Gadget Venue

The official BlackBerry youtube channel has had a video uploaded to it teasing BlackBerry OS 6. The sneak peak shows the interface with a large touchscreen and virtual keyboard which is a step away from the normal BlackBerry norm other than the likes of the Storm 2.

The video shows some media with a lot of interaction over various means such as Twitter, Facebook and text/MMS messages.

It actually looks quite good and very workable. It is still unclear though when RIM will be launching the new OS. We had heard rumours of last month, but that never happened. [Read more…]

Microsoft [MSFT] has launched the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta version. Microsoft clarify that Beta means that the tools are almost ready to be launched and that it represents a near final version of the software.

Since the initial CTP release of the tools just this March, the Windows Phone Developer Tool CTP has been widely embraced by the community, and they have shown what’s possible on our new development platform.

It’s time to get serious about building the actual apps and games for Windows Phone 7 that consumers will be looking for starting this holiday season.

[Read more…]

Over the weekend Geohot (George Hotz) write a post titled just “Meh” showing an iPhone 4 jailbreak, ie the iPhone 4 running Cydia. We now see that Geohot has closed his blog off and made it a members only place requiring that those who want access get invited.

George updated the latest post on his blog with the following statement last night…

Sorry, this post was probably a bad idea. Next time I won’t say anything. I miss when this blog was actually about technical things(I’ve been reacting too much to the feedback, which led it to the place it’s in now). I didn’t fully realize most of the current scene don’t care unless they are getting something. Now I do. It’s late tonight, I’ll think about what to do about this in the morning.

The real reason behind no release isn’t technical. It’s just that it will never stop, after blackra1n, people demand unlock, after blacksn0w, people demand untethered. I miss the days when jailbreaking and unlocking were difficult, it attracted a much higher caliber crowd. Also, to the haters, the picture is quite obviously fake.

[Read more…]

T-Mobile is about to release the T-Mobile webConnect Rocket 2.0. The mobile broadband dongle can connect up to HSPA+ networks and can achieve up to 4G speeds for those on the go.

The new webConnect Rocket 2.0 model also can be plugged in to a Mac as well as a Windows based PC allowing more people to make use of the dongle. Up to 16GB of memory can be used on the device.

As well as working at 4G speeds over the HSPA+ network, the mobile broadband dongle can also connect to 3G and EDGE when the faster HSPA+ service isn’t available. [Read more…]

T-Mobile has dropped the Garminfone down $70 which takes the price on contract down to $129.99. To get the satnav phone at that price you still need to sign up for a two year agreement with T-Mobile though.

Yair Reiner, an analyst, recently calculated that only 20,000 Garminfones had been sold which isn’t a lot compared to the success of various Android handsets and the iPhone 4.

Hopefully the price drop will get a few more people interested in the device as so far, it hasn’t done well at all. We first tested a Garminfone back in April 2009 and it suffered a lot of delays which turned a good phone in to something not realy wanted by the time it came out it seems. [Read more…]

The graph shown here represents the number of Android apps being launched in the Market Place over time.

As you can see, the number is increasing rapidly and it is expected that this month (July) there will be over 100,000 apps in total in the app store. Right now there are over 90,000 apps. A year ago that number was closer to 7000. Growth rate looks to be accelerating also.

A second graph found on Android Lib shows that every month in the last year has seen more and more apps approved. Last month was the highest month with 15288 apps being added. This month in the first 12 days is already at 9163 which indicates almost 24,000 apps could be added this month. [Read more…]

Apple [AAPL] has decided it’s time to promote FaceTime a little more than previously. FaceTime is part of the iPhone 4 and lets iPhone 4 users make video calls to other iPhone 4 users over WiFi networks. Apple seem to claim they invented video calling although other devices have had video calling abilities over 3G networks going on 7 years now.

Anyway, the FaceTime adverts show users what FaceTime can do and why you’d want to use it. The ads are very cheesy although we’ll let you decide if you think they are cheesy or not. You can view the four new adverts below… [Read more…]