Apple has just released the first beta version of the latest edition of their iOS mobile platform to all registered developers. Available for the iPhone 4S, 4 and 3GS, the iPad and iPad 2 as well as the third and fourth-generation iPod touch devices, this is hardly the most major of updates.

iOS 5.1 focuses mostly on giving developers more APIs to work with and bugfixes. What might be more interesting to you than the update itself is the code of the new iOS release, which references three new iDevices. Read more »

Google has just announced the dates for the next year I/O conference. The search giant’s largest developer-oriented event will be held from June 27 to June 29 in San Francisco. This is a departure from the norm – all previous I/O conferences took place in May.

To make up for that Google will add an extra day to the event. Many of the attendees last year complained that the two-day conference didn’t allow enough time to attend all the sessions and meet all the people they wanted, but that shouldn’t be an issue in 2012. Read more »

BestBuy has officially announced that it will be closing its retail stores in the UK and its UK website by January 15. The US retailer, which came to UK just two years ago never really managed to get its business off the ground and at the start of this month decided to give up trying. Now, we also have a time frame for its market exit.

Over the past two years Best Buy UK opened 11 stores in the UK in cooperation with Carphone Warehouse and was planning to expand that number rapidly over the following years. However, the disappointing results forced the company to rethink and it’s now going to focus on its business in its homeland. Read more »

Google has brought a key update to the Android Market website, making it compatible with all devices that have the app installed. That means that from now on you can push apps to your Nook Color, Kindle Fire or whatever other smartphone and tablet with side-loaded Android Market you have.

The move falls nicely in line with the Android open nature and, in fact, one can’t help but wonder what took them so long. But anyway, the support is all there now and it looks like a win-win move for Google. Read more »

Some juicy rumors from the realm of Mac just surfaced online. According to the often reliable DigiTimes, Apple will be launching a 15″ MacBook Air at the start of 2012.

The 15″ MacBook Air will come to support the 11.6″ and 13″ versions in their fight against the Ultrabook army, which is quickly growing in numbers. Read more »

We already knew that all 2011 Xperia phones will be getting an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update, but until today there was no time frame for its release. Now, Sony Ericsson Italy came forward and shed some light on the matter.

If you are an owner of some of the 11 Xperia phones eligible for an ICS update, you should be getting an update notification around March 2012. Read more »

Now, that was quick. A cure for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus volume control issues was found just one week after we first heard of them. However, it’s a MoDaCo forum member, rather than Samsung we have to thank for it.

The fix is pretty easy to apply – if you want to try it, you should follow the source link for the quick tutorial and the necessary files. As usual with such 3rd-party fixes this is a proceed-at-your-own-risk kind of deal. Read more »

Nokia is planning to hold a huge event to celebrate the birth of their first Windows Phone smartphone. The company sent out invitations for a huge light show that will use the Millbank Tower on the Thames as a screen.

On November 28 Nokia will be employing 16 projectors, 800 windows, 200 workmen and 3 D3 servers to create “the biggest video-mapping project ever attempted in the UK” . The star of the show will be deadmau5 DJ, who will play an exclusive set to the backdrop of an amazing 4D animation. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is one of the hottest devices of the season, so it’s understandable that its arrival to America is hotly anticipated. And thanks to a leaked ad, we know its price and, possibly its exact launch date.

The price bit is more certain as it appears on the ad itself. At $199.99 the LTE-packing Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be $100 cheaper than previously expected, which will probably make it even better of a Christmas present. Read more »

RIM has just released a software update for their PlayBook tablet. The release dubbed v1.0.8.4985 brings new versions of the Adobe Flash Player 11.1 and Adobe Air to the PlayBook.

The update is also said to tweak the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers to improve connectivity and improve syncing when storing applications with BlackBerry Desktop Software. The last change it brings concerns daylight savings time for time zones in the regions of Latin America, Australia and Central America. Read more »

Ever since the Nokia Lumia 800 went on sale, there were sporadic reports that the smartphone battery life is less than stellar. Nokia obviously did some investigation on the matter and they found that the poor battery life wasn’t caused by software glitches, but rather by the user behavior.

So the Finns will be releasing a couple of updates over the next couple of months, which should improve the battery performance as a whole. The first update will come in December and will focus on the power efficiency of the device, while the second will come in January 2012 and will tweak the charging of the 1450 mAh battery. Read more »

Google has removed several popular peer to peer file sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and Torrentreactor from its instant and autocomplete search. The search provider aims to prevent the distribution of pirated content with that move.

This means that you will need to type in the full name of the blacklisted sites manually for the results to come out. It’s not a complete ban, but the move should, in theory, reduce the traffic that those sites are getting. Read more »

The chipset of the upcoming Sony Ericsson LT22i Nypon smartphone made its first public appearance as several demo videos appeared. The ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8500 chipset comes with a couple of Cortex-A9 cores, clocked at 1GHz and a Mali-400MP GPU.

Unsurprisingly, it was shown to run the latest version of Android – 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Presumably, ICS will be the OS of choice for the Sony Ericsson Nypon, when it comes out next year. Read more »

HTC came up with an official statement about the S3 Graphics acquisition, after the ITC ruling the other day. The Taiwanese were hoping to use S3 Graphics patent portfolio to gain leverage in their ongoing patent battle with Apple, but the US ITC cleared the iPhone manufacturer of infringing any of the S3 Graphics-owned patents.

So with the main reason for the deal gone, HTC is reconsidering going through with it. The company said that it was disappointed at the outcome of the ruling and while S3 Graphics will appeal against it, the acquisition is now hanging in the balance. Read more »

Gather around, HTC fans! The Taiwanese company just released a cool video about the smartphone evolution over the past 13 years and it’s really a joy for the geek’s eyes.

The Taiwanese company talks about the important events (in its own view) that lead to the smartphone as we know it today. It’s really amazing to see just how little time it took for stuff like touchscreen, 3G and GPS to go from zero to standard equipment. Read more »