Rumours

Rumours of an iPad 3 launch on March 7th

The guys over at iMore.com have received a tip from a reliable source who says that Apple will announce the iPad 3 on March 7th. Allegedly with a 2048×1536 Retina display, the iPad 3 will feature a quad-core Apple A6 system-on-a-chip, and possibly 4G LTE networking. Now I am not sure where this LTE business leaves us here in the UK. I suppose we will just get a 3G version as we are lacking behind on the technology front.

Although the above is clearly not confirmed by Apple we can certainly expect so see some improvements on the processor front as well as both the front and rear cameras. However, we must also remember that Apple are experts at keeping secrets from us and once again I suspect the full specs will not be known until launch day.

What we can guarantee though is it will be a fantastic piece of kit. Apple never disappoints (although some may disagree with me on the iPhone 4S front).

Posted by: James

T-Mobile UK accessory website lists unannounced BlackBerry Curve 9320!

We mentioned this device just a week or so ago however it seems that a crackberry.com reader spotted an accessory page for the BlackBerry Curve 9320 on T-Mobiles website. The page has since been removed but as I said last week this is looking good for a low cost BlackBerry Curve to keep the youngsters happy.

Clearly RIM has not announced this future Curve however it would appear that we are more now more likely to see it here in the UK.

This makes me happy too!

You can see the accessory screen shot below:

KISS Angry Birds?

According to a recent interview with Rovio, Gene Simmons has allegedly been talking about some sort of KISS-Angry Birds partnership.

You may or not be familiar with Gene Simmons but if not you may recall he is one of the front men of Rock group KISS that have been rocking the world since 1973. As well as being one of the richest men in rock n roll he is a superb business man and the KISS franchise is in every country worldwide.

Now I could talk about this for hours as KISS are my favorite band but I won’t bore you with the details.

Just to say that a KISS/Angry Birds could be so awesome!

Lets celebrate this rumor with a KISS video below:

Leaked BlackBerry Curve 9220 Specifications

Following on from BGR’s leaked RIM roadmap the other day further, slides have appeared over on the site detailing the specs of a few devices. As I pointed out then the Curve 9220 was of particular interest to me. You may think that a bit strange as it is an Edge only handset but I shall explain why.

With the BlackBerry Curve 8520 being massively popular here in the UK we have a huge market for a low spec and low cost BlackBerry. The 8520 was announced in mid 2009 so could this new 9220 be a natural upgrade for the 8520? If it can be offered at a similar price then RIM are set to retain their BlackBerry customers that use the 8520.

Of course, at this stage there are no guarantees the Curve 9220 will even be sold in the UK. You must remember that these details are leaked and although more than likely true the specs and exact details of the device may well change.

On a personal note I think Research in Motion would be mad not to launch the 9220 into the UK market. You hear me RIM?

You can see the specs below:

HTC Sensation XL to be announced

Listen up Android fans. You thought the Sensation was a beast. Well imagine an Android phone based on the HTC Titan. That is what HTC will announce this week according to our tipster.

Like the Sensation XE, the XL will be pumping Beats Audio so expect those super headphones in the box. A few other sites have reported similar things over the past couple of weeks and indeed listed specs. Now, I cant confirm the specs so I am not going to list them but if we are going to get a 4.7 inch Android device I think it is pretty fair to say we would get a 1.5Ghz processor at least.

With the next iPhone being announced later today at least you Android fans now have something to look forward to in the coming weeks. The HTC Sensation XL sounds wonderful. Lets see if our reliable source is as reliable as we think.

Posted by: James

Samsung Galaxy S III specs leaked by anonymous masked phantom

The time is almost upon us again that Samsung should be updating their flagship device, I mean it’s been over 6 months since we first saw it. We know Samsung has been hard at work on the Galaxy S III and they’ve even semi-announced that it will be dropping sometime in 2012. But just how much better could a device get than the Galaxy S II? I mean, you can’t go above 1080p video recording, right? Well, according to anonymous 4chan user, things can get a lot better.

The specifications for the SGSIII are of course subject to change, but are Samsung-developed 2.0GHz quad-core CPU (no codename given), 1.5gb RAM, 32gb internal memory (with sd card slot), and a 4.65 inch screen. A new display called Super AMOLED III is being developed specifically for the phone (SGS had Super AMOLED, SGS II had Super AMOLED Plus, SGS III has Super AMOLED III) with 1280×1024 resolution, giving the phone a ppi of 352, which they emphasized that a 352ppi will make it the highest ppi mobile phone.

