Gadget Venue

On Monday when Apple [AAPL] announced the iPhone 4 we didn’t hear anything of the device moving to other networks in the US such as Verizon [VZ] or T-Mobile. Although most people assume this is the end of that argument till perhaps next year when iPhone 5 is announced, we still keep hearing that the iPhone 4 (and 3GS) could be heading that way.

The latest rumour comes thanks to a Kaufman Bros analyst called Shaw Wu who says the iPhone 4 could hit T-Mobile in the US this fall.

The reason that Saw Wu says that T-Mobile may be the network of choice for Apple to sell the iPhone 4 on as well as AT&T is that T-Mobile are a GSM network like AT&T and they would be able to roll the iPhone 4 out quicker than say Verizon or Sprint.

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Windows Phone 7 is due to launch later this year. Several companies are planning to launch hardware along side the launch. Microsoft [MSFT] has created a new job opening recently which puts out a request for a strong and experienced developer to help the OEM to design applications. The job offering is worded as follows…

“We are looking for a strong and experienced developer to help the OEM to design and develop applications that make their devices stand out in the marketplace. You will also help them to bring new phones to market.”

Software is what makes a phone work well. Chipsets are similar but as we have seen with a lot of companies trying to produce software, they often get it wrong. Apple has done it right, Android has done it right, but many others tend to fall over at this point. [Read more…]

Remember a couple of weeks back we posted about the Motorola DROID 2 keyboard showing up? It now appears that the keyboard was indeed from the Motorola DROID 2 as Droid Life managed to get their hands on the actual device.

The Motorola DROID 2 gets rid of the weird optical pad that sat to the right of the keyboard on the original DROID which is nice to see.

The handset it’s self looks very similar to the DROID 1 with the keyboard being the only major change in the device. [Read more…]

MuscleNerd confirmed a few weeks ago that when the iOS 4 and iPhone 4 launch, so will the carrier unlocks for both iOS 4 and 3.1.3.

In a message posted on Twitter on June 6 we learn…

People still ask, but sure, with both 4.0 & iPhoneHD coming out this month, so too will the 3.1.3/4.0 carrier unlocks 🙂

For those who have done a factory reset and erase of their iPhone and found iTunes forcing you up to 3.1.3, you will also be running the 05.12.01 baseband. MuscleNerd has an unlock ready for this baseband although it wont be released for about another 2 weeks till iPhone 4 comes out and iOS 4 which launches a few days before. [Read more…]

Apple [AAPL] has launched iBooks for iOS 4. Although the new OS isn’t publicly available, developers are still able to download the latest release.

So, if you happen to be running iOS 4 on your iPhone then do a search on iTunes and download it now. The iBooks app for iPhone doesn’t appear to be available OTA at the moment, but we suspect it will arrive soon. Once installed you’ll get the usual Winnie the Pooh sitting on the shelves and will also be able to download any purchased eBooks that you have on your iPad.

The application it’s self might not run on the older iPhone 3G from what Engadget reports of it’s experience in testing, but this will hopefully be just early days rather than a limitation on the older device. [Read more…]

Vodafone has just put up a pre-order page for the Samsung Galaxy S and has specified that the smartphone will be delivered by June 15.

The Samsung Galaxy S on Vodafone is available for free when signing a 24 month contract where you pay £35/month with other prices varying from £200 if paying £30 on an 18 month contract.

The Samsung Galaxy S is an Android based smartphone. It has a large 4 inch Super AMOLED screen, 16GB of internal memory and runs a fast processor. [Read more…]

eBay has confirmed that some crazy people can be found in the UK. The iPhone 4 UK price is not known yet as none of the carriers have announced it although we are expecting them to soon. What we see here though is that eBay has a number of iPhone 4 devices for sale and ready to ship on June 25… ie, the seller pre-orders one next week, it arrives on the 24th at which point he ships on the 24th and it arrives on the 25th.

I can’t yet find a reason why anyone would bid on a device that you can order (we assume cheaper than £870) on June 15 and get it a day earlier. However, on this particular auction it looks like 15 people joined the bidding war with the winner walking away with what looks to be an over priced iPhone. They claim to be factory unlocked although it seems like a jailbreak and unlock is being made available shortly after launch anyway. [Read more…]

Motorola has announced that they are working on building a Google Android based smartphone that will come with a 2GHz CPU. That’s double what we normally see on Android devices with the usual CPU being the 1GHz Snapdragon.

The information came from the CEO of Motorola (Sanjay Jha) who mentioned the details at a speech in Chicago.

What also comes as a surprise is that Motorola will be launching the handset by the end of this year which will potentially make it the most powerful smartphone on the market. [Read more…]

The HTC DROID Incredible has now been rooted. The root was done by the guys at Unrevoked.

However, it doesn’t seem like a particular easy root to do, so if you are not an experienced Android user it might be best to wait a little longer for an improved, or should I say a more user friendly tool to launch.

Some details of the root can be found over at XDA Developers and we recommend you take a good read of the posts within that thread to get an idea of what you need to do. [Read more…]