Sony Ericsson prepping 13MP LT28at for CES

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 23, 2011 at 14:00

Bluetooth Special Interest Group – or Bluetooth SIG, if you prefer – has details of an upcoming Sony Ericsson smartphone, and it sounds pretty impressive. Well, from what little detail is available.

The Bluetooth SIG description lists the Sony Ericsson LT28at as a “tablet capacity touch phone” and reckons it takes “Xperia into super phone territory”.

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Real Racing 2 hits Android Market

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 23, 2011 at 12:00

The first Real Racing was pretty sweet, but sadly never made the leap from Apple’s App Store to Google’s Android Market.

But it’s time to grab a hankie and wipe those tears, kid, as EA has now officially served Real Racing 2 for Android peeps. Huzzah!

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iPhone 4S fails to excite mainland Europe

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 23, 2011 at 11:19

Last night Phil scribbled a bit about Apple’s victory over Android in the app revenue stakes, but here we have Google chalking up a cheeky victory with its ubiquitous OS.

Research from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech (awesome name, huh?) shows that the iPhone remains hugely popular in Great Britain, the US and Australia, however it’s a different story in mainland Europe.

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RIM hits back at claims it lied about BlackBerry 10 delays

- Martin James  Dec. 23, 2011 at 10:00

A RIM insider claims company co-CEO Mike Lazaridis has lied about why its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 devices have been delayed, saying the real reason is that neither the hardware nor the software are anywhere near ready.

Lazaridis revealed recently that the new product line would only land in the second half of next year, suggesting that delays in the arrival of a new 4G LTE chipset were to blame.

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Android falling behind Apple in app revenue stakes

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 22, 2011 at 19:00

Aah... another Apple vs Android story.

Android may have recently hit ten billion app downloads and Android is certainly the most used OS on the planet with 700,000 new activations alone every day. But when it comes to cold hard cash, it would appear that Apple is firmly on top.

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Sony Ericsson reveals Android ICS update dates

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 22, 2011 at 18:00

Android Ice Cream Sandwich has been out for almost a month now and manufacturers should be well under way with their various tweaks now that the majority of the big boys have confirmed they'll be supporting it on their higher-end handsets.

One of those big names is Sony Ericsson (or Sony, as it will soon be known), but not being merely content with just confirming that the update is coming, it's taken things a step further and revealed exactly when each Xperia handset will be getting the new OS.

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Intel-based smartphone prototype “powerful and pleasing to use”

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 22, 2011 at 16:00

Intel powers a huge portion of the world’s PCs, and next year the manufacturer is hoping to make an impact on the smartphone and tablet market.

Technology Review recently got its hands on a handful of Intel-based prototypes, and they were reportedly rather impressive.

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New Apple patent might be a biggie (or not)

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 22, 2011 at 14:00

It’s been quite the week for Apple. First the ITC banned several HTC smartphones from import in the US (effective April 19), then we heard about a spanking new complaint relating to Samsung’s tablet and smartphone covers (patents are involved, natch).

Now Apple has had yet another patent approved, and it’s potentially vague enough to be a pain in the nuts for rival operating systems.

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Huawei promises its best smartphone yet for Mobile World Congress

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 22, 2011 at 12:00

We’ve still a couple of months to go before we jet off to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress 2012, but Chinese manufacturer Huawei is getting the ball rolling early.

The Huaweians have started firing out invites for their event, and promise their “smartest, fastest and most high-performing smartphone yet". Nice.

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Hasbro sues Asus over Transformer Prime tablet

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 22, 2011 at 11:16

It’s not like I hadn’t made the association, but reading or writing about the Asus Transformer Prime tablet doesn’t necessarily conjure images of the late Optimus Prime.

One company who definitely can’t get over the Transformer Prime’s name, however, is Hasbro, and the toy manufacturer has subsequently decided to sue Asus.

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Nokia to ditch Symbian name altogether in February

- Martin James  Dec. 22, 2011 at 10:00

Symbian has played a major role in the evolution of the mobile phone market as we know it today, but in recent years the once-mighty OS has seen its market share – and its reputation – taking a beating.

