Your once daily stop for tech news! If it's important we've got it covered!
Our focus is on mobile devices such as phones and tablets, but anything goes!
Today the UK retailer, MobileFun, may just have blown the surprise on this year's HTC One. The much anticipated device has cropped up on a pre-order page on their website so it's hard to be sure if this is entirely accurate or not. While the company will be stocking the device they may have just made a mock-up of the page to save themselves some time when the phone actually launches, or alternatively someone has made quite the mistake.
The website has the phone up for a pre-order price of £580, which is a bit expensive and subject to change, but here's what that money will supposedly get you.
5" HD Super LCD3display with Gorilla Glass.
32GB of on-board storage.
Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
A Quad-core 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800.
Wi-Fi, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, microUSB, GPS, NFC
Dual 5MP cameras on the back with autofocus, LED flash, HDR video 1080p@30fps and secondary 2.1MP camera, HDR video 720@30fps.
All round this seems like a solid package, the only other thing we'd like to know is the size of the battery and whether or not it will be removable, but that will come in time and we don't know for sure that these specs are correct anyway.
What do you guys think? Would you be happy to own a new HTC One if it looked like this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and don't forget to check out the screen grabs either!
Bloomberg are reporting today that HTC have scrapped plans for a 12" Windows RT tablet for later this year, wiht the lack of demand for Microsoft's Windows RT being cited as one of the the key reasons and the other being the cost of the device, which would make it too undesirable. It's interesting though that Bloomberg still believe that HTC will be making a smaller 7" Windows tablet running RT.
The larger of the two tablets was said to be too much of a risk as HTC are still coming to terms with their recent slide in sales and a 12 inch device would be too expensive in terms of components and the cost to customers was said to have been too high to shift the amount HTC would have needed too. Those aren't issues with the 7" tablet which is meant to be available around September or October according to the report.
Bloomberg did say that Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors will be inside the new 7" tablet and other than that we don't really know very much at all, because this is all speculation really. We do find it quite interesting that HTC would opt to make a Windows tablet, given how popular Android tablets are comparatively. Let us know what you think on this rumour and what you'd like to see HTC produce! Bloomberg via TheVerge.
We all know HTC make great phones. The HTC One this year, the HTC One X the year before, the HTC G1 and there's been great little phones like the HTC Desire and the Wildfire in amongst those too.
HTC have selected their own highlights of what the company's achieved so far and put them into this little mundane video down below. It shows things all the way through from the Compaq iPAQ pocket PC right up to Beats Audio, which they're mighty proud of, and it concludes with the HTC One. It's a nice little video, but it feels a little downbeat and there's some glaring omissions like the Nexus One, but we just feel that the company should portray themselves as vibrant and exciting, but instead we're told that:
"We've come a long way, but one thing hasn't changed – it's people like you that inspire us to create the most innovative products in a world that becomes more connected every day."
What we want HTC is for you to look to the future with more excitement of what's to come! The company has said they want to drop the 'quietly brilliant' tagline, but this ad seems to reinforce it all over again! Via AndroidPolice.
HTC are back with another new smartphone as they keep their heads above water and today we've got a device which looks set to compete in the mid-range market this year! The Desire 600 is interesting because it takes a few of the features from the HTC One and cuts down on the specifications a little, but it looks like a great phone!
The Desire 600 will come with the new Sense 5 skin on top of Android, we assume it's a version of Jelly Bean, but the press release doesn't say. That will be driven along nicely by the 1.2GHz Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor and you'll be enjoying the experience on the 4.5-inch Super LCD2 display which has a qHD, that's 960 x 540p resolution. In the camera department everything's looking good with an 8-megapixel camera around the back which is only capable of 720p video recording. But, on the front there's also a 1.6-megapixel options which will satisfy all your 'selfie' and Skype needs!
A few things which this device does have which are shared with its bigger brother, the One, include Boomsound speakers on the front, some of the video highlight features which let you make videos and fun things, but there isn't a Zoe mode. Just for good measure HTC have slapped BlinkFeed onto the homescreen too, but we're not sure how popular that will prove to be!
According to the press release the device is set to arrive in Russia, Ukraine and the Middle-East early on in June and you can have your choice of white and black colours. One thing to note though is that Engadget have spotted a Desire 606w model which is WCDMA and will land on China Unicom, so it's likely there could be a wider roll out then HTC have currently discussed!
