More details about Jason Tomczak’s class action against Apple for releasing defective iPod Nanos have emerged on The Inquirer’s site.
In the action, started in a San Jose district court, Tomczak alleges that the iPod Nano’s easily-scratched screen renders the display unreadable and thus breaches state consumer protection statutes.
Tomczak alleges that Apple kept on shifting the Nanos even when they knew that there were problems with the design and by failing to recall the MP3 players, the company “passed the expense, hassle and frustration of replacing the defectively designed Nanos along to class members”.
The plaintiff alleges that with Steve Jobs whipping the Nano out of his pocket in a TV advert, Apple led consumers to believe the machine was durable.
Tomczak argues that even this simple act could lead to a scratched screen, claiming that the resin used in the product was not as thick and strong as in previous iPods.
The plaintiff wraps up his case by alleging that Apple knew about the dodgy quality problems before release but, “fierce competition on the digital music industry” compelled them to release it anyway.
Motorola miffed at Nanos
Things aren’t looking too happy-clappy for the Motorola’s iTunes music phone either, with analysts Bloomberg reporting that it may not be performing as expected.
American Technology Research analyst Albert Lin noted that as many as six times more customers are returning the Rokr phones than is normal for new handsets, and Motorola Chief Executive Officer Ed Zander said he is disappointed with the phone’s marketing and plans to fix it.
“We got off to a little bit of a rough start”, Zander said last week, “People were looking for an iPod and that’s not what it is. We may have missed the marketing message there”.
Ironically, things haven’t been helped by the iPod nano appearing on the scene straight after the phone’s launch, with the ultra-small pocket rocket holding 10 times the amount of songs for half the price
You can’t blame Zander for being a bit miffed after Apple invited his company to be the first to launch an iTunes phone and the immediately stole their thunder with the Nano announcement.
Pocket-lint.co.uk reported that he exclaimed “Screw the nano!” in a previous statement which was later receded.
Motorola is reported to be launching a new series of phones to tailored around music in the future.
The portable game business will be worth a thumping great $2.3 billion in four years, according to a report released today by research firm, The Yankee Group.
With the line between wireless handsets and portable CE devices continuing to blur, the Yankee Group used data from both their Video Capable Device Survey and the Mobile User Survey to come up with what they describe as “the most comprehensive view into the portable device market.”
“The major players must understand who will lead and who will follow in order to successfully plan future strategy and appropriately target their investments,” he added.
Mobile phone giants Nokia have announced three new phone models aimed at the “style-conscious” market.
Desperately described as a phone for “trend-setting men and women who enjoy being the centre of attention,” the highly distinctive 7380 looks like it’s come from the same bonkers design studio as the 
Employing a sliding keypad, the Nokia 7370 comes with a 2-inch QVGA colour screen (320 x 240 pixels), stereo speakers with 3D sound effects and a 1.3 megapixel camera (8x zoom) onboard.
Nokia 7360
Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay 
___What does eBay add?
Mobile phone heavyweights Motorola, have reported bumper earnings for the third quarter, with profits more than tripling after record sales.
Handsets were up 41% year-on-year with quarterly sales soaring 26% to a new high of $9.42bn, from $7.5bn for the same period in 2004. 
“We are very excited about our third quarter results and overall performance year-to-date… Excluding re-organisation charges, all four of Motorola’s businesses grew profitably during the quarter,” said a deeply chuffed Zander.
The super-thin triband LG U880 will be offered in black, silver and pink with its clamshell design incorporating a 1.3 megapixel camera and expandable internal memory of 80 MB. 
The first mass-market 3G Nokia handset to go on sale in the UK, the 6280 has a sliding keyboard and built-in 2 megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom and integrated flash.
A poseur’s delight, the Motorola RAZR V3x is the high-fashion phone for the “Look at me!” crowd, with its slinky, slim-line form supporting a full range of 3G services.
Destined to be 3’s first two megapixel phone when it becomes available at the end of October, the Nokia N70 is based on the hugely successful Nokia 6680 and offers video calling, integrated flash, a built-in FM tuner, Bluetooth and support for Visual Radio.
Samsung Electronics have launched the hard-disk-based SPH-V7900 mobile phone, sporting a record-breaking built-in 3GB hard disk drive.
Naturally, there’s an MP3/video player onboard, capable of playing several formats including Mpeg4/H.264 video and Mpeg4 AAC, AAC+ and MP3 audio.
Their SGH-I300 – scheduled for a European November release – will run on the Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system and also offer a 3GB hard disk drive offering plug-and-play support (so files can be dragged over from your home PC).
According to the latest figures from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Italy can now boast the highest mobile penetration rate in Europe, with mobile-mad Italians notching up 109.42 phones per 100 inhabitants.
With over four million UMTS users, Italians are also leading the way in 3G take up, with the ITU reporting that the country is the most prominent user of 3G services in Europe.
Mind you, it could be argued that Luxembourg’s high mobile ownership is equally skewed due to their nationals living in neighbouring countries needing a second handset for use within its borders.
Sony Ericsson has today announced the launch of their first 3G (UMTS) tri-band GPRS Walkman phone, the W900.
The phone comes stuffed with multimedia widgets, with a built-in FM radio and 2 megapixel auto-focus flash camera offering 8x digital zoom and the ability to record and playback video at a nippy 30fps.
In line with its Walkman branding, the phone has dedicated music controls, letting users scroll through play lists, artists or individual songs, and a bundled LCD remote control.
The W900 UMTS Walkman phone will be commercially available in black or white finished by the end of Q4 2005 in two versions: 
Call us cynical if you like, but when we get a press announcement trumpeting some kind of ‘world first’ or another from someone we’ve never heard of, our eyebrows tend to arc skywards.
It is significant that content is breaking on mobiles before it’s in the shops and we’ve no doubt that mobiles will continue to play a greater part in the distribution of music and video, but we can’t really get excited about someone (even if they have got dazzling teeth) releasing a few snippets of a DVD for mobiles and then expecting the Guinness Book of Records to be calling them up.
In fact, we’re so unimpressed that we can’t even be bothered to give you the name of the video, but you can find it somewhere on Vodafone’s Dutch Live TV website, or just click around chirpy Frans’ website.