BBC iPlayer comes to Windows Phone, not quite an app

Do you want the short version or the long version? Short version: iPlayer is coming to Windows Phone.

Still here? Then here's the long version. The BBC today announced that Windows Phone would join iOS, Android and BlackBerry as the latest mobile operating system to support iPlayer, via a dedicated live tile.

That means you'll soon be able to watch catch-up and on-demand TV shows and films from Auntie Beeb on your Windows Phone phone, whether it's running Windows Phone 7.5 software -- like the Nokia Lumia 800 -- or Windows Phone 8 -- like the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8S.

It's not technically an app, but a shortcut that gets its own coloured square, or live tile, leading directly to the iPlayer online player. The launch date is yet to be confirmed. 

iPlayer is already available on iOS, Android and even Blackberry, but they've historically given Windows Phone the cold shoulder, with the Beeb repeatedly denying Microsoft's OS the privilege.  

It seems that the BBC has had a change of heart however, with iPlayer joining big names like Spotify, Twitter and WhatsApp in entering the Windows Phone world. Windows is still lagging a long way behind established app stores like Android's Google Play and Apple's App Store though.

Meanwhile Auntie's online player goes from strength to strength as it continues to expand to new platforms. Last year more than 2.5 million people per month watched or listened online by one device or another.

[Source: CNET]

Yahoo to close 7 products, including BlackBerry app

Yahoo is taking a leaf out of Google's business book, and closing down seven products that aren't bringing home the bacon.

These are: Yahoo App Search, Yahoo Sports IQ, Yahoo Clues, Yahoo Message Boards, Yahoo Updates API, Yahoo Avatars, and the Yahoo app for BlackBerry.

Yahoo announced the closures on its company blog. It said it was regulating its product line-up, and would do so regularly. "The most critical question we ask is whether the experience is truly a daily habit that still resonates for all of you today," Jay Rossiter, Yahoo's executive vice president of Platforms, wrote on the blog.

It's the second batch of products that have been given the heave-ho since Marissa Meyer took over as CEO. Mayer was previously at Google, where "spring cleaning" announcements -- in which it nixes products and services that aren't performing well -- are a regular occurrence.

Mayer also banned Yahoo employees from working from home recently, sparking a debate over whether it was more productive to go to an office every day.

More cuts are on the way, too. Mayer told a conference last month that Yahoo would reduce the number of mobile apps it offers from its current total of between 60 and 75 to a more manageable 12 to 15.

Yahoo's Blackberry app won't be available for download, or be supported, after 1 April. It shows Yahoo doesn't have much faith in the platform, seeing as its apps for other mobile operating systems will continue as they are.

Yahoo Avatars tend to be quite popular, with many using custom avatars on the Yahoo Answers boards. If you want to keep your avatar, you'll have to download it and manually re-upload it as your profile picture.

[Source: CNET]

EE rolls out 4G LTE in nine more UK towns and cities

Sole UK 4G LTE carrier EE (Everything Everywhere) has announced that it's switched on 4G coverage in a further nine towns and cities across the country. From today, EE customers in Barnsley, Chorley, Coventry, Newport, Preston, Rotherham, Telford, Walsall and Watford will be able to pick up LTE reception on supporting devices. Four months after it first rolled out 4G, EE's total market count stands at 37.

The network plans to have 4G coverage in 65 towns and cities by the end of June, by which time it may face competition from the other mobile operators. Following the recent wrap-up of the 4G spectrum auction, Three, O2 and Vodafone will be looking to roll out their own LTE services in late spring and early summer.

[Source: AndroidCentral]

Will Large Screen Smartphones Wipe Out Tablets?

We have been seeing a major push in smartphones lately, especially smartphones with a large screen. Large screen smartphones are nearly as big as a small tablets now. At the moment, there is a massive trend for companies to make and push out phablets (phablet = a screen size of 5 inches or more). We have been seeing a lot of these new devices being released at MCW 2013. Below, I have listed some of my favourite devices, that really do stand out. 

Mobile phones or phablets are all well and good but if your in an area with poor or no signal and are looking for a better solution then a set of Mototrbo radios would be advised.

• LG Optimus G Pro - This beast is a phablet that has a 5.5 inch full HD IPS screen with a 1920x1080 resoluto and 440ppi.

• Nokia Lumia 720 - This is one of the many new smartphones that Nokia have released at MWC. However, I really like this particular smartphone because it has a stunning unibidy type of design. You can wirelessly charge it, and it has 8GB of internal storage.

• ZTE Grand Memo - This is another very large screen phone. The screen size is 5.7 inches. It runs Android version 4.1.2. This phablet also has a 13-megapixel camera on the rear with a 1-megapixel on the front.