The last few days have been nothing short of a rollercoaster for HTC. They've been losing execs left, right and centre and apparently that's continued over night, so we'll bring you news of that in the coming hours. But, this is a little surprising because things don't seem to be all that bad if the WallStreetJournal has got the sales figures for the HTC One correct.
The WSJ spoke with an anonymous HTC executive who reported that the HTC One is selling “pretty good so far.” We'll come onto specifics, but there was said to be one thing which was hampering sales and that was the issues producing the device, which are still affecting HTC, although these are expected to be largely resolved by the end of next month!
The exact words spoken were:
"Orders are pretty good so far and are still more than what we can supply. This is partly due to the shortage of components. When the issue is resolved next month, we will have a better idea if it's doing really well or not."
That's quite interesting because that says that demand is still outstripping supply of the flagship, which means the company could sell even more than the 5 million units which have been sold already.
Five million sales isn't bad going by any stretch of the imagination, that's half the amount of Galaxy S4's which Samsung have shipped and it's nothing to be scoffed at, especially if there is still much more demand for the phone, which hasn't been met!
Obviously the person who will be most pleased will be HTC's CEO Peter Chow, who vowed to step down if the HTC One didn't deliver. There's a few more months to pass before we can call the phone a success, but it seems that it's well on the way to being one! WSJ Via AndroidAuthority.
Reports from The Verge today are saying that HTC is in a little bit of a mess at the moment. Apparently the company is shedding high ranking people with dangerous speed as the company is ' in utter freefall'! Our first reaction to this story was 'wow', but lets have a little look at the things we do know and see if we can get to the bottom of this!
Today's report explains that HTC's latest loss is their HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, who has vacated his post which saw him manage HTC's overall product strategy and his timing just after the worldwide release of the HTC One is really interesting, because he's either had enough of working for the company or the new flagship has failed to gain traction and we believe that it would probably be the former of those options.
In recent months other people like Kodera have headed for the door. HTC's VP of Global Communications, James Gordan, has moved on, as have Rebecca Rowland, John Starkweather and Eric Lin, each of whom were the global retail marketing manager, director of digital marketing and the head of product strategy and those are all key positions which have been vacated!
The interesting thing is that these guys aren't all heading to one company, instead two have joined Microsoft and one AT&T, so there's no poaching going on here. Instead, one of The Verge's unnamed sources said that:
"Anyone who's heard of them in Seattle doesn't want to go work for them right now. They're like T-Mobile two years ago... They're in utter freefall."
Some of the marketing departures can be explained by the company moving their advertising efforts back to Taiwan since Ben Ho became the new CMO late last year, while the hardware and software teams in San Francisco and Seattle have been perfectly on track!
Other issues have been reported as the CEO, Peter Chou, has been making brash decisions instead of sticking with long term strategy and apparently he was in part to blame for the supply issues which plagued the HTC One launch, which we was made aware of months in advance. This led to HTC One sales being missed because they simply couldn't make enough devices and naturally those sales were snapped up by Samsung's Galaxy S4! The launch of the HTC First has
also been hugely morale draining according to The Verges' sources.
HTC's Peter Chou has promised to step down if the HTC One doesn't turn the company's fortunes around and we'll have to wait until the end of June to find out if it did, but what do you guys think? Are Samsung too dominant in the Android world? Do Google need to step in or can they? And most importantly, do HTC have a future in mobile? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Via TheVerge.
[Update]: HTC Asia's CEO, Lennard Hoornik, has also left the company following a period of two months where he was taking leave! Via CNet.
According to the Taiwanese publication Focus Taiwan, HTC are finally starting to overcome their production hurdles they've had with the HTC One! That means that HTC are planning to ramp up the production of the flagship and they expect to see production capacity double through to the end of this month compared to the amount which were produced in April!
Focus Taiwan's report says that HTC have started to resolve the issues which they faced with the production of key components like that Ultrapixel camera which was initially tough to produce and had low yields. HTC's North Asia president said the sales were rising to meet 'strong demand' and hopefully this will address the sales which were blocked early on because there simply weren't enough available.
Tong said that production will increase through June too as:
"Our capacity is expected to rise significantly starting from mid-May. We are optimistic about our high-end sales during April and June."
It seems as though HTC is finally starting to overcome the hurdles which they had initially because of the custom components they chose to use.
