Oh noz! Looks like Verizon is vying for world’s most back stabbing carrier award. While AT&T’s low-end 250MB data plan is pretty laughable itself, VZW wants you to know that it hates you more — dear customer who is raped financially each month.
On that happy and graceful note, the new pre-paid data plans:
Of course, like all good things, there has to be an end to this “Unlimited” story of theirs. Is it soft capped at 2GB, 5GB, a bajillion? I’ve sent a letter off to Verizon to get to the bottom of it. You’ll know when I know.
In the meantime, debate amongst yourselves as to the strategy of these data plans. To get the party started, I’ll toss in my $0.02 — Verizon is releasing a completely useless “ultra low end” data plan that no one will use (or pay insane overage charges) and effectively forcing every single one of their pre-paid smartphone (and probably most featurephone users) to pay $30 for data. Nevermind the fact that $30 is on the high side.
Debate away…
Apple is a funny company when it comes to updates. On one hand, they’ll keep supporting older hardware much longer than your typical consumer electronics manufacturer. The original iPhone was receiving updates up until the iPhone 4 dropped. Granted, a security/bug fix could still make it’s way back in time. But what end users really care about — New features!! — won’t be going backwards any longer. And then you have instances such as the Apple TV. The first couple of years for the Apple TV was rather uneventful. An added feature here, a slightly tweaked design there.
With the release of the new, drastically smaller Apple TV, two big changes will have far reaching consequences: (1) Older models will no longer receive updates of any kind, and (2) You cannot “buy” movies/tv shows anymore. It’s straight up rentals from here on out. Updates for older hardware isn’t something to be expected for any great length of time. But what about the most recent “older” Apple TV? Surely it’s not that old that it cannot partake of the new features, most notably Netflix, is it? The previous gen Apple TV doesn’t seem all that old. Kind of a pre-mature death, wouldn’t you say?
And then there’s the whole buying vs. renting arguement…
Intel may think they have a fighting chance in the smartphone world, but with ARM and their upcoming A9 chip, it’s more apparent than ever that Intel doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.
How can I say that? Take a look at the A9′s preliminary specs:
The A9 chips are built upon a 28-nm process, meaning they’re tiny. With that tiny size comes a pretty hefty power savings. Though admittingly, tossing in an extra core and playing around with voltages will nullify a fair chunk of the claimed battery saving abilities.
For now, there’s not even a slight hint of when we could see these in mass produced phones. But I’ll do my part and take a stab at it: 2 years. Your turn…
It’s easy to say the weekly stories of App Store approval/rejections are an emotional roller coaster. But finally — Finally! — we can say that Apple appears to be weeding out the stupidity and employing some people with common sense once and for all. At one point, apps that “copied functions of native iOS apps” were banned outright — no matter how good they were. But Apple has at least relented a tiny bit of control. Now there are several stand alone browsers to choose from, namely Opera. But a new high profile contender has hopes that it too will soon be in the fight.
The folks behind Skyfire are pleased to announce that an official iOS Skyfire app has been submitted to the App Store. The thing that made Skyfire so great on other platforms such as Android, was the way it handled flash video…or that is, how it didn’t handle it natively. Skyfire works much like Opera Mini — the rendering is done on a Skyfire server, compressed, Flash video converted to HTML 5, and then that compressed information (up to 75%) is sent to the phone. Using Skyfire as your main web browser, should it be approved, could literally give you more mileage on your daily crawl across the internet.
The way it handles Flash should appease Apple whom we all know is absolutely not a fan. The bigger picture, however, is that server-side rendering is a huge benefit for mobile browsers as they have to deal with mobile processors, smaller screens, and shrinking bandwidth woes. For now, it looks like we can be fairly certain Skyfire will be approved. According to the devs, they worked closely with Apple to assure that Skyfire complied with all of iOS’s and Apple’s rules. Though we can’t help but look back at the countless lapses of common sense that Apple has shown us regarding app approvals in the not too distant past. With that said, we are waiting and watching…
The greatest thing about Android is that even though it has “an image”, end users (and regrettably, carriers) are allowed to mod and customize the UI as they see fit. With that said, there are plenty of home replacement options in the Android Market if the stock Android (or carrier provided) home app doesn’t exactly mesh into the fabric of your daily life. I’ve tried pretty much every home replacement on the market, eventually finding a winner in LauncherPro.
