News and Reviews for July 2nd 2010

July 2nd, 2010 — 6:33pm written by Kristofer Brozio

It’s Friday, and it’s a holiday weekend here.. July 4th falls on Sunday this year, so that means every one news gets an extra day off Monday.. if you saw the post earlier I’ve got my hands on the Droid X, and I have to say I love it and I may have to switch to Verizon now just so I can own this phone…  I should have my full review up over on TestFreaks early next week, along with the review of the new BlackBerry Bold and the Samsung Gravity T, and then I’ve got two more phones after that… Lots of phones lately wow..

Anyway, why don’t you read on for the latest news from around the world and I’ll get back to work, or playing with the Droid X…

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Is The Leaked HTC HD3 Windows Phone 7 Device To Good To Be True? Right Now It Is.

July 2nd, 2010 — 3:35pm written by Doug Smith

How great would it have been to go into the long weekend with HTC HD3 Windows Phone 7 Device looking promising on our horizon? A few websites are running some of the photos below that were originally developed by NAK and posted on WMPU on March 11th. Gizmodo put the breaks on the latest frenzy of HTC HD3 Leaked photos after Mobility Site caught it floating around on a THIS website. Regardless of the chain of events, the photos are fake and all we can do is hope that the HTC HD3 will someday get real for us. Here are some of the photos for those of you that are hopeful like me.

  • htchd3-1 4.5″ WXGA Super AMOLED multi-touch display
  • 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash
  • 720p HD video recording
  • 1080p HD playback
  • Wi-Fi / Bluetooth
  • 3G / 4G connectivity
  • 32GB microSD support
  • 1GB RAM / 1GB ROM
  • 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor
  • 1800 mAh battery
  • 115mm x 65mm x 10mm

    • Is it real? Could it be our wait is almost over and Microsoft is going to come out packing a punch with some HTC horsepower under the hood? Nothing is for sure but this is exactly what Microsoft needs to do to get Windows Phone 7 off the ground.

    htchd3-2 htchd3-3

    Thanks Wendy!

    [via BGR] [read]

    2 comments - Latest comments by:
    • Padrino: i want this phone...... how muchhh!!!!!!11
    • Mike Vee: That looks beautiful.. now if they create the HD3 with a physical slideout keyboard I would be suckered to buy ...

    2 comments » | Windows Phone

    Free App Friday Continues: GpsSpot for Windows Mobile Touch Screen

    July 2nd, 2010 — 10:24am written by Doug Smith

    handangofreeappfriday Here is some free goodness from Handango to start our Holiday Weekend off right!

    GpsSpot for Windows Mobile Touch Screen

    Have you ever found yourself wandering around a mall parking lot trying to find your car? Wander no more with GpsSpot. GpsSpot is a simple to use app that utilizes the GPS functionality on your phone to point you in the right direction. Simply save your spot on your smartphone and GpsSpot’s user-friendly interface provides you with a direction and distance to help you get where you’re going quickly and easily. Never find yourself lost again! Download GpsSpot now by using 100% off code FAF702.

    gpsspot136x200Features include:

    • Picture support for assigning images to saved spots
    • Display of distance, current altitude, and current speed
    • Support via a detailed help file
    • Language support for English, German, and Turkish

    Head on over to Handango for more information and to download your copy FREE!

    CLICK HERE

    1 comment - Latest comments by:
    • jimski: Yeah, now I know that my house is 5,604 miles from the Great Pyramid of Giza. And at 67 feet ...

    1 comment » | Uncategorized

    There’s Nothing Wrong with the Antenna in the iPhone 4

    July 2nd, 2010 — 7:09am written by Kristofer Brozio

    …You’re just holding it wrong, no wait that’s not it either, it’s because it’s how we calculate signal bars..umm… so which is it? Is there a problem? DO you know what the problem is? Are we just making things up now?!

    Here’s the letter Apple just released:

    The iPhone 4 has been the most successful product launch in Apple’s history. It has been judged by reviewers around the world to be the best smartphone ever, and users have told us that they love it. So we were surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and we immediately began investigating them. Here is what we have learned.

    To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.

    At the same time, we continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS. They are delighted. This matches our own experience and testing. What can explain all of this?

    We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

    Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

    To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

    We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

    We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same– the iPhone 4′s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused.

    As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

    We hope you love the iPhone 4 as much as we do. Thank you for your patience and support. Apple

    Web Site: http://www.apple.com/

    6 comments - Latest comments by:
    • jimski: I don't bother looking at the bars. I just ask my phone, using Voice Command, wnat my signal strength is. ...
    • sm0k3ydaband1t: i like how HTC was not mentioned in the list of phones that also drop bars when holding the phone ...

