News

Desktop SMS for Android Beta available.

Koush has recently been working on a solution for making our lives easier when it comes to sending and receiving SMS messages on multiple devices. They just released an application entitled DesktopSMS. You can choose to use the service via Gmail or via Gchat or both as well as others:

You can use your favourite IM client (Beejive, Trillian, etc) or email client to send text messages from your phone number!

• Step 1) Install Desktop SMS on your *phone*.
• Step 2) Install a chat client or use gmail on your desktop PC or tablet (like a XOOM)
• Step 3) Have a friend send you an SMS, and respond from your desktop PC or tablet!

This is an open beta, so be prepared for bugs.

Although the app is now available for you to try, it is still in an open BETA status. Which means there might still be some bugs to work out. @Koush will be all over making this flawless and wonderful, have no fear of that.

If you want to get going with this app, go check out his site app.net/desktopsms and get the install needed to get going.

Posted by: Gareth

iUsers gives iPad multiple user profile support

If you share you iPad with one or more other people then you’ll know that there is nothing more annoying than when they alter all of your user settings and move your icons.

There is a solution right around the corner though as iUsers creates multiple user profiles and adds a log in button to your iPad. It sets aside an area for each users preferences and app data so you each can have their own unique setup.

There is just one drawback though. In order to use iUsers you must have a jailbroken iPad and download the app through Cydia. Probably not ideal for the masses perhaps.

I’d love to see this released though the Apple App Store but I fear there is little hope of that, there is more chance that Apple will add the functionality natively than that.

If you want to see iUsers in action check out the video below.

Windows Phone powered ZTE phone images leaked

A few days ago James and I went to an event in London where ZTE announced that they would commence selling their phones here in the UK SIM-free under their own brand name rather than through carriers.

The new phones that ZTE are going to launch here, ZTE Skate, ZTE Libra and ZTE Tureis, are all running Android. In fact I don’t think I have ever seen any ZTE handset running anything other than Android.

However! There have been a number of leaked images of a certain ZTE phone running Windows Phone thought to be one of a few new devices to be running the new ‘Mango’ version of Windows Phone.

According to a post on NEOWIN:

Dr. Luo Zhong Sheng, General Manager of Mobile Communications at ZTE gave us a better look at the upcoming ZTE device that will also be running Mango out of the box. The image he posted on Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) seems to be quite a lot different than the image taken at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 last week. He also mentioned that whilst ZTE produce Android devices already, he believes Windows Phone will eventually outperform Android in terms of market share.

We look forward to seeing what ZTE have in store for us!

Posted by: Matt

HTC are in Violation of Apple patents say ITC

Earlier this week news broke that Apple were suing HTC again over alleged patent infringements. Apple approached the US International Trade Commission complaining that a number of HTC’s phones, including the EVO 4G and HTC Flyer used technology for which Apple owned the patent.

The gears turn quickly at the ITC it would seem as they have already ruled in favour of Apple. A judges initial determinations was that HTC are indeed infringing upon two of the ten patents that Apple filed a claim over. The ITC must now make a final ruling on the complaint but if they rule again in favour of Apple this could lead to a number of HTC’s handsets being banned from sale in the US.

HTC have already said they would appeal against the decision:

HTC will vigorously fight these two remaining patents through an appeal before the ITC commissioners who make the final decision," said Grace Lei, general counsel for HTC. "This is only one step of many in these legal proceedings.

If Apple are successful in this case it could have much further reaching consequences for manufacturers that use Android on their devices and indeed for the platform as a whole.

One of the complaints deals with the “ability to scroll, zoom, and rotate content on a screen, while the last references "portable computers."

We’ll watch this one closely!

Volume App Purchasing for Business from Apple

Earlier today we reported that Apple had increased the standard pricing of apps on the App Store following their brief down time yesterday. If you missed it, many apps have increased in price by an average of about 15%.

However, if you run a business that uses or provides apps for employees then there is some good news. Today Apple announced their new Volume Purchasing for Business programme. Whether you are buying one or thousands of copies of an app there are discounts to be had.

At the moment, if you look at the details released by Apple, it quite specifically says: “Any business in the US can participate in the Volume Purchasing Program” but one would hope this will get extended to other countries in due course.

No exact date as to when the service will go live, simple “Coming Soon” but as always we’ll be keeping a close eye.

Buy apps in volume.

