Jordan Kahn

After sending a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google, and others questioning if the companies could be doing more to prevent increasing thefts of smartphones, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has now scheduled a face to face meeting with the companies to discuss the issue.

NYDailyNews reports Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon will meet with representatives from Apple, Google, Motorola, Samsung and Microsoft at a June 13 “smartphone summit” in New York.

Schneiderman wants the same thing that San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón has been pushing device makers on in recent months– a ‘kill switch’ that would render a device inoperable and discourage thefts of devices:
Expand
Expanding
Close

ComScore today reported its numbers for smartphone subscribers in the U.S. for the three month period ending in April with Apple experiencing the biggest gains in both categories. The main theme of the report is much the same as we heard in its January and February reports– Apple is up and gaining while Android maintains its lead as top smartphone platform.

When it comes to market share by platform, comScore reports that Google continues its lead with 52.3% (down 0.3 percent since the January quarter), while Apple experienced a slight gain of 1.4 percentage points increasing from 37.8% to 39.2%. That’s compared to BlackBerry at just 5.1% (down from 5.9% last quarter) and 3.0% for Microsoft (down from 3.1%).

Apple also captured the biggest gain for smartphone subscribers by OEM, positioning itself as the No.1 smartphone vendor in the U.S. with 39.2% of the market compared to Samsung’s 22% during the three month period. Filling out the final three positions is HTC, Motorola, and LG:
Expand
Expanding
Close

As expected, Google just started rolling out its brand new inbox to iOS users after first introducing us to the new category-based design last week. While its not a tabbed design like on the desktop, much like the Android app that just started rolling out iOS users can now access the new feature that groups emails into separate inboxes by selecting categories from the app’s side navigation bar.

 Meet the new inbox: If you’ve enabled the new inbox, your mail is now grouped into categories so that you can see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when. Primary mail is shown first and it’s easy to access and keep track of email in other categories by opening the menu. Configure this feature by going to Gmail.com on your computer.

Today’s Gmail update also brings improved notifications allowing you to customize what emails you receive notifications for:
Expand
Expanding
Close

We haven’t been getting a lot of updates on the Google TV front lately, but today Google made an announcement on its blog that the Redbox Instant by Verizon movie streaming subscription service is coming to Google TV.

The app delivers the full Redbox Instant by Verizon experience right to your living room. This includes access to your subscription disc and streaming package, and ability to purchase and rent the latest new releases from the Redbox Instant store.

On top of streaming, purchases and rentals, the Redbox app for Google TV will also allow users to reserve a disc for local pickup.

The service will initially be rolling out to select devices including: the 47G2 and 55G2 Google TV-enabled Smart TVs from LG, NETGEAR’s NeoTV Prime with Google TV, the Sony Internet Player NSZ-GS7, and the Vizio Co-Star.

The Redbox Instant by Verizon app for Google TV is available on Google Play now. Google TV users can sign up for the service now through the app on their device or on the web here. 
Expand
Expanding
Close

Verizon has officially confirmed that the HTC One will finally be available to customers on its 4G LTE network starting later this summer. The initial announcement comes from Verizon’s Twitter account and didn’t provide any other information on pricing or exact availability. We’re thinking Verizon will be releasing a full press release shortly and we’ll update with details when it does.

https://twitter.com/VZWnews/status/341592724161560578
Expand
Expanding
Close

While we knew from earlier reports that Samsung was planning on unveiling a new high end tablet with an Intel processor, today Samsung has officially announced the device alongside a new 8-inch variant of its Galaxy Tab 3 line.

Adding to the 7-inch variant that it launched back in April, Samsung today announced the 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 3 (which it later confirmed is indeed using a 1.6GHz dual-core processor from Intel), as well as an 8-inch variant of the device with a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU.

Inside the 10.1-inch model you’ll find 1280 x 800, 149PPI WXGA TFT display, a 3-megapixel main camera and 1.3-megapixel front facing cam, Bluetooth 4.0, microSD slot, and a 6,800 mAh battery. It weighs in at 510g for the WiFi only model, but will also be available with 3G and LTE capabilities when it launches running Android 4.2 later this month.

The 8-inch version comes with a 1280 x 800, 189PPI WXGA TFT display, 5-megapixel cam on the back, 1.3-megapixel on the front, Bluetooth 4.0, a 4,450 mAh battery, microSD expandable to 64GB, and the rest of the usual specs you find in Sammy’s tablets.

Samsung said both devices will be arriving in 16GB and 32GB variants sometime at the beginning of this month. Full specs for both devices below:
Expand
Expanding
Close

We’ve been hearing more and more about the Galaxy S4 Active lately– the rugged S4 variant that Samsung is hoping will help attract more corporate and government customers. Today we get an official look at the device courtesy of theunlockr.com with what appear to be official press shots of the device for AT&T.

The report adds that the device will sell with model number SGH-I537 and arrive in dark grey and teal alongside a few other Samsung devices coming soon to the carrier including the S4 Mini and the Galaxy Mega 6.3. The details arrive ahead of a Samsung event scheduled for June 20 where the company is expected to introduce the Galaxy S4 Mini and other devices.

