Mobile Devices - Page 189

Android has proven to be huge in the smartphone market and has helped more than one phone maker grab a new share of the smartphone market. Motorola was hurting prior to Android with no significantly popular handsets to speak of, but Android has changed that.

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Motorola announced a new Android device today that will ship around the world and be known as the Quench overseas and the Cliq XT here in America. The handset has a 3.1-inch touchscreen that supports pinch and zoom gestures. The device also uses the Motoblur UI.

An onscreen QWERTY keyboard is integrated and it has a touch pad on the front of the phone for navigation. A 5MP camera is built-in with autofocus and LED flash. Other features include 3G connectivity, WiFi, Bluetooth, and aGPS. The device will ship in Q1 2010.

It looks like Apple will be sticking with AT&T for at least the near future. Why? you ask. Well there are more than a few issues with moving to another carrier but the biggest reason is the negotiated contract rates that Apple gets from AT&T. As it stands right now Apple gets a rather large chunk of the money that people spend on their monthly AT&T plans for the iPhone. This will continue with the iPad as well.
If Apple moved to someone like T-Mobile (who also uses GSM) their much lower rates would not give the same revenue stream. This is something that the accountants at Apple would not like to have happen to their favorite cash cow.

But aside from the monthly money, Apple would have to put some real R&D money into phones to work on other networks. Both Verizon and Sprint (which will have a faster network once they finally get LTE out) are CDMA in the US and GSM in most of the rest of the world with the exception of India and some countries in Africa. This would mean that to Apple would have to make either a global device with both GSM and CDMA capabilities or one for each geographical region. Both of these choices cost money and would impact the margins that Apple so covetously guards on the iPhone.

So in the end I have to agree with many analysts, Apple will not be moving from AT&T in the US any time soon. There is too much (Money) to loose. Of course there is the very slim chance that the FTC will force them to move, but that is a one in a million shot. No, sadly enough iPhone users that are not unlocking their phones in the US are stuck with the shoddy and rather slow AT&T network and overpriced service for some time to come.

There are few things worse for the gadget hound and tech fan than dropping one of your beloved gadgets and breaking it. You can protect your gear by putting it in a case or being extra careful, but accidents do happen.

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If you are looking to get yourself an iPad when they start shipping soon, you will want to protect the tablet. A new protective system called iBallz has been spied that promises to protect the iPad by giving it balls. The foam balls have a slot that slips onto the corner of your iPad.

A cord then wraps around the balls and keeps them in place if dropped. The cord can also be held when gaming or carrying the iPad as well. Multiple color options are available and a full set of iBallz will sell for $14.99.

Well after all the long running rumors and the scuttlebutt at each and every Apple event that this was when the Apple tablet would be launched that day is finally here. Steve Jobs whipped the beast out not long after taking the stage at the press event and it's called the iPad.

Information has leaked onto the interweb today regarding the Apple tablet which is said to be presented at a press event tomorrow.

CES 2010 - Lenovo introduced their very own Smartphone. For reasons know to them they have decided to call it the Lephone. It has an interesting design and also includes features and a UI that centers on connectivity to social media. The Lephone has a very striking UI, with a home screen that resembles a flower. In the center of the flower is the contact you are staying connected with. The petals are the forms of connectivity. This is a departure from the traditional application centric phones that are out there.

Well, well, well it looks like we have a new rumor to toss around over the holidays. The rumor comes from a short tweet by Eldar Murtazin, the Editor-in-Chief of Mobile review. The tweet in question?

"Foxconn received order for next generation iphone"

This seemingly innocuous statement would not seem to be of much use if it were not for the history of accuracy that Murtazin has. He has typically been able to get information on upcoming mobile technology months ahead of others. When you add this statement to other "evidence" we do see the likelihood of a new iPhone in 2010. After all just last week the internet was ripe with articles on a new model ID found in the iPhone firmware, and the possibility that a new prototype was at work in San Francisco.

Of course it is all really academic until we have more details. If the next generation iPhone is like the 3G S was then it might be nothing to get excited about. If, on the other hand it is a new innovation then perhaps in the summer of 2010 we will see a new toy from Apple that will dazzle the world. Me I am hoping for the latter.

I have said it before and I will say it again. Everyone is trying to get into the all too lucrative Smart Phone Market. This is being proven true by the announcement of Creative's Zii phone concept. The company known for bringing quality audio to the world of computer gaming and also known for its rather underhanded crippling of their own audio cards running under Windows Vista are now showing off a proof of concept phone.

This new phone is being dubbed the Zii Trinity for now. It does not appear that creative will be selling these directly to the public but is being shown off as a proof of concept and design in the hopes that some OEM will pick up the idea and run with it. For software potential manufacturers will have the choice of Android or Creative' s own Plazma. For hardware it supports quad-band GSM/EDGE as well as tri-band, 7.2Mbps 3G over HSPA but still carries the ZMS-05 chip that provides 1080p video decoding and hardware accelerated OpenGL ES 3D. This, on the surface seems to put it in a class equal to (maybe slightly above) the vaunted iPhone 3G S.

