After a nearly endless stream of hearsay and rumors on the matter, Adobe has now gone on the record about Flash on the iPhone. During a presentation at the Flash on the Beach expo today in the UK, Adobe’s Senior Director of Engineering Paul Betlem mentioned that the Flash development team was actively working on a release for the iPhone, but due to the closed nature of the handset, the final call would be Apple’s.
Betlem didn’t specify whether Adobe is working on embedding Flash within the Safari browser, or if Flash playback would require a standalone application. While Apple has yet to allow any sort of plug-in to run within Safari, making the exception for Flash may be necessary.
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If it feels like you’ve seen the u430 before, it’s because you probably have. You’ve seen them at parties, on co-workers desks at work, and in the hands of the soccer mom in front of you in line at the store. Well, not this exact model, but ones just like it. The u430 is yet another flip-and-forget-it phone.
Seeing as it wont cost you a cent out the door, you shouldn’t expect too much under the hood. It doesn’t have 3G EV-DO, but it does have Bluetooth and dual displays. Its got a camera (with “Nite Shot” capabilities), but it’s 0.3 megapixels. No one’s going to break down Verizon’s door for this one, but it’s probably just sleek enough for those of us who don’t sleep with our phones under the pillow.
If you’re a regular reader of MobileCrunch, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve got a bit of a thing for mobile. Maybe hardware leaks make your heart pitter-patter – or perhaps its the services that swoon you? Either way, Nokia wants to hear from you.
Right as the sun cracked over the Western hills this morning, Nokia opened registration to their new Nokia Pilots test program. If you’re chosen for the gig, you might be given the opportunity to spend some time with devices before anyone else in exchange for a bit of feedback. According to the FAQ, Pilots won’t be paid (which probably means you don’t get to keep the toys, either), and they do mention that you might need to go under NDA at some point – if neither of those are deal breakers, here’s the sign up page.
[Via Symbian-Guru]
For the sake of making sure employees are up to speed on the coming-any-day-now BlackBerry Bold (and likely as an excuse to booze and schmooze), AT&T is throwing a series of parties for employees in a few major cities around the country. The invite doesn’t shed any information we’re not already well aware of, but worthy of some note is the date of the final party: October 30th. It’s not likely AT&T would bother holding these things after the handset is already out and about on their shelves, so this further cements the early November launch.
The invite also says “Mingle, eat, relax and enjoy as you discover What Makes You Bold.” You know what makes AT&T Bold? Cheesy marketing videos. That’s the kind of kitsch that only internal marketing videos can provide.
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LG announced the KP500 this morning, which they’re touting for it’s “affordable introduction price”. They’re not actually, you know, telling anybody what it’ll cost – just that it’ll be “attractively-priced”.
For a supposedly budget-friendly phone, the specs they’ve disclosed so far aren’t too shabby. It’ll have quad-band GSM radio, a 3 megapixel camera, motion sensing of some sort, and a 3″ touchscreen display. It’ll be offered up in “Vandyke” brown, “Anodizing” silver”, “Elegant” gold, or “They couldn’t come up with an exciting name for black” black.
Whatever the price may be, the KP500 is prepped to hit Europe at the end of October, making its way around the globe thereafter.
Check after the jump for a video demo of the UI.
[Via UnwiredView]
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After Facebook rolled out v1.1 of their iPhone application, they promised that a bigger, badder v2.0 was in the works for September. They cut it pretty close, but they’ve kept their word. Just a few hours ago, the second major release of the Facebook application hit the App Store, bearing a whole new user interface and a slew of fresh features. With this latest release, they’ve managed to pack just about everything Facebook has to offer into a neat and native mobile interface.
While previous releases of the Facebook application supported the News Feed feature, only mobile photo uploads and status updates were displayed. In version 2.0, the News Feed has been completely overhauled to match item-for-item with that of the site itself, throwing news posts, relationship and interest updates, and all photo uploads into the mix. Furthermore, users are now able to comment on any given bit of news, or limit the feed to only the categories they wish to peruse.
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Just last week, Sony Ericsson announced that they would be doing their part to save the planet by launching two new projects. The first, which they’re calling an “environmental warranty”, allows cell phone owners to drop off any old handsets or accessories at any of 500 collection points already in operation, from which they will be recycled in an eco-friendly manner.