We already knew a new white version of the Nexus 4 would begin rolling out after LG confirmed as much earlier this week. It first launched in Hong Kong on Wednesday, and today the device has finally hit both Google Play and T-Mobile’s online store for customers in the US.

You can grab the device now in both 16GB ($349) and 8GB ($299) variants from Google Play. Google is also offering a free white bumper with your purchase.

T-Mobile also began offering the device on its online store store today with a list price of $427. According to the often reliable TmoNews.com, the pricing and note of the device not being eligible for a monthly payment plan is a mistake:

Barring the error in pricing on the website, the Nexus 4 will set you back a $19.99 down payment and 24 monthly payments of $17.

Your #Nexus4 should be as stylish as you! Check out the new white finish and pick up yours online today: http://t.co/U3vpPgvH6k

— T-Mobile (@TMobile) May 31, 2013

The device is expected to roll out to other retails across Asia, the US, and Europe in the coming weeks.

After launching its new Google Play All Access music streaming service earlier this month at Google I/O, Google’s head of Android Sundar Pichai just confirmed during his interview at the D11 conference that the service will be making its way to iOS. Sundar said the service would be available on iOS in the next few weeks.

Google announced its new ‘All Access’ $9.99/month streaming service as part of Google Play Music at its Google I/O keynote presentation a few weeks ago. The service offers curated playlists, but also allows users to access a radio feature that automatically creates endless radio stations with the ability to remove unwanted songs.

Since launching, the service unofficially arrived on iOS last week via an update to the third-party gMusic client for iPhone and iPad. The app is one of the more popular Google Music clients allowing iOS users to access Google’s music services, but today is the first time Google has confirmed its plans to bring the service to Apple device’s through its own apps.

Live from his D11 interview today (live blog here), Google’s head of Android Sundar Pichai just confirmed the rumors of a stock Android HTC One. The device will officially be launching on Google Play on June 26th, alongside Samsung’s Galaxy S4, for $599. HTC also announced the device on its blog today:

Response to the HTC One has been phenomenal with reviewers praising the gorgeous design and innovative features. We’ve paired the stunning all-metal unibody with innovative HTC Sense features and the result is something truly remarkable. Now, we’re excited to offer HTC fans and admirers alike a new experience on what we think is the best hardware available today.

The stock Android HTC One will come with 32GB, an unlockable bootloader, and will be SIM-unlocked for GSM networks like T-Mobile and AT&T when it goes on sale at the end of next month– the same day as the recently announced stock Galaxy S4. The new stock ‘Nexus experience’ HTC One will initially only be available to users in the US.

You can see how the new Nexus experience HTC One stacks up against the Developer Edition and SIM unlocked version direct from HTC in the comparison chart below:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Twitter announced on its blog today that an update to its Android app is rolling out with a number of new features including full previews and other enhancements to photos, a new Tweet composer, and richer notifications.

Most of the new features listed below are rolling out to both the Android and iOS apps, but Twitter is also including more info about interactions to the Notification Drawer on Android:

One of the most requested features we’ve heard about from Android users is richer notifications. With this update, you will now see more details about your interactions on Twitter right in the Notifications Drawer. Just swipe the notification to expand and see more details.
Expand
Expanding
Close

As expected from a previous leak earlier this month, Google just announced on its official Gmail blog that it’s rolling out a brand new UI for Gmail on both the web and mobile that brings a new Categories based UI for easier organization of emails. The screenshots below line up with the images that we posted last week showing new customizable Categories that users can assign to manage emails according to content. For example: ‘Social’ for emails related to social networks, ‘Promotions’ for promotional material, ‘Notifications’ for reservations, bills, etc, and ‘Forums’ for mailing lists and forums.

On the desktop, the new inbox groups your mail into categories which appear as different tabs. You simply choose which categories you want and voilà! Your inbox is organized in a way that lets you see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when.. You can easily customize the new inbox – select the tabs you want from all five to none, drag-and-drop to move messages between tabs, set certain senders to always appear in a particular tab and star messages so that they also appear in the Primary tab.

The update is not only rolling out to desktop users, but also to iPhone and iPad and mobile devices running Android 4.0 and up. On the mobile apps, users will first see their “Primary” inbox and can switch to other categories using the side navigation bar. Google says the new inbox is rolling out in the next few weeks but users will be able to try it sooner with a new “Configure inbox” option in Settings.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Bloomberg reports that Verizon’s vice president of network support Mike Haberman confirmed the Galaxy S4 will be the first device to access the carrier’s new AWS spectrum rolling out to major cities such as New York in the coming months.

While Verizon has plans to roll out more devices that can access the higher speeds of its AWS enhanced LTE network, the Galaxy S4 is the first device with a software update planned to activate support for the AWS frequencies:

Verizon is using the AWS airwaves to help increase the capacity of its long-term evolution, or LTE, network. While Verizon will be adding more devices that can use the higher speeds, the Galaxy S4 is the only such phone currently on sale.