BlackBerry 10 screen resolution got standardized by RIM

RIM standardized the screen resolution for upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS running devices. The future smartphones running the OS will come in two resolutions: 1280 x 720 pixels for full touch devices, and 720 x 720 pixels for handsets with hardware QWERTY keyboards.
RIM took the abovementioned step after taking feedback from the BlackBerry developer community, whose members have complained about having to deal with a few screen resolutions too many in the past. The new standard set by RIM is bound to make their life easier moving forward.
With the BlackBerry developer alpha unit, as well as the upcoming first consumer handset sporting the slightly different (and uncommon) screen resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels, RIM has advised the people involved in creating applications to use two possible options. The first one involves utilizing the new OS resolution, while the second requires "letter boxing" the apps to 1280 x 720 pixels, thus leaving 24 pixels unused on each side of the display.

Huawei Ascend D Quad and D Quad XL to launch in late August

After suffering numerous delays, Huawei's mightiest droids, the Ascend D Quad and D Quad XL are finally going to get their official launch later this month.
The Huawei Ascend D Quad and D Quad XL are both powered by the company's very own 1.5GHz quad-core K3V2 chipset. The difference is that the D Quad XL packs a larger 2,600mAh battery and a thicker profile.
At the front of either smartphone you can find a 4.5-inch IPS HD display, which their back panels host 8MP BSI cameras. Internal storage stands at 8GB, but it's backed up by a microSD card slot.
It all sounds great on paper, but the delay might turn out to be disastrous for the two smartphones. As you might remember yesterday Xiaomi announced its quad-core beast of an Android smartphone, powered by the quad-core Krait chip inside.
The Huawei Ascend D Quad and D Quad XL will be debuting in China, with the rest of the world to follow shortly after. Unfortunately, the pricing of the two droids still remains a mystery.

 

Sony Xperia P Ice Cream Sandwich update rolling out now

The long awaited ICS update for the Xperia P has finally arrived. Besides the improved functionality brought by the latest Android build, Sony has added several of its own optimizations, including new media apps for your music and movies.
Some other highlights include:

• Extended standby mode, increasing standby time by up to four times (depending on user-profile and data consumption)
• Lock screen with improved functionality
• Resizable widgets for improved personalization
• Improved control of your mobile data consumption
• Recent Apps button for a clear overview of your applications

Xperia P users should be seeing notifications updates, although this may vary in certain regions, as the rollout is yet in progress. To get in on the ICS action you need to either go to 'check for updates' entry in your phones 'About' menu, or connecting it to the PC Companion software.

Sony Xperia S will get vanilla Android as a Google experiment

All the fans of Sony Xperia S have a darn good reason to smile today. Google has launched an experiment to bring plain vanilla Android to Sony's top shelf smartphone. Jean-Baptiste Query (JBQ), Google's Technical Lead of the Android Open Source Project delivered the good news.

The reason for selecting the Sony Xperia S was simple according to JBQ: "it's a powerful current GSM device, with an unlockable bootloader, from a manufacturer that has always been very friendly to AOSP." Sony of course will have to play a role in the project as well, but given the company's good record with AOSP involvement, we doubt it will be an issue.

Google's project will essentially bring the Sony Xperia S into the privileged fold of the Nexus family of devices - a mighty great perspective, which is bound to make the handset a lot more attractive.

Sony Xperia SL goes official with a 1.7GHz dual-core CPU

We just got the first official sighting of the Sony Xperia SL – the refreshed version of the company’s current smartphone flagship. It appears that someone over at Sony jumped the gun and published the official page of the smartphone two weeks before its expected announcement at the Sony pre-IFA press conference.
As expected, the Sony Xperia SL is based on the Sony Xperia S, but comes with a slightly faster CPU. The dual-core Qualcomm S3 chipset has its two Scorpion cores clocked at 1.7GHz, instead of 1.5GHz, but the rest of the specs sheet is identical to that of the Xperia S.


