Mobilityfeeds

Sony announces Xperia Miro and Xperia Tipo Android ICS budget smartphones

Users looking for budget Android phones running the latest version of the Operating System (OS) have two more options in Sony’s upcoming Xperia Miro and Tipo, when they ship in the third quarter of this year.

The phones have the same look as the high-end Xperia S unveiled earlier this year in the way, in the simple monolithic screen and “lip” at the bottom of the design.

However, these two models are not packed with so many of the latest features.

Apple users don't care if iOS 6 is only catching up with Android

Whenever Apple introduces a new version of iOS, it's guaranteed that Android fans will protest that Google's mobile Operating System (OS) has long had most of the new features.

Apple is late again, they'll say, and only following Google down the smartphone innovation trail.

Truth is, we don't really blame them for making that case.
Indeed, we've done the same when reviewing iOS updates so we understand where their fervor is coming from.

But as right they may be, Android fans forget one important thing:
Apple may be late to a feature party, but iPhone users really don't care.

Acer launches the Iconia Tab A700 Android ICS tablet that targets directly the iPad's Retina Display

Calling a new Android tablet a potential iPad killer is a cliche.

But make no mistake: Acer's Iconia Tab A700 has its sights set on doing just that thanks to an impressive list of specifications that includes a 1920-by-1200-resolution display and 32GB of storage, and a US$450 (€358) price that comes in at 25% below the price of a same-capacity Apple's iPad.

The Iconia Tab A700 goes on presale today, and will be shipping later this month at retail and directly from Acer; it will be available either in black or silver.

Acer was one of two Google's Android tablet makers to introduce a high-resolution, “Full HD” 1920-by-1200-pixel display in January at CES 2012.
Asus, the other manufacturer, followed up its CES announcement of a "Full HD" tablet with a renamed variant at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February, but it has remained mum on USA availability.
In the interim, Apple introduced its third-generation iPad with a 2048-by-1536-pixel display — 264 pixels per inch — a move that effectively left Android tablets in dire need of playing catch-up.

Amazon Appstore and Kindle Fire expected to launch in Europe before year end

Despite of being built around its own Android-based Operating System (OS), Amazon Kindle Fire has enjoyed comparably higher success than Android tablets.

The tablet is, at the moment, available in the United States alone.
However, a new notion is hitting blogosphere today indicating that the Kindle Fire is headed to Europe and may release as soon as this summer.

According to reports, the Seattle-based company is gearing up to launch Amazon Appstore in Europe indicating that the tablet will follow the footsteps soon.

Like Kindle Fire, Amazon Appstore is also only available in the US.

Microsoft pricing strategy will make Windows RT tablets more expensive than Android's

When Microsoft announced its tablet strategy with the Windows RT, many thought that Microsoft will change its pricing model for OEMs too, signaling a shift in strategy.

Reality is however, vastly different with Microsoft requesting as much money as OEM version of the Windows 7 Home Premium.

During our meetings with multiple vendors on the Computex 2012 Taipei, we were talking about pricing options for taking the Windows RT route instead of (free) Android Operating System (OS) from Google.

While it was rumored that Microsoft decided to change their ways and offer a price of about US$35 (€28) – the reality is that Windows RT will cost staggering US$80-95, with US$85 (€68) being the most commonly quoted price.

This means that there is no way that a similar specced Windows RT powered device will be priced in the same league as its Android-ARM competitiors.

After Android and iOS, Nokia brings 3D maps to Windows Phone

With all this talk about 3D mapping on its way to Google's Android and the Apple's iPhone, Microsoft's Windows Phone is looking a bit out of place.

But not to worry – the next version of Microsoft’s mobile Operating System (OS) will support a similar initiative.
The only difference is that this one isn’t coming from the company that supports the mobile OS, but rather from a lone one of its hardware partners.

Nokia will offer a 3D mapping solution at a time when Google and Apple are both vying to bring a similar service to their respective mobile platforms.
Nokia has very much stepped into the software world ever since it teamed up with Microsoft.

For most users, all smartphones are iPhones and tablets are iPads, regardless of manufacturer and OS

More than eight in ten mobile phone users are confused about the meaning of the word ‘Android’ even though many use Google's mobile Operating System (OS) on a daily basis – according to a new poll.

The survey, by mobile casino Roxy Palace, found than 83% of those quizzed were unable to define what Android meant even though many were using the Operating System on their smartphones and tablet devices.

Some thought Android was a mobile phone manufacturer with others believing it was the model name of their device.

