Hasta La Gadget!

It looks like Qualcomm is shaking things up at its FLO TV mobile TV subsidiary. Former Handango CEO Bill Stone will become FLO TV’s new president, replacing Gina Lombardi, who ran the show for the last three years, according to Silicon Alley Insider.

Mobile TV has been a tough nut to crack, to put it mildly: just 2.1 percent of consumers in the U.S. watched programmed television on their cell phones, according to recent comScore M:Metrics data. MediaFLO’s broadcast mobile TV technology looks great on cell phones—essentially, it’s just like terrestrial televsion, instead of the “one-to-many” streamed services that bog down even 3G cellular data networks. But although FLO TV has yet to release subscriber numbers, it’s a given that they’re very low—few handsets come with the built-in tuners necessary to receive MediaFLO broadcasts, even more than a year after the service was switched on in the U.S.

My money is still on advertiser-supported, free mobile TV. Most customers simply don’t like the idea of paying $15 per month extra for on-the-go television—especially on top of existing voice and data plans, which aren’t cheap to begin with.

A new study by Mformation Technologies Inc. confirms what we all already knew: upgrading your cell phone is a royal pain.

The report said that as many as 78 percent of consumers would upgrade their handsets more regularly if the setup process was “less painful,” according to Ars Technica. In addition, 88 percent of customers avoid trying out new cell phone features (like Web browsing and e-mail) because the setup procedures are too difficult, and almost two-thirds of respondents “stopped using mobile applications because they cannot solve problems with them.”

The research firm compiled the study from data gathered from 4,000 U.S. and U.K. cell phone customers. “According to the study, consumers feel that setting up a new mobile phone and getting confident in using it should take no longer than 15 minutes,” the report said. Instead, it usually takes about an hour, and most customers (78 percent) fear losing photos and address book data in the process.

For the first time, spending on cell phone services has exceeded spending on residential landline services in the U.S., according to new data from the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The data shows that the amount of spending on cell phone services actually crossed the line back in 2007. From 2001 to 2007, cellular phone expenditures increased rapidly, from $210 “per consumer unit” to $608 in 2007, an increase of almost 200 percent. Meanwhile, residential phone service expenditures per consumer unit fell from $686 to $482 over the same time period, a decrease of 30 percent.

The report comes as consumers continue to slowly move over to cell phone services. Back in September, Nielsen Mobile released data showing that 17 percent of U.S. households get by without a landline these days; the analytics firm predicted at the time that the number would increase to almost 20 percent by the end of 2008.

Remember the Peek, the dedicated e-mail-only device that costs too much money ($99.95, plus $19.95 per month) given how crappy it is (as I found in our PC Mag review)? The company has now announced that for just one day only—today—customers can buy the device, plus a lifetime subscription, for $299.95.

As Engadget says, it’s likely that this “one-day only” deal will become standard in the future, given that the company has already discounted the device in some stores. One commenter on the forum noted something interesting in the company’s Terms of Service: “We reserve the right to terminate or restrict your use of our Service, without notice, for any or no reason whatsoever.”

That’s probably also true if they go out of business. I hope that doesn’t happen, of course; there’s plenty of room to revise the Peek and make it better. A dedicated, dead-simple e-mail device is a fine idea if executed properly, which the Peek isn’t. For the record, I don’t recommend this new deal either.

Microsoft is planning a major announcement at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month; many expect the company to announce the next version of Windows Mobile. Here in the states, Todd Peters, the vice president of marketing for the Windows Mobile division, hinted at CES last week as to what to expect.

According to the New York Times’ Bits blog, Peters said that Microsoft is responding to fierce competition in the phone market by revamping its mobile operating system, and—significantly—by putting it on fewer devices.

Currently, there are well over 100 devices on the market running Windows Mobile. As we’ve noted in many reviews on PCMag.com, Windows Mobile devices tend to lack the tight hardware integration required for a smooth user experience, often requiring more button pushes and deep sea menu diving than competing devices like the BlackBerry Curve, the iPhone, and the T-Mobile G1. Plus, I’ve found in recent reviews that WM-powered devices tend to have sluggish responses and often exhibit bugs (depending on the phone in question), particularly when playing media or taking photos.