Hasta La Gadget!

When Apple asks a favor, people listen–even if those people happen to run Google and are getting ready to launch an iPhone competitor. Venture Beat is reporting that, as Google was designing Android, Apple requested that the company not include that old iPhone favorite, multi-touch, in the open-source mobile OS. And as anyone with a T-Mobile G1 can guess, Google agreed.

Android team members, for their part, are seemingly satisfied with the agreement for two reasons. First, it staves off a potentially litigious Apple, which owns numerous patents and has been known in the past to be quick to sue. (This fact has recently been getting a good amount of attention, in light of some less-than-kind words traded between the company and Palm–the manufacturers of the upcoming Pre smartphone.)

Also, and perhaps even more important, Apple and Google have long shared a friendly relationship based both on a mutual respect for each other and a shared dislike for Microsoft. Even as Google has gotten into the smartphone business in its own roundabout way, the company has continued to develop software for Apple’s iPhone.

Of course, we do know that Android has mult-touch capabilities, which would come in handy–particularly with apps like Google Maps. So the question is, how much longer can friendship win out?

Samsung today got a jump on Mobile World Congress with the launch of its UltraTOUCH s8300 slider phone. The new handset features HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE/GPRS 3G, a 2.8-inch touch screen display, and an 8MP camera.

Samsung executive vice president JK Shin said in a release issued today:

With its refined contoured design, Samsung UltraTOUCH is our elegant full-touch hero at this year’s Mobile World Congress, proving again that Samsung’s mobile phones are at the forefront of style. We are committed to strengthening our portfolio of full-touch phones by introducing a variety of handsets to suit every lifestyle. UltraTOUCH leads this portfolio as our most iconic, high-end phone and will further enhance Samsung’s leadership in the premium full-touch market.

The UltraTOUCH is 12.7-millimeters thick, features a 3×4 sliding keypad, and has an anti-smudge/anti-scratch screen. The handset also features geo-tagging, 30fps VGA video capture, and a “groovy” music player.

No word on availability or when–if ever–the thing will actually come to the States.

Virgin Mobile and Kyocera have unveiled the X-TC, a text messaging-oriented slider phone that sports a full QWERTY keyboard and a budget price. It features a 1.3-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth for listening to music wirelessly, a Web browser, and a built-in media player with dedicated control keys and a microSD slot for sideloading music tracks, according to Phone Scoop.

The X-TC also includes MySpace and Facebook applications preloaded for social networking mavens. Virgin Mobile is pricing the X-TC at $100, which doesn’t sound like a big deal until you consider how you can use it with the carrier’s inexpensive prepaid plans and forgo the usual monthly fees. I reviewed the Kyocera Wild Card in 2007 and found it to be a solid value; it will be interesting to see if the X-TC improves on that design.

Amazon and Peek are running a promotion that lets consumers interested in the thoroughly mediocre Peek e-mail device buy one for $79.95 and get a second one free.

Well, it’s a little more complex than that, since each device requires its own $19.95/month data plan. But as before, there’s no contract with either one, so you can cancel at any time. Each device lets you send and receive e-mail from up to three accounts on the go—slowly, with deliberate typing required. And that’s about it, really.

Last month, Peek announced a $299.95 lifetime deal, where for one day only you could purchase a device and a lifetime data plan. Both that deal, and this new one at Amazon, sound like a company that’s desperate to move product, especially considering they’ve already discounted the price of the device from $99.95 to $79.95 to begin with. Do I hear “free-with-a-monthly-plan” next? Anyone?

New York City is an awful place to run a wireless network. Extreme population density, tall buildings and lousy weather combine to make it a tough place for cellular carriers to play. On the other hand, it’s the nation’s most-populated metro area and most of the national media live here, so there are a lot of rewards for wireless carriers, too.

Today, New York and Boston got their first new wireless carrier in a while, and it’s sure to shake up the market. MetroPCS has built their business on really cheap, unlimited wireless service. For $40/month you get unlimited calling to any number within the US, voice mail, and unlimited texting. Other features, like global texting, picture messaging, e-mail and mobile Web are available for relatively low add-on fees.

Metro’s New York City area covers the five boroughs of New York plus a little bit of New Jersey, Yonkers and Mount Vernon in Westchester County, and most of Nassau County. The Boston area reaches all the way down to Providence and includes most, but not all towns inside the 495 loop. We’ve included the coverage maps after the jump, plus links to our reviews of MetroPCS phones.