Author Archive: Gareth

HP Slate will be upon us soon

The year of the tablet continues. HP are pushing out their snazzy gizmo with an ad campaign that points out a few features Apple could have put in their iPad but didn’t. The only thing that is missing is a kid at the end with his thumb on his nose, wiggling his fingers and blowing raspberries. Like the iPhone I doubt these will make a huge dent in Apple’s sales but at least there will be a device somewhere along the lines that ticks all the boxes be it from Archos, Dell, HP etc.

iPad given the Will It Blend? experience

Ok I actually hate these videos but I am sure some of you will enjoy this one as there has been so much iPad news over the last few weeks that it has become a bit unbearable.

Enjoy Tom doing his stuff:-

iPhone OS 4.0 to be shown off on Thursday

Apple will be holding their iPhone 4.0 event, “Get a sneak peak into the future of iPhone OS” on Thursday, April 8th, yes that is this week, not much notice for all the tech journalists out there.

This is expected to be nothing more than a look at what Apple have in store for the next update to the software that runs the iPhone, like they do every year and no new hardware will be announced, the question is what have Apple been working on, will we eventually see some Multi-Tasking, home screen customisations, they have to deliver something fresh this year as I am seeing a lot of tweets from die hard iPhone users about switching to Android devices, Apple over to you to wow us all over again.

Source TIPB

Microsoft set to announce Project Pink on the 12th of April

The great mystery that is known as Project Pink will be eventually revealed at a press event on the 12th April in San Francisco according to Cnet.

A source confirmed to them that the event will herald the introduction of Microsoft’s long-awaited new phones for the always-connected crowd. The devices, code-named Pure and Turtle, are both slider phones, each with a touch screen and keyboard, the devices will run on Verizon Wireless’ network and go on sale within the month following the event.

The Pure and Turtle phones, which are part of Microsoft’s long-running "Pink" project, also have Windows CE at their core as well, but aren’t likely to run programs written for either current crop of Windows Phones or those written for Windows Phone 7.

Toshiba K01 appears at FCC

Although Windows Phone 7 is the really hot mobile platform from Microsoft right now Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets will still have to make do for now as WP7S is only coming in stores later this fall. One of those Windows Mobile 6.5 phones is the K01 from Toshiba. Announced at MWC 2010 the phone has just been spotted at the FCC and its apparently coming to Europe and Asia at some point soon. We dont have actual arrival dates and pricing details but expect it to hit carriers in the near

I had a few precious moments with this at Mobile World Congress 2010 and whilst the keyboard wasn’t a Touch Pro2 beater the phone was a wonderful example of just how well rounded Windows Mobile could be. One of the most impressive features being the HD playback, smooth and crisp.

No standard connector for WPS7

Here’s a heads up from WMpoweruser. Microsoft will not be controlling the the hardware specs of Windows Phone 7 devices. As they point out this is a good thing for one reason, no huge Zune style connectors. However, it does mean will will still have to endure what is a pet hate of mine, incompatibility between plugs and cables provided with various devices. At least we won’t have to suffer the annoyance of the iPhone with all cables looking the same but only working on one particular generation.

iPad apps are live in iTunes now

2 days before start of sales of iPad, Apple has switched on all the iPad apps…

3UK prices on payg set to rocket

I don’t think this has hit their main website yet but I received a text from 3 with a link to their mobile portal (which unfortunately I can’t link to as you need to be connected via 3’s 3G to view it) which details a raft of price increases as of April 22.

I won’t list them all, but here are the main ones:
* Voicemail access is going from free to 15p/min
* Calls to other networks and landlines increasing from 20p/min to 25p/min
* Picture messages increasing from 25p to 30p
* Calling other countries in band 0,1,2 increasing by 5p/min 
* Calls while roaming in band 0 increasing 4p/min
* Receiving calls in band 1 countries increasing 9p/min, band 2 increasing 25p/min
* Calling most 084 and 087 numbers increasing 5p/min or per call

Free texts, data, and 3 to 3 minutes when topping up remain unchanged, and data prices also seem to remain unchanged.

I’m quite disappointed that they’ve decided to start charging for voicemail when they were the only network not charging for it (it was a selling point for me when joining them) – and that they decided to go with per minute charges for voicemail instead of per call as some of the networks.
This gives the ridiculous situation where you could ring someone also on the 3 network to make use of free 3 to 3 calls, and if you get through to them it is free to talk to them, but if you leave a message, it will now cost them to play that message back…

I’m struggling to see the rationale behind them raising calling prices pretty much across the board without an obvious precedent, and when you have MVNO’s like Asda offering rates as cheap as 8p/min, 3 increasing their off network calls from 20p to 25p/min just makes them look silly.

Stephen Fry gets it out

He’s got an iPad and he’s put together a very short unpacking video. He doesn’t unbox but shows off a handsome array of accessories to compliment. Obviously he is going to have a productive day.