One other thing which Focus Taiwan mentioned was that HTC's J Butterfly has experienced good sales lately too because the phone has been made available for free with contracts in Japan. The phone is especially appealing at that price because there are set to be updates for the device at the end of the month which bring it onto Sense 5.0 and with the extra features like HTC BlinkFeed. FocusTaiwan Via ZDNet.
That image to the right is a little out of date. The HTC First which went on sale almost a month ago to the day has already had its price slashed to 99 cents on a contract with AT&T, but it seems as though that hasn't really done the trick an set the sales numbers alight. Instead, it's being reported by BGR that the 'Facebook phone' will stop being produced and BGR has 'confirmed' that the phone will not be on sale for much longer.
According to the report the phone has been selling unbelievably badly and as a result AT&T have chosen to discontinue the phone! At the moment there's no word on exact numbers of unsold devices, but BGR's sources report that less than 15,000 of the phones have shipped since the phone went on sale over a month ago!
The sales are supposedly not helped by the lack of help from AT&T sales reps who supposedly aren't too taken with either the phone or the software! Instead, they're busy recommending Apple's iPhone and the Galaxy S4 from Samsung.
Apparently HTC have paid AT&T for display space in their stores and the phone will be offered until the display contract runs out which we don't have any details on at the moment. Naturally spokespeople at AT&T and HTC declined to comment on the 'speculation'.
Are you surprised to hear rumours like this or is this what you expected? Let us know in the comments below!
You might have heard about HTC's new flagship the HTC One, apparently it's causing a little bit of a stir. It looks like HTC wants to build on the momentum that their phone has established with a pair of adverts which will be released in America in the coming weeks.
The pair of videos, which are embedded below, show off the angle which HTC are taking with their promotion of the 'Blinkfeed' feature. Essentially both ads show how the HTC One puts all of the 'information right here,' on the homescreen instead of you having to 'dig gopher style' through all of your news and social media apps.
The last word on every adverts comes in the shape of the tagline, 'the new all metal HTC One, it's everything your phone... isn't.' It's interesting the way HTC are picking up on the plastic of Samsung and the arrogance of the statement seems to reflect the premium which the phone costs.
They're not a bad pair of ads and they get the point across, hopefully this new ad campaign and the phone itself will be enough to pull HTC out of their hole!
According to Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer, Tami Reller, we shouldn't expect a version of iTunes optimised for touch to arrive on Windows 8 any time soon. Reller said: "You shouldn't expect an iTunes app on Windows 8 any time soon... iTunes is in high demand. The welcome mat has been laid out. It's not for lack of trying." Which is a shame, but perhaps if Windows tablets make more of an impact on the market Apple will reconsider! Via CNN.
HTC's ever green HD2 has now been hacked to run Firefox OS! That device just won't give up having run Android, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, Windows RT and Windows 8, we're sure there's more too. The Firefox OS port is a work in progress as you can imagine, but if you're interested then follow this post on XDA for all the updates! Via Slashgear.
Nokia's launch of the Lumia 928 also revealed that Windows Phone app production is slowing down a bit. The total currently stands at 145,000 apps, which isn't too shabby at all, but that mean that only 45,000 apps have been produced for the platform in the last eleven months! WindowsPhoneBlog Via PhoneArena.
According to reports on TechEye, Sharp are planning to lay off 5,000 workers over the next couple of years in China and Malaysia as the company sees sales of TV's dwindle.
Facebook Home is now available for the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4! The app was updated on Google Play yesterday and it brought some bug fixes along with the added support! Via AndroidCommunity.
The guys over at SamMobile think that they know when there will be Android 4.2.2 coming to the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 and the tweet below has the full details!
Android 4.2.2 for high-range devices from June #sgs3#note2
— SamMobile (@SamMobiles) May 10, 2013
Sony's Jelly Bean update for the Xperia S and Xperia SL is getting closer every day, with the latest test versions being approved here and there! Check out full details on the Xperia Blog.
And finally, according to rumours from China Oppo's successor to the Find 5 will be the Find 6 and it will have a crazy spec sheet which will include a Snapdragon 800 processor, an 8 MP front-facing camera, which is paired with a 13MP rear sensor along with 2 GB of RAM, a 5-inch 1080p display, and NFC!
