AT&T just launched a new QWERTY texting-friendly phone – the Samsung A767 Propel. It comes in four cool color combinations. It’s $79.99 with a two year contract, that is with a $50 mail-in coupon as well. So, the real price is $129.99. Without a contract the phone is $279.99. It’s not the cheapest phone, but it looks pretty cool and is chock full of features. It has 3G speed if you are in an area that supports it. Throw in a 1.3 megapixel camera, full texting, mail, etc… and you have a solid, modern phone. If this sounds like a cool phone to you, check out your local AT&T retailer.
admin AT&T, Samsung
A few details about version 2.2 of the iPhone firmware have emerged. According to the Digital Earth Blog, it will include Google StreetView, an expected move since it was recently released for Google Maps Mobile (Nokia, etc) and is part of Android.
In addition, you’ll finally be able to disable auto-correction on the keyboard. I personally hate it, so I’ll be happy to get rid of it.
Beyond that, they’ll be including support for Japanese emoji icons, which has been blamed as part of the reason for the slow iPhone adoption in Japan.
No word on Background Push Notification in this update, nor a release date for it.
(via MacRumors)
admin Apple, Software Apple, background push notification, firmware, iphone, streetview
Samsung has released another firmware update for the popular Instinct, and it seems to be a good one. According to Gizmodo, the update includes some major enhancements to the browser. The browser seems to to be the achilles heel of most phones (just ask my wife about her BlackJack), so it’s nice to see them working hard to make this one better.
They claim a 10x improvment in rendering speed, which must be a stunning improvement for people that are used to the old one.
In addition, you can now hide the browser controls (to give you more screen real estate), the favorites UI has been improved, and there have been 34 other browser-related tickets closed. Not bad!
admin Browsers, Samsung, Software browser, firmware, instinct, Samsung, update
This is pretty slick. Starting with firmware 2.1, specially coded mobile websites can be designed to run just like your other apps! If you are on a site that supports this, you simply save the app to your home screen, just like you’ve always done. When you tap the icon, the page will load in a clean window (no Safari wrapper), and it loads very quickly (no wrapper, less overhead).
For you webmasters out there, changing your site to support this is very easy. Simple add these three lines of code to your page header area:
<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0; user-scalable=0;” />
<meta name=”apple-mobile-web-app-capable” content=”yes” />
<meta names=”apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style” content=”black-translucent” />
That’s it! I’ve already found a few sites that support it, such as Google Earth Hacks Mobile and Food Info DB, as well as a very slick demo from Clancy, and I’m sure many more will soon. If your site does it, please list it on the comments.
I’d love to see Google implement this for some of their mobile sites. It would make Google Calendar and Reader very useful. C’mon Google, do it!
admin Apple, Browsers Apple, icon, iphone, web apps