    6 comments » | Uncategorized

    Is The iPhone4 Lawsuit The Stupidest Thing Ever? [Poll]

    July 1st, 2010 — 10:01pm written by David K

    imageEveryone loves this ongoing story about how shitty the iPhone 4’s reception is and now that a lawsuit was filed the blogosphere’s are jumping all over it. But just think about this for a minute. Ok, you go into a store to buy a cd player, you get it home and it blows chunks. What do you do? Option 1 is to return it for a refund. Option 2 is to keep it and then sue the hell out of the manufacturer for “emotional distress, aggravation, annoyance and inconvenience”. Yeah, I know these guys were dumb enough to buy iPhones but apparently they’re so dumb they didn’t think of just doing what everyone else does when they buy a lemon and just returning the damn thing.

    Generally, the law is set up to make you whole – to get you back to where you were before you were wronged. It’s not intended to let you sue when someone sells a shitty product. We’ve all bought low-end products in our day – that didn’t mean we had a right to sue over it. But let’s keep going. They claim fraud in these papers. Fraud means Apple knew of these problems and intentionally concealed them. Hard to imagine that has any merit since if Apple knew of this even I think they would have moved the antennas or covered them somehow. The papers continue and they claim that the phone is unfit as a phone and therefore it should be removed from the market (as well as result in more damages). OK, think about this again. You go to buy a stereo and you get home and crank up the volume and it’s ok but not great. Do you get to sue? No – return the shitty product. Again, there are great phones and mediocre phones but in the end the iPhone 4 makes phone calls. You can’t say it’s so bad at holding a call that it isn’t a phone. I mean, come on. Now I’ve tried to ‘death grip’ three different WM phones by holding them in various ways and I can’t find a death grip but most experts do say that phones have a vulnerable portion (where the antennae is) and holding a phone over that area will degrade the signal. It so happens that with the iPhone it’s such an easy spot to find and proof to show.

    Anyway, this suit only really seems to work for those who already bought them. I mean, if you buy now you have to know about this as a problem. Sure, you’ll claim that AT&T and Steve-O told you that there were no issues and you were tricked, but if you’re that easily tricked then you deserve it:) Enough from me, shout out – is this litigation totally ridiculous? I think best case scenario they get some rubber bands to cover their phones for free…

    [poll id="14"]

    7 comments - Latest comments by:
    • OregonJeff: @Murani Lewis: There are no folding chairs on teh Interwebs.
    • Murani Lewis: And yet its the greatest thing since sliced bread. The EVO gets bashed for its issues while the iPhone ...

    7 comments » | Android, iPhone

    Froyo’s Unsung Improvements

    July 1st, 2010 — 1:26pm written by Eric Greenwood

    So, you’ve waited and waited and still no magical over-the-air Froyo sent to your Nexus One? I always feel like I’m last in line at Google, despite my entire world being married to its almighty cloud. So, I took matters into my own hands. I haven’t rooted my Nexus One because I paid a chunk of change for this unlocked beast, so I waited for the leak of a final, stable Froyo build that would work on my late edition EPE54B firmware (that’s the newest stock AT&T version of the N1). The manual instructions are beyond easy, especially if you come from the world of flash-happy Windows Mobile. I must admit I was slightly nervous, despite having flashed my old Fuze no less than 100 times because, well, my Nexus One’s standard issue firmware was both slick and stable, and I didn’t want to rock the boat unnecessarily. I figured a manual update wasn’t too risky, and I couldn’t resist the lure of Google’s latest dessert. The flash worked like a champ, and I was up and running in less than 15 minutes. All the heavily touted new features were finally at my fingertips, but what’s really impressed me are the subtle changes and fixes. That annoying glitch with Google Voice, where your contact pictures got zapped if you happened to sync your contacts with Facebook…fixed! My biggest complaint about the Android keyboard was the inefficient access to punctuation other than the ubiquitous period. Now a row of commonly used punctuation marks appears just above where you type. Awesome. Also slightly annoying was the fact that on Android 2.1, Google Talk would alert you when someone messaged you, but if you happened to pick up the conversation on your desktop, you were stuck with only that initial message when you switched back to your phone. With Froyo, the Google Talk application syncs up real time with whatever conversations you have on your desktop Gmail or Google Talk clients. The overall speed is improved, although I didn’t really have any complaints in that department, but the biggest coup of all is the battery life. I’m not sure what magical gremlins the gods at Google unleashed on the battery problem, but if you’ve picked up any Android device in the last year, you can practically watch the battery drain just holding the phone in your hand and staring at it. It would have been a deal-breaker had the spare battery not been so cheap. But, since My Froyo update, I’ve put this beast through its paces and noticed drastic improvements in staying power. Even streamed World Cup from it at work thanks to the beta Flash release for Froyo, and it only knocked off a few percentage points. Anyone noticed any other subtle improvements?

