Ahh, 4th of July. A welcome day off work in the midst of summer. Seems like everyone’s on vacation these days and that means grueling airplane rides and long road trips with the family. If you aren’t lucky enough to be on JetBlue or Virgin, you’re probably stuck without in-flight entertainment, meaning you’ve got nothing but your iPhone and a book to keep you from strangling the guy next to you. Have no fear! In this week’s edition of the App Roundup, we’ve got a host of games that will help you get through whatever your vacation travels have in store for you. Read More
What’s black, red, wears a Verizon badge, and looks just like the Samsung Glyde? The Samsung Glyde 2, of course!
Presumably in hopes of losing a friend or getting someone fired, HowardForums user StandardsDT waited for his in-the-know buddy to leave the room before going camera crazy.
Tip #1: If you’re going to be a huge wanker and rob a retail store, don’t rob an Apple store. You know those little fancy handsets they carry around? Thats so they can avoid doing much with cash. Tip #2: Don’t friggin’ steal stuff or shoot people, unlike this guy at the Arlington, Virginia Apple Store.
One female victim was shot in the shoulder before the suspect fled the scene. Here’s to a speedy recovery, Apple Store lady.
What in the hell is LG Mobile’s president smoking because this is the most absurd thing I’ve ever read. Becoming the #2 mobile phone maker in three years is one thing considering the fact that Samsung could and would destroy them at any time. But a new Black Label device to compete with the iPhone? Or a luxe brand on par with Nokia’s Vertu? Keep dreaming, Ahn.
George Hotz, the 20-year old hacker who originally unlocked the iPhone, has released a jailbreaking application for the iPhone 3GS codenamed “purplera1n.” It’s currently Windows-only (Windows 7 not supported), and requires the latest iTunes installed, and an iPhone 3GS with the 3.0 firmware.
Hotz mentions in a blog post that the jailbreak for Mac is “coming soon.” The iPhone Dev Team did release a unlock for 3.0 which did not work on the iPhone 3GS, but Hotz’s version does (although it doesn’t free you from your current carrier).
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.
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.
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?
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.
Ah, Project Pink, I haven’t heard anything from or about you in quite a long time. But it looks like Redmond made some key changes to its agency roster and McCann picked up the “Pink” account. McCann also handles Windows Mobile.
According to ZDnetter Mary Jo Foley, Pink will be built on top of Windows Mobile 7, which MS plans to release the code for this fall when WinMo 6.5 devices start to flood the market. Foley goes on to say that she’s heard that Motorola will manufacture Pink alongside the Sidekick. Except she fails to realize that Sharp manufactures the Sidekick; Motorola built the Slide that has since been axed from the lineup. So does that mean Danger is in the mix? Maybe. On a side note, it’s pretty funny that the UI for Pink is codenamed “Purple” because Bing’s earliest codename was also Purple or so I’ve heard.
Going back to early May, Foley detailed purported specs for Pink and the biggest indicator that the device could be tied in with the Zune platform is the use of Nvidia’s Tegra platform. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Danger had a big hand in all of this because they haven’t done much with the Hiptop unit other than including Live Search in the latest Sidekick LX. Just don’t go to Verizon.
I was pretty excited about Warpack Grunts when I first started playing it. The game seemed to have promise. And for $0.99, I had inklings that it may have been the biggest steal to come to the iPhone since the OS 3.0 launch. While it still lived up to its $1 price, I can’t say that it quite met my expectations. Though the graphics, the gameplay and the level of difficulty were all rock solid, a few missing features (and some wonky controls) left a sour taste in my mouth.
Oh boy. I’ve found a reason to charge my Pre back from the dead. ZodTTD, purveyor of iPhone emulators galore, has struck again by installing psx4all on his Palm Pre. Surprisingly enough, Zod says the Pre’s hardware runs the emulator way better than the iPhone 3GS. But it’s not all peaches and cream. Read More
Well, iPhone OS 3.1 Beta just went live on Apple’s developer center and, as usual, it’s a quest to figure out what has changed. Our lovely developer friends have already started tearing it apart in search of that hidden gem detailing the iPhone 4GFP (The FP stands for “Face punch”), and we’re keeping tabs on what they find.
When it became clear that HTC’s oh-so-pretty Sense UI wasn’t going to make it to the G1 by any official means, we figured it wouldn’t be too long before the goods leaked and an unofficial port was made. Hell, we outright said so.
If you work in a top secret area (read: government agency, weapons lab, or Apple campus), phones packing cameras (or standalone cameras, for that matter) are usually frowned upon. Remember the “Loose Lips Sink Ships” campaign of WWII?
Fortunately for you high-falutin folk, RIM kept you in mind when designing the BlackBerry Tour. You’ll be able to pick one up 100% camera free come July 12th, ready to lurk in your pockets as you slink around your hush-hush headquarters. Plus, going with the camera-less version ought to save you some ducats, right? Nope. Both the version with eyes and without are $199.
Note to employers: If you’re going to set your employees up with Tours, don’t buy the sans-camera version unless it’s actually necessary. We’ve seen too many employers cut their employee’s work phones off at the knees, only to allow them to bring big-boy cameras to work. Yeah, that makes sense.
Ahh, 4th of July. A welcome day off work in the midst of summer. Seems like everyone’s on vacation these days and that means grueling airplane rides and long road trips with the family. If you aren’t lucky enough to be on JetBlue or Virgin, you’re probably stuck without in-flight entertainment, meaning you’ve got nothing but your iPhone and a book to keep you from strangling the guy next to you. Have no fear! In this week’s edition of the App Roundup, we’ve got a host of games that will help you get through whatever your vacation travels have in store for you.
I was pretty excited about 
