Gaming Club has long been known for its commitment to serving their customers. They have made the move into offering mobile casino services for their mobile customers. In order for this service to be functional, an interface has to be developed to permit mobile users to access the mobile site. In the past this was done by using Adobe Flash. However, this is no longer the case. Apple made the announcement in 2010 that they would no longer provide support for Adobe Flash. However, they did provide HTML5 as a suitable replacement.
While this announcement was rather unpopular with software developers, the Gaming Club stayed out of the mudslinging that ensued. They instead focused their efforts on keeping their Apple customers happy and connected with their mobile casino. Actually, the Gaming Club already had created a version of its mobile software using the now supported and preferred HTML5.
The majority of the Gaming Club's customers are Android users. Even though this move by Apple affected a minority of customers, the Gaming Club went ahead with plans and released the HTML5 version of the mobile casino for Apple users. With the new software, the mobile users could easily access both the iPad casino and the iPhone casino.
Some software developers scoffed at having to have a special version of their software for Apple users while offering Adobe Flash for their Android customers. The Gaming Club never blinked an eye at providing what their customers needed. In fact, customers were never affected with this smooth transition over to the new HTML5 powered casino.
Current Android users continue to access Adobe Flash through the downloading of Adobe Air at the Gaming Club site. Even though Apple customers account for 20% of the revenue of the mobile casino site, Gaming Club feels all customers are important and should be considered.
So you've decided to buy a new cell phone or upgrade your existing one. Like most of us, you don't have thousands of dollars to spend, but you don't want to sacrifice features. What phone do you buy?
Check Deals
Manufacturers run many different
cell phone deals and the "budget" cell phone no longer means a basic phone with few features. Even smartphones are available for free with the purchase of a contract from dealers such as T-Mobile. For a few dollars more you can get a phone with many upgrades.
Decide Which Features are Important
The difference is that the budget phones may be older models or may not have the advanced features of the more expensive phones. So one important step is to make a list of what you really want in a cell phone. How important is checking your email or browsing the web? Do you want to listen to music or watch streaming videos?
Many of these budget cell phones come with a music player, perhaps a video player, too. Some have Internet browsing capabilities. Having a good list of features that you want in a phone helps you to make your selection. Indicate which things on your list are "must haves" versus the "like to have" items. That will help you sort out the cell phone deals to look at, too.
Try an Older Model
Cell phone manufacturers that have many models available are a good bet because they often have older models (that may only be 1-2 years old) for sale. LG and Samsung are two companies that have a number of phones to choose from. Currently the top budget phones on this list include the LG Neon II, LG Optimus T and the Samsung Solstice II.
Experiment
What design fits your lifestyle best? A small compact phone or a flip phone? One with a standard QWERTY keyboard or a virtual keyboard? As they say, looks can be deceiving, so before you make your decision when browsing phones online or in the magazine and newspaper ads, find someplace that sells the actual model you want and try it out.
If you do a lot of email or texting, the keyboard should be easy to work for you. Large hands may have difficulty managing the small buttons on a QWERTY keyboard phone. A compact phone may be uncomfortable to hold while talking. The best way to find out what phone feels right is to hold it, make a call and try out the features.
Nokia is another popular phone with many models to choose from. The Nokia 6350 and 5230 are a highly rated flip phone and touch screen phone. Each has many features and can be found on cell phone deals from different vendors.
Research Battery Life
Battery life is another consideration. How often are you near a place where you can recharge your phone? Are you on the road a lot? Will you be listening to music or watching videos frequently? Make sure that the battery life on the phone you choose matches your use of the phone. Listening to music all afternoon on your phone just to have the battery die during an important call is frustrating and can be avoided by being aware of the battery life.
Research the Camera and Bluetooth
A digital camera and Bluetooth capabilities are two more features to look for. The phones mentioned in this article all have these features, making them good values for budget cell phones. When researching cell phones, make sure that the phones have at least your minimum required features, then begin considering these "like to haves".
Buying a budget cell phone doesn't mean giving up features. It just shows that you are a wise consumer who knows how to spend their money to get the best possible benefits from their cell phone.
AT&T's efforts to join forces with T-Mobile have officially ceased after the company realized they had no way around the U.S. Department of Justice's determination to prevent such a deal from taking place. Despite conspiring to sell off 40% of T-Mobile's assets so as to avoid being accused of forming a monopoly, such a scheme could never get off the ground in a practical form. Indeed, pawning off T-Mobile wireless adapter technology and other redundant extras would not have been enough to make a discernible difference. In their attempt to become the numero uno mobile carrier in the United States, AT&T reminded Americans of the realities when it comes to forming monopolistic establishments.
But apparently they did not remind Sprint, who according to a Forbes article are considering going in after T-Mobile themselves. T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom AG is still vying to sell the thorn in their side, and Sprint is desperate to climb up from dominating only 17% of the American mobile market. Not only that, but Sprint has billions of dollars to make up for after buying the rights from Apple to sell the iPhone. There are plenty of incentives to go around for such a merger to take place, yet how could it succeed if AT&T couldn't get their merger attempt to work?
