| QuickRadar: Video: Apple should drop the iPhone Jul 26th 2013, 13:25, by John McCann 
The Apple iPhone. A product synonymous with the advent of the smartphone and largely credited for shaping the current crop of mobile devices - but is it time for a change? Back in 2007, the iPhone brand wooed fans with its simplistic concept (who puts the description of the product in the brand name anyway?), but the novelty is wearing thin. Perhaps Apple is alienating those who are not hardened fans, the people who are put off by the iPhone brand no matter what the handset actually offers. So could a new name reignite interest by those turned off by the iPhone and open up a whole new market to Apple? Let's find out. YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHl2yajvLcAMore QuickRadarHas the mere suggestion of Apple dropping the iPhone brand got your blood boiling? Then get ready to pop with more QuickRadar videos.     |  | Blip: Samsung Galaxy S4 goes Arctic Blue at Phones 4 U Jul 26th 2013, 11:58, by Kate Solomon 
The Arctic Blue (read: blue) edition of the Samsung Galaxy S4 is now available in the UK from Phones 4U. Arctic Blue: also a musically-confused tribute band that only plays Blue covers in the style of Arctic Monkeys. Anyway, the phone will set you back zero pounds if you go for the £37/month contract at Phones 4U. More blips! Don't be blue - our patented (note: note patented) blips will cheer you up:     | | Apple dropping as smartphone fans opt for Android Jul 26th 2013, 09:39, by Gareth Beavis 
Apple may have reported healthy iPhone sales this week, but its being dwarfed by its robotic competitor. The recent IDC tracker findings, which look at the worldwide shipments and market share of all mobile phone makers, noted that Apple shifted 31.2 million iPhones in the last quarter, but only nabbed 13.1% of the market. Apple and Samsung were the only two vendors in the top five to report a drop in market share, with LG, Lenovo and ZTE all clawing back some ground as Android handsets grew massively in popularity. LG was one of the big winners in the last year, driven mostly by the popular Nexus 4 (although this was thanks to Google's incredible subsidy on the handset) as well as members of its Optimus G and F- and L-Series phones too. Lenovo and ZTE grabbing fourth and fifth place respectively shows that China is becoming a key battleground in the smartphone war, and one that Apple has yet to come close to cracking thanks to ongoing battles to effectively range its handsets in the region. Not the One?HTC is once again absent from the rankings, despite gaining awards all over the world for its recent One handset. The company has recently released the HTC One Mini, and it strongly tipped to re-enter the budget market soon, along with unveiling a phablet device, in order to address dwindling sales and profits. Don't worry about Samsung though, as the South Korean brand is way out in front of the pack, with shipments of 72.4 million smartphones showing a huge increase on the 50 million shifted in the same period last year. The rise of interest in the market is such that this actually led to a drop in its share, taking 30.4% of the market. Nokia is still in second place in the overall worldwide mobile phone (including non-smartphones) market, lobbing 61.1 million units into the market to take 14.1%. It was a drop of 27% year on year, but we'll gloss over that. So come back at the same time next year, to see if Huawei, HTC or Nokia can mount an assault on the top five. Set yourself a calendar reminder now, in case you forget. We'll wait.     | | Galaxy S4 was stellar for Samsung, but phone growth expected to slow Jul 26th 2013, 01:56, by Michelle Fitzsimmons 
Sammy is bringing up the rear in this whirlwind week of earnings results, today outing figures for the second quarter 2013. While there were plenty of positives to report, Samsung cautioned that the next few months might not be the rosiest. As it brought home a net profit of 7.77 trillion won (about $6.98b, £4.52b, AU$7.55b), the Galaxy S4 led the way in phone shipments. It along with the Galaxy Note 8.0 pushed the mobile division's profit up 9 percent from the previous quarter. However, Samsung warned that while the sales in the sector should remain strong into Q3, the pace of phone growth is expected to slow. TVs and air conditionersThird quarter smartphone sales are expected to outperform global market forecasts, Samsung noted, with low- to mid-range smartphones helping boost the non-feature phone sect compose more than 70 percent of its handset offerings. The company said it plans to "reinforce its market leadership in tablet panels by expanding" its high-res and mass market display line-up. It also plans to focus on offering "differentiated smartphone displays," competing on a technological front with flexible displays, among other unnamed offerings. Premium TVs and air conditioners helped the consumer electronics division see a 14 percent sales jump from the last quarter. Strong seasonal demand will help premium TVs grow in the second half of the year, and a smattering of offerings - from UHD to curved OLED to Smart TVs - will help Samsung take on competitors, the company said.     | | BLIP: Google Play Games goes retro with Konami Code Easter Egg Jul 26th 2013, 01:24, by Farrha Khan 
