CrowdGadgets Episode 19
Download: CrowdGadgets Podcast Archive
The news slowed down last week in preparation for Christmas and the New Year, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get a few big announcements. AT&T has called off its acquisition of T-Mobile, while the International Trade Commission has delivered unfavorable rulings toward HTC and Motorola Mobility’s respective patent infringement disputes. Things are looking up for the Streak fan base, however, as Dell is releasing a new model in China. Discussions about all this and more can be heard on the latest episode of CrowdGadgets.
00:42 – End of giveaway
01:32 – Our CES schedule
02:06 – AT&T shutters plans for T-Mobile acquisition
04:55 – HTC banned from selling Android devices in the US
09:16 – Barnes and Noble pushes Nook Tablet update to break root, app sideloading
10:06 – 7-inch displays were more popular than their 9.7-inch counterpart last month
10:28 – Amazon Kindle hits the one million sales per week mark
11:28 – Amazon doesn’t approve of Kindle Fire rooting, pushes update to stop it
12:14 – Honeycomb update for HTC EVO View 4G rolls out today for those who didn’t manually update
16:15 – Get over 100 paid apps for free right now on GetJar
18:16 – WordPress for Android receives significant update
21:02 – Dell launches Streak Pro D43 in China
22:00 – Nokia schedules CES 2012 press conference
24:53 – Sprint to cut back discounts on family plans
26:24 – Sprint offers some customers early upgrades, in-store only
Hosts: Calob Horton, John Freml, and William Devereux
Podcast Editor: Calob Horton
Newsletter Editor: William Devereux
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CrowdGadgets is the official podcast of the CrowdGather Gadget Network, which includes Anythingbutiphone, Anythingbutipod, Good and EVO, Nothing But Tablets, Pocketables, StreakSmart, and ZuneBoards. Read the latest news from the network below.
News from around the CrowdGather Gadget Network
Anythingbutiphone
AT&T announced this week that it will no longer seek approval for its high-profile acquisition of T-Mobile. The $39 billion deal faced strong opposition from the US Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission, forcing AT&T to cut its losses and pay the $4 billion “breakup fee.” In other news, the International Trade Commission has banned HTC from selling Android devices in the US, but HTC plans to avoid this by removing the patent-infringing features.
Good and EVO
The HTC EVO View 4G tablet has finally received an official OTA update to Android 3.2, Honeycomb, after months of waiting. And if you happened to accidentally brick your device in the process of updating, we have instructions on how to get things back up and running again. In other good news, Sprint is offering some customers the chance to upgrade early, so this might be the perfect time to pick up an EVO 3D.
Nothing But Tablets
The Archos 70b Android Honeycomb tablet will be released in January for $199. It’s not a bad device, but it pales in comparison to more recent tablets such as the Amazon Kindle Fire or Barns and Noble’s Nook Tablet. Speaking of which, the Kindle Fire recently received a performance-boosting update. It makes the device better, but it’s still not perfect. We also went hands-on with the Nook Tablet, and we were pleased by what we found.
Pocketables
If you’ve followed Pocketables for any amount of time, you’ll know that we’re in love with 7-inch-or-smaller devices. So we were pleased to discover that a recent report has backed our opinion, claiming that smaller devices are more popular than the iPad. What’s not so pleasing, however, is that Barnes and Noble has pushed a Nook Tablet update which breaks the ability to root the device. Finally, the Kindle Fire is generating millions of monthly ad impressions.
StreakSmart
Dell’s line of Streak phones and tablets is, for all intents and purposes, dead in the US. Thankfully, the devices live on in other parts of the world. Dell has released the Streak Pro D43, the newest addition to the smartphone line, in China. The Round Rock, Texas device manufacturer has also given Streak 5 owners an official build of Android Gingerbread, keeping the beloved 5-inch phone/tablet alive for just a little bit longer.
ZuneBoards
Nokia announced last week that it is retiring the Symbian Belle name in favor of “Nokia Belle.” The operating system will not be sold on new devices. Rather, it will be limited to a select number of legacy Nokia phones which will be primarily aimed at emerging markets. The Finnish manufacturer is continuing to put all of its efforts into Windows Phone, a partnership which has so far worked wonderfully for the company in Europe.