HTC might be starting to turn their fortunes around slightly in the last few months, but there's still a long way to go for them to return to a good level of profitability and financial security which they this time last year. Smartphones, especially the HTC One, will be a key part of that turn around, but according to the latest rumours tablets will have their part to play too.
The guys over at PhoneArena, have received a 'tip' which suggests the Taiwanese company are working on a pair of tablets, but as always this is a rumour so take it with a pinch of salt! If the rumours are to be believed though HTC are busy working on tablets which won't be running Android, but instead they'll have Microsoft's less than popular Windows RT. PhoneArena covered their bases on this rumour though, they suggested that the actual OS is 'anyone's guess' and that it could be full Windows 8, Windows RT or a combination of the two which it's previously been rumoured that Microsoft would do with the Blue release of Windows 8.
If we stop to briefly look at the two devices, then we're told to expect the HTC R7 and the R12. The R7 is supposedly one of the new small band of Windows tablets and is tipped to land with a Full 1080p HD display which will be 7" and there's set to be one of those beastly 2.3 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800's under the hood, as well as 2GB of RAM. The rumours also say that there will be 16GB of built in memory which you can expand via a MicroSD card which you can fill up with pictures from the 13MP camera. The small device is rumoured to forgo HDMI, NFC and DLNA outputs in favour of LTE and or HSPA+ connectivity, Bluetooth 4 and a GPS connection of some sort.
The big brother which is rumoured to go by the R12 codename is supposedly the same internally, but there will be additional connection ports available and the screen is meant to be a 12" panel with a fantastic 2048×1536 pixel resolution!
At the moment that's all we know, in our minds it's a shame that HTC aren't going to give the Android tablet game another crack, but then again, we don't know for sure that they won't. The rumour concludes by saying that these devices will be released in October of this year, which fits with the sort of timeframe which we're expected Windows to get this big update in.
Can HTC go toe to toe with new Surface tablets or Acer's rumoured Iconia W3, if that's what it ends up being called? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below! Via PhoneArena.
Windows Phone is always an interesting operating system to follow because it has one of the world's biggest companies behind it, it's widely considered to be a fantastic operating system and yet somehow Microsoft and Nokia in particular, just can't quite get it to catch on the way iOS and Android have!
That being said there's been a bit of growth lately, but the guys over at AdDuplex have used their tracking software, which people put in apps, to give us a much more rounded idea of how well the platform is doing and which devices in particular are stealing the limelight!
The one device which seems to be setting the ecosystem on fire is the Nokia Lumia 920. Nokia's flagship is now the most popular Windows Phone out on the market and it's finally knocked the Lumia 800 off the top spot for the first time! As you can see in the pie chart below, other phones are selling really well too, with the Windows Phone 8 powered range from the 620, through the 820 to the 920 all starting to catch up with their Windows Phone 7 counterparts which were released the year before! We're surprised to see just how few devices HTC have sold, given the amount of HTC 8S' which we've been seeing around lately, so perhaps we live in a particular hotspot for the device!
The comparison between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 sales is also interesting lately with Windows Phone 8 now starting to assert the sales authority on its older sibling in many of the key countries from Microsoft's perspective. Through the majority of Western European countries and indeed in the US, Canada and Australia there are now more Windows Phone 8 handsets than Windows Phone 7 handsets in the wild!
The final thing which we wanted to point out from AdDuplex's findings was that, in the key market of the United States, Nokia are the most popular Windows Phone manufacturer with 66% of the market. After the Finns it's interesting to see that Samsung's Omnia and ATIV ranges haven't proved very popular, especially not compared to HTC's devices. It'll be interesting to see whether or not Nokia can continue to grow in the United States, which is a market they've traditionally struggled in!
If you want to read more about the platform then AdDuplex have lots more comparisons and country specific breakdowns on their website which you can find here! Via WindowsPhoneDaily.
Today we've heard news that HTC's monthly sales report is out and in April sales were up again. This time they came in at $NT 19 billion which is $642 million, which is in fact sequential growth from the two months beforehand. The only this is that that $NT 19 billion is just shy of half of what the company brought in during April in 2012, which shows you just how much HTC's sales have dried up!
So if we look at things on a month by month basis then March sales were up 39% from February and in April they were up 26% more on March's figures, giving a growth of 71% in April compared to February. When you think of it that way, then things are showing early signs of getting better.
