Mobile Phone Blog:

[The opinions expressed in the blog post are entirely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mobileshop.com. Also, there's a personal message at the end. It's from me, Technical Markus, to anyone who's experienced, or IS experiencing, bullying; so, if that's the case, do read it all, and hopefully you can take some strength from it.]

Now then, I’ve been trying to find an angle to talk about Bemilo ever since I first heard about it, a couple of days ago. It wasn’t something that immediately jumped out at me as something I needed to blog about, ‘cos while it’s an intriguing service, and while I do sort of agree with it, it’s also, basically, boring. It’s basically a virtual network, that runs on Vodafone cell towers, that gives parents full control over their kids’ phones, and that’s fine.

So, why is this a rant, then? ‘Cos of the BBC, that’s why. In their usual left wing, hand-wringing way (and yes, I realise that all pretence of objectivity is going out the window, here), they’ve focused on the one bit of Bemilo’s sales pitch that strikes me as utterly cynical and stupid… (more…)

Right then, I just read an interesting opinion piece on IntoMobile, and it was interesting because I started out by wanting to shout at the author for being utterly wrong, only to end up, by the end of the article, nodding my head, thinking he wasn’t that far off the mark. It was an intriguing little emotional journey I went on, so I thought I’d blog about it here, and it came about as a result of him asking a simple question:

Why do mid-range smartphones exist? However, it’s important to note that the author is not saying phones around that price point shouldn’t exist for people who want them (and there are a lot who do), but that the current way manufacturers like HTC do things is a bit, well, daft… (more…)

Oh, I love it when I see stories like this, I really do. Anybody who’s ever used a mobile phone will know that the gadgets we’ve come to rely on have a few idiosyncrasies, and never has that been more apparent than with voice controls. I saw it myself, over the weekend, when we were having an argument about The Ipcress File (awesome film, incidentally), and decided to google it on my HTC One X, to see who was right. I believe the result it came back with was “It’s Chris Farley”…

And now, according to TheNextWeb, Apple’s Siri has gone one better in the outright bleedin’ funny stakes, because it was telling users that the Nokia Lumia 900 is the best smartphone ever. Are we witnessing the greatest bug ever? (more…)

Ahhhh, I love me a bit of survival horror, or at least, I do when the right mood takes me. I remember playing Resident Evil 2 on the old PS1, and it scared the cack out of me. In the world of mobile phones, there’s a contender for top survival horror game, and it’s apparently Dark Meadow: The Pact, which is now available, in a new and improved form, for Tegra-powered devices…

So, if you’ve got a Tegra-powered device (the HTC One X comes to mind), you can now get the game in a brand new, graphically updated form, and it looks better than ever! So, what’s it all about, then? (more…)

We’re getting ever nearer to the magic date when Samsung plans to take the wraps off their next Galaxy phone (which hasn’t been confirmed as the Samsung Galaxy S III, but that’s what everyone is betting it’s called), and so, it’s time for a teaser video, that tells us precisely nothing, but reminds us that it’s coming…

Right, I’ll admit, this was my first thought (and yes, I think in capital letters and bold text, sometimes): OH MY GOD, THAT’S THE “NORMANDY REBORN” THEME FROM MASS EFFECT 2, WHAT IS THAT DOING IN A SAMSUNG ADVERT ?! (more…)

Right, it’s Friday, so time to get all frivolous. Well, okay, it’s time to talk about mobile games, which are anything but frivolous for their makers, but are fun for us. So, here’s a new game for Android and iOS that’s caught my eye, and it’s called Shark Dash…

I’ll concede, my first reaction was, “Wow, a Gameloft game that’s not a rip-off of a vastly more famous game! Such a thing is unprecedented…” (more…)

Us human beings are disgusting, filthy beings, really. It’s often said that there’s more bacteria in the human mouth than you’d find on a toilet lid, and those bacteria also tend to congregate on our mobile phones. Of course, one could argue that since they live in our own gobs, they’re probably not that dangerous, but anyway, there’s a new fund started up on Kickstarter, for something called PhoneSoap, that’s designed to kill those bacteria stone-dead.

That’s not all, though, because the magic box also charges the phone while it’s sanitising it. But how is that even possible? How can you have something that safely combines electricity and soap? Well, it’s not actually soap, y’see… (more…)

Right, I did a blog post about a week ago, about how Instagram was finally being released on Google Play, so that people with Android phones can finally have a fiddle about with the app that people with, say, an iPhone 4S have been using for ages, now. However, when I was writing that post, I hadn’t really researched just how popular Instagram is, and so, I wasn’t ready for the news I read today.

Y’see, according to Google Play’s stats, Instagram has been downloaded more than five million times, in the space of a mere six days. I reckon it’s safe to say that when any app hits five million downloads in less than a week, that app is a success.

Ah, but that ain’t all though… (more…)

After the news that Rockstar were bringing Grand Theft Auto III to mobile phones, it only seemed a matter of time until they brought over the other big franchise they’re known for, into the mobile world. Yes, I’m talking about Max Payne, and according to Joystiq, the John Woo-inspired action game is due to make its debut on smartphones (and tablets, naturally) this month.

It’s coming out on iOS first, on April 12th, (and they say it’ll work on the iPhone 3GS, which is a novelty, these days… I’m used to games only working on the iPhone 4S, or at best, the iPhone 4). The Android version will follow on April 26th, but as yet, there’s no list of which Android devices it’ll work on, although one is coming… (more…)

If you’re a gamer, then I’ve got little doubt that you’ve already heard of Super Meat Boy. It’s a twitch platformer, and it’s a ton of fun, but dear lord, it is brutally unforgiving. ‘Tis one of those games where, if you’re anything less than 100% focus, you will die. A lot. Over and over again. Sure, it’s not like I Wanna Be The Guy (but then, what is?), which is designed to be unfair and completely evil, but it’s no slouch.

And now, according to the Team Meat blog, Super Meat Boy is coming to mobile phones, but the thing is, it won’t be the same Super Meat Boy that everyone’s already played. No sirree, Team Meat have decided that they’re going to remake the game from the ground up…  (more…)