Thursday, April 7, 2011

Phones Review

Phones Review

HTC Thunderbolt Accessories: Body Glove Snap-On Case

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 01:57 PM PDT

If you are the owner of a HTC Thunderbolt and are concerned about it being damaged, especially after all the delays surrounding the phones release. Then we have a little something for you.

A Body Glove Snap –On case that is specifically for the HTC Thunderbolt, the case consists of a hard durable shell for protection of the phone from scratches and a textured glove material covering for ease of grip.

The case enables your HTC Thunderbolt to be propped up with a built-in adjustable kickstand and comes with the patented Body Glove all-in-one clip system, which enables the smartphone to be worn on a belt or removed, so the phone can sit snug in your pocket. This case also gives you access to the phones charging port and all the controls.

See Photos:

For more accessories for the HTC Thunderbolt, why not check out these articles: Accessories Kit, BodyGuardz Armor Skin and Seidio Innocell 1600mAh Slim Battery.

So, if this Body Glove Snap-On case is for you, it is currently priced on-line for $27.95 via Android Central.

App Snaps Pictures To Calorie Count Your Meal

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 11:05 AM PDT

If you are like me, one of those people that just have to look at food and the weight just piles on. Then, help may be at hand, in the form of a handy app.

Are you currently calorie counting and worried about exceeding your daily amount? Then the Meal Snap app could be the answer to your prays.

Information on the Meal Snap app is brought to us by the guys at 9to5 Mac. The Meal Snap is a quite ingenious app that takes care of your calorie counting for you. How it works is that you launch the app, take a picture of your meal and automatically an approximate calorie count of your meal appears on your phone's display.

See screenshot of the app below.

So if this sounds like an app for you, then why not download the Meal Snap app to your iPhone or iPod Touch, at a cost of $2.99 from the App Store.

Here are a couple of articles that may also be of interest to those that are trying to keep the pounds off, James' article on the 'Best 5 Android Apps For Weight Loss' and Mark's article on the ‘FoodPad Calorie Tracker‘.

iAd Gallery App free on iOS iPhone

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 11:03 AM PDT

Latest news is that that you can download an app to your iOS iPhone and have a selection of ads at your fingertip.

The iAd Gallery is free to download and the function of this app is to bring a selection of informative and fun ads to your phone, for easy access.

There is a browser feature included in this app, which enables you to search for those ads you want to see again or to check out new ads that you have not seen before. You are also able to tag the favourite ads to a 'Loved' section.

I am not sure on the relevance of this app, but I am sure there are some people out there that this app will appeal to. For more information see the full article by App Shopper, which includes the download and screen shots.

For more news on the iAd Gallery app, why not have a read of my colleague James' article written earlier or his article on the top iOS Easter games apps.

White iPhone 4 Vanishes From Apple Website: Gone For Good?

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 10:27 AM PDT

A while ago the Apple App Store was down, no one really knows why but apparently when it came back online the white iPhone 4 had vanished apparently Apple has officially removed the white version of their iPhone 4 for some reason.

According to an article over on T3, by way of Nexus404 and 9to5 Mac, all trace of the elusive iOS device has been removed, so could this mean that Apple has finally thrown in the towel where the white iPhone 4 is concerned?

It seems a strange move to me considering not too long ago Apple chief Steve Jobs made it clear that the white iPhone 4 would be made available in the spring, but since then not a peep from Apple as to how things are progressing until this move.

No doubt there is speculation that Apple has decided to hold off with releasing the white iPhone 4 as it is expected the iPhone 5 will release later in the year, yet Apple has done a good job pushing out a white Apple iPad 2, so why not a white iPhone?

Perhaps Apple has only removed the white iPhone 4 from their website as a temporary measure, but there is a possibility it has gone for good. So what do our reader think about this move by Apple, does it mean the end of the white version of the iPhone?

Sony Ericsson, Vodafone Ideaworks 3D Developer Event Day Coming

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 09:22 AM PDT

The big deal in the mobile space at the moment other than NFC which is really old hat tech and has been around for yonks, is of course 3D tech and especially 3D gaming, and it looks like Sony Ericsson and Vodafone along with Ideaworks wants to encourage more developers to make the jump to 3D.

Thus according to an article over on Pocket Gamer the three companies are hosting a 3D developer day on the 12th of this month for anyone working on Android 3D apps and games with a view to selling the idea of 3D development along with delivering a little insight on how to do it.

