Category: Mobile

T-Mobile previously revealed that it plans to offer HTC’s latest flagship smartphone later this year, however it is the only U.S. carrier that has yet to announce a launch date. The HTC One will be available from AT&T and Sprint for $199 on April 19th, and while earlier rumors suggested that T-Mobile’s version would be released on the same day, a new leak hints otherwise. According to internal documents published by TmoNews, the HTC One will reportedly arrive in select stores on April 24th. Similar to the initial release of the Galaxy S III, it would appear that not all T-Mobile stores will be carrying the HTC One. The company previously announced that it will price high-end smartphone such as the Galaxy S4, iPhone 5 and HTC One for $99 down and $20 per mont for 24 months. The leaked images follow below.

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Speaking at AllThingsD’s Dive Into Mobile conference on Monday, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs announced that the first Firefox OS smartphones will launch around June, Business Insider reported. The executive revealed that initial availability will be limited to emerging markets including Venezuela, Poland, Brazil, Portugal and Spain. The HTML5-based operating system will also be making its way to the United States, as Sprint has previously confirmed that it plans to launch a Firefox OS smartphone sometime next year. Kovacs noted that the delay is due to the company’s plan to build a desirable ecosystem before launching in the highly competitive U.S. market.

With Apple increasingly unlikely to release a new version of its iPad until the fall, at least one analyst is worried that it will spell trouble for sales of the iPhone 5 this spring. Per Barron’s, R.W. Baird analyst William Power projects “a sharper fall-off in iPhone sales due in part to heightened competition, and the lack of a March/April iPad refresh to depress this year’s sequential comparison relative to a year ago” when Apple released its third-generation tablet. Power’s remarks come amid reports that Foxconn earnings have been hurt by “disappointing” iPhone 5 sales over the past couple of months despite the fact that the iPhone 5 has been the best-selling smartphone in the world since its launch last fall.

Clearwire disclosed in a securities filing on Friday that it had received an offer from an unnamed company for use of its spectrum. According to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon is behind the proposed deal and has offered $1.5 billion to lease Clearwire’s spectrum. Verizon is said to be interested in Clearwire spectrum in big markets to help it bolster its 4G LTE service. The carrier is expected to face a few obstacles, however. Wireless rival Sprint has a controlling stake in Clearwire and recently proposed a takeover of the company, while at the same time Sprint is in the middle of dealing with its own merger offers from Japanese carrier SoftBank and from Dish Network. Clearwire, Sprint and Verizon, nevertheless, will come together to evaluate the offer and discuss it in further detail.

Apple’s primary manufacturing partner Foxconn is said to be increasing its staff, shortly after a freeze on new hires following the holiday season, in order to get ready for a big push come summer when Apple debuts its next iPhone. That’s the latest from the Wall Street Journal, which reported today that Foxconn is adding around 10,000 new assembly line workers a week to its iPhone production facility, with unnamed executives at the company confirming that it’s in preparation for a new iPhone launch.

The Apple partner will begin mass production of the iPhone “very soon,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s sources, which fits perfectly with the anticipated early summer launch of an iPhone 5 successor. We’ve heard previously that manufacturers are preparing for a June 2013 launch, which suggests that we’ll see the device introduced at or around WWDC 2013. Apple has introduced new iPhones at its annual developer’s conference in the past, with the exception of the last two iPhones, which were revealed and put on sale in fall instead.

The Wall Street Journal’s report doesn’t specifically mention a launch window for the iPhone, only that it will begin mass production shortly. We know from watching Apple’s production cycles in the past, however that the company typically starts large-scale production for a launch somewhere between 3 and 4 months ahead of a product going on sale. This time around, Apple is expected to introduce an iPhone 5S-type device according to most early reports, retaining design elements of the iPhone 5 but with under the hood improvements.

Also accompanying a new flagship phone will be a lower-cost offering, which sources including the WSJ suggest could be introduced around the same time as this next-gen model. This would use plastic in its construction, and also come in a variety of different colors, early leaks suggest.

Apple recently launched the iPhone 5 on T-Mobile, which early indications suggest has spurred ample renewed interest in the device. A mid-year upgrade for their flagship smartphone could make this the most successful year yet in terms of iPhone device sales, depending on how attractive any new features introduced are to prospective buyers, especially given the impact a low-cost device might have on pre-paid and emerging markets.

One of the most common criticisms of Samsung’s hugely popular Galaxy line of devices is that they use plastic cases that are less durable and of lower quality than the aluminum builds of the iPhone 5 and the HTC One. One of SamMobile’s sources says that the company is taking this criticism to heart, however, and is considering upping the build quality for its next Galaxy Note “phablet” because it is supposedly “worried” about the perception that it uses second-rate materials. While this news would be welcomed by many Samsung fans, there are some reasons to doubt whether Samsung will really ditch plastic going forward. In the first place, the plastic builds make Samsung devices much easier to mass produce than rival devices and the high yields help Samsung achieve better economies of scale. Second, the average consumer has given precisely no sign that he or she cares about plastic builds since the notoriously plasticky Galaxy S III sold around 40 million units in 2012.

BlackBerry executives were furious last week when they accused Detwiler Fenton analyst Jeff Johnston of making “materially false and misleading” claims about returns of the BlackBerry Z10 outnumbering total sales. Barron’s points out that BlackBerry got some key help late last week when Verizon issued a statement affirming that “after 14 days, quality performance [of the BlackBerry Z10] has been in line with other smartphone launches.” This backs up a statement made by BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, who said that “sales of the BlackBerry Z10 are meeting expectations and the data we have collected from our retail and carrier partners demonstrates that customers are satisfied with their devices.”

Good things have come to T-Mobile customers who have had to wait for the iPhone to finally arrive at their favorite carrier. Per AllThingsD, T-Mobile CMO Mike Sievert claims that the carrier had a “gangbusters” first day of iPhone 5 sales with “lines out the door… at nearly all of our almost 3,000 stores nationwide.” Sievert went on to say that the lines outside T-Mobile stores show that consumers “want the iPhone 5, and they are voting with their feet that they want it from T-Mobile.” T-Mobile is expected to get a boost from finally getting the iPhone on its network this year, with one analyst projecting that the carrier will sell around 3.4 million iPhones in 2013.

The delayed launch of HTC’s new flagship phone was obviously going to be a huge problem for the vendor, and now it looks as though the HTC One might only have a week at AT&T before the Samsung marketing machine looks to swoop in an steamroll it. Engadget reports that tentative launch dates have been set according to a leaked internal document from nationwide retailer Staples, which points to an April 26th launch for the flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone at AT&T. The document also pegs May 1st as the Galaxy S4’s tentative launch date at T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless seemingly plans to release the phone a month later on May 30th. The U.S. version of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 features a 5-inch Super AMOLED display with full HD 1080p resolution, a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, up to 64GB of internal storage and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. An image of the purported leaked Staples document follows below.

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Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn has reportedly resumed hiring after a brief freeze as the company prepares to ramp up production of Apple’s next-generation iPhone. Foxconn reportedly froze hiring this past February as Apple trimmed iPhone production in preparation for its upcoming new flagship smartphone. Now, as the new handset’s launch presumably nears, Bloomberg reports that Foxconn has resumed hiring. The “iPhone 5S” is expected to be unveiled this summer and should closely resemble the current iPhone 5, though rumors suggest it will feature an upgraded processor, an improved rear camera, several new color options and possibly an integrated fingerprint scanner as well.

Move over HAPIfork. Estonian startup Jomi Interactive is cooking up a pair of smart devices that will remind people to drink more water. Or at least whatever liquid/poison of choice you put in your water bottle. The aim, says the startup, is to encourage healthy behaviour and counteract the mild dehydration we are all apparently afflicted with. No, not just hungover folk; everyone who fails to glug down the requisite 2.5-3 litres of water per day.

Jomi is prototyping a device — or rather two devices — that aim to fix the problem of having plentiful water on tap but never remembering to drink enough of it (perhaps the ultimate #firstworldproblem). So far, Jomi has created design prototypes and 10 milled PCBs for developers to play around with but no final product. It’s bootstrapping development but will be launching a crowdfunding campaign to fund a production run once it has finalised hardware design and testing.

The two devices it’s planning are the Jomi Band, which will be the more basic of the pair (pictured above in an early design concept render, and below right in prototype form). This will attach around a water bottle and remind the user at pre-set intervals to take a sip (presumably by flashing/beeping). The second more pro product — the Jomi Sleeve — will attach to the bottom of the bottle and, in addition to reminders, will periodically weigh the bottle, to figure out how much water is being consumed. The data will then be sent via Bluetooth to a mobile/tablet app so that pro users can geek out over graphs and charts showing their beverage consumption data (and share their relative ‘liquidity’ with friends).

What specifically does the device hardware consist of? “PCB is custom built, it features an accelerometer, MCU, LEDs, and a few other bits and pieces,”  Jomi founder and CEO Andre Eistre tells TechCrunch. Although he stresses they are still at an early stage, with the hardware set to shrink — and the design to be reworked. The software will be open to other developers to hack around with it — so perhaps another app could be made to warn alcoholic beverage drinkers when they have reached a daily safe unit intake level. (Or track soft drink guzzlers’ sugar intake and chart their rising risk of Type 2 diabetes.)

“Designers (from Estonian Arts Academy) are working on the next version of the design model and the design is expected to change drastically over the next few weeks,” he says. “Right now we are focusing on hardware (revision 3) and embedded software of the device… The hardware isn’t final either — it will be a lot smaller than that. Software will be open source — we want people to have fun with the device.”

Eistre says Jomi will 3D-print new silicone molds for the first test batch — due to be handed out to a test group by the end of this month. After that it will be turning to Kickstarter to get the funding ball rolling for a first production run, as it continues product development.

The target market for the devices are 20- to 40-year-old health conscious U.S. consumers who have  a penchant for gadgets — the sort of folk who likely own a Fitbit or Fuelband.

Jomi is partnering for testing the market in Europe with bottle maker KOR water, and is hoping to get similar companies in the U.S. interested. ”Our intended target market is the U.S., where we would like to secure deals with a few larger water vessel producers, like Sigg, Gobble, CleanKanteen, CamelBak, etc,” Eistre says.

It’s also making the most of Estonia’s startup-friendly environment, securing help and small bits of funding (totalling around €8,000/$10,500 to date) from a variety of domestic companies to keep development costs down.

For instance, Eistre says the hardware development costs have been completely funded by local electronic design firm Hedgehog. Other Estonian companies and organisations that have kicked in free services/grants include Trinidad Consulting, 7Blaze, Velvet Creative Alliance and — quelle surprise — local water company Tallinna Vesi.

Jomi is also down to the last eight (out of a starter pool of 100 original “best business ideas”) in Estonia’s “largest entrepreneurial competition” — Ajujaht (aka “brain hunt”) – which has a €50,000 prize for the winner.

Jomi’s water-measuring gizmos can be put into a category (connected objects/the Internet of things) that looks set to explode over the coming years, as more everyday objects are augmented with data-generating sensors, and that data is in turn funnelled into the Internet’s matrix via smartphones and home routers.

In case you happened to miss the furor earlier today (or yesterday, depending on your timezone), Facebook officially pushed its Facebook Home launcher into the Google Play Store for owners of a select few devices to muck around with. Early impressions seem to run the gamut, but unless you had the right hardware you were plumb out of luck if you wanted to take Home for a spin.

Well, let me rephrase that: you were plumb out of luck. MoDaCo founder Paul O’Brien worked up a dead-simple way to get Facebook Home up and running on just about any Android device. Long story short, he patched a version of the Home app to keep it from figuring out what device you’ve just loaded it onto and showing you the customary it’s-not-your-turn screen.

All you really need to do is pop into your Android device’s settings and make sure it’s set to install applications from unknown sources (it’s in the “Security” section). From there, you just have to download and install his patched versions of the Facebook Home app, as well as his patched Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps too. Already have those latter two apps installed? You’ll have to uninstall both of them and load up O’Brien’s cooked versions in order for Home to work properly.

That could pose an issue for some of the more curious among you — certain devices that have the Facebook app baked into it by the manufacturer (like the HTC One, for example) won’t play nice with this version of the Home app unless you root the device and remove the Facebook app yourself. Thankfully, rooting most popular devices is way easier than it used to be, but be sure to do your homework if you think you may take the plunge.

To test out O’Brien’s handiwork, I tried installing Facebook Home on something two devices it wasn’t supposed to wind up on yet: Motorola’s Droid RAZR HD and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet. After an installation process that was completed in under two minutes for each device, Facebook Home was working mostly the way it should — it took a moment for messages to come through but Facebook’s novel chatheads appeared on both devices, and I was easily able to see what my friends were doing on a Friday night while I stayed home to play with phones. That said, not every one of my friend’s news feed updates wound up in Home’s swipe-able stream, but that seems to be the case even you’re running Home on some supported hardware.

