Oh, the dreaded question headline. It indicates that, in all likelihood, you will finish reading this post and not have an answer to the question. And you won’t. You’ll be left pondering, like us, whether the T-Mobile Shadow II, recently outed by the Federal Communications Commission (thanks, guys!), will meet the public with 3G speeds. The conundrum, as posed by AllShadow.com: The FCC documents clearly show that the Shadow II’s radio is capable of working the 1700MHz band. That, as you well know, is T-Mobile’s very own 3G playground. However, the post’s author, Mike Benton, writes that he has an...
It didn't take long for Android's built-in WebKit browser (that performed well in our recent mobile browser Battlemodo) to see a little competion in the form of Opera Mini 4.2—the ubiquitous and lightweight software that's installable in some form on just about every mobile platform that can run Java apps. A beta version was released for Android today, and we put it through a quick test. Opera Mini is notable for its practice of first loading your requested page on its own servers, which compress the pages and images before squirting it out to your phone over the network for...
Opera Mini 4.2 beta, a test version released for Java phones just two weeks ago, on Monday became the first third-party browser available for Google Android. Opera Mini 4.2 is the first browsing alternative for Google's Android mobile operating system.(Credit: Opera Software) Opera Mini for Android, which was previewed in April, includes most of the familiar Mini 4.2 features: zooming, saving, bookmarking, and searching for in-line text has stayed intact, as has syncing via Opera Link and swapping skins. We couldn't make the video playback workaround that debuted on other Java phones work in this build, though T-Mobile's USA's G1...
It’s not the famous Web 3.0 the semantic crowd has been lobbying for for years. It’s not the next big thing or even the next little thing, or whatever the Times touted when it went nuts for micromessaging today. It’s Web 2.2, and it stands for incremental improvements that, oh by the way, add up to a big leap. I’m branding this as an homage to the latest iPhone OS 2.2 upgrade, which surfaced a few days ago with limited fanfare centering mostly around new walking and public transportation views in Maps and improved memory and stability. But the new...
As expected, T-Mobile has passed on the costs of running their 3G network on to you, the smartphone customer. All plans now match the T-Mobile G1 at $25 for unlimited web and 400 messages with $34.99 being the standard for unlimited web, text, picture and email. [T-Mobile and Brighthand]...
We here at Gizmodo have been getting interesting missives from all you readers about how AT&T's 3G network has just plumb broke. Any calls made to an iPhone 3G goes straight to voicemail, but with no notification to the iPhone owner. Switching back to the Edge/2G network will get the phone to start acting normally again. While that sucks, the biggest problem seems to be getting AT&T to admit that anything is wrong in the first place. I connected with Apple Tier 2 support and we conference called into AT&T. They claimed that it was my device (never had a...
We here at Gizmodo have been getting interesting missives from several readers about how AT&T's 3G network has just plumb broke in several areas, like Boston and Hawaii. Any calls made to an iPhone 3G goes straight to voicemail, but with no notification to the iPhone owner. Switching back to the Edge/2G network will get the phone to start acting normally again. I connected with Apple Tier 2 support and we conference called into AT&T. They claimed that it was my device (never had a problem until this point) and that before they would put in another ticket I had...
Apple is devising a method for the iPhone to display status icons even when the handset's screen is turned off. The company this week published a 24-page patent detailing a dual-backlight system, so that in addition to the primary backlight, a second low-powered backlight would always be on displaying e-mail, text and call notifications. Positioned behind the primary backlight, the second always-on backlight would project through transparent layers. If the technique materializes, it would be Apple's solution for one of iPhone's weaknesses when pitted against the BlackBerry smartphone. When a BlackBerry receives an e-mail, a small light turns on...
RIM’s recently released Blackberry Storm is a device that tries to outdo Apple’s iPhone by including a beefed-up OS, polishing up the interface and marrying it to a really fast 3G network (instead of AT&T’s pokey 3G network.) The device even has visual voice mail, and a cut-and-paste feature. And oh by the way, RIM got rid of the the keyboard and got itself a touch screen. Verizon seems to have orchestrated a nice launch and the early reviews give the Storm a thumbs up. If you believe everything reviewers say, then you gotta wonder: Why has RIM only gotten...
Apple is facing yet another lawsuit because of the new iPhone 3G. Its been a lot time since reports of the new iPhone 3G having construction issues causing the back casing to crack. This problem was more easily detected in the white version than the black. The lawsuit also lists AT&T as a defendant. The lawsuit has been filed because Apple has been ignoring the reported problem for months now. Avi Koschitzki filed the 23-page suit in a New York district court. Koschitzki's attorneys wrote, "Based upon information and belief the 3G iPhones demand too much power from the 3G...
Online game site Zynga is offering their Texas Hold’Em Poker for iPhones. Play with others on Hi5 Live, Facebook, MySpace or Bebo. Play casual games or try getting into a tournament with the Live Poker game that runs on Wifi and the 3G Network. Download the basic version for free from the iTunes Store or pay $9.99 and get more chips. Zynga claims that 1.4 million gamers are already playing (undoubtedly when they should be working or studying.) Tags: hi5 live, ipone, ipone, live poker, mobile games, tournament, video games, zynga texas hold 'em, Zynga Texas Hold’Em Live Poker...
LG may release some crazy handsets on a global level, but believe it or not, the LG Incite has arrived at AT&T as what could be considered the first full-fledged LG smartphone in the States. And it's not a bad first showing. The 3G Windows Mobile handset features a 3-inch touchscreen with full virtual keyboard and haptic feedback, along with aGPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3MP camera, and microSD port. The Incite is available now for $199.99 with a 2-year agreement. Read on for the full details. AT&T and LG Mobile Phones Launch New Windows Mobile 6.1 Smartphone With Sleek Design, Vibrant...
Incase is at it again. Their latest iPhone offering, The Power Slider, will double your iPhone’s power for up to 5 hours of talk time on the 3G network and 10 hours on 2G. It will increase your audio playback time to 26 hours, and give you video playback time to 7 hours. Pretty nifty. But that isn’t all. With this device, you can now sync with the iPhone still in the case, which is pretty convenient. Amazingly it doesn’t make your iPhone look too bad, though it does fatten it some. We’ve seen much worse. No word on price...