Soon, however, the Symbian name will be gone forever, with Nokia having revealed that it is rebranding the OS under its own name.

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Google Nexus S updates: Android ICS may be a while now

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 21, 2011 at 19:00

Has your Google Nexus S pinged with a notification yet to tell you that Android Ice Cream Sandwich is ready for downloading? No? Oh dear - in that case, we have some bad news: It may not arrive for a while.

We told you the other day that the OTA notifications were coming through and they have for some lucky folks. But it looks now like Google has taken a decision to halt updates in their tracks so they can monitor feedback from those lucky few who got one.

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Android activations hit 700,000 a day

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 21, 2011 at 18:00

Android's attempts at world domination appear to be gathering pace. Since we told you back in June that half a million Google devices were being activated a day, that number's shot up. Andy Rubin says it's now nearer 700,000 new users per 24 hours.

There's been some disquiet about how Google reaches its numbers with recent claims that 10 billion downloads had been reached were a little wooly because updates were also in there. So let's talk you through the maths here.

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Now Apple doesn’t like Samsung’s tablet and smartphone cases (sigh)

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 21, 2011 at 16:00

Apple and Samsung are behaving very much like the petulant children of the tech world, repeatedly poking each other and claiming that the other one started it. They’re not the only ones at it, true, but they’re definitely the worst.

There are literally dozens of Apple-Samsung cases (er, legal cases that is) being contested around the globe, and heck – why not throw another one into the mix? Now Apple is unhappy about Samsung’s smartphone and tablet covers.

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Nokia and Microsoft eyeing up RIM?

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 21, 2011 at 14:00

We recently scribbled about the possibility of Microsoft buying Nokia’s smartphone division, and now there are rumours that the pair were – and possibly still are – considering making a move on RIM.

The news comes via the Wall Street Journal, at the end of a frankly terrible year for the Canadians. Pretty much anything that could go wrong did.

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Windows Phone Tango and Apollo dated

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 21, 2011 at 12:00

In terms of Windows Phone versions, to date we’ve had NoDo (rumoured to be a NoDonut dig at Android) and more recently Mango – Windows Phone 7.5, with its multitasking and 500+ other features I can’t quite remember. Ahem.

Now we’re hearing by way of the DGui blog that the next two versions, namely Tango and Apollo (you might have noticed that they all end with an ‘o’), have been dated.

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Asus Transformer Prime pre-orders through the roof

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 21, 2011 at 11:06

We’re still a bit miffed that the Asus Transformer Prime won’t touch down in the UK in time for Christmas, but a whole heap of people are very much looking forward to January.

According to a statement released by Currys and PC World, customers in the UK are already going mental for the Asus Transformer Prime.

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Elop: Nokia has 'no exact plan' for tablets

- Martin James  Dec. 21, 2011 at 10:00

Nokia clearly has ambitious plans for its smartphone future – albeit one that relies heavily on Windows Phone maker Microsoft.

But when it comes to tablets things are far less clear cut. In fact, so much so that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has admitted that the company doesn't have a clear-cut tablet strategy in place at all at this stage.

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Nokia promises Lumia 800 battery fix

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 20, 2011 at 19:00

Quite a few early adopters of the brand new Nokia Lumia 800 have been complaining about inconsistencies in the battery life indicator.

Well, the good news is that it's just a software issue and not an actual flaw in the battery. The bad news? You'll have to wait until the other side of Christmas for a fix.

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Ice Cream Sandwich timeline for Samsung owners

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 20, 2011 at 18:15

As we predicted, Samsung will be one of the first Android manufacturers  to start giving Ice Cream Sandwich to its users. Not a huge surprise, to be honest, considering that it is the chosen maker of the current ICS flagship, the Galaxy Nexus.

Updates have already started to pipe through for the other Nexus poster-boy, the Nexus S. And now Samsung is giving us a timetable of when other users can feel the love too.

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