Things that aren’t static
You may have noticed that not everyone is a massive fans of the iPhone.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t millions of people who are.
One such is tech-chum Richard Lai.
Not only is iPhone fandom in his blood, but so it writing, photographing and documenting.
The European Union has laid out a new set of rules for mobile phone users wandering over the hills and plains of Europe in a move that should see bills slashed by around 60 per cent.
Anyone who’s used their mobile phone in Europe will have experienced the pain of the wallet draining bill when you get home, but the new rules will see text message charges cut to €0.11 (before VAT), a substantial reduction on the current €0.28 rate.
Apple has announced the latest update to its hugely successful iPhone range at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The new iPhone 3GS offers several new features and upgrades, including onboard memory capacity doubled to 32GB, voice activated dialling, MMS messaging, 3-megapixel camera, a digital compass, Tom Tom compatibility and – finally – the ability to record videos and copy and paste text.
Palm’s make-or-break new Pre handset launched over the weekend in the States, and we’ve been trawling through the reviews to see how’s the new handset has gone down.
Overall, it seems that the phone has been very well received, gaining plaudits for its interface, operating system and form factor, although not everyone likes the keyboard and there’s been some doubts about the battery life and the lack of available apps.
Handset browser Opera Mobile has just hit version 9.7 claiming that its superfast rendering will ‘leave rivals in the dust’ boasting added performance, Opera Turbo and Opera Widgets.
3G data dongles are all over the place these days.
Virgin’s is manufactured by Huawei (who seem to be the vendor of choice for 3G dongles), it’s actually a Huawei E160, (background on Huawei) for those that care.
It’s a USB stick which plugs into any spare USB port. When plugged in, as well as being a 3G dongle, it appears to the operating system as as CD as well which contains the software to drive the dongle.
There’s been loads of ‘leaks’ of the next generation of the less-than-popular Microsoft portable media player, the Zune.
Named Zune HD, it’s a heck of a lot better looking than all of the previous Zunes, as does the interface. Gone is the round button, opting instead for a full touch screen.
The HD-ness is two fold –
After the runaway success of Apple’s AppStore for the iPhone, every mobile OS has been falling over itself to get a piece of action, with the Android Market and Windows Media Marketplace already up and running.
Now it’s the turn of the 50 million Nokia phone owners to join in the downloading scrum, with the Ovi Store opening for business in Australia, Singapore, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Ireland and the UK (the U.S won’t have access to the Ovi Store until later this year)
The smartphone market is set to heat up over the next few months, with the big guns all rolling out what they hope will turn into summer blockbusters.
Some of the most eagerly anticipated handsets include the third-gen iPhone, Samsung’s Android device, Blackberry’s update to the touchscreen Storm and Palm’s new Pre phone, running their shiny new webOS.
With the US launch of the hugely hyped Palm Pre handset just ten days away, rumours, leaks, screengrabs and videos have been leaking all over the web.
The guide to Palm’s innovative gesture-based interface can now be read in full online here, detailing how actions like opening apps, closing programs, scrolling and zooming can be achieved.