Tech QQ

Earlier this summer HTC claimed that the Desire, Legend and Wildfire would see an update to Froyo(Android 2.2) by early Q3.

Now early Q3 is here and no signs of updates. Eric Lin of HTC says in response to a question regarding if the Froyo release is in vain with the claim of Gingerbread being delivered this year:

I don’t think so. I don’t know what Gingerbread involves, but I would believe that we would be done with our Froyo updates before Christmas. And since Google hasn’t made any announcements as to when Gingerbread is going to come out, I’m not going to make that guess, it could be Q1 of next year.

The reason for it taking time is of course for HTC to change and test that all their added features a UI works with Froyo.

So eagerly skinning and changing a UI for the users added experience is a great thing, but question if the users aggravation of having to wait longer for the updates evens it all out?

Two weeks have passed and no upgrade for the iPhone 4 as promised have been delivered.

Now it seems Apple have confirmed for Gizmodo (are they still talking to each other??) that the upcoming software update won't fix the antenna issues as first stated on Apples forums.

The software fix is coming withing a few weeks they now claim, but it will only fix the erroneous bar representation of the coverage.

Too bad, so sad. With all the hopes and dreams crushedwe advice the following:

• get a couple of meters of duct tape and wire around your phone
• some band aid on your fingers (see below)
• try to cover that left corner in your favorite color nail polish

Conflipper has been at it again. This time he's dug up some XML files from HTC's own site and they collaborate the assumptions that HTC's rumored Mondrian and Mozart are indeed Windows Phone 7 handsets.

The XML files lists them as using Internet Explorer 7, which will be available for Windows Phone 7 to start off with, as it is unlikely it will be ported to the Windows Mobile 6.5 track due to Microsoft working on the successor of Windows Mobile at the moment and not investing time in Mobile 6.5 upgrades.

The devices also seem to have Bluetooth support as well as will be shipping with MMS capabilities. And they seem to be slate devices without keyboards.

Now, if we only could get to see some real pictures and specs from HTC soon...

Pew Research Center recently released their 2010 survey of cellphone usage, and it shows a clear trend.

The report is only from data collected in the US, but still shows a clear trend of increased smartphone usage.

The numbers compared between May 2010 and April 2009 shows a 15% increase in people using their phones to access the internet. A 15% increase in people recording videos on on their phones, 12% increase in using their phones for listening to music and a 9% increase in people checking emails.

Pew concludes:

Cell phone ownership has remained stable over the last year, but users are taking advantage of a much wider range of their phones' capabilities compared with a similar point in 2009. Of the eight mobile data applications we asked about in both 2009 and 2010, all showed statistically significant year-to-year growth.

Now the question is if this is indeed due to people using more of their phones capabilities, or that cellphone ownership percentage stays the same, but people are upgrading their cellphones to smartphones with more capabilities.

Looking at the sales figures for Android devices and iPhone in the US, I suspect it's more of a question of people getting their hands on better, more capable handsets.

The trend is clear though, and it will be interesting to see if this development keeps on or even picks up more momentum. I would suspect it will actually gain momentum over the next few years, as more and more people will go for a cellphone to smartphone upgrade when the time comes to swap handset.

Then there is also some demographics in this that are interesting, that shows the younger segment (aged 18 to 29) being more prolific user than those older of age in the survey. Which is often a given being that adoption of new technology is often more rapid in the younger segment. To see all the results follow the link to the original survey below.
Pew Research mobile use survey 2010

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Article about 2010 Q4 smart phone statistics here.
More articles about statistics here.

Chippy released some more info about the Aava Moorestown based handset today.

The MeeGo version on it is really early in development stage at the moment so a lot of stuff is lacking.

He did run a SunSpider(a performance test for Javascript) test though. The Aava handset got a result of about 4.2 seconds with the Firefox build that was installed. Probably it would shave off a second or two if it had a newer build of the Firefox browser, or another faster browser like Chrome.

It's pretty decent figures, about what some netbooks does. The Nexus One with Froyo installed completes the test in about 5.7-6 seconds(depending on device and Froyo build).

There's no denying that the Moorestown platform packs some punch, but it will be interesting to see what the latest dual core Qualcomm processor will do, as there is no doubt it will shave quite a bit of the Nexus One's times.

Chippy also posted a longer video on YouTube for your enjoyment.

Missing some internet content on your iPad? Annoyed to see Lego pieces instead of animations and movies?

If your answer is a resounding yes for the above questions, there is now hope. If you have a jailbroken iPad that is.

So if you ventured the risky way and jailbreaked your iPad there is now code available to help you show Flash content. For the moment it only supports games and animations, but the movie support is being worked on. The application in question is named Frash and is able to play Flash 10.1 content.

For a demo at how it looks check out the video below:



For a complete instruction how to install Frash check out this article at Engadget.

The awesome Moorestown based handset that Aava mobile showed off at Computex has now been released into the wild!


It's not widely available, but Chippy over at Carrypad has received a unit. Apparently it's a developer unit running MeeGo with a rather early version of the UI. But several features are working so more information is to be published within the next 48 hours says the temporary owner.

It will indeed be fun to see what the device can handle, as the performance mentioned at Computex certainly was impressive.

MeeGo is also the OS that Nokia is putting all their faith in for their upcoming smartphones, so it could be nice to get a glimpse of the future of that OS as well.

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You can follow Chippy on Twitter for more info.