Looks like the folks at Google enjoy a bit of retro-gaming with a new Easter Egg popping up in its Google Play Games app. The Konami Code has been ever present in various websites and games after being popularized in Konami's classic game Contra. And when you input the code within the app, a message pops up, saying, "All your game are belong to us" – a nod to another classic and game for the Sega Mega Drive, Zero Wing. It doesn't seem to do much else at the moment, but the Easter Egg is a fun little addition. The code, if you want to try it for yourself, swipe up, up, down, down, left, right, left and right. Then press B, A and Start. Via: Ausdroid More blips!Not an Android user? These other blips are kind of like Easter Eggs. Kind off.     | | Is this the biggest Nokia Lumia screen yet? Let's put it to the panel... Jul 26th 2013, 00:34, by Chris Smith 
Rumours have been swirling lately suggesting Nokia will boost its line of Lumia Windows Phones with a handset to straddle that line in the sand between smartphone and tablet. Could this be our first glimpse of what's to come? This purported front screen panel component baring the Nokia braning, revealed by ICTech today, looks like it could sit on the 6-inch (at least) device thought to be in the works. Judging by the rubber gloves it appears the photo has been taken by a sneaky worker on the production line (or a dentist's surgery, who knows?). More to comeAny launch of a 6-inch Lumia device would likely come before the year is out as the Finnish company looks to capitalise on improving sales figures for its Windows Phone devices. At the launch of the Nokia Lumia 1020 camera phone earlier this month, the company promised more big launches before the end of the year. It's unlikely that, in his comments at the time, embattled CEO Stephen Elop meant the more affordable Lumia 625 device, which showed itself to the world earlier this week. This means there's more to come. Nokia is also rumoured to be plotting a tablet running Windows RT. Back in May the company admitted to being "very interested" in tablets, while a purported image of said device appeared on the web earlier in July.     | | Updated: U.S. and Europe to see the LG G2 in Sept., or so execs supposedly say (Updated) Jul 25th 2013, 19:43, by Michael Rougeau 
Update: An LG spokesperson sent over the following statement to clarify what was said: "Our CFO gave some estimates at the LG second quarter earnings press conference on Wednesday but he was only speaking in generalities, not confirmed facts. He is, after all, our CFO not our CMO. So while it's likely that the timing he mentioned is accurate, we won't know for sure for a few more weeks. "We hope to have all major carriers on board when G2 launches in key markets. CFO was speaking from the point of view of where we stand now but a lot of things will change between today and launch time." Original story follows… The LG G2 will be launched on Aug. 7, which means we have a lot more info going into the device's debut event than we do most launches. However, just because we know what phone we'll see doesn't mean we know everything about the device, like confirmed specs, price or release. Oh, wait a minute... Sometimes it's really hard to keep a secret, and according to Korean site The Kyunghyang Shinmun, the phone's release window and an additional carrier were secrets too big for some at LG to keep. The G2 will launch next month in Korea, September in North America and Europe, and October in other regions, with Verizon as an official carrier partner in the U.S., the report revealed. That info reportedly comes by way of LG Electronics' CFO David Jung and another, unnamed executive, who allegedly just couldn't hold their tongues for another couple weeks. The story so farTechRadar asked LG to confirm or deny that the executives spilled said beans, and we'll update this post if we hear back. The LG G2 is expected to follow in the footsteps of the Optimus G and Optimus G Pro, two respectable heavyweight devices - just don't call it the Optimus G2. 