The developer day even will take place on Saturday the 12th of April at the Vodafone offices in London and the word is that a prominent role will be taken by Ideawork’s C/C++ development tool, Airplay SDK and will be showcased by Mark Sheehan of Ideawork Labs.

Software innovator for Sony Ericsson Erik Hellman will also be in attendance and is set to provide details of user interfaces and 3D graphics on Google’s Android platform, and Vodafone will lend their experience on speaking on how best to market 3D Android apps.

The whole shebang kicks off at 10.30 AM on Saturday the 12th, and for the full low down those interested can hit up Eventbrite for all the info.

HTC EVO View 4G Releasing with Android 3.0 Honeycomb Confirms Sprint

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 07:21 AM PDT

The Sprint version of the Android tablet the HTC Flyer, known as the HTC EVO View 4G tablet was originally thought to come out to play sporting the Android Gingerbread operating system rather than the tablet centric Android Honeycomb OS, but that seems to have changed.

According to an article over on Android Community and by way of Cnet, it appears that Sprint has confirmed that the HTC EVO View 4g device will indeed come out to play packing Android 3.0 Honeycomb as they have stated on their coming soon page.

Rumours had it that Google was putting a halt on Android 2x tablet devices upgrading to Android 3.0 Honeycomb; however HTC belayed that particular rumour by announcing the HTC Flyer would be upgraded to Honeycomb.

Thus for those that may have considered bypassing the HTC EVO View 4G because of the lack of Honeycomb then you may just like to think again, although no word from Sprint on any pricing as yet.

British Prefer Blackberry Touch aka Monaco/Monza Than iPhone 5

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 07:14 AM PDT

With all the hype surrounding the BlackBerry Touch aka Monaco/Monza and the Apple iPhone 5, how great it would be to see which one is currently winning in the popularity stakes.

Are you a dedicated BlackBerry user or one of the iPhone faithful? Well, which ever you are, you may be interested the following survey.

901 people in the United Kingdom were polled in a survey conducted by Good Mobile Phones and the results come to us by way of Shiny Shiny. When asked which phone they would rather have, 53% of those polled said the new Blackberry Touch, with only 42% opting for the new Apple iPhone 5.

Apparently, a couple of reasons given for the preference of the BlackBerry rather than the iPhone was ease of use for email and that it seemed more reliable.

See below secret pictures supplied by BoyGenuisReport of the new BlackBerry smartphone.

However, according to this poll, there are still more people actually owning an iPhone (38%), compared with BlackBerry (34%). Thus, indicating that the iPhone still has a slight edge over BlackBerry in the British Market.

iPhone or BlackBerry, which one do you prefer? let us know.

Also of interest to you might be my article yesterday, regarding another poll that was conducted on owners of iPhones, BlackBerrys and Android enabled smartphones – see here. Alternatively, if you are a tablet user, why not check out James' article on the Apple iPad 2 and BlackBerry PlayBook Comparison Video.

Xperia Arc Dancing Android Robot Struts Again: Video

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 06:58 AM PDT

It appears that when it comes to promoting the Android 2.3 Gingerbread toting Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc smartphone all you really need is an all dancing green Android robot, just like we’ve previously see strutting their stuff (here).

Yes folk’s the dancing Android robot is at it again, this time in Malaysia, and the poor person inside the costum much be tired as this dance off isn't quite as good or funny as the previous dance in the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc promo in Taiwan.

Still footage of the little green Android mascot is still footage so we have that footage for your viewing pleasure below courtesy of the guys over at Phandroid and by way of Android Central and YouTube user Soyacincautv.

But the big question is who is inside the Android robot costume, is it a male or female dancer bopping all over the show? Will we find out the gender of the energetic little green bouncer? Hit that play button to see if we find out…enjoy.

Easter Games: Top iOS Apps

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 06:33 AM PDT

As the egg hunting season isn’t that far off we thought we’d bring you a few iOS game apps before you get to gobble up all your eggs this Easter, and perhaps have you kids past a little time away playing these iOS Easter games rather than pestering you.

So with this in mind we have our top iOS Easter games apps selection for the iPhone, iPod Touch and Apple iPad for your consideration below, so without further ado let’s get to it…

First up is the ABBY Monkey Easter Games for Kids app, an iOS app that deliver three games for your children to pass the time away between eating all that chocolate this Easter, games called Easter Match, Colouring Book and Make an Egg.

