Free phone Fridays coming to Best Buy

Best Buy has announced a new program called “Free Phone Fridays” which puts a cell phone from each of the major carrier on sale for free on each Friday in October. Customers will also have to agree to a 2 year contract for a new line or add a line. Best Buy promises there will be at least one current generation smart phone included in the mix for each Friday. They will announce the phones each Thursday on the Best Buy Facebook page. October 1st line up includes:

• HTC Aria (AT&T)
• BlackBerry Curve (Sprint) 
• Samsung Gravity 3 (T-Mobile) 
• Samsung Fascinate (Verizon)

Of this list- the Fascinate is definitely the best deal of the bunch, but the BlackBerry is not a bad deal depending on which Curve is on sale. If it is the Curve 9330, that is only a $30 discount. It is interesting to note that the Gravity 3 is the only non-smart phone on the list. Best Buy believes that this will help generate foot traffic to their stores. If Best Buy is right, this may cause a whole new marketing change.

Droid 2 has an FM radio

It turns out that the Motorola Droid 2 has an FM radio receiver built into its hardware. Who knew? Its been waiting all of this time for the right firmware to unlock the FM goodness. Some developers at XDA forums have proven that its possible use the radio with some modification. The hack requires that you root the Droid 2, but it turns out that an official release is on its way. But if you can't wait to listen to your local jock or NPR station, you can find out all about it here.

A look at VLC for the iPad

A quick review of the VLC app for the iPAD shows a robust no frills video player. VLC has been around a long time as an open source video player that plays almost everything. It has long been available on most desktop platforms as well as some mobiles. But for the first time, it is has shown up on the an iOS platform. Whether because Apple is feeling the heat from anti-competitive investigation or from Android's rise they have been loosening the regulation of what apps are available on iTunes. Before VLC, all video on the iPAD had to be converted in the mp4 format, VLC now opens the way using other video files. Though not all videos work, DivX/Xvid, avi, mpg and wmv codecs all play fine. The application is not perfect, it does have problems with high resolution content and does not play real media. But the app is worth the price (free) for anyone who enjoys watching videos on their iPAD. The authors have also states the plan to release VLC for the iPhone and the iPod touch n the near future.

You can download VLC here.

Sony Ericsson drops Symbian

Snoy Erricson has announced that they have no plans for new a Symbian powered phones. This would make the Vivaz Sony's last Symbian powered phone. In the past Sony has made Windows mobile, Android and Symbian phones. But now it looks like they will concentrate on Android based on the success of its new handsets like the Xperia X10 and try their hand at Microsoft's new mobile OS. This is a big blow to Symbian, the once dominant phone OS. Symbian in general is at a cross roads. They have improved the OS, especially around user experience, but it does not compare to compare to the innovation of iOS or Android. Nokia is the last major handset maker using Symbian and it says its high end phones will be on Mameo. How long can Symbian last?

Is the Nokia N8 another Blackberry Torch?

Nokia delayed the release of their new N8 smart phone until October this week. When it does come out, Nokia expects the phone to be a their flagship smart phone. The phone hardware is pretty impressive with 3.5 inch AMOLED display, 12 megapixel camera and 16 GB of built in memory. But playing with the phone for a few minutes shows its sluggish 680 MHz CPU and outdated Symbian operating system do not compare to the iPhone or Android handsets. Even worse, the OVI Symbian store is small and apps are limited to certain phones because of incompatibility issues. Apps are becoming more and more important to the smart phone market. Nokia is the number one smart phone maker world wide, but like RIM it has been losing ground in the last few years to other makers and their new Torch 9800 has not helped matters. If Nokia wants to remain relevant going forward, it needs to make some decisions. Aside from its middling CPU, the N8 is a great phone hardware wise. It is the OS and apps where Nokia needs help. They should either revamp the Symbian OS or pick a new one like Android or Windows Phone 7. The company has a new CEO- hopefully he'll shake things up.

captivate gps fixes coming

AT&T has announced that they are distributing a fix for the Samsung Captivate GPS problem. The fix will come over the air for Captivate owners in the next few weeks. The patch also includes additional features like adding Exchange 2003 policy support and a full version of Quickoffice. This is great news for Captivate owners. Hopefully we'll see the upgrades for the rest of the Galaxy S phones soon. Here is the official press release:

“Samsung Mobile and AT&T are pleased to announce an update for the Samsung Captivate. Below is Samsung Mobile’s official statement regarding the over-the-air update.

An update to improve the Samsung Captivate’s GPS performance is now available. Captivate customers will receive a notification on their device that an update is available and will simply need to download the file to update their phone. The updates will be pushed to customers’ devices over the next few weeks.

The update for the Captivate will also improve additional device functions, such as media scanning time, add the full version of Quickoffice and address Microsoft Exchange 2003 policy support.”

