News

BlackBerry Press Event

RIM and AT&T have announced a press event to be held on August 3rd in the USA. Although RIM are not saying what this is all about it can only be one thing, the announcement of the BlackBerry 9800 Slider. Yippee!

The leaked photos we have seen have shown the 9800 to be AT&T branded so if my prediction is wrong I will eat my hat.

I’m just hoping it will not be long until we see an announcement here in the UK. We will keep you up to date when we know for sure what is going down.

Posted by: James

HTC on Hero Android 2.1 delay

The Android 2.1 update has been around for the HTC Hero for a while and it’s great if you have a SIM-free Hero. Not such good news if you have a Hero from Orange as you’re still waiting for the update to be made available to you!

Today it’s good news to come from HTC and Orange, in the form of an apology from HTC to Orange customers and news that the Eclair update will be made available some time next week.

“We apologise for the delay in Orange Hero customers receiving their Éclair update. Testing the update across European markets took longer than anticipated. However, we hope to receive final approval by the end of the week and Orange handsets should start updating from next week.”

Posted by: Matt

No more Vodafone 360 H2

With the launch of Vodafone’s 2nd 360 device (the H2) imminent they have today decided to pull the plug on the device as from now! So if you wanted an H2 I am sorry to say you will be disappointed. Frankly I am not surprised. With the broad range of excellent operating systems out there at the moment Vodafone had to pull something quite special out of the bag with there own branded handsets but they didn’t. I only used the H1 briefly and that was enough for me!

This is what Vodafone have to say:

New Displays to be integrated into HTC Desire and Nexus One

HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, today introduced Super LCD display (SLCD) technology into a variety of HTC phones including the HTC Desire and global Nexus One later this summer. The SLCD display offers an exceptional natural balanced colour, clear contrast, broad viewing angles and improved power efficiency.

“HTC is experiencing high-demand for many of our phones, specifically our phones with 3.7 inch displays.  The new SLCD display technology enables us to ramp up our production capabilities quickly to meet the high-demand,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation.  “The SLCD displays provide consumers with a comparable visual experience to HTC’s current 3.7 inch displays with some additional benefits including battery performance.”
SLCD is the latest generation of LCD technology that offers improved performance from earlier LCD panels including approximately five times better power management.  SLCDs also offer an enhanced viewing experience with wider viewing angles that are enabled by Sony’s new VSPEC IIIT technology.

I wonder if we will see this new technology on the HTC Vision? That will be 3.7 inch so I believe.

Also, I thought production of the Nexus One had ceased. Did I dream that?

Posted by: James

Another BlackBerry 6 video

The folks at RIM have released a second official video demonstrating BlackBerry 6. Once again the demo is taking place on a touch screen device and it looks super.

What we need now is a demo of BlackBerry 6 running on a non touch screen device. I know the 9800 slider will more than likely be the first device released with 6 but with so many millions of us using Bolds and Curves we need to see what the future holds for us.

Enjoy the video below and keep them coming RIM.

HTC increasing production to meet demand

HTC is a relatively small company compared with other giants such as Samsung or RIM, yet the demand for their handsets has been way above expectations. Phones like the HTC Desire have proved so popular that HTC have struggled to keep up the supply, and now they’re ‘heavily investing in new production capacity’. This should mean that future handsets from HTC shouldn’t be so hard to get your hands on.

HTC have admitted that they were ‘caught out’ by the high demand, and will catch up with demand as soon as possible. All this is really quite good news for HTC, supply shortage is probably the best problem a company can have!

Posted by: Vince

BBC Trust approves plans for mobile apps

The BBC have been planning to create apps for quite a while, but only now have the BBC Trust approved those plans. There will be iOS, BlackBerry and Android apps, and currently the BBC News app should be available this afternoon for iOS in the App Store. There will also be similar apps for BBC Sport and finally an official BBC iPlayer app. The BBC News app will be available for other platforms as well later on this year. They were supposed to be available back in April, but the BBC Trust had to postpone them while they ‘assessed the proposals’.

Posted by: Vince

A new BlackBerry Bold

Salomondrin.net has done it again. They have shown us a new BlackBerry Bold, this one is allegedly the 9780!

Specs are sketchy but it is believed to have 512mb of flash memory.

Clearly running BlackBerry 6 this is good news and possibly bad. The good news is that RIM are also focusing on non touch screen devices as well as the touch screen ones we have already heard about.

The bad news is that is it possible that the current Bold 9700 will not be upgradable to BlackBerry 6? If this is the case I will be very disappointed.

Lets hope we get to see this new Bold on video soon.

Posted by: James

UberTwitter Update

If you are are BlackBerry user and also use Twitter than you will more than likely be aware of UberTwitter as it is, in my opinion, the best BlackBerry Twitter app available.

The good news is UberTwitter have just released a new version if their beta which includes different coloured themes, something we have not seen before, and a slightly different user interface style. If you fancy giving it a try just click here from your BlackBerry browser and download for free.

I’m loving the new green logo UberTwitter!

Posted by: James

Apples white iPhone4 launch delayed

Those of you waiting for the release of the white iPhone4 are going to be bitterly disappointed. Apple have said the launch will now not be until later in the year due to manufacturing of the white version being more complicated. You would have thought they new about this a while ago!

An Apple spokesman has said the following:

“White models of Apple’s new iphone 4 battery have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.”

Could they be looking at a new antenna design I wonder?

Just had an email from the guys over at eXpansys letting us know that they have a great deal to offer on cases for the iPhone 4 and 4S.

We are running a clearance on a range of iPhone 4/4S battery cases – each now only £9.99 – saving up to 83%

Pretty good when you consider they were up to £60 a few weeks ago.

http://www.expansys.com/powerjackits/

KEY FEATURES

Very slim; smaller than many ordinary cases
Elegant, ergonomic form-fitting design
Choice of luxurious leather-effect finishes
Built-in high power 1450mAH ultra-slim battery
Up to 7 extra hours talk-time
Up to 10 extra hours video playback
Up to 40 extra hours music playback

Posted by: James