Saturday, April 30, 2011

MobileCrunch

MobileCrunch

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HP Veer Caught In White, Complete With AT&T Branding

Posted: 29 Apr 2011 01:37 PM PDT

We’ve been pretty sure that HP’s itty-bitty webOS phone, the Veer, would be hitting AT&T for a few weeks now — ever since invites for the device’s internal “Launch Party” specified that an AT&T employee ID was required for attendees. We’re also pretty sure that it’s launching on May 2nd.

Even still, HP had one little trick left up its sleeve: like all the other cool phones these days, it looks like the Veer is also coming in white.. sort of. Most of it is white, while the face remains black (we’re hearing that Palm’s designers did this to make the screen look a bit bigger), as does all of the buttonry (buttonry is now a word.)

What do you think? I’m sort of diggin’ the half black/half white color scheme.

[Shout out to PocketNow for digging up that photo]

State Farm’s Driver Feedback App Turns Your iPhone Into The Backseat Driver You Never Wanted

Posted: 29 Apr 2011 12:17 PM PDT

Believe it or not, peeling out at every stoplight and drifting around corners isn’t generally considered safe driving.

If you drive like a jerk and want an iPhone app to tell you just how jerk-like your driving is, Statefarm has your back. Today, they’re launching an app called Driver Feedback [iTunes Link] which, as you may have gathered from the name, gives you feedback on your driving. By polling the accelerometer while you cruise around, it gives you a score based on your acceleration, cornering, and braking — the better you drive, the higher you score. After each “trip” you can view your route on a map to see your worst offenses.

Countdown until some dumb kids battle each other for the lowest score on the route to school: 5..4…3…

(I’ve heard that they were going to change their jingle to “Like a good neighhbor, State Farm’s iPhone app is going to nag at you for driving too fast”, but it just didn’t have the same ring to it)


Verizon To Put GPS Warning Labels On Phones

Posted: 29 Apr 2011 11:29 AM PDT

Your phone is probably tracking you, to some degree. We learned that much last week. Sure, the data likely isn’t being used in any nefarious way — and, unless some “bug” is secretly strapping an IP or a unique ID to the data, all the platform makers are promising the data is anonymized before it goes out.

Whatever’s being done with the data, it’s likely to creep folks out. And when folks get creeped out, the lawsuits start pouring in.

Looking to nip this issue in the bud before they get dragged too deep into it, Verizon has sent a letter to congress promising to put a removable warning label on the screens of “all new devices it sells”, informing users that the phone is capable of tracking their location and potentially associating that location with other customer data. What do you think: overkill, or just right?

Heads Up: The White iPhone 4 Is Ever-So-Slightly Thicker Than The Black iPhone 4

Posted: 29 Apr 2011 10:36 AM PDT

It hit the shelves 10 months later than originally intended, but the white iPhone 4 is finally available. If you’re one of the folks gettin’ prepped to sell off your black iPhone 4 in favor of the new hue, there’s something you should know: the white one is just a liiiiittle bit thicker than the black one.

How much thicker? 0.2mm. Yeah; that’s like the thickness of a pudgy needle — seems trivial, right? Unless you’re a super hero with the lamest powers ever (“My hands are uh, really sensitive to dimensional differences. EXCELSIOR!!!!”), you’d never notice that change in your hand.

The problem: some cases (specifically, the hard plastic slide-on types) are very, very precisely built. That 0.2mm is just enough to ensure that some cases won’t fit properly, or even slide-on at all. Unless you’re case manufacturer, you really don’t have too much to worry about; the vast majority of cases (the silicone ones, or the pop-on types) should continue to fit just fine.

[Via MacRumors]
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