Author Archive: Gareth

Tattoo, Vodafone and Donut

Well THIS is an interesting development. After the official announcement of the HTC Tattoo a couple weeks ago, we thought we knew everything there was to know about the affordable Android prior to launch. But today we’ve found two additional tidbits that make the phone all that more attractive: it will launch with Android 1.6 (Donut) and a built-in FM Radio!

Palm posts loss

Perhaps Palm really does have the “special sauce” needed to attain smart phone leadership,as RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky recently claimed. Reporting first-quarter results this afternoon, the company posted a narrower-than-expected loss and announced plans for a common-stock offering of 16 million shares.

Excluding charges related to stock options and other items, Palm (PALM) said net losses were $13.6 million, or 10 cents a share, for the recent period. Revenue slipped to $68 million from $366.9 million in the same period last year. Excluding revenue deferred from sales of the company’s new Pre handset, Palm said adjusted revenue would have been $360.7 million. Analysts had expected the company to turn in a loss of 24 cents a share on sales of $291 million.

Review: I AM TPAIN for iPhone – the first Autotune app!

Here we are reviewing one of the most innovative, groundbreaking, apps that lately appeared in the iPhone app store. One warning though: don’t read it if you would like to keep your illusions about music industry!

IPG XPphone pre-order

I am yet to understand why anyone would want Windows XP on a mobile phone, it would most likely kill off the battery pretty quickly, get very hot, or just downright FAIL. This device is called the ITG xpPhone, the specs are impressive but you should not go by that alone when looking at this phone, i recommend sticking to Windows Mobile instead of this.

* AMD Mobile CPU
* 4.8-inch, 800×480 pixel touchscreen display
* QWERTY keyboard
* 512Mb/1GB memory
* Dual hard drives: SSD (8/16/32/64GB) and HDD (30/60/80/120GB)
* Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
* Bluetooth
* GPS
* WiMAX (optional)
* GSM/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA (HSDPA/HSUPA), CDMA/CDMA2000, CMDA 1X/EV-DO, TD-SCDMA, TD-HSDPA
* 7 hours of continuous use with standard battery, 12 hours with extended battery
* Windows XP OS

You can pre-order from their English website

[Source: Mobiletopsoft]

GSM Palm Pre this Autumn in Germany

Kindly tipster eMd points us to this O2 Germany site for the Palm Pre, which lists the Pre as "Exklusiv ab Herbst bei O2." That’s "Autumn" to you English-speaking folk, and it’s just a bit more specific than the "before the end of the year" target we’ve heard before.

As we’ve said more than a couple times, the rumormill and tipline started coalescing around October, which we’re still keeping an eye on despite how quickly it’s approaching.

Also, Germans are able to enter for a chance to win one of ten Pre phones they’re giving away by answering a question – don’t worry if you get it wrong the first time, O2 is forgiving.

So it’s "Autumn" for the Pre, which is good, but not nearly specific enough to end this particular silly season. We wouldn’t mind knowing the price, either.

[Source: Precentral]

Microsoft showing off two new phones at CES

It isn’t really our area of expertise, but we’ve gotten word that Microsoft will unleash two new Smartphones, probably at CES in January 2010.  Developed under the project "Pink" moniker, these two slider phones stem from the aquisition of Dangerand will continue to use Sharp as the manufacturing partner (not HTC as previously rumored by the WSJ).  In fact, they’ll be co-branded as "Microsoft+Sharp" products.

One device is "squircle" in shape like the past Zune’s buttons.  The slide out keyboard houses the mic at the bottom and it is meant to be open when being used as a phone.  This device is code-named "Turtle" and looks like a dressed up Motorola QA1.

Vodafone’s twitter exploits

  With O2 customers receiving free SMS alerts from Twitter, it’s understandable that Vodafone wants to offer a perk for Twitter users. We’re not sure that the "first interactive real time top 40 for music lovers" is the way forward, however.

Vodafone commissioned developer Ben Marsh to "create a live top 40 chart of what people are listening to on Twitter, to promote the Vodafone Music store", he wrote on his blog. Using the #RealTimeTop40 hashtag, Twitter users can enter the artist and song they’re listening to and then check out www.realtimetop40.com to view what the most listened-to songs are right now.

It’s not exclusive to Vodafone customers, however if you want to purchase one of the songs currently riding high on the chart, you’ll have to be a paid-up customer to do so.

If Vodafone created an app for mobile phones we can see more use out of this scheme, but for now it’s just another way for Twitter users to pat themselves on the back that they all have such terrific musical taste. If Patrick Swayze’s ‘She’s Like The Wind’ can be considered taste.

Link: Real Time Top 40

[Source T3]

B2B dealers slam O2 delays

B2B dealers connecting O2 are experiencing "unacceptable" delays of up to a week to action dealer requests, including new contracts. A number of dealers claim the current SLA (service level agreement) for O2, is experiencing delays of between four to five days, from the standard 24 hours  stated by O2, with all actions requested via email.The delays are affecting new connections being processed, upgrades and tariff changes, which are typically completed within 24 hours.Dealers claim the delays are unacceptable as the standard of the O2 customer experience from their customers is being put in to question,  with customers being left frustrated and inconvenienced by the network.
It is understood the situation will be resolved over the weekend. One O2 dealer said: "I am having to apologise to my customers, particularly those who are signing up for new connections. The delays don’t reflect well on the network, but it’s us that look bad. Another said: "Some of my requests made last week are only now going  
through. That is not acceptable. I appreciate they may be busy, but that’s not any fault of ours."
O2 was unavailable for comment.

[Source Mobilenews]