Cell Phone News
WinPho is Keeping Customers Happy
According to Microsoft’s official Windows Phone blog, Windows Phone 7 users are the 2nd happiest customers in the US when it comes to the mobile operating system (OS) experience. The graph provided shows that Apple iOS had the most “very satisfied” customers with 70%, followed by Windows Phone 7 with 57% and Google Android coming in at a surprising 3rd with 50%.
Gingerbread Coming to ThunderBolt
The first 4G LTE enabled smartphone on Verizon’s network, the HTC ThunderBolt, is soon to finally receive the Android Gingerbread update. The news comes as welcome relief to ThunderBolt users across the nation who have been waiting for the update since HTC accidentally leaked the information about a Gingerbread update around 4 months ago.
Next iPhone in Testing Phase?
The UK website The Guardian, has reported that the iPhone 5 (or whatever it ends up being called) has been sent to carriers for network testing. The alleged phones were transported in locked and sealed boxes under high security. If true, this is pretty exciting news and could even mean that the next iPhone is in line for a September or early October release. It’s not really shocking news, as many online tech journos have expected a September release for the iPhone 5 for a while now, mainly due to both iOS5 and iCloud looking to make their debuts around the same time.
WinPho Mango Released to OEMs
Microsoft has finally signed off on the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build for the Windows Phone ‘Mango’ update. That means that the next phase will be almost entirely in the hands of the handset manufacturers and network carriers. The news is timely, as this move needed to happen soon if Microsoft wanted to hit the market sometime around that valuable September timeframe. It would be extremely beneficial for Microsoft to get the Mango update out as soon as possible, in order to contend with Apple’s new iCloud and iOS5 software services that will be seeing a September launch. As such the next gen of iPhone is also expected around this time.
Microsoft Does Well, Nokia Not Great
It seems that Microsoft’s new deal with Nokia was a much more needed move by the Finish telco than by the computing giant that brought us the Windows platform. While Microsoft is now boasting record full-year profits, Nokia has experienced “clearly disappointing’ results for Q2 of 2011.
Motorola Triumph on Virgin Mobile
The Motorola Triumph is a reasonably priced smartphone that sits around the higher range of the market without costing as much as some of the top end devices can and it’s just landed on Virgin Mobile on a variety of Virgin Mobile plans. In terms of hardware the Motorola Triumph certainly pulls its own weight. The single-core 1GHz Scorpion processor might not be the fastest around but it should get the job done efficiently and quickly when paired with 512MB of RAM.
Touchless Control for WinPho Cells?
The folks over at WPCentral have suggested that Microsoft seems to be working on shrinking down the chip inside the Kinect for future use in Windows Phone devices. While cool if true, this news definitely raises a few questions. Firstly, if you aren’t familiar with the Microsoft Kinect it’s basically a foot-long Xbox 360 peripheral with dual HD cameras that actually track your body’s movements in real time. The idea here is that users no longer need any form of controller to play; the movement of your body is all you need to interface.
WinPho 7.5 Mango in September?
September is shaping up to be a big month. First Apple’s announcement that both iOS5 and iCloud will be coming, then some leaked documents by Lulzsec suggested a new iOS device (possibly the next iPhone) and to add on all of that WinPho Mango may have been accidentally announced via Twitter.
Apple Offering iPad 3 For Xmas?
There’s a rumor doing the rounds right now that Apple might be releasing a new iPad in time for Christmas. Whether or not this could be the iPad 3 or an upgraded iPad 2 is uncertain, although speculation seems to be favoring the latter of the two options.
Firefox 6 Beta Announced
It appears the new tri-monthly rapid update model recently adopted by Firefox is already kicking itself in to gear. Just one month after Firefox 5 was released for download Firefox 6 is already available in the form of a usable beta. Firefox 6 seems to be mainly improvements for handsets and tablets so far, something we consider a definite positive for the popular browser. Traditionally Firefox versions have taken a bit long to start up on Android devices and have been somewhat sluggish overall. Firefox 6 is aiming to fix much of that in order to expand its presence in the mobile market.
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