This is unexpected but some of the Apple Retail stores across US have already started selling factory unlocked, contract-free iPhone 4S which were otherwise scheduled to go on shelves sometime in November.

Once you buy a factory unlocked, contract-free iPhone 4S and connect it to your computer and starting up iTunes, the following message will display on the screen: "Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked." This is completely legit because 9to5Mac, a popular Apple-only blog has confirmed it.

Although Apple says that they will begin selling unlocked, contract-free iPhone 4S units in the United States in November, we have learned otherwise. Select Apple Stores in the United States have begun selling contract-free versions of the iPhone 4S, which our friend Steven Troughton-Smith was able to both verify and purchase.

The confirmation also comes from Steven Troughton-Smith (the person who ported Siri to iPhone 4) who successfully used T-Mobile’s EDGE network using an O2 SIM card on his unlocked iPhone 4S.

If you are looking for a factory unlocked, contract free iPhone, you might get lucky to order one in one of the Apple Retail stores near you. However, it will take weeks for the iPhone to land up in your hand, thanks to the high demand of the device. All wireless carriers in the United States are sold out with pre-orders hitting 1 million mark and counting in the first 24 hours. We mentioned the pricing of the factory unlocked, contract-free iPhone 4S in our previous post. Take a quick glance at it again:

In case you have been in a hiatus, you might already know that Apple has released iPhone 4S (a powerful superset of the iPhone 4) as opposed to the widely rumored iPhone 5. Well, what comes as a bigger surprise is that Apple has already planned the official unlocked iPhone 4S to go on sale just a month after the contract-based iPhone 4S release. While the latter will be available from Oct 14, 8 AM onwards at Apple Retail Stores, the official unlocked iPhone 4S will hit the shelves sometime in November 2011.

The unlocked iPhone includes all the features of iPhone but without a contract commitment. You can activate and use it on the supported GSM wireless network of your choice, such as AT&T in the United States.* The unlocked iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S will not work with CDMA-based carriers such as Verizon Wireless or Sprint.

For more, visit Apple Store.

No more a rumor this time. Apple has started sending out invites to the hot-shots of the tech industry for the iPhone event being held on October 4th at Cupertino.

Like we stated earlier, multiple iPhone releases are highly likely. Along with the much obvious iPhone 5, a cheaper version of the iPhone 4 is also expected. Because Jobs is no more the CEO of Apple (which is a little saddening by the way), this event is going to be the first one with Tim Cook. Going by the rumors spreading all over the internet, the new iPhone is believed to have a slightly larger screen, an 8 megapixel camera, 1 GB RAM and a lot many advanced features. Stay tuned for more iPhone 5 news.

If you were waiting for an official factory unlocked iPhone 4, you’d be happy to know that Apple has decided to start selling them in the United States. This confirms a lingering rumor of the officially unlocked iPhone not bonded with any costly contracts with the carriers.

Apple has listed the Unlocked GSM version of the iPhone 4 on the Apple Store (US only). The phone will be available in black and white colors with the 16GB one costing $649 and the 32GB one $749.

You can buy the factory unlocked iPhone 4 from here. There are no shipping costs. The black one will ship in about 1-3 days while the white one will take about 3-5 days. [via TNW]

Today, Microsoft acquired Skype, for a whopping $8.5 Billion, all in cash. Both companies initially remained silent, but then confirmed. Microsoft stated that the technology behind Skype will be integrated within XBox, Kinect, Xbox Live, Outlook and Windows Phone.

Microsoft is not as good as (say Google when it comes to acquisitions. There have been many misjudged calculations the software giant committed in the past. The fate of the acquired companies and services was, euphemistically saying, ‘not good’. This is not to say that the quality of those services was bad, but rather the mishandlings with them at Redmond are to blame for the most part. Skype, in particular, is an excellent service. GigaOm even compared it with Cisco’s and Google‘s proprietary v-chat services. It has a handsome 663 million user base, out of which 170 million are regular users and 8.8 million paying customers…but that’s about it. Skype is not (and never was) a cash-cow. It hardly break even last year and also has $686 million worth of debt on its head.

So all that’s left for Microsoft to leverage upon is the fact that Skype is a much respected VoIP phone system with a huge user base. Besides, Windows Phone 7 desperately needs to stand out in the smartphone chaos. And Skype, on the other hand, had owners and investors desperate for an exit. The deal couldn’t be smoother. But will the end-user benefit? Does the average Joe really cares about who owns the software he uses? I’d say, yes. The end user will benefit. But only a fraction of it; the ones using Windows Phone Devices, specifically. Sure, it’s a bold statement but somebody has to make it. The reason is that, Skype‘s video chat technology is far advanced than Microsoft‘s and the latter knows it. You’d rarely come across someone describing how awesome video chat on Windows Live Messenger is, or, if I may say, Windows Live Messenger itself is. I am sure Microsoft must have understood by now that it has an ‘Anti-Midas’ touch. Anything it tries to improve, ends up being mediocre and botched up. In a situation like this, it would be dumb beyond imagination for Microsoft to even touch the insides of Skype. But stay assured, it won’t. Sure there will be heck of integration process going on in the coming months to make Windows Phone (and other Microsoft devices) capable enough to compete with Apple‘s FaceTime and Google Voice but the desktop version wouldn’t see any major overhaul.