It also has a 2250 mAh battery, 10 megapixel camera and is capable of shooting 1080p video at 60 frames per second, and will come with an inbuilt NFC chip. The device is 9mm thick, has a metal and glass body (a really clean, shiny look to it in the pictures), has a 2250mAh battery, 10 megapixel camera and is capable of shooting 1080p video at 60 frames per second.

The reason for no demo phone was that the screen technology was still in the final stages of design and production of them have not started.

The phone will have Androids latest Ice Cream Sandwich software and an all new TouchWiz 5 which has been in co-development with Google during the development of the Galaxy Nexus, so according to the Samsung representatives, it isn’t as "intrusive to Android" as previous TouchWiz versions were. It seems TouchWiz will play a minor role and only have little improvements to ICS. It won’t control the user experience.

One of the reasons why they’re not going with a full TouchWiz experience is for a few reasons, one being that the ICS experience is very user friendly already and also it will also Samsung to update software on their phones at a faster rate than they have in the past.

Okay, if there’s anything that questions this “source’s” credibility, it would be this Galaxy S III leak. However, by next February these kind of specs, might just be feasible. The Galaxy S II was a pretty impressive piece of kit and 6 months before we first got our hands on it, those specs seemed a little over the top.

Posted by: Gareth

Adobe Flash coming to iOS?

The word on the street is that Adobe may have a workaround that will bring flash to our iPhones and iPads! It is all to do with Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 and Flash Access 3.0.

In layman’s term, Flash content is processed through Flash Media Server, as opposed to the device itself, and is then delivered to the user.

The idea is not unlike that of the OnLive gaming service that also circumvents the limitations of iOS by having the information handled server-side.
As a result of the workaround, this method of streaming media does not require Apple’s stamp of approval, thus securing the world of Flash content to help distract you from real life responsibilities.

If this is true it could bring joy and happiness to millions of iOS users. Fingers crossed.

Source: IGN

Posted by: James

Mystery BlackBerry caught on video

Various sites have posted pictures over the last week of a BlackBerry that is unknown it is real or a knock off. Rumors have been going around that it is a specially designed device by Porsche but it could well just be a home made shell.

The handset has now been caught on video and as you will see it is clearly based on the Bold 9900 but with a very different keyboard and back cover.

To be honest i think it looks disgusting. It doesn’t even have an optical track pad. Clearly running BlackBerry 7 I don’t think we will see this one in the shops. Thank god!

You can see the video below.

HP Touchpad may get a relaunch

Some recent rumours have broken and we are seeing an intriguing "good news, bad news" story. According to a couple of sources, HP is cancelling the current HP TouchPad orders that haven’t shipped yet. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the reason they are cancelling it is because they are going to retract their initial discontinuation of the product line, and re-continue it (plus they are completely out of stock as well).

In some ways this isn’t that great, because the opportunity to get a decent tablet for the low-low price of £99 dollars is slipping away. Now, after seeing the relative success of the product with folks that either want a really cheap tablet, or folks that want to put Android on it, HP wants to revive it from the dead. Who knows… they may consider working out a licensing deal to get Android on it from Google. Of course, that is pure speculation at this point.

iPhone 5 coming September 1st?

We eventually got our MacBook Air and Mac Mini predictions right and they went on sale yesterday. The focus has now firmly shifted to iPhone 5 and once again the rumour mill is at full steam.

We have been pretty sure that the iPhone 5 will go on sale worldwide before the end of the year, in time for Christmas. However, there wasn’t much to suggest exactly when that might be, some time within the last three months of the year is about the best we could do.

Now though there’s more to go on as CFO of Apple, Peter Oppenheimer, has been speaking during the latest earnings call and was quoted to have said:

“As we announced at WWDC, we have a lot going on in the fall with the introduction of iOS 5 and iCloud. We also have a future product transition that we’re not going to talk about today, and these things will impact our September quarter.“

We’ve since heard from our source close to Apple who suggests the the announcement could be made as early as September 1st putting the iPhone 5 on sale in time for Labor Day weekend.

So that’s our prediction for now, September 1st! 🙂

Predicted by: Mystic Matt