The only major missing feature I noticed was that neither device would let me send SMS messages from the Messenger app, an omission that seemed to plague most people that tried O’Brien’s builds. Granted, that means you don’t get the exact Home experience, but all things considered this’ll provide you a solid peek before Facebook officially brings Home to all the other Android devices of the world. As for whether or not you’ll find it to be worth keeping — well, that’s another story altogether.

Dish Network’s (DISH) Chairman Charlie Ergen is said to have “informally approached” T-Mobile’s parent company about a possible merger deal, according to a report from Bloomberg. The company is said to be interested in a deal with the  carrier so it can bundle wireless service with its satellite TV offerings. Dish’s proposal reportedly came at around the same time Deutsche Telekom was looking to sweeten its offer for MetroPCS. Deutsche Telekom is said to be considering the merger, though only after the deal with MetroPCS is complete and after verifying that Dish won’t subsequently pursue a similar deal with Sprint (S).

An NVIDIA executive was recently quoted saying that mobile devices will soon begin to outperform the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The company’s chief executive, Jen-Hsun Huang, gave proof of this statement at NVIDIA’s investor meeting earlier this week. The CEO showed off the company’s next-generation mobile chip, known as Kepler Mobile, and claimed that it is capable of delivering the same high quality graphics found in its desktop line of graphics cards. Huang said that thanks to NVIDIA, mobile devices will be able to play high-end PC games such as Battlefield 3.

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T-Mobile made headlines earlier this year for its decision to end carrier subsidies for mobile devices while completely scrapping wireless contracts. But rather than requiring subscribers to spend $600 all at once for a smartphone, T-Mobile allowed qualifying customers to take part in a convenient payment plan. The carrier offers popular handsets such as the iPhone 5 and HTC One for $99 down and payments of $20 per month for 24 months. According to an internal document obtained by Droid-Life, Verizon may be looking to follow in T-Mobile’s footsteps.

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Pebble has officially released its SDK, after promising to deliver it during the second week of April. This qualifies, if only just, and arrives alongside firmware update version 1.1 for PebbleOS. The new software update for the hardware brings support for custom watch faces built using the SDK, as well as new options for disabling backlighting and vibrations, as well as fixes for iOS bugs.

The SDK itself is currently just for creating watch faces, not for building apps with other functionality, although we could see some creative software made even with those restrictions. Pebble says its Sports app SDK is coming soon, which should help developers mirror the sorts of functions introduced by RunKeeper.

This is the first time third-party developers have had public access to developer tools for the Pebble platform, so it should give us a hint of what’s to come. And the firmware update fixes for iOS include one that makes the “Allow Pebble to communicate…” dialog appear far less often, which is great news since that’s a majorly annoying bug for people using iPhones with the device.

Thanks Terrance!

Facebook (FB) on Friday was true to its word and released Facebook Home for some Android devices. The application, which was announced last week, is only available on select smartphones in the U.S. running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or higher. Compatible devices include the HTC One, HTC One X, HTC One X+, Galaxy S4, Galaxy SIII, Galaxy Note II and of course HTC’s (2498) First. Facebook Home gives Android smartphones a complete overhaul with a constant feed of pictures and status updates from users’ Facebook friends. The company also updated its Android Messenger application to include the new Chat Heads feature, which allows users to interact with friends even when another application is open. Facebook Home is available now as a free download on the Google Play store.

Many wireless providers in the U.S. require customers to sign a two-year service agreement when purchasing a new smartphone, though some still allow subscribers to upgrade to a new device with a full subsidy once every 20 months. This may soon become a thing of the past, however. Verizon (VZ) on Friday announced that it will no longer be offering early upgrades to its customers. The carrier will allow subscribers who are set to receive an upgrade prior to September 1st, meaning their contract was going to expire on or before January 1st, 2014, to upgrade early. Customers who won’t be eligible for an upgrade until after September 1st will have to wait until the end of their 24-month agreements to buy a new smartphone, unless they wish to do so at full retail price. Verizon has also announced that it will remove all unused credits from its retired New Every 2 program on April 15th.

The New York Police Department has secretly equipped officers with a new weapon to help them fight crime. Roughly 400 Android smartphones have been distributed to officers since last summer as part of a pilot program taking place in New York City, The New York Times reported. The phones are unable to make or receive calls and instead use a data connection to gain access to an individual’s arrest files. An application on the device can look up a person’s criminal history, verify his or her identity with a police photograph and even display information from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

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