Stories I'm Watching This Tuesday Morning

• T-Mobile UK & Orange UK announce planned JV to create Britain's largest carrier (mocoNews.net)... the weakest players in the market are combining out of desperation to create a very big (28mil subs) weak player, the short term result could be the loss of lots of subs to hungry competitors, in a very saturated market, if the transition isn't handled deftly.

• How To Fix The App Store (Business Week)... Wow!...when BW jumps on the criticism bandwagon of Apple's seemingly arbitrary approval process for Apps, it's a clear sign this is no longer just a mobile content industry concern... perhaps Apple is the new Microsoft after all.

• NTT DoCoMo Considering US MVNO (GigaOm)... This is not a post from The Onion! The idea is to promote iMode to the US consumer... haven't we been there, done that bought the t-shirt, and decided it was lame with mMode? Maybe AOL should try to relaunch as an application...or maybe, like DoCoMo's MVNO plan, that would be one of the stupidest ideas ever.

• iPhone Is A Loss Leader, So Says Danish Researcher Strand Consult (PocketGamer.biz)... it's becoming generally agreed that the iPhone is expensive for operators to deploy in terms of paying Apple for exclusivity, customer subsidies & network resources, what is less clear is whether the halo effects more than compensate.

• Mobile and Retail: Calling In Air Support (MediaPost)... great story about how retailers are failing to opportunize the growing propensity of consumers to research purchases while instore via the mobile web and mobile Apps.