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- Galaxy Axiom on US Cellular receiving OTA Jelly Bean update
- Austrian Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus beginning to receive Android 4.1.2 update
- HTC to include “Live Experience Tour” in 11 cities for HTC One marketing campaign
- Featured Android App Review: Todoist: To Do List, Task List [Productivity]
- HTC M4 Very Similar To HTC First, May Not Ship With Facebook Home
- Samsung Electronics Grows Profit By 53%, Fifth Record-Breaking Quarter In A Row
- Facebook Home Not Launching With Ads, Will Eventually Come To Cover Feed
- Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 now on sale in the U.K.
- HTC One Developer Edition pre-orders now open
- Latest comScore report shows Android market share continues to shrink in the U.S.
| Galaxy Axiom on US Cellular receiving OTA Jelly Bean update Posted: 05 Apr 2013 12:41 PM PDT
The Galaxy Axiom, US Cellular’s branded version of the Galaxy S III Mini, is beginning to see an OTA update to Android 4.1, complete with Project Butter enhancements and Google Now. You’ll need to be connected to WiFi for the update, and then check for updates in your phone’s About Device settings menu. This is the second Jelly Bean update we’ve seen to Samsung devices today, so Samsung’s starting off April on a high note. Any Axiom owners that have gotten the update? Let us know in the comments. source: US Cellular
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| Austrian Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus beginning to receive Android 4.1.2 update Posted: 05 Apr 2013 12:32 PM PDT
If you’re the owner of a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus in Austria, you should be receiving a notification shortly to update your tablet to Android 4.1.2. Hopefully that also means that the update is pretty close to being released in other countries, as well. The tablet has already been updated from Android 3.2 to 4.0, so this is definitely a good example of Samsung keeping their older devices relevant through software updates. source: SamMobile
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| HTC to include “Live Experience Tour” in 11 cities for HTC One marketing campaign Posted: 05 Apr 2013 12:24 PM PDT
HTC has already been pretty clear that they’re going to put their best marketing foot forward with the HTC One to help boost sales. We’ve seen some commercials for the One, but now we’re hearing that HTC’s marketing campaign will include “Live Experience Tours” in several cities in the US. These stops will include pop up shops to demonstrate the key features of the HTC One, like BlinkFeed, Zoe, and BoomSound. HTC wants to show you that the One is “everything your phone isn’t.” Very In addition to the showrooms for the One, BoomSound lounges will begin popping up in locations starting today. The showrooms won’t hit until April 11th, but they’ll be up for around three months, so you’ll have plenty of time to check it out. HTC is also planning a few tie-in shows to their BoomSound lounges and showrooms with some performances by popular artists in certain locations; Pharrell in New York, Grouplove in Chicago and Manchester Orchestra in Los Angeles. HTC is definitely pulling out all the stops to try to kick this phone off right. Hopefully HTC will see some significant returns from a marketing blitz of this scale, because I’m sure it’s not cheap. Hit the break for the full press release. HTC CHALLENGES CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS WITH NEW HTC ONE® LIVE EXPERIENCE TOUR Tour Launches Across the Country to Show Consumers the New HTC One Is "Everything Your Phone Isn't" BELLEVUE, Wash. – April 5, 2013 — HTC, a global leader in mobile innovation and design, today introduced the company's integrated U.S. marketing campaign launching its new flagship smartphone, the new HTC One. The campaign challenges the current mobile phone experience with a bold and playful execution, and offers consumers the opportunity to see, hear and hold the new smartphone before nationwide availability in traditional retail channels. The campaign comes to life as pre-order begins today, following unprecedented demand and the strongest pre-registration interest for any smartphone designed by HTC. The new HTC One will be available nationwide at retail stores through AT&T, Sprint and Best Buy on April 19, and through T-Mobile later this spring. "We're establishing the U.S. brand identity for the new HTC One as an innovative, stunning product with a full-metal design and a clear difference in experiences from any previous, or recently announced smartphone" said Erin McGee, vice president, marketing, North America, HTC Corporation. "The new HTC One has already won numerous prestigious awards and accolades, but consumers have yet to see it for themselves. We are changing that, starting today, by delivering unique and highly relevant experiences on city streets, in suburban malls, and at hundreds of movie theaters that brings the product to life through an authentic connection with the consumer." Everything Your Phone Isn't™ Crafted with a distinct zero-gap aluminum unibody, the new HTC One introduces HTC BlinkFeed™, HTC Zoe™ and HTC BoomSound™, key new HTC Sense® innovations that reinvent the mobile experience and set a new standard for smartphones. HTC is taking the breakthrough product directly