Little about the G2 is official, but rumors peg it has having a 5-inch 1080p display, a 1.7GHz or 2.3GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 2610mAh battery. That battery could also come in at a full 3000mAh or a mere 2540mAh, depending who you listen to. The latest G2 battery rumor also came with an interesting picture of the device with several multi-colored backs in red, blue, pink and grey. It's unclear whether we're seeing the back of the device there or just cases, but either way it seems G2 owners will have some color in their lives.     | | Nokia semi-solves the WP8 YouTube crisis with YouTube Upload app Jul 25th 2013, 19:03, by Michael Rougeau 
Nokia introduced its own Nokia Lumia YouTube app, the aptly named YouTube Upload, to the Windows Phone Store this month. There's been something of a YouTube crisis on Windows Phone 8 ever since Microsoft began pointing fingers at Google at the beginning of the year. Since then, Microsoft and Google introducer a stock YouTube app for WP8, but with one fatal flaw: it lacked the ability to upload videos to YouTube. Well, WP8 users won't have that problem anymore - as long as they've got a Nokia Lumia phone. Selective problem solvingThat's the luxury of a phone maker solving an app deficit by itself: It gets to decide what devices are home to the solution. TechRadar asked Microsoft to clarify whether uploading functionality will ever come to its stock YouTube app on Windows Phone 8, but a company spokesperson said they have nothing to share at this time. We also asked HTC, as a phone maker that's made a number of Windows Phone 8 handsets, whether it has anything similar in the works, but so far the company has been silent. Right now Nokia's YouTube Upload app says it's available for any Lumia device with Windows Phone 8, like the Lumia 928, but The Verge claims that as of now it only works on the Lumia 1020. That will likely change, but we've asked Nokia to confirm just in case. - YouTube has some exciting things coming up, including YouTube Geek Week - don't miss it!
    | | Google TV won't perish at the hands of Chromecast, at least not now Jul 25th 2013, 18:29, by Chris Smith 
Good news for Google TV and set-top box owners: The company has confirmed the streaming tech from the newly-announced Chromecast dongle is coming to the floundering smart TV platform. The $35 (about £22, AU$38) accessory was revealed alongside Android 4.3 and the new Nexus 7 tablet on Wednesday. It lets owners stream content from their smartphone, tablet or computer to a HDTV via the Cast app. Those who already own most Google TV-compatible devices won't need the dongle once Google has retrofitted its Smart TV platform with the same streaming tech with a forthcoming Jelly Bean update. Responding to speculation and questions that Chromecast would kill Google TV, staffer Warren Rehman wrote on Google+: "I'm still gainfully employed working on Google TV - no it isn't dead, and yes it will support Cast." Why buy both?In replying to further questions, Rehman clarified that all ARM-based Google TV devices updated to the forthcoming version of Jelly Bean 4.3 would support Chromecast. He said the company is "putting the finishing touches" on that update, but didn't specify when it would hit Google TV devices. He also responded to questions from commenters asking 'why bother with Google TV?' when Chromecast is available so cheaply. He wrote: the "Chromecast is Chrome OS-based and does not natively run Android apps whereas the Google TV devices are Android based and do natively run Android apps. Also, there's the whole 'live TV integration' which Chromecast doesn't do and Google TV devices do do." Chromecast was well received following its announcement, with consumers stateside snapping up pre-order stocks with a quickness. It gives Google a chance to match Apple's excellent AirPlay platform, which allows Mac and iOS users to quickly push entertainment content to their Apple TV set-top boxes.     | | Apple may have found the answer to our battery nightmares Jul 25th 2013, 14:40, by Hugh Langley 
We think it's fair to say that many of us would forgo certain phone features just to have a better battery to see us through the day. Now it looks as though Apple has a plan, and that plan is to learn your daily habits and make your iPhone adjust its power consumption to ensure it's only maxing out when it needs to. That's the the gist of a new patent that Apple has filed with the USPTO for a system that monitors things such as your location data, the length of your daily commute and where you might next be able to charge up. The device would then behave accordingly, adjusting things like screen brightness, email fetching, and just generally altering various functions so they're draining as little power as possible. We want it nowWhile it would remember your daily habits, it could also adjust spontaneously if it detects you're going to be out of range of a charger for some time. It might not just be the iPhone benefiting from the new power-saving initiative though, as the patent also lists (but "is not limited to") laptops, music players and gaming devices. The patent, titled "Power management for electronic devices", joins an ever-growing list of Apple patents that may or may not become a reality. But we really, really hope this one does.     | |
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