This means that the Sony Xperia SL is offering 32GB of non-expandable storage, an Adreno 220 GPU and 1 GB of RAM. At the front there’s a 4.3” Bravia-powered LCD screen of HD resolution and a 1.3MP camera for video-chatting, while at the back we find a 12 megapixel camera with 1080p video recording.

Sony Xperia SL official photos
Connectivity is duly covered with Wi-Fi, GPS Bluetooth, microUSB and microHDMI available to you as well as quad-band 3G with 14.4MBps support.
Measuring 128.0 x 64.0 x 10.6 mm and weighing 144 g, the Sony Xperia SL body is identical to that of its predecessor, but it will be offered in a new pink color in addition to the previously available white, black and grey.
As there’s no official press release just yet, we don’t know anything on the availability and pricing of the Sony Xperia SL. We should found out about that on August 29, when the smartphone will get its proper announcement.

iOS 6 supports taller displays, maybe even 9-pin connectors

The rumor mill is overflowing with talk of a bigger screen on the next iPhone, a screen with a wider aspect ratio. There's also a lot of chatter about a new connector, potentially with fewer pins. An important question was often overlooked though - does iOS actually support these things?
9to5Mac dug into the iOS Simulator and nudged the resolution to 640 x 1136, the rumored resolution of the iPhone 5 (which, if the screen is 4" as rumored, will keep the pixel density close to the current values and move to a 16:9 aspect ratio).
The Simulator for iOS 6 adjusted by display five rows of icons on the screen, instead of the usual four rows. This is a new feature too, as iOS 5.1 displays only four rows at the same resolution (it just adds blank bars).

It's even more telling that the iOS 6 Simulator doesn't handle other resolutions that well, adopting an iPad-like layout, instead of an iPhone one. This would suggest that the 640 x 1136 is treated specially - to accommodate the new iPhone perhaps? It's a shame they didn't try any apps to see how they handle the scaling.
Another interesting thing found while digging in the iOS 6 innards is a "9Pin". The reference is just a constant in a list of supported features, but it's easy to see how this might be about a 9-pin dock connector (instead of the current 30-pin connector). However, rumors usually point to a less drastic reduction in pin count - 19 pins.

 Of course, both of these things can mean something completely different, be part of a prototype that never leaves Apple's labs or even just a misdirect. The only way to know for sure is to wait for the official Apple announcement, which will supposedly take place on September 12.

New Xperia T hands-on photos emerge, show it from all angles

The Sony LT30i Mint, or the Xperia T, as its DLNA certification suggests, has once again escaped the Sony R&D center and posed in front of a camera.

The 35 new photos, courtesy of nixanbal.com, show the Xperia T from all angles and even demonstrates what the 4.3" droid looks like in hand. Here are the most interesting parts of the photo session.

The Xperia T is powered by a dual-core Snapdragon S4 (Krait) processor and features 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. At the back, it features a 13MP camera with LED flash and an NFC chip.
Sony will officially announce the Xperia T at a pre-IFA event on August 29, where it's expected to unveil a number of smartphones including the Xperia J, Xperia SL and the LT29i Hayabusa.

Samsung wanted its UI to look more like the iPhone's

Another piece of evidence against Samsung has leaked from the court documents that shows how Samsung took inspiration from the iPhone's UI and tried to make their look and work similarly.

This 132 page internal document from Samsung compares several different aspects of the iPhone's UI, from the UI animations to the placement of the buttons with those of the Samsung Galaxy S.
On each page you will find one feature from the iPhone's UI, a note on what's good about it and a similar feature on the Galaxy S with a note saying how it is worse compared to the same feature on the iPhone.
Below each of these you will find a suggestion to improve the said function on the Galaxy S, which in many cases equates to make it look and behave more like its iOS counterpart.

 You can find the entire 263 page PDF document (only 132 pages are in English) below.44

Sony Xperia neo L bets on ICS and a bigger screen

The Sony Xperia neo L is a blast from the past – it’s the second redesign of the 2011 neo model and brings some improvements as well as some setbacks. For one, it runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, even though some newer Sony devices are still waiting to get the update.

