Archives for June 2010

iPhone 4 has 512MB of RAM – Double the iPad and 3GS

Apple [AAPL] has confirmed that the iPhone 4 has 512MB of RAM inside. The original iPhone and iPhone 3G had 128MB while the iPhone 3GS and iPad have 256MB. Doubling the RAM in the iPhone 4 will allow developers more room to work with.

It is also believed to be the reason why iMovie for example, is an iPhone 4 only download. The 3GS and iPad simply do not have enough RAM to handle the HD video editing.

We had heard that Apple confirmed this 512MB figure during one of the WWDC sessions last week, and have now verified this. The session it was revealed in is now available (Session 147, Advanced Performance Optimization on iPhone OS, pt 2) for registered Apple developers.

[Read more…]

Samsung Captivate Android Smartphone goes to AT&T

Samsung has announced the Samsung Captivate. The Captivate is an Android OS based smartphone that actually looks like it could be good.

The device falls in to the Samsung Galaxy S class of smartphones and has a Super AMOLED touchscreen measuring 4 inches. Powering the Captivate is a 1GHz hummingbird chip that can shift three times the amount of triangles when compared to a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU seen in devices such as the Nexus One.

A 5 megapixel camera can be found on the Samsung Captivate and it is capable of capturing video at a resolution of 720p. For storage, there’s up to 32GB combined with internal and external. [Read more…]

Motorola Droid X spotted on Verizon Site

The Motorola Droid X Android smartphone arrived on the Verizon [VZ] site earlier today with a number of specs revealed.

The Droid X will have a 4.3 inch screen and the screen will be 720p which from what we understand, makes it the highest res screen on the market. iPhone 4’s Retina Display will closely follow although it’s important to note that the iPhone 4 screen is smaller, so the pixels per inch could match or be very close to each other. Update: The device has a 854 x 480 display and can capture in 720p. Verizon has updated the ad.

A HDMI output port is also provided. Geeky Gadgets points out that Verizon could mean there is a 720p output rather than a 720p screen although the banner below makes it quite clear that the screen is 720p. We’ll wait for the specs to get final details of that. See update above. [Read more…]

iPhone 4 UK Pre-Order Shipping Date Now July 14

The Apple [AAPL] iPhone 4 continues to sell well in the UK with new pre-orders now shipping on July 14. For the last couple of days the date has been July 2 and for those who managed to get a pre-order in on Monday, you’ll still get yours June 24.

If you want an iPhone 4 in the UK on June 24 then you best get queuing at the Apple store closest to you. Stores open at 8am.

On to network details for the iPhone 4. O2 released their iPhone 4 pricing earlier today and Orange also released pricing yesterday. Only 3 networks to go now with Three believed to be holding off revealing the iPhone 4 UK price until other networks have revealed their pricing as Three apparently want to undercut them all on pricing and possibly minutes/data and texts. [Read more…]

iOS 4 Multitasking Apps for iPhone Approved

Apple [AAPL] has started approving iOS 4 ready apps so that they can now support multitasking when iOS 4 launches on Monday.

Although the new iOS 4 has support for 3rd party apps to use multitasking, this feature was not enabled by default. To get multitasking working on 3rd party apps, developers need to add a few lines of code to their applications and resubmit them to the Apple store for approval.

There are seven specific background services that can be used for multitasking in iOS 4 and developers will need to choose which ones they need for their app.

These include… [Read more…]

Nintendo 3DS UK Model to Arrive Early 2011

For those wanting a Nintendo 3DS that was recently revealed at E3 this week, you’ll have to wait till early 2011 if a senior source from Nintendo is to be believed.

The Nintendo 3DS was expected to arrive here in the UK before Christmas, but it seems now that it will just miss the Christmas rush and land sometime early in 2011 which we hope is January although precise dates have not been confirmed.

The Nintendo 3DS seen at E3 might not be the final version with Nintendo commenting that the design of it could change before the launch date. Also we hear that one territory is likely to get the 3DS this year with the rest following next year. The exact first territory has not been revealed just yet. [Read more…]

Nintendo Could bring 3D to Next Home Console

Nintendo announced the Nintendo 3DS earlier this week. The portable handheld uses a glasses-free 3D effect that allows you to view 3D games whilst on the move.

