INQ Mobile promises Twitter phone by Xmas

Provoked by the uptake of the Twitter micro-blogging service, INQ Mobile has revealed it plans to introduce a handset in time for the pre-Christmas sales rush that will be especially designed for the service. INQ said it has sold 700,000 phones since it launched its first model, the Skypephone, with 3UK in 2007, and is looking for the new US$140 Twitter phone to achieve a similar success.

The company, owned by Hutchison, said it had lead the drive to making the mobile Internet experience easier and cheaper by developing handsets optimised for specific applications. The company's CEO, Frank Meehan said, "This can really help open up and drive Twitter use on mobile when usage becomes part of your data package like on the PC."

However, the INQ Twitter phone plans to use Internet connections for sending the 140-character messages, called Tweets, not text messages as in Twitter's own service.

According to 3UK, which has heavily promoted the INQ1 Facebook handset, traffic on the INQ1 was typically three to four times higher than on other 3UK phones, with 65 per cent using Facebook regularly, while the phone is three to four times cheaper than the more famous web traffic generators like the iPhone.

For more on this story:
ReThink Wireless and EE Times

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