The real thing for HTC to aim for now is to match their estimated sales target of $NT 70 billion for Q2 this year. As we stand, both the HTC One and its biggest rival, the Galaxy S4 from Samsung, are on sale and if HTC can see sales growth with that competitor then that will be very welcome news for the company and it'll give them a good idea of what they have to do in the future with their smartphones to attract sales.
What do you think? Are HTC doomed or can they still compete with Samsung and Apple? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below! Via UnwiredView.
In recent weeks HTC have had a little bit of trouble with the microphone configuration which they opted for with their new flagship the HTC One. You might remember a little while back we reported that STElectronics, the makers of the component, were in trouble in The Netherlands because they had breached an exclusivity deal with Nokia on the part, which meant they weren't allowed to sell it to HTC in the first place!
You might remember that late last month, an Amsterdam district court ruled that ST Microelectronics had starting selling a dual membrane microphone to companies outside of the exclusivity period. We reported thay: "An Amsterdam district court has given STMicroelectronics a ten month ban on their sales of their new 'high-amplitude microphones' to any company other than Nokia! Essentially this means that the dual-membrane microphone which HTC have used in their One was meant to have been in a twelve month exclusivity period with Nokia because they were the co-developers. The story goes that STMicroelectronics believed the exclusivity was only six months so that's where the problem has occurred! 6 months before a 12 month period of exclusivity for Nokia had ended."
Essentially what this meant for HTC was that they had been caught in the middle of a dispute between two companies which they had not planned and didn't realise would affect them. Because of their innocence in all of this HTC were allowed t use up the rest of the stock of the STElectronics microphones which they had bought, but when they were gone the design would have to change. So today's story is that HTC have updated the specification sheet for the HTC One and the dual-mic part is definitely missing!
HTC have issued the following statement which suggests that they'll find an improved design when they're out of STM arrangements!
"In light of several misleading stories regarding a recent injunction obtained by Nokia against STM (a supplier of components to HTC in The Netherlands) HTC looks to clarify the following points:
• Nokia has NOT obtained an injunction in The Netherlands, or anywhere else, against the HTC One. • The Dutch proceedings were brought by Nokia solely against STM. HTC was not sued by Nokia in the Netherlands. • The Dutch injunction prohibits STM from selling certain microphones to any company other than Nokia for a limited period. • The judgment against STM states that HTC can continue to use microphones already purchased from STM in its products, because they were purchased in good-faith. Nokia's attempt to obtain a recall of microphones already sold to HTC failed. • HTC will transition to improved microphone designs once its inventory of STM microphones is exhausted."
What do you think? Is this a big hoohar about nothing? Let us know in the comments below! Via Engadget.
HTC might have been in dire straights at the end of last year and the start of this, but with their new flagship the One getting rave reviews left right and centre it's safe to say that the company should have sturdied the ship lately. With that in mind it seems like the company are keen to capitalise on the success of the HTC One with something which is a little bit cheaper, but in many ways similar!
That's seemingly why we have this device, the M4. The guys over at EVLeaks have struck again and the device you see above is to all intents and purposes the little brother to the HTC One. The best way to think of it is as the Galaxy S3 Mini to the Galaxy S3, but without the huge gulf in specs which those devices have!
If the rumours are right this device will have a great 4.3-inch 720p display and a dual-core processor, which is currently unspecified. These will be backed up by 16GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM and HTC's UltraPixel camera technology. As you can see in some regards this is a step down from the HTC One and as such it should be less battery intensive, we certainly hope so because HTC has chosen a 1700mAh battery which is said to be non-removable, something which we're still not fans of especially given the small cell capacity here.
According to PhoneArena the device will be able in the last few weeks of May or during June and it is set to arrive with Android 4.2 at the helm and LTE connectivity too!
For those who can't quite afford the premium on the HTC One this device could be a fantastic alternative. If HTC keeps the aluminium casing and they manage to keep this affordable then Samsung will have problems shifting a Galaxy S4 Mini if it lands in the same price bracket! If this is right then the summer is shaping up to offer a great range of phones in the mid-tier! Via PhoneArena.
We know Samsung and HTC have had a little bit of fun with each other lately, they took things quite seriously at the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4 a little while back! It seems that either Samsung pre-empted that strike or they just didn't want the HTC One to get all the good press because they were employing people to write negative things about HTC's flagship device.
