Celltop: iPhoney widgets from Alltel
OK, how long before Alltel gets a ‘cease & desist’ for the Apple-like widgets in their Celltop phone interface? We got a press release (PDF) yesterday on this one and clearly, they’re NOT widgets, they’re cells, ‘k? Actually, these individual cells look like a nice UI addition to a standard cell phone. You can add any number of custom cells such as a call log, weather, news, baseball, basketball, football, rodeo, stocks, text messaging inbox and ringtones. Actually, the "rodeo" cell alone may prove that there’s a difference between these cells and Apple’s widgets. Kinda funny that they have Apple as the top stock in the Stock Cell show below though…
Alltel partnered up with Motricity on this one; you’ll see the new functionality on certain Alltel phones now, but the carrier expects to place this on all of their new phones by year end.
If those screenshots are accurately, AllTel has clearly been working on these for awhile. The dates in the call log are May – and the prices in the stock ticker generally coincide to the prices for each stock in May 2006. (There’s an interesting mashup – put in a set of prices for a number of tickers and tell me the last date they were traded at that price.)
That said, don’t get me started on what Apple could possibly send a C&D about… Microsoft-style IP licensing here
(http://slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archive/2006/11/27/Licensing-the-Office-2007-UI-_2D00_-what-is-Microsoft_2700_s-IP-strategy_3F00_.aspx)