Samsung brings TecTiles, NFC tags that help you simplify and automate your life

It was just a little over a week ago that Samsung announced that the Galaxy S III would be hitting five carriers in the United States, but now the company has introduced another new product that you may be interested in.

Samsung yesterday took the wraps off of its TecTiles, which are programmable near field communication (NFC) tags that consumers can use in conjunction with an NFC-enabled device to automate certain functions on their handset.
For example, a user could program a tag to toggle the WiFi radio on or off and then tap it when they leave their home to disable their device's WiFi radio or turn it back on when they return.
Other possible ways to program a TecTile tag include setting it to send a text message, check-in on Foursquare or launch an app.

So how does it work? 

Dell drops Android to favor Windows 8 for its tablets

Appearing in a wide-ranging on-stage interview at market researcher Gartner's annual security and risk management conference, Michael Dell offered insights into several of his company's rapidly evolving business lines, including the decision to walk away from Google's Android tablets in the United States market in favor of Microsoft's Windows.

"I think the Microsoft Windows 8 solution is going to be very attractive to customers for a number of reasons," Dell said. "You'll see us at launch, at Windows 8 launch, with a full complement of devices - tablets, hybrids, convertibles - you know every imaginable and maybe some unimaginable forms."

Dell said that he expects Windows 8 devices to enter the market with an attractive price point, and that in the business sector, where the company primarily plans to focus, shops that already run Windows will be inclined to remain in that environment as they deploy tablets and other new devices.

As with iOS 5 before, iOS 6 is only catching up with Android and Windows Phone

Apple officially announced iOS 6 this week and while it is a welcome update for iOS that we look forward to installing on our 'new iPad', most everything Apple revealed can already be done today on Google's Ice Cream Sandwich Android devices.

Apple does a good job of taking existing technology and features and making it more user friendly (they did it with iOS 5 last year), but Ice Cream Sandwich took Android a long ways and the experience on the HTC One X is fantastic.

Apple stated there are over 200 new features in iOS 6 and we will have to wait until the fall to see everything.
Developers will be loading up beta versions soon so we will see some more discussions on features over the next few weeks and months.

Apple didn't learn from Android - iPhone fragmentation officially on the way

Way down in the fine print about Apple's upcoming iOS 6, you'll find a little note that says new features like Flyover and turn-by-turn directions are only available on the iPhone 4S, or the iPad 2 or higher.

A note immediately below that says Siri is only available on the iPhone 4S or third-generation iPad, the 'new iPad'.

Since the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPad 2 are all actively for sale and still being marketed by Apple, we have to wonder:
Is Apple on the road to fragmenting the iOS experience?

Gigabyte unveils Dual-SIM Android Ice Cream Sandwich GSmart line of smartphones

Taiwan based computer peripherals maker, Gigabyte has launched a new range of Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone running dual-SIM handsets at the Computex 2012 convention which was held last week at Taipei, Taiwan.

These new Gigabyte Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones have low-power single core mobile processors housed inside them. Gigabyte has not clarified on the pricing and arrival of these new dual-SIM smartphones. 

New Gigabyte GSmart models indeed look chic and sturdy at the same time.
Out of four new GSmart models, two house a MediaTek mobile processor while other two house a single core Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile processor.

Android is the global mobile OS leader, but app developers are more loyal to iOS

Smartphones running the Google's Android Operating System (OS) outsell Apple's iPhones more than two to one.

And yet, even as Google's system has gobbled up market share, Apple has held onto one critical advantage - the loyalty of mobile app developers. 

Many developers have continued to make applications first, and sometimes only, for iPhones.
They find it easier to create software for Apple devices than for ones running Android, or it may be more lucrative.

Their allegiance to Apple has helped make its devices the powerhouse they are for the company. 

At Computex 2012 the frontier between ultrabooks, notebooks and tablets is blurred

Slide it, flip it or snap it on and off.

The way keyboards are connected to touch screens on the latest generation of computing devices is making it tough to differentiate a tablet from notebook or an ultrabook.

Microsoft, which has long been the dominant force in PCs but has fallen far behind in the tablet race, is set to unveil its Windows 8 Operating System (OS) later this year, designed to run on super-thin laptops called ultrabooks and tablets powered by Intel's chips.

The impending launch has prompted PC vendors to come up with a rash of hybrid designs, featuring touch screens and myriad configurations of moving or detachable keyboards.

Block those Android apps that want to access your private data

Ever noticed that so many apps need access to your contact lists, browser history, location, and other personal data?