Also announced is a new handset model they’ve dubbed “The GreenHeart”, built with the intent of being as green as possible from birth to dissolution.
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Believe it or not, that LG KC780 we saw last week isn’t just a really blurry looking handset. GSM Arena managed to scrounge up the above promo shot, offering a much sharper look at the KC780 in all of its 8 megapixel glory.
While their source wasn’t able to share any new specs, they did mention that LG is internally acclaiming the handset as the slimmest of the 8-megapixel bunch. Does that mean it’ll be slimmer than the 13.8mm Pixon, just announced this morning?
Will all of the 8-megapixel manufacturers hurry up and release some untouched photo samples, please?
Right as it leaves the starting gate, there might already be a bit of controversy surrounding Sprint’s 4G WiMax offering, XOHM.
Silicon Valley Insider did a bit of digging through the XOHM policy agreement, and came across this little gem:
“To ensure a high-quality experience for its entire subscriber base, XOHM may use various tools and techniques designed to limit the bandwidth available for certain bandwidth intensive applications or protocols, such as file sharing.”
Looks like Sprint is giving themselves a bit of leeway to keep any bandwidth hungry protocols — such as BitTorrent, or Skype — from clogging up the pipes. Sorry Sprint – Comcast tried it, and you just can’t do that. No one likes it when a few people bog down the network for everyone else, but no one wants service providers quietly limiting the performance of their favorite applications, either.
Be it that the FCC gets wind of this and holds true to their previous decisions, Sprint may have to change their game plan. If they follow in Comcast’s foot steps, this may mean bandwidth chokes for the heaviest users.
If you’re a devoted IM’er and have owned a BlackBerry or a pre-App-Store iPhone, you probably know of BeeJive – or at least know it by its previous name, Jivetalk. Their BlackBerry IM solution is generally considered the best IM offering on the platform, and the BeeJive iPhone Web App nailed out a solid instant messaging solution long before full blown third party applications were an option. Over the weekend, BeeJiveIM made the jump out of the Web App realm, with its first iPhone App Store release.
With a handful of free IM applications (IM+, Palringo) already out there, BeeJiveIMs $16 dollar price tag might incite a few nasty words from first-glance pessimists. Sure, it’s a bit blingy – but for anybody who IMs on the iPhone for more than a few minutes a day, it’s worth it. This thing is looking to be the best iPhone IM solution by leaps and bounds. Compared to the free solutions which seem to have a hell of a time just staying open, we’ve seen nothing but stability from BeeJiveIM.
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Turns out the September launch date rang true after all.
Sprint announced this morning that their next-generation wireless data network, XOHM, has been launched in Baltimore. For $25-$30 a month or $10 a day, customers can ride the 2-4 Mbps waves without any need for a contract.
Folks around the Baltimore area can nab XOHM-ready Samsung air cards for $60 bucks, a ZyXEL XOHM Modem for $80, or wait until XOHM-enabled laptops and tablets begin trickling out closer to the end of the year.
[Via Phonescoop]
According to the wee bit of branding atop this leaked shot, Samsung’s got a new toy in the works for U.S. Cellular customers.
Purportedly dubbed the “Delve”, the early specs outline a 2 megapixel camera, Samsung’s widget-tastic TouchWiz UI, Stereo Bluetooth, and a 3.0″ touchscreen. As BGR points out, it’s lookin’ to be the pretty-little-offspring of the Samsung F480 and the Samsung Instinct.
No word yet on how big a dent it’ll make in the piggy bank, but expect this one in Mid-November.
After a surprise early appearance on a UK retailer’s site and a last minute name change, Samsung has officially pulled back the curtains on the 8 megapixel Pixon(briefly known around the tubes as the Bresson). In the quickly filling arena of 8 megapixel handsets, the Pixon oughtta be able to put up a fight – it’s rockin’ Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, HSDPA, an 8 megapixel autofocus camera (w/ Geotagging, Face/Smile detection, x16 digital zoom, dual LED flash), 30 FPS video recording, FM radio, Bluetooth 2.0, and TV out, all packed up behind a 3.2″ WQVGA (240×400) touchscreen.
The Pixon should hit the shelves in France come mid-October, and it’ll make its way to Asia and Europe soon thereafter. As they don’t mention North America in the press release, expect to see it over here sometime in 2049.
Three more handset shots after the jump.
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Forgetting that quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality, Verizon has packed the basic functionality of 10 different social sites into one little app they’re calling “SocialLife”.