App culture starting says Pew

A new study from the Pew research foundation shows that most people are not interested in smart phone capabilities. This study found that for many people, the most important features of cell phone besides make calls are to take pictures and send text messages. Only about 38% of the respondents cared about the internet, followed by emailing, playing a game, emailing, playing music, IMing and finally using Apps which only was important to 29% of the respondents. One way to read this is that smart phones are really not that important to most cell phone users and that they will always remain a niche market for gadget lovers. This would eventually limit Android's amazing growth. On the other hand, 10 years ago, you could not even take a picture with your cell phone and no-one had knew what texting was. Now they are required functions for cell. Apps have really been out on the marketplace for only 2 years and yet almost 1/3 of all cell phone users consider them important features. A few years from now, a phone may not be worth getting unless it is a smart phone. You can read the complete report here.

android vendors upgrading

Google recently announced the distribution of the various flavors of Android. Android 2.1 now accounts for the plurality of Androids out on the market today owning 41.7% of the market. Version 2.1 and Froyo (version 2.2) together account for a majority of the marketplace accounting for a whopping 70.4% of the total Android installs. It looks like the handset vendors are doing are actually keeping up with the blistering pace of new Android releases.

Historical Distribution

This is great news for the Google faithful. There were a lot of question whether the hardware vendors would be able to upgrade their devices with the latest versions of Android. If they did not, it would be likely lead to the Android market fragmenting to different versions and less innovations with application incompatibility. It is one of the Apple fans main arguments that iOS will prevail because of a united hardware and OS strategy. Compared to Apple who has 2 major flavors (iPhone/iPod touch and iPad) of their OS, Google is not doing so bad with 4 major versions and taking the smart phone market by storm. Read the gory details here.

Motorola Defy to come to T-Mobile

T-mobile has announced that they will be selling the Motorola Defy later this year. The announcement came during the Oprah Winfrey show of all places. Now aside from the fact that Android is being talked about on the most powerful TV show on earth, the Defy is an interesting phone. Like the Motorola I1, the Defy is a ruggedized smart phone. It is supposed to be water proof up to three feet of water, resistant to dust, shock and scratches. Unlike the I1, the Defy has modern specs like a 3.7 inch screen, a 5 megapixel camera,  Android 2.1 and a 800 MHz processor. The Motorola Defy may be the best adventure smart phone available or just the right phone for people paranoid about damaging their device. Here is the video for those interested.

Samsung Fascinate for $0.01

The Samsung Fascinate has gone on sale for $0.01 at Amazon. The sale requires a two year contract with Verizon as well as a data plan. Amazon had previously put two of the Fascinates cousins, the Vibrant and Captivate, on sale for $0.01. But these sales lasted only for short periods of time. The Fascinate sale may last a while longer because of the negative reviews the device has gotten on its release. The problem seems to be the modifications that Verizon has done to the phone. In particular, many protested the additional bloatware and replacement of Google’s search engine by Bing.

Does no WP7 phones at Verizon mean an iPhone launch?

Bloomburg Businessweek is reporting that Verizon has stated that Verizon will not be carrying any Windows Phone 7 at Launch. It looks like that the carrier may not even carry any Windows Phone 7 until 2011. If true, this is an inauspicious start for Microsoft’s new platform just after days of its completion. Verizon has been previously a close partner of Microsoft’s. Maybe the carrier is still smarting from Microsoft pulling the Kin six weeks after it’s launch. It could also be that the big red is concentrating on Android or maybe they are planning to launch another smart phone before the end of the year. It does lend fuel to Verizon iPhone rumors.

Help is on the way for Samsung Fascinate search

If you just got your brand new Samsung Fascinate phone you may have been surprised find that the standard search is Bing. It seems that Verizon made the default search engine to Bing versus Android's default Google search engine. It could be very frustrating for Fascinate owners but help is on the way. Indeed Verizon had made it so that Google's search tool was not available or even down loadable on the brand new Fascinate at its launch. The Microsoft search is not bad, but it does not compare to Goggle's search especially on Google's own Android operating system. Owners could always side load the search app but not everyone is comfortable with the process. Now it looks like Verizon has relented and they have stated that Google's search app is showing up at the app store for the Fascinate. It would be fitting if Google would pay Verizon would hack the new windows 7 mobile to only use the Google search engine at the windows phone 7 launch.

windows phone 7 celebration is a funeral

Microsoft held a party to launch their new windows phone 7 platform. Unlike most most office parties with cake and a speech or two, Microsoft celebrated by holding a funeral parade for the the iPhone and Blackberry. Now, there are plenty of signs that Blackberry is on the decline, but the iPhone? The parade was plain weird. It  had people dress up as gorillas, transvestites, morticians, Darth Vader and naked angels. It is unclear what the naked Angels represented or if the person in the Darth Vader costume wanted to recapture the bygones days when Microsoft dominated the computer industry. But the highlight had to be that the team also did a thriller dance, possibly to represent windows mobile's rise from the dead. Microsoft it is good to celebrate your successes, but isn't this a little too much?

