In the week which has seen the Western World slide even further into economic meltdown and French firm EDF taking over Britain’s struggling power network, the mobile industry has continued to shoot upwards as much as possible with quite a few announcements.

Firstly - the one everyone is talking about - the “Google Phone“. The phone will be exclusive to the T-Mobile network, and officially called the “T-Mobile G1 with Google“. Not the most exciting name ever, but most certainly an exciting handset. It is the first phone that will feature the long-awaited Google Android mobile platform. This hopes to do for mobiles what Linux has always wanted to do with computers - give developers a chance to use the phone’s Operating System code to better develop programs which work with the phone’s features seamlessly. Being a Google handset, the phone has a powerful international brand behind it (including lots of Google applications) and will hopefully be a good competitor to the iPhone. The phone will be released in time for Christmas. There’s already news emerging of future Android phones from other phone manufacturers (including Sony Ericsson), so keep your eyes out for those too.

Secondly, Nokia are expected to announce their first touch-screen phone, the “Nokia Tube” on Thursday, 2nd October at an event about their XpressMusic phones and music service.

This brings me nicely onto my next topic… MUSIC. Apple have, for many years now, been famous for the iPod. They broke out of that market, and into the phone market, with the iPhone. Nokia seem to be hitting back - by stepping into Apple iTunes territory. On 2nd September, Nokia launched the Nokia Music store. They aim to bundle the price of music with the price of a new phone. Then, over the space of a year and for a fixed fee, you will be able to download as many tracks as you like and keep them after the year is up.

Not wanting to miss out on all of the fun, Sony Ericsson have announced that they too are designing a new music store. This will be called “Sony Ericsson PlayNow plus“. We don’t expect to see the service in the UK until 2009. For a monthly fee, or “contract”, users will be able to download an unlimited number of tracks. The user will be allowed to keep 300 of these tracks once the contract expires.

In other iPhone competition news, Blackberry are to release the “Blackberry Storm” on the Vodafone network, “Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X1” handset is due to be launced at the end of the month and The “LG Renoir” (which looks, aesthetically, quite similar to the iPhone) is tipped to be getting an 8 megapixel camera.

In other handset news, fashionable phones are abound with the new Samsung Armani NIGHT EFFECT Phone that I reported on last Monday and the LG Prada II which is rumoured to be available soon and will have a complete QWERTY keyboard.

There’s some more mobile phone news which - whilst it’s changing the way mobiles phones will/can be used in the future - isn’t quite as exciting as the new handsets. But still, I’ll press on with them.

Firstly, Ryanair are hoping to introduce the ability to have in-flight mobile calls. TheRegister say that Ryanair are just “weeks away” from providing this service. They say that we shouldn’t expect it on all Ryanair flights though, as only 14 of the firm’s 166 planes will be fitted with the necessary equipment. They also warn that not all networks have signed up to the scheme, that only 6 passengers at a time will be able to make a call and that calls could be charged at around £2 per minute. I won’t be using it myself…

And finally, financial services are now working on integrating their services into mobile phones. Visa are looking to design an application which will allow Android users (it’s great how all of these stories link up in the end) to find their nearest cash machine and check their bank balance on their phone. Again, we don’t expect to see it in the UK for some time as it’s being rolled out in the USA first. And on Wednesday, the BBC reported that Lloyds TSB will allow its customers to make transfers between Lloyds TSB accounts from their mobile phones next month. They say that people have been able to check things like bank balances for a while now, but this is the first time that money can actually be moved via the user’s phone. The BBC also say that the software to allow these transfers does already exist, but banks are rolling it out slowly to ensure that all security features are perfectly in place.

That’s the round up of the week. Thanks for looking.

Ducky

Samsung have today announced that, after more than more than a year’s work with Giorgio Armani, they are to release the “Emporio Armani Samsung Mobile” - also named “NIGHT EFFECT”. The phone is stylish, but not out-of-this-world. The name “Night Effect” is particularly fitting, as the phone lights up when the user makes or receives a call (as seen in the photo below). This will hopefully look great when out-and-about at night time.

Emporio Armani Samsung NIGHT EFFECT

The phone is “due to be released by the end of 2008″ - or, as I like to say, “just in time for Christmas”. The phone will carry a 3 megapixel camera, touchscreen, bluetooth, quad-band GSM (great for those who need to use it abroad), HSDPA and a MicroSD card. There’s rumours that it could carry Wi-Fi but these are unconfirmed. There’s still no word on pricing either.

Samsung have also launched the website for the new handset - ArmaniSamsungPhone.com

My most eagerly awaited phone of this year - the Sony XPERIA X1 - will have an official release date of 30th September 2008, confirms the Sony Ericsson Press office.

This is only in certain countries, the UK being one of them. The US will be waiting until a later date to get their hands on the phone.

Still no idea of price on this, though. I guess we’ll have to wait until the 30th to find that out, and hope that it drops in price rapidly after that.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 has a rumoured release date of mid-September. This, in my opinion, is going to be a good iPhone competitior! I’m pretty excited about that and for that reason, I am going to share with you the advert - just to whet your appetite - even if the advert has been out since February this year…