Fun Facts about New Nokia’s

Hey cats and kittens, here’s an exciting little piece of news we wanted to share with you. Thanks to the love and support of our readers, our iPhone app has just crossed the million downloads mark in the App Store! That is, of course, just iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users — we’re growing our numbers steadily across BlackBerry, webOS, and Android formats as well. And Speaking of Android, we’ve got a little update that’s available right now in the Market which should fix those nasty force close issues some users were seeing. If you’re still having issues, make sure you reach out to us — we really love the feedback! We’ve also just issued a webOS update, so look for that on your Pre or Pixi. We have even more stuff in the pipeline as far as apps are concerned, including a major forthcoming iPhone update, as well as updates and tweaks for the other existing apps… and we’re at work on a dedicated iPad application as we speak!

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Today Garmin-Asus announced a new Android smartphone, the A10. The device packs a 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen display, a 1,500mAh battery, the Android standard WebKit browser, and a 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus. The A10 comes with all of Android’s standard Google offerings including Maps, GMail, YouTube, calendar, the Android Market, and more, as well as full Exchange support for syncing contacts, calendar, and email. As a Garmin product, it also offers Garmin’s voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation software as well as cityXplorer maps for creating routes with available public transportation options including the bus, tram, metro, and train systems.

The A10 is expected to retail in mid-2010 in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Pricing and possible carrier partners have not yet been announced.

All credits and information was found on mobileburn.com

Before the iPhone’s release, there were four major smartphone operating systems — Symbian, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry OS. And after the iPhone’s release, their user interfaces all seemed dated in some way. Palm OS and Windows Mobile have essentially been replaced by new operating systems dubbed WebOS and Windows Phone 7. Symbian stakeholders, though, has decided that there is no need to throw out the past completely, and are instead looking toward a series of evolutionary upgrades to make the now open source operating system more competitive.

This week at RIM’s WES conference, the company is announcing a similar evolutionary path for the BlackBerry OS. Like Symbian, the BlackBerry OS has a reputation for being fast and efficient but has not kept up with many of the aesthetic and input amenities offered by more modern competitors. The challenge will be to preserve what users love about the platform while disrupting it in many ways. For example, while the new BlackBerry OS will be better optimized for touchscreens, reports are that it will not require one.

RIM is launching a multi-pronged plan to ripen the BlackBerry OS. Elements include replacing its browser with one using the same WebKit engine used in the default browsers of Android, iPhone OS, and WebOS. For all the discussion about the apps race that occurs, a solid browser experience is still important to reach a vast array of web content that has not been made available as apps for any smartphone platform. Another is enhancing the operating system to take better advantage of touchscreens after the makeover that has graced the BlackBerry Storm has proven unsatisfying. These improvements should include support for the kinds of “physics”-based effects, gestures, and transitions we see in competitors to BlackBerry OS. In addition, key RIM applications such as the e-mail client and the media playback application should also see upgrades.

It’s no coincidence that RIM has decided to upgrade the BlackBerry OS in an evolutionary way similarly to how Symbian is being upgraded. Whereas Symbian has the highest smartphone market share globally, RIM has the highest share in the U.S. In contrast, Windows Mobile and Palm OS were struggling with low market share that begged a more radical approach. At least in the medium-term RIM’s approach places its OS revamp lower in the risk-reward curve than Mirosoft’s or Palm’s resets. While RIM’s significant enhancements may bring the BlackBerry experience roughly on par with the current Android or iPhone experience, it risks failing to create something beyond what competitors are doing. In contrast, Windows Phone 7’s hubs and WebOS’s Synergy architecture offer levels of integration that differentiate them.

Different doesn’t necessarily mean better, though. RIM has been the most successful smartphone vendor by far at combining its own software into a portfolio of devices, albeit one anchored on the familiar Curve, Tour and Bold QWERTY candy bar form factors. As the market shifts toward touch — either with or without physical keyboards — providing a roughly on par experience that doesn’t take big bets on motifs like social networking may a double-edged sword. RIM is taking on many of the user experience attributes that have helped create success for Android, but it may not be enough to defend against the multi-vendor assault of the Google-backed OS.