We also hear from Nintendo that they could be introducing 3D in to their next games console, perhaps the Nintendo Wii 2. Rather than just throwing it unnecessarily in to a games console, the company is actually looking at 3D TV adoption rates where it has set a bar at about 30% adoption before it will consider launching a new 3D console.

“If you display a 3D image, the image quality becomes extremely bad, so we’d probably do it with the next system…We’re thinking that the timing should be once the 3D television adoption rates crosses the 30% mark. We’re looking at the adoption trends.”

[Read more…]

O2 iPhone 4 UK Prices Revealed

O2 has announced the iPhone 4 UK price for it’s network. We already knew the tariffs as they were announced last week. Now we know handset prices although O2 has mixed the 24 and 18 month plans together making it a little confusing.

If you want an 18 month contract on the cheapest plan, you will pay £30/month for just 100 minutes, unlimited text messages and 500MB of data. For the 16GB iPhone 4, O2 has the 18 month price listed as £209. The same iPhone 4 on the 24 month plan is £5 cheaper per month at £25/month, but the handset price actually goes up to £279.

If you want to get an iPhone 4 for free only the 24 month £60/month plan is available which probably wont save you any money unless you intend to make a lot of calls. We think you are best sticking to the mid-range £35/month on an 18 month contract which sees you get the 16GB iPhone 4 for £179. [Read more…]

HTC DROID Incredible Browser Privacy Issues

Reports are indicating that a privacy issue might have hit the HTC DROID Incredible. It is believed to be related to the HTC Sense UI that can take screen shots of your browser session while using the device. The browser session images are then stored in a location where they are hard to get rid of.

The captured images don’t go away when the browser is closed and remain on the device it seems until manually removed. Even when clearing the browser history the screen shots still remain and we also hear after a factory reset is done that they still remain.

The JPEG files are saved to a folder named .bookmark_thumb1 which is located within the emmc folder of the phones internal storage (so you would expect a full factory reset to delete them). We found some screenshots of us logged into Facebook, logged into our online banking website, and viewing several other mundane websites (see picture above) even after having completed a factory reset. We tested this on more than one stock, un-rooted HTC DROID Incredible and replicated it several times.

[Read more…]

iPhone 4 UK Still Shipping July 2 – US July 14

Yesterday we saw a couple of date changes to the pre-order shipping dates for the iPhone 4 UK model and US model. Changed dates simply means the company has sold out of it’s first allocation of stock and that new pre-orders will get the iPhone at a slightly later date. 600,000 were pre-ordered on day one making it an eventful day with several outages.

For those wanting an iPhone 4 in the US, the current date for you is still at July 14 unless you manage to pick one up in store on the June 24 launch date.

For those in the UK wanting an iPhone 4 the date is still July 2 which hasn’t changed for over 24 hours now indicating pre-orders might be slowing down a little while people wait for the carriers to finally launch their pricing for the handset. Only the Orange iPhone 4 price is known at the moment although O2 launched tariff details last week and the Vodafone iPhone 4 price was leaked earlier this week (although the pricing could change when made official). [Read more…]

Google Android Gingerbread to get a more Friendly UI

Google [GOOG] is working on it’s next version of Android which has been codenamed Gingerbread. We are not sure what version number it will have, ie Android 2.3 or Android 3.0, but what we do hear is that Google will be stopping manufacturers from layering their own UI’s over the top. Layered UI’s include HTC Sense UI, MotoBlur and other similar custom UI’s that get created.

Instead, Google’s main focus for Android Gingerbread is to get a UI to the same level as iOS 4. It isn’t clear if Google will actually put a stop to custom UI’s or if they hope to achieve a good enough UI that manufacturers don’t see the need to do their own. [Read more…]

Android 2.1 Most Popular on Google Smartphones

Google [GOOG] has released details of which Android versions are the most popular. This month we see that Android 2.1 has increased in popularity with that version of the OS accounting for 50% of installs on smartphones. Last month Android 2.1 accounted for 37.2%.

Android 1.5 has dropped the most this month from 34.1% down to 24.6%. This is not to say that people have necessarily upgraded, but that Android 2.1 is pretty much standard on new device installs which helps it take more market share as time moves on. [Read more…]