BlackBerry has confirmed that it now has 20m new users for its BBM service on android and iOS. It also confirmed it will be adding new features including video calls.
At present it is free but obviously needs to make some money from the service. This will include ads and maybe other in app purchases.
The HTC One Max is now available to buy from online retailers, including Clove Technology. Click here for details http://www.clove.co.uk/htc-one-max
To recap the HTC One Max has the same design styling as the HTC One. It includes HTC BlinkFeed, Zoe, BoomSound and TV Remote IR.
It has a 5.9″ Full HD 1080 x 1920 LCD3 screen. It measures in at 164.5 x 82.5 x 10.29 mm. It weighs over 200g. So it is heavy and huge.
Unlike the HTC One it has a removable back cover, giving you access to the SIM card slot and support for micro SD cards up to 64GB.
I imagine in 5 years time, we will think 5.9 inch phones are all too small.
Google held an event to highlight some of the key software improvements for android. These will be present in the new Nexus 5, making this handset potentially super amazing. The improvements are as follows –
Hangouts
-Added Single tap location sharing
-Added the use of Animated GIFs
-SMS integration so all your messaging can be in one place. Finally an iMessage competitor.
-Auto Awesome features such as boosting the light of people that are in the Hangout.
-Hangouts On Air – Better planning including a dedicated event page plus special editing features
Photos
– Backup – Backing up photos on Google+ has always been full size by default, but iOS users will get auto backup as well with their next update.
– Highlight – Google+ has been picking out our best photos since Google I/O, but they have improved the algorithm.
– Search – We already could search our photos, but 1,000 additional words have been added so that you can search your images even if they aren’t tagged.
– Editing – Auto Enhance has been around since Google I/O for those that have no time, but Snapseed is also available for those that are more experienced and the Google Nik Collection for the seasoned pros.
– You can now adjust the Auto Enhance setting to Low or High and you can also control it by album. Snapseed adds HDR Scape, which takes any photo and converts them to HDR with one touch.
– Auto Awesome gets two new features – Auto Awesome Action and Auto Awesome Eraser
Auto Awesome Movies
– Google will take your photos and videos from an event and put them all together in one movie set to music. This can be done automatically or manually. It includes stabilization, music, automatic cuts, and effects. Users will have full control for further editing including trimming and how long the video is to be. As to music, you will be able to choose from a predefined set of licenced tunes. This seems like HTC Zoe’s.
I have spent a few days with the LG G2. The specifications are readily available on the web, so I am just going to cover off my lasting impressions of this phone.
First the negative. The model I had was a 16gb version which in my books does not provide enough memory if you are going to want to store your music, apps and games on it. My theory is networks in the UK did not want to stock the 32gb version so they could force you on to using a larger data tariff.
Now the positive. It feels great to hold in the hand. The rear buttons are weird but you do get used to them. The screen is simply the best I have ever seen. It embarrasses my iPhone 5S screen. 5.2 inches of gorgeous screen and hardly any bezels. In fact the screen is the one aspect of this device I will really miss.
The camera was fairly good, but the freak UK weather meant photographing in 100mph winds was not possible.
Double tap to turn on or off is excellent. It also works when in other apps, if you tap on the status bar instead.
Battery seemed capable of getting me through the day despite me using it constantly.
Overall, it was the screen with its gorgeous display and tiny bezels that stand out. Now if the new Nexus 5 is based on this, but with a 8mp OIS camera, we really are in for a treat.
The UK’s mobile phone operators could be forced by Government to invest more in next generation services after figures showed thousands of miles of roads have no 3G coverage at all.
Ofcom said it was launching an investigation of the 3G and 4G speeds of each operator in the country, admitting that some parts were cut-off from the so-called super-speed revolution happening in towns and cities across the UK.
The regulator revealed that just 35 per cent of the length of Britain’s A and B roads were served by all major 3G networks such as Vodafone and EE. Nearly 10 per cent of the 30,000 miles of major roads have no 3G service whatsoever.
