Archive for October, 2011

Thieves target Apple store in Covent Garden

Detectives are appealing for witnesses and information after a smash-and-grab in central London. Police were alerted at approx. 01.00hrs this morning (Monday 10 October) to a window broken and property taken from the Apple Store in Covent Garden.

It is believed there were around 7 moped riders / motorcyclists involved, most if not all with a pillion passenger. All persons were in full face crash helmets. They stole iPads and other similar devices. Shortly afterwards Islington police saw a moped and followed and attempted to stop it, but it was lost.

A moped was subsequently found abandoned in the vicinity of Wyclif Court, St John Street EC1 – officers saw two men inside the block of flats, and they were pursued on foot and apprehended within the block at approx 01.20hrs. Some property, believed stolen from the store, was found in bags in their possession. The men  are now in custody at a north London police station.

Detective Sergeant Nathan Tozer of Westminster CID said: "Although two men are in custody on suspicion of burglary, the inquiry continues and other persons are sought. It is essential that anyone who saw the smash-and-grab, or the suspects making off, contact us as soon as possible."

What naughty men!

Posted by: James

Orange flavoured T-Mobile

Orange and T-Mobile conglomeration, Everything Everywhere, is ready to properly merge its 2G networks into one, allowing the phone to switch cells as if it was a single network. Fine for voice and text messaging, but pretty useless for data. Once roaming, you will drop to the incredibly slow speeds offered by GPRS, or possibly EDGE if you were very lucky.

According to a user on the Digital Spy forum, there are now dates available for when each part of the country will switch from the current roaming system to operating as a single network.
We can’t confirm these dates as they were given with the obligatory ‘subject to change’ disclaimer;

• October 12th: Gloucester and Midlands area.
• Week commencing October 31st: London, Wiltshire and down to Brighton area, North Wales, North West England and Scottish Central Belt.
• Week commencing November 7th: Norfolk, North East England and Aberdeen area.
• Week commencing November 14th: Everywhere else.

Virgin Media announced that its subscribers – which already use the T-Mobile network – can now opt-in to enable use of the Orange network in the UK.

Posted by Gareth

Ice Cream Sandwich gets pictures.

We have recently been treated to a few screenshots of what Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich might just look like. There is every chance that these could be bogus however we can only hope they are real as they do look pretty exciting.

Some might say that the initial Android interface has been done away with, however to me it looks like a good combination of both the Honeycomb and Froyo interface. It looks a lot more like Honeycomb than Android on any phone. Have a look at the selection of pictures after the break and see what you think.

A new Dell on the block

Their last three devices have hardly set the world on fire. Their 10-inch Honeycomb slate, the Streak 10 Pro, didn’t see an extremely wide release as the Dell name has slowly fallen out of most Android discussions. The company looks to make a return in a big way with the announcement of the new Dell Streak Pro 101DL the first full-fledged smartphone entry into the Streak lineup and no slacker in the specs department.

The Streak Pro 101DL is headed for Japan’s SoftBank and features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen at qHD resolution, a 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8260 processor, and an 8MP camera. Other specs include Dell’s Stage 2.0 interface on top of Android 2.3, a 1.3MP front-facing camera, and support for Bluetooth 2.1 and 802.11b/g/n.

Japan is slated to get the phone first but Dell does have global sales plans for the new Steak Pro 101DL. It could give Dell just the boost they need to become a relevant Android contributor once again.

Posted by Gareth

Everything Everywhere and Three iPhone 4S pricing

We posted earlier about the super offer that Vodafone has for today only for pre-orders of the iPhone 4S. Three and Everything Everywhere also now their price plans online and whilst there is not a great deal between them I have picked up on one possible issue.

With the launch of iCloud syncing starting next week I am a little concerned that the UK carriers data plans will be sufficient. Many people get close or go over their 500mb or 1Gb data allowance every month and with the added feature of cloud syncing will iPhone users be faced with an additional cost?

If you are going to be taking a lot of photos and video with your iPhone then I will urge you to have a look at the ‘One Plan’ from Three. With all you can eat data this may be the only way to ensure you are not going over your data allowance.

You can see the Three, T-Mobile and Orange iPhone 4S options below:

Samsung and Google cancel launch event

It was only this morning that we posted about the event that Google and Samsung had arranged to unveil the new Nexus phone. They have now changed their minds and we will have to wait for further updates from them.

Samsung and Google decide to postpone the new product announcement at CTIA Fall. We agree that it is just not the right time to announce a new product. New date and venue will be shortly announced.

The Next Web is now reporting that the date will only be postponed until October 27th and the location for the launch will now be London. I hope this rumor is correct!

Posted by: James

Asus show how tough they are

Asus recently revealed an up-coming Android tablet that we haven’t really heard about previously. The 7-inch tablet will be called the ASUS TOUGH, and will be designed as a rugged-style, water-proof and dust-proof Honeycomb based Android Tablet. Initially it will be heading to the KDDI network in Japan, and there is no word if it will make it to any other markets. Here is a list of specs:

• 7-Inch Screen with a resolution of 1280×800
• Honeycomb 3.2
• Water-Proof and Dust-Proof
• Dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor
• 16GB of built-in internal storage memory
• 5 megapixel camera rear camera (no camera on the front)
• EVDO, Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS & WiMax

It’s interesting that it has WiMax support, so it is possible we could see it show up in the States for Sprint. Although this tablet looks a bit on the heavy and beefy side, the ability to use it outdoors or in the shower, make it kind of appealing. What do you guys think? Would you want this to come to the States?
Here’s a link to some additional pics of the device: Asus TOUGH Android Tablet Additional Pics

Posted by Gareth

Pre-order the iPhone 4S from Vodafone and get £59 back

Those nice people at Vodafone are offering a great incentive if you order the iPhone 4S from them today. For today only if you pre-order they will credit your account with £59 next month!

Vodafone are offering 12, 18 and 24 month contracts and obviously the longer the contract the better the deal.

Head on over to the Vodafone site and get your order in quick.

You can see the price plan options below: