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Monday 12 July 2010

HTC: Froyo By Christmas [ 12-07-2010 16:12 ]

Author: Ivanov Konstantin Source: IntoMobile Translation by: Paul Smith

HTC had recently been making noises about their recent clutch of handsets getting the update to Froyo in the very near future, but sadly that timescale now looks to have been extended towards Christmas. Eric Lin, HTC's Global PR head honcho, is saying that those HTC smartphones running with HTC's own SENSE UI can expect the update around Christmas. That is going to put more scrutiny on the idea of manufacturers using their own custom UIs as they struggle to update their products to the latest iteration of Android because of the extra work involved in porting their UIs over. Indeed Sony Ericsson has come in for some harsh criticism from fans due to the long upgrade timescale the company is looking at with its X10 devices. Back at HTC Lin explained the time sink involved:

"It takes time to port all of our applications over to Froyo and then make sure that it is running well on each of our devices,” said Lin. “That’s not like a one week kind of project. We need to make sure that our applications are taking advantage of the Froyo features. To make sure that they’re all running properly on the OS now that it’s a new version. And then to make sure that it’s running on our hardware as well as we expect."

To be fair many people do enjoy using the SENSE UI and it has received copious amounts of praise, but some might wonder whether it is worth it if it means having to be behind the curve on updates. Might HTC be able to offer updates for its devices sans SENSE? Probably not in the foreseeable future. When asked about Gingerbread availability Lin couldn't give a firm answer and what he did say doesn't sound too realistic given the timeframe involved with Froyo.

"I don’t know what Gingerbread involves, but I would believe that we would be done with our Froyo updates before Christmas. And since Google hasn’t made any announcements as to when Gingerbread is going to come out, I’m not going to make that guess, it could be Q1 of next year."

If Froyo will ahve taken around 6 months to get rolled out to their products why would Gingerbread be half that time? Not that many would argue if it proved to be true of course, but caution is most definitely advised.

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Blackberry Tablet Specs Getting Boost? [ 12-07-2010 15:49 ]

Author: Ivanov Konstantin Source: CNET via TechRadar Translation by: Paul Smith

RIM's allegedly forthcoming Blackberry tablet has once again been discussed in public, this time by Ashok Kumar, an analyst over at analysts Rodman & Renshaw. The tablet is being touted as having a seven inch screen and both a rear and front facing camera by Mr Kumar. There was also the prediction that Marvell (no not the comic book people) who created the reference designs for the OLPC tablet will be using its components in the making of RIM's tablet. Such components would seemingly include a 1 GHz Armada processor, 1080p video playback, a 16 MP camera and support for 3D graphics. That's quite the smorgasbord of specs there, all very hungry for battery power it has to be said, so how much of that will make it into the finished product is anyone's guess at this stage. It's worth pointing out at this stage that these specs, whilst fitting in with the previously revealed notion that the Blackberry tablet's design was in something of a state of flux, don't tie in with previous leaks that suggested an 8.9" screen. Mr Kumar is also saying that the release schedule is being brought forward so that the tablet will be on sale before the year is out.

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Video: Apple Facetime Ads Will Make You Cringe [ 12-07-2010 15:40 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Pocket-lint Translation by: Paul Smith

Taking my daily stumble through the tech sites today I came across an article on Pocket-lint discussing Apple's new ads promoting Facetime on the iPhone 4. Well I say 'discuss', but actually the article was pretty much just panning the ads and having a good laugh at them. Surely they can't be that bad I wondered, after this is the same company that gave us the 1984 Superbowl ad and of couse the whole 'I'm a Mac' ad series. After watching the ads myself all I can say is that Pocket-lint were right to laugh, in fact it was their, and everyone else's, duty to laugh at these ads. So what's wrong with them?

The ads were presumably designed to evoke an emotional response in the viewer, a sense of wonder at how technology can keep us in touch and how they can help families communicate. Unfortunately for Apple the only emotion these ads evoke is emabarassment. To say they are cheesey would be an understatement and I felt like cringing throughout most of them.

This one is entitled 'Smile'. Presumably the idea behind this advert was to show off the extra functionality of Facetime like it's ability to embarass a young girl with braces.

Next we have 'Meet Her' and Pocket-lint made a good point here; why spend £500 on an iPhone 4 to see your new grandchild on a screen when you could use that money to travel and see her in the flesh?

Here we have 'Big News'. Awwww she's pregnant and she's using Facetime to tell her husband! Thanks to Apple we no longer have to sit down with our significant others and tell them the most important piece of news they will ever receive. Yay!

Last, and very much least, we have 'Haircut', which really just sums up this whole series. It's an incredibly irrelevant use for a video call, which perhaps sums up the technology in general, and the guy couldn't be more of a schmooz if he were propped at a bar with a cheap drink in his hand.

Oh and before I forget, did you notice how they were holding their iPhone 4?

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App Inventor Lets Anyone Make Android Apps [ 12-07-2010 15:32 ]

Author: Ivanov Konstantin Source: BBC Translation by: Paul Smith

Google have just announced a new set of app development tools that promise to allow anyone access to creating their very own app, whether they have knowledge of coding or not. The premise behind thenew tool set, App Inventor, is pretty simple, the user just drags 'blocks' of code around and in doing so they can create an app. Each of the blocks in App Inventor represents a different function or service the smartphone can perform. By combining those different blocks you can make an app. One tester used the GPS locator block, the timer block and the database query block to knock out an app that would let his friends know where he was at 15 minute intervals. Google have been slaving away on this for around a year now and their mission statement was to "make it easy for anyone to create programs for Android phones". To that end the software has been tested by school children and college students. The technology behind App Inventor was developed alongside computer scientists from MIT who created something similar with their 'Open Blocks' system, which was in turn used to create 'Scratch', a programming language that childen can use.

Google will probably be hoping that this software sparks off a greater interest in app development and that that will have a knock-on effect with the the Android Market, which is already seeing spectacular growth. However, another possibility is that this software might be used by individuals and local organisations to create highly speciliased apps that aren't submitted to the Market, but rather shared on a hyper-local scale. For example, a school might create an app for itself giving access to certain services etc or perhaps a local church group.You are going to need a Google account if you are interested in trying this out for yourself and you will have to apply via the web for App Inventor. There are some tutorials to help you get up and running and you can also check out the video below, which shows the software in action.