RIM & Motorola have gotten back to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute with an updated proposal for their 4FF nano-SIM. As you see on the picture above, the joint proposal from RIM & Motorola offer a clear Apple design with the mainintaing of Apple's proposed contacts with the addition of a few middle contacts. RIM & Motorola also updated the design to include a notch for the SIM to be locked in position. But it all boils down to what the ETSI board decides, and up to now it is reported that they are in favor of Apple's original design, and practically if it is approved we will start seeing this in at least a years time.

So you have wrapped your hands on the Dev Alpha from the Developer Conference, or simply have seen it on the interweb these past weeks, but one thing was missing from the device. The actual interface, and homescreen that will be featured on the upcoming operating system. Today RIM provided a sneak preview of what they anticipate it will look like, above is the home screen with the active applications (not widgets), and the launcher is right under... Quite nice and clean if you ask us. 

Not too long ago, the late Steve Jobs was praising Google for making a few things right, including Maps which Apple took their API and significantly improved the user experience and interface. Hold an Android Phone and an iPhone both running Google Maps next to each other and you will be surprised with the better usability and smoothness. Nevertheless Android has made many strides with the application recently, and has also been quite evil regarding Android according to Apple, so rumor has been circulating for some time that Apple was planning on moving away from Google Maps completely in favor of Open Street Maps as they did with Photos. But according to new leaked information, Apple will be debuing their own in-house Maps with an enhanced 3D view, when you ask? iOS 6, and we can expect that the acquisitions of Placebase, C3 Technology along with Poly9 will provide this complete maps database. Most likely during June we will get a wraps off this new Maps application along with the New iPhone and iOS 6.

Smartphones have started to dominate the cellphone market, once a tool geared for doing business on the go, iOS and Android have changed the landscape. Making smartphones an necessity to engadge with your virtual social life. Nielsen reports that over 50% of own a smartphone, with Apple being the dominant manufacturer in terms handsets, and once again Android leads in the smartphone Operating System. It's worth noting that BlackBerry is a mere 11.6% of the entire smartphone market.

Apple was smart releasing the New iPad (iPad 3) and keeping the iPad 2 on discount essentially winning more users with a discounted device. What many of us didn't know is that the new iPad 2 that you will purchase from Apple features a newer A5 processor at a tiny 32nm rather than the 45nm that was featured in the "former" iPad 2 just before the discounted units were made available. So what will you gain. According to AnanTech you will get an improved battery life, and with a little hacking, you might be able to squeeze some more power from this new processor. Just a little disclaimer for you folks interesting in picking a new iPad, we can't guarantee that your unit will have the 32nm processor we are speculating that there is a high possibility that it will.

If one company has been in the smartphone game for a while it has been Nokia, their dominance though has quickly diminished, as they failed to take steps to curb the competition, MeeGo (N9) fell like a rock and was quickly abandoned. While the new Lumia series looks promising, yet it has not received the traction as expected with their Microsoft partnership. Nevertheless one thing that they have though accumulated throughout the time of the earlier symbian devices is a huge inventory of patents. And when a company is ailing, they have no other choice but to pursue those which are not paying royalties. HTC, Viewsonic and RIM as the first companies to get hit, and it seems like all hell is breaking loose from every manufacturer trying to keep their turf, with their patents.

Today at the BlackBerry World General Session Thorsten Heins, President and CEO of RIM gave us a heads up of what we can expect from BlackBerry 10. So besides the totally awesome camera software, which lets you snap a picture, and also go back in time to open your would be shut eyes! A new virtual touch keyboard which allows gestures, and gives you a legacy BlackBerry keyboard theme, and from the multitasking front you also get app switching, which looks similar to webOS, but in this case it reveals background tasks.

But the real news that interests us today, was the very limited Developer Prototype phone, also known as the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha. It features a really nice big display at 4.2", 1280x768 resolution, front an rear facing camera which we do not have specifications, microSD and 16GB internal memory, 1GB RAM, micro-HDMI, and all the connectivity of a comparable smartphone, we are waiting to get the official specs from the device, and you can see what we currently have here.

Apple started the share-your-music to the entire house craze with the Airport Express a while ago, and made it shine with Airplay a short while after. But RIM is taking a different approach, although the approach is something very similar, it's stripped of the networking and connectivity additions that made the Airport Express a more complete access point rather than simply a music repeater. So this tiny toy is dubbed BlackBerry Music Gateway, it features NFC and Bluetooth connectivity and is intended to stream music from any home stereo, or car audio system as long as an auxiliary port is available.

Well here is something we didn't expect, images of the BlackBerry Prototype Developer Device, and it looks really nice, clean and simple. A miniature PlayBook, with a soft back finish and full touchscreen screen in the front. According to RIM this device will not be marketed but we have a gut fealing that this may indeed make its way out by the end of the year for public consumption. Now anyone interested in representing The Phone Database in Florida and to pick up an awesome prototype device in the process?

It features a 3.2 LCD screen with 480x320 resolution, a dated Qualcomm 800MHz chip , 512MB Ram, 3MP camera, and video recording at VGA resolution. The good news it is running ICS, and will have a bit of battery capacity at 1460mAh. We expect this budget phone to arrive mid summer, and will be announced within the next few weeks. The device is quite thick, we estimate at around 15mm or a bit more. We expect the launch price of this device be at or under 150 euros.