The answer lies in what makes a monopoly. If Sprint joined forces with T-Mobile, then the new company produced as a result would not take up enough of a percentage of the mobile carrier market to constitute a charge of being a monopoly. Sprint is just too small, and so is T-Mobile. AT&T, however, has far too much control over the American carrier market as they exist today. Add in T-Mobile's share, and they go overboard. In less troublesome, more booming times, the federal government may have presented lax enough regulations regarding the merge. But in an era when big business is held in contempt by the majority of Americans, DOJ officials wasted no time in warning AT&T to back off.
While a potential merger between Sprint and T-Mobile would not be as big as a resulting company between AT&T and T-Mobile, it's not as though such a move would be any easier for them. The DOJ may object to this plan as well, while the Federal Communications Commission may make their own objections as well on account of public outcry at a recurring merger attempt. It's not as though the government wouldn't have the evidence it needed to suggest there's corporate shadiness at play: Sprint sent a legion of lobbyists to Washington DC to fight against the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.
It makes sense then that Sprint is keeping their cards conspicuously close to their chest during the holiday season. Don't expect their opening move to be made until sometime after the start of the New Year. In the meantime, do your research before getting any family member a phone contract this Christmas.
Whether you're backtracking someone's phone number with Anywho.com for law enforcement purposes or tracing geographic trends of visitors to your site in order to glean business information, analyzing the metrics and trends of Internet use is a huge part of online marketing. But this shouldn't necessarily violate mobile phone carriers' presumption of anonymity. Yet, consumer advocates for cell phone privacy have had plenty on their plate recently.
Several court cases are in motion regarding mobile privacy. Senator Patrick Leahy is trying to modernize the Electronic Communications Privacy Bill to prevent the government from accessing electronic information without probable cause. Leahy also wants privacy protections applied to cloud computing and location-based messaging. It will be interesting to see how these cases affect how Rackspace.com cloud computing and others at the forefront of this technology.
Another more recent case in involves a class action lawsuit against Carrier IQ, Apple, Motorola, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Samsung, and HTC. The plaintives contend that the Carrier IQ software, which is embedded on most smartphones, collects user data related to location, application use, browser history, videos and texts, and even keystrokes. The plaintives are alleging this form of data mining violates a number of statutes, including the Shared Communications Act and the Federal Wiretap Act.
Carrier IQ claims that their software performs mere diagnostic checks and that the more sensitive user data is not retained.
The American Civil Liberties Union has been actively researching what kind of information cell phone providers hold on to and the results may surprise you. According to a 2010 Department of Justice document, your text message details may be held on to for up to seven years, as can the contact information of the people you have spoken to. Where privacy is concerned, Verizon and T-Mobile are considered fairly innocuous, dumping many record archives after a year and not holding onto IP information. On the other hand, AT&T holds on to your information for up to five years.
Don't expect issues related to Internet privacy to get any more cogent. Even in surprisingly candid recent testimony, giants like Google and Apple have been less than forthcoming with information about what sort of data is provided to marketers. Apple copped to its mobile iAd divisions, while Google omitted reference to its Admob and Doubleclick divisions. All three of these services essentially pitch themselves to clients as high-tech ways to track the movements of consumers across the web, including the locations of visitors and how long they spend on a page.
One would hope that with all this attention drawn to the subject more emphasis will be placed on mobile privacy. With the speeds that mobile providers claim will be available soon on LTE networks, we can only hope that top companies in the industry won't think they can distract us with shiny new offerings while selling our personal data.
After 14 months, Apple finally introduced the highly awaited iPhone 4S, a faster version of the previously announced iPhone 4.
Apple is expected to launch the new device on October 14, just two days after the launch of iOS 5, the company's mobile operating system that will be available for the iPhone 4, 3GS, iPod Touch and the iPad. The main attraction of iOS 5 will be iCloud, a service that will sync documents, pictures and other data across iOS devices without needing a PC.
Hardware-wise, the iPhone 4S includes a new A5 dual-core processor, which was also launched on the iPad 2 earlier this year. The new chip delivers two times more power and up to seven times faster graphics. The 4S also includes a new 8 megapixel camera with autofocus, face detection, LED flash, 1080p HD 30 fps video recording, front camera VGA camera, Bluetooth 4.0, UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA, GSM/EDGE and CDMA EV-DO Rev A.
Battery life has also been improved to 8 hours of talk time on 3G, 14 hours on 2G, 200 hours standby, 6 hours of internet use on 3G, 9 hours on Wifi, 10 hours of video playback and 40 hours of audio.
The feature that stole the show yesterday was a voice assistant called Siri, which was demoed on stage. It is capable of answering complex queries and questions in real time. You can ask about the weather, stock, dictate emails, reply to messages, set timers, define words and much more. It is still in beta, and it will be really interesting to see how it will evolve in the near future.
Preorders for the iPhone 4S will start on October 7 and the official launch will happen on October 14 in seven countries: United States, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany and Japan. The 4S will be available in black and white versions. The 16GB version will be priced at $199, the 32GB for $299 and the 64GB for $399.
