Mobile Phone Blog:

Well, folks, it’s nearly that time of year again! There’s literally, like, two days, until we all get to sit around, throwing wrapping paper everywhere, and working out who is going to pay for buying us socks, again, before watching Doctor Who. So, to celebrate, have a video of a bullfrog making a spirited attempt to eat someone’s phone…

What, not Christmassy enough? Well, Christmas trees are green. And so are bullfrogs. And the bloke in t’video got caused immense pain and humiliation (trust me, you’ll like the bit at 20 seconds), which is kinda the point of Christmas, isn’t it? (more…)

Well, so far, it seems that today has become HTC day; the first post was about them winning a few design awards, and now we have this post, about them making a whole shedload of lovely money. Yes, according to Bloomberg, HTC have had another record-breaking quarter, with a net income of £380 million. This is compared to £167 million in Q2, last year, so profits have more than doubled since this time last year. That is impressive.

So, what phones do you reckon were the big ones that helped ‘em hit that figure? Well, the report says the HTC Desire HD was one of the big sellers, which I absolutely agree with, but they also mentioned the HTC Sensation, which (and this may sound shocking) I disagree with… (more…)

Right then, today’s first blog post was all about how Google have announced the latest version of Android (called Ice Cream Sandwich), and how the future seems really rather bright for that mobile OS. But what about the present? What’s happening today, for Android?

Well, for starters, according to Engadget, Android has hit one massive milestone: the OS has passed the 100 million activations mark. Yup, since the OS was unleashed on the world, 100 million Android phones have been activated by customers. That’s not an insubstantial figure, that. But that’s activations since launch, so it’s bound to be a big figure; how about the number of new Android phones activated daily? (more…)

Okay, folks, I have seen some truly mental things in my time. I’ve seen, and complained about, what I called the baby panda phone. I’ve seen, and complained about, the Awethumb. However, I believe that both those things have been completely outdone in the insanity stakes, by this Lovecraftian monstrosity. Say hello, the Finger-nose Stylus…

Okay, perhaps I should fight back my initial reaction of “Argh, kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it KILL IT“, in order to talk about this some kind of objective manner. For at least one paragraph, anyway. Well, alright, maybe not a paragraph, but a couple of sentences, at least… (more…)

Like millions of people round the world, I love South Park. Like many people, I’ve been there since day one, when Cartman got probed. I went “hiiiii-de hoooo”, just like everyone who saw the episode with Mr Hanky. I laughed various bits of myself off when I watched the movie for the first time, and first heard that song. You know the song I mean. It’s about uncles.

So, imagine my joy when I read that South Park had taken on the weighty moral conundrum of the “iPhone 4 is tracking everyone, oh god help us all” rumpus that’s currently occuring; that means I can finally, finally do a blog post about South Park! I’ve been waiting since the day I started writing this blog to be able to do that! (more…)

Right then, here’s an interesting bit of research, courtesy of Distimo. According to research they’ve one, the app store that has the biggest selection of free apps is (unlike previously, where it was the Apple App Store) the Android Market, with 134,342 free application thingummies. The one on the iPhone 4 and its ilk (but only phones, not the iPad) currently has 121,845 free apps.

And I’m going to make a controversial stand here, and say that in both cases, with both Android and iOS, I bet a lot of those free apps are only free because no-one of sound mind and body would ever actually give money over for the damn things.

Oh yeah, I went there… (more…)

Well, folks, it’s time for some more statistics, but I promised myself that when I did this blog post, I was going to remain professional and mature, and avoid resorting to puerile, stupid humour. And then I realised that this is me we’re talking about, here, so the chances of it not being stupid and juvenile are roughly the same as the chances of a stunned otter becoming the 45th president of the USA. Anyway, here… statistics, in video form:

Yes, I could have focused on the fact that 74% of users make a purchase based on a smartphone search, or the fact that 81% of users browse the internet on their phones. But that’s no fun for a headline, is it? So, yes, there it is: 39% of smartphone users actually use their phone while sat on the pot. (more…)

For ages, the HTC Wildfire has been my yardstick for judging how good a mid-range phone is; the reason being, of course, that the HTC Wildfire is chuffing awesome. In my honest, sincere, and not-at-all-humble opinion, the Wildfire was the absolute high water mark for mid-range phones.

But time marches on, as time tends to do, and what was brilliant yesterday just isn’t cutting edge today; and so, we say hello to the successor to that world beater, the brand new HTC Wildfire S, due to be hitting shelves in the UK veeeeeeeeeeeeery soon. But the big question is: is it any good?

The answer is, as some of you may have expected, “Well, duuuuh…” (more…)

[The opinions expressed in the blog post are entirely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mobileshop.com.]

As you may have noticed, I’ve been on hiatus for a few days.And while I’ve been away for those few days, you might have noticed that a story broke, concerning the iPhone 4. And if you read it, and know my style of blogging, and have read my posts in the past, you may have guessed that I’d blog about it. And you may well have also predicted it’d be a rant. Yes, it’s the story from The Guardian, about the iPhone 4 (and the iPad, which also runs on iOS 4) tracking users’ locations, and storing them in a big, easily accessible database on the device, with timestamps, thus keeping a nice, handy database of everywhere the user has ever been.

Yeah, there was absolutely no conceivable way this story wasn’t going to end up as a rant… (more…)

Hmm, well, that’s a bit of a downer, isn’t it? With the unveiling of the HTC Sensation, HTC also unveiled a brand new version of their Sense UI (Sense 3.0), which includes a couple of new features that I really like. F’r'instance, it has a new lock screen, that shows weather information or app shortcuts or… well, or whatever you want, really. There’s a new weather widget, that looks brilliant. The homescreen’s been rejigged, too.

So, it’s a bit of a shame, then, that according to HTC’s Twitter feed, the new UI will not work at all with older HTC phones. It has some pretty big hardware requirements, and the only phones that are up to the task are the HTC Sensation and the HTC Evo 3D… (more…)