Tag archive: smartphone

Going into effect on Sunday, February 12, AT&T is increasing the activation fee on phone upgrades from $18 to $36 according to a memo issued to all AT&T store managers according to BGR. This brings the activation fee equal to the current rate of $36 for starting a brand new service plan. As directed by AT&T corporate management, store employees are supposed to define the fee as costs associated to picking out a new phone as well as… Read More

With over 500,000 apps available through Apple’s App Store, it can be daunting for developers to get their apps noticed — let alone downloaded. Enter a recent thread on app developer site Touch Arcade, in which a poster who was recently shopping around for ways to get his app more exposure was contacted by a “marketing” company that promised it could break apps into the top 25 rankings in exchange for a lump sum payment — in this case $5,000.… Read More

Today Google finally introduced Chrome for Android after three long, impatient years. It’s now available as a beta release for smartphones and tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich – which, unfortunately is incredibly limited. Right now that means that only the Galaxy Nexus and Wi-Fi only Xoom tablets will be able to access Chrome. First, the bad: It’s a bit of a slap in the face for Android owners: Chrome for mobile has been one of the most… Read More

Figures published by research firm Canalys on Friday show that for the first time ever, shipments of smartphones have exceeded those of PCs, a category that includes tablet computers, or “pads” as Canalys calls them. The data shows that last year a whopping 487.7 million smartphones were shipped, compared to 414.6 million PCs. This marks a 62.7 percent increase on shipments of smartphones for 2011. The healthy smartphone sales can be partly… Read More

While Apple may have made a mountain of money by putting a bunch of electronics inside brushed aluminum cases, a design student from the UK is wondering if his bamboo-based idea will yield a similar bounty. Frustrated by the lack of designs in the smartphone market, Middlesex University student Kieron-Scott Woodhouse recently came up with his own concept—a unibody smartphone with its casing carved from a single block of bamboo. He put his ideas… Read More

A leaked image of what appears to show Research In Motion’s first next-generation Blackberry 10 phone has been posted online. BlackBerry site CrackBerry.com has come into possession of the information, with the phone, named London, looking like a radical departure from the usual BlackBerry look. According to the photo, the device sports a super-slim, dark design and, as CrackBerry says in its report, “looks much more like a phonified BlackBerry… Read More

According to the latest study out of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, over half of all shoppers during the 2011 holiday season used a cell phone to research a product that they were considering. Within the sample of 1,000 American adults, one fourth of the respondents whipped out their mobile phone within the store to look up the price of a product at other online retailers. Twenty-four percent of the group used a… Read More

If we can say anything about Steve Jobs, it’s that his death was premature. The Apple innovator had a lot of ground left to cover and was likely only getting started revolutionizing the face of consumer electronics in numerous ways and fields. A new book detailing some of this unfinished innovation, Inside Apple, reveals that Jobs had plans to impact the digital photography industry. Not that he hasn’t already: the iPhone 4S has set the bar for… Read More

The line between smartphone and point-and-shoots is about to get blurrier. Sony has announced its new backside illuminated CMOS image sensor that “embodies the continuous evolution of the camera” – in other words, smaller, lighter, thinner devices. In (still) other words: smartphone cameras. Sony doesn’t mince words explaining the drive behind its new sensor. “The popularization of smartphones and other devices in recent years has been… Read More

Reports of thefts of phones snatched from the hands of pedestrians are on the increase in the UK, police figures suggest. The expensive devices, easily taken while the victim is engrossed in a call, are a straighforward catch for many criminals, who then sell them on, possibly to contacts in other countries. According to a Guardian report, police in one London borough, Islington, have reported an alarming 400 percent increase in phone snatches… Read More

Instagram has catapulted to major success, winning iPhone’s app of the year and spawning an entire ecosystem of smartphone photo products. Despite its enormous popularity, the app has remained rather simple, with only one major upgrade being issued and the team staying relatively small. But an Android app has always been the biggest priority for Instagram, and CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed as much during Le Web this year. Now, it appears that… Read More

Information has come to light suggesting that electronics giant Sony will be releasing around 11 smartphones this year, all running Android. The leaked information, obtained by GSM Arena, lists the names of 11 phones, together with the expected launch dates for each, and their prices in Indian rupees. Indian rupees? Yes, GSM Arena reports the information as being “allegedly leaked through Sony's sales report in India.” In the chart below,… Read More

The Apple iPhone 4S is a hit, if the new numbers from market research firm Nielsen are any indication. During the final three months of 2011, 44.5 percent of respondents purchased an iPhone 4S. That's up from just 25.1 percent who went with an iPhone in October. This boost in sales helped Apple steal market share from the still-dominant Android during the fourth quarter of 2011. Android sales, as of October, were at about 61.6 percent of… Read More

China's ZTE isn't exactly a household name in the United States, but it's important to remember the company is the fourth-largest handset maker in the world, largely on the basis of inexpensive feature phones rolled out in China and other Asian markets, many of which feature dual-sim capabilities so users can easily switch between mobile operators. However, ZTE knows the feature phone market is fading in the face of… Read More

Being a co-founder of Apple, you’d of course expect Steve Wozniak to have an iPhone. Indeed, the man—who incidentally hasn’t worked for the company for some 25 years—is famed for waiting in line for hours at the launch of every new Apple smartphone. With his connections to the Cupertino company clear to all, it may come as a surprise to some that in a recent interview with The Daily Beast, he appeared to be singing the praises of Android… Read More