I will wait to see if anyone grabs onto this one though, after all NVIDIA has the current Terga and Tegra 2 hitting the market and these two SoCs are quite attractive in terms of performance and features, not to mention battery life. Still it could be a low cost, open alternative to the hardware in the iPhone in 2010.

NVIDIA is in the news again, this time for a mystery tablet that was lying on the table in front of NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. We asked NVIDIA about it and were informed that it is a product being made by an ODM partner called ICD.

We were also told that it is a concept that is actively being sold to carriers around the world and was used to highlight Tegra and what you can do with it. Tegra is a product that Huang sees great potential in (and so do we). This tiny yet complete system is already sandwiched into the ZuneHD and has been showing off what even the first generation can do when put to use.

The Tegra 2 set to launch next year is going to be even more powerful as we hear talk of two Coretex A9 ARM Dual Core CPUs being used. We have also heard that there may be two GeForce 9 based GPUs to over either style performance or, more likely, to enable Cuda and Physics for the small single chip computer. We are waiting to get more information from NVIDIA on the device and hope to be able to provide you with more information shortly.

Global IP Solutions (or GIPS for short) has today announced an agreement made with a global plug-n-talk mobile solutions provider which allows mobile operators in developing countries to expand their reach beyond their home country.

A headsup for Crucial M225 Solid-State drive owners; firmware 1819 has just been released which brings support for the TRIM command under Windows 7. The new firmware can be downloaded from Crucial's support page here.

Whilst not likely to spark much interest, BlackBerry Storm 2 is set to be released in a few days for $179 after a $100 mail-in rebate.

And Geohot does it again. After delays with the Dev Team's reds0wn (Windows jailbreak application) for iPhone OS 3.1(.2) many people wondered if we would ever see a Windows jailbreak for the iPhone 3G S and OS 3.1.2. Well tonight at a little past midnight it happened. George Hotz released his new blackra1n jailbreak. This new software is a "30 second ALL device 3.1.2 jailbreak." He does caution that you cannot update to 3.1.2 on the 3G and 3G S using iTunes if you want to maintain an unlocked phone but that otherwise this is the tool you have been waiting for (me included). I grabbed it just after it was released and began the tack of not only upgrading but jailbreaking my iPhone 3G S.

It actually tool longer to update the phone than it did to jailbreak it. To maintain my applications I used AptBackup and made a backup of my phone before the upgrade. I downloaded and installed the new 3.1.2 using iTunes (I am not interested in unlocking). After the update and the backup restore I ran blackra1n. Time from beginning to end;

Just the other day I was musing about the lack of Flash on Web enabled smartphones and Personal Media Players like the Zune HD. After all it has been a very long time since this handy little feature was asked for on these devices it seems almost comical that we have not seen it yet.

Well, looks like the latest version of Flash, not 10 but 10.1 is about more than GPU acceleration. According to information we have heard it will also be able to be used on mobile OS platforms like Web OS and Windows Mobile. This is excellent news, as it means that other mobile platforms should follow shortly (HD Flash on the Zune HD would be amazing). Of course, there is a downside; this is for all iPhone/iPod Touch users. As of this writing this will be the only platform that Flash 10.1 will not work on.

Whether this is due to issues with Flash or Apple's instance on control (where my money is) we are not sure. Still this is great news, but since this is not the first time we have been promised flash on our mobiles I will believe it when I see the updates. We are also going to try and see if Flash 10.1 on Windows Mobile will mean Flash 10.1 on the Zune HD. This would be an amazing upset if it does.

Yesterday I wrote an article on the accidental leak of the HTC HD2 known to most of us as the Leo. In it I made the statement;

"It is also speculated that Orange might have dropped this little teaser to gain back some business they are going to lose now that they are no longer an exclusive provider of the iPhone"

An observant pair of readers caught this and reminded me that O2 is the exclusive provider of the iPhone until next year and that they are the ones that Leaked the information. While working on that article I was thinking about rumors that Orange was going have the iPhone as well and somehow combined the information.

What it should have said was; "It is also speculated that O2 might have dropped this little teaser to gain back some business they are going to lose now that they are no longer going to be the exclusive provider of the iPhone next year." O2 dropping the hint that the HD2 will be out long before the official announcement is probably nothing more than an accident on some very unfortunate marketing person's part.

Of course we may never know the real reason but, hey it is always fun to speculate.

It is no secret that if Apple says they are working on something (or even rumored to be working on something) the tech press stops for a second and then beings to type hasty and enthusiastic articles for publication.

Well while the keyboards are busy with fresh copy for the rumored Apple Tablet a spark of an Idea from MS could be missed. The idea in question is Microsoft's Courier Booklet.

The new booklet seems to be an innovative idea that could possibly bring the tablet to the real world (finally). It looks like a book and in fact the GUI has page-like markers for flipping between your stored files and applications. This is called the Infinite Journal, this is a journal that is limited only by the amount of storage you have on the Courier. You can also publish your journal online and pull it down in a few different formats (Courier File, PowerPoint and PDF).

