HTC Hero joins the Android bandwagon with a custom UI

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Quite as expected today HTC officially announced their third Android-running handset - HTC Hero. Sporting the most complete feature set of the three it is destined to battle it out with Samsung I7500 for the full-touch Android throne.

The new HTC Hero runs on the familiar Qualcomm’s MSM7200A chipset, with a 528MHz CPU, 288MB of RAM and 512 MB of ROM. Just like the HTC Magic and the HTC Dream, the Hero sports a 3.2″ TFT LCD touchscreen display of HVGA resolution (320 x 480 pixels). However this time it will use the capacitive technology and will support multi-touch as visible from the demo video published by HTC (embedded further down this article).

Connectivity is perfectly covered with the HTC Hero as it will feature quad-band GSM and dual band UMTS (with HSPA) support as well as built-in GPS receiver and a Wi-Fi antenna. The mandatory USB and Bluetooth are present too.

The final attention-grabbing features of the HTC Hero are a 3.5mm standard audio jack, a microSD card slot and a built-in accelerometer.
HTC Sense

HTC Hero pioneers the new custom UI that HTC have prepared for the Android OS. HTC Sense is based on three basic principles dubbed as Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected. Here are the three principles as HTC explain them.

Make It Mine
Make It Mine, is about feeling your HTC phone was created for and by you. To do this, HTC encourages you to dictate and organize how you want to access the people and content in your life in a way that fits best for you. For some, this means adding glance view widgets that push content like twitter feeds, weather and other content to the surface while others may want quick access to business-focused information like email, calendar and world-times. HTC is also introducing a new profile feature called scenes that enables you to create different customized content profiles around specific functions or times in your life.

Stay Close
Today, staying in touch with the people in your life means managing a variety of communication channels and applications ranging from phone calls, emails, texts, photos, status updates and more. HTC Sense takes a different approach by integrating these communication channels and applications into one single view enabling you to stay closer to your important people. With HTC Sense, friends Facebook status updates and photos along with their Flickr photos are included along side their text messages, emails and call history in a single view.

Discover the Unexpected
Many of the most memorable moments in your life are experienced, not explained. HTC Sense is focused on providing a variety of these simple yet innovative experiences on your HTC phone that will sometimes bring you moments of joy and delight. It can be something as basic as turning the phone over to silence a ring or as simple as improving the smart dialler for making calls quicker. HTC Sense also includes perspectives, a new way for viewing your content such as email, photos, Twitter, music and more in different ways.

Here’s the official demo video of the new HTC Sense UI that comes to enhance the already quite user-friendly Android OS:

HTC Hero will be available in two color versions - White and Brown, with the white one coming with fingerprint-resistant Teflon coating. It will hit the European shelves in July with Asia and North America following later this year. Source:gsmarena.

Posted by admin on June 24th, 2009 :: Filed under HTC
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iPhone 3G gets unlocked under 3.0 OS, iPhone 3G S still waiting

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The iPhone Dev Team has finally released the utility needed to unlock the iPhone 3G under iPhone OS 3.0, which will allow current users in illegitimate carriers to upgrade to the latest version of the iPhone OS, which brings about over 100 new features.

The new ultrasn0w utility is available for download through Cydia and Icy software repositories, which are both installed during the process of jailbreaking. To jailbreak your iPhone 3G running 3.0 OS you need either the Pwnage tool (Mac OS only) or the redsn0w utility, which was already released by the iPhone Dev Team 3 days ago.

To make things simpler, here are the most common scenarios that you may encounter with your iPhone 3G and 2G:

YOU HAVE an iPhone 3G running 2.x OS and you are upgrading to 3.x OS

* If you only want to jailbreak (factory unlocked handset or legitimate carrier use scenario) use redsn0w utility (Mac and Windows) AFTER you’ve updated to 3.0 OS the regular iTunes way.
* If you are using a 3G iPhone unlocked with previously released yellowsn0w and rely on yellowsn0w to obtain cellular service, DO NOT use redsn0w. Instead use PwnageTool to jailbreak your iPhone 3G with a patched 3.0 firmware and then use Ultrasn0w from Cydia to unlock it. If you don’t have a Mac handy, you can also download a Pwnage Tool patched firmware uploaded by other users but pick your sources carefully. After you’ve found such a patched firmware, simply make iTunes use it for updating your iPhone 3G.

YOU HAVE iPhone 2G running 2.x OS and you are upgrading to 3.x OS

* Simply use redsn0w utility (Mac and Windows) for both jailbreak and unlock after you’ve updated to 3.0 OS the regular iTunes way. Source:gsmarena.

Posted by admin on June 24th, 2009 :: Filed under Apple
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Nokia N97 finally gets N-gage support, 5800 XM still not there

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This weekend Nokia N97 was finally listed among the compatible N-gage devices bringing a bunch of high-quality games to the large touchscreen display of Nokia flagship. Unfortunately, Nokia 5800 XM is still not among the supported devices probably due to the lack of a hardware keyboard.

