Overall, attendance at this year’s CTIA Wireless event was down a bit, which was to be expected due to the current economy. But of course it was still CTIA! The three major topics of discussion in Las Vegas included mobile apps, LTE and new mobile phones- many of the touchscreen, messaging and smart variety.
Probably the biggest announcement at the show came from RIM, with the introduction of the highly-anticipated Blackberry App World. The new App World will make it easier for BlackBerry users to customize their phones with third-party applications by allowing them to download apps directly to their phones from an online catalog.
In terms of phones, there was a lot of buzz around the new Samsung Impression. A number of new messaging phone models also made their debut including the Samsung Magnet, Kyocera G2GO M2000, Sanyo SCP-2700 and the LG Neon and Xenon. Samsung also announced the Mondi mobile WiMAX enabled handheld device. A little more was expected in terms of news on the Palm Pre and Android devices, but it was relatively quiet on both fronts- still no pricing or availability for the Pre and only a mention by Samsung of the possibility of an Android device for Sprint or T-Mobile by the end of 2009.
On the LTE front, Ericsson announced what it purports to be first commercial LTE device platform on the market. Vendors also appear to be ramping up their plans and rallying their support for LTE.
For more show highlights, check out CNET’s Best of CTIA 2009 at http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12261_7-10211572-51.html