Android

When T-Mobile overhauled its plans a few months ago, I felt a little excitement. At a time when the big players are getting more and more restrictive with contract terms and upgrades, T-Mobile made a turn in the completely opposite direction. Their plans don’t reflect contract subsidies, and you pay extra per month only when you’re actively paying off your phone. If I weren’t stuck in a contract myself I’d probably consider switching. Apparently T-Mobile was onto something, because one of their major competitors, AT&T, has created a similar plan. It is under the prepaid GoPhone umbrella, but it offers far more features than AT&T has made available in the past. The biggest change: the addition of LTE. That puts GoPhone on similar ground to T-Mobile’s service, though T-Mobile still primarily uses HSPA+. With T-Mobile you get unlimited talk and text, plus 2.5GB of data, for $60 per month. With AT&T GoPhone you get 2GB of data with that same unlimited talk and text for the same $60 per month. True, T-Mobile gives you 500MB more data, but AT&T gives you a wider network. With both services you can bring your own phone, putting them on even leveler ground. The difference comes if you want more data. AT&T has a very reasonable rate of $10 per GB extra per month — reasonable for prepaid, at least. T-Mobile, on the other hand, bumps you to unlimited smartphone data for that $10 per month. It’s unlikely AT&T ever goes in this direction; they actually did offer unlimited prepaid data for $20 per month, but put an end to that plan more than four years ago. So while T-Mobile has better options, AT&T did just create a competitor with its prepaid brand. It’ll be interesting to see which customers feel the AT&T offering is better. The post Is AT&T’s New GoPhone Plan Better than T-Mobile? appeared first on MobileMoo.

HTC has just revealed the HTC Butterfly S, a very nice-looking follow-up to the original HTC Butterfly. It'll sport a 5-inch display with 1080p resolution, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 chipset clocked at 1.9GHz, 2GB of RAM, and more.

Nvidia is in a delicate position right now. Its bread and butter, making GPUs for the PC industry, is increasingly skimpy, as customers move en masse to mobile computing and PCs are left to gather dust on store shelves. Between a rock and a hard place The Santa Clara company embarked into a transition to the mobile business, yet, so far, its Tegra line of mobile systems-on-a-chip hasn’t made any headway against the giant of the industry, Qualcomm. The new Tegra 4 chip has only made it to one product so far, Nvidia’s own Shield console, while the LTE-integrated Tegra 4i is only expected in 2014. Meanwhile, Qualcomm scores design win after design win, and with the new and powerful Snapdragon 800 SoC about to hit the market, it doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. Everything’s for sale What can Nvidia do, faced with seemingly insurmountable odds? Play its strongest card – its graphics expertise. In a blog post, Nvidia announced that, starting with the Kepler architecture, it would license “GPU cores and visual computing patent portfolio to device manufacturers to serve the needs of a large piece of the market”. This means that mobile SoC makers, such as Samsung, Qualcomm, or even Apple, will be able to use Nvidia GPUs in their designs, in exchange of a licensing fee. This new business model will put Nvidia on a collision course with ARM and Imagination Technology. At the moment, most SoCs in the market feature Mali GPUs from ARM or PowerVR GPUs from Imagination. Nvidia uses its own GeForce GPUs for the Tegra SoCs, but moving forward, it’s willing to let other companies use GeForce GPUs in their designs. This means that Samsung, for instance, could pair a quad-core CPU from ARM with a GPU from Nvidia. Nvidia says that it will start by licensing its latest generation architecture, Kepler, a low-power design suitable for a wide range of applications, from supercomputers to smartphones. According to AnandTech, the IP licensing will extend to future architectures as well. Moreover, Nvidia is also interested in licensing its LTE technology, which is based on the acquisition of the modem maker Icera. In other words, everything is for sale. Why now? So, why has Nvidia decided now to go down the path of licensing? One reason would be the difficulties it faces with Tegra. The Santa Clara company faces the prospect of not being able to get the Tegra line off the ground. Selling its intellectual property would bring a solid business model and a lot of potential revenue. But more importantly, more devices will have the potential to take advantage of our investments. That means more of the planet’s users will be able to enjoy our advanced graphics technologies. Nvidia blog But there’s more – by turning into an ARM or Imagination competitor, Nvidia can bring its technology to more devices, of all types. PCs may be dying, but the mobile industry is still booming, while wearable and other low-powered devices shape up as the next big thing. In a few years, we could see a Samsung flagship or even an iPhone containing a GPU designed by Nvidia, which is not something Nvidia can hope for right now with its Tegra SoCs. As for future classes of devices, the sky is the limit. At the end of the day, the move to license its technology should give Nvidia a solid and flexible business model, that would allow it to continue working on the Tegra line without worrying about achieving immediate success.

Carphone Warehouse taking pre-orders for July 4 availability, £329.95 SIM-free During the Huawei Ascend P6 launch event in London, we were given an RRP of €449, but in putting the device up for pre-order Carphone Warehouse has undercut this by quite a bit. The CEO of Carphone Warehouse appeared at the event, but didn't discuss any pricing or availability, but the high street retailer is now taking pre-orders. A SIM-free Ascend P6 will cost £329.95, and will be available on contract for free on deals starting at £21 a month. read more

Many people love the beautiful simplicity of Google Now backgrounds, which makes them perfect to use as a wallpapers. If you’ve always wanted to have Google Now wallpapers as background images on your phone, your wish is now granted. That’s because a Reddit user has tracked down the Flickr account of the artist responsible for creating them. Brent Couchman is a San Francisco graphic designer, who did work for the likes of Coca Cola, Target, Microsoft, and, of course, Google. But back to the Google Now background images. Couchman has posted four wallpapers to his Flickr account (link available in the Sources box below) – Forest Night, Mountains Day, Plains Day, and Beach Night. They’re all available in sizes of up to 1680 x 1050, so they should look pretty good on any device. To download any of them to your computer, just click the one you want, and then, when you get to its page, right-click it and select the size you want – “Original” will get you to 1680 x 1050. Then, proceed to save the image on your computer.

The HTC One Mini, one of the most rumored devices of the year, is said to be coming to AT&T, but no specific launch date has been given. According to Phone Arena, quoting sources close to HTC, the HTC One mini will be making its way to AT&T customers, without an actual release date being specified. You might remember that HTC developer LlabTooFer, a man responsible for many HTC leaks, was recently saying that T-Mobile USA would be selling the device, too. The handset (also known as the HTC M4), has recently made a Bluetooth SIG appearance. Soon after that, more details leaked about it. Although only the official announcement will tell us whether these specs are right, the HTC One Mini is said to feature a 4.3-inch display (resolution is expected to be 720p), and to look very similar to its older brother, the HTC One, except for the plastic ring which it will have around the display. The CPU is said to be a dual-core Snapdragon 400 model, running at 1.4GHz, and the device would run Android 4.2.2 (with the Sense 5 interface on top of it, as you would expect). While there’s no news on release date, the phone is expected in this year’s third quarter, with some reports saying that August will be the month when it will make its official appearance. Are you looking forward to the HTC One Mini? Do the rumored specs look tempting to you?

The HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 currently rank as the most powerful smartphones on the market, but we knew that wouldn’t last long. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC isn’t shipping in any smartphones yet, but we expect to see the chip show up in a handful of phones and tablets starting in Q3 of 2013. We all expected the Snapdragon 800 to easily outclass the Snapdragon 600, but we were a bit socked when we first saw the benchmark scores below. Our friends from Engadget were able to get some hands-on time with the latest Qualcomm reference smartphone and tablet – both powered by the new Snapdragon 800 MSM8974 processor. While both devices features most of the same specs, the discrepancy between the benchmark numbers can probably be attributed to the difference in screen resolutions (11.6-inch 1920 x 1080 pixel display on the tablet versus 4.3-inch 1280 x 720 pixels smartphone display). For the most part, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 numbers edge out what we’ve seen from the NVIDIA Tegra 4, but we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see how the two match up once they are available in production devices. While the numbers show a huge improvement in processing power over the Snapdragon 600 and latest Exynoxs chip, do you think the Snapdragon 800 will deliver a noticeable improvement in real-world performance?

