Author Archive: Gareth

Official Martha Stewart iPhone app released

This is one super-sweet app from one super-sweet lady.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz now available on Vodafone

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is now available on Vodafone for free if you sign up for 24mths contract costing £30pm.

The Vivaz is a fantastic new 8.1 megapixel camera phone that can shoot superb video in HD, and comes with a tonne of features not found on other camera phones that ensures the pictures you take are as good as they would be from a dedicated digital camera.

Pre-order the Sony Ericsson Vivaz in Silver or, exclusively to Vodafone a stunning Ruby Red online and receive an extra 300 minutes for free.

• FREE from £30
• 600 minutes
• unlimited texts
• 500 MB of internet and webmail
• Plus the online exclusive of 300 extra minutes!

Head on over to the Vodafone site for more details.

All-in-1 Gamebox app shows new trend: multiple games in one app

This game is like 2nd in Germany and in top 10 in UK, so it is very popular and in fact it is not just one game but 25 games in one and the number of games is growing whole time:

.. and the games in this gamebox app vary from rather lame one:

SPB Mobile Shell 5.0 for Android

February 15th, 2010 – SPB Software, a leading mobile applications and games developer announces the release of SPB Mobile Shell 5.0, a major upgrade to the world’s bestselling mobile application, popular among both end-users and OEMs. Unlike all the previous versions of SPB Mobile Shell available exclusively for Windows Mobile smartphones with touchscreens, version 5.0 is to be released for Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian. Thanks to the new portable SPB UI Engine, SPB Mobile Shell is planned to be spread to more mobile platforms.

The X10 Mini and Mini Pro video

One of the lovely Booth Babes takes me on a tour of the five new devices and in particular the X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro. These are two funky devices that I think Sony Ericsson with sell a shed load of. Whilst the Vivaz and Vivaz Pro are quite nice and the X10 has mostly been covered the video below spends more time on the little brothers of these and it’s nice to see a pretty full feature set on such a small device. Check after the break for the video:

Garmin Nuvifone A50

I had a quick look at the Garmin Nuvifone A50 at Mobile World Congress as I had heard that the OS was slowed than a asthmatic snail with bags of shopping. I’m please to report that it isn’t and the only slowness was a result of the, probably quite clogged, 3G reception in the venue. Whilst the Sat Nav isn’t exactly the prettiest in the world, the Operating System overlay by Garmin was quite pretty and extremely finger friendly. Read on for the Video:

A brief look at the Toshiba TG02

I was given a brief tour of the Toshiba TG02 by someone who knew less about it than my Granny (happy 94th today Granny.) Oddly the TG02 was running SPB Mobile Shell and not a Toshiba created GUI. Size-wise it’s quite nice but lacks many of the refinements we see in offerings from HTC and Samsung of late. Video after the break:

Mobile Broadband bill from Orange for nearly £8,000.00

A university student ran up a bill of almost £8,000 on his mobile internet broadband abroad in one month because rules introduced last year to prevent this have taken nine months to implement.

Although EU rules will be introduced in the UK on 1 March to protect users against “bill shock”, 22-year-old William Harrison (below) was initially told by Orange that it would have infringed the company’s customer privacy policy to monitor his usage.

Harrison, a third-year Nottingham university student, started a six-month internship in Paris last September and wanted temporary internet access in the flat he was renting there. He and his father, Roger, asked an Orange store in Hertfordshire about the best way to access the internet abroad and queried whether a dongle, a small piece of hardware that connects to a laptop or desktop computer allowing wireless internet access, would be suitable.

“The woman in the store said the dongle would work perfectly in France, especially for a short-term contract,” says William. “She said there was a 3GB (gigabyte) limit on data use but that this would be ‘perfectly ample’.”

In France, William used his internet account to access Skype, a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the internet, on a daily basis. “I was unaware of how expensive this was. On my computer at home it’s free,” says William. He says he did not use the internet to download anything that would have been data-heavy, such as videos.

On 17 October, his first bill arrived. It was for £6,101.56. “I immediately questioned it and asked for the dongle to be blocked,” he says. “But there was a further charge which covers the cost of the dongle use between the bill being sent and the dongle being blocked. I am now faced with a bill of £7,648.77.

“It is an absolutely awful situation, both in the short term because of the £8,000 debt and in the long term because the potential damage to my credit rating could be disastrous.”

Roger contacted Orange on behalf of William to query the bill, and was told by a shocked operator that there should be a £40 monthly limit on dongle usage. However, what he was not told, and which Orange’s own operator did not seem to be aware of, was that this does not apply to overseas use.

“I sent Orange a cheque for £158.66, which is what I had worked out to be reasonable from the bill. However I never received a response from Orange.”

He says: “I am concerned William was given unlimited credit. There was nothing to stop this going up to £100,000. I think it is wrong the way this [dongle] has been sold and that there was no ‘flagging up’ to highlight that a bill of this size was being built up. Even Orange said the size of this bill was exceptional. For my son, at his age, to be saddled with this amount of debt is terrible.”

Full story at The Guardian

Apple cuts down on apps with adult content but some are slipping through yet

The main news story of latest days, when it comes to iPhone app store is: Apple has removed thousands of apps with adult content and is rejecting new ones that have some adult content, even if it is just silhouette, not photo, that might be visible. While browsing apps that were released in latest 3 days, we have encountered this one, that obviously must have slipped through Apple’s strict review process (approved merely few hours ago!):

Else Intuition hands on

Whilst the big names are blasting out samey-samey phones with Android or Windows Mobile it was refreshing to see something a little different. From the video you can see I was having a little bit of trouble with one handed operation but the OS is striking and might they might have something if they can spend a little more time refining it. Video after the break: