13/08/2012

Samsung's Black Galaxy S3 becomes a reality!

   Samsung are the proud creators of the hottest phone in town at the moment, the Galaxy S3. A little while back we covered the rumours that Samsung would be adding a few new colour options to the current Pebble Blue, Marble White and the beautiful Red version if you happen to be on AT&T in the United States.

   The thing is that last time the suggestions included more outlandish colours like green, gold and pink. None of these are off the cards yet, but UK retailer MobileFun has confirmed that they will be stocking a new Black version of the S3 in the near future. 

   Just as with the other varieties the unlocked black version will set you back £499.95 for a 16GB model and will be identical in terms of specs and capabilities. That means you’ll get the same beautiful 4.8-inch Super AMOLED 720p display, a quad-core Exynos processor clocked at 1.4Ghz, 1GB of RAM and an eight megapixel camera with 1080p video recording. So if you won't consider anything other than a Black phone, then you're in luck and don't forget to head over to MobileFun to get hold of your one! As soon as we have word on availability else where we'll be sure to let you know, but a US version shouldn't be too far behind!

In other news:

• Samsung's 10.1" Galaxy Note is due for release in the UK on the 16th of August. This news came direct from Samsung's Twitter page when they said you could pick the device up from their flagship store in Stratford on that date!

• Microsoft's new Outlook.com website has today teased support for IMAP connections.

• For those of you hoping to get hold of the Wii U before Christmas then you'll be slightly pushed to guarantee that because European availability of the device has been pushed back until December!

• The BBC has updated their iPlayer app to support the new iPad's with them 'Retina displays'.

• Google has today announced that Motorola will be trimming 20% off of their workforce around the world. Something that amounts to about 4,000 jobs, most of which will go in the USA. The company has also pledged to focus on a smaller range of devices, pull out of none profitable countries and make sure they offer quality devices instead of targeting lots of different groups of consumers.

• HTC Rezound is currently receiving an update which appears to activate global roaming capabilities.

• Kim Dotcom has today promised to launch his 'game changing' music service, MegaBox, by the end of this year!

• An upcoming version of the popular torrent client, uTorrent will add in adverts to the lightweight program. This will undoubtedly upset some of the more hardcore users and abusers!

• Zynga reportedly handed on shares to employees to stop them leaving the company for more upcoming competition!

• Motorola's Droid 4 is getting an update today too! This brings the software to Android 4.0.4 and gives you the usual set of bug fixes!

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Editorial: Why Apple needed to ditch the 3 from the new iPad

   If there's one thing we know as techies it is this; Apple products create serious hype and never was this more true than with yesterdays announcement of the 'third-generation' iPad. And those three words at the end of the last sentence are what I found hard to comprehend from yesterdays announcement; the whole time I was sitting there saying to myself, 'so we have a new iPad but what is it called?!?!'. Yes I was sitting there actually getting frustrated that they weren't telling me because I was hoping to liveblog it but I didn't have a name for the post, so instead I took the easy way out and gave up. Shame on me.

  But back to what I'm meant to be considering... Apple have been clever, very clever in fact and I'm going to give you the pair of reasons why.

1. They have removed all distinction between the iPad's. Apple's thinking is 'what does is matter what version you have as long as you have an iPad'. They did exactly the same with the iPod and it worked so well because you either have an iPad or you don't. Much to my frustration you will either go shopping for a new tablet OR an iPad, somehow they have created the iPad as it's own category and that is a testament to how successful and powerful Apple's branding really is.
2. They have pre-empted the ridiculous situation that can occur when you add one number per version. The iPhone is already on 4S and when it starts nearing double figures it'll sound ridiculous, 'ohhh look at his iPhone 11, I've got the iPhone 12'. That's what Apple wants to avoid, it the reality is that it doesn't matter in their eyes, both parties have the iPhone and that fact will keep Apple's coffers ticking over.

   There we have it Apple knows how to market a product and create an iconic and lust-inducing brand and they could have called this iPad anything and they would still have sold millions, but they've proved again that they're the most valuable company in the world for a reason.

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