You know, sometimes product development can take a long time. A really long time. A really, really long time. Sometimes you slap a Cingular logo on an iPod nano knockoff, expecting to pull in tons of sweet cheddar for your novel idea, and before you know it -- bam! -- Cingular becomes AT&T. Of course, once you've got a warehouse full of these ugly-as-sin players, you might as well try to sell them, which shouldn't be hard considering all of the unique features this little guy has, like a 1.8-inch color LCD, MP3, WMA, AVI, and JPEG playback, plus... um, it fits nicely in a pocket. At the very least, those clinging to happier days when Cingular logos roamed the land can now return to their happy place. No word on price or availability, but we're told the feelings of extreme humiliation when using the player are included free of charge.

[Via SlashGear]

Your latest "anything iPhone related happens" post is here, this time with the news that AT&T has given away an iPhone to a member of the public, coupled with a recent statement that Apple is wrestling with the decision of whether to allow 3rd parties to develop iPhone apps. It's rather odd that the first iPhone to make it into the hands of a mere mortal didn't cost its new owner a single cent, but in a video taken at the commencement ceremony at West Texas A&M University, the CEO of Cingular Wireless Stan Sigman gave away an iPhone to one Dr. O'Brien. (At least, that's what the very crackly movie of the speech shot on a Treo appears to indicate.) The statement about the 3rd party iPhone software comes from a similarly authoritative voice -- Steve Jobs -- and through a clearer medium -- a phone-in of a recent Apple shareholders meeting. Jobs said that the company "is wrestling with" the decision to allow external developers to create their own software for the iPhone. Our wish is for Apple to open up the iPhone, or at least compromise and allow developers to create their own widgets. In the phone industry, standing still (which is effectively what Apple would be doing with a closed iPhone) is not an option: or, maybe it is. Hmm, we seem to have missed the smackdown.

Read -- AT&T's Stan Sigman gifts iPhone
Read -- 3rd party iPhone apps?

Hard to believe we had to wait until 2007, but here we are, finally able to say Symbian, 3G, and US all in the same sentence. Even after last week's misfire launch of the N75, Nokia's uber-hot flip phone made its way into our grubby hands under more legitimate circumstances than last time. Knowing how slim HTC made the Star Trek, it's hard to call the N75 anything but a little chunky, but besides having, you know, 3G, it's got a few other things going for it: we really dug the classy black, copper-flecked finish, but crack it open and it's got a very spacious keypad and large bright screen (littered with Cingular app-swag). We took a ton of shots of this thing, including some size comparison's to Nokia's other Cingular handset, the E62, as well as the aforementioned Star Trek. Launch is thankfully still scheduled for sometime in May (i.e. this month) -- we can almost taste it.

Update: We just got an official launch date! The N75 will go on sale tomorrow (Friday, May 4th) for the price of $200 (with two year agreement and with $50 mail in rebate).

Nope, we didn't screw up the image here -- the LG CU500v is, for all practical purposes, identical to the older CU500, save for the critical detail that the CU500v's firmware supports Video Share. We can basically think of the new feature as a poor man's video calling; video is transmitted only one way during calls, though callers with compatible handsets can switch direction mid-call. Rumor has it AT&T intends to launch true video calling along with its HSUPA network, but for the time being, this is as good as it gets. The good news? With a swiveling 1.3 megapixel cam, microSD expansion, stereo speakers, external music controls, stereo Bluetooth, and a slim, metallic body, the phone is no slouch -- and being the first kid on the block with Video Share is only going to run you $29.99 after the typical contract and rebate discounts.

[Thanks, Kyle A.]

Update: Um, April fools, or something! The CU500v has been taken down from AT&T's site after apparently being put up prematurely. Oh well, we didn't want crippled video calling anyway! Hmph!