Apple redefined smartphones when the first iPhone and the iOS platform arrived back in 2007. In the intervening years it has updated the software multiple times and will soon make iOS 5 available in tandem with the launch of the iPhone 5.
Perhaps the best news about iOS 5 is that it will be backwards compatible not only with the iPhone 4 but with the iPhone 3GS which is now more than 2 years old. This means once it arrives it will not only be accessible to those who splash out on Apple`s latest handsets but to loyal customers who have stuck with their existing iPhone for several years.
The second vital component of iOS 5 is that it will not require a dedicated cable connection to your PC or Mac for synchronisation and updates. A by-product of this is that it will be necessary for Apple to create smaller updates with increased regularity rather than saving major changes for one large download which in the past necessitated connecting the iPhone to your computer.
The iOS 5 PC-free ethos is facilitated via the new iCloud service which will be accessible to anyone who has an existing Apple ID. This cloud-based service will remotely store your apps, music, calendar and everything else so that the information and media is consistent across every device that you own, provided it is either made by Apple or is compatible with Apple software.
Apple is taking on rivals like BlackBerry with the new iMessage service which will be exclusive to iOS 5. This is an instant messaging program which allows anyone with an iPod, iPad, iPhone or Mac to chat in real time rather than relying on text message-based back and forth conversations. Using either Wi-Fi or 3G it will not be an original idea given the prevalence of such services on computers and other mobiles but for the large iPhone user base it will become a vital, cohesive feature.
Social media fans will be pleased to hear about the deep Twitter integration which is promised for iOS 5. This will not only make it easier to send and receive tweets but it will also allow other apps to access your Twitter account without any complex setup procedure, which is convenient if you want to share info with ease.
One of the simplest features, but one which could become the most frequently used, is the addition of a camera button to the iOS 5 lock screen. This will allow users of the Apple iPhone to kickstart the camera app as soon as they unlock their phone, making on-the-fly photography possible with no delays. You need never miss an important moment while fiddling with the home screen to find the camera app.
Research in Motion has released details regarding its second quarter financial results. Things are going as expected for the BlackBerry maker. In the last three months, RIM shipped 10.6 million BlackBerrys, down from 14 million units shipped in the previous quarter.
To make things even worse, RIM only managed to ship 200,000 PlayBook tablets last quarter, which is less than half of what they sold in the previous quarter. RIM saw a 15% drop in quarter to quarter revenue, from $4.9 to $4.2 billion and a 10% drop from last year.
RIM warned that they will continue to cut additional jobs in the third quarter of this year and they're estimating a revenue of $5.3 - $5.6 billion and BlackBerry shipments between 13.5 and 14.5 million.
"We successfully launched a range of BlackBerry 7 smartphones around the world during the latter part of the second quarter and we are seeing strong sell-through and customer interest for these new products. Overall unit shipments in the quarter were slightly below our forecast due to lower than expected demand for older models. We will continue to build on the success of the BlackBerry 7 launch to drive the business as we focus our development efforts on delivering the next generation, QNX-based mobile platform next year," said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of RIM.
Sony Ericsson this week introduced their newest addition to their Android phone line-up, the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman. As the name suggests, the device will come equipped with Walkman features, such as a dedicated button for instant access to the music player, ability to share and discover music through Facebook, Qriocity music and video content and xLOUD technology that enhances audio output of the built-in speakers.
The smartphone is running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and it features a 1Ghz processor, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, 720p HD video recording, front facing camera for video calls, 3.2-inch (480 x 320 pixels) capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch, 320MB of internal memory, microSD card slot for up to 32GB (2GB included).
The Sony Ericsson Live will also come with deep Facebook integration that will allow users to access Facebook from almost anywhere on the device, such as the picture gallery, music player, phonebook and calendar. Connectivity wise, the device includes a 3.5mm headphone jack. aGPS, Bluetooth, DLNA, USB 2.0 and Wi-fi.
The Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman doesn't have a price yet, but it will become available in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Google this week announced the purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings. The Android maker will pay $40 per share, or a total of $12.5 billion.
The board members of both companies unanimously approved the transaction, which will enable Google to enhance competition in the smartphone market.
"Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers," said Google CEO, Larry Page.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of this year or early 2012, so a new phone from the joint companies is still far away. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals in the US, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and the approval of Motorola Mobility's stockholders.
Google has introduced a new version of Gmail for their Android platform. Version 2.3.5 brings a fresh set of improvements, especially in the syncing department. The app now allows you to sync just the priority inbox, and not the whole inbox, thus saving a bandwidth and a little bit of battery life.
A new feature also lets users set different notifications for each label. So if you have a more important label you can have Gmail set a ringtone to notify you whenever a new email pops up.
Other improvements include
- Remember 'Show Pictures' for senders
- Turn off sticky message actions in landscape or all orientations
- Better TalkBalk support for accessibility
- Performance improvements
Gmail for Android 2.3.5 is available for free to Android 2.2 and 2.3 users and is not available on the Android Market.