We guess that now that N-gage games are compatible with the latest edition of Symbia S60, support for Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and its younger sibling Nokia 5530 XpressMusic should be right behind the corner (unless Marketing decides otherwise, of course).

Nokia N97 is supported by the latest version 1.20 (1511) of the N-gage application, so be sure to check the latest available version when downloading.

For all the other devices that already have the application pre-installed, check for the newer version directly from the application interface. You should know however, that there are no other significant changes. Source:gsmarena.

Posted by admin on June 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under Nokia
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Navigon release their Mobile Navigator app for the iPhone

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One of the major SatNav suppliers Navigon have released a version of their Mobile Navigator through Apple AppStore. The new app runs on the Apple iPhone turning it into a fully-fledged SatNav solution.

The Navigon Mobile Navigator is now available at the App Stores in Europe. North America will be following shortly, Australia is in the works.

The Mobile Navigator app uses map data by NAVTEQ, so you should be getting the same grade of map coverage and details as provided by Nokia Maps. The maps will be preloaded on the device so there will be no need downloading it live as you go around.

TomTom might have been the first company to announce mobile navigation software for the iPhone but it seems that Navigon are the first to release one.

The Navigon’s Mobile Navigator makes use of the popular NAVTEQ maps, which can be preloaded in the storage memory so the software doesn’t need any data connection. This will be very helpful especially when navigating abroad where roaming charges can be hard on your monthly bill.

The Navigon Mobile Navigator for iPhone will have 2D and 3D maps, automatic portrait and landscape modes, precise voice navigation, pause during calls, speed assistant, real signpost display, take-me-home function and much more familiar features of the current Navigon software products.

Here’s the official demo video of the Mobile Navigator for iPhone in action:

The current pricing of the app is the same as the regular mobile version of their Mobile Navigator 7. The app along with a full map of 40 European countries will cost you 74.99 euro until the end of June. Afterwards the regular price will be 99.99 euro.

Soon a new regional version will also become available that will cost you 49.99 until the end of June with a regular price after that of 69.99 euro.

And finally, a LITE version will also be available free of charge. It will run on iPod Touch devices as well and will not offer active route navigation. The LITE version however will have the latest map material and will display POIs (Points of Interest) in the vicinity.

The only requirement for using the MobileNavigator on the iPhone is the new Iphone OS 3.0. Source:gsmarena.

Posted by admin on June 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under Apple
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Windows Mobile-based LG GM730 starts shipping, yours for 400 euro

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Those WinMo fans are by far the luckiest fellas recently. After the four announcements by Samsung yesterday, it now came time for LG to stand in the spotlight. The nicely-spec’d LG GM730 is available in the Australian and Asian market from today with the rest of the world expected to follow soon.

LG GM730 is the first fruit of the recently announced partnership between LG and Microsoft and combines the power of Windows Mobile 6.1 OS with the user-friendliness and fluidity of the S-class UI. The fully touch-operated handset comes with a 3″ WQVGA screen, A-GPS, Wi-Fi and a 5 megapixel camera. USB and Bluetooth connectivity is also on board and the device still manages to remain pretty slim at 11.9mm.

LG have made a slight modification to the design of the GM730, compared to what they showcased in February in Barcelona. The round D-pad is replaced by a more traditional rectangular one and the icon on its confirmation center seems to have been removed. That way they have achieved some remarkable resemblance to the original Samsung i900 Omnia both specs-wise and design-wise.

The first countries to receive the LG GM730 will be Singapore, Taiwan and Australia. The handset will be available in three color versions - Black, Lime and Pink, but there is no MSRP announced. As current preorder prices suggest, early adopters will have to part with about 400 euro (560 US dollars) to be among the first to get a shiny new GM730. Source:gsmarena.

Posted by admin on June 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under LG, Miscrosoft
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Apple iPhone 3G S available, no mile-long queues this time

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It’s finally here folks – one of the most sought-after handsets is already available in the eight lucky countries from the first wave. The most impatient fans in USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and UK are already enjoying their supposedly twice as fast shiny new Apple iPhone 3G S.
Two more waves of countries will receive the iPhone 3G S in the following two months, taking the final number to a whopping 74 countries.

Unlike when the first two iPhones releases there are no endless queues in front of the Apple stores today. However this is mostly due to the fact that this time Apple allowed advanced home-delivery orders of the new iPhone 3G S. Well that and maybe the pretty steep pricing of the new gadget.

We remind you that an unlocked iPhone 3G S costs 619 euro (for the 16GB version) or 719 euro (for the massive 32GB of internal storage) from Vodafone Italy. Of course that price goes way down if you are willing to sign a contract. For example, here goes T-Mobile Netherlands price list, which shows that you can get the iPbone 3G S for free on a 65 euro/month contract.

If you are yet undecided whether it is worth spending that kind of money on an upgrade or whether it’s a good time to jump on the iPhone bandwagon you are welcome to check out the upgrades that the 3G S puts to the table. Source:gsmarena.

Posted by admin on June 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Apple
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