Besides the loss of pride that might come from needing a ten bladed social site swiss army knife, the application will only set you back $1.49 per month and carries support for Myspace, Photobucket, Livejournal, AsianAve, BlackPlanet, FaithBase, GLEE, MiGente, Rabble and MTV Tr3s. Now, raise your e-hand if you (actively) use the majority of those. Myspace, Photobucket, sure. Livejournal? I still know a person or two lurking around those parts. But the last seven? Not to seem unnecessarily rough on the niche communities, but where’s the support for Twitter, Facebook, and other sites people actually use?
[Via IntoMobile]
A beta release of the iPhone v2.2 software began seeding to developers yesterday. While much of the developer community is still digging to try to figure out what exactly changed in this release, the iPhone-dev team has already torn it apart. At least in its current state, v2.2 is vulnerable to the same jailbreaking methods already freeing handsets around the world.
They do note that the recently released 2nd generation iPod Touch remains unjailbroken, and mention that they’re toying with the idea of hardware based hacks in order to smash through that challenge.
Besides a UI change in Safari which moves the Google search bar out into the main interface, has anybody gotten wind of any changes yet?
If you plopped your name on the list when Palm started taking Treo Pro pre-orders not too long ago, expect a visit from the delivery man soon. They’ve made the jump from pre-order to immediate sales on the unlocked, $549 obsidian black handset, and a bunch of’em are already rattling around delivery trucks around the nation. According to Engadget, at least one lucky pre-order scored a free overnight shipping upgrade – so look for Señior Fedex sooner than later.
You hear that rumble? That’s the purring of hundreds of thousands of handsets around the country, aching to gobble up one of the 16GB microSDHC and M2 cards just announced by SanDisk this morning.
This announcement lifts the bar from the previous 8GB limit, allowing handsets which rely on microSDHC/M2 as their primary user memory to go gig-for-gig with handsets carrying 16GB internally, such as the iPhone and Nokia N96. If you’ve got a device that works with the 4 and 8 gigabyte microSDHC cards already on the market, you should be able to swap one of these in without issue. The timing couldn’t be much better for the G1, N79, and the gaggle of other high-capacity ready handsets set to launch over the next few months.
The 16GB microSDHC will set you back $99.99, while the M2 will go for $129.99. Both models will begin shipping come October.
As it turns out, that shiny new chrome and silver Q9h we wrote about back in August brings more to the table than just a new paint job.
At AT&T’s request, the silver Q9h Global has gained support for push over-the-air firmware updates, allowing deeply rooted system elements to be patched with very little effort from the end-user. They’ve also improved battery life by as much as 40%, added in A-GPS support, and have implemented their new CrystalTalk background noise reduction and voice enhancement technology.
While all of the new features sound great, the OTA firmware updates are perhaps the most exciting. Updates on Windows Mobile can be a horrible chore, so anything that takes work out of the process is a very, very welcome change. Now lets just hope it makes it out to some of other Windows Mobile handsets on the way.
[Via WMEXperts]
To the girl who almost slammed into me as she was texting away on her phone while driving last week: regardless of the crazy face you made and the nasty words you mouthed through your windshield, that was your fault. California agrees with me.
Just yesterday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation outlawing the reading or writing of text messages while driving. Starting January 1st, the first violation will set you back 20 bucks, with a 50 dollar fee every time after that. Not mentioned in the legislation is a secret rule where everyone you’re text-driving near gets to pull over and punch you in the face.
The design studio of Art Lebedev, perhaps most well known for their pocket-melting Optimus OLED keyboard, has been working on some WiMax handset concepts for Scartel, a Russian wireless carrier with plans to blanket Moscow and St Petersburg in WiMax coverage by the end of 2008.
Though it’s likely little more than an idea at this point, the penned out concept specs are drool worthy. Tucked behind a 850×480 screen (which is presumably touch) lays WiMax, WiFi, 3.5 mm audio, front/rear cameras, an A/V port, microSD, and tri-band GSM. Unlike a number of recent handsets, muting the phone appears to be done via a toggle button rather than a slider switch, which could prove a bit annoying if it’s not recessed enough to prevent accidental presses on its way in and out of your pocket.
No word yet whether this beast-in-beaut’s-clothing will make its way off the drawing pad. We certainly hope so.
[Via Pocket-lint UK]