The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission has reported that on Monday they had launched a formal investigation into Samsung's naughty tactics and they'll look into whether or not Samsung is guilty of false advertising and damaging the reputation of another business, the agency said. In the meantime the company 'has halted all Internet marketing such as posting articles on websites'.
If found guilty Samsung could face fines of up to NT$25 million (US$837,500) for violating the Fair Trade Act.
When Samsung Taiwan were asked for comment their reply was that they were unaware that they were under investigation in the first place. Interestingly though, the Koreans posted on their Taiwanese Facebook page expressing their regret for causing “any inconvenience and confusion” in their recent web-based campaigns.
HTC offered the following statement in response to the issues:
"We regret our competitor's malicious attacks and efforts to discredit us... HTC values product innovation and design, and we do not rule out the possibility of taking appropriate actions to protect the interests of our company and customers if necessary."
What do you think? Do you believe this is something which happens more widely? Is it plain out of order? Let us know in the comments below! Via AndroidBeat, AFP and FocusTaiwan.
Today Facebook have launched their brand new Facebook Home platform. There was a huge range of stuff shown off at the announcement so lets get into it!
Mark Zuckerberg said that, 'We spend our live sharing and connecting. How can we make this easier? Instead of our phones being designed around apps first, what if we flip that around? What if our phones were designed around people first?" That's why they want to bring Facebook home to us, it makes the whole OS about the people you use your phone to interact with the centre of attention and it relegates apps to an additional feature of your phone. It's actually quite a nice concept!
What is Facebook Home?
The guys were keen to remind us that this is not a single phone or operating system they are building, this is just a launcher built on top of Android!
The exact words which they used were,
"we're not building an OS -- we're building an experience that's
deeper than any other app... You don't need to fork Android to do this". Something which Facebook reiterated was a perk of Google's operating system. They perhaps even suggested that because they can do this Google's operating system can be dominated by another company. So theoretically this is what Google wants with their open source OS, but we doubt that the private thoughts of Android chiefs is so positive.
When and where will it be available?
"We want to bring the experience of having a Home right to you, and deliver it to as many people as possible." That means that it will be available on the Play Store and on the HTC First from the 12th of April!
To get the launcher you will get an invite on the 12th of April to download the app from the Play Store if you already have Facebook Messenger and the standard Facebook app installed, if not you can manually download it from the store. It will initially be compatible with these phones:
Features: Coverfeed:
This is essentially your lock screen. It utilises people's cover photos to give you pretty backgrounds to their status updates. You have the ability to long press to zoom on the photos or you can double tap to like. There will be a little comment icon in the bottom right to leave your opinions on the photo.
Notifications:
Notifications pop up on your screen: click on them and you go the facebook app swiping down returns you to the home screen.
ChatHead:
These are an extension of your notifications. No matter where you are if you get a Facebook message or an SMS from a contact a little 'ChatHead' will pop up in the top right of the screen. You can have multiple heads pop up which then stack themselves. If they're in the way the move the around the screen so they're out of the way! (SMS' appear in green text bubbles when the conversation is opened).
Messages:
When you tap your ChatHead it opens a pop up window in front of any app you're running. This means you don't have to close the app every single time someone wants to talk to you!
App Launcher: To get to your apps you touch your ChatHead on the Coverfeed. This will give you three options:
go to most recent app, app drawer or go to the Facebook Messenger app. Everything is designed to give you access to people faster!
Versions of the app for other platforms:There will be a version for Android tablets coming within several months of the phone launcher.
Other platforms are out of the question because of the limited customisations of those platforms.
HTC First!
As part of the Facebook Home program the first device will be the HTC First! It's a solid little device which will be an exclusive to AT&T. There's built in LTE, but other than that it's a mid-range phone with dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5MP rear-camera, there's a front one too, but we don't know how good that is yet, there's also Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and a 4.3-inch 720p display.
We're not sure we'd recommend this phone over a Galaxy S3 which will be offered at the same price, but some people want a 'Facebook Phone', but we can't justify that ourselves! The device is available for pre-order today!
Facebook also confirmed that the device is coming to EE and Orange over the next few months.
Facebook Home Programme:
There will be more devices with this launcher built into them right off the bat in the future! There are a list of partners who are also committed to the project embedded below!