And down in Devon and Cornwall that percentage decreases rapidly.
Apple just announced it Q4 earnings. Just sit back and read these numbers –
– Apple has $146.8 billion in cash, 76% offshore.
– Apple made 15 strategic acquisitions in its financial year. That’s around one every 3 week!
– Apple sold 33.8m iPhone sold in the quarter, up 26%, record Sept. quarter and 150 million iPhone sales in fiscal 2013.
– Apple sold 14.1M iPads in the quarter
– 94% of tablets in education are iPads
– Best Education quarter ever. Up 8% YOY. iPad up 22% YOY. Mac up 8% YOY. $1 billion in Education revenues in a Quarter for the first tim
– 99% customer satisfaction rate with its iPads
– $4.4B in iTunes Store sales, $4.3B in iTunes software/services revenue
– 60 billion app downloads
– 20 million iTunes Radio listeners
-iPhone sales up 36% per store, per week from last year
– 49 stores opened or remodelled this year
– 8 new stores opened in Q4, 2 remodelled, 99 million visitors. 416 stores total, 162 outside US, $10.9 million in revenue in Q4.
– 30 new stores coming in 2014, 20 remodels. 2/3rds outside the US.
– $55-$58 billion revenue estimate for Q1 2014 – LOOK AT THIS FIGURE AGAIN. A massive increase from last quarter
– 4.6 million Macs sold, down from 4.9 last year
– 16 million Macs in fiscal 2013
So these are the numbers. Also worth noting –
– Tim Cook not sure there will be enough iPad Mini with retina display for the Christmas demand
– 2014 will see the launch of not 1 but 2 new product categories for Apple
– the iPhone 5C was never meant to be cheap
– China represented 15% of all Q4 income
– Apple’s margins down from 40% to 37%.
I wish I could create a company with such massive margins and sales.
Apple promoted Mavericks as free and available for Macs as old as 2007. What Apple did not tell you was one feature you might have relied on has been removed.
Previously you could sync your iPhone or iPad with your macs contacts and calendar via iTunes. Have a look now, that option is completely gone. Everything now has to be synced via the Cloud.
I was in the Apple Store Exeter on Sunday morning and listening to various people deciding whether to buy an iPad Air or iPad Mini with Retina Display.
They were using the current iPads as a gauge to try and decide which new iPad to buy. If you recall the new iPads are identical in feature set and specification from cameras, screens and processors. So these potential customers asked the Apple staff for some guidance.
Now forget for one moment if you are a geek, how would you differentiate the difference? How would you sell the differences? So after showing the screen sharpness it was difficult even with the current iPad Mini to really show any major difference with the full size iPad. In fact due to the better whiteness and backlight, the Mini screen looked better. So at the end of the day the only thing that mattered was physical size of the iPad. Everything else was irrelevant to an average person. And as the physical size of the Air would be slightly smaller, this makes this task even harder. The Apple staff couldn’t really give any major reasons to pick one over the over. They just said you have a 14 day return period if you are unhappy with it.
The final decision by these average buyers was to go for the Air. The larger size screen would make viewing and typing on the screen a little easier. And that was all that counted in the end.
LG has announced its curved-screen smartphone, the G Flex. The phone uses flexible OLED screen technology to allow for a dramatic curve on the horizontal axis, is between 7.9 and 8.7mm thick at various points, weighs 177g, and has a 6-inch 720p display. Inside there’s a 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera, and a 3,500 mAh battery.
It has a special protective film on the back cover is designed to get rid of scratches on the phone within minutes. Seeing is believing.
I am so not convinced by this curved phone and at 6 inches in size it is huge. And a self healing back sounds like fairy tale stuff. I suppose seeing is believing. What do you think?
Over the weekend, Twitter account evleaks leaked the latest photo render of the new Nexus 5.
With all these leaks of the device, it is now only a matter of 3 days before it is officially available from the Google Play store.
Gavin's Gadgets & Photography 