Phones

3 cut roaming charges for South Africa 2010 World Cup finals

Operator Three has today “slashed” its voice and data roaming charges for football fans travelling to the World Cup in South Africa.
From today, Three customers accessing the internet in South Africa using a mobile phone or a mobile broadband dongle will be charged £1.25 per MB.

Three claims its roaming charges are 50 percent less than its nearest UK rival, and claims one operator is charging £8 per MB.
Three has also reduced the cost of making a call from South Africa by 30 per cent. Customers will be charged £1.40 per minute for an outgoing call and 99p to receive.

Sending an MMS picture message will be charged at 25p and a standard SMS text will cost 25p.
Three said the reductions will allow its customers to continue to access the web, update their social network status and send emails without the fear of incurring substantial charges.
The offer will remain in place through the duration of the tournament with all customers will automatically be given the discounted rate when entering the country.
Three sales and marketing director Marc Allera said: “Staying in touch with friends and family while abroad, and sharing the experiences you are having, is really important to our customers. Smartphones mean that data roaming is now mainstream, but some operator’s data roaming prices are still eye-wateringly high.
“That’s why we have decided to reduce the cost of doing this for UK fans travelling to South Africa for the World Cup, especially around data roaming prices. It’s great news for Three’s customers travelling out for the world’s biggest sporting event.”

TVcatchup catches up with the iPad

The covered TVcatchup when in its infancy long, long ago however now they have upgraded it to be iPad compliant. Whilst added login details for viewing however it appears the same smooth feel is still evident. Check it out you iPadder.

LG Panther specs rumoured

There isn’t too much to glee of the LG Panther however there is of note, 720p video recording, a 5 MP Camera, AMOLED screen, and a Snapdragon. Nothing that’s to surprising, and it’s still with an expected drop date of Q4 2010.

HTC Evo 4G and HTC HD2 side by side

Wirefly have filmed a little comparison between the HTC HD2 and the HTC Evo 4G. Two devices almost identical in size yet one running Android, the other Windows Mobile 6.5. It’s nice to see the two devices together as a lot do consider the Evo to be essentially the HD2 running Android. Whilst there are no plans for the Evo to arrive in the UK it would be imaginable that a non 4G version will probably appear at some stage, God willing.

Google to slow down on the updates

One important problem with Android is its current fragmentation state. There are various Android handsets out there all running different Android versions. While everyone wants Android 2.2 Froyo, which was recently introduced at Google I/O, that might not happen soon as manufacturers and carriers are having a hard time offering all those updates.
Google is well aware of the problem and it looks like Andy Rubin is ready to commit to just one yearly Android update, not two as we currently have. Here’s what he said on the matter:

We’ve gone through a lot of product iterations because we had to bring the product up to market spec. Quite honestly, the product when we launched it, it didn’t really feel like a 1.0, it felt like kind of an 0.8, but it was a window of opportunity and the market needed an entrant at the holiday season. So we launched it, and from our internal 0.8, we got to 1.0 pretty quickly, and we went through this iteration cycle. You’ve noticed, probably, that that’s slowed down a little bit. Our product cycle is now, basically twice a year, and it will probably end up being once a year when things start settling down, because a platform that’s moving — it’s hard for developers to keep up. I want developers to basically leverage the innovation. I don’t want developers to have to predict the innovation.

Dell Streak arrving tomorrow (the 4th)

The Dell Streak is launching exclusively on O2, and will be available on 24- and 18-month smartphone tariffs, 12-month and 30-day Simplicity tariffs and a range of data-only tariffs.

The 16GB Dell Streak is available for free on a 24-month, £35 a month smartphone tariff, including 600 minutes, unlimited data and Wi-Fi and unlimited texts. At £25 a month over 24 months, the Dell Streak costs £149 with the same text, data and Wi-Fi allowances, but 100 minutes. The 32GB version is available for free on a £45 a month contract over two years including 1,200 minutes and unlimited data, Wi-Fi and texts. On the £25 a month tariff the device costs £249.

On 18-month contracts, the same pricing and packages apply, although the monthly tariff increases by £5 in each case.

Better odds than the bookies at O2

Basically you order a sim card for o2, top up £15, register it (one per person), and then you can either get £5 for each goal England score, or if you don’t like England, £5 for each goal England concede. After the tournament is over o2 will send you a cheque!!! No Penalties though.

O2 subsidiary officially launches with community of 6000 members

Our super podcaster Andy is probably the sole reason for Giffgaff’s continuing sucess but have a read at this little article from Mobiletoday:

People-powered MVNO Giffgaff has officially launched after a six months test run in beta which saw its customer base grow to 3000.

The launch coincides with Giffgaff’s first advertising campaign which the MVNO says has already seen sim sales soar this week and prompted a record number of vistors to its website.

During its test phase in beta which began last November Giffgaff, which is modeled on Wikipedia, has built a 6000 strong community which plays a key role in shaping Giffgaff’s offerings.

The O2 subsidiary, which was inspired by Wikipedia, encourages customers to get involved in the giffgaff  community and rewarded for every contribution they make.This can include helping other members with queries, voicing opinions about how Giffgaff should be run or recommending Giffgaff to friends.

xpPhone at Computex 2010

Yeah… so I remember seeing this … phone on paper about a year ago. JKK has managed to get his hands on the little devil to have a play with and it’s quite a beast. You’ll probably think this is a joke but there is a little company out there in China that believes in this enough. Check out the video.

Double Twist adds Android app

Double Twist have updated that client to include a new Android only music player replacement app to handle your music, video, podcasts and pictures for the PC and Mac.

Initial set up of the PC-based application and syncing files with your Android device will take a while (30-60 minutes or so), so be sure to give yourself plenty of time for that process to work. Once you have synced this information with your phone, all the content you have chosen to sync will now be readily available on your Android device in a convenient all-in-one media powerhouse application.