to consumers with the HTC One Live Experience Tour, bringing each unique innovation to life and prompting consumers to compare the new HTC One to their current phone experience. The advertising features a similarly evocative theme positioning the new smartphone to consumers as "Everything Your Phone Isn't", with several deep integrations that highlight the dynamic experiences of the device. The new advertising campaign will run across a variety of media, including heavy rotation in relevant national TV programming, print, digital media and mobile advertising to include Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and Vevo. In-market geo-targeted advertising will also be incorporated into the HTC One Live Experience Tour. The HTC One Live Experience Tour will appear in 11 major markets across the U.S. and consists of three distinct executions: the HTC BoomSound Lounge, HTC One Showrooms and HTC One Cinema Experiences. HTC BoomSound Lounge The new HTC One introduces — for the first time on a phone — front-facing stereo speakers with a dedicated amplifier, as well as Beats Audio™ integration for rich, authentic sound whether listening to music, watching a video or playing a game. Opening today, the HTC BoomSound Lounges bring the extraordinary on-device audio experience to life at pop-up listening booths in prominent locations in six major cities across the U.S.: Columbus Circle in New York, Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco, Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles, Wrigleyville in Chicago, Franklin Square in Philadelphia, and Perimeter Mall in Atlanta. In addition to product experiences, the BoomSound Lounges serve as the connection for consumers to exclusive HTC concerts produced by Live Nation. Performances by Pharrell in New York, Grouplove in Chicago and Manchester Orchestra in Los Angeles will be limited to an audience of 1,000 fans, creating an intimate, once-in-a-lifetime experience for attendees. Consumers in those three markets can visit the HTC BoomSound Lounges for the opportunity to receive tickets to the concerts happening in their city. On April 19, all of the BoomSound Lounges across the country will transform into listening and viewing locations for the broadcast of one of the exclusive live concerts. HTC One Showroom Starting on April 11, HTC One Showrooms will begin appearing in high-traffic malls across the U.S. where they will live for a minimum of three months to create a playful, dynamic, digital space for consumer interaction and entertainment. The HTC Showrooms are built solely on the experiences of the new HTC One, placed where people spend time shopping, dining and hanging out, and allow engagement at their leisure. HTC Showrooms are popping up in eight U.S. markets featuring interactive experiences and a plethora of new HTC One smartphones for hands-on experiences: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. "HTC One Showrooms are taking the concept of a pop-up store to different place by creating a large, playful, interactive exhibit where we expect people to be entertained and have a new experience with the HTC One at each visit. It gives them the chance to truly immerse themselves in everything the phone offers at their own pace – and delivers a different experience than a traditional retail setting. We've created a mobility-powered playground that is good for our consumers, and for our retail partners as we send informed customers to their doors," said McGee.
Availability The highly anticipated new HTC One will be available globally through more than 185 mobile operators and major retailers in more than 80 regions and countries. In the United States, the new HTC One is available today for pre-order online through AT&T, Sprint, HTC and Best Buy in silver. Nationwide retail availability is as follows:
For more information about the new HTC One, visit www.htc.com. About HTC Founded in 1997, HTC Corporation (HTC) is the creator of many award-winning mobile devices and industry firsts. By putting people at the center of everything it does, HTC pushes the boundaries of design and technology to create innovative and personal experiences for consumers around the globe. HTC's portfolio includes smartphones and tablets powered by the HTC Sense® user experience. HTC is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE: 2498). For more information, please visit www.htc.com.
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| Featured Android App Review: Todoist: To Do List, Task List [Productivity] Posted: 05 Apr 2013 11:19 AM PDT
Todoist has always been one of the best personal task managers, but it was only available on the desktop until November of last year. That’s when Doist released native apps for both Android and iOS, which brought Todoist’s robust elements to users for on-the-go task management. With the addition of the app, Todoist users are now synced across nine platforms, which include Android, iOS, Web, Chrome, Firefox, Outlook, Thunderbird, Windows, and Mac. I generally don’t use the desktop to manage my tasks, although it’s important to me that the tasks are synced and accessible from various platforms. With that said, the desktop Web interface is a tremendous application for those that really need a lot of control for their tasks. The Todoist app for Android brings most of those features to your phone or tablet.
