News

webOS v2 landing later this year

Since HP’s acquisition of Palm, HP have said that they will continue development of the promising webOS platform and put it on consumer devices, such as phones, tablets and even printers. Jon Rubenstein, the Palm CEO who nurtured webOS’s birth, has said that webOS 2.0 is ‘on track for release later this year’ in an interview with Fortune. It is praised more or less across the board for being one of the nicest, most intuitive and modern mobilie OS’s made, and it would be a great shame to see it go. Luckily, HP have also seen it’s potential and have decided to carry on developing it. Hopefully the next major version of webOS will also bring new cutting edge hardware to match, something Palm seemed to lack, and also something that we hope HP can help out with. 

Google halts direct sales of Nexus One, Nexus Two anyone?

The Google Nexus One was launched only 7 months ago but now Google have stopped selling their Nexus One, at least through their own online store. Despite not moving a great number of handsets, they did admit that they didn’t expect huge sales numbers – the Nexus One was supposed to raise Android’s presence and mind share whilst being easily accessible.

Back in May, Google announced that after the last batch of Nexus Ones, that would be it. Now that day has come, and checking in at their store greets you with a message saying that it’s no longer available. That doesn’t mean you can’t buy one via other means though – it’s still available via Vodafone here in the UK, and Google will also be happy to sell you one if you’re a developer. So, are we disappointed? Well, not really as there’s still it’s superbrother, the HTC Desire, and other current and future Android competition like the Samsung Galaxy S and maybe a Nexus Two?

Posted by: Vince

Motorola and Huawei in legal battle

I suppose it has been a few days since we last heard about one mobile phone company suing another so it was about time for another one.

This time it’s Motorola versus Huawei. US based Motorola filed a complaint against Hauwei with the federal court in Chicago and claim that of of their former engineers leaked information to Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei.

Huawei said the lawsuit was groundless.

"Huawei will vigorously defend itself against baseless allegations," the company said in an emailed statement.

Even if there is any truth to the claim, obviously I have no idea, I’m really not sure how far Motorola think they are likely to get with any kind of lawsuit as if the case goes through the courts in the US any decision that’s may be made cannot be enforced in China where Huawei are based.

Since at least 2006, Motorola had required its engineers to sign a confidentiality agreement, according to the filing.

Posted by: Matt

BlackBerry 9800 set up video

solomondrin.net has released yet another video of the BlackBerry 9800, this time of it booting and going through the set up process. If you are not a BlackBerry fan then this may not sound very exciting but if like me you are a bit of a BlackBerry addict then this video will have you salivating at the lips. The boot up screen is absolutely awesome.

Check it out below and please let us have your thoughts on the forum.

Skype updated for iOS4

If like me, you have Skype installed on your iPhone but tend not to use it much due to it not running in the background your worries are over. Skype have released an update to fix this issue. Now iPhone iOS4 users can have Skype running in the background all the time if they so desire. Bonus.

Head into the app store on your iPhone and check for updates for the download.

Posted by: James

New giffgaff iPhone app

We may have mentioned giffgaff once or twice in the past and we quite like the way in which they operate, offering their customers, or members in their lingo, rewards for helping other members or for referring friends that then become members.

Today giffgaff launched a new iPhone app that allows you to look after your giffgaff account, refer your friends and to read and participate in their forums.

confidence has created an iPhone application called Mygiffgaff which is a beautiful execution of a very useful program that allows you to check your giffgaff balance as well as see which goodybags you have active and which one you have queued up.

Check it out!

Posted by: Matt

Engadget interview Joe Belfiore

If you saw our post on Windows Phone 7 yesterday you would have been directed over to engadget where they have done some great hands on work with WP7. In additionI have just stumbled upon an interview they did with Joe Belfiore who if you are not familiar with is the VP for Windows Phones.

The interview is fairly informative and you can see Joe discussing WP7 features that will be both present and non present at the launch later in the year.

It sure sounds like Microsoft have been working their socks off with this project and they need to. This could be make or break for them in the mobile market. I suspect the success of Windows Phone 7 will not go the same way as the KIN devices have done recently.

Head on over to Engadget and check out the interview.

Posted by: James

Media on BlackBerry 6

Earlier today we showed you the forthcoming web kit browser from RIM courtesy of salomondrin.net and the goodness continues. In the below video he shows us the media features on the BlackBerry 9800 Slider.

As you will see the visual changes to the music player, photo gallery and video player are pretty amazing. As well as looking great the new OS seems to flow beautifully and is rather nippy. See how quickly the screen rotates.

I am so excited about this I need to go have a wee.

Enjoy the video.

Windows Phone 7 gets previewed

It seems a long time ago that we had the official announcement of Windows Phone 7. In fact it was only in February but for a lot of us thinking about the new platform it has been in the back of our minds as it is not due for release until the end of the year.

Microsoft have now released WP7 devices to developers so we can now get a proper look at the new platform and give it a real run for its money. As I am not clever enough to be a developer we are not one of these lucky few but the guys over at engadget have done a great piece including some rather impressive video.

Although I am eager to have a go of WP7 I must be honest and say that I am not really excited about it and I think that partly comes down to the user interface. It may be one of those things that grows on me and you never know, I could fall in love with it. Also, with the lack of certain features at launch, such as copy/paste and the lack of true multi tasking I cant wait to see if this will be a deciding factor on whether to purchase a WP7 device or not.

Anyway, head on over to engadget and have a look at the work they have done. You may want to make a coffee first. It is a big article!

Posted by: James

The new BlackBerry browser

We recently showed you some videos posted by salomondrin.net in which he had his hands on the BlackBerry 9800 slider.

The good news is he still has the device and has released a new bunch of videos. In this first one he demonstrates the new web kit browser and shows how much faster it is compared with the one we are currently using.

It looks real nice and I have a suspicion that once this is available my iPhone4 may be getting used a little less certain things.

Have a look below and we will bring you more later today.