China Unicom has launched the Apple iPhone in China after a 3-year agreement with Apple in August. However, WiFi connectivity is not included in the feature, something that analysts say could hurt sales, according to the Associated Press.

Price could also hurt sales of the phone. China Unicom’s iPhone lineup ranges from 4,999 CNY (US$732) to 6,999 CNY (US$1,024) while black market street costs for iPhones range lower. An iPhone 3GS with WiFi capability costs 5,700 CNY (US$834), 20 percent lower than China Unicom’s top-of-the-line iPhone that excludes the wireless LAN technology. The carrier has said that it hopes to include the WiFi chipset in future models.

Nokia decided to finally stop the N-Gage platform due to overwhelming number of games in its Ovi Store. The company said that the N-Gage platform has been a disappointment for Nokia from the start. The first N-Gage phone was widely panned for its oddball “side-talking” form factor, and the follow-up device did little better. N-Gage games have been available on many other Nokia S60 devices for some time, but still failed to take off. However, Nokia said that the current N-Gage games would still be available for purchase trough the end of September 2010.

Meanwhile, N-Gage community features like N-Gage Arena will be closed at the end of 2010.

Sony Ericsson is now offering an unlocked Aino touchscreen mobile phone in the U.S. The device is a slider phone that boasts of a 3.0-inch touchscreen display. It carries an 8.1 megapixel autofocus camera, a quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS connectivity along with a WiFi chipset for local connections.

The Sony Ericsson Aino also features PlayStation 3 media synchronization and the phone acts as a remote for the popular gaming console. It is available now in Sony Style retail locations and online for $600 unlocked.

Google decided to control the number of phone numbers for blocking by the Google Voice dialing service. This was extracted from Google’s letter to the Federal Communications Commission. Google also mentioned that it is already limiting phone numbers to less than 100 to save money on fees associated with rural carrier telephone exchanges.

The FCC began prying Google Voice as compelled by lawmakers and network competition.

Research firm, Gartner, released a forecast that smartphones sales will increase by 29% per year until it reaches 180 million units in 2009. Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, says “PC vendors will find it difficult to simply use existing supply chains and channels to expand their presence in the smartphone market. The smartphone and notebook markets are governed by different rules when it comes to successfully marketing and selling products.”