Archives for March 2010

Zune HD 64GB Model Coming Soon

If you check out the Zune website today and specifically look at the HD model you’ll see that it now has a 3rd model listed that sees the Zune HD come in three capacities of 16GB, 32GB and the new 64GB.

When clicking on either the 16GB or 32GB links you get taken to a specific product page explaining the details of each of the said models. However, when clicking the 64GB link you get taken to an error message saying the page cannot be found.

We suspect that Microsoft [MSFT] have either let something slip a little earlier by updating the Zune HD page with th 64GB information, or that an announcement is coming today regarding a new higher capacity Zune HD device. [Read more…]

Apple iPad App Store on Video

Yes, there’s going to be plenty of Apple iPad news this week although we’ll try keep it to just 2 or 3 per day out of the 20 or so news items per day we post… at least we hope to keep it to just that.

The next bit of info we have spotted shows someone browsing through the Apple iPad app store looking through the various HD and iPad applications that they are revealed as being named as.

Not much works in the app browser although the user can flick through applications and select them to view a write up of what the application is about. However, a number of the buttons do not work which includes the ability to Sign In, Redeem or use Support. [Read more…]

Apple iPad Flash Problems partially solved by Brightcove

The Apple iPad lacks flash as you are probably already aware of. That does upset a number of people who want to use a larger screen tablet device to browse the web and yet, they see boxes asking for Flash to be installed.

A number of companies are switching video content over to use the new HTML5 specification that allows videos to play back in the browser (including the iPhone and iPad browser).

Brightcove are getting in on this by creating software that websites can use to play Brightcove videos which use the HTML5 spec and can work on devices such as the Apple iPad and iPhone.

The software uses auto-detection and can switch over the video to be compatible if it recognises the device cannot use flash. [Read more…]

Apple iPad Now Shipping to Arrive April 3

Good news for those who got their iPad pre-orders in early enough as to not get their Apple [AAPL] device late. We notice that pre-orderers are now receiving notification that their Apple iPad is now in transit with a delivery date of April 3 as expected.

The above screen shot shows the delivery notification along with a button on how to track the shipment (see below for a larger screen shot). [Read more…]

Windows Phone 7 Series Unofficially Lands on HTC HD2

We’ve been told officially now that the HTC HD2 is not going to be getting a Windows Phone 7 Series upgrade due to the HD2 not meeting the technical chassis requirements, ie, it doesn’t have the three hardware buttons on the front face and potentially doesn’t meet other hardware and graphical requirements. Either way, it didn’t stop the HTC HD2 on T-Mobile last week from selling lots of units.

Anyway, we are now hearing that someone has managed to port a real working ROM of an early Windows Phone 7 Series build on to a HD2 over in Russia.

As well as getting the ROM working on the HD2 handset, we hear that most of the features work which includes Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and all other hardware functions which is good news. The downside is that the UI is quite choppy and laggy at the moment although we should note that this is common when porting a ROM from one device to another, or installing a ROM any any device that wasn’t really designed to be used on the hardware. Give them another month and they should be able to iron out that choppiness quite a bit. [Read more…]

Spotify US Launch Date Roughly Revealed

Spotify have provided a rough launch date saying that they expect the service to go live in the 3rd quarter of this year.

The information came from an interview with Paul Brown (senior VP) who also commented that the company are buying server space across various datacentres in the US. Also they are working on licensing too with various labels and publishers. Due to the sheer amount of them in the US it’s taking a while to get through the list.

An update to the Apple iPhone Spotify App has also been revealed that will see a number of features added including Last.fm and the ability to open Spotify links from the web browser and Facebook application. [Read more…]

Apple iPad Store Screenshots Spotted

Yesterday we came across a number of Apple iPad apps that were showing up on the web based iTunes app store. Those items were quickly removed and no longer are listed there. However, someone managed to stumble across the Apple iPad feed for the app store and created this list of what the store will probably look like.

As with the leak yesterday (linked above) the leak also found yesterday (what we are posting here) shows various HD versions of software that are going to the iPad such as Labyrinth 2 and Flight Control.

Screenshots shown below show the app store and what it will look like along with pricing which incidentally shows apps being higher price which is understandable. Also it appears that those apps that have been specifically designed to work on the larger screen will also require that you repurchase the iPad version from what we understand. This might upset a few folk, but when Apple first presented the iPad it was mentioned that iPhone apps would work where they would be zoomed to fill the screen… those apps that have already been purchased won’t need to be repurchased from what we hear. [Read more…]

Apple now owns the iPad Trademark

Apple [AAPL] now have charge of the iPad trademark (serial number 76497338) and are now on the legal side of things in terms of calling the Apple iPad just that.

Previously the trademark was owned by Fujitsu who registered it in March 2003 when they created a wireless handheld computer specifically used by retailers called the iPad.

From what we see the iPad trademark was assigned over to Apple on March 17 this year just in time for the iPad to launch next week. [Read more…]

Contest: Win a Nokia X6 Smartphone with 1 Year “Comes with Music” Subscription

Update: The competition has now closed and we will announce the winner this coming Monday, so stay tuned.

We also will announce a new competition Monday to give you the chance to win an LG Crystal mobile phone.

We have a Nokia X6 “Comes with Music” smartphone to give away in this weeks competition. The phone is brand new, boxed and comes with a years subscription to download music from Nokia. The phone comes courtesy of the guys over at Inside Nokia Music.

We are opening up the competition to readers worldwide and to be eligible for entry you just need to follow the simple instructions after the picture below. [Read more…]

LG X140 Netbook with Intel Atom N470 Clears FCC

LG have passed another netbook to the FCC recently. The latest gaining approval is the LG X140 that features an Intel Atom N470 processor that runs at 1.83GHz.

Other features included in the X140 netbook include wireless connectivity at 801.11b/g/n speeds along with Bluetooth. The LG netbook will run Windows 7 Starter Edition when launched and will have a few names depending on spec and location which are the LGX14, LGX14A, XB140 and the XD140.

The screen on the X140 netbook measures 10.1 inches and is said to have a HD resolution we believe 1366 x 780. [Read more…]

HTC HD2 on T-Mobile Sells Well on First Day

Just a couple of days ago the T-Mobile HTC HD2 went on sale. Following on from the previous day’s announcement of the HTC EVO 4G we expected sales to suffer a little, but if the rumours are true then the HTC HD2 is still selling well.

We are hearing that around 21,700 units were sold via retail and employee sales. It isn’t clear if the numbers represent online sales. If not then the number will increase quite a bit.

It’s not bad despite a few kicks in the teeth that it’s had recently with the HTC EVO 4G announcement and the whole Windows Phone 7 Series thing where Microsoft [MSFT] confirmed the HD2 was not going to get the new OS. Either way, it all seems to have worked out well for T-Mobile. [Read more…]

The Real cost of the Apple iPad

Voucher Codes in the UK decided to put together quite a cool infographic (if that’s the right word for it), that shows the real price of an Apple iPad and confirms if the $499 price tag is as “unbelievable” as they repeatedly have said.

First impressions of the iPad pricing is that we all expected it to cost $1000 or so, so when the lowest spec model came in at $499 it seemed like a good deal.

The infographic is based on old Apple products that have launched over the last 24 years and includes the likes of the Apple Lisa, Apple I, II and III right up to the iPhone, iMac and the Apple iPad. [Read more…]