As part of a fight back against this data-gobbling trend, a Bulgarian software developer has rewritten Google's Android Operating System (OS) so that it gives apps bogus data.

Under the radical rebuild of the mobile Operating System, you still click to grant apps permission to access your data, but the apps don't get the real stuff. 
For bookmarks, it provides default ones that came with the device (such as www.google.com).
For logs — which can store all sorts of data — and phone contacts, it simply returns empty ones.

"I don't like applications accessing my location or phone book," says the developer, Plamen Kosseff, who by day writes code for a software company, ProSyst, in Sofia, Bulgaria. "Why should they be accessing my phone book to see data I have from other people?"

Windows Phone takes over iPhone in China

Mobile phones running on Google’s Android Operating System (OS) have “hit their peak”, but Microsoft’s entrant to the mobile world — the Windows Phone — is moving in on its rivals, ZTE’s Executive Vice-president He Shiyou toldChina Daily on Friday.

ZTE is one of the largest phone equipment makers in the world.
It launched a Windows Phone this month on its ZTE Orbit device, making Orbit the latest smartphone device to enter the hot Chinese mobile market.
The company said it hopes to sell more than 30 million smartphones this year, of which the Windows Phone is expected to account for about 10% of that business.

“The market share of Android-based phones has almost hit its peak, while the Windows Phone devices have been gaining momentum since the fourth quarter of last year,” he told the paper, adding the Windows Phone push is part of ZTE’s overall plan to diversify its product portfolio.

Microsoft bans HTC from Windows 8 tablets launch first batch

HTC, the Taiwanese electronics company, has been denied the opportunity to release some of the first tablets running Microsoft’s Windows 8 because its sales have weakened.

Bloomberg News reported on the Microsoft decision on 6^th June 212, the same day Taiwan-based HTC reported its second quarter revenue would be off by 13% after its first quarter revenue tumbled by 35% from the year ago quarter.
It also didn’t help that HTC shipments to the United States were held up by US Customs for two weeks last month before HTC was cleared of patent infringement allegations by Apple.

Microsoft told Bloomberg that HTC is a strong partner now and for the future, without commenting specifically on its relationship with HTC.
The company could still make Windows 8 tablets, but it wouldn’t be in the first batch of machines to reach the market.

BlackBerry' decline is worrying for many

US President Barack Obama couldn't bear to part with his Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry.

Oprah Winfrey declared it one of her "favorite things."
It could be so addictive that it was nicknamed "the CrackBerry."

Then came a new generation of competing smartphones, and suddenly the BlackBerry, that game-changing breakthrough in personal connectedness, looks ancient.

There is even talk that the fate of Research In Motion, the company that fathered the BlackBerry in 1999, is no longer certain as its flagship property rapidly loses market share to flashier phones like Apple's iPhone and models driven by Google Android.

With more than US$2 billion in cash, bankruptcy for RIM seems highly unlikely in the near term, but these are troubling times for Waterloo, Ontario, the town of 100,000 that was transformed by the BlackBerry into Canada's Silicon Valley.
RIM is Canada's most valuable technology company, an international icon so prestigious that founder Mike Lazaridis and its other driving force, Jim Balsillie, are on an official government list of national heroes, alongside the likes of Alexander Graham Bell.

In May 2012, 900,000 Android devices activated per day

Andy Rubin revealed that Google activates 900,000 Android devices per day yesterday, on the eve of Apple's developer conference.

Google's Android Chief disclosed the activations while dispelling rumors circulated by Robert Scoble about leaving for startup CloudCar.
Rubin isn't going anywhere.

He last disclosed activations per day - 850,000 - on 27^th February 2012.
The new number means 27 million a month or 81 million every 90 days.

That number is consistent with actual smartphone sales.
Gartner, which tracks sales to end users rather than the analyst firm standard of shipments into the channel, reports 81.067 million Androids sold during first quarter - again, that's smartphones and doesn't include tablets.
By comparison, Apple sold 33.1 million iPhones, but the number doesn't include iPad or iPod Touch.

Lamborghini launches gold-plated Android smartphones and tablet

Lamborghini yesterday unveiled a new line of Android-powered smartphones and tablets that will only be sold in Russia. 

The smartphone is called the TL700 (pictue right) and features a 3.7" 800x480 resolution touchscreen display.
There's 4GB of memory and a 5 MP camera in the back.

The body is gold plated and the back is laced with crocodile skin.
Unfortunately, Lambo paid more attention to the aesthetics as it opted for ageing Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

This will cost an astronomical US$2,743 (€1,977).