It turns out that the real winner in the Skype deal was Microsoft and Skype investors. For the end-users, the deal makes no difference. Like I said, a small fraction of Windows Phone users will rejoice, but hey, if they are Windows Phone users, they’d probably rejoice at anything Microsoft throws at them. If in case, Microsoft does something outrageous like integrating Skype with MSN or shutting down Skype altogether, it will certainly be a major blow to end-users and eventually to Microsoft. There are fat chances of anything like that to happen though, one reason being Microsoft wouldn’t churn out $8.5 billion to just shut down a service. But then, the next question arises, isn’t $8.5 billion an insanely huge amount to improve one particular feature on a mobile platform?

[Image credit: Reuters]

White iPhone 4 released this week after great anticipation. People are actually willing to trade-off their original (black) iPhone 4s for the newer, white ones. If you are contemplating buying an iPhone 4 there’s something you’d like to know. The white iPhone 4s are approximately 2% thicker than the black ones. Yes, that’s right. The pictures below testify this.

While it may not at all be a problem for some, for the Apple fanboys and geeked out folks however, it’s worth a note. Technically, the white iPhone 4 works exactly like its black counterpart. But the outer plastic cover used in the white ones add a few millimeters. White iPhone owners are findng it difficult to fit the phone into plastic cases. However, the jelly ones work just fine.

Many speculations are going on among fans and experts as to why the white iPhone 4s are ‘fat’. A convincing reason might lie in the fact that the white iPhone’s case, "reportedly" did not insulate the camera’s flash. This caused residual light to leak from the phone’s edges. This called for an additional protection and hence a little thicker outer body.

Apple hasn’t given out a word on this yet. So basically this is it. You want a white iPhone 4, deal with the extra 0.2mm ‘baggage’.

The rumor has finally turned out to be true. Apple is all set to launch the white iPhone on April 27th and has in fact started shipping it to Apple Retail Stores. Best Buy confirms the date, too.

White iPhone has always been a center of awe owing to its scarcity and hence it looks like Apple‘s going to generate quite a bit of revenue in spite of its delayed release (10 months from the iPhone 4′s release, to be precise). So are you planning to go for a white iPhone 4 or wait for the next gen iPhone 5?

Samsung is all set to launch the entry-level Star II (S5260) in India, a powerful successor to the original Samsung Star. It has better features while retaining the same old zappy youth feel of its predecessor. Star II will concentrate more on social-networking features and will come pre-loaded with Social Hub which includes Facebook, Twitter and Instant Messaging apps. A few striking features of the Samsung Star II (S5260) are mentioned below:

Features of Samsung Star II (S5260):

• 3-inch WQVGA screen
• TouchWiz UI 3.0
• 3.2MP camera
• Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth
• 1000mAh battery
• QuickType T9 Trace keyboard
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Social Hub (with Facebook, Twitter and IM apps)
• microSD card slot
• PRICE: Rs. 6540/- approx.

Samsung, continuing the legacy of Galaxy S,  has now announced its much anticipated Andriod 2.3 Gingerbread based successor – The Samsung Galaxy S II. It sports a 4.27" super AMOLED 800×480 res display, 8MP back-camera and surprisingly thin form factor with thickness only 0.85cm which is even slimmer than the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc by more than 0.2mm.

Key features:

• 1 GHz Dual-core processor
• Android 2.3 – Gingerbread
• TouchWIZ 4.0 
• 4.3 inch AMOLED screen with 800×480 WVGA resolution
• Dimensions: 12.5 x 6.6 x 0.8cm
• Weight: 117gm
• Camera: 8MP (Back), 2MP (Front)
• Connectivity: WiFi / HSPA+ (upto 21Mbps)
• Assisted GPS, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC chip.

Apart from excellent hardware, I think TouchWIZ 4.0 deserves a mention here. It will offer added fuctionality in the form of three new hubs – Game Hub where users can download hi-def games from Gameloft, Music Hub where they can access over 12 million music tracks from 7digital and Reader Hub where they can access 2.2 million books, 2,000 global and local newspapers, and 2,300 magazines.

GALAXY S II is a natural and powerful evolution of GALAXY S. Building on the phenomenal success of the original Samsung GALAXY S, we are proud to unveil the ultimate smartphone. Consumers no longer have to contain themselves – the Samsung GALAXY S II allows them to design their own smart lives.

Samsung expects to ship Galaxy S II by the end of this month. Pricing is not yet disclosed.

(Photo: Bonnie Cha/CNET)

After about a month since its first appearance on Dell India website, the Android based Dell Venue is now available for purchase. This smartphone is priced at Rs. 28,500. It is currently available on Flipkart and so we can hope that it hits the stores soon.

Key specifications of Dell Venue:

• AMOLED Display With Curved Corning Gorilla Glass
• Android 2.2 OS
• 8MP Camera With LED Flash & Autofocus
• 1GHz QSD8250 Snapdragon chipset
• AGPS, EDGE, WiFi, 3G
• Multi-touch features
• Bar shaped form-factor
• MicroSD memory card supported up to 32 GB
• E-Compass for travel navigation
• 1400mAh battery