Even before the rule change, shares of cellphone makers had generally gone up significantly this year.

To give an example, Chinese cellphone makers have over 40 percent of the domestic market now.

So it's time, according to at least one cellphone maker, for these gizmos to grow up and become more serious.

Today, every major cellphone maker includes this radio-frequency technology.

Now that cellphone makers are developing models for use by children, software companies are coming up with mobile games aimed at the same audience.

The company's price-cutting strategy, analysts said, could force other cellphone makers to merge or drop out of the business.

For cellphone makers, such a chip would make it possible to produce a "world phone," which could receive and send calls from anywhere.

It would give the cellphone makers huge economies of scale.

Investors took quickly to the pitch, sending Apple's stock price up to a record close, while shares of established cellphone makers slumped.

But a cellphone maker, for example, might well keep its innovations for itself to give it a feature that rival phone makers lack.