Apple's iPhone is a commercial success but if the magnitude of that success escapes you, here's a little hint: It has set a new record for AT&T sales by selling more phones than the Motorola RAZR did in a month.

In addition to this, the demand for the iPhone doesn't seem to be slowing down with iPhones going on eBay from US$ 705 to a whopping US$ 12,500.

Throughout all this, Apple has been making a killing. Industry researcher ISuppli Corp. declared that Apple is selling the iPhone for more than double its manufacturing costs. Thus they have profit margins of over 55 percent, excluding logistics and royalties.

That's just an insane amount of money moving into the company, and it shows. As a testament to that, Apple shares soared by US$ 5.91 to US$ 127.17 or 4.9 percent in NASDAQ Stock Market trading.

However, it should also be noted that AT&T shares dropped by US$ 35 cents, which is rather peculiar considering AT&T has sold out of the phone in almost all its 1,800 stores. It may have something to do with the EDGE network crashing for a short time, but this has not been confirmed by any of our financial analysts.

So it looks like the iPhone is off to a good start, it should be noted that Apple isn't expecting to be making a large profit now but expects it to come over a span of two years. Is this a sign of things to come? If you'd care to read more on this, click on our read link.

  

Phone news posted some interesting images of a Motorola phone that's yet to hit the streets. It was originally named the V9m, but was later changed to V9c for a few iffy reasons. Speculations have risen on the possibility of this model actually being the anticipated LAZR or a RAZR 2 of sorts.

This phone will offer touch-screen controls and the popular BREW interface that pleased fans with its ease of use. The V9c will debut initially with Verizon Wireless but may become available with other mobile providers in the near future.

The change from "m" to "c" in the model's name is due to the fact that the mobile giant wants a clearer delineation between its multimedia phones and non-multimedia CDMA models.

There's word going around that a sleek successor of the famed Motorola RAZR is coming up. Dubbed as the "LAZR", this gadget will feature an ultra-thin chromed clam shell bod, 512 megabyte internal memory with no expansion slot, Linux OS, a text-to-speech system for email and SMSes, and a two-inch external display.

We still haven't gotten much info about this coming-up gadget, and no, we don't know why these Motorola names seem vowel-deprived. We're not even sure if the name is really going to be "LAZR" after all. But we're sure about one thing: the phone looks very sexy. Check out what we got on the Motorola LAZR so far:

How many people in your social circle is using a Motorola Razr? A lot? Well, that seems to be the reason why Motorola is experiencing some bumps in the financial world lately as reported by the New York Times.

The company has been the victim of collapsing profits and stocks, and they recently announced that they'll be laying off 3,500 of its workers, all of these in spite of the Razr's thriving sales. So what's happening in the Motorola camp?

Apparently, there are a billion mobile phones sold worldwide every year and Motorola has almost a quarter of the market. The problem in this scenario is that consumers are also replacing their phones faster. When it first came out, the Motorola Razr quickly became the toast of the town - with almost everybody sporting the thingamajig and a lot raving for it. But now that it's yesterday's technology, people are switching to other phones, and there lies the problem.

Keeping at tune with the times, Motorola came up with new phones, the Pebl, Slvr, Rizr, and Rckr. The company then discounted its older phones in the hopes of raking in more profits. The problem now is that the discounts were too aggressive and the new phones are not doing that good in the market.

Analysts are now saying that Motorola needs to find a blockbuster. They also mentioned that they should reboot its product line and leave behind the four-letter names and Razr-inspired design flourishes. Basically, for Motorola to be the hottest company again, they should recreate the Razr phenom but with something that is entirely different. They should do this now since a lot of other companies like Samsung and Apple are itching to deliver their mobile phone hits.

Billionaire investor, Carl C. Icahn, bought 40 million shares of Motorola on a bet that he could push the company to do better. Due to this, Motorola officials refused to say anything about the NY Times report citing legal restrictions on how it can respond to Mr. Icahn's activities.

We are pretty sure you're having a grand time tinkering with your Mii avatars over the past few weeks. And we here, are having a blast as well listening to these stories. Remember the Miimii-fied Marcus Fenix from Gears of War? And how about the Rainbow Six: Vegas Mii invasion? Heck, even just looking at them weird faces is so fun!

After a while anyway, you might begin to want some features not provided in the creator. After all, the idea behind avatars is to represent its creator physically or reflect on what's inside. What if I have a tattoo that I want to show off? Or maybe slogan shirts just so I can speak my mind? Uh, how about "Chuck Norris loves Wii" or "Wiicked" for starters?

