With the iPad 2 out and in short supply, the rumor mill's attention is now shifting to what we could expect to see in the new iPhone and iOS 5, the next iteration of Apple's mobile OS. And while the new iPhone 5 is set to arrive some time this summer, a TechCrunch report suggests exciting developments for iOS are coming this fall too.
The Nexus S smartphone from Google is coming to Sprint this spring, with added 4G flavors and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Manufactured by Samsung, the Nexus S 4G will cost $199 with a two-year contract and will run you at $80 per month (including Sprint's $10 monthly 4G tax) for unlimited Web, texting and calling.
Microsoft has nixed any future iterations of its Zune music and video player, according to a Bloomberg report, adding another name on the list of devices killed by Apple's iPod hardware and entertainment ecosystem. Microsoft has yet to make the death of its Zune official, but unofficially it's believed the decision is based on poor demand for its players since the Zune line was introduced almost five years ago.
The controversial Quickbar feature Twitter introduced in its latest iOS client is now less annoying. Twitter filed an update for the app with Apple, which now modifies the behavior of the Quickbar from floating over tweets to being pinned down at the top.
This time next year Steve Jobs may take to the stage and introduce the iPad 3, while Microsoft is still working on a tablet-tailored Windows, according to a Bloomberg report. A few months after, though, Microsoft will release a tablet-friendly version of Windows in time for the 2012 back-to-school season, according to the report's unnamed sources.
Judged on specs alone, the Apple iPad 2 doesn't do much more than keep pace with its tablet rivals. It's a bit thinner that its major rivals -- the Motorola Xoom, Galaxy Tab 10.1, HP TouchPad and BlackBerry PlayBook -- and lighter than most. But its processor appears to be on a par with other tablets and its cameras' resolutions seem to be less.
Openness, one of Android's big advantages, can also be the Achilles' heel of the platform. Google has pulled the kill switch on 21 free malware apps from the Android Market and from around 50,000 devices, according to reports. The apps were free illegal downloads of popular apps in the Android Market, repackaged with malware able to steal details from a user's phone.
As Android phones continue to outsell iPhones, Apple has been apparently getting some inspiration from Google's mobile OS. A series of screenshots received by 9 To 5 Mac show Apple is using internally a version of the iOS lock screen with the gesture-based lock system found on Android phones.
Motorola couldn't have chosen a worse time to start selling the Xoom, the first real Apple iPad competitor. Just as the Xoom went on sale on Verizon, Apple dropped an iBomb in the shape of a press invitation next week to the unveiling of the next generation iPad (let's call it the iPad 2).
Motorola's Xoom tablet is seen by many as the iPad's first big competitor, but its steep $800 price and lack of Adobe Flash support suggest otherwise.
Dell's roadmaps for tablets and smartphones have apparently been leaked, and the listings show devices running on yet-to-be-released Google Android and Microsoft software. Among these devices, a vertical QWERTY slider phone with the next-generation Windows Phone 7 software and Windows 8 tablets stand out.
Toshiba joined the likes of Samsung and Motorola and unveiled a 10.1-inch Android Honeycomb tablet at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Arriving sometime in the first half of 2011,Toshiba's unnamed tablet focuses on media capabilities, all pushed by an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor.
HTC, the maker of several popular Android smartphones, plans to launch three Android-powered tablets, with the first of the lot arriving as early as March, according to a DigiTimes report. The first tablet from the Taiwan-based manufacturer would be called the Flyer and won't run the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the report says, but rather Android 2.3 until Google releases the new OS later this year.
Leaked photos of HP and Palm's WebOS tablet have appeared online, courtesy of Engadget. The device - slim, sleek and running WebOS - is the companies' response to the iPad and is just a fraction what we will see at an HP event, HP says. But can an HP WebOS tablet win against the iPad, in a fight where its smaller counterpart, the Palm Pre, lost against the iPhone?
The first iPad-only newspaper from News Corp's Rupert Murdoch has been delayed by a few weeks, according to All Things Digital, a publication owned be the media mogul. Called The Daily, the tablet-exclusive publication was expected to be unveiled next week, but it thta appears software tweaks from Apple at the push subscription iOS feature are holding back the launch.