Todoist is aimed at the professional and is more comprehensive than most of the other task managers available on Android. What separates Todoist from other todo apps is the ability to organize tasks into projects with labels. You can even create sub tasks as well. By including projects, it effectively organizes everything in a logical manner. Who wants to look at a list of 30 todos when you can look at a list of 3 or 4 projects. Tapping on projects will give you the list of todos that are only related to that project. Color-coding is quite popular as well, and Todoist has you covered. You can select from 22 different colors to help you further organize things. If you’re new to Todoist, you will need to setup an account in order to sync data to the cloud. You can simply use your gmail or any other email account. This enables you to utilize the app or the desktop via your favorite Web browser. If you’re using Chrome on your desktop, you can also install the Chrome Extension, which will allow you to manage tasks from your toolbar. You can also use it as a “read it later” type of app in that you can add URLs as tasks. It even integrates with Gmail so that you can add any email as a task. When using the app for the first time, you will find handy popup tutorials walking you through some of the basics. The interface is very clean and easy to get around. Everytime you open the app, you will see the tasks that are due today. Just swipe to the right, and the side menu appears. This is where you will see the list of your color-coded projects. Tapping on any of the projects brings you to the tasks that are due for the respective project. You will also see “Manage projects” at the bottom, which lets you add, edit or delete projects. The labels tab will show you any labels you have created and what tasks are associated with those labels. It works the same way as Projects in that you tap on the labels to see the listed tasks. You will also find “Manage labels” at the bottom. The last tab is filters, and this is where you can create predefined filters. For example, you could have a filter for all tasks that are due on Friday or all tasks that are labeled as personal and due next Wednesday. Again, you will find a “Manage filters” option at the bottom. Setting up a task is quite easy. Once you are in a project, just hit the “+” sign at the top right. You can title the task, give it a due date, assign a project, label it, set the priority (1-4), and assign a sub-task. Now this is where things get a little weird. You can enter textual dates in the date field, and there are a number of abbreviated commands to learn such as “tod” for today, “tom at 16:30″ for tomorrow at 16:30, “+5″ for 5 days from now, “ev day” for every day, “ev 7″ for every 7th of the month, and so on. Thankfully you can tap the three dot menu for the full list of commands. You can still enter a date by tapping the clock icon, but the displayed calendar is very small, and unless you have a magnifying glass, you won’t be able to read the dates. One of my biggest complaints is the use of reminders. The only way to set a reminder (in the app) is to type a command as part of the title of the task. So you would have something like this: Wash the car <remind tom at 13:00>. For an app that stresses productivity, this is highly unproductive. I believe they will resolve this issue with a future update so I wouldn’t use it as a reason to detract you from trying the app. On the flip side, you can easily manage reminder notifications from the desktop by just entering the date and time. If you’re someone who likes to manage your tasks from the desktop then it won’t be an issue, but for those of you that are on the go or would rather use the mobile app, it’s not the best situation. Even using the desktop isn’t so easy as you should be able to just click on a date and pick a time rather than being forced to type it out. As far as notifications go, you can set the default to be push (notification panel), SMS text, or email. You can only do this via the desktop interface, but once it’s set, you shouldn’t need to change it that often. Just like most Android apps, a widget is included. They only offer one size (4 x 3), but it’s resizable. You can also choose what information you would like to show up in the widget, and that includes any of the default views (tasks due today or the next 7 days), Projects, Labels, or Filters. As you would imagine, an app like this probably isn’t free or at least there has to be a premium version. The app itself is actually free, but the premium version is my second biggest complaint. It costs $29 per year. The premium version adds notification reminders, use of the labels and filters, task notes, SSL encryption, access to iCalendar, task searching and the ability to add emails as tasks. If you don’t rely on notifications and you think you can go without labels and filters, the free version can do a lot for you. For me personally, $29 is too much because I am not a heavy todo and task user. With that said, I think Todoist is the best task management app I have seen, and is sure to suit those that need more productivity out of their todos. It seems to me that Doist is going after the serious professional only, and not catering to the casual user. I would rather see the free version offer everything the premium version offers, but make it a trial for 14 days. After the trial period has ended, offer a version priced at $4.99 (one time purchase) with a limit of how many projects, labels, and filters you can have so that casual users can enjoy this type of productivity. If someone needs to manage more projects and tasks, they can pay the annual fee of $29.99. If you’re in that camp, it’s not too much to ask for something as powerful as Todoist. Either way, if you’re someone who could use a little more organization and productivity in your life, then you need to look at Todoist. It won’t cost you a dime to see what it’s all about, and you probably won’t find anything better. Check out my hands on video below and hit one of the download links to get started. You can also visit their website for more information. As always, let me know what you think.        Click here to view the embedded video.