For a short time, I managed to get a sort of working/sort of broken HTC Sense launcher on my Droid, but it was far too buggy. And in the end, I missed the stock look of Android. Where HTC’s Sense UI failed, perhaps the freshly ripped-off-the-LG-Ptimus Home app can do better, no?
The fine folks at XDA have taken yet another proprietary offering and ripped it’s guts apart, ‘splaying them on the XDA forums for the world to enjoy, regardless of Android device. I loaded the LG Home app on my Moto Droid 1 and it worked fine — a bit slow, but fine. With the home app comes a pack of widgets to boot. The only thing I’m still left wanting is the weather widget that is present on the LG Ally’s build. Maybe next time I guess. For the record, the LG Launcher is said to work on any Android device, but it hasn’t been tested. As such, hope for the best, plan for the worst.
Anywho, I know you all just want the goods. Stop on by the thread over at XDA to get your download on…
While I find myself gravitating towards the higher end of the GPU spectrum, I understand that not everyone has the monetary means or lust for a three-screen desktop. With that said, if you’re running a lonely monitor all by it’s lonesome, and don’t plan on any heavy or demanding gaming, a $200+ graphics card seems ridiculous. And if $200 is too much, the $500+ GTX 480 is downright stupid.
The time has come for more affordable Fermi power by way of hte GF106 architecture, starting with the GTS 440/450. These initial details pertain to an Asus-branded model, but nevertheless, highlight what rouhgly ~$125USD will get you in a few weeks time.
Hop inside for the spec sheet…
New iPod Touches were a given. Still, it’s nice that they’re finally here. But as awesome as they are, the new iPod Touch is hardly the only thing worth talking about.
Hop inside and get the quick rundown of everything Apple dished out today…
Looks like HTC users who use the bundled Twitter app have a bit of a sour pill to swallow this morning. As they promised late last week, Twitter’s authentication protocol is now entirely OAuth protected. All that means is apps that don’t support the spec will now be rendered useless (see exhibit A, above).
In HTC’s case, it looks like no one took the time to do push out a quick update. As such, “Incorrect username/password” errors are flooding the market. With as popular as Twitter is, I don’t see HTC taking too long to do something about this. Then again, we have to ask how many people are actually using the bundled HTC Twitter app — are you?
Social bugs of the webOS universe, rejoice! The latest Facebook 1.3 update is now live. Besides the new number, selectable news feeds, revised photo tagging, landscape support, ability to clear multiple notifications, and access to fan pages are some of the more mentionable features.
If you want more to chew on, hop inside for a more thorough breakdown, compliments of the Facebook webOS team…
There are some things we nerds like, want, and need. The first two we can manage to live without our entire lives and still die happily. The latter, however, pertains to vital things that we need to survive. Near the top of my list — the 2-Kilovolt Washer Launcher. Who knew launcher small metallic disks of death could be so much damn fun?
Hop on past to see the jolly good time, and watch a poor pop can have it’s life smashed short…
Within the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen Moto’s Droid X rooted and ripped open for the coding masses to see. It was a pretty big step, though ultimately not the one we really seek. That award goes to custom ROMs. What manufacturers and Google alike forget or neglect to include, 3rd party ROMs add into the mix and then some.
But Motorola’s use of the eForce chip told scary tales for rooting such phones and installing custom ROMs, (and to a lesser extent custom kernels…etc.). But alas, the Android community is tireless and determined. Introducing, the Droid X and it’s first working custom ROM. From the looks of things, it looks like it’s (obviously) the popular Sapphire ROM.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to sit tight a bit longer for the process and/or files to pull of this small feat ourselves. In the meantime, hop inside and watch this little ditty of a motion picture…
AT&T: “Verizon’s first 4G phones are going to suck, resemble fat bricks”. Me: “Good! No more clam handing…”
You don’t go to the store and buy a new computer with Windows 2000. Why do it with your smartphone? [Android fragmentation]
AT&T take note. If you’re going to kill unlimited plans, this is how you do it: 3 UK launches “The One Plan” — 2,000 minutes, 5,000 three-to-three calling, 5,000 texts, 1GB data.
How-to: Make your own glow sticks!
USB Mailbox remind you about pending messages.
The flashlight of nerds: The LEGO Dynamo Torch
iPhone App review: Scrabble *Updated*
WordPress 2.0 for iPhone released! [Review]
Review: cMOY headphone amp by BioScienceGeek
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