Author Archive: Gareth

iPad delayed till end of May outside of US.

Apple have just sent out an apology to international iPad wanters stating that the availability has slipped from the end of April now to the end of May.

They are blaming the high popularity and demand in the US for the lack of stock causing this delay, I for one am not happy.

On a brighter note, hot on the heels of this news is that the iPad will not be sim locked and the three carriers in the UK that currently have the iPhone on their books will be offering micro Sim cards and dedicated data plans for the iPad, thats O2, Vodafone and Orange.

No details on pricing yet but they will be announcing more on the 10th May when you can actually pre-order the iPad.

Apple has approved the Opera Mini web browser for the iPhone

Stop the presses, something huge just happened in the App Store; Apple has approved a 3rd party web browser and added it to the virtual shelves of their all conquering app store! That’s right, the Opera Mini for iPhone app has been approved by Steve Jobs and co. and is now ready to be downloaded free in the app store!

We’ve been covering this story for some time, ever since we first caught glimpses of the Opera browser playing nicely with Apple’s iPhone back in February at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. The browser, just like it’s various other incarnations for the various operating systems and Java enabled feature phones, compresses web pages by up to 90% offering lightening quick load times for web pages.

This compression not only drastically improves loading times but also lowers data costs as well, something that will come in handy for those who have switched their contracts to pay as you go in the run up to the inevitable launch of the iPhone 4G/ HD.

Palm seeing the error of it’s ways?

Given that O2 has sold the Palm Pre as successfully as you would a knife in the chest it’s nice to see Palm releasing the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on dual networks in Germanland. Vodafone will hopefully give the little phones some much needed attention and will hopefully shift a few more than you could expect from O2.

One can only hope for a similar release in the UK and more Palm in more … paws. Honestly, I walked past the O2 store yesterday and there was a short queue of 3 at the Palm stand. On the other side of the stop was one person looking at the iPhone and two sales representatives explaining the great many things the iPhone could do. Never before was there a more glaring example of O2 dedication to the little Palm Underdog.

Motorola’s Android update calendar

Good news for all you rocking Motorola Android device’s, you can get an idea of just when to expect your 2.1 update. The European Dext might be the only one that will cause some growls, provided someone bought one. Did anyone?

The low-down on Project Pink

Microsoft today unveiled its "Project Pink" phones which are aimed at the growing social networking scene. The new phones are now known as the Kin One and the Kin Two.

The new Kin phones are based on a Windows CE core, sharing similar design themes, but not the full-fledged general purpose operating system capabilities of the upcoming Windows Phone 7 smartphone operating system.

The Kin phones will also naturally integrate with the Zune Marketplace which will serve up and music and video content — music can be streamed to the Zin One and Kin Two over Wi-Fi or 3G. However, if you’re looking for Xbox Live gaming — as seen in Windows Phone 7 — you’ll need to look elsewhere. And just in case you were wondering, there’s no support for third-party apps, Silverlight, or the ubiquitous Adobe Flash.

The Kin Spot, which is invoked by a green button on the keyboard, brings up a little green dot on the screen. You can drag status updates, photos, videos, and events to the Kin Spot and instantly share it with your friends via Facebook, email, MMS, etc.

The Kin Studio allows you to see your phone on the internet using any browser. Your contacts, photos, videos, text messages, and calendar events are all web accessible using a simple user interface. It also serves as a huge online backup database for your phone — so if your phone is lost, everything is easily restored from an online backup. Microsoft also sees the web as an extension of your user storage, so the 4GB or 8G of storage on the Kin One and Kin Two respectively shouldn’t really matter all that much to the end user.

The Kin One is a tiny phone with an equally tiny QWERTY keyboard that slides out from the bottom (portrait view). The Kin One features 4GB of internal storage, a 5MP camera (with LED flash), a mono speaker, and a QVGA screen. The Kin Two is a larger phone with a more traditionally-sized smartphone screen and a landscape keyboard. It features 8GB of internal storage, an 8MP digital camera, stereo speakers, and an HVGA display.

Both the Kin One and Kin Two feature 3G radios, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity. Verizon will be the exclusive carrier for both phone in the U.S. when they launch later this May. Pricing is not yet available.

Microsoft definitely thinks that it has an audience with these phones, but we can’t help but think that these two phones will end up being snapped up mostly by tweens and teenagers who’ll be texting away in class. That being said, it seems as though young adults (as pictured in all of Microsoft’s press materials and Kin video footage) would want a more full-featured phone like a Motorola Droid, iPhone, or Windows Phone 7 smartphone to carry around with them instead of something that is just geared towards social media

St John Ambulance launches First Aid iPhone App

St John Ambulance today officially launches a first aid iPhone app that could be the difference between life and death.  St John Ambulance research – also out today as part of a hard-hitting campaign to encourage more people to learn vital first aid skills – reveals that up to 150,000 people a year could be given a chance to live if more people knew first aid.

A simple application with a clear, attractive and intuitive graphic interface, St John Ambulance’s first aid app covers key major and minor emergencies and contains additional guidance on treating infants. The app provides advice on emergency situations such as choking, severe bleeding and heart attacks. It’s available for iPod Touch users too.

Press releases on the app and the research are after the break:-

The big Palm Job

There are still rumours running rampant that Palm is going to be taken over. First it was Lenovo, now its HTC. The latest rumours mention those two companies as potential suitors for Palm. According to Reuters, Palm’s stock soared earlier this week as investors covered short positions on renewed speculation that the smartphone maker might be an acquisition target.

HTC making Dual screen tablet

Looks like HTC has just filed a patent for a device that would feature dual touchscreens in a clamshell design. Many are comparing the device to the Microsoft Courier, a similarly dual-screened device, but the Courier would be lacking one key element that is sure to make its way on to this interesting HTC design: Android.

As you can see in the above image from the patent report, the device would open up across a central hinge to reveal two screens. Word is that one will hold the content while the other will make up a virtual keyboard, at least in some instances. There is no doubt that the device could be oriented as a book reader, with a page on each screen. If this isn’t in the plans, well, HTC is missing out on a golden opportunity. An eBook reader application on a device that actually opens up and looks like a book is something I would definitely be interested in. HTC could pull off something similar to the enTourage eDGe Dualbook and no doubt improve on the concept vastly.

While there is no confirmation on whether or not the device will run Android as of yet, given HTC’s loyalty to the OS and their pioneer-spirit for Google’s open-source system if they get the little green guy on this thing and we have a real winner.

[Source Techradar]