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| HTC M4 Very Similar To HTC First, May Not Ship With Facebook Home Posted: 05 Apr 2013 10:18 AM PDT
The HTC First was announced at Facebook’s event yesterday and is the first device to feature Facebook Home. Previously, we’ve talked about the HTC M4 who’s specs are almost identical to the First. Now, there are some new details about the M4 and here are the rumored specs:
There is no mention of Facebook Home so there is a good chance that the HTC M4 will simply ship running the latest version of Sense. Source: LlabTooFeR
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| Samsung Electronics Grows Profit By 53%, Fifth Record-Breaking Quarter In A Row Posted: 05 Apr 2013 09:51 AM PDT
Samsung is just weeks away from the release of the Galaxy S 4 and thanks to strong mobile sales, increased its first quarter profit by 53 percent to 8.7 trillion won or $7.7 billion. These numbers were released ahead of full first quarter results on April 26 and beat analyst estimates by 400 billion won or $353,466,000. Samsung’s mobile division continues to grow with this being the fifth straight quarter in a row with record-breaking profits. As far as how many smartphones were sold, the South Korean company estimates anywhere between 68 and 70 million. However, Samsung isn’t planning on stopping there. According to a report from Digitimes, Samsung has set a goal of 500 million handsets shipped in 2013. Source: Reuters
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| Facebook Home Not Launching With Ads, Will Eventually Come To Cover Feed Posted: 05 Apr 2013 09:24 AM PDT
Facebook Home was announced yesterday and will be launching on select Android devices April 12. With the social network heavily monetizing its mobile app, many are wondering if Home will also feature ads. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Home will not launch with ads, but they will eventually make their way to Cover Feed. Cover Feed is basically the home screen and you’re able to swipe left-to-right through updates from your friends. Ads are a necessary evil in order for Facebook to keep the social network alive and continue to grow. Amazon for example offers cheaper Kindle tablets that are ad-supported and feature home screen ads. For Facebook, Home isn’t just a new mobile experience, but also a new data resource that can be tapped into to help them better target ads to users. Source: The Next Web
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| Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 now on sale in the U.K. Posted: 05 Apr 2013 09:23 AM PDT
Samsung announced today the availability of the Galaxy Note 8.0 at the Samsung Experience Store in Westfield Stratford City. More locations will follow, but at least for today this is the only location where you can grab the new 8-inch screen device. The WiFi only version is selling for £339.99 ($517 USD). To help entice buyers, Samsung is pre-loading the devices with some special offers and apps including AVG Anti-Virus Pro, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2, and limited-time access to The Times newspaper, Samsung Music Hub, and 50GB of DropBox space. This special offer will be available through April 15th. In case you missed the specs for this latest Galaxy Note device, it comes with a 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB of memory that can increase with a microSD card, and a 5MP rear-facing and 1.3MP front-facing camera. The tablet will come loaded with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. Hit the break to read the full press release.
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| HTC One Developer Edition pre-orders now open Posted: 05 Apr 2013 09:03 AM PDT
HTC announced via their Twitter account last night that they would start taking pre-orders for the HTC One Developer Edition today. The Developer Edition comes with 64GB of memory, an unlocked SIM and bootloader, and comes in silver. The special edition version of the HTC One will be available for $649 and can only be purchased by customers with a US Zip Code. According to HTC’s site, the Developer Edition will be ready to ship on April 18th, the day before the new device is scheduled to be available from both AT&T and Sprint. If you are ready to try to grab one of these limited quantity versions of the HTC One, head over to their pre-order page at http://htconeprereg.com/brands/HTCPreReg/homebrands/index.htm. As a bonus, HTC is throwing in a free case and free shipping. source: @HTCdev
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| Latest comScore report shows Android market share continues to shrink in the U.S. Posted: 05 Apr 2013 07:10 AM PDT
As far as smartphones go, 133.7 million people in the U.S. owned one at the end of February 2013, which is 57% of all mobile phones. Apple continues to be the top manufacturer (OEM) with 38.9%, which is up from 35% in November 2012. Samsung was up slightly at 21.3%, as opposed to 20.3% in November. HTC, Motorola, and LG were next in line, but it should be noted that their respective market shares all dropped, while HTC was the biggest loser of the three.
source: comScore
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