This is it, the moment you've been waiting for. After all these long months you can finally cast your ballot for the 2006 Gadget of the Year! Our Engadget Awards nominees are listed below, and you've got until 11.59PM EST on Wednesday, April 18th to file your vote. You can only vote once, so make it count, and may the best gadget in all of 2006 win! The nominees: Apple MacBook Pro, Dell 3007WFP-HC, HTC Hermes / 8525, Nintendo Wii, SanDisk Sansa E280R, Slingbox PRO, and Sony PlayStation 3.

AT&T and Napster have joined hands to offer customers access to some three million songs for a year via Napster To Go. This 180 dollar freebie -- if, of course, you have the right plan -- will allow subscribers to download, organize, and create playlists on a PC and then sync them to their handset or compatible music device. This offer is a bit of a rehash from back in November 2004 when Cingular owned AT&T, but this time instead of 14.95 a month, it's free (and we love free). Reading through the list of qualifying plans is a bit of a daunting affair, so our advice is to hit up your local bricks and mortar AT&T shop on or after the April 1st launch for the lowdown.

There are two things worth noting about that image to the right. First, it's red. No, not (PRODUCT) RED, just red as in the rumored red Pearl we heard was coming to AT&T. It's not even that red making this more of a RIM CranBerry. The pic comes to us by way of a helpful anonymous tipster who claims it will pop as early as Monday (along side a crimson Treo 680) to business channels even though this would be RIM's least business-y release to date. The other thing to note here of course is the new AT&T branding. Is this the real deal? We're not sure, but we'll see on Monday now won't we.

Straighten your ties and button your suit jackets, RIM's promiscuous debutante -- the Blackberry 8800 -- is up and dancin' on on Cingular's website. $500 list, or $300 after $50 mail-in rebate and 2-year contract, the 8800 brings everything we expected: quad-band EDGE, GPS, microSD expansion, Bluetooth 2.0, push-to-talk support, and 5-hours talk / 24-days standby in a 0.55-inch device weighing just 4.73-ounces. 3G data? No. WiFi? Not this time. For that we'll have to hold tight for the anticipated mid-year launch of the 8820.

[Thanks, President and everyone who sent this in]

He got us those original BlackBerry 8800 shots, so we're guessing these unboxing pics of the phone here were no sweat for Boy Genius. We still can't claim to be crazy about the device, which launched last week, but we're sure plenty of suits will be glad to replace their aging CrackBerries with this fancy new QWERTY version. As a side note -- could Cingular's boxes be any more boring?

If you've been a bit paranoid of late after hearing that a blatant security hole was found in the now-deceased Palm OS, help has unofficially arrived. Reportedly discovered by Symantec, the vulnerability entailed a hole that allowed the operating system's Find functionality to be accessed even when the device was set to Locked, allowing ill-willed hackers to sift through text message history, calendar entries, tasks, etc. The hole had been confirmed on the Treo 650, 680, and 700p, but now users of the handsets can rest a bit easier after applying this patch. As expected, the update simply disables the Find feature, which essentially closes off the last remaining security loophole and protects prying eyes from seeing that backlog of steamy Valentine's Day texts. So if you're looking to unofficially patch things up with your Palm, be sure to hit the read link and get that install completed, but we're not the ones to come crying to if something goes awry.

[Via PalmInfoCenter]

Everything we've been told with regard to the iPhone's pricing structure has suggested that the 4GB would hit at $499 and the 8GB at $599, and that this would be an on-contract price -- expensive, yes, but likely still in the right range to keep sales brisk. New advertising allegedly leaked out of a consumer survey suggests that the 2-year contract price could come in a full two hundie lower, though: $299 for 4GB, $399 for 8GB. This would sorta jibe with a Cingular exec's comment regarding the availability of units to folks outside coverage areas at a contract-free price, but perhaps more importantly, it's fabulous news for folks who will be able to take advantage of a contract re-upping. Of course, this is all coming out of a survey -- perhaps gauging reaction to pricing -- so we need to wait for some more clarification from the powers that be before declaring our wallets a little less burdened come June.