Easter Match is a memory game where you tap a card and uncover another card with the same picture and thus match all cards to complete. Colouring Book basically speaks for itself, you get 6 black and white pictures and 24 coloured pencils to colour the pictures. Make an Egg you get the choice of 3 eggs with 3 levels of decoration difficulty with each level having 6 colourings to give a total of 18 eggs. The ABBY Monkey app can be downloaded from iTunes for $0.99 and there is an Apple iPad version for $1.99.

Next up we have the Easter Games app, another iOS app that delivers three games with three differing themes giving nine games in all for your child’s amusement and the games are fairly simple and suitable for all ages.

The Easter Games app features games Drop, Match and Attack with Easter themes being Easter Eggs, Easter Bunnies and Rubber Duckies, and there is a hidden bonus game called Hoppy Easter. The Easter Games app is for the iPhone and iPod Touch and is available for download from iTunes for $0.99.

Then we have the Easter Fun Pack app for iOS devices that deliver two games in one with the option to choose between Catch an Egg or Easter Kalinko and also features background music and sound effects.

The Catch an Egg game you use the arrow keys to move a basket to catch eggs being dropped by the Easter Bunny, but you have to watch out for rotten eggs. The Easter Kalinko game gets the use to click pegs in order to get an egg to drop into a moving basket and is time orientated so you’d better be quick. The Easter Fun Pack app is available from iTunes for $0.99.

Or how about the Easter Egg Painter app, an app that lets you decorate Easter eggs by painting them and you get to pick which colour and brush size you want to paint your Easter egg with, and there are 6 different eggs to colour.

The Easter Egg Painter app lets the user paint anything they want from a small sketch to a creative design or even egg people, and now has a new look and paint pallet. The Easter Egg Painter app is a free download from iTunes.

Last but not least we have the Easter Egg Hunt Game for iOS devices, a fun game whereby the user can catch a lot of magical eggs as they fly around your display, and you’ll need to catch them all to move on to the next level.

The Easter Egg Hunter Game allows 5 attempts at catching all the magical eggs, and bonus points are awarded if you manage to catch them all within 5 moves, and then can you find the top eggs in the world? The Easter Egg Hunter Game can be downloaded at a cost of $1.99 from iTunes.

So there you have it just a few of our top Easter games iOS app picks for your consideration this Easter time, of course you may already have your own favourite Easter game app and if so feel free to share it with us by posting to our comments area below.

Hitpad App for Apple iPad: Top Trending Topics Deliverer

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 05:36 AM PDT

With the ever-increasing amount of content being produced a user can spend quite a bit of their valuable time sifting though the abundance of content, but there’s a new iOS app that has become available that can cut down that time for you.

The iOS app is called Hitpad and is for the Apple iPad and basically the application distils the most popular content and delivers it to the user with the most important topics of the day and highlights why the topic is important and could be of interest to the user.

The Hitpad app home screen delivers a list of the top trending topics of the day and when a user taps a single trending topic they receive an aggregated view of all they need to know about that topic, and there is the ability to zoom on individual items to read such as photos, video, the web, tweets and news.

With Hitpad for the Apple iPad, users also have the ability to share any item via email, Twitter or posting to Facebook or can even save for later reading using Instapaper.

So if you own an Apple iPad and want trending topics delivered to your iOS tablet running iOS 3.2 or above you can download Hitpad for the iPad as a free app from iTunes.

New Google Android Music Player App: The Cloud test

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 05:25 AM PDT

Well information is coming in that a new version of Android's Music app, which is similar to the Honeycomb Music player found on tablets such as the XOOM, has been leaked to developers.

The music player is said to come with a rating system and an option for what is supposed to be Google’s cloud music service.

This news comes to us from the guys at Tech from 10 via Business Insider and whilst, the app is available for download from the Tech from 10 site, they have mentioned that they were unable to get the cloud service to work.

This is the clearest indication so far of the impending Google cloud service, which apparently Google employees are testing.

So why not download the new music player for yourself and see if you can get Google's cloud service up, and running on your device. If you can or even if you can’t why not let us know, by leaving your comments below.

You may also be interested in reading my colleague Mark's post on the Amazon Cloud Music Player.

Nokia Drop: Similar to Chrome to Phone: Video

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 05:14 AM PDT

It looks like Nokia is taking a leaf out of the Google book when it comes to their new feature called Nokia Drop as the feature basically does the same thing as Chrome to phone, only for Nokia smartphones.