• Fujitsu Arrows X - This is a new flagship smartphone from Fujitsu. It's rocking a Tegra 3 CPU, with 2GB of RAM. It has a 5-inch 1080p screen with a finger print scanner!

Will a large screen smartphone eventually overtake a tablet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. 

O2 pushing out Xperia T Jelly Bean update

Following Sony's official announcement yesterday, British network O2 has revealed that it's now pushing out the Xperia T Jelly Bean update. As well as bringing the device up to Android 4.1.2, the upgrade brings various Sony software improvements, including new music player, gallery and video apps, and some tweaks to the stock launcher.

It's a quick turnaround for O2, which in the past has spent weeks certifying major Android OS updates for its branded devices. If you've got an O2-branded Xperia T, head to Settings > About > Software Updates to grab the latest OTA.

[Source: AndroidCentral]

Vodafone says 4G is for 'technology freaks', amid cash woes

Vodafone has seen its revenues slip, though the red-hued network insists it isn't losing customers to speedy 4G services.

Revenue dipped 5.2 per cent in the last three months of 2012, The Guardian reports -- the biggest fall in over three years. The cash drop comes despite an increase in customer numbers however, as Vodafone's total number of UK subscribers climbed 230,000 to 19.5 million.

Vodafone itself blames the decline on customers hunting for bargains elsewhere, with company boss Vittorio Colao adamant that paying customers aren't flocking to 4G.

"I haven't got reports of customers flying away to 4G," the embattled CEO is quoted as saying, going on to declare, "The kind of people who are going for it are technology freaks."

That seems a little unfair to me, as I'm sure most smart phone owners would jump at the chance to boost their browsing and download speeds. If 4G is of limited interest for now, it's because EE -- as the only company to provide the fast new technology -- is charging through-the-roof rates for it.

That will change later this year however, once the ongoing 4G spectrum auction is concluded, and rival networks can kick off their own services. Three has the right idea, having already promised that 4G speeds will cost the same as current contracts.

Three is using 1,800MHz spectrum it's buying from EE to forge its 4G services. It's not clear whether operators like Vodafone or O2, which are bidding in the 4G auction, will be able to offer 4G without a bump in prices.

[Source: CNET]

4G EE comes to 9 new towns from Southend to Sunderland

Nine more towns just had their mobile data speeds given a kick in the pants as EE, Britain's first 4G network, expands its 4G LTE coverage.

The lucky nine are Amersham, Bolton, Chelmsford, Hemel Hempstead, Southend-on-Sea, Stockport, Sunderland, Sutton Coldfield and Wolverhampton.

That makes a total of 27 towns and cities covered by EE, the phone network formed from the merger between Orange and T-Mobile. EE promises more towns will also be connected by the end of March, including Bradford, Coventry, Rotherham, and Watford, and West Bromwich.

Mobile coverage is never entirely certain so whack your postcode into EE's coverage checker before you shell out for a 4G contract.

EE has drawn flak for its pricing, or more specifically the amount of data you get for each pricy contract. The network responded this month by adding a new cheapest tariff and a 20GB data deal.

The latest addition to EE's LTE line-up is the new BlackBerry Z10, announced yesterday and on sale today. Other phones and tablets that connect to the Web pretty darn quick include the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE and Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.

[Source: CNET]

Nokia Music+ downloads playlists to your Lumia, for a fee

Nokia has a new music streaming service aimed at giving Lumia owners happier ears, while fighting services like Spotify or Last.fm.

The Nokia Music+ app is an extension of Nokia's Mix Radio app, which streams a list of tunes hand-chosen by Nokia, depending on which playlist you choose.

Mix Radio is free, but is rather limited in what it offers. Coughing up an extra €3.99 per month however gets you Music+, which brings treats like the ability to skip tracks as many times as you like, as well as downloading entire playlists for offline listening.

You can't hoard as much music as you want -- Nokia explains on its blog that you're limited to four "mixes", each of which contains a tonne of tracks. Signing up to the service also nabs you downloads at "eight times" the quality, as well as scrolling lyrics for impromptu blasts of karaoke and desktop mode, which lets you stream music through a Web app or smart TV.

The service is due in a few weeks. There's no confirmed UK pricing, but £4 is a good bet. Those in the US will be forking over one cent shy of $4.

Downloading and unlimited skips are tempting features, but I'd wager many smart phone owners considering paying for a music service would rather have the opportunity to search for songs and craft their own playlists, rather than jigging about to whatever Nokia prescribes.

Incredibly, despite being present on Windows Phone 7, Spotify is still to bring its own streaming service to Windows Phone 8. If you're desperate for streaming music and are sick of waiting for Spotify (which costs £10 per month) to gets its rear in gear, Nokia's new service could tide you over.