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

It’s official, the Google Nexus One has landed on Vodafone. Interested customers eager to get their hands on the definitive Google superphone can head over to Vodafone’s UK website where pre-orders are being accepted starting today. The Nexus One will be available for free on a 24-month, minimum £35 ($55 USD) monthly price plan or an 18 month, minimum £40 ($62 USD) plan. Each price plan will include 1GB of cellular data usage and an additional 1Gb of data usage when connected to premium BT Openzone hotspots. Unlike the American version of the handset, Vodafone — not Google — will be providing direct support for the handset. Accordingly, the Nexus One will be also be sold in Vodafone retail stores, on Vodafone’s website, and via telesales starting April 30th.

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com

According to a report from Reuters, HTC has dropped the idea of acquiring Palm after a close examining the ailing company’s books. Reuters quoted an unnamed source in Taiwan who was involved in the dead deal as saying “there just weren’t enough synergies to take the deal forward.” This means HTC has joined a growing list of companies that have decided against making a bid for Palm including Dell and Huawei. The CEO of Huawei-rival ZTE informed Reuters his company has not made a move. At present it seems Lenovo, which had over $2.4 billion in cash reserves at the end of 2009, is the new front-runner having said to be entertaining the idea of making an offer to the tune of $1.3 billion dollar, or 30% above Palm’s market cap. Shares in Lenovo rose in Asia on the news.

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com

Yesterday, AT&T had its say by announcing its Q1 2010 results, so it is only fitting today is Verizon’s turn. Unfortunately for Big Red, it didn’t fare as well as Ma Bell. Over the past three months, 423,000 new post-paid customers put ink to a contract. Overall, Verizon gained 1.5 million net customers to bring its overall total to 92.8 million. Postpaid churn matched AT&T’s 1.07%, while the overall rate was 1.4%. ARPU overall remained unchanged from Q1 2009 at $50.95 thanks in part to a 19.6% gain in data ARPU to $17.06 which helped offset the lower ARPU for traditional voice services. Revenue as a whole was up 4.4% to $15.8 billion. Service revenues were only slightly up, but once again, retail data proved to be a proficient money-maker increasing 25.6% to $4.5 billion.

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com

Hot damn, people. The mother of all Dell leaks just dropped into our laps, and the absolute highlight has to be the Lightning, a Windows Phone 7 portrait slider. That’s right — a portrait slider. The renders on these slides look slick as hell, but they’re no match for the spec sheet, which looks even better: 1GHz QSD8250 Snapdragon processor, WVGA 4.1-inch OLED display, AT&T and T-Mobile 3G, five megapixel autofocus camera, 1GB of flash with 512MB RAM plus 8GB of storage on a MicroSD card (non-user-replaceable, we’re assuming), GPS, accelerometer, compass, FM radio, and full Flash support including video playback. Release date is pegged at Q4, so this is obviously a WP7 launch device, but here’s the real kicker — other slides in the deck indicate this thing is getting an upgrade to LTE in Q4 of 2011. Are we stoked? Yes, you might say that. Check out all the slides in the gallery below, and stay tuned — this storm of leaks isn’t nearly over.

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Today Verizon Wireless and Samsung introduced the Reality, a new touch phone that also has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for messaging. The Reality has a 3-inch display and runs Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface, which lets users place widgets on the home screen. Verizon is pitching the Reality as a social networking phone. One of the widgets in TouchWiz is called ‘Communities’, which lets users access their social networks to update their status as well as upload pictures and videos. Stand-out features include a full HTML web browser, a 3.2 megapixel camera with video capture, and support for Exchange email. The Reality also has Bluetooth, support for microSD cards up to 16GB, and the full suite of Verizon’s V CAST services. The Reality goes on sale April 22 for $80 with new contract.

All credits and information was found on phonescoop.com

A Sprint spokesperson told Barron’s that Radio Shack will begin phasing out the webOS powered Palm Pre and Palm Pixi phones in favor of a new smartphone. Speculation has it that the new device could be an upcoming BlackBerry device, although that has not yet been confirmed. “This is in line with Radio Shack’s normal product planning process - there is a designated amount of space in stores for handsets and they work to keep the lineup of devices as current as possible,” Sprint told Barron’s.

All credits and information was found on mobileburn.com

How can you not love Sprint when it pulls stunts like this? Following up on its 4G iPhone commercial, the Now Network has absolutely outdone itself with the introduction of the Sprint 4G Case for iPad. That’s right… the Sprint 4G Case for the freakin’ iPad. Available for free at Best Buy with the purchase of a Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot, the case — which technically is a folio plus removable zip-up sleeve — will not only afford your iPad a lot more protection than Apple’s craptastic iPad case, but also give you significant amounts of geek cred. And life’s all about the geek cred, right? Respects.

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com