According to an article over on Pocket Now and by way of Nokia Conversations, Nokia Drop is now in the Nokia Beta Labs and can send links and images from the users desktop browser to their Symbian handset without the need for a cable, dongle or Bluetooth.

Apparently Nokia Drop uses the Nokia notification solution as new content is pushed to the Nokia Drop app that's not activated all the time but activates when something is coming in, and there’s a handset client which sits on your device listening for incoming info, and there is a plug-in for the users browser which currently supports Chrome and Firefox.

To explain Nokia Drop better we have a video of the experimental app for your viewing consideration below, which last a minute and gives an idea of what Nokia Drop does.

Interested Nokia users can grab the app for their Symbian S60 5th Edition handset or their Symbian^3 smartphone for free from Nokia Beta Labs.

iPhone FaceTime Glitch Problem: Privacy & Security Issues

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 05:01 AM PDT

Many iPhone users are now using FaceTime with no problems at all, but now according to a few customers there seems to be a problem and in that we mean a glitch in the system.

We visited 9to5Mac and they report via the Apple Discussions forum that the FaceTime glitch problem brings up random images, one user apparently was using FaceTime as so was her boyfriend when an old picture freezes on their display screen, the person on the other person receiving the call can only see a black screen.

One more comment is worth mentioning because when they used FaceTime it was said that the camera keeps random images that were not even taken on their iPhone and do not seem to originate from past FaceTime calls, they said "Just minutes ago when I called my girlfriend and I saw a "picture" of myself from today when I was at the office. I know it was from today because I had the exact same shirt. The weirdest thing is that picture is not stored on my iPhone."

Now you would think restoring the Apple iPhone and re-installing all apps manually would help but apparently it does not, this is a serious glitch that should not be taken lying down because it could potentially breech privacy and security issues.

Now think about this glitch for a moment, if the iPhone whilst in FaceTime is taking random screenshots or photos could the glitch take random screenshots of your bank apps whilst open giving other people on FaceTime your bank details?

Please let us know if you have had any problems like those above when it comes to FaceTime calls, this is serious and we want to hear from you.

Apple iAd Gallery iOS App: All Ads No Functionally

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 04:46 AM PDT

When it comes to what apps are allowed on iTunes, Apple seems to be a law unto themselves and doesn't actually follow their own approval and rejection process otherwise Apple’s newest iOS app called iAd Gallery wouldn’t have made it onto the App Store.

Why? Well according to an article over on Slash Gear by way of Inner-active, and Engadget, Apple has released the iAd Gallery app after rejecting another app from a developer that pulled all the iAds on the advertising network into a single place known as Ads Tube.

The reason for rejecting the Ads Tube app was apparently because the app "lacked functionality", however the iAd Gallery app also lacks functionality yet Apple has approved said app.

Furthermore personally ads in apps can be quite annoying so why would anyone want an app that only delivers adverts and nothing else?

Just so you know what the rejected Ads Tube iOS app for the iPhone was all about we have a video of the developer explaining the app for your viewing pleasure below.

Thus is seems that Apple is using the “we can do whatever we want” rule when it comes to approving apps for the iOS platform even if that means bending the rules to suit their own purposes, which shouldn’t comes as a surprise to anyone.

HTC Pyramid Turns Sensation For UK And Launch Date

Posted: 06 Apr 2011 04:19 AM PDT

Well now it would appear that the new Android device coming out of the HTC camp, the HTC Pyramid will be heading for UK shores under the new guise of the HTC Sensation, and in the not too distant future too.

According to an article over on Pocket-lint, they have spoken to “people familiar with the matter” and can confirm that the UK version of the Android handset the HTC Pyramid will be known as the HTC Sensation.

As for the launch of the device in the UK, apparently the HTC Sensation will launch on Tuesday the 12th of April at an HTC media event and will be released to the UK public sometime in the coming months, although no work on when the smartphone will hit stores or how much it will hit your pocket for.

Here’s what one of their sources “in the know” said… "I can clear up a couple of those questions for you. It WILL be coming to the UK, though I can’t say to which network. And Pocket Lint you’re spot on with the naming, as it will be launched in the UK as the 'HTC Sensation'.”

There’s not a great deal of info on the HTC Pyramid/Sensation, but the word is the Android device may come out to play sporting Android Gingerbread and have a 1GHz dual core processor and a 4.3-inch display.

Any of our UK readers considering picking up the HTC Sensation once the smartphone hits UK shops?
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