Author Archive: Gareth

BBC iPlayer coming to iPad and Android this week!

How exciting! iPlayer in the palm of your hands. You might never have to enter the living room again or book a time to watch the last episode of Eastenders or Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

Looking more tablet friendly than the last iPad version which was essentially a squished version of the big screen version the Beeb have promised these key features on Android and iPad:

• Watch live TV and listen to radio (not previously widely available on mobile devices)
• Access the BBC’s full catalogue of catch-up programmes; seven-days’ TV and radio on demand as well as series stacking (as you get on the web)
• A simple and intuitive design with high picture quality and personalised favourites (making the most of the touch-screen UI, and a popular feature on the website)

For those with Android don’t get too excited right away as it will only run on the Flash friendly 2.2 version, Froyo. Another reason for those without to rally the manufacturers, set up picket lines and burn brassieres to get your phone up to 2.2.

Toshiba Tablet gets its own site

Having made a real hash of the Toshiba Folio, Tosh have are stepping up to plate again in true do or die fashion. Toshiba Tablet is the cunningly titled tablet from Toshiba. This Honeycomb experience will feature a 10.1″ capacitive multi-touch screen running at 1280×800,16:10, 720p. the innards boast Tegra 2 from Nvidia, two cameras (2mp front facing and 5mp rear,) Wi-fi, USB, mini-USB, HDMI, full-SD card support, and 3.5mm headphone jack.

One of the big differences here is the ability to change the battery. You might need a screwdriver but having that option will shoot this straight to the top of many folks lists out there. Nice one Toshiba.

You can check out all the details on the rich website www.thetoshibatablet.com.

Huawei S7 Slim appears

Huawei’s made a good impression on the tablet market with the S7. What appeared to be lacklustre on paper turned out to be worth much more than the sum of it’s parts in reality. At the time it was mentioned that a capacitive version was on the drawing board and on Twitter today the unveiled, the Huawei Ideos S7 Slim.

Rest assure, if this is at Mobile World Congress, I’ll fine it and provide more info on it.

Details from the Google Event

Today Google held their media event which was shown live on YouTube. It seems that particular rumour has become true. 30-45 minutes before the event started, going to the Android site (android.com) and clicking on the market link in the bottom right would just redirect you back to android.com. Before then it would actually take you to the Android market promo page.

This has been something that developers have been wanting for a very long time as well as Android users and it is now official, we have web-based Android Market access! This will allow users to buy Android apps and games online from your PC and thanks to ‘The Cloud’ you’ll have it installed via OTA (over-the-air) right to your Android device.

Also announced along with the new web-based Android Market (which is now live) is the native ability for in-app purchases! This means we will start to see lots of Freemium games landing on Android soon. Freemium games are full games you would otherwise pay for, but instead you can download them for free in exchange you have the option of buying in-game items to customize your character, boost your gameplay and all sorts of stuff along those lines.

Introducing the HP Topaz WebOS tablet

Precentral.net has managed to come up with specs for a WebOS tablet ahead of the Feb 9th announcement. The Topaz will be black with both the HP and Palm branding. They also intend to get the Beats audio branding on the device as well, at least in the software and likely on the hardware as well. Finally, they haven’t closed the door on carrier branding for the 3G and 4G versions.

None of this is necessarily final but as of right now it looks like it will have:

Blackberry Playbook to have no Calendar and Email?

Playbook’s Sr. Product Manager Ryan Bidan seems to stand behind the decision that the device will be shipping without independent calendar and e-mail features. He states the device is a “great standalone tablet” with just using WIFI and “this is not a device that is reliant on a Blackberry.” This still doesn’t address the concerns of the Playbook missing many of it’s popular BlackBerry features such as calendar, e-mail, blackberry internet and messenger services without a tethered BlackBerry phone.

This may be addressed in firmware update after the launch of the device but would have prevented the 1Q 2011 release date of the Playbook to include these on day 1 without being tethered to a Blackberry. Another consideration is that keeping personal data secure to the phone allows for non-secure data to be on the Playbook and this added benefit may be to prevent the data from being publicly accessible which has long been one of RIM’s strongholds in the market of keeping data secure.

Posted by: Gareth