[Source: CNET]

UK 4G auction kicks off today, here's how it works

Regulator Ofcom has given the green light to the UK's 4G auction plans, kicking off the first round of bidding that will see networks including Vodafone, O2 and EE splashing the cash in order to secure new chunks of spectrum.

If you're imagining a crowded auction chamber with lots of gavel-banging, your fevered imagination is a little wide of the mark. Ofcom explains that the process will involve a 'combinatorial clock' format, in which would-be buyers say how much they'd be prepared to pay for combined chunks of spectrum at set prices.

The 'clock stage', which starts today, takes place over a number of rounds, with the watchdog raising prices for bits of spectrum that are in-demand in each subsequent round.

The bidding stops when 'demand matches supply', or in other words, when the amount bidders are happy to pay has stopped climbing. Ofcom then goes through a round of supplementary bidding, in which prospective owners can give a 'best and final offer' on any bits of bandwidth on the table.

Ofcom decides how much each bidder will ultimately pay for spectrum, with each party paying the minimum amount necessary to trump competitors. Just like with eBay bidding, you wouldn't necessarily pay as much as you are ultimately prepared to pay.

In the final stage, winners bid for precise frequencies of spectrum and then finally competitors get to take home some glossy new bandwidth, with which to launch 4G services. Ofcom expects it to be "a number of weeks" before the final winners are known.

The key question currently is how much cash the auction will raise for the UK. £3.5bn is expected to be raised, but we may be in trouble if the final sum is less, as the government has already factored a £3.5bn payout into its budget predictions.

[Source: CNET]

Mozilla reveals Firefox OS Developer Preview Phone

Mozilla said it won't be launching its own hardware to run the in-development Firefox OS when it's finished, but the company has just announced a "Developer Preview Phone" for putting the OS through its paces. It's not quite the same as the mystery device we saw sporting Firefox OS at CES, but its specs seem almost as basic. The handset will feature a 3.5-inch HVGA touchscreen and 3-megapixel camera on the outside, with a 1GHz Snapdragon S1 CPU, half a gig of RAM, 4GB of microSD-expandable storage and WiFi, 2G and 3G antennae inside. Sure, that processor isn't a beast, but an 800MHz S1 does just fine in the Lumia 610. A 1580mAh battery will keep the carrier-unlocked phone running, and Mozilla is promising OTA updates to Firefox OS to keep devs, well, up to date. At the moment, we have no idea how much the phone will cost, but the first units are expected to be available next month.

The developer handset is called the Keon, according to creator Geekphone's website, and while not mentioned in the Mozilla Hacks blog post, it appears to have a more powerful cousin called the Peak. It's got a 4.3-inch qHD screen, 8-megapixel back-facing camera (with flash) and 2-megapixel shooter round the front. A 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 CPU and larger 1800mAh battery are within, but storage, RAM and connectivity specs are the same as the smaller Keon. Mozilla may not be formally promoting this as its own dev handset, but it was still included in the picture which accompanied the announcement (see above: the Keon is in orange, the Peak in white). We're getting in contact with Mozilla to clarify, and will update you when we hear back.

[Source: Engadget]

Phones4U to launch own virtual mobile network using EE's infrastructure

'LIFE Mobile' to launch 3G service this March, 4G later

British phone retailer Phones4U has announced it's to get into the network operator game through a new virtual network operated on EE's infrastructure. The new "LIFE Mobile" network is scheduled to launch this March, with 2G and 3G services being offered at first, followed by 4G LTE options later in the year. EE is, of course, currently the only operator to offer 4G services to British consumers.

Phones4U has not yet revealed details of pricing on the new service provider, but says it'll offer "variety of tariffs and services" with a "broad appeal" to consumers.

According to today's press release, the deal with Phones4U brings EE's total number of MVNO partners up to 25. Phones4U's biggest domestic rival, the Carphone Warehouse, already operates its own virtual network, Talkmobile, through a partnership with Vodafone UK.

[Source: AndroidCentral]

Samsung rumored to be launching enormous smartphone with ridiculous name in Europe

Leak season continues, and we're back with Samsung this time around. Sammobile, a usually reliable source of all things Samsung, claims to have received word of a 5.8 inch smartphone from the Korean OEM destined for Europe. The reported name is, ready for this? The Samsung Galaxy Fonblet. 

The device is said to be loosely based around the Samsung Galaxy Player 5.8 PMP that was launched in Korea, only with cellular capabilities. The Galaxy Player 5.8 has a qHD display, and a 3MP rear camera. The bad news is that Sammobile claims the Fonblet is supposed to have the same display. So we're not looking at a high-end, Note 2 beating device. Additionally, it's expected to have dual-sim capabilities -- suggesting emerging European markets might be the target here -- and will come in white. Feels a lot like parts recycling though, if we're honest.

[Source: AndroidCentral]