Cell Phone News You Need to Know for Summer 2010

By    June 5, 2010 12:00 pm     Posted in Gadgets, Mobile, Tech   Josh Hilp g+ page

There is so much going on in the world of mobile telecommunication (big word, yay) right now that it can get muddled and complicated. And it’s pretty hard to learn anything when your friends are all raving about their phones and your cell phone provider is constantly sending you their “best deals.” Whether you intend to buy a new phone this summer or not, you should pay attention to what is happening in the cell phone world. Because who knows when you’ll get extremely drunk, drop it in the toilet, and have to buy a new one.

Lots of small tweaks and features coming as well

The iPhone; 4G and OS4: The iPhone OS 4.0 was announced recently. It will be coming out this June to the iPhone and iPod Touch 3G, and this Fall to the iPad. The biggest pieces of news from a developer conference was multitasking and the iAd. Multitasking is obviously the biggest piece of news, seeing as how people have been waiting for it for years. Although, it doesn’t quite function as people wanted it to. There will now be a multitasking bar, that can be used for up to 4 or so apps that can be “multi-tasked” at once. You can multi-task between the programs on this bar by double tapping the home button and clicking on another app. The apps will remain in the state that you left them in, so you can move from one to the other, and then go back to an exact moment in your other app.

The iAd is more of a developer tool, but it is important to know about since it has effects on usability. iAd is a advertising tool for apps developed by Apple. The way it is supposed to work is to have an ad play every 3 minutes of app use. This is meant to make it cheaper to buy and develop apps. It is still under question whether there will be an option to have an ad-free version for a little more money, or if the ad-version will be the only option. Another important and cool new feature is the ability to create folders for apps, photos, and most other files on the phone. It makes it easy to organize and manage apps on the home screen.

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No I can't, you should text me, I can read you now.

The Verizon Plan: Verizon Wireless is doing something interesting this year. Most carriers have their “anointed” master phone (the best example of this is obviously the iPhone on AT&T). But this year  Verizon is bringing in a vast majority of key products, essentially offering every manner of phone that could tickle your fancy, other than the iPhone. Among their own unique products, Verizon will be carrying Windows 7 Series Phones, Blackberrys, and all other manner of the leading multi-carrier devices. They have also apparently acquired the team who developed the Sidekick that was popular oh so many years ago .

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Kin One and Kin Two with their own pet names (guess which one is the "Turtle")

The Microsoft Kin: The two Kin phones are being marketed as “social networking devices.” Previously labeled “Project Pink” and likely running Windows Mobile 7, these two phones will have a unique, custom interface made for social networking. There will be a screen where all your social networks (or the bigger ones) will be combined into a big smooth feed where you can interact with them in unison.

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Their last attempt to be hip and cool

Windows 7 Phone Series: The Windows Mobile Series of OS’s has never been that popular or has it been used in any big name phones. Well Microsoft has taken the old Windows Mobile OS outside and released it into the wild. 7.0 is going to be a serious overhaul. In the second half of 2010, maybe even in the summer, you will be able to get a Windows 7 Phone on most major carriers. The OS is going to focus on social networking. The biggest change from other phones is the integration of Xbox Live on your phone. Being able to connect to, communicate with, and even join parties on Xbox live over your phone.

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And coming soon, the iPhone on Virgin Mobile with no contract necessary!!

And Now… Rumors!: Here’s some stuff I have heard that doesn’t really have any kind of basis in real life.

An HTC OS: HTC the handheld manufacturing company behind a lot of popular phones has been in talks with software developers. People are assuming that they are working on, if in testing stages only, an HTC OS to have their phones run on. People have been saying that HTC is an amazing handheld developer, but an OS would be too much for them to develop while maintaining quality in their phones.

The Verizon iPhone: So I think this rumor may solely exist because so many people want the iPhone to come to Verizon. Apparently, an iPhone was noticed on some Verizon data logs, meaning that an iPhone was being used on the Verizon network. The fact that it showed up on data logs means that it wasn’t an unlocked iPhone, and it wasn’t being used over the Verizon Mi-fi, but was an actual device on Verizon.

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    Tags: Apple, HTC, iphone, iPhone 4G, iPhone OS 4, Kin, phones, Verizon, windows, Windows 7 Mobile

    Comments

    3 Responses to “Cell Phone News You Need to Know for Summer 2010”
    1. Jonathan says:
      June 6, 2010 at 9:54 am

      This article is terrible.

      1) iphone multitasking lets you leave open more than 4 apps. You simply scroll left or right to see what else is open.

      2) you make it sound like iad runs on the phone all the time. Wrong. iAd can be used by app developers to put banner ads in their apps. Apple did some math to say that people view about an app every 3 minutes, so you would get a new ad every thing minutes.

      3)Verizon did not acquire the sidekick team (the company was called "danger"). They actually went to microsoft, and made the kin. How you talked about the kin and didn't know this astounds me.

      4) for f's sake. The kin is out already. It doesnt run windows mobile 7. This can be accomplished by a simple google search. does this site have any editors??

    2. john says:
      June 6, 2010 at 11:37 am

      yeeh really bad article

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