Well, that’s a surprise. Rumors had pointed at Sprint to be the home of the Hero here in the states - but there it sits in the FCC database, packed to its big ol’ chin with AT&T-friendly 850/1900Mhz bands.
[Via EngadgetMobile]
Ever since OS. 3.0, the latest operating system for the iPhone, launched on June 17, prices among the top 100 apps in the iTunes App Store have been fluctuating wildly as developers push out apps taking advantage of all the new features in the OS. Some of the new features we are starting to see in apps include push notifications, turn-by-turn navigation, cut-and-paste, embeddable maps, access to external accessories, search within apps, and subscriptions.
Mobile app distribution service Distimo just put out its June iPhone App store report As you can see from the charts above, the average pricing among the top 100 paid apps was pretty steady until the middle of the month, when developers started to test different price points. The most popular price for an app remained $0.99, but the month of June saw more top apps priced at $1.99, $4.99, and $9.99 (the green bars on the chart above).
Oh, patents. Companies file you all the time, often coming to nothing, yet you still mystify us for some reason. A few iPhone-related patents have been floating around the Internet this morning; they’re sure to interest you for dozens of seconds. Take this one, which describes a karaoke application.
While it was reported in late May by the Guardian that O2 had all but locked up the Palm Pre, the UK rag is once again claiming that O2 will be the exclusive carrier for the webOS device. Earlier rumors that Palm would announce a carrier next week seem to be holding water according to this report by the Guardian. It seems that you’ll be able to pick up a Pre at your local Carphone Warehouse as well. We’ll just have to wait and see.
via Guardian
So I’m going through my twitter stream a while back and I see several links from some former colleagues of mine, pointing to a new iPhone app called ColorSnap, by Sherwin-Williams. So what right? There are a million (ok, fifty thousand) iPhone apps out there—what’s so interesting about this one?
Well, two things. One, it was developed by my former employer, Resource Interactive, for whom I have the utmost respect and must also disclaim. Two, it is a tool of sorts, which I seem to be more interested in these days rather than just games or social networking. I wanted to check it out.
How it works.
You use ColorSnap to take a picture of anything (a room, an object, whatever). After the image is selected and zoomed in to the right spot in the application view finder, you move your finger over that image and a small square-shaped magnifier follows your finger around and shows a detail view of the color in that part of the photo. Once you find a color with which you are satisfied, you press the “palette” button and it identifies the primary paint color you have just selected and offers two secondary colors that go with it. For example, if you have a dominant object in a room, like a giant red leather couch, you could use this tool to find some supportive secondary colors for the walls and furniture surrounding it.
When we mentioned yesterday that Vodafone was considering snatching up T-Mobile UK, we figured that’d be the last we heard of it for a while. They’d go quiet for a while, do some negotiation, and then they’d either make a big deal about the purchase or just pretend the whole thing never happened. As it happens, it’s a bit more heated than that.
According to ElectricPig, there’s a bit of a bidding war going on right now, with O2 and Orange throwing up their paddles alongside Vodafone. It’s all a big messy mess at the moment, though; some claim that Orange wants nothing to do with it, while other say they’re already bidding away. The current rumored price getting tossed around is right around £3 billion pounds, which is just under $5 billion USD.
What say you, UKers - got a preference as to who walks away with T-Mobile UK’s customer base in tow?
Photo: jennlynndesign on Flickr
Oh, Palm Pre. You’ve got style. You’ve got grace. You’ve even got a PlayStation emulator! But what you don’t have, young one, is a SIM card slot that makes you friendly with the vast majority of popular carriers around the world.
That won’t be a problem much longer, or so say the rumor mill. Now, we’ve known a GSM Pre has existed for months now, but Palm has stayed mum on the topic. According to T3, Palm will make an announcement next week regarding everything you need to know about the UK release of the Pre.
If these things are released in the UK before the US, we fully expect the eBay grey market to be jam-packed within the week. Unless, of course, they’re locked down to specific carriers - in which case we fully expect them to be hacked and up on eBay within a week and a day.
Not to be outdone by Verizon, Sprint announced today that the BlackBerry Tour would start selling on my birthday, July 12. The final cost of the Tour will be $200, but there’s a $100MIR and a $50 instant rebate. In case you forgot, the Tour is the Curve’s (8900) 3G counterpart.
Yay! Toshiba is officially unveiling their Windows Mobile Snapdragon-powered TG01 in London on July 9th. Yeah, I’m about as impressed as you are. The only redeeming quality I find in this device is the 4.1-inch WVGA touch-screen. Who cares about Snapdragon when Tegra is coming in a few months? And let’s not forget about the fact that it’s a Windows Mobile device. Do whatever you want to skin WinMo, Toshiba, but everyone knows that HTC’s TouchFLO 3D is the best in that arena.