And finally, here is the official promo video for Facebook Home!
Remember this 'Facebook Home' thing that we've been hearing so much about lately? Well it turns out that Android Police have managed to get their hands on a developer preview of the APK and they've been able to have a look at how things are shaping up.
The APK has some juicy details inside it too! There is confirmation that there will be a Facebook phone revealed and it will have a Facebook-ified version of Google's mobile OS. If we start with the phone then there is confirmation that there will be an AT&T-compatible device made by HTC Myst which will feature a 4.3 inch display, 1GB of RAM and a dual-core MSM8960 Qualcomm SoC. Add on to that a 5-megapixel rear camera, 1.6-megapixel front option, Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi and we have a solid mid-range phone which will appeal to teenagers everywhere! That phone will rock Android 4.1.2 and Sense 4.5 in parallel, with the Facebook app taking centre stage and acting as the devices home screen!
So this Facebook home is essentially a new launcher from Facebook and subsequently the app will have more access to the system controls than the current Facebook app and it's been confirmed that the app can turn off the lock screen, start up when the phone boots and control your WiFi connection, among a few other things too.
There's some pretty little icons embedded into the launcher too, so you can expect to have a slightly different look compared to other launchers and as you would expect Facebook Messenger integration is a key part of this too. Don't worry if you don't have the Facebook phone itself though because there's TouchWiz compatibility built into the home screen replacement and that means that you can install this onto other phones too! That means it'll probably be popping up in the Play Store!
We'll have full details on Thursday when everything's made official! AndroidPolice Via Engadget.
LG are supposedly working on a new smartphone powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and the device crushed all of the competition including the iPad 4 in benchmarks! Unfortunately we don't know anything else about it other than that the device was running Android 4.2.2, it could be the Optimus G2, but we'll keep an eye on this story! Via GSMArena.
Bloomberg is reporting that Florian Seiche, HTC's EMEA President, will be departing the company on June the 15th and heading to Nokia to be the head of European sales over there! Interesting move indeed! Bloomberg Via AndroidCentral.
iFixit have torn apart the HTC One! You can see the deconstruction here, but they say that the device is built to last and it shouldn't come apart very easily, but by the same token it will be very difficult to replace any faulty parts, so replacing the battery is not an option!
HP's budget 7" Android tablet, the Slate 7, was supposed to be launching this month, for whatever reason, we're not sure what that is yet, the device has been pushed back until June. That might be a bad move because we fully expect to see an updated Nexus 7 at Google I/O! Via Engadget.
There's supposedly a good chance of an iOS 7 jailbreak coming to fruition according to the Evad3rs team! Obviously that is an OS still in the making, but we might have the chance of a jailbreak! Via Slashgear.
Blackberry's QWERTY BB10 smartphone, the Q10, will be landing on O2 in the UK! The 'Coming Soon' page is now live and you can check it out here! When O2 post some contract details we'll be sure to let you know! Via UnwiredView.
Geometrics' founder has described how programmers 'loathe' developing graphic intensive things for Android! To see why he said this check out the source link below! Via AndroidCommunity.
Soundhound for Android has been updated with a new, improved tablet UI being on of the key new features! Via AndroidPolice.
And finally, have you ever wanted to see a recon Jelly Fish? Well today is your lucky day if you answered yes to that question! The video below demonstrates Cryo from Virginia Tech, a new invention which well mimics a Jelly Fish. There's lots of potential uses for this, but the US Navy wants to go for surveillance because the creation actually looks lifelike! Check out the video below for more details.
For a long time now Facebook have been rumoured to be working on something a bit more expansive for mobile phones. Initially there were rumours of a Facebook phone, then we saw the HTC Salsa and ChaCha (Or Status on the US side of the pond) and now there will be a 'new home on Android'.
According to some rumours the event is set to feature an HTC smartphone with a custom-made Facebook-centric version of Android. This means Facebook don't have the responsibility of creating hardware themselves, but they can manage the software pretty well. According to the rumours Facebook integration will be the key; there will be the Facebook homescreen as the main screen and Facebook's camera and messaging apps will supposedly replace the standard Android options!
The best thing to compare the supposed plan here is by looking at what Amazon and their Kindle Fires have done with Android, it's conceivable Facebook have something similar up their sleeve!
What do you think would this interest you? We'll have much more on the 4th of April! Via Engadget.
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