Covering everything mobile!
Vacation?
Jul 11th
You might have noticed that we’ve been absent for the past several months… No, I didn’t quit, but instead took a mini-vacation from blogging, but never fear! I am back and ready to blog! Be on the lookout for a lot of new content coming your way!
SnapBack allows BlackBerry users to reconnect dropped calls
Feb 17th
Mobile Messaging giant Movius demonstrated it’s new application to folks at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week. The application called SnapBack allows BlackBerry users to have dropped calls automatically reconnected upon having service restored to their devices.
“SnapBack is great for users, but it also represents a great opportunity for the operator,” said Movius’ Senior Vice President of Products and Technology, Jay Whitehurst.
“With SnapBack, the operator’s Blackberry customers can have a unique and helpful application that can bring increased customer loyalty, while the operator has the opportunity to either charge for the service or to sell advertising at the point where the message screen tells the customer his call is being returned”.
How it works
This unique application runs in the background on the users BlackBerry device and monitors a call connection as soon as it’s established. The application also uses an in-built validation routine that makes sure that only dropped calls are automatically re-connected. The re-connect option screen gives the user the opportunity to cancel the call if needed.
About Movius
Movius is headquartered in Atlanta in the United States. It is one of the leading players in messaging, collaboration and mobile media and works with carriers to increase ARPU (average revenue per user), reduce churn and increase market share through innovative value add applications.
[via RealWire]
Rubberduck delivers mobile TV on Android
Feb 12th
RealWire announced today that Rubberduck Media Lab (which is a subsidiary of Aspiro) has confirmed that it’s new streaming mobile TV application is available for download on Google’s new Nexus one phone and other Android based handsets.
Rubberduck holds digital rights agreements for mobile content with an impressive list of broadcasters such as the BBC, the Disney Channel, CNN, CNBC and Turner. The Andriod application will allow users to access mobile TV services by simply opening the application to access a web-based content menu.
The launch of the mobile TV service follows the heels of Aspiro’s launch of a streaming desktop and mobile music player which launched last month. The mobile music player is available for a wide range of handsets including the Andriod. With these 2 launches, Aspiro becomes the first company to offer users a multi-platform white label service that can cover both streaming music and TV.
Erling Paulsen, CEO of Rubberduck, added: “Our mobile TV application has been a great success on the iPhone and we are sure it will be popular on Google-based phones as well. What’s more, with Rubberduck, users of a wide range of handsets – including models from all the major handset brands – can watch live TV in real time.”
Rubberduck’s new Android app is compatible with version 1.6 and higher of the Android operating system. It offers a very user-friendly viewing experience which compares well with other platforms such as the iPhone. It supports Rubberduck’s fast channel switching capability making it easy to switch between TV channels in real-time.
If you’re at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Aspiro will be demonstrating it’s music and TV services at booth 2A67 in Hall 2.
[via RealWire]
Motorola releases details about Android update
Feb 11th
We posted earlier that Motorola was getting set to release the Andriod 2.1 upgrade it’s users sometime soon, well today, Engadget caught a glimpse of what was going to be included in the release before it was pulled from Motorola’s site.
A release date hasn’t been announced yet (users will receive a note when it’s ready), but Engadget reports that some of the new features include “multitouch with pinch-to-zoom in the browser, gallery and maps applications, along with some voice recognition and virtual keyboard enhancements, a new 3D gallery, a news and weather app, an enhanced music app (with tabs for navigation) and, of course, the Google Goggles app, among other more minor updates.”
[via Engadget]
7 million iPhone and iPod users can’t find flash
Feb 11th
iPhone and iPod users want Flash on their devices damnit! Hopeful users are trying and can’t seem to find it from Adobe’s website. The software manufacturer is keeping tabs on who wants it and they have reported that in December over 7 million iPhone and iPod users attempted to download flash to their device. It’s unsure if that they came to the website on their own, or if they were sent from a website that suggested that they download it. That doesn’t matter, what matters is that they want it and Adobe doesn’t have it.
If this doesn’t send a message that users want flash, then I don’t know what will.
[via Engadget]
Opera unveils plans to release Opera Mini for iPhone
Feb 11th
Opera announced today that it has plans to reveal its version of Opera Mini for the iPhone to journalists and partners at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.
“We are thrilled to offer journalists and partners an exclusive preview of Opera Mini for iPhone during the year’s biggest mobile event,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software. “This is a unique opportunity to introduce the fast, feature-rich Opera Mini experience for the iPhone, and to showcase our latest beta releases of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on other platforms and devices. Opera’s mission is to bring the Web to the world, and by making Opera Mini available on yet another platform, we are one step closer.”
The $1,000 question is, will Apple even allow this to pass through and make it into the App Store?
iPhone users reporting problems with 3.1.3 upgrade
Feb 11th
Apple iPhone users have been reporting on Apple’s discussion forums issues with their devices after upgrading to OS 3.1.3 (which Apple released last week).
1. Battery Reporting
OS 3.1.3 was supposed to fix the issue with battery life not accurately being reported, folks who have upgraded are reporting that the battery percentage can take wild swings (in some cases going from 25% to 7% and then moments later jumping back up to 24%). Other users are complaining that the battery life has gotten *WORSE* (in come cases, 3-4 hours!) and that the iPhone is running hotter than normal.swing from 25% down to 7% and then moments later return to 24%.
Thread: iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.3 Battery percentage fail?
2. Playlist sync issues
Users have also been reporting issues with syncing playlists between their iPhone/iPod and iTunes. In some cases, the files are properly transferred over, but the phone shows that the playlist is empty. It seems that this issue is only present with smart playlists that have more than one criteria associated with it. Other users have suggested a workaround by making your “smart” lists more dumb.
Thread: Anyone who has installed the new update (3.1.3): any issues with it?
[via CNet]
OS 5.0.0.464 released for the Bold 9000
Feb 10th
Another carrier has officially released 5.0 for public consumption. Zain Kuwait has officially released 5.0.0.464 for the BlackBerry Bold 9000.
Grab a cup of coffee and head over to:
Download OS 5.0.0.464 from the Zain Kuwait BlackBerry downloads page
[via CrackBerry]
[source BlackBerry OS]
Study finds 14% of iPhone users upgraded to 3.1.3
Feb 10th
Apple released an upgrade to it’s iPhone OS (dubbed 3.1.3) and a week later a study by mobile ad group Medialets shows that only 14% of users actually upgraded to 3.1.3. The study also found that a majority of iPhone users, a whopping 72.3% of them were still running iPhone OS 3.1.2 and about 13% of users were running a version prior to 3.1.2.
The statistics were obtained through developers’ applications that Medialets tracks through the App Store
The iPhone Dev Team, which is the leading group of iPhone hackers announced the release of PwnageTool 3.1.5 for Mac OS X which would allow users to upgrade to 3.1.3 while preserving the jailbreak hack as well as a carrier unlock. The other popular tool called Blackra1n has yet to release an update allowing users to jailbreak with the new upgrade
“Jailbreaking” an iPhone allows users to install an exploit to the OS which allows for unauthorized customizations, multitasking and installing pirated applications from the App Store.
The iPhone OS 3.1.3 upgrade provided a fix for battery reporting, a fix for an issue where third-party applications would not launch, and patching a number of security holes.
[via Medialets]
Google Maps 4.0 with Buzz support now available for Android
Feb 10th
The fine folks over at Engadget are reporting that Google Maps 4.0 with support for the new Google Buzz is now available for download in the Android Market. Reports are in that it works on both Droid and G1 owners (should work on any Android device running 1.6 or higher.)
[via Engadget]