    5 comments - Latest comments by:
    • customized jerseys nfl: What number of survivors of your nuclear battle can it take to attach in the light bulb? Not one, because ...
    • ViZZiATO: @jayhov @jromach8 http://android.mobilitydigest.com/froyos-unsung-improvements/ John read this article about much better froyo is!! SWEET!

    5 comments » | Android

    Yahoo Launches Mail and Messenger for Android

    July 1st, 2010 — 1:22pm written by Doug Smith

    yahooandroid Good news for all you Android owners with Yahoo accounts! Yahoo has just launched Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger apps for Android as well as a Yahoo! Search Widget for Android. Yahoo has 600 million customers and making these apps available to the red hot Android market makes a lot of sense. Yahoo has also improved the apps by using HTML5:

    "With the availability of our world-class Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger apps for Android and by harnessing the latest in HTML5, we’re making it easier than ever for consumers to access fast, reliable, and feature-rich Yahoo! experiences across some of the fastest growing platforms in the market."

    For more information, jump after the break for the Yahoo Press Release or head on over to Yahoo to download here: http://ymobileblog.com/

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    Android 2.1 With Sense Released For HD2

    July 1st, 2010 — 10:32am written by David K

    There were videos a few days ago and now there’s a download available. Here’s a look at it in action:

    The video ends in a blue screen of death so that should give you an indication about the stability at this point but for those of you who have to try the latest tell us how it works out.

    More information and the download link can be found here.

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    Comments Off | Android

    MS On The Record About WP7 Gaming

    July 1st, 2010 — 9:01am written by David K

    imageAaron Woodman, Director of Windows Phone Product Management went live on WindowsPhone7.com the other day to talk about gaming on WP7. There’s some confirmations and some news. Here’s what we heard:

    • Holiday is absolute the release date and that means in time for most consumers to walk into a store for holiday shopping
    • In terms of marketing, he said it’s really the first time in Windows mobile history that they’ve really decided to make a significant investors and we’ll see that across digital and across partners. Sounds like a large marketing plan in the works
    • At launch you will not be able to pause a game on the phone and continue it on the Xbox or vice versa.
    • As far as game availability across different markets, you need to have both Marketplace availability which will be broad but limited by things like tax laws. Also, some developers may choose to not publish to all markets because of things like heavy text games that won’t work in other countries.
    • You will not get invitations on your phone to play Xbox console games.
    • Microtransactions (the ability to buy more levels within a game) will not exist at launch
    • If you get a call during a game you’ll get a grayed out screen and the game is paused in the background. Save state will work across all apps though so if you switch to email that can work as well
    • Microsoft has a group within MS that goes to publishers to get them to develop games and they will be pushing WP7 and he hints that there will be a large number of titles at launch because of this.
    • He himself hasn’t played too many games on the actual device but he has played some that have blown him away.

    He suggested at multiple times that there are a lot of ideas in the works for gaming and MS will be integrating them over time.

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    1 comment » | Windows Phone, Xbox

    I Left My Phone At Home For Android – Beta Available

    June 30th, 2010 — 10:10pm written by David K

    imageThose of us with WM devices probably know about I Left My Phone At Home. Here’s how I described it in the past:

    Once you install this app on your phone you can log on to a website so that you notify it that you left your phone at home. From then on all of your calls and texts will appear on the website. From there you can read your texts, respond to them (or missed calls) from the site (which routes the text through your phone), view your battery level, number of missed calls, number of emails and see your upcoming appointments. You can even set up an autoresponse to all missed texts and calls, so you can set it to “I left my phone at home today. if you need me just call me in the office.”

    It’s a great app and as the title suggests, there’s a beta available for Android now. So check er out! Smile Just go to: http://phonehome.me/ilmpah_beta.apk

    3 comments - Latest comments by:
    • Auri Rahimzadeh: Ok - database issue solved. New installer is online. Enjoy! :) Best, -Auri
    • Auri Rahimzadeh: We were having some issues with the database being created and will be releasing a fix today. Sorry folks, it *is* ...

    3 comments » | Android

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