You also have a library for storing your subscriptions and applications.
You can drop things into a virtual pocket at the hinge for moving between pages (which is very cool) while navigation and input seems to be all pen and multi-touch based.

This brings the feel of a working notebook to the device and seems to be something that could actually find its way into the market as a usable product. My only hope is that MS actually does develop and sell this instead of killing it off due to perceived lack of market or technical issues.

Last week we talked about the Zune HD and what needed to happen for it to be a serious competitor against the iPod Touch. One of these things was a need for good marketing, but sadly that just has not happened. Well, at least it has not happened from the MS marketing team.

What did happen was that news and reviews from tech websites have taken the place of the simply awful MS ads. The positive and in many cases glowing reviews of the Zune have caused the new device to sell out just about everywhere. This is marked contrast to the original Zune and is despite MS' best efforts not to promote the Zune.

This demand could lead to more developers taking an interest in the Zune HD and filling out the currently sparse Zune Market. In fact, news that an iPod game was ported to the Zune HD in around 12 hours is great for both potential consumers and developers looking to work both sides of the street. Yes, the game is not over complex, but it does show that it is possible.

The Zune HD still has an uphill battle and many milestones to get past, but it is off to a very good start. Still, if we hear news that people have jail broken the Zune HD, you will know it has arrived.

So, Apple released its latest version of the iPhone OS version 3.1 recently. At first glance the new software looks like it has a number of improvements. However, it has come to our attention that many people are very unhappy with this new release and not just the jailbreaking/unlocking crowd.

Reports are popping up that OS 3.1 has a negative impact on battery life, SMS/MMS performance, random shutdowns, mobile Safari crashes and breaks exchange support on older generation iPhone's.

The problem has sparked an increasingly response from iPhone 2G and 3G owners on the Apple support forums. This latest issue flies in the face of the current statements by Apple that OS 3.1 is a major improvement over previous ones.

So, what is the problem? Well, if you really want to know it has quite a bit to do with Apple trying to prevent jailbreaking. Apparently their attempt to limit access to the OS is causing some major problems with the way the phone operates. This is increased if you are running on AT&T's outdated network as the extra overhead from certain network checks are causing the decrease in battery life (more edge or 3G transmissions eat up that battery).

Still have no fear that the Dev Team, GeoHot, Saurik, and others will find another hole. In fact according to a recent tweet by GeoHot in response to Saurik. "@saurik is so right, apple fails at challenge response :-)"

After all the 3.1 OS has been broken for the 2G and 3G, it is just the 3G S that is still being worked on.

The Zune HD launched today. This has been one of the most anticipated media players since the iPhone 3G S. I know that sounds really odd. But it is absolutely true. You see people are actually looking for someone to compete with Apple. Even current iPod/iPhone owners.

So what does the Zune bring that the iPod does not have? Well for starters it has an nVidia Tegra 600 under the hood. This new SoC has 8 cores that can dynamically adjust power to provide the longest battery life possible. It does this by powering down unused and unneeded cores to almost zero power usage.

But the Tegra also brings Open GL ES 2.0 720P playback and a host of other features. This is combined in the Zune with HD Radio, Wireless Sync (over WiFi) an AV dock that allows connection to an HD_TV through HDMI, native gaming support (this is nVidia we are talking about) and multi-touch.

When you combine this with the clean and simple user interface and DRM music from Zune you really do have the potential for an iPod competitor.

Many feel this is one of the reasons that Apple rushed to get the new Touch out without the camera instead of waiting to fix the rumored issues and releasing it later in the year.

It will be very interesting to see just how MS handles this new product. If they market this very nice product properly then Apple has every reason to be concerned.

Ah the iPhone, we are regaled with commercials and other PR gimmicks that tell us that "there's an app for that" but the one thing that the iPhone or iPod Touch has yet to be able to do it to really provide any high-quality (graphics wise) games. I mean there are some good ones (Zombieville USA is a favorite) but nothing spectacular.

That is until someone managed to show Crysis being played on the iPhone. Yep, that's right Crysis has been made to work on the iPhone. Now before you get all excited about picking up Crysis in the App Store, I need to tell you that the iPhone was not doing the work. Instead it was all done by OTOY using a render farm.

The frames are then sent out to the client over the internet making a (according to OTOY) playable high-resolution and high-performance game available on just about any platform. This if it can be done at a reasonable price is an amazing step forward.

But, as with all things that sound this good, there is a catch. That catch is bandwidth. You see for low resolution games (like on the iPhone) you do not need a large amount of bandwidth. Yes it is more than the Edge or even 3G can handle but if you connect to your WiFi and have a 2MB+ connection you are in very good shape.

However, when you try to run at higher resolution; say 1080p the bandwidth requirements for full motion lossless gaming is 20MB. That is a big chunk of bandwidth. Considering the market this is probably going to be aimed at I do not see it coming off very well as most people with lower end hardware that would benefit from this are also not going to have a 20MB internet connection.