Wednesday, April 20, 2011

MobileCrunch

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Motorola: Droid Bionic Not Cancelled, Just Back On The Drawing Board

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 01:12 PM PDT

Hey, would-be Droid Bionic owners! Don’t let the talk of the Bionic’s demise get you down too much; there might still be some hope for this one.

Last week, a handful of well-rooted whisperers in the handset community were all saying the same thing: the Droid Bionic was cancelled, with the Targa (or something similar) taking its place in Verizon’s upcoming lineup. According to Motorola, that’s not quite the case.

In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, an unnamed Moto rep said:

“Based on compelling feedback since the show, we are incorporating several enhancements to make this an even better consumer experience”

The “show” they’re talking about here is CES, where Moto first debuted the handset.

Of course, it’s worth mentioning that this statement is juuuust vague enough to mean… pretty much anything. “Incorporating several enhancements” could very well mean “We’re changing the body and some of the specs. Oh… and, purely coincidentally, we’re changing the name to ‘Targa’”.

T-Mobile’s Bobsled Is A Free, Facebook-Based, VoIP App

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:02 PM PDT


In a slightly puzzling move, T-Mobile has released a Facebook app that enables friend-to-friend voice chat. It’s called Bobsled (or more properly, Bobsled by T-Mobile, as it will remind you at every step in the process), and it addresses the 88% (according to their study) of Facebook users who want voice chat built into the site. Being one of the other 12%, I can’t say with certainty whether this app is what people were thinking of, but at the very least it looks well integrated.

Once you install the app (at the dynamically-named letsbobsled.com), a little phone will appear by online friends’ screen names (those who have the app installed, anyhow), and after that it’s just one click away, with confirmation on the other side of course. It’s powered by Vivox.

It’s part of an emerging messaging and communication platform that’s making its debut with the Sidekick 4G, and is related to the Cloud Text service, a GroupMe-esque reply-all texting service. Presumably they’ll be adding something like cross-service compatibility, so that you can text people via Facebook message, or some similarly tortuous method of contact.

There are plans for the “near future” to include video chat, as well as “the ability to place VoIP calls to mobile and landline U.S. numbers, and will offer applications on smartphones and tablets across various mobile platforms, regardless of the carrier that powers such devices.” So Bobsled is T-Mobile’s wedge in the video chat world, an answer to Facetime and Skype that’s carrier-operated and can easily be included on T-Mobile-branded devices like the G-Slate and G-series phones.

I haven’t tested it out, but it’d be hard to mess this up. It looks like this first step was taken mainly because it was the easiest (just branding a licensed service), and the meat of the program will show up later. At that point, as it grows more complex, I suspect it may be a little less straightforward to use, and competing apps that are more universal and less carrier-associated won’t make it easy for them, either.

Verizon Clarifies Which New Cities Will Get LTE On April 21st

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:01 PM PDT

Just yesterday, someone over at VZW tweeted out that they’d be launching their 4G LTE service in “a mess of new cities” come Thursday!

Great! Except that they didn’t say which ones.

Later in the day, it became clear that Wilmington, NC and Columbia, SC were two of the cities amongst the “mess” — and today, Verizon has released the rest of the list.

The list of cities getting Verizon 4G on April 21st:

  • Clarksville, TN
  • Cleveland, TN
  • Columbia, SC
  • Lehigh Valley, PA
  • Hilton Head, SC
  • Wilmington, NC

So, it’s not quite as much of a “mess” as we might have hoped, in that it’s only six, somewhat small new regions — but hey, new coverage is never a bad thing, right?

Video: Unreleased (Cancelled?) Version of iOS Demoed On A White iPhone 4

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 11:41 AM PDT

Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush here: this video (and the one after the jump) introduces more questions than it answers. Acquired by Tinthte, it appears to show a prototype iPhone 4 (in white, no less), running… something we’ve never seen before.

The main debate is whether this is what iOS 5 could be or what iOS 4 could have been had Apple not come up with something else. So far, we’re leaning toward the latter. There’s an entirely new multi-tasking/app switching method, along with an alternative design for Spotlight search. Here’s the thing: neither of these “new” features really solve anything, and it seems strange that Apple would scrap the systems they’ve already got in place and confuse their users without any real benefit.

Here’s the facts:

  • The hardware appears to be a prototype for a 64GB white iPhone
  • There are certain things in the software (like TouchFighter, which Apple built for WWDC in 2008) that lend to this being a legit prototype
  • Rather than showing apps in a slide-out drawer, screenshots of running apps are shown below a Spotlight tool bar. There doesn’t appear to be a way to access any app beyond the 9th most recent one, which may be why this system was scrapped (if that’s the case.)

What do you think? Is this an early look at iOS 5, or just a late look at what iOS 4 will never be?

[Via Engadget]

AT&T Blocking The Blackberry Bridge App For Playbook

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 07:40 AM PDT

Bloops! AT&T is blocking Blackberry’s Bridge app for Playbook, the simple app that allows you to view your Blackberry Phone email on the Playbook. Seeing as the Playbook doesn’t have a native email client, this is a pretty big deal.

Slashgear tried to download the app today and found it blocked on the AT&T Torch. They are positing that this has something to do with tethering plans although many Playbook proponents are under the impression that tethering will be free on these devices.

We’ve got a call into AT&T to figure this out.

UPDATE from AT&T:

AT&T is working with RIM to make the BlackBerry Bridge app available for AT&T customers. We have just received the app for testing and before it’s made available to AT&T customers we want to ensure it delivers a quality experience for our customers.
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