The other change is the bigger screen – it now spans to 4″ instead of the original 3.7″. The resolution is set at WVGA – a bit less than the FWVGA of the previous models. It loses a 54 pixel-wide bar and moves to a 15:9 aspect ratio instead of 16:9.
At 12.2mm the neo L is slightly thinner than previous models but also taller and wider to accommodate the larger screen. The weight has increased by just under 6g, to 131.5g.

The redesign has its downsides – it drops the microHDMI port and the hardware shutter key, two things that set the neo and neo V apart from most of their direct rivals. The Xperia neo L uses a 5MP camera capable of 720p video recording, just like the neo V, though the camera interface here is vanilla Android here, not the custom Sony camera app.
Here’s a hands-on video of the Sony Xperia neo L that shows off both its hardware and its software.

Bingoooo! Facebook finally launches real-money Bingo gambling app

‘Bingo Friendzy,’ developed by UK developer Gamesys, has been introduced by Facebook as the social network’s first real-money gambling application.

While the app uses a separate login system from Facebook – one which requires users to enter a physical address – game activity can be published directly on your Facebook timeline.
The app is registered overseas in Gibraltar, a British territory, and as such is only open to UK residents aged 18 and over.
This is not the first time Facebook has permitted gambling apps enter its platform, but it is the first time users are able to stake real money – Bingo Friendzy does not rely on Facebook’s Credits system.
So, will you be yelling “Bingo!” on Facebook?

LG Optimus 4X HD finally rooted, you can try it right now

It certainly took longer than usual, but the LG Optimus 4X HD defenses are finally breached and you can now gain root access to its system. A guy called qaz753 from the all-conquering XDA-developers community did the trick and was kind enough to share the magic with the rest of the 4X HD owners.

The method is a bit more complicated than on some other smartphones, but luckily there’s a step-by-step tutorial courtesy of our tipster that should be quite easy to follow. If you are interested you may find it over here, along with the required files.
As usual, keep in mind that rooting your phone might (and almost certainly will) void your warranty so proceed at your own risk. Also, we suggest you do not proceed with the rooting until you are sure you have understood all steps of the tutorial and you know what you are doing.

Apple’s court documents compare iOS icons with Samsung’s TouchWiz, show the striking similarities

One of the good things about the Apple vs. Samsung legal kerfuffle is that it has often resulted in a lot of interesting and never before seen information leaking to the public through court document.

The latest document from Monday’s trial does not show something new but asserts what we have already seen before. That Samsung took heavy inspiration from Apple’s iOS for the TouchWiz UI.
The images below compare icons from Apple’s iOS with multiple variations that Samsung “created” for different devices running TouchWiz. As you can see, the similarities are striking to anyone with a working pair of eyes. And before you make the lame argument that that there is no other way to design these icons, I would just direct you towards icons on other Android phones running stock Android or HTC Sense, that look nothing like Apple’s icons.

Clearly then Samsung went out of its way to make these icons look like Apple’s, something they have tried to correct in their latest Nature UX, which has substantially different looking icons compared to both, Apple’s and their own previous designs.
Samsung better has some exceptionally talented lawyers otherwise things are looking bleak for them.

Acer CEO advises Microsoft against making tablets, tells them they’re no good at it

Acer’s CEO JT Wang has some words of wisdom for Microsoft and they involve telling them not to enter the tablet market, which is exactly what Microsoft plans to do with the Surface.

While everyone assumed that Microsoft’s decision to enter the hardware manufacturing business will not go down well with their OEM partners, these companies were strangely quiet initially. That is until now, when the reality of the situation seems to have slowly dawned upon them and Acer is the first one to take a shot at Microsoft.
According to Wang, Acer has told Microsoft to think the decision over as it will create a huge negative impact for the ecosystem and that the other brands may take a negative reaction to this move. Wang also thinks that this is not something Microsoft is good at so they should think about this twice.
What Mr. Wang and perhaps even other OEMs are failing to grasp is that Microsoft may have had to take the drastic step of manufacturing its own hardware because companies like Acer are incapable of doing a good job. It would have been very easy for Microsoft to go to an OEM like Acer and get them to manufacture the Surface tablets for them. But a lot is resting on the success of the Surface for Microsoft and the fact that they don’t trust other OEMs to do this important job for them clearly shows that Microsoft doesn’t think others are capable of doing the job right, something they would have learned after years of working with them.
Maybe Mr. Wang should take a look at some of Acer’s own products before telling others they are not good at something.

