What comes after Mango? Tango. At least that’s the latest rumor regarding Windows Phone 7, which saw its first major update released to manufacturers just a couple of weeks ago.

Tango is reportedly a minor update (like NoDo), which will focus on bringing WP7 to lower-end phones (current minimum requirements for a WP7 handset are rather high). The update may even be all about Nokia, who plan to push Windows Phone prices down. Read more »

The iOS 5 beta 5 was released last week and just got its jailbreak via Redsn0w 0.9.8b5. The jailbreak is again only a tethered one (so in case of a reboot you’ll have to plug your iDevice into a computer and load the jailbreak anew) and still doesn’t support iPad 2.

If you’re running an iPhone or iPod Touch with the beta iOS 5 you can install this jailbreak but keep in mind that it’s intended for devs to test so even though it has more features it doesn’t work as well as the current iOS version. Some jailbroken apps and tweeks aren’t supported for one and performance is hardly the smoothest as of yet. Read more »

The Google+ social network is growing steadily still and it has just welcomed iPad and iPod Touch users. Up until now the iOS app was only available to the iPhone, but the update that was just released fixed that. The bad news here is that iPad users are getting nothing more than an upscaled iPhone version that plainly isn’t optimized for the bigger screen.

The update to the app also brings new Huddle settings, aggregated circle add notifications and last, but not least performance and stability improvements. Hangouts are still missing in the latest version, though. Read more »

The latest Apple iOS 5 beta was released for developers on Saturday – number 5 (build 9A5288d). It’s an OTA update, but if you don’t get that option in the “Software update” settings menu check out some answers after the break.

Aside from the iOS 5 beta itself developers also got the Xcode 4.2 Developer Preview 5, iTunes 10.5 Beta 5 and Apple TV Software beta 4. Read more »

The mythical beast known as the HTC Puccini is getting more and more real as days pass by and today we came across some leaked screenshots that almost made us feel we had the device in our hands, sort of. The Puccini will be launching on the AT&T 4G network and is supposed to have a dual-core 1.5GHz processor and dual cameras.

The screenshots show the application launcher, where you can see HTC has added custom tabs at the bottom of the screen as seen in the Sense UI on their Android phones. These let you switch from all apps, frequently used ones and downloaded apps. You can also see the bottom bar has been slightly modified with custom icons and an icon for the stylus. Read more »

Samsung kept its promise and delivered the firmware update for their Galaxy Tab 10.1 Honeycomb tablet today. Available over the air, the update brings the custom TouchWiz user interface to the slate, making it the first Android tablet with such deep UI customizations.

The update, which should help the Galaxy Tab 10.1 stand out in the increasingly dense crowd of Honeycomb tablets, is just under 190MB so we’d suggest you use a Wi-Fi network to get it. In addition to new apps like the Samsung proprietary Media and Social Hubs, the new firmware brings a customized bar at the bottom, which allows you to launch specially designed mini apps. Read more »

In the short time that Android has been around, it’s evolved at an unprecedented rate to become one of the leading smartphone and now tablet OS’s out there.

With its confectionary-themed branding as of version 1.5 (Cupcake), it also stands out as the more lighthearted alternative amongst its main rivals Read more »

Skype has just added video calling support for an additional 17 popular droids with its latest ver. 2.1 for Android. Some of them are the HTC Flyer slate, Samsung Galaxy S II, the Xperia PLAY and more.

The minimum requirement you have to cover is Android version 2.2 (Froyo) or above and even if your device isn’t blessed to be in the list of newly supported droids you should be able to enable video chat through the app’s settings. Keep in mind that this will allow only rear camera video calling and you’ll need 2.3 Gingerbread and beyond to enjoy true front-facing camera chat support. Apart from video-calling support, the new update brings a number of bug fixes and a performance boost. Read more »

The BlackBerry Playbook won’t have Android apps support until late fall. This is a bummer for many and could worsen the prospects of RIM’s Playbook even more so.

The Playbook is RIM’s first slate and its user interface relies on the proprietary QNX platform. It’s a smart OS platform alright, but it’s light years behind Android or iOS in terms of available third-party apps. The lack of strong app support is a huge handicap for any new OS nowadays. Read more »

A sneak peek video of the BlackBerry Torch 9860 has popped up, courtesy of Vodafone UK. It highlights the BlackBerry OS 7-wearing smartphone’s main features and, of course, the fact that Vodafone already has dips on the 9860.

You can see the camera in action and parts of the user interface and the browser but the whole video is not meant to be a thorough walkthrough. Read more »

After a court hearing in Sydney, Australia, Apple has won an agreement with Samsung that the latter won’t advertise or sell its Galaxy Tab 10.1 slate on the count of it infringing on 10 Apple patents. Those include the look and feel, and the touchscreen technology of the iPad. Samsung won’t be able to release the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia until it gets court approval or it resolves the conflict with the Cupertino-based company.

Apple sought an Australian injunction and is looking to get the same result in other countries too (unnamed for now). It comes as a great success for Apple but should it eventually lose its patent infringement lawsuit with Samsung, Apple will have to pay Samsung some heavy damages as compensation. Read more »

The Nokia 500 is still hot out of the oven and Nokia has put up a promo video for it. It’s the second Nokia phone using a 1GHz processor and the first one to do it on Symbian^3. The video revolves around the motto “express yourself” hence the upbeat song in the background.

The video shows-off the functionality of the new Symbian smartphone to install a variety of apps through the Ovi store, changeable covers that make the device look flamboyant, the fast 1GHz processor and finally, the fact that this smartphone gives you more. Read more »

When Rovio released Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7, it was curiously the older version of the application that was available on iOS a long time back. It had the older start screen and fewer levels. But the application has now been updated to v1.1, which takes the number of levels from 135 to 225. Unfortunately, it is still short of the 270 levels available for iOS and Android. Hopefully the additional levels will be added soon.

Unfortunately, at $2.99, the game is still inexplicably expensive (as are a lot of Windows Phone 7 apps) compared to the iOS version, which costs $0.99. Read more »

If you happen to be situated in the United States and own an Asus Eee Pad Transformer, it’s your lucky day. Version 3.2 of Android Honeycomb is now out for the popular tablet-slash-netbook and with it come stretchable widgets and the compatibility zoom which will make smartphone apps much better to use on the bigger screen.

The 3.1 Honeycomb update came in the first half of June – those are some super-fast update cycles. Also if you have the Transformer plus the keyboard dock you can enjoy the dock’s USB host functionality. Read more »

The Blackberry Messenger is among the finest proprietary mobile instant messaging service out there, backed by a strong and dedicated crowd of followers. With the latest update of the app, the folks from RIM have kept all the familiar goodness, and added several new features, which have made the latest iteration of BBM even more social.

Now on with the new stuff Read more »