CrowdGadgets 20 | Happy New Year
Download: CrowdGadgets Podcast Archive
Happy New Year! With the holidays behind us and the Consumer Electronics Show just one week away, the quiet holiday news cycle continued into last week. That does not, however, mean that there wasn’t anything of interest. Verizon experienced a difficult time with 4G outages and an online payment fee kerfuffle, and some of Microsoft’s plans for Windows Phone in early 2012 were leaked. CrowdGadgets has a great year ahead. We hope you’ll join us.
01:14 – Verizon withstands another 4G outage; activation service may be having issues
01:22 – Verizon announces $2 fee for online bill pay
02:53 – Windows Phone’s early-2012 plans revealed, LTE and Nokia devices coming to the US
04:26 – John’s tablet kick
08:04 – Achievement Unlocked: 50,000 Windows Phone apps!
08:44 – Is there a difference between jailbreaking and rooting?
12:23 – HTC EVO View 4G bootloader unlock now officially supported by HTC
12:58 – New HTC EVO rooting method now available: HTC Supertool
13:33 – US HTC Flyer officially discontinued, what will happen to the HTC EVO View 4G?
14:33 – Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus review
15:47 – First cluster of Sprint LTE cell sites goes live, Sprint marks major Network Vision milestone
17:45 – How to upgrade each others’ phone lines on AT&T (or any carrier)
22:17 – AT&T is starting to support its other smartphone platforms even more
23:39 – Gameloft soon offering all games for $0.99 for a limited time
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
While suffering from a 4G outage, Verizon attempted to add a $2 “convenience fee” for payments made online or by telephone. Thankfully, adverse reaction from customers quickly caused the plan to be scrapped. Three new LTE Windows Phone handsets are expected to be released on AT&T during the first half of 2012, including the Nokia Lumia “ACE” on March 18. Verizon and T-Mobile will also receive Nokia devices. The platform’s marketplace also achieved a major milestone, passing 50,000 apps.
Good and EVO
It has been a good week for HTC EVO power users: The EVO View 4G can now be unlocked with HTC’s official online unlock tool, the EVO Design 4G kernel source code was just released, and a new third party root program called HTC Supertool was made available with support for all EVO devices. Additionally, we reviewed the Olympus Trinity XE Titan HD custom ROM for the EVO 3D, as well as some early Ice Cream Sandwich ports.
Nothing But Tablets
Nothing But Tablets brought readers some pretty useful tips, including how to charge your Samsung Galaxy Tab with unsupported chargers and how to pair a Bluetooth keyboard made for Honeycomb with a different version of Android. Speaking of Android, Google has launched online training classes to help developers build better apps for the multitude of Android devices currently available. Meanwhile, a new gamepad for iOS might be just the thing some gamers have been waiting for.
Pocketables
This week, we reviewed the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Samsung’s successor to the original Galaxy Tab. We found it to be a pretty awesome tablet, but there are many other devices that customers should look at before deciding which tablet to pick up. We also took a look at the difference between jailbreaking and rooting, coming to the shocking conclusion that, when it comes to openness, there might not be a big difference between Android and iOS after all.
StreakSmart
The Dell Streak devices aren’t the most popular smartphones and tablets on the market, but Currys’ recent Streak 7 discount–in which the tablet was offered for a mere $160–resulted in excellent sales, with many resellers left completely out of stock. It just goes to show that if the price is right, anything can be sold successfully. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the Streak 7 is one heck of a tablet.
ZuneBoards
Information about the Nokia “ACE” Windows Phone, supposedly named the Lumia 900, leaked online this week. The device will reportedly be released on March 18 on AT&T. It will support the wireless carrier’s 4G network and feature a 4.3-inch screen, 512MB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory, and an 8MP camera. The Nokia “ACE” should be a fantastic device.