When it came to tablets, I’ve never trusted no-brand manufacturers, mostly because they usually put low-quality displays and poor batteries on their products. Moreover, customers of these devices have almost no guarantee that their device would be upgraded when new Android versions emerge. Well, Tronity, the team behind a tablet called Root 101, wants to put those compromises behind, by mixing modest, but quality specifications inside a well-built body and with the latest version of stock Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. Moreover, the tablet comes rooted out of the box. The Root 101 project currently seeks funds for the completion of product development on Indiegogo. According to its makers, Root 101 is a truly open source tablet, coming with an unlocked OS and the possibility to install two of the most popular Android custom ROMs — CyanogenMod and Paranoid Android. Both ROMs can be downloaded from the official Root 101 site, complete with instructions on how to install them. Design and looks On the outside, the Root 101 looks like any Android tablet out there, with a plastic front that resembles the Nexus 10 and a thick bezel. The back-plate is mostly made of aluminum, which should confer the device increased strength and durability, besides a premium touch. The rear camera is situated in the upper-middle part of the screen while the company’s logo can be found right in the center. As usual, all types of ports and buttons are located at the sides of the unit. Most interesting features Root 101 comes with a Nexus-like experience and with Android 4.2.2 pre-loaded. The stock version arrives with no bloatware, no tweaked UI skins, and with root access right out of the box. This last option will permit future owners to install any type of application or even rely on a custom ROM for extended customization. All the source code of the tablet is made available by the manufacturer on Github, allowing future development to occur with full transparency. Moreover, the seller claims that upcoming Android versions will be delivered as long as the hardware supports it. Specifications Dimensions: 260mm x 173mm x 9.9mm Display: 10.1-inch IPS HD screen,1280 x 800 resolution CPU: AmLogic AML8726-MX dual-core clocked at 1.5GHz GPU: Mali-400 dual-core RAM: 1 GB Storage: 16GB internal, can be extended through microSD up to 32GB Camera: VGA on the front and 2MP on the back Battery: 7000 mAh (up to 9 hours of life) Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, microUSB, mini HDMI with output support for 1080p Others: 3.5mm jack, microphone, 2 rear speakers Availability and price At this moment, Root 101 is still in the development stage and the project can be founded through Indiegogo, for just $169. Depending on the options chosen and the time of bidding, that price can increase. Shipping is free within the United States and those wishing to have it abroad will have to pay an additional $20 fee. Manufacturing should begin in early July and Tronity promises that backers can expect their devices around mid-August.

After pulling its Android 4.2.2 update to its flagship HTC One, HTC promised to re-release the update and has started to roll out an OTA update as we speak. Unfortunately, it’s a false alarm as the update is only 17.55MB, tagged as “System Enhancements. Naturally this means your HTC One will stay at Android 4.1.2 and leave us hanging once again. The roll out is happening on developer edition HTC Ones now, so if any of you are lucky enough to have it, let us know if you notice anything different after its updated. Cheeky move from HTC? What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Source: Android Central

Developer says Twitter may have 'shut him down' On Monday, for the second time in just a few months, popular Twitter client Falcon Pro ran up against the 100,000 user token limit imposed upon most third-party clients. And as it did back in February, the app managed to sidestep the restriction by revoking all the old keys and requiring users to sign in again. But Falcon Pro has run into additional issues this morning, as it seems it may have once again exhausted its available tokens. Writing on the official Falcon Twitter account, developer Joaquim Vergès said "Wtf? I wake up one day after resetting keys and they're already all used? Did twitter just shut me down?" In a later tweet, the dev said he'd unpublished the app from the Google Play Store "for now" while he figures out a new strategy. read more