The results are out, and who’s the winner of the online app store? Well, obviously it’s still Apple that’s taking the huge lead in front, but their growth is indeed slowing down, as the App Store begins to reach a saturation point on smartphones, while Nokia’s Ovi Store and Google’s Android Market blossomed during 2010 by multiples of 7.2 and 8.6 times their 2009 size, the biggest growing kid of all. Apple’s share at the top has shrunken as a consequence, a trend that looks likely to continue when Windows Phone 7′s Marketplace and the Ovi Store are melded into one through this year and beyond.
White iPhone 4? Well, we’ll just let that myth goes by. There’s just no glimpse of when it’s coming, even though we’ve seen a few believable clues. Never mind them, as other manufacturers also have white phones for us. It seemed that Sony Ericsson will have white Xperia Play handsets for us, but getting hands on them won’t be easy. O2 will be the sole carrier for this alabaster gaming smartphone in the UK, while other markets have yet to announce availability of the white Xperia Play. Well, in these days, anything can happen.
We’ve seen demos of HP using their Pre 3 to send a webpage URL to a TouchPad just by tapping them together. Now it seemed that Google has also found the secret recipe to do that on their Android devices, and will be coming to Gingerbread loaded devices in Android 2.3.3. This adds some expanded functionality for working with the NFC chip found in the Nexus S (and, presumably, others soon) enabling, among other things, NFC to work with Bluetooth. As demonstrated a few weeks ago, the NFC chip can be used to send networking and establish a connection when the two phones touch, so no more manual pairing required, just sweet tapping and sharing.
It seemed that Intel has started shipping fixed B3-stepping 6-series Sandy Bridge chipsets to ‘first-tier makers’ of laptops and motherboards. It’s therefore expected that these companies will ‘unveil their Sandy Bridge-based models at the end of the month.’
This is actually within the expected time-frame that Intel quoted when the story of the Intel Sandy Bridge chipset flaw first broke, and indicates that production of Sandy Bridge motherboards should be in full swing by April.
This also fits with what our sources have told us about the new B3-stepping chipset – that laptop manufacturers are getting a larger share of them than motherboards makers. This is possibly due to the fact that laptops have to go through more QA processes and testing (for keyboards, screens, hinges and so on) than motherboards.
It seemed that Toshiba will be the first to announce Sandy Bridge-powered notebooks in Taipei on February 23, ‘with the products to be available starting mid-March.’
‘Acer and Asustek Computer [typically referred to as Asus] are also expected to begin shipping Sandy Bridge notebooks in mid-March,’ claims DigiTimes. We expect motherboards using the new B3 silicon from the big three manufacturers to be on sale around the same time, or possibly a week or two later.
After waves and waves of rumours regarding the new features of Apple’s next iPad, supposedly the iPad 2, we now have news that they have indeed started mass production of the iPad 2.
This news comes from sources close to production partner Foxconn, whom have told Wall Street Journal that the follow-up to Apple’s surprisingly successful iPad tablet has entered production. However, Apple itself is being predictably tight lipped regarding any information about its new product.
Your iPhone is the icon of your lucrative social status, at least to some. And thus, your accessories must match your status. There’s no way you want to be seen using some cheapo China-brand media dock for your iPhone and playing songs from your iPhone that sounds like paper drum. You’ll need something that can match your symbol, something like the AuraSound Sound Station, which offers an “audiophile-class acoustic design” in something a little less… dirigible-esque than other high-end docks we’ve seen. Read more…
Here’s another reason why you should be excited about Ice Cream. It seemed that Honeycomb does work on smartphones, and damn it’s gorgeous. By the way, the keyboard indeed looks much better.
It seemed that Intel has started shipping fixed B3-stepping 6-series Sandy Bridge chipsets to ‘first-tier makers’ of laptops and motherboards. It’s therefore expected that these companies will ‘unveil their Sandy Bridge-based models at the end of the month.’
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