‘Nina’ takes voice assistants a step further

Nuance, the developer behind Dragon Naturally Speaking and many other voice operated technologies in consumer electronics, has created a voice-activated personal assistant which uses biometrics to uniquely identify a specific user.

This means that you’ll be able to tell your phone to do all sorts of things requiring secure identification by simply talking to your phone.
Unlike OS and device specific solutions such as Siri and S Voice, Nuance is launching a mobile SDK for Android and iOS, which developers can use to make their third party applications voice-operated.
Check out the video of Nina in action:

Korean Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 source code released

The source code for the Korean Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has been released and is now available for download.

This means that developers can now start developing custom ROMs for the newly announced 10.1″ slate.
The revamped Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 was just announced and we already have a hands-on for you guys to enjoy.
We are already working on a preview of the 10.1″ slate with a quad-core Exynos processor so stay tuned!

iOS 6 new beta is out, brings along some new features

Apple has just seeded a new beta version of its iOS platform to developers. The new release brings the usual batch of bug-fixes and performance tweaks, but also several cool new features.
We told you about the first of those earlier today - the preinstalled YouTube app is gone, to be possibly replaced by a separate app, which will be available from the AppStore later on. We now also learn that one of the most heavily advertised features of the iOS 6 has been improved as well.
We are talking the 3D Maps app, which has now gained support for several new regions. Those include Boston, Atlanta, Portland, Phoenix, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Houston and Dallas (US), as well as Toronto (Canada), Lyon (France) and Birmingham and Manchester (England).

 Developers also unearthed a new Bluetooth Sharing sub-menu in the privacy settings of the iOS 6 beta 4. It allows apps to share data with other devices even when you're not using the apps and speculations are that it might be used for the Passbook app, which is Apple's response to the Google Wallet. The new entry might also suggest file sharing over Bluetooth, but knowing Apple's stance on the matter so far, it sounds unlikely.

Since we don't have an official changelog from Apple for the new release, this is about as much info on the new beta as we have. If some other important thing pops up, we'll make sure to keep you posted.

Photos of alleged WP8 Nokia surface, seem pretty dubious

While the rumor mill is trying to pinpoint when the announcement of Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone 8 devices will be, now a couple of photos surfaced showing what one of the smartphones may look like.
The phone is clearly sticking to the Lumia design guidelines and size-wise seems to be close to the Lumia 900. Unlike the 900 however, the screen edges are beveled (like on the 800), the Nokia logo is to the right (and not centered), the phone is yellow (not available on the 900) and, of course, there's the brand new homescreen.

There are a couple of red flags though. For one, Windows Phone 7.8 uses the same homescreen, so it's not a clear enough indication that we're seeing a WP8 device. Another one is the file names of the images uploaded on WPDang (the site that broke the news): "Lumia-900-prototype_1.jpg" and "Lumia-900-Fake-prototype_2.jpg". I don't know if the WPDong admins are the ones that named the files or if it's the user, Playberry, who first posted them.
We have our doubts these photos show an actual WP8 prototype by Nokia, but if the rumors are true we only have to wait until Nokia World to find out (it starts in a month)

Apple took 77% of the smartphone industry profits last quarter

The numbers are in and once again it has been a stunning quarter for Apple. The Cupertino based company managed to reap in nearly 77 percent of the operating profits from the smartphone industry in the second fiscal quarter.

These figures are amazing because Apple only contributed to 6 percent of the industry's smartphones and tablets that were shipped last quarter and it was also supposed to be a slow quarter for Apple due to the iPhone sales being lower than usual. In comparison, Samsung shipped nearly twice as many devices in the same quarter.

So while everyone likes to point out that Android devices are outselling iOS devices, when it comes to making money off these devices, Apple is way ahead of everyone else. And these figures are only going to go up when the next iPhone and the mythical iPad mini hit the market.

