engineering, and the original iPhone certainly excelled in that department. But, this is 2008, not 2007.
P.S. How’s the Stereo Bluetooth on that iPhone?
Hmmmm, Itunes….that is a good one Doc Pangloss, but can you drag and drop your music to and from the phone? Listen to music or watch movies from a pc in you home network? What about handing 16 gigs worth of anything on a card the size of your pinky nail to another Iphone and let them check out what you got? And how about phone backup abilities? I can put my card in another phone, push 3 buttons and in a few minutes make a clone of my original phone with all of my programs, contacts, texts ect… the Iphone is pretty and ok for those who can settle for the basics. That is the diference between a I “phone” and a PPC.
and Chris is right, How in the heck do you make a media centric device that does not support stereo bluetooth??? I mean really, was someone on the design team smoking crack??? Most of your phones today that play music support stereo bluetooth. And the sad thing is the Mogul is a weakling compared to the Touch Pro HD!
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So, I guess I was wrong after all.