Novatel's keeping us in the bits pretty well lately, what with those Rev A dongles on Sprint and Verizon, and that XU870 HSDPA ExpressCard hotness. Now they've got a trio of hot new accessories, including a pair of HSDPA devices: the Merlin X950D ExpressCard and the Ovation MC870D USB Modem. The X950D offers up global tri-band HSUPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS, and works in ExpressCard/34 and 54 slots. The real hotness is the 2.1Mbps HSUPA uploads, and those 7.2Mbps downloads aren't bad neither. There's also built-in GPS. On the USB end of things, Novatel's Ovation MC870D (pictured) does 7.2Mbps HSDPA, but apparently doesn't match those hot upload speeds in the X950D. The dongle is Europe centric, hanging out on the 2100MHz band, so Americans will have to look elsewhere. Novatel is also announcing two HSDPA embedded laptop modules for OEMs, the EU870D for Europe and the EU860D for North America. Luckily for those of us wondering where North American USB HSDPA is on this list, Novatel is launching the Merlin XUA-1 ExpressCard to USB adapter, to let you use those cards with any old USB 2.0 port. No word on price or release dates for any of this stuff, but this should be enough to get us salivating, we suppose.

It was no surprise to see Verizon and Sprint both select Qualcomm's MediaFLO to power their mobile TV networks; after all, Qualcomm and CDMA go together like peas in a pod. Imagine our surprise, though, to hear that AT&T has also selected the technology over the more globally-accepted DVB-H. The two companies made the announcement today, promising that a MediaFLO-based network will come through to supplement AT&T's existing video content in the second half of the year, picking up MediaFLO's newest features along the way: multicast video clips, datacasting (for, to use their words, "realtime information and entertainment, and dedicated audio. As for American DVB-H? Hiwire and Modeo have to be down in the dumps this morning, though T-Mobile has yet to make any announcements one way or the other. Admittedly, we're pulling for the little guys -- choice is always good, right?

Update: Although it is believed that Sprint's VUE trial is powered by MediaFLO, it should be noted that Sprint is still considering all their options and no announcements have thus far been made regarding its mobile TV offerings. Hope springs eternal, Modeo!

And by "make nice" we mean they probably exchanged large amounts of money behind closed doors to keep this lawsuit from getting out of hand. RIM's lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for Central California in December, alleges that not only does Samsung's BlackJack phone cause consumer confusion, but the very fact that Samsung called the phone i600 in Europe proves that it was specifically targeting the US-centric BlackBerry types. RIM, in a statement Wednesday said that the settlement includes "immediate provisions for the protection of RIM's valuable trademarks," and that it "does include limitations on use of the Blackjack trademark, withdrawal of the trademark application for Blackjack, Cingular's retention of common law rights in the Blackjack trademark, and certain reasonable measures to avoid confusion in the marketplace." So it sounds like Samsung won't be getting much more mileage out of this naming convention, though the deliberate "Blackjack" misspelling by RIM -- with that lowercase "j" -- has to grate on Sammy just a little bit, unless of course that was part of the deal. So, can we all just get along now?

[Thanks, Marty H]

The phone itself is a pretty uninteresting one -- EDGE data, Bluetooth, certainly nothing on the order of its 3G-capable big brother, the C600 -- but Pantech's C510 has one very important distinction: it's the first time we've seen that new, hip AT&T branding on a phone. For folks out of the loop, that's "Cingular" in 2006 parlance, and it looks like the carrier is about ready to flip the switch on moving its new old new branding to equipment. Of course, the FCC isn't a great barometer for knowing exactly when stuff is going to actually make it into consumers' hands; it could be a month or six (or more) before those three exquisitely-crafted lower case letters are silk screened onto a phone that's actually in your pocket. See the C510 spread wide open after the break (notice the select button -- so long, splat).