Apple removes YouTube app from iOS 6 due to licensing issues

Those who downloaded the latest iOS 6 beta 4 yesterday were in for a bit of a surprise when they found out the YouTube app was no longer part of the OS.

Turns out, Apple will no longer be including the YouTube player app in iOS 6 because their license has expired. However, those using iOS 5 and older versions can continue to use this application as long as they don't upgrade to iOS 6.
Apple has also revealed that Google is working on its own separate YouTube app for iOS, which will be released on the App Store some time in future, hopefully by the time iOS 6 is released to the public.
In case you are wondering how you will watch YouTube videos without the player, there is no need to worry as the videos can easily be played within Safari. You can also access your subscriptions and favorites by logging into the YouTube mobile website from your iOS device, which works similarly to the iOS app.

Are these the nano-SIM tray and home button of the iPhone 5?

Earlier this year, lots of major phone makers fought over the design of the next generation SIM cards - known as nano-SIM - and Apple won out in the end. Photos of the alleged SIM tray for the iPhone 5 have surfaced and show the difference in size between micro- and nano-SIM, but no other changes in the design of the tray.
The nano-SIM design promises 40% smaller SIM cards, which will save room in the already crammed internals of modern smartphones. By the way, rumor has it that European carriers have already ordered large quantities of nano-SIM cards to get ready for the launch of the iPhone 5.

iPhone 5's alleged nano-SIM card tray sized up against the microSIM tray 
The home button of the iPhone 5 somehow also made its way into the spy photoshoot. Its design is unchanged, but it seems that this component has shrunk too - presumably to make more room for the larger screen of the new iPhone.

The new home key will also be smaller

Photos supposedly of iPhone 5 components leak all the time, so take them with a pinch of salt. But if these are the genuine article, then their colors tell us something interesting - there will a black and white iPhone (not surprising), but the black one will have black sides (note the painted tray) rather than the grey metallic sides of the current design. They look like they match the leaked next-gen iPhone shells.

Windows Phone 8 might make an appearance at Nokia World

According to Bloomberg, we'll be seeing some devices introduced at Nokia World that will run on Microsoft's recently-announced Windows Phone 8 platform.
If this is true, then we might see the announcement of new WP8 devices before the rumored press conference for the next iPhone on September 12. This may not be a good thing, however, as Nokia run the risk being overshadowed by Apple's highly anticipated announcement.
As for when we'll actually see the first WP8-powered devices on the market, Microsoft have remained tight-lipped (although there are rumors of a an October release date, to coincide with their scheduled release of the Windows 8 OS). Hopefully, if announcements for Windows Phone 8 devices are made during the Nokia World conference, we'll also learn when we can get our hands on one.

Samsung officially announces the Galaxy Note 10.1

After sending out a pretty obvious invite about its special event on August 15, Samsung has just officially announced the Galaxy Note 10.1.

This is the second appearance of the Galaxy Note 10.1 after it was returned to the R&D center for a specs update and now the tablet is as ready for action as it could be. It comes with Samsung's very own Exynos 4412 chipset with a quad-core 1.4GHz processor, Mali 400MP GPU and 2GB of RAM.
As its name suggests, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 comes with 10.1" screen, which as usual for the company's slates is of the PLS TFT variety. It features a resolution of 1280x800 pixels, making for a pixel density of 149ppi.

 

The Galaxy Note 10.1 comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions, all of which feature a stylus dubbed the S Pen. This time around though, the tablet offers a slot for the S Pen, instead of making you carry it separately.
Just like the original Galaxy Note, the 10.1 comes with some exclusive apps to take advantage of the stylus, including S Note, S Planner, Crayon physics, Adobe® Photoshop® Touch, and Polaris Office. There's also palm rejection support, so you won't hit any buttons by accident with your palm when drawing with the S Pen.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 comes with a 5MP main snapper with LED flash and a 1.9MP font-facing camera for video conferencing. There's also a microSD card slot, and on the 3G models - a SIM card slot, as well.
Samsung also released a rather lengthy introductory video of the Galaxy Note 10.1 Here it is.