Gartner: android and symbian to dominate smart phones

Gartner research today announced that their market forecasts indicate that Android has surpassed Blackberry to become the second most popular smart phone OS worldwide. Their study shows that Android jumped from 3.9% market share to 17.7% in just a year while all others except iOS slipped. They predict that by 2014 Symbian and Android will be both at around 30% and battling it out for dominance. It has been clear this has been the summer for Android and that RIM has not made up much ground with the Torch launch. These predictions should be taken with a grain of salt especially considering that Windows phone 7 is about to launch and Google may be dampening Android market with rumblings that Chrome is a more suitable Tablet OS.

iphone 4 free cases ending

Apple has announced that they will be ending the free iPhone 4 case program on September 30th. Currently iPhone 4 owners simply have to download the free iPhone 4 case app and request one of a selection of iPhone 4 cases. This application will cease to work on September 30th. However, it seems that Apple will still evaluate your claims of reception problems to determine if you deserve a case if you call the Apple care phone line. This will be done on a one by one case not en mass like the current iPhone 4 case give away program.

Flash on Android, friend or foe?

Google and Adobe tout Flash as one of the key features of Android over iOS and the iPhone. Many Android phones have upgraded to the Android 2.2 with Flash support. But what many users have seen that Flash on mobile devices is not cracked up to all it should be. Some have even posted videos of their mobile Flash experience. Mostly the posts show that Flash can’t play many videos, but a few others have gotten somewhat playable movies with a little fiddling. As more and more owners publicize the Flash performance, will it slow down Android’s amazing gains in market share?

Apple loses marketshare, Android gains

According to Quantcast, Apple has dropped 11% in the last year in terms of mobile market share. Indeed they report almost every type of mobile operating system lost market share in the last year except Google’s Android. Within this last year, Android gained almost 19%. Their rate seems to have increased dramatically in the last month. The summer of Android is really starting to take affect and you have to wonder how Apple’s loss of market share has to do with the antennagate. But analysts are also suggesting that the iPhone may have saturated the AT&T market, pushing Apple to consider a second carrier.

from: quantcast

samsung fascinate joins the party

The Samsung Fascinate is available online today from Verizon and tomorrow, the Fascinate will be available at the Verizon store. In both cases, the price is $199 with a two year contract and $100 rebate. The Fascinate is last of the Galaxy S phones to go on sale in the US. These phones feature a 4 inch super AMOLED screen, a 1 GHz CPU and the 2.1 Android operating system. The Fascinates siblings have done very well at ATT, Sprint and T-mobile. It is expected that the Fascinate will give some serious competition to the Droid X and Droid Incredible for Verizon diehards. Now if only Samsung would fix the GPS problem.

Dell Streak getting Android 2.1 upgrade

It seems that the Dell Streak owners from the UK and use the O2 network are getting an update to Android 2.1. The Dell device originally shipped with Android 1.6 and the upgrade to version 2.1 is big upgrade. There is no word when the upgrade will be coming to Dell Streaks that have been bought through AT&T. The carrier is known to be slow, especially considering how long it took them to release the Streak and its accessories after O2 originally released their version.

Sony Xperia X10 to get Android 2.1 in September

Sony UK announced in their official UK twitter feed that the Xperia X10 will be upgraded to Android 2.1 by end of September. The X10 is currently running Android 1.6 so the upgrade will be a huge improvement but you have to wonder why they did not just go for the 2.2 upgrade. It's unclear if the upgrade applies to all X10 owners or just the ones in Europe. Hopefully the upgrade will be available worldwide, but you never know with AT&T. Here is the original tweet.

Killing uneeded iPhone apps

With the new multitasking capabilities on iOS 4, you can have lots of apps running at once on your iPhone. This is a great feature but if you have too many apps running at once, it can slow down your phone. iOS is supposed to kill apps when the iPhone runs low on memory. Unfortunate it does not always do this soon enough or you just want to atop an annoying music background you can stop the app manually. It is done from the app selector bar by holding down an app until it starts to jump. Then select the upper left corner of the app you want to stop. Here are the details with screen shots of how to kill background apps.

Video of a fire tornado

I've never heard of a fire tornado before. But apparently these extreme events occur when a fire acquires a vertical velocity and forms a tornado column of air. They have been known to occur in some famous fires like the 1923 Great Kanto firestorm resulting from an earthquake. Now someone who was either extremely brave or a candidate for the Darwin awards caught one on video. Also if you are interested in creating one yourself, here are the instructions.

Finally, an iPhone 4 extended battery case

 MiLi power has started selling a iPhone 4 extended battery case. The device is a combination cell phone case and battery built into one. It is a great alternative to a user replaceable battery and gives you extra power while protecting your phone at the same time. These cases were a life save for the iPhone 3GS, more than doubling he battery life of the phone. The case looks like it protects along the side of the phone thus preventing dreaded iPhone antenna problems. All these may make the case one of the best iPhone 4 cases available. Be warned, it looks like the cases will not be shipping for 1 to 2 months.