Anyway, the point is that Mii is fun already. But there are various areas wherein it can still be improved on. We found a list of Mii suggestions and we thought we'd share it with you. Also, please feel free to add your own:

• More hats: Like a top hat, a jester hat, one of those big Russian ones with the furry ears…
• Proper warts: The mole option isn’t enough. At least, not enough for my Lemmy Mii.
• Boobs: Because the Wii world needs Dolly, Jordan and Anna-Nicole in their FULL glory.
• Man-boobs: Because you can’t be sexist about these things. And lots of men do have man-boobs nowadays.
• Bling: Pimp coats. Diamond earrings. Those gold teeth that rappers have. It’s a no-brainer.
• Silly walks: Imagine if Miis could flounce, limp and disco-walk their way through games…
  Peg-legs: Mainly for pirates, and Heather Mills.
• Parrots: Mainly for pirates. I don’t think Heather owns a parrot.

See the full list after the jump!

The M3 Lite is, without a doubt, the best flashcart I have ever laid eyes on right now. It stands out from the crowd of previous generation flashcart adapters, and even beats all of the competition in my personal opinion. The M3 Lite was released on the 25th of last month and is available for purchase at various online retailers. Even with a rather high price point compared to the competition, the extra few bucks pays off in the end with several advantages over other adapters. You can read my review of this great product after the jump!

 

PS: The product was sent to me over a week from release so, sorry for the delay.

Purchase: [M3 Lite Retailers]
Info: [M3 Lite English Webpage]

Last week, we were all speculating about what kind of rabbit Steve Jobs would pull out of his hat during the recent Showtime conference. We thought it would be iPhone, half smartphone, half media player. But no. As it turned out, they gave us a sneak peek of their iTV.

But then, with the rolling out of the new iTunes 7, the folks over at MacShrine were looking over some of its resource files. And upon connecting their "iPhone" (Apple & Motorola's joint phone: ROKR, RAZR, and SLVR) an error message would pop-up:

"Some of the games in your iTunes library were not copied to the mobile phone [name] because you are not authorized to play them on this computer" and "iTunes cannot sync photos to the mobile phone [name] because your iPhoto Library needs updating. Open iPhoto to update your iPhoto Library."

Currently, the ROKR, RAZR, and SLVR are the closest stuff that Apple has to an "iPhone". But then, why would iTunes report such an error? It's as if the iTunes is looking for something (a feature maybe?) that the Motorola doesn't have. Maybe this hints at what they will come out with in the future? And what other thing that would be, except a possible iPhone?

Wanna get a tattoo minus the pain of needles? Then get it etched into your phone instead!

Motorola has released their new series of RAZR phones with tattoo designs etched on the front and back casing. So far Motorola has only released this one, with the dragon tattoo image, but assures us that they will come out with more designs by Ami James, the lead tattoo artist of the hit TV show "Miami Ink."

Motorola execs said that the idea of putting laser-etched tattoos on their Razrs is a product of a brainstorming session as to how they can sustain the already record-breaking sales of the RAZR phones. Jeremy Dale, VP for Motorola, believes that tattooed Razrs will be a hit with an even bigger market because "People today are looking to make personal statements, with the clothes that they wear, the bars that they go to. And their phones have become a fashion item."

If Motorola is going for the strategy of combining individuality with technology, this seems to be a step in the right direction. However, they would also have to ask themselves who will be most likely to buy a phone that sports a tat. People with tattoos? Those who want to get inked but are too afraid of needles? Rockers and non-conformists? We don't know yet, and looks like we'll have to wait till Christmas this year to find out.

 

The BlackBerry Stealth isn't tagged as the stealth for nothing. It has managed to move and go about the techie circuit in a covert way, but the undocumented days of this thingamajig is over. Here are some pics of the BlackBerry 8100, and from the pics, you can see that it is being compared to the 7130 and the Motorola RAZR. We don't know about you, but we like what we are seeing so far.

And this beauty isn't without brains. In addition to the usual PIM and push email capabilities, this BlackBerry's got a camera, microSD for expansion, EDGE for data, and it will even keep you entertained when you're doing all your business-related tasks thanks to the integrated media player. Destined to be part of the Cingular family this coming November, there has been some speculations that this baby would also be available over at T-Mobile. No word on the price tag for now though.

There's a reason why product manuals never make it to the best-seller's list. They are boring. We certainly don't read them until our unit has been damaged and only to know how we wrecked it. But read the manual before we start fiddling with our spanking new toy? Nah!

Sleep-inducing they may be, those manuals contain a wealth of information about the product. It's like a treasure map that unlocks this feature here and activates that feature there.

For Awright (who used his girlfriend as a guinea pig), this basic character flaw afflicts all people with social lives. And PDA makers failed to take into consideration. While a monkey can operate a typical PDA, "There is a learning curve to them, while most end users want them to be intuitive," he says. By the way we didn't meant to imply he is dating a monkey or a guinea pig.

Why, Awright asks, is the Motorola RAZR the top selling unit in the US and not one of those smartphones that can control the movement of a space satellite from the ground? "It's sleek, it's simple, and it does what it does (make calls). For it to do more would make the target audience freak out because they would have to learn something new." Ditto for the iPod. It's nice and simple. So to all PDA manufacturers, Awright has this message: keep it simple and easy to use.