While I don’t know why anyone would buy it, with a little creativity and resourcefulness you can actually make one of these cardboard-based cases for iPhones or the iPod Touch yourself. The idea is modest but if you really want to be conservative as far as buying new cases, you may as well look for old cardboards in your home (something is bound to be available and useful there) and shape them to effectively take shape and protect your phone.

This cardboard casing is being sold for $0.99 or 10 for $8 over at Case-mate to supposedly aid iPhone owners during the recession. But if you can do it yourself with the use of a cutter and some glue, why bother buying it? Wouldn’t that cost less?

(Source) Slippery Brick

Tags: Accessories, Apple, cardboard, casing, creativity, glue, iPhone, iPhone, iphones, mate, recession, resourcefulness

Sure, Sprint may be in the process or purchasing Virgin Mobile USA to the tune of $483 million but that doesn’t mean its all peaches for the carrier.

Recent reports suggest that not only did they lose $384 million for Q2 of this year, but they also lost 257,000 subscribers. Make not that all of this happened right when Sprint took the Palm Pre under its wing.

So what is to happen to Sprint? Will they be on a steady decline or will the purchase of Virgin Mobile give them the boost they need? Only time will tell.

via EngadgetMobile

Tags: Business, Cell Phones, economy, financial report, Loss, Mobile News, Palm, recession, Sprint, Sprint, subscribers

Just yesterday it was spotted that the Palm Pre is now selling for $99 with a 2-year contract on Sprint. Today, we get confirmation that Verizon will in fact be selling Palm’s newest handset for their service early next year.

This news comes to use from an investor conference call that went down earlier today where they also announced that most of their earnings are up compared to last year.

However, the call wasn’t all good news as Verizon has stated that due to a 21% drop in profits they are going to cut close to 8,000 workers. Bummer.

Read (Verizon)

Tags: Business, Cell Phones, conference call, economy, exclusivity, investor, Mobile News, Palm, Palm Pre, recession, T-Mobile, Verizon, workforce

Earlier today we reported to you that Nokia posted some pretty frightening numbers for for their Q2 profits and it seems that Sony Ericsson is in the same boat.

As a result of the shakey economy, SE was said to have shipped 13.8 million phones in Q2 of this year compared to the 24.4 million they shipped in Q2 of 2008. Furthermore, sales were down to €1.7 billion this year compared to last year’s €2.8 billion. To top it all off, they lost around €213 million in the same quarter.

President of Sony Ericsson, Dick Komiyama, comments on the hardships:

As expected, the second quarter was challenging and we still believe the remainder of the year will be difficult for Sony Ericsson. Our focus remains on bringing the company back to profitability and growth as quickly as possible, and our performance is starting to improve due to our cost reduction activities. The new product portfolio that integrates communications, entertainment and social media applications should contribute to healthier topline development when shipments start later this year. We remain confident that the actions we are taking will further improve our financial situation and strengthen Sony Ericsson’s competitiveness.

Let’s hope that Sony Ericsson, along with Nokia, return to greatness sooner rather than later.

Read (Sony Ericsson) via BGR

Tags: Cell Phones, dick komiyama, economy, Mobile News, profits, recession, Sony Ericsson

At this point in time where recession has claimed the brunt of people finding jobs like crazy, even the big companies need a boost as far as filling the open job positions they require today. Today, most companies are hesitant on where to place their ads, costs of which is a derivative that holds them back. But now, Beyond.com offers an app which can eventually cover a wider area of potential candidates, perhaps referring to the number of people who are going gaga over iPhone use today.

Employers and recruiters not only gain increased visibility to their job postings, but they can also access valuable articles and information on recruitment advertising and other HR-related topics. Job seekers can use the app to search jobs by keyword and location, view job details, forward jobs to friends and bookmark jobs. In addition, users can browse career articles for advice and tips on a variety of topics including job searching, resume writing and interviewing.

The iPhone was indeed made for a lot of things and apparently, this new app focuses more on helping corporate and business recruiters fill up their needs. Whichever way you look at it, it is a benefit for both companies and job seekers we have today.

(Source) Press

Tags: addition users, Apple, benefit, brunt, Business, career articles, derivative, finding jobs, gaga, iPhone, iPhone, job details, job postings, job seekers, Mobile Software, open job positions, point in time, professional job, recession, recruiters, recruitment advertising, visibility

The poor state of the economy isn’t good news for anyone, not even the world’s top cellphone maker Nokia. The Finland based company has recently announced that they have been forced to cut 490 positions bringing the total number of layoffs for this year alone over 4,000.

Nokia hopes that saying goodbye to these employees will help them reach their goal of cutting annual costs totaling almost $1 billion. With the cellphone market expected to shrink by 10% this year it’s probably in Nokia’s best interests to introduce such layoffs as unfortunate as it may be.

Read (Reuters)

Tags: Business, Cell Phones, cellphone market, economy, employees, finland, job cuts, Layoffs, Nokia, Nokia, recession

It was perhaps management decision and getting ready for the worst. When a company seems to be doing well it just doesn’t follow that employees are safe from being laid off. That is the scenario for Apple which had reported positive revenue for the second quarter of the year.

For its fiscal 2009 second quarter ended March 28, 2009 the company posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion. These results compare to revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion at the end of the same quarter a year ago.

However, just because the books are shining, doesn’t mean all is well within the company. Apple reported that it employed 14,000 full-time equivalents, down from 15,600 at the end of 2008. While most are claiming that the company is cutting 1,600 people, Apple said is counting man-hours as opposed to actual men. This fits in with old reports that the company was planning to reduce the number of hours worked by part-time employees in an effort to save money without making cuts. The company was apparently reducing hours for part-timers and giving more to full-time workers.

While it’s a little bit surprising given the fact that we just heard how well the company is doing, at the end of the day, it makes a lot of sense. It wasn’t sales of computers that gave Apple its recession-beating numbers this quarter. In fact, sales of Mac 2.22 million desktops and notebooks is a 3 percent decline from a year ago. While iPods were up 3 percent, selling an impressive 11.01 million during the quarter. The real growth came from the iPhone, selling 3.79 million, representing 123 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

If people are buying iPhones from their cell phone provider and iPods from Best Buy or, well, pretty much anywhere, there’s no point employing all those people to just sell computers.

(Source) Toms Guide

Tags: Apple, Business, cell phone provider, desktops, iPhone, iphones, ipods, management decision, recession, time employees

Even in recession, Jiffy Lube and Clear Channel proved to one and all that mobile advertising still works! This was proven in a recent mobile advertising campaign launched where the mobile marketing strategy produced significant redemption, including approximately 50 percent from new customers.

Beginning in September, 105.1 Channel Q (KCCQ, Ames, Iowa) ran a promotion that offered listeners the chance to win free oil changes for a year, if they texted the word JIFFY to 55981.

All who entered received a mobile coupon that included a discount on various Jiffy Lube services, including oil changes, wiper blades, tire rotations and filters. Participants also had the ability to opt in for future offers. Of those who redeemed the mobile coupon, approximately 50 percent were new customers.

(Source) Press

Tags: advertising campaign, Business, Cell Phones, free oil changes, jiffy lube, lube services, mobile advertising, recession, tire rotations, wiper blades