Streamline your purchasing process and put more power and productivity in the hands of your workforce. Every paid app in the App Store is available for businesses to buy in volume through the program website. Simply search for the apps you need, enter the quantity you want to buy, and complete the transaction with your corporate credit card. Apps are available for purchase at the same price listed in the App Store.

Posted by: Matt

ZTE event, new phones fondled

Last night James and I attended an event with ZTE where we had a chance to get our hands on several new ZTE phones. The ZTE Skate, ZTE Libra and ZTE Tureis were all on show at the event at the Ice Bar in central London.

At the event ZTE also announced a distribution partnership with Brightpoint UK.

The three phones are set to go on sale, SIM-free, here in the UK sometime next month. Interestingly the ZTE Skate is getting a CPU specification bump for the UK market, rather than the ‘standard’ 800MHz CPU that you’ll find listed in many specification tables the Skate will ship here with a 1GHz CPU which to my mind makes it a much more viable proposition.

Images and a few details of each handset can be found below.

App prices rise on UK Apple Store

When the Apple store went down yesterday for several hours for ‘maintenance’ many of us thought that this was the time that OS X Lion would be added to the store and when the expected new MacBook Air would go on sale. However, looks like we were wrong as a look through the app store changes reveals no new hardware and Lion is nowhere to be seen.

Instead Apple have been re-jigging and re-pricing all of their apps. It has long been the case that apps on the US store, taking exchange rates in to consideration, were cheaper than here in the UK. But following this down time apple have actually increased the price of all the apps within the store so an app that cost just 59p yesterday will set you back 69p today. As the cost of the app rises so too does the percentage increase, the price increase goes as high as 20 percent in some tiers.

You can see a breakdown of the price increases below. Bizarely though, we’ve just heard that the prices of apps on the Australian store have gone down by a similar margin!

Getting back to OS X Lion though, we’re still expecting to see this arrive on the App Store within a matter of days rather than weeks and we’re pretty sure that there’s a hardware refresh for the MacBook Air and Mac Mini just around the corner.

Seven new BlackBerry Smartphones coming soon

It was only this morning that we posted about BlackBerry App World downloads reaching the 1 billion mark. Following on from that we now have some further news and figures from RIM which includes the announcement of seven new BlackBerry Smartphones to launch in the coming months. Now the big question here will be are these seven new phones actually seven separate models? We must not forget that most new BlackBerry Smartphones come in two flavors, GSM and CDMA. For example we already know RIM will be launching the Bold 9900 (GSM) and the 9930 (CDMA). So are RIM calling this two new phones when essentially it is really one? We will have to wait and see I suppose.

Anyway, it is jolly exciting stuff and if you want to see further facts and figures such as BBM stats and BlackBerry subscriber figures you can do so below.

BlackBerry App World downloads hit the 1 Billion mark!

BlackBerry App World may not have many of the same style of apps you are likely to find in Apples App Store or in the Android market but that is not to say it isn’t a huge success. Over on the official BlackBerry Blog RIM have made the following statement:

“BlackBerry App World is now in over 100 countries, seeing an average of 3 million downloads per day, and we recently crossed the 1 billion app download milestone!”

As we have mentioned recently the BlackBerry Smartphone is in decline in North America, being out sold by both iOS and Android but in many parts of the world the BlackBerry is still steaming full ahead and this new statement from RIM emphasizes that.

Coincidently, this week also sees an update to BlackBerry App World, to version  v2.1.4.9. I cant see what changes have been made so if you are waiting on version 3.0 that is being worked on you will have to carry on being patient.

Anyway, well done RIM on 1 Billion downloads.

Posted by: James

HTC Desire & Desire Z to get Gingerbread

Via their Facebook page HTC have announced that they are to start rolling out the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update to the HTC Desire before the end of July. This after the to and fro that we’ve had over the past few weeks as to whether or not their would be a Gingerbread update at all. Their was outcry when HTC originally said no to the update but it’s reassuring to see that HTC did respond to the criticism and in a u-turn statement said that they’d had a change of heart.

In a further update earlier today HTC also said on their Facebook page that they would be rolling out the same Gingerbread update to the HTC Desire Z and this would start rolling out within a few weeks.

Thanks to everyone whos been patiently waiting for the Gingerbread update for Desire Z. We are in the last stages of testing and plan to start rolling out the update over the air in the coming weeks. It may take a little time to reach all of you across every network but it should have reached everyone by the end of the month.

Well done to HTC I say for keeping their customers in the loop and furthermore to listening and reacting to customer feedback.

Posted by: Matt